Eric Zuesse<\/p>\n
(RINF<\/a>) – Was the Cold War against communism, or against Russia? Russia was our ally in World War II, and we\u2019d have a Nazi world today if 26 million Russians<\/span><\/a> hadn\u2019t died from Hitler\u2019s bombs and attacks while Russia fought on with courage amidst desperation, finally to crush his regime.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But Russia was communist, so the Cold War developed after that alliance (the Allies in WW II) ended. Then, Russia abandoned communism in 1990, and ended its own Warsaw Pact military alliance in 1991, while America\u2019s military alliance NATO expanded<\/i> right up to Russia\u2019s borders \u2014 and yet the West claims that Russia and not<\/i> NATO are the \u2018aggressor\u2019 here? Sorry: I don\u2019t get it. I really<\/i> do not. Not at all.<\/span><\/p>\n The Cold War should have ended in 1991 when communism and the Warsaw Pact did, but instead it continued on in the form of NATO (very profitable for what Dwight Eisenhower called \u201cthe military-industrial complex\u201d \u2014 and its U.S. military is also the employer, direct or indirect, of much of our workforce, especially when arms-manufacturers are counted in). And now Donald Trump is being called by haters-of-Trump (who are almost exclusively lovers-of-Hillary) a U.S. national-security risk because he wants to end the Cold War on the U.S. side \u2014 25 years after it had ended in 1991 on the communist side. Oh, it\u2019s still too soon to do that? Really?<\/span><\/p>\n On December 12th, appeared\u00a0a call for a re-do of the election<\/span><\/a> (technically it was a letter to the CIA urging an immediate report to members of the Electoral College on whether Trump is a secret Russian agent or won by means of Russian manipulation of the election), and it was signed by 9 Electoral College electors for Hillary Clinton, and by 1 Electoral College elector for Donald Trump (the latter of whom, Chris Suprun of Texas, had written in the New York Times on December 5th pouring hatred against Trump<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and lauding George W. Bush, who \u201cled us through the tragic days following the [9\/11] attacks. His leadership showed that America was a great nation\u201d \u2014 so we won\u2019t need to wonder what type of President he<\/i> admires).<\/span><\/p>\n “The bipartisan electors’ letter raises very grave issues involving our\u00a0national security,”<\/a><\/span>\u00a0Clinton campaign chair John Podesta said.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Bipartisan\u2019 \u2014 my foot!<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n Democrats (the Party I left during Obama\u2019s second term, as he ratcheted-up fake charges against Russia, and cooperated with the neocons \u2014 most of whom then were Republicans \u2014 to bring the Cold War back to a boil) are trying every trick they can to un<\/i>-do the election\u2019s result, and this is merely their latest such tactic. <\/span><\/p>\n The only valid claim they can make (but they don\u2019t) is that Hillary Clinton (she\u2019s their candidate \u2014 the Obama Administration\u2019s super-neocon and the bloodthirsty hawk who had famously said upon learning of Muammar Gaddafi\u2019s gory ending, \u201cWe came, we saw, he died. Ha ha!\u201d \u2014 oh, wasn\u2019t that a wonderful victory \u2018we\u2019 can all be proud of!) beat Trump by 2% in the popular vote. But that claim is irrelevant under the Constitution. (We\u2019re supposed to be a nation under laws, under the U.S. Constitution \u2014 right?) <\/span><\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first time in our nation\u2019s history when a President was elected who had lost the popular vote. Unless and until we amend our Constitution to impose a popular-vote Presidency (and so to remove the existing regional-state role in the selection of our President and Commander-in-Chief), Donald Trump won the 2016 election. Any Electoral College elector who was sworn prior to the election to vote for a candidate but who after having been elected on that basis, has gone turncoat against that candidate, is turncoat against our nation. He (or she) should consider, in this light, what he has done. He\u2019s turncoat not against Russia, but against America, and against the voters whom that person represents (or is supposed to represent). But, above all, he\u2019s turncoat against the Constitution itself, whose 12th Amendment<\/span><\/a> says of members of the Electoral College:<\/span><\/p>\n \u2026 They shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President. \u2026 The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n The presumption is that each person who \u201cpledged\u201d to vote there for a particular candidate will<\/i> write that person\u2019s name onto one of the 538 ballots and hand it in to be counted for that person, once all of the 538 ballots have been collected and the final tally of the 538 is publicly counted in Congress, in Washington DC.<\/span><\/p>\n If Mr. Suprun fails to honor that commitment or \u201cpledge,\u201d then his only punishment \u2014 if any \u2014 for having done so, will be his own conscience (presuming that he has any), but as far as the law is concerned, he will have committed no crime, and not even a misdemeanor, even though his action on that occasion (his vote in the Electoral College) will have violated his very solemn \u201cpledge,\u201d on the very basis of which pledge he had acquired this awesome right, and extraordinary privilege, in our \u2018democracy\u2019. As an Elector he represents around 600,000 voters, maybe none of whom have even heard his name, and yet he will be their lone voice in selecting America\u2019s next President.<\/span><\/p>\n Though Suprun, and the nine other signatories (among the 538 Electoral College members), might actually believe that, as their letter says, this is about \u201ca foreign power, namely Russia, [which] acted covertly to interfere in the presidential campaign with the intent of promoting Donald Trump\u2019s candidacy,\u201d it\u2019s really about America \u2014 what type of nation we really are<\/span><\/a>, not<\/i> what type of nation Russia<\/i> is.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eric Zuesse (RINF) – Was the Cold War against communism, or against Russia? Russia was our ally in World War II, and we\u2019d have a Nazi world today if 26 million Russians hadn\u2019t died from Hitler\u2019s bombs and attacks while Russia fought on with courage amidst desperation, finally to crush his regime.\u00a0 But Russia was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":284287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,18],"tags":[1036,27,32,96,1035,535,698,524,754,6257,523,49,76,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-284206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-latest-news","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-bush","11":"tag-cia","12":"tag-cover-up","13":"tag-daily-news","14":"tag-global-news","15":"tag-hillary-clinton","16":"tag-russia","17":"tag-syria","18":"tag-trump","19":"tag-ukraine","20":"tag-usa-news","21":"tag-warfare","22":"tag-white-house","23":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}