Ron Kim, Faux Democrat, and the New York MAGA Movement: A Love Story
Politics makes for odd bedfellows, such as NYS Assembly member Ron T. Kim who pretends to be a Democrat and fighter for social justice, and an organization consisting of Trump supporters and surrogates pretending to “give voices to seniors”. Their common enemy and target: Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who had not only criticized Trump repeatedly, but also had called out Ron Kim’s corruption and hypocrisy years ago, a bête noire of not only Trump Republicans but also New York’s left-wing “progressive” Democrats.
The real Ron T. Kim — Against Nail Salon Worker’s, paid off by Salon Owners
In 2015, Ron Kim opposed a law signed by then Governor Andrew Cuomo to protect nail salon workers from wage fraud, abuse and unsafe work conditions. In exchange, he received tens of thousands of donations from nail salon associations and owners.
At a fund-raiser for Mr. Kim in July, co-hosted by the president of the Korean American Nail Salon Association, Sangho Lee, nail salon owners donated nearly $25,000 … at least $17,000 … came from salon owners, including present and past leaders of the Korean nail salon association.
Campaign Finance data shows that nail salons were top donors to “Ron Kim For New York” in 2015 (Campaign Finance | New York State Board of Elections):
Ron Kim supported a lawsuit challenging Cuomo’s nail salon wage bond mandate and recommended a lobbying firm he had worked for. The lawyer representing the nails salon associations in the lawsuit is also a Ron Kim donor (Michael Yim, see above). The lawsuit was dismissed (Wage Bond Requirement Lawsuit Dismissed in NY). Ron Kim ended up with a defeat, a bad reputation, and a grudge against Governor Cuomo.
The Nursing Home Lie — Made in Trumpistan, embraced by NY’s Left Radicals
Fast Forward to 2020: In April, Trump first attempted to downplay COVID and accused New York / Cuomo of padding the death toll in April, suggesting death numbers were inflated in general to hurt his re-election. A key player was Trump’s plant at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Michael Caputo, a NY republican and Roger Stone mentee who also worked in Russia to polish up Putin’s image. Caputo was trying to suppress and change CDC reports to support Trump’s message and image starting in May 2020 (CNBC, WaPo, The Hill, Politico, HuffPost, UCSUSA).
Trump’s team then twisted a new narrative and shifted blame and attention to Democratic Governors, especially Cuomo, who had called them out on their failures consistently, bluntly and publicly. After Cuomo speech at the DNC in August 2020, Caputo and Trump used Twitter to accuse Cuomo of killing seniors in Nursing Homes. On August 26, 2020, the DOJ requested Nursing Home data from Cuomo and three other Democratic Governors (NJ, PA, MI), and for more data in October, signed by Jeffrey Bossert Clark, then Acting Assistant Attorney general for the Civil Division who later tried to overturn the election results for Trump (Slate, NYT, WaPo).
On February 10, 2021, there was a Zoom meeting between Melissa DeRosa, Dr. Howard Zucker and a group of NYS legislators in regard to a list of questions submitted to them on August 20, 2020. The questions were answered on that day (Feb. 10th). Melissa DeRosa explained that the delay was caused by the Trump DOJ request which had to be dealt with first since it was clear it was political and an attack on NY. Her expression “we froze” for temporarily holding off on answering questions by the NYS legislators to respond to DOJ was WILLFULLY misrepresented as “hiding NH data” by Ron Kim speaking to the NY Post.
The DOJ “investigation” was dropped in July 2021, but the Nursing Home Lie was not only continued by the MAGA movement, but also picked up, promoted and used by NY’s radical left who plotted to take Cuomo down and prevent him from ever running again. Although Kim was not part of this specific Clubhouse conversation, he is part of this left-wing group, adding to his personal revenge motive against Cuomo a political one.
Voices For Seniors a.k.a. Voices for Trump
Voices for Seniors is a group of Trump surrogates and MAGA operatives in New York abusing the deaths of seniors and pain of their families as a political weapon to rally against Cuomo, unseat him, and weaken the NY Democratic Party. One of their biggest supporters and advocates: Ron Kim.
Voices of Seniors was founded by Vivian Zayas. Vivian Zayas is a featured author for the right-wing publication The Federalist, financed by Trump donor Richard Uihlein, co-founded by Ben Domenech, husband of Meghan McCain, who is very close to FOX’s weather woman Janice Dean, another questionable friend of Ron Kim (see photo above) who keeps spreading hate and disinformation. Zayas also appeared on Lara Trump’s Show The Right View (YouTube, at 28:00 minutes).
Tracey Alvino aka Traci Belmonte is director of Voices for Seniors. She is a Republican Strategist, Trump Campaign surrogate, heard on Breitbart and Hannity, and featured voice of the Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC (2017 and 2018). Alvino works for the Republican Campaign Strategy & Consulting. According to her bio with them, she also “filmed a commercial for the campaign on Trump’s Covid response”.
Involved with both — Voices for Seniors and Campaign Strategy and Consulting — is Trump Supporter Jonathan Gilliam. Gilliam is the Chief Marketing Officer of ConnectZing Media, a partner at Campaign Strategy & Consulting. Sean Hannity wrote the foreword for Gilliam’s book “Sheep No More”. Gilliam was speaking at a Voices for Seniors event and propagating Trump’s lies on Twitter.
Voices for Seniors’ Twitter connections are (it seems exclusively) NY republicans (Lee Zeldin, Claudia Tenney, Joe Borelli, Andrew H. Guliani, Marc Molinaro, New York GOP, Rob Astorino, Janice Dean, Fredric U. Dicker, Curtis Sliwa, Rob Ortt, NYS Senate Republicans, New York State Young Republicans, …), self-proclaimed MAGA, UltraMAGA, Trump2024 accounts, Cuomo hate accounts (Cuomo Watch, cuomo-sucks.com, Inmate Andrew Cuomo). One name on top of their follows/follower lists stands out: Ron T. Kim.
Ron Kim is not a Democrat and undermines Democracy
Ron Kim likes to pretend his collaboration with MAGA/Trump republicans is a matter of reaching across the aisle for the greater good of protecting senior New Yorkers. This would be acceptable, even laudable, if Governor Cuomo was indeed responsible for excess fatalities and tried to cover it up. But as all investigations and data have shown, this is not the case. It would be also less questionable if Voices for Seniors was not so clearly part of the MAGA propaganda machine. Kim propagates a Trump lie designed to damage Democratic states and governors and to impair the Democratic party — successfully as evidenced by the sad situation in New York, where the left-wing “progressives” like him continue to play right into the hands of republicans.
Kim’s political campaign is (very much like Lindsey Boylan’s failed campaign) centered around being Cuomo’s mortal enemy with nothing else to show for. It doesn’t matter if Ron Kim is motivated primarily by left-wing ideology, personal revenge and dislike, self-serving opportunism or — most likely — a combination of all of it. He is the epitome of moral corruption and deception and a danger to democracy. He is the kind of politician who is driving the US apart and down.
We have a long article with sources and evidence showing that the claim Governor Cuomo caused excess deaths and tried to cover it up is false: There is no “Nursing Home Scandal” in New York | by Justice For Cuomo | Medium. Our website about the other false allegations and NYS AG Letitia James’ fraudulent report to oust Cuomo and take his job is www.justiceforcuomo.org. Follow us on Twitter @justiceforcuomo.
