Restoring trust in elections

In 2004, the Commission on Federal Election Reform was created by former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James Baker III, a Republican, in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election and the 2004 election in Ohio. The commission was a nongovernmental, private bi-partisan organization. Among its 18 other members were former Senate majority and minority leaders Tom Daschle, a Democrat, and Bob Michel, a Republican.

For those too young to remember, the 2000 Bush v. Gore election was decided only after the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to the Florida election recount. Those old enough will recall the bizarre spectacle of Broward County canvassing board member, Judge Robert Rosenberg, using a magnifying glass to examine a disputed ballot to discover "hanging chads."

The commission was created to recommend measures designed to instill confidence in the integrity of their elections. In presenting its report, Carter and Baker wrote:

"Elections are the heart of democracy. They are the instrument for the people to choose leaders and hold them accountable. At the same time, elections are a core public function upon which all other government responsibilities depend. If elections are defective, the entire democratic system is at risk.

"Americans are losing confidence in the fairness of elections, and while we do not face a crisis today, we need to address the problems of our electoral system."

In 2016 and in 2020, the feared "crisis" materialized. In the aftermath of the 2016 election, hordes of Democrats believed President Trump had won only by virtue of Russian meddling. That belief could not be overcome even when the Mueller Report found no evidence of collusion. Now in 2020, Trump and millions of his supporters believe the election was stolen by fraudulent ballots manufactured by Democratic operatives, and by voting machines programed to switch Trump votes into Biden votes, or by under-counting Trump votes. And their beliefs, even if untrue, will not be overcome by any "official" report. It is, therefore, time to revisit the bipartisan commission recommendations made to insure fair, honest elections. And even more importantly, to insure election results in which all Americans — Republicans and Democrats — can have confidence.


In the executive summary of the 91-page report, the commission made five main recommendations:

"We propose that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) develop a mechanism to connect all state lists. ... Connection will eliminate the vast majority of complaints currently leveled ... A distributed database can remove interstate duplicates and help states to maintain an up-to-date, fully accurate registration list.

 

"1. We propose a universal voter registration system in which the states, not local jurisdictions, are responsible for the accuracy and quality of the voter lists.

"We propose that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) develop a mechanism to connect all state lists. ... Connection will eliminate the vast majority of complaints currently leveled ... A distributed database can remove interstate duplicates and help states to maintain an up-to-date, fully accurate registration list.

"People would need to register only once in their lifetime, and it would be easy to update their registration information when they move.

"We also propose that all states establish uniform procedures for counting provisional ballots ...."

"States should play an affirmative role in reaching out to nondrivers by providing more offices ... to register voters and provide photo IDs free of charge.

 "2. To make sure that a person arriving at a polling site is the same one who is named on the list, we propose a uniform system of voter identification based on the 'REAL ID card;' or an equivalent for people without a drivers license. ...

"States should play an affirmative role in reaching out to nondrivers by providing more offices ... to register voters and provide photo IDs free of charge.

"There is likely to be less discrimination against minorities if there is a single, uniform ID, than if poll workers can apply multiple standards. ... We also propose that voters who do not have a photo ID during a transitional period receive a provisional ballot that would be counted if their signature is verified.

"3. We propose measures that will increase voting participation by having the states assume greater responsibility to register citizens, make voting more convenient, and offer more information on registration lists and voting.

"States should allow experimentation with voting centers.

"We propose ways to facilitate voting by overseas military and civilians, and ways to make sure that people with disabilities have full access ...

"States and local jurisdictions should use Web sites, toll-free numbers, and other means to inform citizens about their registration status, and the location of their precinct.

"To improve ballot integrity, we propose that ... prosecutors issue public reports on their investigations of election fraud...

"States should not discourage legal voter registration or get-out-the-vote activities, but they need to do more to prevent voter registration and absentee ballot fraud."

"4. We propose ways to give confidence to voters using electronic voting machines that their votes will be counted accurately.

"We call for an auditable backup on paper at this time... We encourage independent testing of voting systems (to include voting machines and software source code) under EAC supervision.

"5. ... We propose that state election management bodies be reconstituted on a nonpartisan basis to become more independent and effective.

"We cannot build confidence in elections if Secretaries of State responsible for certifying votes are simultaneously chairing political campaigns. ...."

The 2005 commission's recommendations are not infallible. But any Democrat or Republican who wants fair and honest elections should embrace them, at least as a starting point to restore trust in our elections. They deal with honesty, as well as the appearance of honesty.

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on December 11, 2020

Copyright 2020

John Donald O'Shea

Government is not free to disregard the First Amendment in times of crisis.

The argument of the Lincoln administration during the Civil War for trying American citizens before military commissions was "necessity" created by the existence of the Civil War. The argument of the Governors today for closing churches, or severely limiting the number of worshipers allowed to attend, is also "necessity" created by the existence of the Covid pan-demic. 

So does "necessity" or "emergency" allow or justify Governors to suspend the Constitutional Rights of the American people?

In 1866, The U.S. Supreme Court decided the great case of ex parte Milligan. Milligan was tried by a military commission in Indiana and sentenced to death. On appeal, Milligan con-tended that the military commission had no jurisdiction to him. He argued that "it was the birthright of every American citizen, when charged with a crime, to be punished only accord-ing to law, and therefore, that he was entitled under the Constitution (1787) to a trial by jury, all the rights attendant thereto specified by the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution. 

The Court agreed with Milligan. 

"The Constitution ... is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace. and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provision can be suspended during  any of the great exigencies of government. Such a result leads directly to anarchy of despotism ...."

The court the proceeded to consider which of any of our Constitutional rights could be sus-pended during an emergency. It concluded, that only the right of Habeas Corpus could be suspended. 

"Not one of these safeguards can the President or Congress or the Judiciary disturb, except the one concerning the writ of habeas corpus." Indeed, the Founding Fathers "limited the suspension to one great right, and left the rest to remain forever inviolable." The court concluded by holding, "Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction."

Today, the courts are clearly open, the exercise of their jurisdiction is wholly unobstructed. Yet in May of 2020, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a concurring opinion in South Bay Penticostal Church v. Newson that flies in the face of everything stated in ex parte Milligan.

Gov. Newson's Covid guidelines limited church attendance to 25% of building capacity or a maximum of 100 attendees. 

The Chief Justice brushed aside the Constitutional Right of Free Exercise of Religion, in his concurring opinion.  

"Although California’s guidelines place restrictions on places of worship, those restrictions appear consistent with "Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Similar or more severe restrictions apply to comparable secular gatherings, including lectures, concerts, movie showings, spectator sports, and theatrical performances, where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods of time.

The Chief Justice justified his ruling stating

Our Constitution principally entrusts “[t]he safety and the health of the people” to the politically accountable officials of the States “to guard and protect.” ... When those officials “undertake[ ] to act in areas fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties,” their latitude “must be especially broad.” ... Where those broad limits are not exceeded, they should not be subject to second-guessing by an “unelected federal judiciary ...."

Roberts' opinion utterly ignores the fact that while the "free exercise of religion" is expressly guaranteed by the First Amendment, "secular gatherings" enjoy no such express guarantees. 

On November 25, 2020, the issue was again considered by the high court in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel v. Cuomo.

In New York, Gov. Cuomo issued an executive order, creating "color zones." In "red zones" house of worship were limited to 10 people; in "orange zones" to 25. In "red zones," business the Governor deemed "essential" - such as liquor stores  and acupuncture centers - may ad-mit as many people as they wish. 

The Church and the synagogue contend that these restrictions violate the Free Exercise of Religion Clause of the First Amendment, by treating houses of worship much more harshly than comparable secular facilities. Both argue, without contradiction, they have complied with all public health guidance, have implemented additional precautionary measures, and have operated at 25% or 33% capacity for months without a single outbreak. 

In striking down Gov. Cuomo executive order, the court echoed ex parte Milligan. 

"Members of this Court are not public health experts, and we should respect the judg-ment of those with special expertise and responsibility in this area. But even in a pan-demic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten. The restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty. Before allowing this to occur, we have a duty to conduct a serious examination of the need for such a drastic measure."

In his concurring opinion, Mr. Justice Gorsuch writes, 

"Government is not free to disregard the First Amendment in times of crisis. At a mini-mum, that Amendment prohibits government officials from treating religious exercises worse than comparable secular activities, unless they are pursuing a compelling interest and using the least restrictive means available ..." 

Like Roberts, the majority recognizes that governors have a "compelling interest" in protect-ing public health. But when First Amendment rights are also being curtailed, the majority sees a duty to conduct a serious examination of the need for such a drastic measure." Justice Gor-such would require that the remedy be the "least restrictive alternative."

Compare the concurrences of the so-called "Conservatives. "Roberts comes heavily down on the side of executive power. Gorsuch sees the "compelling interest," but refuses to ignore the First Amendment. 

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on December 5, 2020

Copyright 2020

John Donald O'Shea

 

 

On this Thanksgiving Day, We Can Be Thankful for America's Great Pharmaceutical Companies

As I write this on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, politics aside, I think we have a lot to be thankful for. This is true, even though as of today the death count attributed to the coronavirus here in the U.S. is 256,000. Is this bad? Yes. Could it be worse? Yes. Is it likely to be the worst pandemic ever to strike the U.S.? No.


In 1918, the "Spanish Flu" struck the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tells us, "The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919. In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918.

"It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s [then] population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years olds, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic. 

 

"While the 1918 H1N1 virus has been synthesized and evaluated, the properties that made it so devastating are not well understood. With no vaccine to protect against influenza infection and no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections that can be associated with influenza infections, control efforts worldwide were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which were applied unevenly."

Undoubtedly, more U.S. residents will die from COVID-19. But up until recently, our country has had little more to control the pandemic than it had in 1918-19. Since March, our president and governors have dealt with the pandemic very much like their predecessors dealt with the Spanish Flu: through non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which have been applied unevenly.

With the exception of antibiotics to deal with secondary infections, the doctors have not had much else. While results have significantly improved, the initial use of mechanical ventilators did not come close to producing the desired survival rates.


But now, after only nine months, vaccines are expected to be available for use in the U.S. within a matter of weeks. Pfizer and BioNTech, working together, have applied for emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their vaccine. Moderna's application is expected to follow in early December. And AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford hope to have their two-dose shot available around year's end. General Gustave Perna, President Trump's head of Operation Warp Speed, has said repeatedly that vaccine distribution will begin within 24 hours after an authorization is issued by FDA.

Perna has also advised that by Dec. 31, 2020, Operation Warp Speed expects to have about 40 million doses of the two vaccines available for distribution. Both vaccines each require two doses, given 21 and 28 days apart. Forty million doses, therefore, would be sufficient to vaccinate about 20 million people. People at high risk will be prioritized.

As more vaccine become available in the new year, it will be distributed. Dr. Anthony Fauci, expects the vaccine to become available for use by the general public in April 2021.


At the same, treatments are becoming available. On October 22, the FDA approved the antiviral drug Veklury (Remdesivir) for COVID-19 treatment in adult and pediatric patients, ages 12 and older, weighing at least 88 pounds, and requiring hospitalization. It is an antiviral given intravenously.

Other pharmaceutical companies are developing monoclonal antibody therapies. GoodRx explains that antibodies are proteins made by the immune system to help fight infections. They bind to foreign pathogens, such as viruses; they help destroy them. Monoclonal antibodies are antibodies made in a lab. It can take weeks for the body to develop natural antibodies. Using MABs can thus potentially fight off infections sooner.


Even if Americans can't agree politically, this Thanksgiving we should all be thankful for the work of America's great pharmaceutical companies.

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on November 26, 2020

Copyright 2020

John Donald O'Shea

Joe Biden - The Walking Wind Sock

Joe Biden campaigns as if nobody is recording what he says on the stump. What he says today is most often utterly inconsistent with what he said yesterday, or last month. Unless you watch CSPAN, Fox News, etc., you will not be shown his flip-flops, stone-walling and obfuscations. 

Example #1:

Recently, Biden told voters in Pennsylvania, "I am not banning fracking! Let me say that again. I am not banning fracking! No matter how many times Donald Trump lies about me."

But in July 2019, a CNN host asked Mr. Biden, "Would there be any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in a Biden administration?

Biden: "No. We would work it out. We would make sure it's eliminated, and no more subsidies for either one of those."


In January 2020 in New Hampshire there was this, as documented in a CSPAN video:

Voter: "But like, what about stopping fracking?"

Biden: "Yes."

Voter: "And stopping pipeline infrastructure?"

Biden: "Yes."


During the March 15, 2020 Democratic presidential debate:

Sen. Bernie Sanders said, "I'm talking about stopping fracking as soon as we possibly can. No ifs, buts and maybes about it. I'm talking about..."

(interrupted by Biden)

Biden: "So am I! ... No new fracking."


On May 22, 2020, Biden told CNBC:

"I would not stop fracking. I would gradually move away from fracking. I would just not do more fracking on federal lands."


On September 6, 2020, Biden, while in New Hampshire, said: "I guarantee you we’re going to end fossil fuels."


So what exactly is Biden's position on fracking? He now says, "I am not banning fracking." But when asked if "there would be any place in a Biden administration for fracking," he stated, no, "we would make sure it's eliminated." He promises, "there would be no more subsides for fracking." Asked "if he would stop fracking," he answered, "yes."


Sanders said he was pledging to stop fracking "as soon as we possibly can." Not to be outdone, Biden answered, "So am I." Later he added, "No new fracking."

So what exactly is Biden's policy?

Which way is the wind blowing? He's not going to "ban" fracking; he's going to "eliminate" it. So who's the real liar?

But why is fracking important? Stephen Moore, writing in the Wall Street Journal, states, "Curtailing U.S. oil and gas production would be economically disastrous. At least $1 trillion of U.S. economic output is related to the shale revolution, and more than 1.5 million Americans are employed by the industry."

Owing to fracking, the U.S. is currently energy independent. Would America be better off depending on "friends" like Saudi Arabia or Venezuela for our oil? Russia for our natural gas?


Example #2:


Do American voters have any right to know whether Joe Biden will "pack the court?" So, what does Joe Biden say about"packing the court?" Again, it depends when he is asked. 

On October 9, 2000:

Interviewer Ross DiMattei: "I've got to ask you about packing the court, and I know you've said you aren't going to answer until after the next election.... Don't the voters deserve to know ..."

(Biden interrupts him)

Biden: ... No they don't. ... I'm not going to play his [Trump's] game. ... He's about to make a pick in the middle of an election, first time it's ever been done, first time in history that it's ever been done."


No they don't? Remember Nancy Pelosi? "We have to pass the bill (Obamacare) so you can find out what's in it." Or, Jonathan Gruber, the principal architect of Obamacare? "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. ... Call it the stupidity of the American voter ... but ... that was really, really critical to get the thing (Obamacare) to pass."


Do you see the Democrats' method of operation?


Now compare 2020 Biden with July 2019 Biden, when he told Iowa Starting Line, "No, I’m not prepared to go out and try to pack the [Supreme] court, because we’ll live to rue that day,”


Or 1983 Biden:

"President Roosevelt clearly had the right ... to pack the court. But it was a bonehead idea. ... It put in question, for an entire decade, the independence of the Supreme Court of the United States ....”


So, what kind of leader is a man, who knows that "packing the court" will cause Democrats to "rue the day," and won't say so? What kind of a leader is a man who refuses to disavow what he has previously called a "bonehead idea?"


What sort of a leader believes American voters don't deserve to know where he stands on critical issues? Is ours still a government of the people, by the people and for the people? Was Lincoln wrong?


Is it really the "first time in history" that a president ever made a nomination in a presidential election year?

No. It's been done 29 times! Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Eisenhower and Obama all made such nominations.


And where exactly, does the Constitution say the president has no right to nominate a Supreme Court justice in a presidential election year, Joe?

Originally published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock island Argus on October 23, 2020

Copyright 2020

John Donald O'Shea

Construing the Constitution

President Trump has nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy created by the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Democrats vehemently oppose her nomination. Why?

The debate is really over how judges should construe our written Constitution of 1787. "Construing" means saying what it means. There really are only two ways.

The first way: It can be construed consistently with the intent of the people who voted, through their representatives, to make it "the supreme law of the land." Those who would construe it this way are called "originalists" because they would construe the Constitution consistently with the intent of those who originally approved, ratified and amended it between 1787 and 1791.

The second way: The alternative method of construction is to construe the Constitution using any other intent. Perhaps a "more enlightened intent." Or a "more modern intent." Folks who opt for this alternative method of construction insist that the "Constitution is a living document for all ages."

But originalists would agree that the Constitution is a living document for all ages. For example, originalists would say the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech on the internet to the same extent it has protected speech on a street corner, or in a newspaper since 1791. In this, both progressives and originalists would agree.

The First Amendment also guarantees the right of the people to peacefully assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Originalists would acknowledge the people's right to peacefully assemble and protest. But they would deny that that right includes the right to riot, loot or burn buildings.

The rights of Americans are our liberties. The word "liberty" appears in two amendments to our Constitution.

The Fifth Amendment (1791) provides that no person shall be "deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process." The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) provides "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law."

From the Magna Carta in 1215 until after our Civil War "due process" has had a clear fixed meaning. For Englishmen and Americans, it meant that no man could be executed, imprisoned or fined unless he was first tried and convicted consistently with the laws of the land. Due process referred to procedures — the laws of the land. That form of due process is therefore known as procedural due process.

But in the latter 19th Century, some judges opted to define liberty in a more expansive and "enlightened" way.

That "more enlightened" construction first redounded to the benefit of sweatshop employers. Laws that sought to limit the working day to ten hours, and the work week to sixty hours, and laws to protect child laborers, were struck down as infringing on the "economic liberty" of the employer and the worker to set their own contract terms. The result was that the Constitution was "amended" by five or more men in black robes to bar the states from making laws to regulate working conditions.

Because trade unions also were viewed as impinging on the liberty of employers and employees to freely contract, they were for a time regarded as criminal conspiracies. This expanded definition of the word "liberty" found in the due process clauses had nothing to due with procedural rules governing court cases. Because the Supreme Court recognized a hitherto undiscovered aspect of liberty, recognized its independent existence, and enshrined it as a constitutional right, this form of due process came to be known as "substantive due process."

"Substantive" refers to something that has a firm basis in reality and which has an independent existence.

In the 1930s, the Supreme Court overruled its substantive due process holdings in the employer/employee context. But in Roe v Wade (1973), and in Bourke v. Beshear (2018) and their related cases, the Court revivified its discredited substantive due process doctrine and held that liberty encompasses the right to abortion and same sex marriage.

In Bourke, a bare five judge majority amended the U.S. Constitution. The majority in effect said that this is the way the men who wrote the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, and the people who ratified them, meant liberty to be defined.

The originalists argue that that the men wrote the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, and the people who ratified them never for a minute thought that "liberty" included the right of abortion or same sex marriage, and that if they had been told that that was how it would be construed, they would have refused to approve either amendment and probably would have refused to ratify the Constitution.

Originalists further point out that Article V of the Constitution sets out specific procedures for amending the Constitution. This amendment power resides in the people acting through their elected representatives, not in the judges.

Originalists believe their duty is limited to construing the Constitution as the founding fathers intended. Progressive judges believe they have power to fix any deficiencies they perceive to exist in the Constitution.

Originalists fear that if progressives can expand the definition of liberty today, Marxists and Fascists can contract it tomorrow. Originalists are content with liberty meaning today, what it meant in 1791.

Originally published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock island Argus on October 9, 2020

Copyright 2020

John Donald O'Shea

America's choice in the coming election

On November 3, 2020, Americans will elect our next president. Our choice seems to be to retain traditional capitalism with the Republicans, or turn the country over to a collection of old-line Democrats, worn-out socialists and modern Marxists.

The Marxists, with good reason, demand that we ignore history. Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany should be clear warnings to every American of what follows once a totalitarian takes powers.

In his monumental work, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," William L. Shirer tells us that in the days before Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, Joseph Goebbels, who would become Hitler's most loyal henchman and his propaganda chief, wrote in his diary, 

"I think it's terrible that we [the Nazis] and the Communists are bashing each other's heads ... Where can we get together sometime with the leading Communists?"

Goebbels then wrote an open letter to the Communists: 

"You and I are fighting one another, but we are not really enemies." 

Goebbels understood that Communism and Fascism were two sides of the same statist coin.


In the coming election, America will have a choice. It can remain a country that continues to work to ensure that all men are created equal, and which subscribes to the belief that all men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuant of happiness. We can remain a country where the rights of the individual are protected by Constitution and law against encroachments by the government. Or we can eschew the value of individual liberty and accept the Marxist-fascist proposition that the individual exists to serve the state.


This Marxist-fascist view is most ably stated by Saul Alinsky:

"One does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one's individual conscience and the good of mankind. The choice must always be for the latter. Action is for mass salvation and not for the individual's personal salvation. He who sacrifices the mass good for his personal conscience ... doesn't care enough for people to be corrupted for them.'"

The Marxist-fascist world of Alinsky is not a world governed by moral principles. 

"It is a world ... where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles."

"[The Have Nots] hate the establishment of the Haves with its arrogant opulence, its police, its courts, and its churches. Justice, morality, law, and order, are mere words when used by the Haves, which justify and secure their status quo."

For Hitler, Stalin and Alinsky, 

"Life and how you live it is the story of 'means' and 'ends.' The end is what you want, and the means is how you get it. ... The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work."

For Alinsky, the Communists and the Fascists, the state must be supreme. The rights of the people must be effaced. Opposition political parties are suppressed. Unions are abolished. Churches become organs of the state. Political opponents are murdered or sent to concentration camps, gulags or prisons. Schools become indoctrination centers. The opposition press is suppressed. In politics, when the ends justify the means, the result is always the same: dictatorship, tyranny and totalitarianism.

Storm troopers and Marxists have no use for democracy. The pattern has been unalterably followed in Stalin's USSR, Hitler's Germany, Mao's China, Honecker's East Germany, Ceaușescu's Romania, Kim's North Korea, Castro's Cuba, and Maduro's Venezuela.

The Marxist storm troopers running amok in American cities, destroying monuments, burning buildings and looting stores are giving an honest preview of their agenda to all Americans — just as Hitler did in Mein Kampf. German nationalists and the German army thought they could control and use Hitler and his Nazi storm troopers. In less than four months, they understood their folly.


Today's Democrats believe they can control and use Marxist BLM and Antifa. They also are delusional. When Marxists take power the result is always the same: democracy ends, totalitarianism ensues and personal freedoms are forever lost. That includes the right to hold a free election to remove them from power. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Castro held power at gun point until they died. And now Maduro, Kim, et al., are doing likewise. Only an historical illiterate would expect a different result.

Originally published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock island Argus on Septermber 18, 2020

Copyright 2020

John Donald O'Shea

Pritzker's little shop of horrors

Whenever Illinois Democrats give their proposed legislation a pure and noble name, protect your wallet.

In 2018, they passed the "Bail Reform Act." Who could be against "Reform?" Now with more criminals back on the street, and crime rates soaring, the gullible Illinois citizenry is slowly waking to the price of the so-called bail "reform."

And now our "good ole" thimblerigging Democratic legislators, with the connivance of Gov. J.B.Pritzker, want to dupe us into amending the Illinois Constitution to allow our "good friends" in the legislature to pass a "graduated income tax." This license to plunder Illinois taxpayers, they have christened "The Fair Tax."

Democrats know that if they give their proposed new "Income Tax Law" an honest name, that they'd risk being tarred and feathered. Or even worse, being voted out of office.

Imagine if our Illinois Democrats actually called their "Audrey II"* by its true name and described what they have already done, and why:

"An Amendment to the Illinois Constitution to Allow the Legislature to Create a Graduated Illinois Income Tax. The Illinois Legislature has already passed legislation creating initial 'sucker rates,' so as to gull the gullible into voting for this deceptively named 'Fair Tax.' Once this Amendment is approved, the legislature, at any time thereafter, can increase the tax rates on disfavored classes of individuals, even to the point of confiscation, by a simple majority vote. This "Fair Tax" is really a shell game."

To repeat,, the Democrats in the Illinois Legislature are asking for a license to plunder. They want to emulate, in Springfield, the looting and plundering that Antifa, Black Lives Matter and their fellow-travelers are already wreaking on the shops and business along Chicago's "Magnificent Mile."

Advocates of graduated income taxes always argue that it is "unfair" for a rich man to pay the same rate of tax as a poor man. To make it "fair" the rich man must pay a higher rate.

Really? What exactly is unfair about a man with 10 times the income of his neighbor paying 10 times as much in taxes?


Graduated income taxes are always ushered in with promises of low rates. But that quickly changes. In 1913, Congress levied a 1% tax on net personal incomes above $3,000, with a 6% surtax on incomes above $500,000. A mere five years later, the top rate on income over $1 million was increased, as a war measure, to 77%.

Today, federal rates range from 10% to 37%.


This "Fair Tax" proposal of Pritzker and the Illinois Democrats is "bait and switch."

Presently - unless you vote "yes" in the November referendum - the Democrats in the Illinois Legislature cannot impose any "graduated" or "progressive" income tax. To get power to impose their "Fair ("graduated") Tax," they first need you to approve their referendum. (Approval requires either the approval of 60% of voters voting on the question, or greater than 50% approval from all voters who cast ballots in the election).

Once you hand Democrats the constitutional power to impose a "graduated" or "progressive" income tax, they can change the rate at their will.

Pritzker promises that unless you are "rich," your rates will remain the same or be slightly less. However, if you file single and have an income over $250,000 up to $350,000; or if you file jointly, and your income is over $250,000 and up to $500,000, you are "rich" and will pay 7.75%.

If you are "richer," you will pay up to 7.99%.


That doesn't sound so bad, does it? But that's where the "bait and switch" comes in:

The day after you approve the constitutional amendment authorizing a "Graduated Income Tax," the Democrats can go back into session and double, triple or quadruple the rates. You are giving them a "blank check" to insert whatever rates they want.

Under Illinois' present "Flat Tax," a person with no income pays nothing. Everybody else pays 4.95% of their income. That's "fair." Presently, if Mr. Democrat wants to raise your tax rate, he must raise his own and everybody else's in the same percentage.

There is nothing whatever "fair" about a "Fair Tax" that allows a majority to vote to exempt itself from income taxation while at the same time voting to raise taxes on their "rich" neighbors. That's not "fairness;" it's plunder.

Similarly, the majority's use of its voting power to elect legislators committed to "making the rich or any other minority pay their 'fair share'," while exempting or minimizing the tax obligation of the majority, is plunder. It is morally indistinguishable from the looter plundering shops along Michigan Avenue.

To place unlimited taxing power in the hands of a Democrat-controlled legislature generally perceived as being incompetent, corrupt and self-dealing is utter insanity. Is 7.99% "fair" today? How about tomorrow? 100 voters will give 100 different answers.


* Audrey II is from "The Little Shop of Horrors" and was a plant that thrived on a diet of blood.

Originally published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on September 4, 2020.

Copyright 2020,  John Donald O'Shea

Governor Pritzker's Powers are not Unlimited

The Illinois Legislature has conferred upon the Governor powers to deal with "emergencies and disasters" in the Illinois Emergency Management Act, 20 ILCS 3305. So, are the Governor's pandemic powers unlimited? In a word, "No!"


Whatever "emergency" actions the Illinois Governor takes during the pandemic or during an Antifa riot, his actions must be taken consistently with the the U.S. and Illinois Constitutions, and his oath of office by which he promised to "support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Illinois, and ... faithfully discharge the duties of [his] office of . . . to the best of [his] ability.” Each Constitution contains its own Bill of Rights.


If you read both Constitutions, you will find no language in either constitution that allows for suspension during an "emergency" of either the U.S. or the Illinois Bill of Rights. Both Constitutions allow suspension of Habeas Corpus "in cases of rebellion or invasion when the public safety may require it. But that is as far as they go.


The Illinois Constitution provides, "The legislative power is vested in a General Assembly consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives ...." Art. 4, §1. Unlike Congress, which has only the powers explicitly given it by the U.S. Constitution and the additional powers needed to carry out those stated powers, a state legislature has all legislative powers that are not [specifically] denied by the state or federal Constitution.


Since it has plenary legislative power, the normal challenge to Illinois Legislative action is not that the legislature exercised powers not granted to it by the Illinois Constitution. Rather the challenge is normally that the legislature improperly delegated its legislative power. But while the General Assembly may not give away its legislative powers, it may set up a general statutory scheme designed to reach a result and leave details for reaching it to a governmental agency. Such a delegation would be subject to oversight by the General Assembly and review by the courts to determine whether the agency  has overstepped its authority. But an agency may not be left free to carry out the legislative purpose as it sees fit without any standards, or allowed to determine to whom a law will apply.



Under the Illinois Constitution, the legislative and executive branches are separate, and "No branch shall exercise powers properly belonging to another. Art. 2, §1. As such, there are limits to how much power the legislature can give to the Governor. Moreover, the Illinois Legislature cannot make laws or delegate powers where doing so would be prohibited by either Constitution or either Bill of Rights.


The Illinois Constitution provides that "The Governor shall have the supreme executive power, and shall be responsible for the faithful execution of the laws." Art. 5, §8. In that regard, the Legislature has passed the Illinois Emergency Management Act, and the Governor has a duty to "faithfully execute" it. But the question remains: how much power the Legislature can delegate? Clearly, even given a Legislative delegation of power to the Governor, the Governor can not exercise executive power if the Legislative grant thereof, or if his exercise of those delegated powers would contravened either Constitution or Bill of Rights.


So, can a governor, under a legislative grant of "emergency powers" order a shut down of legitimate businesses and permanently put them out of business? Materially damage those businesses?

Art. 1, §1 of the Illinois Constitution borrows from the Declaration of Independence, and states the "Inherent and Inalienable Rights" of the people of Illinois: "All men are by nature free and independent and have certain inherent and inalienable rights among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights and the protection of property, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Although that clause has been held to be "hortatory," it makes rather clear that Illinois government exists to protect property; not destroy it.

Art. 1, §2, however, is mandatory. It provides, "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law nor be denied the equal protection of the laws.


When a Governor decrees that all "non-essential" business shall be shut down, where is the due process hearing? Where is the equal protection when cannabis dispensaries are allowed to remain open when restaurants and barbers shops are destroyed by being forced to stay closed?


And Art. 1, §15 provides, "Private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just
compensation as provided by law. Such compensation shall be determined by a jury as provided by law." Where is the compensation?


I will be very surprised if we do not see a plethora of "reverse" eminent domain actions* for Illinois taking or damaging property without payment of compensation. And perhaps some Federal Civil Rights actions.


*In an eminent domain case, the state takes the property and asks that a jury assess the damages. In a reverse eminent domain case, the property owner asks for a jury to assess the damages where the state has taken or damaged the property but not paid the damages.

Originally published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on August 21, 2020.

Copyright 2020, John Donald O'Shea

Americans Don't Get Ruled!

As a former public official, my tendency it to assume that public officials do their best to provide us with accurate information. I've always presumed the president or governor, surrounded by expert fact providers, has better information than I do.

Not any more. Here are two reasons:

                                                                        1. 

Gov. J. B. Pritzker's coronavirus press conferences and orders strongly suggest I would do better to listen to the Three Stooges.

Consider this April 20 press conference:

Reporter: "Earlier this week, the state reported the death of a teenager in Cook County. ... Can you tell us if the teenager in question had underlying conditions?"

(Gov. Pritzker was at the podium and he deferred to Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health).

Dr. Ezike: "I don't have that information at my disposal at this time. I know that we have had people of all age groups die. I just want to be clear as to the definition of death by COVID. The case definition is very simplistic. It means that at the time of death, it was a COVID positive diagnosis."

Reporter: So if you are killed in an auto accident or by falling off a cliff, if you are positive for COVID, it's counted as a COVID death?

Dr. Ezike: "It means if you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and if you were also found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. ... Even if you died of a clear alternate cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it's still listed as a COVID death. So, everyone who's listed as a COVID death doesn't mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of the death."

You wonder why the numbers can't be trusted? If a teenager is shot dead while strolling down Michigan Avenue, that's listed as a COVID death?

                                                                        2. 

Then, on April 22, Chief Judge Michael McHaney, sitting in Clay County, Illinois, in his ruling in Mainer v. Pritzker, pointed out the bizarre inconsistency of the governor's rules designating certain businesses as "non-essential" and others as "essential."

The judge accuses the governor of making "arbitray and capricious" judgments:

"I won't get COVID if I get an abortion, but I will get COVID if I get a colonoscopy."

"If I go to Walmart, I won't get COVID but, if I go to church, I will."

"Selling pot is essential, but selling goods and services at a family owned business is not."

The judge points out that cannabis sales, illegal in Illinois until a few months earlier, are "essential," but a "family-owned business in existence for five generations is not."

The judge finds "insanity" in presuming that a family of six "piling in their car" and driving to the lake will not get COVID, but they will if they pile into their boat.

Similarly the judge notes the presumption that "four people [who] drive to the golf course [will] not get COVID, but if they play in a foursome, they will." 

The judge wonders why kids' summer sports programs are cancelled when "we are told that kids rarely contract the virus and sunlight kills it!"

Further, he is unable to understand why "murderers" should be "released from custody" for fear of the virus, while owners of small businesses are threatened with being taken into custody if they open their businesses in an "attempt to feed their families."

Finally the judge criticizes the governor for behaving like a "divine right king" in the making of rules that bind the people of Illinois, while exempting himself and his family from obeying those same rules. 

"The defendant in this case orders you to stay home and pronounces that, if you leave the state, you are putting people in danger. But his family members traveled to Florida and Wisconsin because he deems such travel 'essential.'"

Judge McHaney then sums up his "indictment" of the governor.

"When laws do not apply to those who make them, people are not being governed, they are being ruled.

"Make no mistake, these executive orders are not laws. They are royal decrees. Illinois citizens are not being governed, they are being ruled. The last time I checked, Illinois citizens are also Americans and Americans don't get ruled.

"The last time a monarch tried to rule Americans, a shot was fired that was heard around the world. That day led to the birth of a nation consensually governed based upon a document which ensures that on this day in any American courtroom tyrannical despotism will always lose and liberty, freedom and the Constitution will always win."

But if the case ever reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, will Mr. Chief Justice John Roberts agree? Probably not, given his concurring opinion in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. (California Gov.) Gavin Newson.

Copyright 2020, John Donald O'Shea

Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on August 9, 2020

Societies Need the Moral Law

Bill O'Reilly has written of the recent murder of George Floyd and the riots that have followed:


"There is only one real solution to deprivation, crime, and helplessness and that is to teach the children well .... "If a child cannot read, write cursive, do math, speak properly, and does not understand that skills have to be developed so honest money can be earned, that child will likely become an impoverished adult without much hope."


I don't disagree with O'Reilly. But he stops short of pointing out an even more fundamental problem. America was built on two fundamental moral values: "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."


There was a time when the Jewish people were wandering in the desert. Perhaps they were really marking time, building strength until they were strong enough to emerge from the desert to conquer the "promised land." But Moses realized that a nation had to be more than an assemblage of tribes or a horde. If the Jewish people were to be a nation, they had to have a national identity and unity. They had to have laws. If the new nation was to be peaceful and secure it could not countenance people murdering each other, stealing their neighbor's belongings, or men seducing other men's wives. Therefore, he gave his people the Ten Commandments — which have been condensed into loving God and neighbor.


To bind the people of the twelve Jewish tribes into a one nation, and avoid religious controversies, the First Commandment specified that one God would be worshiped. To provide order within families, another required children to honor and obey their parents. To eliminate inter-family feuds and revenge killings, the commandments made murder, theft and adultery crimes against the people of the nation rather than merely against individuals.


Once criminalized, the whole people punished offenders, eliminating the need for revenge and private feuds. But as important as the commandments were as "laws," they were even more important because they were "God-given" moral rules. They drew a bright line between right and wrong. As such, they established a national morality. In short, the commandments created both God-given legal and moral codes.


But even more importantly, for over 2,000 years ordinary Western men (not all of them) have lived with a belief that if the law did not punish the wrongdoer, God would.


Whether you believe that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments or not, no society can have peace and security unless its people believe divine justice will prevail when human justice fails.


You can't "love your neighbor as you love yourself," or "do unto him as you would have him do unto you," if you kill him, steal from him or burn down his house.


If you justify doing harm to a person who has never harmed you, you accept the proposition that the end you choose justifies the means you employ. But what happens when your neighbor chooses to destroy you to achieve his ends?


The purpose of the criminal law is to outlaw revenge. Or do two wrongs make a right? If A murders B, and B's brother C murders A, why can't A's sister D, murder C? Do we need generational feuds?


The point I am trying to make, and the point O'Reilly didn't make, is that to have peace and security, the young and old of society must believe in a God-given moral law. We must live by a consensus that certain acts are good and other acts are God-proscribed, and God-punished.


There was a time when schools (other than parochial schools) taught this morality. But once you bar God from the schools, the morality taught there loses its God-given underpinning. That then can come only from churches or parents.


But what if children don't go to church? What if their mothers are little more than children themselves, and their fathers are nowhere to be found? Who then teaches traditional moral values? Certainly not the street gangs, where the rules are "survival of the fittest" and "might makes right."


So who's left? Hollywood? The tabloids? Rioters?


Nobody who loves his neighbor as he loves himself or practices the "Golden Rule," does violence to or steals from his neighbor, or destroys his neighbor's property. The criminal laws are only needed to deal with people who chose not to love neighbor as self.


If you believe that God punishes wrongdoers even if the law fails to do so, you won't accept as your morality, "the ends justify the means," "might makes right," or "good is whatever I decide is good." You won't risk violating the law, calculating that you will not be dragged into court.


When a critical mass of citizens comes to scorn the belief that God punishes evildoers, we will only have enough police officers when we have a police state.

This piece was published originally in the Moline Dispatch, Rock Island Argus and QC Times on July 24, 2020

Copyright 2020, John Donald O'Shea

In Support of "Counterspeech"

Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Castro, Maduro and their ilk are all predictable: They suppress free speech and freedom of the press. In Nazi Germany, if you denounced Hitler's regime, you ended up in a concentration camp or exterminated.

In Stalin's U.S.S.R., you ended up in a gulag, or liquidated. In present-day China you end up in a "re-education camp" or dead. And what has become of freedom of speech and the press in Cuba and Venezuela?

Over our history in America numerous efforts have been made to squelch speech critical of the government and unpopular causes, beginning with the Sedition Act (1798). But since the passage of the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court, time and again, has acted to keep the government and many other well-meaning Americans from "re-writing" our First Amendment — which still reads, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" — to instead read, "Congress (or the States) may make some laws ...."

The court, instead of agreeing that unpopular political speech and offensive speech should be prohibited, suppressed or silenced, has suggested the constitutional remedy to be "counterspeech."

In 1927, in Whitney v. California (concurring opinion), Justice Louis Brandeis explained what "counterspeech" entails:

"If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."

More recently, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in U.S. v. Alvarez, (2012), "The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth."

Then in Citizens United, Kennedy wrote: "It is our law and our tradition that more speech, not less, is the governing rule."

You can pore through our high court's decisions forever, and you will find no case holding that burning someone else's building, looting a neighbor's business, or destroying a publicly erected historic statue or a church is a constitutionally protected form of speech.

The First Amendment protects your right to peacefully protest by wearing a shirt that says "Defund the Police" or by destroying a statue that you own and have erected in your own front yard. But it gives you no right to "protest" by burning your neighbor's flag, throwing rocks at police officers, or burning books you've dragged from the university library that you deem offensive, hate-filled, racist, bigoted, etc.

Once you start burning, destroying and looting public property or the property of others, you cease being a constitutionally protected "protester" engaging in First Amendment protected speech and become a criminal, a fascist, a thug, etc.

The fact that you believe that your motive for acting like one of Röhm's Brownshirts is pure, does not make your actions any better than those of the Brownshirts.

It has been argued that "very few right-wing personalities have been blocked from speaking on campuses."

That isn't a defense. It's a pathetic admission — an admission that leftist mobs are blocking at least some conservative speakers.

Do you recall the CNN story about how protests against Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California-Berkeley turned into riots? Did the university not cancel the event owing to the mob action? Was Yiannopoulos one of the "very few right-wing personalities that have been blocked?"

Why were there many empty seats at President Trump's recent rally in Tulsa?

Was that because TikTok users proposed that Trump opponents could reserve tickets they had no intention of using to block Trump supporters from getting tickets? Were not two of the entrances to the rally blocked for a time? Were the president and his supporters among the "very few right-wing personalities that have been blocked (at least partially)?"

How about Ben Shapiro at UCLA? Professor Mike Adams at the University of Montana? George Will at Scripps College? Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Brandeis University? Michelle Malkin at American University? Jason Riley at Virginia Tech?

So where do we go from here?

Does "no law" still mean "no law?" Or does it mean the government can make some laws abridging freedom of speech? And if the government can't shut down speech, why is it acceptable for an un-elected violent mob to do so?

What lies and distortions were Yiannopoulos, Trump, Shapiro and the others planning to spew that could not have been adequately dealt with by rational "counterspeech"?

If today's left can employ intimidation and violence to shut down speech it deems "offensive," what happens when the "Thermidor" follows the "Reign of Terror."

This piece was published originally in the Moline Dispatch, Rock Island Argus and QC Times on July 18, 2020

Copyright 2020, John Donald O'Shea

Citizens United may soon be embraced by the Left

A corporation is a "legal person" under the law. But do Corporation have Constitutional rights?


Clearly all corporations do have at least some Constitutional Rights. Clearly the government cannot, consistently with the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, seize Deere's headquarters to use it as the new the new Federal Building without affording Deere due process, and without paying fair compensation for the taking.


And yet a great many Americans question whether corporations have First Amendment rights, such as the right to engage in "political speech".


So, does a business corporation have a Constitutional Right to engage in "political speech?"
Or should the right of corporate "political speech" be limited to media companies such as the NY Times, NBC, Fox News, CNN and the AP?


That is what the Citizens United Case was about. There the court held that business and not-for-profit corporations had a First Amendment right to spend their general funds to engage in "political speech" without the necessity of setting up PACs to handle "special funds" for that purpose.


But why? Imagine Congresswoman Cortez is running for re-election promising to end commercial airline service. Image that all the great media corporations, including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, The NY Times, the Washington Post, etc. all endorse her re-election. Does Boeing have to sit silent? Or should Boeing be able to spend corporate funds to tell the public that Cortez "is an idiot whose policies would do irreparable harm to the American people, and destroy Boeing?" Can Boeing run ads endorsing her opponent, who believes commercial air travel is essential to the welfare of the American people?


Citizens United held that counter-speech is the remedy provided by the First Amendment. If media corporations can support Cortez and her agenda, Boeing, a business corporation, must have the same right to engage in "political speech" to defeat Cortez and her agenda. While the First Amendment guarantees that a free press has a right to engage in "political speech," it no where limits free speech to giant media corporations.


Now a major new First Amendment battle is looming. Conservatives believe they are being silenced by Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. These giants are also business corporations. So what are their First Amendment rights? Citizens United strongly presages that they will be found to possess the same
Free Speech rights as any other media or business corporation.


Since the earliest days of our Republic, certain newspapers have been overtly partisan. The Federalists has their partisan newspaper, the Gazette of the United States. To counter that, the National Gazette was founded with the support of Madison and Jefferson, at a time when Jefferson was Washington's Secretary of State. Jefferson hired Philip Freneau to serve as editor and put him on the State department payroll. The paper inveighed against Alexander Hamilton's financial policies as "numerous evils ... pregnant with every mischief." It accused Washington of harboring "monarchial" tendencies.


Our First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Nobody ever better explained "Why" than Justice Hugo Black in NY Time Co. v. U.S. (The Pentagon Papers case), wrote


"Madison and the other Framers of the First Amendment, able men that they were, wrote in language they earnestly believed could never be misunderstood: 'Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom... of the press....'  Both the history and language of the First Amendment support the view that the press must be left free to publish news, whatever the source, without censorship, injunctions, or prior restraints.


"In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors."


If that is so, and Citizen United recently said that it is, Congress can make no law requiring Google, Facebook or Twitter to be "fair and balanced." The remedy left to Conservatives is "counterspeech." They are entirely free tocreate a search engine and social media platforms with a "conservative bias." In this light, I would not be surprised if my liberal friends who have inveighed against Citizens United suddenly do not embrace it.


But up until now, Google, et al, have portrayed themselves as "common carriers" - rather like the "soap box" of yore in Chicago's Bughouse Square. As "common carriers," they could not be held responsible for what their 'users" were saying. They merely provided the neutral "soap box" or "megaphone." For that they were granted immunity from suit for things their "users" said.


But if they are now engaging in advancing liberal idea, and blocking conservative ideas, they are no longer mere "common carriers." They have become partisans, rather like the National Gazette. As such, they should enjoy all the same First Amendment rights and immunities as the Washington Post and Breitbart.

No more; no less.

This piece was published originally in the Moline Dispatch, Rock Island Argus and QC Times on July 5, 2020

Copyright 2020, John Donald O'Shea

Why are the Democrats silent?

On April 8, 1933, the Main Office for Press and Propaganda of the German Student Union ("GSU") proclaimed a nationwide "Action against the Un-German Spirit." It climaxed in a "cleansing" by fire — a book burning.

Included were books by Jewish, pacifist, religious, liberal, anarchist, socialist, and communist authors — books deemed "subversive, or that "represented ideologies opposed to Nazism.""


William L. Shirer in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" describes what followed:

"On the evening of May 10, 1933, some four and a half months after Hitler became Chancellor, there occurred in Berlin a scene which had not been witnessed in the Western world since the late Middle Ages."

"At about midnight, a torchlight parade of thousands of students ended at a square ... opposite the University of Berlin. Torches were put to a huge pile of books that had been gathered there, and as the flames enveloped them, more books were thrown on the fire until some 25,000 had been consumed. Similar scenes took place in several other cities. The book burnings had begun.

"Many of the books tossed into the flames in Berlin that night by the joyous students under the approving eye of Dr. Goebbels had been written by authors of world reputation, They included Erich Maria Remarque, Albert Einstein, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Helen Keller, H.G. Wells, Emile Zola and Freud. In the words of the student proclamation, any book was consumed to the flames 'which acts subversively on our nature or strikes at the root of German thought ...'"


By September 22, 1933, the Reich Chamber of Culture was established under Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda, with sub-chambers to "guide and control" the fine arts, music, the theater, literature, the press, radio and films.

Paintings and sculptures fared no better than books. In "Mein Kampf", Hitler vowed that on coming to power he would "cleanse" Germany of "decadent" art and replace it with a new "Germanic " art. Shortly thereafter, 6,500 "modern" paintings, including works of Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso, were removed from German museums.

As he opened his new "House for Germanic Art" in Munich, on July 18, 1937, Hitler, as Shirer noted, condemned "modern" art:

"Works of art that cannot be understood but need a swollen set of instructions to prove their right to exist and find their way to neurotics who are receptive to such stupid or insolent nonsense will no longer openly reach the German Nation. Let no one have illusions! National Socialism has set out to purge the German Reich and our people of all those influences threatening its existence and character .... With the opening of this exhibition has come the end of artistic lunacy and with it the artistic pollution of our people."


Hitler established the Commission for the Exploitation of Degenerate Art headed by Hildebrand Gurlitt. Hitler's instructions were to sell for foreign currency 16,000 pieces of "degenerate" "modern" artwork that had been removed from museums or confiscated.

To that end, Gurlitt and his fellow commissioners set up a display near Berlin. The sale of art labeled by Hitler as "rubbish" and Goebbels as "garbage," was a failure. To spur sales, Gurlitt and his cronies publicly burned 1,004 paintings and sculptures and 3,825 watercolors, drawings and prints in front of the Berlin Fire Department. This "auto de fe" had its effect. The Basel Museum and modern art enthusiasts scurried with cash in hand to the rescue.


All totalitarian governments and dictatorships operate on the premise that "error has no rights."


Today, conservatives are blocked from teaching and speaking at some colleges. Murals of Columbus are threatened at Notre Dame. George Washington's statue is destroyed. The Lincoln Monument is defaced. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", "Gone with The Wind" and "To Kill a Mocking Bird" may not be seen or read in some places. Doors at President Trump's rallies are blocked.

Conservative "speech" is to be silenced, shut down. A New York Times editor loses his job for publishing Sen. Tom Cotton's op-ed.

Where is the condemnation of all this by Democrats holding high office?


When I was of college age, American liberals denounced campus censorship. They denounced the film censorship of the Catholic Legion of Decency. They approved Supreme Court rulings that protected unpopular forms of speech, including the provocative Nazi demonstration in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, the wearing of a shirt that said "F ... the Draft," the right of a jerk to call police officers "f...ing pigs," and a person's right to burn his own American flag.

There once was the Democratic Party of Harry Truman, JFK, Adlai Stevenson, and Paul Simon, of which I was a proud member. Would they have remained silent?

Mayor Richard J. Daley certainly would not have. Or should he have allowed Chicago to be looted and burned?

This piece was published originally in the Moline Dispatch, Rock Island Argus and QC Times on June 26, 2020

Copyright 2020, John Donald O'Shea

The Bill of Rights is Experience - Not Mere Words

In 2008, The U.S. Supreme Court decided District of Columbia vs. Heller, construing the meaning of the words found in the Second Amendment.

                  "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
                   the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."


The District of Columbia insisted that the American people have a right that "shall not be infringed" to "keep and bear arms,"but only in connection with "militia" service. The court rejected the District's contention, holding that the right to keep and bear arms is personal to the individual.


A well-respected local columnist has now disagreed with Heller's holding.

                   "The ludicrous position we are in would not be possible without ignoring
                    the first thirteen words of the Constitution’s Second Amendment: "A well
                    regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State ..."

                    "Anyone conversant with the English language would recognize this as the
                    rationale for not infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
                    With the rationale gone — States now maintain a National Guard for which
                    weapons are supplied — it would seem the ground on which the amendment
                    stands has caved. I’m surprised the Supreme Court’s "originalists" haven’t
                    noticed this. They might also examine the argument for the amendment in the
                    first place."


His disagreement is premised on (1) "thirteen words," and (2) the existence of the National Guard.


Our Constitutional Rights, however, have never been understood solely by looking at words on paper. They have always been understood by looking to the historical experiences of the English and American peoples. Most are responses to abuses of royal power. These rights, including the right to keep and bear arms, pre-existed our Constitution. The Constitution does not grant these rights; it recognizes as the inalienable rights of free men.


The most basic right of any man, is the right to act in self-defense. This includes the right to defend family. It is not dependent on the existence of militia, National Guard or police.


Early Americans, who lived in the newly formed towns, and in or on the edge of the wilderness, kept guns for defense of themselves and their families. The kept them for use during militia service, but also when at home to protect themselves and their families from robbers and hostile Indians. It is that pre-existing right that is guaranteed by the Second Amendment.


The Court considered our columnist's "13 words." His argument was forcefuly advanced by Mr.
Justice Breyer and rejected.

The Court construed the words of the Amendment consistently with the history and usages of firearms by the American people. In the process, it reviewed English history, our colonial history, the Federalist/Anti- Federalist debates, drafts of the 2nd Amendment, similar State Constitutional provisions, legal writers, Constitutional scholars, and the Court's own precedents.


It then wrote,

                "We reach the question, then: Does the preface (the "13 words") fit with
                 an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear
                 arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the history that the founding
                 generation knew and that we have described above. That history showed
                 that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-
                 bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the
                 people’s arms, enabling a select militia ... to suppress political opponents.
                 This is what had occurred in England that prompted codification of the
                 right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights.


                "We hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the

                Second Amendment... Assuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise 

                of Second Amendment rights, the District ... must issue him a license to carry it 

                in the home.


               "We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we
               take seriously the concerns raised ... The Constitution leaves the District
               ... a variety of tools for combating that problem ... But the
               enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy
               choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns
               held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that
               the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing
               army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide 

               personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is
               perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of
               this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."


Without the right to possess and use a gun in your own defense when home is invaded by an armed intruder, all your other Constitutional rights, can in an instant, be irretrievably taken from you. Murderers aren't concerned about affording their victims fair trials, due process, freedom of speech or the free exercise of religion.

This piece was published originally in the Moline Dispatch, Rock Island Argus and QC Times on June 19, 2020

Copyright 2020, John Donald O'Shea