One Nation, Indivisible?

On July 14, 2024, one day after the attempted assassination of President Trump, President Biden, in an Oval Office address, told Americans that US politics must never become a "killing field.” He warned that "political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated, and urged Americans to "take a step back. … No matter how strong our convictions, we must never descend into violence. … We cannot, must not, go down this road again (referring to recent acts of political violence).” … “In America we resolve our differences at the ballot box; not with bullets."

But why has it taken eight years from President Biden to deliver this speech?

Compare President Biden’s July 14 speech, with his political rant in Michigan on July 12 — one day before the attempted assassination of Trump.

“We’re going to stand up for our Constitution and … democracy … Donald Trump is a loser. … a convicted criminal. …. Convicted … of 34 felonies of paying hush money to a porn star, … Mr. Trump raped her.                                                                                                                                          

“Donald Trump is a business fraud. … He was fined $400M for providing false information to banks. 

“He’s still facing charges of mishandling classified information, … charges for … trying to overthrow the election on January 6, and … charges in Georgia for election interference.\

 “Trump is a threat to this nation. He ran a violent mile on January 6th to overturn the results of the election — to hold on to power. …. We saw with our own eyes how he sent thousands of people to attack the Capitol. We saw the police being attacked; the Capitol being ransacked; a mob hunting for speaker Pelosi; gallows being set up for vice-president Pence.

“Trump is … unhinged. He’s snapped. He refuses … to say he’ll accept the result of this election. He says if he loses there will be a bloodbath; if he’s elected, he will be a dictator on day-one. … [O]ver my dead body! … Trump … will deploy the Department of Justice to prosecute Trump’s enemies. … Trump will eliminate the Civil Service, … hire tens of thousands of civil servants who are loyal only to him. They’ll have to take a loyalty oath. He’ll … round up over 10,000,000 people … and put them in detention camps. … Trump calls [illegal aliens] “animals.” … America… wake up and realize what Trump and his MAGA Republicans want to do!”

"Americans want a President and not a dictator. …. No self-respecting American President would ever be a Putin (puppet? puppy?), like this guy is. … I’ll be damned if I will allow Donald Trump to take this nation away." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UFF6GEcazc

So, for the next 100 days, now that President Biden has pulled out of the race, how will the Democrats behave? Will they behave like the sober Biden of July 14, or will they ape the Joe Biden of July 12?

And which President Trump will we see? A pre-July 13 Trump or a post-July 13 Trump?

I have said before, no American politician is “Hitler.” It is long past-time to stop the vile name-calling? Time to honestly debate the issues on the merits.

Our Supreme Court has said that the remedy for speech that is misinformation/lies is “counter- speech.” Let them, for example, discuss “illegal aliens.” If 10 million illegal aliens are good for the country, the new Democrat nominee — whether Vice President Harris or whoever — should be able to adduce facts to justify her/his policy; if bad, President Trump should be able to adduce facts to show the detriment to the country.

Prediction: Between now and the election, I predict that we will see a kinder, gentler, more human Donald Trump. Sadly, I predict that Democrats will revert to President Biden’s Michigan form — “Trump is Hitler — unhinged — a threat to democracy, etc.!”

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on July 26, 2024. 
Copyright 2024, John Donald O'Shea

An opinion devoid of the slightest factual basis

Earlier this week, MSNBC host Joy Reid, on Tik Tok, proudly told the world that to avoid another term of Donald Trump being President, that she’d “vote for [President Joe] Biden in a coma.”

To those in the Democrat Party who wish to replace President Biden on the Presidential ticket, Reid said “Let me know, when you guys are finished fighting amongst yourselves, who I gotta vote for in November to keep Hitler out the White House.”

Joy Reid’s comparison of Trump to Hitler is her opinion. But Donald Trump has a political record. Accordingly, hard facts abound showing exactly what Trump did during his four years as President. Which of those facts would give an iota of support to Reid’s inane assertion that “Trump is Hitler?”

Joy Reid is a 1991 Harvard Univ. graduate with a “concentration” on “film studies.” What seems patently clear is that Reid seems to lack even the least passing knowledge of Hitler and his Third Reich. No person with a scintilla of intellectual integrity who has read William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, or studied WWII, would ever compare Trump — or any other American politician — to Adolf Hitler.

Here is a timeline of Hitler and his deeds:

January 1933: Hitler become German Chancellor;

February 1933: Reichstag destroyed by fire; Nazis blame Communists;

March 10, 1933: Nazi burn books opposite Berlin University;

March 1933: Enabling Act passed. Hitler given power to rule by decree for 4 years;

Hitler proclaims Nazi Party the only permitted political party in Germany. All other parties and trade unions are banned. German states stripped of autonomous powers. Nazi officials become state governors;

February & March 1933: Mass arrests of Left-Wing opponents;

March 1933. Dachau Concentration Camp [“CC”] goes into operation;

April 1933: Communist Party banned;

May 1933: Socialists, trade unions and strikes banned;

Spring/Summer 1933: Early “CCs” are set up throughout Germany;

June 1934: Hitler eliminates all opposition within Nazi Party. Hitler personally arrests Ernst Roehm, his Chief of Staff. When Roehm refuses to use the pistol offered him to end his own life, he is shot to death — executed — without prior trial;

July 1934: President Hindenburg dies. Hitler abolished the office of the President, and names himself “Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor;”

1935: Hitler decrees military conscription;

September 1935: Nuremburg Laws strip Jews of citizenship; makes them “subjects:”

July 1936: Sachsenhausen “CC” begins operations;

July 1937: Buchenwald “CC” starts operations;

December 1, 1937: 7746 prisoners now in “CC;”

March 1938: Hitler orders the German Army to invade and seize Austria. Austria annexed;

June 1, 1938: First official execution in “CC;”

June 30, 1938: About 24,000 prisoners now in “CC;”


September 1938. Hitler threatens war with Czechoslovakia. To avoid war, Chamberlain and France agree that the Czechs shall cede the Sudetenland to Germany. Hitler promises he has “no further ter-ritorial ambitions in Europe;”

November 1938: Crystal Night. 7,500 Jewish shops are destroyed; 400 synagogues are burnt. The attack is portrayed as a spontaneous reaction to the death of a German diplomat by a Jewish refugee in Paris. It is actually orchestrated by the Nazi party;

November 1938: About 50,000 prisoners now in “CC;”

March 1939: In violation of the Munich Agreement, Hitler troops the seize rest of Czechoslovakia;

May 1939: Ravensbrück “CC” for women starts operations;

August 23, 1939. Germany and Russia sign a “Non-Aggression Pact;”

September 1, 1939. Hitler “blitzes”/overruns Poland;

April 9, 1940: Hitler attacks and occupies neutral Denmark and Norway:

May 10, 1940: Neutral countries Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg are bombed and invaded in furtherance of Hitler’s invasion/war on France:

June 1940: Auschwitz “CC,” in German occupied-Poland, begins operation;

September 7, 1940 to May 11, 1941: Hitler’s air force bombs/blitzes England, including London and Coventry;


June 1941: Beginning of “euthanasia” of mentally-deficient and ill prisoners;

June 1941. In violation of his Non-aggression Pact, Hitler invades Russia;

September 1941: First mass-gassing of Soviet prisoners-of-war in “CCs;”

December 1941: Some 80K prisoners in “CCs:”

January 1942: Wannsee Conference to provide for the “Final Solution” for “Jewish question;”

Spring 1942: Mass transportation of Jews to Auschwitz begins;

Spring/Summer of 1942: SS establishes first gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau;

September 1942: About 110,000 prisoners in “CCs;”

February 1943: Mass deportations of Gypsies to Auschwitz begins;

August 1944: 524,000 prisoners in “CCs;”

Early 1945: 700,000 prisoners in “CCs;”



So, Ms. Reid, when during his four years in office, did Trump commit any act comparable to any of the acts committed by Hitler, listed above?

When did Trump order the mass-burning of disapproved books? Rule by decree under an Enabling Act? Outlaw opposing political parties? Ban unions? Strikes? Order Mass arrests of political opponents? Of Democrats? Of Republicans? Set up concentration camps? Order the mass arrest of Jews? Invade neutral countries? Bomb them to bits? Order mass execution of any prisoners? Pass a law stripping anybody of their citizenship? Bomb population centers? Exterminate the mentally ill? Gypsies? Millions of Jews? Approve a “Final Solution?”

Joy Reid has expressed her opinion of Trump comparing him to Hitler. Where are the underlying facts to support her opinion? Or is her opinion of Trump based solely on irrational political hatred?

Trump can fairly be accused on childishly calling his opponents names — of being a “bull in a china shop.” But neither Biden nor Trump can rationally be compared to Hitler.

And Ms. Reid, if Biden goes “comatose,” what unnamed, unelected individual will be our secret “acting” president? It doesn’t seem to matter to Ms. Reid.

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on July 10, 2024. 
Copyright 2024, John Donald O'Shea

Lies, Opinions and Political Puffing

We all know what a lie is. When someone states as fact something that he knows to be untrue, that is a lie.

But what about opinions? If a weather man predicts a bright sunny day, and it rains all day instead, is he a liar? Not if he gave his honest opinion based on the best meteorological available to him. But what if all the meteorological data indicates a day of heavy rain, and our weatherman nevertheless, with no meteorological basis, predicts a clear, sunny day? Is he a liar?

When I was a boy, my mother played golf at Tam O’Shanter Country Club in Niles, Illinois during the hey-day of the club. I can say, without lying, that on one occasion, mom was the women’s club champion. I was there when she finished. And I still have her trophy showing she was club champ, and the small plaque that for one year graced her locker in the women’s locker room. My recollection is that mom won the championship twice, but I have no evidence that she did. I therefore cannot honestly say she was two-time club champ.

I can recall as a boy asking mom what was the lowest handicap she ever carried. She replied, “Six.” I was a bit surprised, because par was 72, and I did not recall her shooting in the 70s. But handicaps fluctuated, and I knew she generally played around 80-82. And I also knew that my mother never lied. In fact, the rule among her many friends was, “If you don’t want Marge’s honest opinion, don’t ask for it!”

Which brings us to last Thursday’s Presidential Debate.

As a judge, in assessing the credibility of witnesses, I always took account of two “cautions:” (1) A man who lies about little, insignificant things, is also apt to lie about important things, when the lie will benefit him; (2) A man careless enough to lie about a fact which can easily be disproved, will probably lie whenever he believes it is to his advantage.

A number of seemingly unimportant statements were made at the very end of the debate:

(1) Biden averred he had “his handicap down to a 6 while VP:”

(2) Trump to averred he “hit the ball 280 years:”

(3) Trump averred he “just won two club championships — not even senior events;”

(4) Biden implied he could carry his bag of golf clubs during the round of golf, and Trump couldn’t.

All four of these claims are subject to being easily proved or disproved. The voters are entitled to see if one or both of these guys were lying — stating as fact things they knew to be untrue.

I suggest they take a day off and play a televised round of golf at Saukie Golf Course in Rock Island. They could each carry a “Sunday Bag” (2 woods, a putter and five irons). This would not be impossible. I know an 84-year man who does just that 5 days a week.

If Trump is indeed a club champion-type who hits the ball 280 from the tee, he can show his prowess. If Biden indeed is a 6, or even a 10 handicap, he can prove it. Whether either has the stamina to be President, will be quickly shown as they trudge up and down Saukie’s ravines. And just in case the ravines prove to be too much for either man, the political parties could pay for paramedics and ambulances to stand by. And perhaps, the candidates could have a side bet: the loser drops out of the Presidential race.

It is time for these two guys to “put up, or shut up.”

Now a few thoughts about other “statements” made at the debate:

1. President Biden’s stated that he was "the only President this century" and "this decade" that did not have any troops "dying anywhere in the world." Were not 13 killed during the Afghan pullout? 3 more in Iran? Was that knowingly-made false statement of fact? A mere opinion? A mere lapse of memory?

2. President Trump’s claim that before Covid we had “the greatest economy that we've had in our history, the best.” False statement of fact made knowingly? Trump’s opinion? Obvious political puffing?

3. President Biden claimed that “The U.S. economy added 15 million jobs between the time U.S. President Joe Biden took office and May 2024.”

As per Snopes: “As the U.S. economy kept on recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, it had gained 15.6 million jobs as of May 2024. However, about 9 million of those jobs were lost during the pandemic, so the net jobs gain from pre-pandemic levels was 6.2 million.”

Was Biden expressing a mere opinion? If he was making a statement of fact, was it a material misstatement of fact to take credit for 15 million jobs, when only 6.2 were new jobs? A lie? Would an honest man have stated the case the way Snopes did?

4. Trump’s statement that the Ukraine War and the War in Gaza would have never happened had he been President. Statements of fact? Or self-serving opinion? Unprovable either way?

My point is this: politicians who knowingly lie are scoundrels unworthy of election. Politicians who merely give opinions are the norm. But are politicians who state “opinions” without factual underpinnings, in the face of clear, contrary underlying facts, tantamount to liars?

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on July 3, 2024. 
Copyright 2024, John Donald O'Shea