Republican hypocrisy is over the top out of control given the former guy's criminal activity

Echoes: The Washington Post Opinions
Republicans’ response to the Mar-a-Lago search is disturbing and dangerous! In fact, the "trumped up" rhetoric has already caused the death of a cult acolyte of the former guy, who was killed in Cincinnati when he tried to enter an FBI building.   

“Lock her up, lock her up.”

Potentially in violation of the Espionage Act for retaining illegal documents at his Mar-a-Lago evil palace.

Donald Trump’s supporters lobbed this rallying cry at Hillary Clinton in 2016, — hoping for the imprisonment of a political opponent for allegedly mishandling classified material. 

Now, however, some of the same people appear to believe that even a rule-of-law investigation of Trump for a possible violation of the same set of rules is out of order.

The FBI (legally!) executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida this week as part of what The Post reports is an investigation into the potential mishandling of White House documents. The National Archives discovered about seven months ago that the former president had taken more than a dozen boxes of files with him when he left office, some of them marked “top secret” — and suspected, it seems, that the documents he handed over to investigators this spring represented only a portion of the trove. 

Republicans went crazy over the (legal!) Trump probable cause search. Now they look idiotic.

A (cult) supporter of the former guy Trump (wrong-mindedly) drives past his Mar-a-Lago estate on August 8, in Palm Beach, Fla. (Wilfredo Lee/AP) IMO, this is a very threatening image.

Republicans are proclaimed outrage over the search, arguing that no president has ever been subjected to such a proceeding. 

They may be right. But then, no modern president has been the subject of as many and varied investigations as Mr. Trump — who invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination 440 times, in one of the inquires, in New York, on Wednesday.

Of course, criminal investigations of presidents shouldn’t be undertaken lightly. The warrant was quickly made public; but, only a sealed affidavit can tell the full story about the evidentiary basis for the search. The improper retention of records is a serious offense that shouldn’t be dismissed, but it is so far unclear whether Mr. Trump’s retention of these records constituted a violation of national security, a threat to democracy, or any other grave abuse. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland, then, found himself in a tricky position: Eventually he might be summoned before a  potential GOP-controlled congressional committees and ordered to explain himself for allowing the FBI’s actions — a job that will prove more difficult if the inquiry doesn’t lead to criminal charges or evidence of major wrongdoing- like a violation of the Espionage Act!

Republicans are behaving with gross irresponsibility: from talk show hosts urging violence that seems all-too-possible after the events of Jan. 6, 2021, to Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and former Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon (aka, "passed over for advancement" in the US Navy) comparing the FBI to the Gestapo, to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) (aka "Charlie McCarthy's evil twin") declaring the Justice Department in “an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.” This rhetoric is disturbing and dangerous — not to mention hypocritical. 

In fact, it is Trump’s administration and acolytes who sought to weaponize the Justice Department, and it is they who today are attempting to turn what to all appearances is a legitimate inquiry into a political circus.

Senator McConnell alert- hospital workers instructed to oppose Republican health plan

"Ohio's acute care hospitals would see uncompensated care costs rise 76 percent from 2017 to 2016 under the House Republicans' AHCA version, while they would leap 165 percent in Kentucky,"- letter to the Cincinnati Inquirer. (Although Senator Mitch McConnell represents constituents in Kentucky, he's a frequent contributor to the Cincinnati Inquirer, a newspaper circulated in Kentucky)

Opinion in the Cincinnati Inquirer

There's no trouble cruising the opinion or "op-ed" sections of our nation's newspapers. Almost every one, large and small alike, have a juicy opinion worthy of blogging into cyberspace.

This particular letter describes how hospital workers in Cincinnati are being instructed to oppose the Republican moves to repeal the Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare". 

 As one pundit on the MSNBC morning TV shows said, people were largely unaware of how their individual health insurance policies were being administered when they had coverage under Obamacare, but they'll surely remember who will be taking it away from them, against their will.

By Anne Saker and Randy Tucker- Inquirer reporters

CINCINNATI, Ohio- Local hospital officials are watching with trepidation as the U.S. Senate works on its bill that would repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act.

Their concern: If thousands of Medicaid patients across Greater Cincinnati get thrown off the government health plan, hospital spending on millions of dollars of uncompensated care will explode and put renewed stress on budgets.

Much of the financial pressure would come from removing benefits from the roughly 697,000 Ohioans – including 59,406 people in Hamilton County – who got coverage from the ACA's Medicaid expansion, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

At Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, president and CEO Michael Fisher urged employees Monday to contact elected representatives and to campaign through social media against the Senate bill as harmful to children.

More: Senate health care bill would lead to 22 million more uninsured, CBO says

Cincinnati Children's is the 11th largest employer in Ohio and the second largest in the Cincinnati region, with more than 15,000 workers.

“We do not believe this legislation, as written, will meet the health needs of all kids,” Fisher’s letter said. “Because kids don't vote, they often don’t have a voice in politics. They rely on us to speak up for them.”

Officials of UC Health, the region’s academic health center, worked on a statement about repeal efforts to go to employees Tuesday, said spokeswoman Kelly Martin.

UC Health’s community benefits reports – annual statements, required under the ACA, on how much care hospital systems give away or subsidize – illustrate the staggering amounts of money potentially involved.

In 2012, before the ACA fully took effect, UC Health provided $48.2 million in charity care and covered $16.1 million in unpaid Medicaid costs, reports on UC Health's website show. But in 2015, with the ACA in full effect, UC Health spent $3.4 million in charity care and $7 million in unpaid Medicaid costs.

Uncompensated care in 2015 at Cincinnati Childen's included $216 million in free or discounted services; the comparable figure for 2012 wasn't immediately available.

Nationwide, uncompensated care dropped 22.2 percent nationally from 2012 to 2015, according to the American Hospital Association. Hospitals saved a total of $6.2 billion on uncompensated care, including charity cases and bad debts (when bills for services were unpaid).

The drop occurred in the 31 states, including Ohio and Kentucky, that expanded Medicaid benefits, according to a recent report for the Commonwealth Fund. Costs essentially held steady in the states that declined the expansion.

Ohio's acute care hospitals would see uncompensated care costs rise 76 percent from 2017 to 2016 under the House version, while they would leap 165 percent in Kentucky, a separate Commonwealth Fund report concluded. The report, which noted the Senate bill cuts Medicaid more deeply than the House version, say operating margins would drop 1.8 percent in Ohio and 5.6 percent in Kentucky.

At Mercy Health, spokeswoman Nanette Bentley declined to describe the impact of an ACA repeal on Ohio’s largest health-care provider and its fifth largest employer. But she said that in Cincinnati, 16.8 percent of Mercy Health patients now are on Medicaid, and the ACA “provided for preventive health coverage to those in need of care who couldn’t previously access it.”

Fisher said in his letter to employees, “We’re very concerned that the proposed Senate bill (as did the AHCA House bill) will do harm to most of the children who depend on Medicaid.”

Fisher said more than 45 percent of Cincinnati Children’s patients, or about 133,000 children, are on Medicaid, and the Senate bill could cut services for children by more than $40 billion over 10 years. In Ohio alone, he said, “Medicaid funding for kids could drop as much as 17 percent or $1.6 billion over that same period.”

Like Fisher of Cincinnati Children’s, Mark Clement, TriHealth’s president and CEO, urged his system’s employees to speak to lawmakers about the Senate bill.

“Every health organization in the country is opposing it and has entered into advocacy to approach legislators, approach senators,” Clement said. “Between now and 2026, more than $5 billion in federal funding will be reduced to support the Medicaid program. That will impact every healthcare provider. It will impact access, and ultimately the health of the community we are entrusted to serve.”

Despite years of complaints about the ACA, the prospective changes to the law proposed this year have ignited fears that millions of lower-income and disabled adults and children, including thousands of Greater Cincinnati residents, could lose coverage from Medicaid.

The Ohio Hospital Association has been vocal in opposition to the repeal measures now in Congress. John Palmer, director of media and public relations, said the association estimates the Senate’s version of ACA repeal could trigger a shortfall in Ohio’s Medicaid program that could approach $1 trillion over 10 years.

In Dayton, officials at Premier Health, which includes Atrium Medical Center in Middletown, said in a statement that the proposed cuts “would have a staggering impact on Premier Health, Ohio’s hospitals and the U.S. health care system, and would severely limit hospitals’ delivery of care and their economic impact."

The statement noted the House version of the repeal, similar to the Senate’s, would cost Premier $862 million in Medicaid reimbursement over the next decade. The cuts also would boost Premier's uncompensated care costs by $182 million.

Officials at CareSource, Ohio's largest Medicaid managed-care provider, also based in Dayton, said the repeal efforts would set back years of progress at a critical moment when Ohio is struggling against the opioid epidemic.

"Lives are at stake,” said president and CEO Pamela Morris. "In 2016, Medicaid paid for 24 percent of the medications used for treating opioid addiction. In the five states with the highest opioid overdose mortality rates – Ohio being … a standout nationally – Medicaid covered 41 percent of opioid treatments.''

Democrats who didn't vote 2014 put the burden of protecting progressives on those who did

Election 2014 was a total waste of $4 billion, because the result was the lowest voter turnout in any mid term election, reported by Cincinnati.com

"Voter turnout for Tuesday's election was so bad it left some grasping for the right words to describe it.."

This scenario was described in Ohio's report....(this is incredible): 

Ohio's Gov. John Kasich's 31-point victory in quintessential-swing-state Ohio cemented him in the conversation about Republican nominees for president. (Not so fast.....) But record-low voter turnout figures and thousands of Ohioans who left the governor's race blank could complicate that narrative.

Unfortunately, voters who either didn't bother to cast a ballot at all, or who left certain races blank (like with Governor Kasich) are putting the burden of carrying a progressive agenda on those of us who voted. We were willing to take the responsibility on behalf of those who simply stayed home or otherwise protested by not filling in the blanks on the ballot. This kind of non-voting isn't going to keep our Democracy strong. Rather, it's eroding the principles our founding fathers created by describing inalienable rights for everyone. These inalienable rights are supposed to be perpetual, meaning they can't be taken away, except that's what's happening!!!

US News and World Report is reporting how the 2014 mid term election turnout actually decreased, in spite of an obscene amount of money spent to infuence the election.

Voter turnout is a constant issue in the U.S. around an election, particularly among the young. In exit polls from Tuesday's midterms, for example, only 13 percent of voters were under 30.

Nonvoters are also more racially diverse than the voting population and are less educated. More than 40 percent of likely nonvoters in the 2014 elections identified as Hispanic, black or other racial/ethnic minorities, compared with 22 percent of likely voters. While most voters (72 percent) have completed some college, nonvoters are more likely to have never attended college.

On average, the populations who are likely to avoid the polls are also the populations likely to vote for a Democrat, which presents a challenge for the Democratic Party. The challenge of turning out voters likely factored into the Democratic losses in the midterm elections, when Republicans gained control of the Senate.

Because turnout drops for midterm elections compared to presidential elections, it makes more sense to compare Tuesday's voter turnout to the last midterm elections in 2010. Turnout was less for eligible voters this time around: 36.6 percent voted, compared with 40.9 percent in 2010, according to data from the United States Elections Project.

The differences were especially stark in some states that saw nosedives of crazy proportions. Turnout numbers in Washington, Delaware, Missouri, South Dakota, California and Indiana all dropped by more than 10 percentage points between 2010 and 2014. And although some states made gains in voter turnout (Nebraska, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Maine, to name several), most states dropped. Only 12 states turned out a higher percentage of eligible voters this year than in the last midterms.


Tragically, the 2014 election was a protest vote among Republicans who needed a revenge event following their 2012 Presidential loss to President Obama. In a double down insult, 2014 was a protest among voters who simply expressed their anger by not voting at all.


In my opinion, the 2014 election was more than a Republican victory for those who ran for GOP office and won. Even sadder for Democrats, the election was a victory for the United States Suprepem Count Citizen United ruling, whereby money now enjoys free speech under the US Constitution. 

Apparently, the obscene money factor caused many to recoil rather than vote. Obviously, American voters were cheated, because the $4 billion spent kept 2/3rds of them from voting at all. 

Now the burden of carrying a progressive agenda is on those of us who bothered to vote. It's not clear to me that this is a standard many of us can carry for 2/3 who obviously just don't give a damn.