Republicans Have A History Of Treason Going Back To Nixon

I keep hearing commentators saying this collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian spy agencies is an unprecedented act of duplicity, and possibly treason.

Unprecedented?

Is it unprecedented for an official from a presidential campaign to undermine the foreign policy of a president who is still in office?

No. It appears to be a Republican habit. There are now three instances where Republican presidential campaigns have committed treason in order to win an election. The first two they got away with. They won their election through treachery. This time they won the election (or partly won the election) but it's unclear how long their "winner" will remain in the White House. His campaign staff and White House staff already are deeply implicated in a pattern of collusion with Russia and the Russian spy agencies. It now appears the Trump campaign and Republican officials were working with the Russians all along.

Reporting from CNN

Reporting from TIME

In 1968 The Johnson administration was close to reaching a peace agreement in Vietnam, which would likely have swung the election to Hubert Humphrey. But Nixon's campaign sent Madame Anna Chennault, a Republican ally with close ties to the president of South Vietnam, to sabotage the peace effort. Chennault was successful. The peace process was set back by several years and thousands more American soldiers were wounded, maimed and killed. But Nixon was elected president.

Smithsonian Magazine published this summary of the Nixon treason

This was never disclosed to the American people, but President Johnson was aware of it and discussed what he called Nixon's treason with Republican Senator Everett Dirksen. Audio from the BBC

In 1980 American diplomatic personnel were being held hostage in Iran. President Cart was working hard to gain their release, and the campaign between Carter and Reagan was too close to call. Reagan's campaign feared what they called "An October Surprise" that would swing the election to Carter. Stories circulated at the time and have circulated ever since that Reagan sent William Casey to Iran to prevent Iran from releasing the hostages. Instead of Carter succeeding, which would likely have helped him win re-election, Reagan got Iran to hold the hostages months longer and release them as he was sworn into office. Which may help explain the easy complicity Reagan was able to achieve with Iran during the Iran Contra period, when he illegally traded arms for hostages and used the proceeds to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua. Bill Casey, who allegedly sabotaged the Iran hostage release in 1980 became Reagan's CIA director in 1981.

The Christian Science Monitor reported on this story in 1991.

The publication Washington Report on Middle East Affairs reported on it in 1987.

Counterpunch's Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero wrote this summary of the Casey-Reagan-Iran treason in 2014.

(Few remember that it was Reagan's quick retreat after the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon that emboldened the various terrorist groups in the Middle East for years thereafter. The New Yorker's Jane Mayer called this episode Reagan's Benghazi, but it was far worse and had far more explosive and costly consequences than the attack in Benghazi that obsessed congressional Republicans for years.)

Treason, once it becomes useful, becomes a habit. And that habit has far-reaching consequences. American political history is well-known to our enemies abroad and this knowledge informs their strategy. They know who to approach. They know from history that the Republican Party will commit crimes against their own country to advance their political advantage. At every point that treachery causes great harm. At each point it surrenders pieces of American sovereignty and strength. Are we to the point now where our entire independence, our autonomy of action, has been surrendered by the Republican Party?

Give War A Chance

This Iran deal has Republicans upset. The point seems not to be whether it’s a good deal or a wise deal but that it’s a deal reached by a Democrat. And a black Democrat at that.

Scott Walker promises to blow up the deal, no matter what our allies think. (Washington Post)

But even the very conservative Chicago Tribune has these treaty-haters figured out, explaining they'd hate anything Obama did.

The less exciting but more rational experts are also weighing in, saying it’s a better deal than they’d dared hope for. (Mother Jones has links to all of them)

The consensus among experts who didn't plan the War in Iraq is that the deal is a good one.

(Slate)

(Vox)

All the rightside pundits are alarmed. Is it because an Iran deal would decrease the likelihood of another profitable war? Apparently.

(Peggy Noonan)

Of course Ms. Noonan’s hero and former boss, Ronald Reagan, did business with Iran. He did business with them, cut a deal with them, even before he was president. He arranged that Iran would hold the American’s hostage until he was sworn into office. Clever move. It probably got Reagan elected. (Reagan's Secret Help-The-Hostage-Takers Deal from 1979)

But Reagan didn’t stop there. He later sold the Iranians weapons to arm their mideast terrorist allies. He did it secretly, and used the proceeds to arm our own terrorists in Central America. Again, secretly, because it was illegal to do so. (Iran-Contra)

Those involved were criminals. But they were pardoned. And many of them are now criticizing Obama’s nuclear disarmament deal with Iran. They seem to like arming Iran, but don’t like disarming Iran.

Former congresswoman Bachmann is ever ready with the inapt comparison. Such an unfortunate mouth on that woman. (Mrs. Bachmann compares Obama to a psychopathic mass murderer)

On this Easter weekend you have to wonder if the superChristians in the superpatriotic Republican Party are disappointed because the Middle East might not deliver the full scale global war that prophecy has promised them. You know, the one that means that Jesus is coming again to sort out the dead.

Republicans don’t like peace. They don’t like calm prosperity. They like ructions and chaos and financial collapse. Why? Because it’s more profitable of course. Profitable for their clients. Profitable for their chums who’ve bought short positions on the U.S. and the world. The calamatists who’ve been squirreling away all that gold expecting it to zoom up when the edifice collapses again. They love a nice spectacular collapse. They know how to profit from collapse. When things go really really bad, they're clients will still get rich selling weapons.

Are they Nixonians or Confederates?

47 Republican senators sent a letter to Iranian leaders warning them not to sign any nuclear agreement with President Obama, saying they would not honor such an agreement after Obama left office. This sort of thing is not supposed to occur. Party politics are supposed to end at the water’s edge. But this sort of thing has happened before.

Vox does a good job of summarizing here.

In 1968, the Nixon campaign worried that President Johnson’s peace negotiations would succeed in ending the Vietnam War and win Humphrey the election. So Nixon sent an envoy to South Vietnam and persuaded the South Vietnamese to scuttle the peace talks, saying Nixon would give them a better deal when he was elected. He was elected, probably because the talks failed (it was a very close election) and the war went on for several more years, costing hundreds of thousands more lives, and ripping our nation apart.

When the evidence became public years later, Politico reported it here.

In 1980 the Reagan campaign worried that President Carter might be successful in negotiating the release of the hostages held in Iran, helping his re-election effort. So Reagan sent an envoy to persuade the Iranians to hold the hostages because Reagan would give them a better deal when he was elected. He was elected. The hostages were released the day he was sworn in.

The fairly complete story of the Reagan scheme is told here.

Reagan went on to do other deals with the Iranians who took American hostages. He traded arms for hostages. Those arms were used by Mideast terrorists. The profits from the arms sales were funneled to our own terrorist death squads in Central America. When he was elected, George H. W. Bush pardoned everyone involved in this illegal activity. Some of them served in the George W. Bush administration, where they were involved in the justification of torture and other unAmerican policies.

Because the Iran Contra Affair played out in public, we can see the film footage. Reagan pled forgetfulness and was anointed a saint by the Republican Party.

Republicanism

The author of this op-ed piece in the Des Moines Register served for eight years in the George W. Bush administration. He says the GOP has become a party of extremists.

Here's another lifelong dyed-in-the-wool Republican wondering what the hell happened to his party.

On a lighter note, this woman was chosen by the GOP as their best candidate for Vice President in 2008. (This video is a hoot, as is she.) She’s still a marquee draw at all conservative and Republican confabs. What message does that send?

I’ll let noted communist sympathizer George Will tell about where this whole Nixonian legacy began in 1968.

This is where this sorry history began. (You didn’t read about deep skullduggery in the Eisenhower years. Not domestically anyway. We know what happened in Iran and Guatemala.) In 1968 Nixon wanted so badly not to lose again that he sabotaged a truce that had been arranged between North and South Vietnam. It would have saved many thousands of American and Vietnamese lives, but it would have helped Humphrey win the presidency. What followed? Watergate. Bill Casey arranging for the Iranians to hold American hostages till after Reagan was sworn in as president. Iran Contra. The appointment of George W. Bush by the Supreme Court after the halt of the Florida recount. And today we have a Republican Party that proudly opposes everything done by the elected government of the United States, modeling their opposition on the Taliban and on the Confederacy.

The GOP and Bowe Bergdahl

It’s shameful when a political party uses war to make its own motives seem nobler. And to disparage and question the loyalty and rubbish the reputations of others who disagree with them. There is something cowardly and genuinely evil in this. In recent years we’ve seen one political party that engages in this kind of underhanded behavior and another that doesn’t. One party that accuses others of cutting and running when they themselves cut and ran. And in doing so created all the negative consequences that came after. (Article about Reagan's Cut and Run in Foreign Policy Magazine)


We have one party that condemns the president for “negotiating with terrorists” when the great hero of their party did the same thing. Worse, in fact: he traded missiles to those terrorists to obtain the release of hostages, and funneled the money left over to extremist gangs of his own in Central America. It was all against the law and contrary to his own policy. (How Reagan traded arms to Iranian terrorists in exchange for hostages)

(When questioned about it Saint Ronald said he didn’t remember what he’d authorized. But, heck, just about every president has negotiated with shadowy and downright evil enemy groups. Our own Minute Men were called terrorists during the American Revolution. Labels get us nowhere. Negotiation sometimes works where war does not.)


Republicans accuse others of cynical trickery when they own the patent on it, delaying the release of American prisoners in order to win an election, not once but twice. Nixon won a close election by scuttling peace talks in Vietnam. Reagan won in 1980 by making sure Americans remained in captivity for several months till he was safely elected and sworn in.

(The New York Times article about how the Reagan Campaign kept Americans in captivity in Iran so he could win the election.)

(The Smithsonian Magazine article about how Nixon derailed peace in Vietnam so he could win election in 1968, and keep the war going for another six years.)

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised how low Republicans have gone to turn the traditional exchange of POWs at the end of a war into a shameful, even an impeachable, act. They were all in favor of it till President Obama got it done.

(SLATE article about how Republicans supported Bergdahl's release until the president got it done.)

They were demanding it until it happened. Then it became an impeachable offense. Did the GOP delete its thoughts and prayers for Bergdahl and his family? How's that done exactly?

(USAToday article detailing how GOP politicians deleted the Tweets they'd posted demanding the White House get Bergdahl released.)

Think you know all about Sgt. Bowie Bergdahl? You should read the Rolling Stone article about him, published in 2012. He was a serious, idealistic, brave, confused soldier who grew disillusioned with the mission and felt dishonored by the shabby disrespectful way his platoon mates treated the Afghan civilian population. In other words, he was a lot like a lot of other GIs in previous wars. Maybe after reading this you ought to pick up Joseph Heller’s WW2 novel Catch22 or Tim OBrien’s Going After Cacciato or The Things They Carried. War is hell. Or read The Red Badge of Courage. Those who haven’t been in war have little idea of it.

(Rolling Stone's excellent and thorough article about Bowe Bergdahl's military career.)

Oliver North, the pardoned felon who violated the law to trade arms to terrorists for hostages and used the extra cash to fund death squads in Central America, should know as much about ransoming hostages as anyone, but he’s been a political hit man a lot longer than he was a soldier.

(Salon article about Ollie North's slippery changeable position on dealing with terrorists.)

He’s saying the crime in the Bergdahl case was in NOT covering it up. I guess Nixon made an impression on someone.

The Cheney/Rove/Cruz/Palin/Limbaugh/Hannity anger machine would rather you not read the Bush White House memos that gave legal cover for this kind of transaction.

(Ironically, the jurist who wrote the Bush memo justifying torture also laid the legal ground for getting Bowe Bergdahl back.)

As if the exchange of prisoners at the end of hostilities ever needed legal justification. It’s simply always been done. Not doing it would put you in the same club with North Korea and whoever it was that imprisoned the Count of Monte Cristo.

John McCain demanded the White House do all it could to obtain Bowe Bergdahl’s release…. until the White House obtained his release. Then McCain condemned it as a shameful, treasonous and foolish act.

But wars always end in controversy and disagreement. John Kerry was crucified by other vets, envious of his heroism and resentful that he later opposed the war in Vietnam. They were fortunate to have wealthy Republicans bankrolling them.

McCain has been accused by less well-funded veterans’ and MIA groups for his scornful treatment of their concerns.

(Some of McCain's fellow Vietnam vets find his record in that war to be despicable and treasonous. But they weren't funded by wealthy backers of his political opponents so they haven't been on the nightly network newscasts.)

Which was surprising since McCain was a POW himself… Some who were in captivity with him have accused him of treason. Perhaps the charges are flimsy, perhaps not. The passage of time has forgiven a lot of former warriors for what they did, and sometimes what they did was done because of what was done to them.

(An alternative weekly in Arizona published this article about McCain's checkered military career. The man lives in a glass house.)

The point is… it’s objectionable to question other soldiers’ loyalty when your own loyalty and behavior under fire has been questioned.

It’s worse when politicians who have never put themselves in harm’s way in the service of their country are seating themselves in judgment of the motives or actions of actual soldiers and captives and their families. It’s shameful.

War makes even the bravest men and women disillusioned.

(The Guardian's article about the GOP's favorite Iraq War hero, Pat Tillman.)

(NPR's story about Tillman, when the Tillman biography came out.)

None of this is new, so why are we outraged? Because of the FoxNews outrage machine. But that machine is aimed at the wrong outrage. War is an outrage in itself. There are certainly good wars undertaken for noble reasons, but war is Hell, as General Sherman said. And there are a lot of shabby motives for it. As General Smedley Butler, America's most decorated veteran, once said.

(General Smedley Butler's famous "War is a Racket" speech.)

You may remember Smedley Butler's name. He was the war hero who certain Wall Street executives tried to hire to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt. He wanted nothing to do with it and told reporters and Congress all about the plot.

(The BBC did a documentary about the Wall Street Coup. For some reason the story got little play in this country. Perhaps because President Bush's grandfather was one of the plotters.)

Some Quotes Worth Posting

"Data worth pondering:
S&P 500 index:
1-20-93: 433.37
1-20-01: 1342.54
1-20-09: 805.22
Latest: 1432.84
Draw your own conclusions."
~Bruce Bartlett, former Reagan economic advisor

"ObamaCare. RomneyDon't." (Seen on a wall.)

"Mitt Romney was not a businessman; he was a master financial speculator who bought, sold, flipped, and stripped businesses. He did not build enterprises the old-fashioned way—out of inspiration, perspiration, and a long slog in the free market fostering a new product, service, or process of production. Instead, he spent his 15 years raising debt in prodigious amounts on Wall Street so that Bain could purchase the pots and pans and castoffs of corporate America, leverage them to the hilt, gussy them up as reborn “roll-ups,” and then deliver them back to Wall Street for resale—the faster the better. That is the modus operandi of the leveraged-buyout business, and in an honest free-market economy, there wouldn’t be much scope for it because it creates little of economic value." ~David Stockman, Director of Office of Management and Budget in Reagan White House

"Conservatism's mansion has many rooms, and all of them are padded." Charlie Pierce

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they've been fooled." ~Mark Twain

“What worries me is the idea that we’re in a vicious cycle. Increasing inequality means a weaker economy, which means increasing inequality, which means a weaker economy. That economic inequality feeds into political economy, so the ability to stabilize the economy gets weaker.” ~Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize economist

"The traditional third-party mantra, "There's no significant difference between the major parties" amounts to saying: "The Republicans are no worse, overall." And that's absurd. It constitutes shameless apologetics for the Republicans, however unintended. It's crazily divorced from present reality." ~Daniel Ellsberg

"In the eight to twelve close-fought states -- especially Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, but also Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin -- for any progressive to encourage fellow progressives and others in those states to vote for a third-party candidate is, I would say, to be complicit in facilitating the election of Romney and Ryan, with all its consequences." ~Daniel Ellsberg

“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy.” ~George Orwell, 1984

"Many people think that Congress regulates Wall Street, but in fact it is Wall Street that regulates Congress. Virtually no piece of legislation can pass through Congress unless it has the okay from corporate America and big money interests."~Bernie Sanders, Independent, VT

"Let me warn you, and let me warn the nation, against the smooth evasion that says, 'Of course we believe all these things. We believe in social security. We believe in work for the unemployed. We believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things! But we do not like the way the present administration is doing them....'" FDR

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country…. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed." ~Abraham Lincoln

"Every good citizen ought to do everything in his or her power to prevent the coming of the day when we shall see in this country two recognized creeds fighting one another, when we shall see the creed of the "Havenots" arraigned against the creed of the "Haves." -- Theodore Roosevelt, October 14, 1912

"Love how the GOP, after bringing the economy to the brink of ruin in 2008, are now acting like someone else farted." ~Andy Borowitz

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything." ~Alexander Hamilton

"A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing." ~Alexander Hamilton

"Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things." ~Alexander Hamilton

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." ~Ambrose Bierce

“The "Trickle-Down" Theory: the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.” ~William Blum

"A President Romney would push legislation, sign it, reverse it, reinstate it, deny it was ever passed, veto it retroactively, then prosecute it aggressively." ~Pasquino

"Why is it that if you take advantage of a corporate tax break you're a smart businessman, but if you take advantage of something so you don't go hungry you're a moocher?" ~Jon Stewart

''You can say anything you want during a debate and 80 million people hear it. If reporters then document that a candidate spoke untruthfully, ''so what?'' ~Peter Teeley, press secretary to Vice President Bush, 1984

"If these stories are true these men are not bankers, they are banksters who rob the poor, drive the innocent to poverty and suicide and do infinite injury to those who honestly work and strive. Worse than that, they are traitors to our institutions and national ideas." ~Herbert Hoover, upon learning of the predatory practices of Wall Street bankers before, during and after the Crash of 1929.

“All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.” ~Congressman Paul Broun, Republican from Georgia, member of the House Science Committee

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." Voltaire

"The institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.” ~Republican State Rep. Jon Hubbard of Jonesboro, Arkansas

"The good journalist must recognize in Fascism certain ancient virtues of the race, whether or not they happen to be momentarily fashionable in his own country. Among these are Discipline, Duty, Courage, Glory, Sacrifice." FORTUNE magazine, July 1934

"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people." ~Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations 1776

"People who dismiss the unemployed and dependent as ‘parasites’ fail to understand economics and parasitism. A successful parasite is one that is not recognized by its host, one that can make its host work for it without appearing as a burden. Such is the ruling class in a capitalist society.” ~Jason Read

"The moneyed elite in this country are dragging a bag filled with your future down the steps, and [the Republican base's] reaction is, 'Hold on there, that looks heavy. Let me give you a hand getting it into your trunk.'" ~Bill Maher

"Here's a guy who comes from a millionaire family, goes through elite schools, has all the breaks in life, and he is lecturing working families, people who are on Social Security and Medicare, about personal responsibility. Well, these are people, who in some cases have served in the military, defended our country, raised kids, worked 40 or 50 or 60 hours a week, they know life. They don't want to be lectured by some millionaire guy talking to his millionaire friends about personal responsibility." ~Senator Bernie Sanders on Mitt Romney

"My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives." ~Mitt Romney

Reagan Economic Advisor Debunks the Biggest Tax Myth

Former Reagan economic adviser Bruce Bartlett only needs a minute to debunk the prevailing notion that keeping taxes lower on rich people creates growth and jobs.

Low taxes on the rich do NOT result in growth and jobs. That's a myth.

Well, actually it's a lie. An expensive lie paid for by the rich who had their taxes lowered by G W Bush, which contributed to the economic crisis. A lie perpetuated by the Romney campaign, possibly because Romney and Ryan are extremely rich and prefer to have their tax rate lower than ordinary working people.

Higher taxes on the rich do NOT result in economic decline or recession or loss of jobs or growth. Quite the opposite. Reagan raised taxes in 1982 and the economy did better. Clinton raised taxes in 1993 and the economy boomed. It was the longest peacetime boom in American history.

So saying low taxes on rich people is a good idea is a myth. A lie. A big lie. A dangerous lie.

Think about it. This isn't the opinion of some socialist elitist European professor. It's the evidence based argument of Ronald Reagan's economic adviser, Bruce Bartlett.

Why aren't the pundits and the newspeople on TV listening to him or considering the mass of evidence? Maybe because they are rich and prefer to have their taxes lowered.

Share this information with your Republican or independent brother-in-law. It may persuade him. Or it may cause his head to explode, which would make him ineligible to vote in this election.

The Day the Middle Class Died

Today's must-read is from Michael Moore. Sometimes he's a bit annoying. Sometimes he's a blowhard. Sometimes he goes too far (endorsing Nader over Gore). Sometimes he's right. He's right about this.

The Premeditated Murder of the American Middle Class

This headline isn't from a lefty blogger, it's from Investors' Business Daily:

10-Year Real Wage Gains Worse Than During Depression.

Did you wonder how the American economy went bad? Look no further. The vast majority of Americans are nervous, underpaid, and either out of work or working harder than ever. This does not make for a robust consumer economy. When you starve the majority of incomes it has consequences.

The middle class isn't just done, it's been ruled irrelevant. So says Advertising Age. With flat incomes and rising necessary expenses on fuel, housing, education, healthcare and food, their disposable incomes have disappeared. Without money to spend you don't matter anymore.

The engine of the great American prosperity 1945-1975 was a prosperous working and middle class. The two were practically the same thing. Reaganomics ended that by flattening middle class incomes, killing unions and shifting the tax burden off the rich and onto the middle class taxpayer. Reagan accomplished this with the willing help of millions of American workers.

Today's GOP is outdoing Reagan, though, mounting an all-out assault on the American middle class, while protecting the very small, very rich upper class. A lot of Americans still vote Republican out of habit, out of team spirit, out of obedience to the dog whistle.

The middle class Republican has to swallow a lot of outright lies. Self deception is something you learn to do, and if you practice for a long time you get good at it. Being obedient helps. This GOP ability to lie and get away with it is remarkable enough it's written about in places like Forbes.

Who is really paying taxes? We (the working and middle classes) are. They (the rich) are not. Yet the sacredness of upper class tax cuts remains the keystone of Republican politics.

The reason for the current deficit? Reducing taxes on those who've taken all the income increases over the past generation and a half, while increasing taxes on those whose incomes have stalled–––on most Americans. The Republican policy is to protect and help the few who need no help or protection while leaving the less fortunate, most of us, unprotected and unhelped. Sometimes it's worthwhile to listen to a Nobel economist.

The debt, run up by Bush and compounded by the collapse Bush and his Republican policies precipitated, makes the current situation worse. It takes chutzpah to make debt an issue when your own party created it. If you like massive debt––Vote Republican.

Ronald Reagan and Zombies

I think it was Yogi Berra who said "You see interesting things by looking."

Imagine Ronald Reagan and Zombies.

Nick Coleman had something relevant to say. When doesn't he have something relevant to say? I guess that's why the Strib let him go.

For the deciders of the Republican party it's about making rich people richer and tax-free.

They get there by serving up hatreds and worries to their hysterical, gullible base.