Dear Editor:
I found Robert Murphree’s letter to the editor (September 29, 2023) disturbing. He states that the Northside Sun is entitled to its own opinions, but not its own facts. I certainly don’t disagree with that. However in the next paragraph Mr. Murphree insinuates without evidence that Joe Biden was paid millions to assist in removing a Ukrainian prosecutor former President Trump approved of. The facts (or evidence) indicate Joe Biden was not paid anything, much less millions, and that the prosecutor was corrupt. Mr. Murphree substituted opinion for facts.
His next opinion was that any investigation in which Nancy Pelosi and Bennie Thompson participated is not valid. In his own words such a conclusion is "barren of fairness, honesty, and impartiality.”
He goes on to question the validity of the 2020 presidential election. The facts are that after a GOP supported recount in Arizona, a Wisconsin recount to which Donald Trump contributed $3,000,000, a recount in Georgia overseen by a Republican secretary of state, and over 60 court cases no evidence of significant voting fraud was found. These are facts, not opinion. A prominent news organization was found liable for $787,500,000 for not recognizing these findings as facts.
I agree with your belief that the rule of law is the only structure that separates our country from banana republics and third world countries. However slandering judges and threatening court staff weakens the rule of law. The assault that Trump has launched against our judicial system puts America’s rule of law in jeopardy.
In a recent statement John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff and a retired Marine general who lost a son in Afghanistan, described Trump as "a person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea of what America is all about. … A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”
You end your letter by saying these are not normal times. They may or may not be, but they are our times. You assert we need a "leader with the strongest of strong personalities, one whom the slings and arrows from the champions of the status quo will not deter. Donald Trump is that person.”
In the 1930s Germany was looking for just such a person. They found him in Adolf Hitler. In the end it did not go well for Germany or our world. Choosing Donald Trump would likewise not end well for America or our world.
George Schimmel, M. D.
