Platkin’s next letter: 51 family members of nursing home victims?
/By Rubashov
It is always easy for those in power to obtain an unrepresentative sample of a particular group of people and claim it is otherwise. Earlier this morning, the Murphy administration posted the fruit of no doubt some considerable arm-twisting on NJ Globe: 51 political insiders who happen to be women.
Here is how the Globe characterized the letter: “51 New Jersey women sign letter praising Platkin nomination as attorney general, urging his confirmation. Support for Murphy nominee comes from some of the most powerful women in N.J. politics.”
But is this list of lobbyists, political patronage appointees, political operators, elected officials, and fronts for special interests representative of the women of New Jersey? Do they share the same daily concerns? Are they even interested in the same things?
People in politics – both male and female – are a rarified bunch. Their minds work differently, which is why they so often fail to sync up with those of average voters.
Would the average woman living in New Jersey want to work for a middle manager who ignored the rape of a coworker and refused to notify the boss? A middle manager who allowed the man accused of the rape to continue on, with no justice? A middle manager who thwarted not only justice for the victim, but the protection of every woman involved with that establishment, every woman who visited that establishment, and every woman who the accused might come in contact with?
No, we doubt the average woman living in New Jersey would think much of that middle manager. Not even if 51 other women or 51,000 other women signed a letter telling her that he was a great guy. Who would wish to work in such a place? Who would wish to send their wife, sister, mother, daughter, niece, or any woman they cared about to work in such an establishment?
And then we have Matthew Platkin’s signature on all those executive orders – closing churches, businesses, and schools. We have the greatest respect for folks like Sue Altman – but how can any self-respecting person of the Left fail to recognize the fact that in America when government blocks someone from earning a paycheck, it blocks them from the ability to pay for healthcare. So, unless that executive order entails some measure of temporary universal health care (not ObamaCare, mind you, but Clement AtleeCare) it isn’t really worthy of your support, is it? And the Murphy administration is swimming in cash, by-the-way, so shame on you.
Matthew Platkin was the legal mind behind all those strange contortions and permutations that went into those executive orders – like Executive Order 103. Platkin signed that executive order (see below). His nomination gives the survivors of those victims and their elected representatives an opportunity to ask Platkin questions about the legal, scientific, and medical reasoning behind Executive Order 103 and the other executive orders also signed by Platkin.
https://nj.gov/infobank/eo/056murphy/pdf/EO-103.pdf
Matthew Platkin’s signature on Executive Order 103, hurried between 8,000 and 10,000 nursing and veterans’ home residents to their deaths. Take a moment to watch this ABC News Nightline piece on the victims of just one of the nursing facilities involved and the impact Platkin’s actions have had on their families. This facility, in Andover Township, Sussex County, saw dozens of deaths…
Matthew Platkin signed Executive Order 103 that hurried thousands of nursing and veterans' home residents to their deaths.
Curiously, some of the political insiders who signed letters and expressed support for Matthew Platkin’s nomination are lobbyists for this same facility and others like it. More on this later.
In the aftermath of those deaths, county officials submitted Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests seeking public information. Many of those requests are still pending, despite the Murphy administration coming to a monetary settlement with some of the families of veterans’ home victims who brought suit against the state. Matthew Platkin’s nomination provides an opportunity for transparency and to resolve some of these outstanding OPRA requests.
Lifting the stonewall with regards to these OPRA requests is a necessary first step to having open hearings on Platkin’s nomination. Anything less is a cover-up and taints the process and his appointment.
