RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/12/trumps_methodical_destruction

We’ve all seen footage of those carefully timed explosions that bring down antiquated buildings and clear the ground for new ones. A horn sounds, the detonations begin, the building shakes, suspended for a frozen moment, and then collapses in a vast cloud of dust. That, metaphorically, is what is happening to the Obama administration’s legacy.

The presidential edifice has come down in two episodes, and the dust has not yet settled from either one. The first wrecked President Obama’s most consequential policies: the Affordable Care Act and the Iran nuclear deal. The second, happening now, is crushing its reputation for integrity, for following the most basic rules for conducting free and fair elections.

Consider Barack Obama’s biggest policy achievements. Trump campaigned on overturning both Obamacare and the Iran deal. And that’s what he’s done as president. For Democrats, these were bitter losses. Liberals and progressives alike were determined to defend them, even after losing the House and Senate in 2016. On those and other touchstone issues, such as immigration and judicial appointments, they were not looking for compromise solutions.

Neither was Donald Trump. As the new president, his most fundamental decision was to obliterate those Obama policies, not modify them at the margins. He wanted to erase the Affordable Care Act before it became an indelible feature of American life. Although the Republican Congress fell just short of repealing it and the Supreme Court didn’t do the job for them, Trump did manage to eliminate its essential funding mechanism (the “individual mandate”) and to lop off as much else as he could. (He and his party still haven’t figured out how to replace it. Obama’s lasting achievement is that even conservative Republicans realize they must do more than repeal it. They must deliver a replacement.)

Struggling hospitals and those hardest hit by COVID-19 should get more federal funding than nonprofit hospital systems with large endowments, patient safety advocates and other critics say.

An analysis for USA TODAY by OpenTheBooks.com shows the 20 nonprofit hospitals ranked by investments reported more than $116 billion in investments, including endowments. And although flush with money, critics say the tax-exempt systems also failed to adequately invest in basic emergency planning before the pandemic.

“Many large hospitals already have the ability to reprogram or redirect funds,” said Adam Andrzejewski, founder and CEO of Open the Books, a nonprofit transparency advocacy group. “They need to explain to patients and front-line health workers why they have or have not done so.” 

The first $30 billion in COVID-19 hospital assistance money was based on Medicare billings, so those 20 nonprofit systems ranked by Open the Books were among the hospitals receiving the biggest share.

The federal government’s decision this month to send $22 billion to rural hospitals and those hardest hit hardest by COVID-19 partially satisfied critics who charge Washington is rewarding wealthy tax-exempt hospitals that planned poorly for viral emergencies. But as nearly $50 billion more is about to be divvied up, advocates for struggling hospitals say help for well-endowed nonprofit hospital systems should be scrutinized. 

“The money going to hospitals is not free, it comes off the backs of American workers, over 10% of whom are unemployed,” says Dr. Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins University public health professor, patient safety advocate and author. “The hospitals who need it should be prioritized, not those with billion-dollar endowments and large cash reserves that provide little charity care. Not all hospitals function similarly.” 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/random-flynn-thoughts/

There is lots of Flynn chatter today. Three quick points:

1. As I explain in a piece at The Hill today, I understand why the Justice Department relied on a legal argument — viz., lack of materiality — for moving to dismiss the case against Michael Flynn. It spares DOJ the need to get into the facts of the case which, to put it mildly, are unflattering to the FBI and prosecutors. Nevertheless, the best reason to dismiss the Flynn case is that the government would not be able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt in court. The evidence is equivocal, the witnesses have profound credibility problems — and those witnesses actually thought Flynn was not lying to them.

The issue for the Justice Department is not whether Flynn made misstatements to Vice President Pence and other administration officials; it is whether prosecutors are in a position to carry their burden of proof that Flynn willfully lied to the interviewing agents. On the evidence as we understand it, I do not believe a jury would be confident even that they knew exactly what statements Flynn made, much less whether his statements were intentionally false rather than honest failures of recollection.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2020/05/12/report-anti-semitic-incidents-in-us-hit-record-high-in-2019/24281005/

SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — American Jews were targets of more anti-Semitic incidents in 2019 than any other year over the past four decades, a surge marked by deadly attacks on a California synagogue, a Jewish grocery store in New Jersey and a rabbi’s New York home, the Anti-Defamation League reported Tuesday.

The Jewish civil rights group counted 2,107 anti-Semitic incidents in 2019, finding 61 physical assault cases, 1,127 instances of harassment and 919 acts of vandalism. That’s the highest annual tally since the New York City-based group began tracking anti-Semitic incidents in 1979. It also marked a 12% increase over the 1,879 incidents it counted in 2018.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the group’s CEO, attributes last year’s record high to a “normalization of anti-Semitic tropes,” the “charged politics of the day” and social media. This year, he said, the COVID-19 pandemic is fueling anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

“Anti-Semitism is a virus. It is like a disease, and it persists,” Greenblatt said. “It’s sometimes known as the oldest hatred. It never seems to go away. There truly is no single antidote or cure.”

The ADL’s count of anti-Semitic assaults involved 95 victims. More than half of the assaults occurred in New York City, including 25 in Brooklyn. Eight of those Brooklyn assaults happened during a span of eight days in December, primarily in neighborhoods where many Orthodox Jews live.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/11/is-obamas-long-history-of-playing-dirty-finally-catching-up-with-him/

The unraveling of the Michael Flynn case and ongoing investigation into Obama’s Justice Department should put an end to the preposterous claim that his administration was “scandal-free.”

As it became clear Mitt Romney would be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, the Obama campaign fired up its Chicago-style machine to attack the incumbent president’s election foe. Team Obama identified several Romney donors to smear publicly; one was a wealthy businessman from Idaho.

A former Democratic Senate staffer, according to a 2012 editorial in the Wall Street Journal, contacted an Idaho courthouse seeking the divorce records of Frank VanderSloot, who had donated $1 million to Romney’s campaign. The operative was traced to a professional opposition research shop based in Washington, D.C.

The name of the outfit? Fusion GPS. “Fusion GPS is run by a former Wall Street Journal reporter, Glenn Simpson, who wouldn’t say who is paying him for this high-minded slumming but said in an email that Mr. VanderSloot was a ‘legitimate’ target because of ‘his record on gay issues,’” the Journal wrote.

As we now know, that would not be the last time Obama loyalists would hire Fusion GPS to oversee its dirt-digging operation. Nor was it the first time Obama sought to unseal divorce records to ruin a political opponent.

Obama’s pathway to winning the Illinois U.S. Senate seat in 2004 was cleared after divorce records of his Democratic primary opponent, who had been in the lead, were made public just weeks before the election. After Obama won the primary, the Chicago Tribune sued to get the divorce settlement of Jack Ryan, Obama’s Republican opponent, unsealed. (Many suspect at the behest of Obama advisor and longtime Tribune columnist David Axelrod.) Embarrassing details sank Ryan’s candidacy and he dropped out of the race. Obama won the seat with 70 percent of the vote.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/05/11/hillary-knew-about-trump-opposition-research-in-2016-according-to-podesta-testimony-n389856

According to recently unsealed testimony, John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman, told the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017 that both he and Hillary Clinton were aware that her campaign had purchased opposition research on Donald Trump, hoping to uncover ties between him and Russia during the 2016 election.

Podesta’s testimony is “the most direct acknowledgment about what Donald Trump’s opponent knew in real-time about the effort that ultimately became known as the Steele dossier,” notes John Solomon of Just The News. According to Podesta, Hillary likely didn’t know specifically that Fusion GPS or former British spy Christopher Steele were involved in the opposition research effort, but they were both aware of the effort.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-supreme-court-and-trumps-tax-returns-11589238780?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

“In short, there’s no legal precedent for the Democratic subpoenas. And the Justices will have to consider the damage that upholding the subpoenas would do to the separation of powers that would outlive the Trump Presidency.”

It will be a full online house on Tuesday when the Supreme Court hears a legal double-header over President Trump’s tax returns. Mr. Trump has broken political norms by refusing to release his returns, but the Court will have to consider whether letting Democrats subpoena them will do more lasting damage to the country’s law and institutions.

Trump v. Mazars concerns whether House Democrats can subpoena the President’s financial records. We’ve urged Mr. Trump to release his tax returns, and his refusal has let Democrats claim they are a Rosetta stone to a Russian money-laundering conspiracy, or something. An IRS audit probably would have turned up any tax fraud, and no law obliges a President to release his returns.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/medical-lockdown-will-cause-a-disease-surge-11589235129?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Dr. LeBenger is CEO of Summit Medical Group/City MD. Mr. Meyer is president of Meyer Consulting and founder of CCX Cancer Summit.

With most of the nation still on lockdown, many people are missing regular screenings and checkups with their doctors. Some may be experiencing early symptoms of illness, yet aren’t seeking treatment. The effects of a six-week delay are surmountable in most cases, but a six-month delay would lead to much sicker patients and dramatic increases in death rates for major illnesses such as cancer. The number of people who die as a result of these delays could end up rivaling or exceeding deaths due to Covid-19. Adding to this potential crisis is that health systems and medical providers are incurring substantial losses, which will impede their ability to provide care.

Much is being written about the potential of Covid-19 to return aggressively in the fall, assuming it recedes during the summer. But there may be a major aftershock that could throw the health system into further crisis: a flood of patients with other illnesses who are much sicker than they would be had they not delayed visits to their doctors for fear of coronavirus exposure. Health-care executives and policy experts should focus on serving this potential “third wave” of sick patients or the good feelings from having flattened the Covid-19 curve may be short-lived.

We have experienced the trauma and collateral damage of Covid-19. One of us (Mr. Meyer) is based in Scottsdale, Ariz., and recently suffered the death of his father because of delayed diagnosis and treatment. Dr. LeBenger, based in New York City, has seen thousands of patients with Covid-19 while dealing with delayed treatment for many others. We both face uncertainty about the future of our practices; one runs a small business whose revenues have plunged, and the other a large medical group with million-dollar losses.

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/what-did-obama-know-and-when-did-he-know-it/91127/

What did President Obama know and when did he know it? That famous formulation is emerging as the question in the wake of new disclosures in respect of a meeting that took place inside the Oval Office in the closing days of Mr. Obama’s presidency. The meeting included not only his national security adviser, Susan Rice, and the head of the FBI, James Comey, but also Vice President Biden, now the prospective Democratic nominee.

This is laid out in, among other places, a dispatch by Mollie Hemingway in the Federalist. Ms. Hemingway reckons the meeting is turning out to be, as her headline puts it, “key” to the “entire anti-Trump operation” launched two weeks before the end of the Obama administration. She’s not the only one laying this out; a veteran of the Sun, Eli Lake, now of Bloomberg, has been all over the story; the Wall Street Journal, as well.

https://www.city-journal.org/coronavirus-super-spreaders-nursing-homes

The Trump administration has called nursing homes “ground zero for Covid-19,” and the analogy is apt—one New York City facility has seen 98 residents die from the disease, while more than two-thirds of Massachusetts nursing homes have reported infections. Though the link to long-term care facilities from deaths after hospitalization is not always recorded, 19 percent of those dying from the virus in Hungary, 51 percent in France, and 62 percent of those in Canada were identified as nursing-home residents.

The population in nursing facilities is vulnerable, and the disease is easily transmitted through extensive personal care in crowded quarters from staff who travel back and forth from the wider community. Several innovative senior homes have secured their facilities by paying bonuses to staff to stay on-site during the most hazardous phase of the crisis. Many lives could be saved if Congress were to support expanding these efforts. Indeed, preventing nursing homes from acting as super-spreaders might help broader communities more swiftly return to normal, too.

In 2016, nursing homes housed 1.3 million Americans, 39 percent aged 85 or over; 800,000 more lived in assisted-living facilities. Nursing-home residents are extremely vulnerable to the coronavirus due to multiple comorbidities: 72 percent have hypertension, 38 percent heart disease, and 32 percent diabetes. Even under normal circumstances, this population faces disproportionately high mortality risks: in 2016, while nursing-home residents made up just 0.4 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for 19 percent of deaths.