This article was first published on June 29 but taken down the next day after a legal threat from Lachlan Murdoch. We have chosen to republish it as part of a series about this legal threat and about how media power works in Australia. For the series introduction go here, and for the full series go here.
The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol has already exposed extensive evidence of a plot by Donald Trump and his co-conspirators to overturn the 2020 presidential election result. But yesterday’s evidence by Cassidy Hutchinson, the former senior aide to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, has confirmed his treachery and violent intent.
Hutchinson’s evidence shows that Trump was aware of how heavily armed many of the attendees of his rally and planned march on the Capitol building were on January 6 — “I don’t fucking care that they have weapons,” he said — and that he intended all along to lead them in the march until prevented by his own driver (whom, Hutchinson claimed to have heard was physically attacked by Trump). She also says her boss, Meadows, said that Trump believed protesters were right to call for the hanging of then vice-president Pence for refusing to overturn the result on January 6.
Trump’s crimes go beyond attempting to subvert the election outcome and now extend to inciting an armed mob to march on the Capitol to physically prevent the confirmation of the outcome — a mob he intended to lead himself, and whose murderous intent he thought was appropriate.
But despite claims that Trump and his circle are shocked at Hutchinson’s testimony — he is now trying to downplay her role, despite her occupying a key position in the functioning of his inner sanctum — will this confirmation of Trump’s unhinged nature and enthusiasm for an armed mob dent his popular support or political support within the Republican Party?
If you’re a Trump supporter at this point, it’s unlikely any revelation about him will shift your allegiance. For many of his fans, the image of him trying to wrest the steering wheel of his limousine in order to drive it to lead the march is exactly the one they already have of him — a man determined to break any rule necessary to take charge. It is the very transgressive nature of Trump’s actions that, far from alienating his supporters, bind them ever more closely to him — they serve as a demonstration of his commitment to deliver for them, no matter what the cost, even if he tramples on democracy and the rule of law, and costs people their lives.
And politically, large parts of the GOP remain in thrall to Trump. Despite claims that his influence has downgraded from outright control to merely being the most potent voice, and the rise of an even more extreme “MAGA” movement that doesn’t take its direction from Trump, his endorsement is still eagerly sought by Republicans and his criticism feared. He remains, far and away, the preferred choice of Republican voters for the 2024 presidential election.
Comparisons with Watergate or any previous political scandal in the US are meaningless. Trump might share profound personality flaws and psychotic characteristics with Richard Nixon, but Nixon — a congressman, then twice elected vice-president and twice elected president — was an establishment political figure.
He felt entitled to break the law, but his actions were those of a paranoiac terrified of what information he didn’t have and that others had within the conventional system of American politics, despite his landslide reelection in 1972. And his actions in covering up Watergate and trying to contain the damage from it so alienated senior members of his party that they turned against him. His resignation — imagine Trump ever resigning — brought the immediate crisis of Watergate to a close, if not the enduring damage it did to government.
None of these applies to Trump. He thinks nothing of the destruction of American democracy itself. Far from avowing “I’m not a crook”, Trump boasted he could murder people in broad daylight and his supporters would still love him. His election loss didn’t bring to an end the crisis he inflicted on the American political system, it simply propelled it into a new and perhaps just as dangerous phase.
And Nixon didn’t have the support of the world’s most powerful media company, which continues — even in the face of mountains of evidence of Trump’s treachery and crimes — to peddle the lie of the stolen election and play down the insurrection Trump created.
If Trump ends up in the dock for a variety of crimes committed as president, as he should be, not all his co-conspirators will be there with him. Nixon was famously the “unindicted co-conspirator” in Watergate. The Murdochs and their slew of poisonous Fox News commentators are the unindicted co-conspirators of this continuing crisis.
When Keane tries to contrast Nixon and Trump he only cites Watergate against Nixon. This omits Nixon’s much worse treachery in working with a foreign government against the USA for his own benefit at the Vietnam peace talks in 1968. This blocked any chance of agreement, prevented the Democrat administration from claiming the credit for ending the war and gave Nixon his victory in the next two elections. It also ensured the war dragged on for another seven years, and during that time the war expanded greatly with both Laos and Cambodia bombed to hell by the USA so their governments collapsed, leading among other things to the genocidal Khmer Rouge taking power in Cambodia. President Johnson knew what Nixon had done but chose not to reveal it because the source was an illegal wiretap. If the evidence had been admissible Nixon could have been arrested, charged and convicted as a traitor, which he was.
So I’m not at all sure Trump is that much worse. Different, certainly.
With a lot of help from Mr Henry Kissinger I believe.
That war criminal, who fearing arrest, doesn’t travel that much these days.
And whose name, inexplicably, is sometimes dropped to demonstrate what venerated circles the speaker once mixed in. I wouldn’t admit we were once in the same room.
Indeed, one of Bernie Sanders’ best lines in the 2016 primary debates was to tell Hillary Clinton that, unlike her, he wouldn’t be consulting Henry Kissinger on anything.
Kissinger inherited a global apparatus constructed by John Foster and Allen Dulles during Eisenhower’s Cold War reign.
War crimes are baked in to American foreign policy. That’s why the US has two pieces of legislation that prohibit Americans from testifying before the International Court of Justice.
It’s why West Papua is not independent. The Dulles brothers scuttled independence so American mining interests could exploit the oil and the gold.
It’s why there are no strong African or South American democracies.
It’s also why Imran Khan is not the prime minister of Pakistan today.
We don’t have these problems in Australia, because we give America everything it wants, and we STFU.
They had to somewhat of a problem in the Whitlam years…but sorted it out with help from from Governor General Kerr, who was not only the Queen’s representative, but part of the Anglo American intelligence establishment.
Kerr was leading light in the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by Jonathan Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, The Crimes of Patriots, as “an elite, invitation-only group … exposed in Congress as being founded, funded and generally run by the CIA”. The CIA “paid for Kerr’s travel, built his prestige … Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money”.(1)
Whitlam had enabled a royal commission into intelligence agencies, headed by Justice Robert Hope in 1974. In the US, the Watergate scandal and hearings had shown CIA involvement in domestic politics, and a further investigatory committee was established, the Church Committee, to investigate such.For security agencies, it was clearly war with elected governments.
This as well as the actions taken by the CIA itself in regard to Pine Gap which allowed global surveillance and also domestic Australian surveillance, even allowing it to monitor anti- Viet Nam Farrago and anti US political activity, within Australia all revealed at the trial of “falcon/snowman” spy Christopher Boyce in 1977(2)
The CIA extended its domestic subversive activities, including the establishment of the Sydney-based Nugan Hand Bank, as a focus for channelling money sourced from drug and arms sales into its campaign of subversion around the world.(3)(4)
The Hope Royal Commission in one of its outcomes made ASIO accountable to the government and thus the Australian people and upset the ASIO applecart to a certain extentthat assisted in the removal of a democratically elected government by initiating the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in 1975 with help from Governor General Kerr, who was not only the Queen’s representative, but part of the Anglo American intelligence establishment.
(1)The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA/Jonathan Kwitny W. W. Norton & Company: New York, NY; 1987
ISBN:9780393336658
LC: HG3448.N846 K95 1987
(2)Boyce claims that he began getting misrouted cables from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) discussing the agency’s desire to depose the government of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in Australia. Boyce claimed the CIA wanted Whitlam removed from office because he wanted to close U.S. military bases in Australia, including the vital Pine Gap secure communications facility, and withdraw Australian troops from Vietnam.
For these reasons some claim that U.S. government pressure was a major factor in the dismissal of Whitlam as Prime Minister by the Governor General, Sir John Kerr, who according to Boyce, was referred to as “our man Kerr” by CIA officers.
Through the cable traffic Boyce saw that the CIA was involving itself in such a manner, not just with Australia but with other democratic, industrialized allies. Boyce considered going to the press, but believed the media’s earlier disclosure of CIA involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup d’état had not changed anything for the better…
(3)The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade/ Alfred W. McCoy, with Cathleen B. Read and Leonard P. Adams II.
New York, NY: Harper & Row:1972
ISBN:0060129018 LC: HV5822.H4 M33 1972
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
Cocaine politics : drugs, armies, and the CIA in Central America: Peter Dale Scott ; Jonathan Marshall
Berkeley : University of California Press, c1991
HV 5840 .C45 S36 1991 ISBN: 0520073126 (
Whiteout : the CIA, drugs and the press Alexander Cockburn ; Jeffrey St. Clair
Paperback ed., London ; New York : Verso, 1999
ISBN:1859841392
LC:
HV 5825 .C59 1999
(4)Killing Hope: US and CIA Interventions since WWII/ William Blum/2004
Common Courage Press;. MNE. USA: ISBN: 9781567512526 LC JK468.I6 B59
An A-Z of the countries that the USA has interfered with in the name of “freedom” by assassinations, coups, meddling in internal politics, supporting dictators, jihadis, terrorists or just plain straight out invasion…
It has also been recently revealed that the then chief of CIA Counterintelligence from 1954 to 1975, James Jesus Angleton, in the year before the Dismissal had already wanted to have the Whitlam Government removed from power…as Brian Toohey relates in his new publication, SECRET*… he obtained such information from John Walker the CIA chief of station in Australia during the Whitlam years… which is also confirmed… as Angleton said so in an interview with the ABC’s Correspondant’s Report in 1977. In the same interview, Angleton discussed how CIA funding in Australian politics and unions was handle.
*SECRET The Making of Australia’s Security State/Brian Toohey
Melbourne University Press. 2019
ISBN 9780522872804 LC:JQ4029.S4 T66 2019
.grâce à wikipedia. LC, et al.
Many thanks for this excellent summary and further reading links. The more you read about US treachery and chicanery, the more you realise what a deadly dangerous defence ally they are.
I have been a sous chef, greenskeeper, IT mostly Mac but my last position as working stiff was at an Academic Library
During my 15 or so years there I chased up “stuff” around the world for a wide range of post grads, postdocs and academics in fields across Anatomy to Zoology.
This led to some very interesting discussions with intelligent,widely read and generous people.
Some was to do with what I have addressed in my pieces here.
When I had to submit answers to requests by those varied clients it was facts backed up by accurate citations and references.
Thank you, Hayward. Loved reading about your own very interesting background, and just want to add my appreciation to Fairmind’s for your generous sharing and the links you provided.
One for the conspiracy theorists! The Anglican pacifist priest Fr Frank Coldrake was elected Archbishop of Brisbane during the Vietnam days.
He died before he could assume that position of a “heart attack” after he stated that he now had his own pulpit ( he was then chairman of the Anglican Board of Missions) and could now act on his views on war!
He would have been hated by the governments of both Australia & USA
That is interesting, I might dig further!
The late former PM Malcolm Fraser’s book ‘Dangerous Allies’ is worth reading too.
Towards the end of his life, a journalist quipped the Fraser would now make a good leader for the Labor Party, with his empathy for the underprivileged.
He replied that his views were now far “too left wing” for Labor. Sadly, how true.
ASIO involvement in the 1970’s CIA coup against Allende in Chile, is now proven. Whitlam ordered the ASIO involvement stopped. The CIA have long memories and take no prisoners.
And now, our new Government displays the usual gutlessness in the face of US multinational rape of our oil and gas resources, for FREE. Who are the mugs here….we, the public…..as usual.
Let’s not overlook. Pending territorial option re NT militarisation. Sea and, land.
Agreed for he was known as Tricky DIcky for many other reasons well before those actions that you mentioned apart from the Watergate linked crimes.
The Southern Strategy comes to mind where GOP politicians when as presidential candidates, Nixon following on from Goldwater, developed strategies that successfully contributed to the political realignment of those who had traditionally supported the Democratic Party.
GOP leaders consciously appealed to many white Southerners’ racial grievances in order to gain their support. This leading to many white, conservative voters helping to push the Republican Party much more to the right relative to the 1950s.
Rick Perlstein’s books “Before the Storm” (the Goldwater campaign in 1964), “Nixonland”, “The Invisible Bridge” (the fall of Nixon and the rise of Reagan), and Reaganland all bear reading as a record of the rise of the Radical Right in the US.
Ta, have read Nixonland and The invisible Bridge but must now dig up a copy of Before the Storm!
Madam Chennault,the wife of staunch republican Clare Chenault famous for the flying Tigers, with overtures to South Vietnamese US ambassador Bui Diem to deliberately slow the peace negotiations taking place in Paris as the South Vietnamese were advised they would get a better deal under Nixon.
Alas Johnson also had some responsibility as he refused to publicly endorse Hubert Humphrey for the presidency until it was too late and Nixon won the presidency by fewer than 100,000 votes. The whole episode is a sordid forgotten history of the late 60’s
Johnson escalated the Vietnam war before JFK’s body was cold.
His backers made a fortune.
D. Harold Byrd, an early Johnson backer and the owner of the Texas Book Depository building, where Lee Harvey Oswald worked, made $50 million by buying shares in the company awarded the fighter jet contract, LTV, in November 1963.
Good timing.
One of the conspiracy theories concerning why the the JFK Assassination occurred concerns the National Security Action Memorandum Number 263 (NSAM-263)
This national security directive approved on 11 October 1963by JFK, also recommended by Secretary of Defence McNamara and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Taylor had that due to the success in South Viet Nam 1,000 military personnel could be withdrawn by the end of 1963, and that a “major part of the U.S. military task can be completed by the end of 1965.” The U.S. at this time had more than 16,000 military personnel in South Vietnam.
Kissinger, still widely respected, played a big part in Nixon’s treachery in STOPPING the 1968 peace negotiations.
Nixon also shot “4 dead in Ohio”.
If you concern yourself at all you ought to concern yourself with ALL the facts.
Nixon was murderous toward his people and did so.
Carpet bombing Cambodia ? Clear psychopathy at play there.
You really think Trump is equivalent ?? , give some examples alike to Nixon’s “other” activities.
Even the ludicrous January 6 (so called) meeting witness { witless ? } claim of
Trump “grabbing at the steering wheel” was debunked immediately by the “witness” admitting she was
Two of the security detail, named as being in the car, have said they saw no grab at the wheel and one of them was the actual driver..
When actual ‘Justice Court acceptable’ evidence comes forward I’ll gladly join the chorus.
Fair go ? Fair suck of the sauce boddle.
Putin certainly approved of Donny.
Nixon murdered US citizens,
he murdered countless millions of Cambodians directly with the carpet bombing over a period of 14 months,
in secret and
by allowing – if not encouraging – the Pol Pot regime to go in and knowing that they would not be challenged on ANYTHING they chose to do.
Can you show me and all others just exactly how you can be
so “.. not at all sure Trump is that much worse. ..”
Worse ?? , give us all a break.
You are simplemindedly upgrading Nixon’s status in your ludicrous proposition that Trump is a murderous individual.
You have no idea what I said. You do not understand English. You are barking up a tree that is not there. Give us all a break.
I’m certain Keane is right to discount any chance of the Republicans removing their support from Trump, although there’s a good chance they will transfer that support to whoever is ready to pick up the baton from Trump and continue down the same road; DeSantis is the most likely at present. All revelations that damage Trump personally will not change the direction of the Republicans, they simply help DeSantis gather their support.
The Republicans and all their supporters are not worrried about all this fuss. They understand their insurrection and treachery will end once they take power again, because at that point John Harington’s famous words from four hundred years ago apply once more:
Treason doth never prosper; what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
Brilliant quote, thank you
From what I understand DeSantis has stated that he won’t run if Trump does.
And for what it’s worth, I have the same skepticism of the Democrats as I do the Republicans. Both are beholden to the wealthy, both treat the people of the US like dirt.
If DeSantis has said that, it shows the right sort of cunning. He has nothing to gain from any direct confrontation with Trump’s rusted-on supporters for now, while he concentrates on building his own support. DeSantis would be a fool to make a move before Trump says he’s in the race. Even then, it would probably be worth waiting as long as possible while Trump picks up more and more damage. Then DeSantis can say the latest revelations forced him to throw his hat in the ring after all, and away we go…
I actually don’t believe that. The US has a massive gerrymander operating with Montana having the same representation as California. The Democrats have not had any power to do much at all for a very long time. McConnell’s main objection was to prohibit Obama from achieving any policy. The watered down “Obamacare” was more than anu had seen previously and the Republicans have desperately tried to dismantle. They have also handed tax concessions to the wealthy. Biden’s plans were to benefit all Americans. Beware false equivalences. They are not the same parties.
And that takes it back to the US Constitution and its framers… land before people!
“The Founding Fathers were not interested in democracy, in fact, in a country with 3 1/4 million people, which is about what we were at the time of the separation from the UK only 700,000 people could vote — white males of property. So it’s never been terribly democratic. …and they put together a constitution which would protect property for all time. No nonsense about democracy!”
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia” Documentary, 2013.
The Constitution was framed to protect the landed and wealthy of the then original 13 Colonies. It was written by the Founding Fathers to ensure that such landholdings, which in then what what was to become the USA were the wealth of the country, would be left in the hands of those already owning such. In fact many of the Founding Fathers were those very people.
An Electoral College which was constituted to give citizens in less populated and economically unproductive rural states with as many as four times the votes as those as those in more populous and economically productive urban ones, thereby violating the fundamental democratic principle of “one person, one vote;” It can also be alleged that the college was originally instituted and continues to be maintained for explicitly racist and anti-democratic purposes.
The loser of the popular vote has won the electoral college only five times before 2000. The last time such happened was in the mid 1800’s, long before universal franchise. Now it’s happened twice in 16 years and has enabled, inarguably, the two worst presidents in modern American history, both Republican. Dubya, The Faux Texan and as the Scots have it The Radge Orange Bampot!
A Senate, which until in the early part of the 20th century was not elected, Its members were selected by whatever group had control of a state’s legislature. It is there to protect the landed and wealthy class, as James Madison, a two term President of the USA and who was one of the major proponents of the Bill of Rights said this concerning the establishment of the US Senate and it was clearly anti democratic, “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”*
*Statement (1787-06-26) as quoted in Notes of the Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787 by Robert Yates.
There also has never been an equivalent of the Australian Electoral Commission in the USA. All such decisions rest with municipal and state authorities. Hence the Gerrymander, a very descriptive word which has been exercised by politicians of all stripes, now ever more so along with both voter disenfranchisement and voter suppression, in states where Republican based administrations have control.
Gerrymandering is a US ‘invention’ and is abused regularly in the US by politicians and abetted by the judiciary:
https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-allows-states-to-use-unlawfully-gerrymandered-congressional-maps-in-the-2022-midterm-elections-182407
I think you meant that the Republicans’ has a gerrymander.
The US voting system actively discourages voting – our neoliberal’s would love it here and actually made some fumbling attempts to make it so.
Evil is not relative. Take a shower then consider the outcomes.
They’re still fighting the civil war and you make these inane comments.
Hopefully they’ll implode like our NeoLibs have managed locally; If the Grating Ossified Party get in again Australia needs to work out what the most dangerous superpower to be more wary of. I really don’t like the idea of a nuclear powered navy; we need to fully control ALL of our military hardware.
Indeed. If the deal works out Australia will have the honour of sponsoring some of the US Navy’s submarines, at a staggering cost. Wow! What Australia is supposed to do if it needs its own submarines is anybody’s guess.
There is no coercion of the 75million who voted for Trump in 2020, this was an increase of the order of 17% over his victory in 2016.
Of the 88 million who currently follow Trump’s social media, how many are forced to follow?
Trump, on these numbers, is a very good chance for the next election in 2024. The Federal Election Commission in the USA will ensure that the 243 million$$ raised by Trump before July 2021 can only be spent on election campaigning.
The Democrats can’t find anything better than Biden – who may make it to the next election.
When the democracy speaks – listen. Ask President Mister Zelenskyy.
According to Ballotopedia in 2016 many more people voted for a candidate other than Trump, in fact it was close to 9 million.
Results of the U.S. presidential election, 2016
Party. Votes. Electoral College
Democratic 65 844,969 227
Republican 62,979,984. 304
Libertarian 4,492,919. 0
Green 449,3700
Other 1,684,9087
Again according to Ballotopedia in the 2020 election when Trump lost both the Electoral College and the Popular Vote.
The Electoral College by almost the same number as he won in 2016…306 to 232…which Trump then claimed was a “landslide” in 2016.
The Popular Vote by a 7,052,033 , almost twice the number that Clinton received in 2016.
If the other popular votes from the 2020 election are added they amount to another 2,995,551, which means that over 10 million voted for someone other that Trump.
It was only due to the chicanery of the EC that both Dubya, The Faux Texan and The Radge Orange Bampot, as the canny Scots have it, won out as PPOTUS.
The loser of the popular vote has won the EC only five times before 2000. The last time such happened was in the mid 1800’s, long before universal franchise.
Now it’s happened twice in 16 years and has enabled, inarguably, the two worst presidents from the GOP in modern US history
It is hard to dispute you final comment.
Trump revisited could lead to a second civil war.
‘your’
that was a popular quote applied to John Kerr during 1975/76
Blows my mind, how little resistance has been offered to filth like Mitch McConnell, let alone trucking Fump…
Dems just stand there mumbling about bipartisanship while the goddamn scum dissolve the foundations of democracy. WTF
Indeed – Joe Biden is looking increasingly like the Anthony Eden of modern US politics.
The problem there is that the Democrats behave on the whole like rational and reasonable people and have attempted to deal with the former GOP on those principals
One only need look at the activities by GOP with The Southern Strategy, with Goldwater and Nixon, then what Lee Atwater did with Reagan and Bush 1 and finally The Poisonous Newt* to realise that the now GQP as moved even further along that path, for…as David Frum had it…
Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.”
This from a former speech writer for Dubya ,The Faux Texan, who in fact coined the phrase “axis of evil”!
Trumpocracy : the corruption of the American republic / David Frum.
First edition: New York, NY: Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2018]
ISBN: 9780062796738 (hc : alk. paper)
LC: E912 .F78 2018
* Such agressiveness was later ramped by The Poisonous Newt….serial adulterer and Congressional ethics violator… who played a key role in undermining democratic norms in the United States, and hastening political polarisation and partisan prejudice.
In How Democracies Die*, Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky point out that Gingrich’s speakership had a profound and lasting impact on American politics and health of American democracy.
They argue that Gingrich instilled a “combative” approach in the Republican Party, where hateful language and hyper-partisanship became commonplace, and where democratic norms were abandoned.
Gingrich frequently questioned the patriotism of Democrats, called them corrupt, compared them to fascists, and accused them of wanting to destroy the United States. Gingrich furthermore oversaw several major government shutdowns.
And lo, is that not where the now GQP is, corrupt, fascist and wanting to destroy the US?
How Democracies Die: Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt.
First edition. New York, NY : Crown, 2018
ISBN: 9781524762933. 9781524762940 (pbk.)
LC: JC423 .L4855 2018
grâce à Wikipedia, LC et al.
They do not have a majority. State representation is a flagrant embedded gerrymander. Sadly, Manchin and Sinema won’t fall in with their colleagues- their behaviour has been deeply destructive with such a tiny majority. 7 million more Americans voted for Biden but it is not reflected in the representation.
According to Ballotopedia in 2016 many more people voted for a candidate other than Trump, in fact it was close to 9 million.
Results of the U.S. presidential election, 2016
Party. Votes. Electoral College
Democratic 65 844,969 227
Republican 62,979,984. 304
Libertarian 4,492,919. 0
Green 449,3700
Other 1,684,9087
Again according to Ballotopedia in the 2020 election when Trump lost both the Electoral College and the Popular Vote.
The Electoral College by almost the same number as he won in 2016…306 to 232…which Trump then claimed was a “landslide” in 2016.
The Popular Vote by a 7,052,033 , almost twice the number that Clinton received in 2016.
If the other popular votes from the 2020 election are added they amount to another 2,995,551, which means that over 10 million voted for someone other that Trump.
It was only due to the chicanery of the EC that both Dubya, The Faux Texan and The Radge Orange Bampot, as the canny Scots have it, won out as PPOTUS.
The loser of the popular vote has won the EC only five times before 2000. The last time such happened was in the mid 1800’s, long before universal franchise.
Now it’s happened twice in 16 years and has enabled, inarguably, the two worst presidents from the GOP in modern US history
If anyone should be prosecuted for treason it’s Rupert Murdoch, not Julian Assange.
of course, if only for the reason that Murdoch is a US citizen and Assange isn’t – you can’t commit treason against a country you’re not a citizen of … oh wait, I forgot Australia was annexed by the US in 1975 when our democracy was overthrown
Possibly so but there is also a picture in the Reagan presidential library of President Reagan meeting with publisher Rupert Murdoch, U.S. Information Agency Director Charles Wick, lawyer Roy Cohn and his law partner Thomas Bolan in the Oval Office on Jan. 18, 1983.
This was when The Moloch , as I call him, came on side with the Reagan administration and so was then able to become a US citizenin 1985.
“His media assets were critical to the Reagan administration’s ‘public perception’ program aimed at winning support for an aggressive policy of ‘regime change’ in Central America.
This operation was led by the CIA, with a senior operative running the campaign alongside the National Security Council’s (NSC) Lt-Col Oliver North from a building not far from the White House.
North hit the headlines after it was revealed he had been involved in the illegal sale of weapons to Iran and that some of the profits were channeled to support guerilla fighters (the Contras) acting as US proxies to remove the socialist regime in Nicaragua.
Journalist Robert Parry and Peter Kornbluh, an information analyst with the National Security Archive, were among the first to reveal how Reagan created what amounted to America’s first peacetime propaganda ministry.
“The president and his men realised from the start that to oust the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, they would need to neutralise the public opposition to US intervention in the Third World,” they reported in 1988.
“To win this war at home the White House created a sophisticated apparatus that mixed propaganda with intimidation, consciously misleading the American people and at times trampling on the right to dissent.”
Murdoch’s role was confirmed in subsequent reports by Parry whose investigative website Consortiumnews published details of meetings between Murdoch and Reagan in the White House.
The first, on 18 February 1983, was arranged by Murdoch’s lawyer Roy Cohn who counted Donald Trump among his clients. Also in attendance was America’s propaganda tsar Charles Wick, director of the US Information Agency (USIA), who was keen for the administration to invest in satellite technology to counter Soviet propaganda.’
This is an extract from an article by Marshall Wilson, concerning how The Moloch climbed to prominence in the US.
It first appeared in John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations 30 July 2021
That’s generally true, but exceptions turn up here and there. The English accused William Wallace of treason against King Edward I. He responded, “I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject.” Even so he was convicted then hanged, drawn and quartered (strangled by hanging, but released while he was still alive, emasculated, eviscerated with his bowels burned before him, beheaded, then cut into four parts). I suppose a modern equivalent would be if the Russian authorities laid such charges against a citizen of Ukraine for disloyalty to Putin or his government.
Sedition,,,18 U.S. Code CHAPTER 115— TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES
If Trump is indicted it will not matter. The Supreme Court will exonerate him as payment for giving them the gig.
Saying that the US is stuffed as the three pillars of democracy are unworkable.