Republicans show their hypocrisy during impeachment hearings on President Trump

After listening to the vast White House propaganda network and watching the ill-tempered performance of several Republicans in the televised impeachment inquiry, I am totally confused.

For example: Republicans deny that President Donald Trump is guilty of bribery, but that if he did ask the Ukraine president to investigate the Bidens in exchange for release of security aid, he was justified to do so because Ukraine is one of most corrupt countries in the world.

So why, then, was it so important for Trump to seek an investigation of the Bidens for refusing to release U.S. tax dollars until a corrupt prosecutor was fired?

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If it was alright for the president to be concerned about corruption in Ukraine, why was it not alright for a vice president of a previous administration to withhold aid until a corrupt official was fired?

And why are the Republicans now raising the issue of Joe Biden using his position to help the company that his son Hunter Biden worked for? Is it because Biden might be Trump’s opponent in 2020?

If the actions of Biden were so egregious, why hasn’t the president’s Justice Department done something about the Bidens before now? The hiring of Hunter and the firing of the corrupt prosecutor happened some five years ago.

Victor Darst, Huntley

Leave police and fire pensions alone

The Illinois Senate passed a bill to consolidate all 650 downstate police and fire pensions with Gov. J.B. Pritzker expected to sign it into law.

Why? So the state can use or borrow the combined $14.3 billion from the downstate pension plans to help or offset the Illinois’ $137 billion pension deficit?

I’m a retired police officer from a suburban police department and I’m quite satisfied with my pension board and pension plan system, which is financially stable.

The reason that so many police and fire pensions aren’t financially stable is because the cities, towns or villages failed to fully fund the pension plans from their tax dollars, or they borrow money from the plans without ever putting the money back.

Illinois has no business combining the police and fire pensions they never funded in the first place. So what if the downstate police and fire pensions refuse to cooperate?

What will Pritzker do? Call the police?

Please leave our pensions alone. The state should worry about their own pension system instead.

John Moravecek, Naperville