NYT Pseudo-Journalist Urges Anti-Trump Coup
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
The Times finds new ways of disgracing itself more than already.
Throughout the 2016 US presidential campaign and aftermath, the self-styled newspaper of record vilified Trump for triumphing over media darling Hillary, largely for the wrong reasons.
The broadsheet ignored the most important one - endless US wars of aggression he inherited from Bush/Cheney and Obama. Regime hardliners in charge of his geopolitical agenda escalated them, plotting others, maybe on Iran, Russia, and/or China.
The Times notoriously supports all US wars of aggression, the highest of high crimes, cheerleading them with relish, demonizing victimized countries for crimes committed against them.
Its so-called foreign affairs reporter Tom Friedman is on the wrong side of virtually all geopolitical issues he covers. He won Pulitzer Prizes for disinformation, Big Lies and fake news.
He’s a mouthpiece for Washington’s imperial agenda, vilifying its designated enemies, supporting its endless wars of aggression to replace legitimate leaders with pro-Western puppet rule.
His sucking up to US dark forces is enough to give pseudo-journalism a bad name. So is his support for despotism in EU/NATO countries, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.
After visiting Riyadh and meeting with crown prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) last year, he turned truth on its head, headlining “Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, at Last,” falsely calling tinpot despot MBS a reformer.
The 2011 Arab Spring was made in the USA – its aim to replace unpopular despots with new ones Washington controls. Real spring never bloomed, just the illusion of change. It was pure deception, the idea behind making the scheme work.
Friedman supports what demands condemnation, the defining feature of his misreporting.
On Christmas day, he headlined “Time for GOP to Threaten to Fire Trump,” saying:
He “had to ask whether we really can survive two more years of Trump as president, whether this man and his demented behavior — which will get only worse as the Mueller investigation concludes — are going to destabilize our country, our markets, our key institutions and, by extension, the world. And therefore his removal from office now has to be on the table.”
For permitting Friedman’s anti-Trump coup d’etat advocacy to be published, he and Times editors are involved in a seditious conspiracy plot against a sitting US president.
18 US Code § 2384 defines the offense as follows:
“If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”
Trump is no paragon of virtue, far from it and then some. I’ve been tough on him since the early days of his regime - for the right reasons. There are plenty of them.
Friedman: “(T)he only responsible choice for the Republican Party today is an intervention with the president that makes clear that if there is not a radical change in how he conducts himself — and I think that is unlikely — the party’s leadership will have no choice but to press for his resignation or join calls for his impeachment.”
Under the Constitution’s Article II, Section 4, impeachment and conviction require proving “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The Constitution’s Article I, Section 2 empowers House members to impeach a sitting president. Senate members alone are empowered to try them.
Obstruction of justice is an impeachable offense. No legal basis exists for charging Trump. No evidence suggests it. Nothing indicates he or his team colluded improperly or illegally with anyone in Russia.
Like most of his predecessors, he’s guilty of Nuremberg-level high crimes of war and against humanity. So are nearly all current and earlier congressional members for passing legislation that funds endless wars of aggression.
These are impeachable offenses, not the stuff Friedman and other anti-Trump elements consider just cause to remove him from office, including views he has on various issues, differing from theirs.
No matter how extreme, offensive, or otherwise reprehensible, views on anything aren’t impeachable offenses - only what’s constitutionally defined, nothing else, no matter how widely disliked or unacceptable a US president may be.
There’s no “crisis of American leadership,” as Friedman claimed. There’s a crisis of bipartisan war on humanity, of serving privileged interests exclusively, of exploiting ordinary Americans, not serving them equitably - things Friedman and Times editors don’t give a damn about.
Trump’s record in office has been and remains deplorable. The same goes for the Clinton co-presidency, Bush/Cheney, and Obama - disgracing the office they held, spurning their oath of office, flagrantly violating international, constitutional, and US statute laws with impunity.
No one at the Times or other leading US major media called for their impeachment or accountability for high crimes too egregious to tolerate - just the oppose.
Trump’s main issue with the media is he was support to lose, not triumph over Hillary - the main cross he’ll bear as long as remaining in office, along with wanting to get along with Russia he was overruled on by regime officials and practically the entire Congress.
He’s not criticized for crimes of war and against humanity, one-sided support for Israel, contempt for Palestinian rights, hostility toward China, Iran, Venezuela, and other sovereign independent states, going along with Russia bashing instead of denouncing it, corporate favoritism, disdain for ordinary people, and much more.
The Times and other major media long ago abandoned journalism the way it’s supposed to be. Instead, they serve exclusively as press agents for wealth, power and privilege.
Friedman is one of the worst, a fake “journalist,” a pseudo-one, a disgrace to a profession turned into advocacy for what demands condemnation.
VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
