Donald Trump and maga Republicans must Impeach Trump Again. He is crazy and they know it but power to them is more important than sanity

Echo LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Whether it’s ICE abuses, the rising grocery prices, terrible tariffs, Trump has unleashed chaos | Opinion
Published in the Lexington Herald Leader, in Kentucky.

Our federal government under Donald Trump now specializes in escalated chaos. #ImpeachTrumpAgain❗

ICE rappelling from Black Hawk helicopters in the middle of the night to break down doors and zip the children. Putting migrants on planes to South Sudan. Blowing up Venezuelan boats with no warning. Cancelling federally funded projects in blue states. Proposing to use U.S. cities as training grounds for our military. Creating secret lists of domestic terrorist organizations, based on the groups’ views on family values, religion, race and immigration. 

One action that this administration is unlikely to undertake: releasing the Epstein files.

From Krisia Rosa, in Lexington, Kentucky

https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article312525947.html#storylink=cpy

Trumpian sexual assault, nepotism and financial self -interest

This echo editorial published in the Lexington Kentucky Herald Leader newspaper was published in February 2020, but guess what?

This opinion is as meaningful and impactful today as it was when the newspaper first published the opinion! Senator Mitch McConnell and Senator Rand Paul are embarrassments to Americans and to Kentucky voters.  

Evil Trumpziism!

From Kentucky- Could there be anything more embarrassing and depressing than being from Kentucky? First, the senior Senator Mitch McConnell has shred democracy and decency to tatters by announcing a political whitewash of the most corrupt president in U.S. history, then followed it through in an impeachment trial and Republican debacle that would make the Founders weep.

Then there’s the (Maine Writer nurses opinion "asshole") junior Sen. Rand Paul. Despite the fact that every human knows how the impeachment trial would turn out, Asshole Paul spent the last day of the Senate’s impeachment trial, bouncing around like a demented toddler on the Senate floor. 

Spoiled brat. Rand Paul  is upset because SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts wouldn’t read his question that identified the whistleblower. So,  Asshole Paul gave the whistleblower’s name, but then denying (aka "lying!") about it in the elevated nanny nanny boo boo oratory that has made him famous: "They made a big mistake not allowing my question,” Paul said, according to Politico.

It’s nonsense to expect us to believe that Donald Trump wouldn’t hold military aid to investigate one of his political rivals. 

It’s as Trumpian as sexual assault, nepotism and financial self-dealing. What’s not clear is why Paul believes that it’s in the nation’s or Kentucky’s best interest for him to embarrass himself and his constituents with this whistleblower nonsense. Can’t he just make up some ridiculous excuses for why he’s voting to acquit like most of the other Republicans?

McConnell venality is utterly depressing. In fact, he didn’t want witnesses, even in the light of new allegations from John Bolton (John Bolton! To think for a few days our hopes for our nation depended on that warmonger) and he didn’t get them. McConnell wanted a quick trial, he sort of got it. He must be feeling as good as he did the day Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. McConnell, the man who ensured Gorsuch by blocking Obama’s rightful pick, who has never chosen country above the GOP, actually had the audacity to say Wednesday: “We simply cannot let factional fevers break our institutions.” Thank you, at least, to Sen. Mitt Romney, for showing some guts and principles and voting no with this great line: “Were I to ignore the evidence that has been presented, and disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history’s rebuke and the censure of my own conscience.” It is curious that the Republican Senate seems to be assuming that a Democrat will never be elected to the White House again so that person can experience a presidency with immense power almost unchecked by Congress. Have they never heard of “turnabout is fair play?” 

Lock Trump Up!

But, given the mayhem of the Iowa caucus, maybe Republicans have a point. That this all has happened on either side of the State of the Union speech is the cherry on the cake for Republicans like McConnell, who are justified in (hypocritically) gloating alongside Trump.  #CrazyisAsCrazyDoes #CIACD

Yes, yes, Nancy Pelosi tore up Trump’s bogus #SOTU speech, but her theater really cannot hold a candle to awarding Rush Limbaugh, that racist gasbag, the Medal of Freedom in the middle of his speech? Therefore, if you believe that immigrant children shouldn’t be put in cages or that presidents shouldn’t pay off strippers, or that your state’s duly elected senators should uphold federal law and the barest minimum of dignity, it’s been a rough week. It’s amazing to think of the number of people willing to aid and abet and support Trump in the midst of his truly overwhelming crimes, and that Mitch and Rand will probably cruise to reelection in 2020 and 2022. It’s no wonder Kentucky’s voter turnout rarely tops 50 percent. But, I also know there are many, many people who believe in what we used to call democracy, believe in protecting our most vulnerable citizens, our air, our water, our most basic freedoms. Yes, those who understand how government works are depressed; yes, you’re embarrassed by Asshole Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell. 

But, all you can do is get busy. Register to vote! Talk to more people about dangerous right wing extremism. You know what to do.  #VoteBlue

Lesson to the United States Senate from President George Washington

Written by George Washington, to "The People of the United States of America", he wrote the letter near the end of his second term as President, before his retirement to his home Mount Vernon. 

Originally published in David Claypole's American Daily Advertiser on September 19, 1796, under the title "The Address of General Washington To The People of The United States on his declining of the Presidency of the United States," the letter was almost immediately reprinted in newspapers across the country and later in a pamphlet form.
Impartiality is a duty "under oath"
Lexington Herald Leader newspaper opinion letter echo:

News reports indicate that the U.S. Senate majority party is planning to carry out a sham impeachment “trial” with no witnesses, where the goal is to “be in lockstep with the White House” to achieve “a rapid acquittal.”

"Washington on Dorchester Heights,” is believed to be the first work of art acquired by the state. The full-length portrait depicts a triumphant Washington beside his horse during the British evacuation of Boston in 1776. Painted by Thomas Spear of Massachusettes. Exhibited in the Maine State House in Augusta, Maine. (L'Heureux photograph)

#Opinion_echo: Now, I’m not a lawyer, but those phrases do not in any way represent what would constitute a fair trial. 

Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky should remember that, as jurors, they will be required to swear an oath to be impartial in the case.

The country is filled with partisanship, which is exactly why George Washington warned the country against political parties in his farewell address. I urge my senators to read that address and to actually put their country before their political party by living up to their constitutional duty to be fair and impartial jurors.

Jean Amick, Lexington, Kentucky

Trump’s actions violate every norm of international behavior.- echo opinion

Iraq-Iran Morass
Echo opinion letter published in the Lexington Herald Leader, a Kentucky newspaper:

Funeral for Qassem Soleimani following the Donald Trump assassination of the Iranian General.

The past two or three weeks have shown the United States to be a rogue player in the Persian Gulf. Donald Trump has boastfully admitted that he ordered our military to kill Iran’s leading General Qassem Soleimani, who himself had led the fight against Iraq — and bragged about it publicly. Trump’s actions, however, violate every norm of international behavior.

This has led the Iraqi government to potentially insist that U.S. troops leave Iraq — though it is not yet clear if or when that will happen. Our allies are puzzled and quietly furious. Our Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made a fool of himself and confused our allies. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has contradicted what the defense department memos have said. Any strategies of this administration for its aggressive approach have certainly not been evident before the attack or now afterwards.

The Iraqis have asked our country to make plans to remove our military from Iraq, which would open that country to the full subversive efforts of the many Iranian proxy groups within Iraq itself. The results would be disastrous for the free world as well as for the United States. A miracle aside, there appears little the United States can do. The forthcoming Trump impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate, therefore, is fraught with danger and is vitally important in getting the Trump hand away from the tiller of the American ship of state before it finds itself being battered out of recognition by the rocks of history and carelessness. Our children and grandchildren do not deserve this.

John D. Stempel, Lexington, former political counselor in the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and director of UK’s Patterson School of Diplomacy, 1993-2004

Donald Trump's undergraduate economic education didn't teach him very much

Trumpzi alert! MIDDLE CLASS UNDER ATTACK

The Trump trade war with China is reckless economic policy, run amok

An echo opinion letter published in the Kentucky newspaper the Lexington Herald Leader

Donald Trump's conservative war on the middle class continues.

Trumpzi has violated the Constitution to unilaterally impose tariffs, which are a massive sales tax on U.S. middle-class consumers.  Trump wrongly claimed the tariffs would lessen the trade deficit. Ha! Instead the tariffs have increased the trade deficit to an all-time high. The counter-tariffs by other countries are hurting bourbon export sales from Kentucky. 

Rather than imposing a tariff, China decided to just stop buying U.S. soybeans so U.S. soybean farmers are slowly going bankrupt.

Trump keeps claiming that the United States is collecting billions of dollars from China due to the tariffs. Despite his undergraduate degree in real estate economics he does not grasp the simple fact that tariffs are paid by the importer, not the exporter. 

China has not paid one cent due to the tariffs. 

It has all been paid by U.S. importers who in turn raise their prices to U.S. consumers. American middle-class citizens are the ones paying for the tariffs. The same citizens who got nothing from the Trump/ McConnell/ Ryan tax cuts for the rich.

Kevin Kline, Lexington Kentucky

Political road to credibility

The political road home- an echo opinion published in the Kentucky Lexington Herald newspaper

There is nothing believable or credible about the (#fake) Donald Trump’s administration and hence it is without any influence. 

Influence is the foundation of power for diplomacy. This administration has been about creating and exacerbating false crisis after false crisis while ignoring the reality of real crises all about it.

We cannot continue to allow a few that prefer ignorance and prejudice over intelligence and reason to mislead our country. We cannot continue to allow a few that prefer deception and greed over honor and good will to undermine the influence and power of our nation.

We as a nation have lost our way and until we start pursuing the principles that build our collective character, such as freedom, equality and justice through democracy, we will be sapped of our strength and relegated in our global history as an aspirant without resolve.

This is the harsh reality and if we lack the courage to face it and work against the trends as they are we are gaining the loss we richly deserve.To the world, the Trump administration represents everything that should not be followed, and he should not be followed by anyone here in our home either.

Robert Moreland, Lexington Kentucky

Kentucky letter writer calls out Senator Mitch McConnell

Letter to the editor ~ echo published in the Kentucky newspaper, the Lexington Herald-Leader

Senator Mitch McConnell is rightly criticized by his Kentucky constituent who called our the power move hypocrisy in the Supreme Court nomination process

Kentucky Senator McConnell was shameful about his hypocrisy regarding the Brett Kavanaugh nomination

Before bragging that he would “plow through,” did Senator Mitch McConnell overlook the parallel violent image of that deadly car plowing through the crowd at Charlottesville or the aggressive violence of a sexual bully?

McConnell’s shameful choice of strategy describes Republicans’ power grab and abdication of their responsibility to investigate and elevate only the best citizens to our Supreme Court. 

As Senator Charles Grassley frantically rushed to ram Brett Kavanaugh onto the high court, new bombshell allegations against Kavanaugh suddenly halted Republicans’ fast-action confirmation.

Why should we be shocked about McConnell’s latest tactics and brazen arrogance after he previously stole a court seat? This time, McConnell planned to plow-through Kavanaugh’s accusers, cover up the truth, and steal a second court seat. 

This is a darkened era in America when power-obsessed McConnell gets away with ripping apart the fabric of democracy and decency, while congressional Republicans remain silently complicit.

From Michael Gregoire, Louisville Kentucky

Kentuckian: Mass gun violence - data tracking

Tragically, yet another school shooting with fatalities and injuries, this time in Kentucky. Victims of this shooting, their families and their communities will never forget the tragedy at Marshall High School in Benton, on January 23, 2018, regardless of how much time passes. 

Too many American school shootings. Too many young people who are the targets - when they are at school or attending outdoor concerts, as in Las Vegas. America is killing our young because we will not regulate the sale and use of guns.  

Even worse, while the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) can count the number of people who develop measles in any given year, the data about gun violence is prevented from being collected.  In fact, the National Rifle Association convinced lawmakers to stop collecting statistics on gun violence. 

Lexington-Based Website Counts Gun- US Related Deaths 

By JOHN CHEVES, The Lexington Herald-Leader

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — When gunshots make national news, Mark Bryant's phone rings in Lexington.

Bryant, 62, is neither a law enforcement officer nor a trauma specialist. He runs a private website, Gun Violence Archive (GVA), that updates on an hourly basis, with street-level details, most of the gun-related incidents that have occurred in the United States since 2013.

• How many people have been killed by guns so far this year nationally? 
• In your state? 
• In your city? 
• Last year? 
• The year before that? 
• The number of people wounded? 
• How many shooting victims were children? 
• How many mass shootings there were? 
• Police-related shootings? 
• How many times guns were used in self-defense? 
• How many shootings were unintentional?

Operated out of a small home just off Richmond Road, Bryant's GVA answers such questions for journalists, policymakers, even law enforcement. And despite the public-safety menace of gun violence in this country, few others do this kind of work.

America;s Gun Problem - Huffington Post

Typically, the FBI under-counts shootings and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under-counts gun deaths because they rely on incomplete reports passed along by local officials and extrapolated surveys. Academic study of gun violence slowed nearly to a halt in 1996 once Congress, at the behest of the National Rifle Association, prohibited federal funding from going to research that could be used to advocate for gun control.

"For firearms, we have rotten, absolutely rotten data," said Jon Vernick, co-director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. 

"We have some accounting of the overall number of deaths. But if you want to learn who pulled the trigger or any other circumstances behind the shootings, we collect very little information."

"Compare that to car crashes," Vernick said. "We collect all sorts of information about car crashes. I can tell you not only how many people died in your state last year in car crashes; I can break it down for you by the make and model of the vehicle, the speed it was traveling, the road conditions, the weather, the age and experience of the driver, on and on. But shootings? No. Nothing like that with shootings."

GVA comes closer than most. It has 19 researchers around the country to sweep information about gun-related incidents from the websites of more than 2,000 news organizations and police departments. (One researcher is devoted entirely to the violence-plagued city of Chicago, which can see more than 100 people shot over a single holiday weekend.) 

Researchers follow up with phone calls and open records requests to collect more details when necessary.

Incidents are promptly reviewed, categorized and posted on GVA, with one or more links to original sources to confirm their authenticity. There is no commentary; GVA is nonpartisan and takes no position on gun ownership or gun control. It simply provides the numbers.

Last year, according to GVA. there were 384 mass shootings in the United States, adopting the federal government's definition of "four or more people shot and/or killed in a single event." There were 671 children up to age 11 killed or wounded by guns, and 3,124 teenagers up to age 17 killed or wounded. There were 1,971 verified defensive uses of a firearm, which can include either brandishing a gun or shooting it. There were 2,198 unintentional shootings.

Overall, there were 15,063 fatal shootings, continuing an upward trend since GVA began counting, and 30,613 gun-related injuries, also reflecting a steady annual increase. None of those numbers include suicide shootings, which GVA doesn't track.

GVA's data has been cited in hundreds of news stories by scores of news organizations, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, CNN, ABC News, and broadcast and print outlets in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Australia.

"We provide very little analysis, and that's intentional," Bryant said recently. "We want people to be able to draw their own conclusions."

Gun violence prevention

On any given day, GVA gets about 20,000 page views. 

A major shooting — say, the Orlando nightclub rampage a year ago that left 50 people dead — can spike that to 1.2 million page views a day.

"It comes close to blowing our website apart," Bryant said.

"Mass shootings drive much of the traffic to our website. Children getting shot is second. Familicide (when someone murders the rest of their family) is third in terms of, you know, media interest. But even with those, usually after two days, it's rolled off. You'll hear about these awful shootings for a couple of days, and then they're gone, and nothing more is really said about how we might prevent them from happening the next time."

Although GVA takes no position on guns, Bryant advocates for what he calls "gun violence prevention." He does not oppose gun ownership — in fact, he enjoys target practice when he can find the time — but he says the data confirms a need for mandatory background checks on gun sales and secure gun storage.

Many shootings recorded on GVA were preventable had someone acted more responsibly with their firearm, he said.

"Gun violence prevention is not anti-gun. It's anti-gun violence," Bryant said.

"I equate it in some ways to what Mothers Against Drunk Driving did with drunk driving," he said. "MADD was against the injuries and deaths that occurred due to people driving while drunk. They were not against cars, they were not against car owners, they were not against alcohol. They were simply against the carnage that was occurring from drunk driving."

However, the subject of guns is politically and culturally radioactive, even after the Newtown school massacre, he said.

"I know a lot of guys — friends of mine — who are very smart, rational people on most issues. But when it comes to any kind of legislation about gun safety, all that goes out the window," Bryant said. "They have this visceral reaction that people are trying to take away their guns. Nobody is trying to take away their guns. They're just trying to make things a little bit safer for the rest of us."

Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky.com

GVA - http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

Senator McConnell isn't answering his mail- so echo this

“A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others”- Frank Baum "The Wizard of Oz"
Senator McConnell confirmed my suspicions. He really doesn't listen to Kentucky constitents, especially about his "unhealthty" GOP "uninsurance" bill. In fact, one constituent writes about how his phone is likely taken off the hook and his fax lines are clogged (or blocked). In other words, the world could end as we know it and Senator McConnell might have to find out about it until the incendiary incident hits him in the face.

Here's another letter to the editor published in the Lexington Herald Leader (kentucky.com):

McConnell lost his heart

LEXINGTON, Ky: Countless people, myself included, cannot get our concerns through to Sen. Mitch McConnell.

His staff never answers, his voice mail is always full and now when I email, that mailbox is full. How can he ignore people?

I saw the picture of the woman with spina bifida who was protesting outside of his office being hauled away by security guards. How can he be so cruel?

I have family members who work full time and depend on the Affordable Care Act. Don’t he and fellow senators depend on the government for theirs?

All of us depend on unpolluted air, water and soil. Does McConnell want to drink foul water? And what about his grandchildren; is it OK with him for them to breathe polluted air?

When McConnell first campaigned for senator, promising to help find missing children like Adam Walsh, he appeared to care about people.

But now he acts like he has no heart and no conscience.

McConnell has the power to seek justice and do great good.

We are depending on him to reverse his heartless course, for the future of humankind.~ Nell Valentine, Lexington KY

This blog is an echo to the list of others published about Senator Mitch McConnell and in opposition to the cruel Republican "repeal" bill that takes 22 + million off of health insurance.

Senator Mitch McConnell must hear when Kentucky speaks!

Frankly, it was surprising to find Senator Mitch McConnell as a target of his state's constituents during my Internet cruising to find interesting "letters to the editor", for my blogging into cyberspace. 

Honestly, it's become a hobby of mind to give echo to letter writers who are inspired to make their voices public in the news media. It's real news from real people!

BREAKING! In the case of the Lexington Herald Leader, a major Kentucky newspaper, what I read and therefore re-blobbing, are a litany of horrors for Senator Mitch McConnell. Although the Senate Majority Leader talks about getting a Republican Obamacare repeal bill passed, he clearly appears to be deaf to what his constituents are writing about him in the Lexington Herald Leader.

LEXINGTON, Ky- Karen Hall succinctly writes: "'McConnellcare' is immoral. Something is wrong when the poor give to the rich. Where are the Christians?"

Another Breaking!- from Springfield, Kentucky: "I saw on the nightly news Sen. Mitch McConnell trying to justify the Senate version of McConnell/Trumpcare, saying 'Americans need relief now'. Relief now? Is he referring to the 22 million men, women and children in jeopardy of losing their health care or the tens of thousands of dollars in tax breaks the richest Americans will gain by the bill’s passage? It’s a curious statement from a man whose own health insurance for over 30 years has been paid by some of the same people whose health care he so flippantly wants to take."
From Bob Sutton, Springfield, Kentucky.

GEORGETOWN, Ky:  Can’t dress up GOP plan "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky just revealed his new health-care plan showing Republicans how to put lipstick on a pig." from Judy Rembacki, Georgetown KY

I absolutely love this clever tongue in cheek Brian Delisle, an op-ed writer who could work for political comics:

LEXINGTON, Ky: Sen. Mitch McConnell is working hard to make Kentucky No. 1.

Did you know the state only ranks sixth with the lowest life expectancy? And although it is the fifth-fattest, fourth-most sedentary, first with most smokers, fourth-most diabetic, among the poorest and least employed, he knows we need to start dying sooner if we have a shot of overtaking Mississippi for the No. 1 spot.

Unfortunately, Obamacare undercut our chances. Hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians were suddenly entitled to new life-saving or prolonging treatment for heart disease, diabetes, cancer and drug/tobacco addiction.

Making matters worse, payment to the Kentucky hospitals skyrocketed, resulting in thousands of new jobs with health-care benefits.

Thankfully McConnell is ramrodding Trumpcare through the Senate. It will eliminate health care for more than 200,000 Kentuckians on Medicaid, and it will lead to the loss of health-care jobs throughout the state. That will accelerate the number of Kentuckians dying sooner from preventable and treatable diseases, as well as drug addiction.

Please join me in thanking McConnnell for his vision to make Kentucky No. 1. He and his millionaire buddies certainly deserve the $45,000 tax break that is part of the deal.