Tulsi Gabbard Bak

bak 12 24

SEE TULSI GABBARD DESPERATE DEFLECTION FROM EPSTEIN 7 25 RUSSIAGATE OBAMA TREASON, TRUMP RETWEET INCITE POL VIOLENCE

this fucking guy 4 26

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c Norton poso

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/26/us/politics/republican-national-committee-2024-posobiec.html

fired deep state for withhold info

faith and freedom tulsi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uQvsTJ9Svc

0:00one of the unseen threats to that very thing which is the threat of those in our government who believe that they are

0:077 secondsabove the constitution that they are above the will of the American people more commonly known as the deep [music] state. These are people who operate quietly below the surface.

0:1818 secondsThey are the career officials, the senior [music] administrators, the unelected managers of national security or intelligence who see elections and

0:2727 secondsthe American voters as a nuisance because they think that they're more important than any election than any

0:3636 secondspresident and that they are more qualified to run our country than those who we elect [music] to serve our country as leaders. Now, as we talk

0:4545 secondsabout defending our Constitution and the integrity of our democratic republic, I'll share one of the unseen threats to

0:5454 secondsthat very thing, which is the threat of those in our government who believe that they are above the Constitution, that they are above the will of the

1:031 minute, 3 secondsAmerican people, more commonly known as the deep state.

1:081 minute, 8 secondsThese are people who operate quietly below the surface. They are the career officials, the senior administrators, the unelected managers of national

1:161 minute, 16 secondssecurity or intelligence who see elections and the American voters as a nuisance and an obstacle that gets in

1:251 minute, 25 secondsthe way of them achieving their own objectives because they think that they're more important than any election, than any

1:341 minute, 34 secondspresident, and that they are more qualified to run our country than those who we elect to serve our country as leaders.

1:461 minute, 46 seconds[applause]

1:471 minute, 47 secondsThese are people who outlast every administration.

1:531 minute, 53 secondsThey know where the files are. They control the flow of information.

1:571 minute, 57 secondsI can tell you from firsthand experience. They try to sloww walk an order or directive that they disagree with. They will selectively leak to the

2:052 minutes, 5 secondspress in order to discredit any official who is seeking to hold those accountable for abusing their power.

2:142 minutes, 14 secondsAnd I've also seen how they try to shape an intelligence product to tell the president what they want him to hear

2:222 minutes, 22 secondsrather than ensuring that he hears the truth.

2:272 minutes, 27 secondsI saw this firsthand and fought it every day in my role as director of national intelligence, carrying out President

2:342 minutes, 34 secondsTrump's mandate, which is transparency, accountability, declassification, and telling the American people the

2:432 minutes, 43 secondstruth. And that was the message I delivered to those I worked with every day from day one to the very last day when I walked out of the door. It is

2:502 minutes, 50 secondsalways the right time to tell the truth to the American people.

2:562 minutes, 56 seconds[applause]

3:033 minutes, 3 secondsSo, I did my best while there to shine a light into corners that had been kept dark for too long.

3:103 minutes, 10 secondsI'll tell you, the resistance was strong and real, sophisticated and immediate.

3:193 minutes, 19 secondsI could share a long list of anecdotes and experiences. the means of retaliation and resistance.

3:273 minutes, 27 secondsSome would be so petty they would make you laugh. I'll give you one quick example.

3:343 minutes, 34 secondsI needed a a placemat, a big piece of paper printed out for something I needed to share with the president. Had a meeting with him that was supposed to be

3:433 minutes, 43 secondsat 10:00 a.m. in the Oval Office. And there was someone there in my agency that was detailed from a different agency who was responsible for printing these things.

3:533 minutes, 53 secondsAnd so I was waiting. Time was 9:15, 9:30. I got to go. I didn't have what I needed.

4:004 minutesAnd uh long story short, the president needed to push the meeting back an hour, which saved me because this guy who was responsible for printing

4:094 minutes, 9 secondsrefused to print it because he disagreed with what was on the paper.

4:144 minutes, 14 seconds[laughter]

4:164 minutes, 16 secondsAnd turns out he actually did print it, but then he locked it in his desk and refused to open his desk.

4:234 minutes, 23 secondsmy chief of staff went down and said, "The director needs to present this to the president. We need this." And he said, "Nope, I refuse."

4:314 minutes, 31 secondsAnd so my chief brought down my head of general counsel, who said, "The director needs this for

4:384 minutes, 38 secondsthe president. I refuse." And he would not do this until his boss back at his

4:474 minutes, 47 secondshome agency said it was okay to do it. ridiculous.

4:584 minutes, 58 secondsThere are other examples that are far more serious and grave that would make

5:065 minutes, 6 secondsyou concerned for the integrity and future of our republic as I am.

5:135 minutes, 13 secondsWe must remain vigilant.

5:175 minutes, 17 secondsThis isn't a Democrat or Republican issue. These people have been doing this across administrations for decades and longer.

5:265 minutes, 26 secondsThey thrive in the gaps between elections. They are deeply entrenched in the bureaucratic infrastructure. But fundamentally the quality that these

5:355 minutes, 35 secondspeople share is that they put themselves, their own interests, their own objectives

5:435 minutes, 43 secondsahead of our constitution and the best interests of the American people.

5:505 minutes, 50 secondsThe work of exposing and dismantling these entrenched power structures is not finished.

5:565 minutes, 56 secondsWe the people must continue to hold our leaders accountable to to fight against these deep state actors because they are

6:056 minutes, 5 secondsthe nameless, faceless force within our government that doesn't care about you.

6:116 minutes, 11 secondsThey don't care about our freedom. They don't care about our security. They care about themselves and their own power.

6:206 minutes, 20 secondsThe future is in our hands. We must remain vigilant.

6:266 minutes, 26 secondsI want to close by sharing another story with you about another of the signers of our declaration, someone named Abraham Clark.

6:356 minutes, 35 secondsHe was also a delegate from New Jersey, a lawyer. Got New Jersey in the house here. I see.

6:436 minutes, 43 secondsHe was a lawyer and a man of modest means compared to many of his colleagues.

6:496 minutes, 49 secondsHe signed the Declaration of Independence and then went and sent his two sons off to fight in the Revolutionary Army.

6:566 minutes, 56 secondsThe British captured both of his sons and sent them to a prison ship that was anchored in a New York harbor on a vessel called the Jersey.

7:067 minutes, 6 secondsIt was very well known as the hell ship because it imprisoned 11,000 American captives who would die on that vessel.

7:177 minutes, 17 secondsThe conditions were deliberately brutal.

7:217 minutes, 21 secondsMen starved and died of disease and froze to death.

7:267 minutes, 26 secondsAbraham Clark's sons were treated with a special level of cruelty because the British knew who their father was. One

7:347 minutes, 34 secondsof his boys was put in solitary confinement. No food, no light, left to die in the darkness as a message to his father.

7:467 minutes, 46 secondsAnd then the British came to Abraham Clark with an offer. They said, "Reant.

7:527 minutes, 52 secondsCome out publicly in support of the king and parliament.

7:567 minutes, 56 secondsDenounce the Declaration of Independence and we will send you back your boys."

8:068 minutes, 6 secondsJust stop for a moment and think about how that would feel if you were Abraham Clark being presented with that proposition.

8:208 minutes, 20 secondsHe knew his sons were dying on that ship and all he had to do was say I was wrong. All he had to do was say that

8:288 minutes, 28 secondssigning the Declaration of Independence was a mistake and that the crown was right and the idea of America as an independent nation was wrong. And if

8:378 minutes, 37 secondsAbraham did that, said those words, even if he didn't mean them, they would set his sons free.

8:468 minutes, 46 secondsAbraham said no.

8:518 minutes, 51 secondsHe said no because he understood that there are moments in life and in

8:598 minutes, 59 secondshistory when you must choose between what is easy and what is right.

9:059 minutes, 5 secondsAnd the choice that you make in that moment defines not just your own life but potentially the lives of countless generations who will follow.

9:189 minutes, 18 secondsHis sons survived the hellship.

9:259 minutes, 25 seconds[applause]

9:299 minutes, 29 seconds[applause]

9:309 minutes, 30 secondsAnd Abraham Clark lived to see the nation that he helped create take its early steps.

9:399 minutes, 39 secondsBut the courage that he showed in that moment of being presented with a truly impossible decision is the legacy and

9:489 minutes, 48 secondsthe responsibility that every one of us carries today.

9:549 minutes, 54 secondsSo at this moment, it's an opportune time for us to ask ourselves, what does it mean to be a patriot?

10:0210 minutes, 2 secondsIt's not just a feeling.

10:0410 minutes, 4 secondsIt's not just a wearing of a flag on our lapel.

10:0810 minutes, 8 secondsIt's not just putting our hand over our heart when we sing the national anthem.

10:1710 minutes, 17 secondsPatriotism is love expressed through action.

10:2310 minutes, 23 secondsLove of our country and a deep gratitude for our freedoms that define who we are.

10:3210 minutes, 32 secondsAnd now, as we celebrate this 250th birthday of our great nation, action is needed.

10:4110 minutes, 41 secondsWhile we are not in a position where we have to hide in caves or sleep in the woods, the struggle we face today is for

10:4910 minutes, 49 secondsthe heart of our nation, for the integrity of our elections and the preservation of our freedoms enshrined in our constitution.

10:5910 minutes, 59 secondsWe will not win that struggle by sitting back and saying someone else got it. Someone else will fight this

11:0911 minutes, 9 secondsfight. Someone else is better, more equipped, more capable of fighting this fight.

11:1711 minutes, 17 secondsEvery one of us as proud Americans has a role to play and a responsibility to step in the arena and fight this fight.

11:2611 minutes, 26 seconds[applause]

mma

loomer unleashed loomer.com

March 24, 2026, edition of Loomer Unleashed streamed on Rumble

LAURA LOOMER (HOST): It's time for President Trump and the Trump administration to, you know, put the moral clarity hammer down and reassert, as you said, who's the boss. And sometimes when you have to reassert who's the boss, people get fired. And I personally think it's a moral abomination that Tulsi Gabbard has not issued a statement condemning Joe Kent leaking to Max Blumenthal, leaking to Tucker Carlson, leaking to Candace Owens.

And it's an abomination that Tulsi Gabbard, who had the audacity to speak at Charlie Kirk's memorial, has not condemned Joe Kent, her interim chief of staff, saying that he will testify to aid the assassin of Charlie Kirk. So, I don't even think President Trump should give her the dignity of a resignation. I think that Tulsi Gabbard should be fired. And that's my position tonight, through this interview. I'll say it live on air, I think that President Trump should fire Tulsi Gabbard. She has not shown that she has moral clarity. She is not fit to be producing intelligence reports for the President of the United States.

### Laura Loomer lashes out at right-wing podcasters suggesting US followed Israel's lead on Iran war: “They're little Nazis is what they are. National Socialists.”

03/06/26 11:10 AM EST

### Laura Loomer lashes out at Megyn Kelly over Iran: “Shut up, you stupid bitch. ... You're not MAGA.”

03/04/26 2:28 PM EST

### John Solomon suggests the FBI will do a similar ballot seizure in Arizona as the recent Fulton County operation

02/05/26

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Mar 3, 2026 Bulwark Takes

Will Saletan revisits Tulsi Gabbard’s past warnings that Trump “lied” about ending wars—and compares them to her current role defending new bombings in Iran and moves in Venezuela.

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RWW

02/10/2026

Kyle Mantyla

Hemant Mehta @ Friendly Atheist: Oklahoma finally scraps Bible-heavy, conspiracy-laced Social Studies standards

After Ryan Walters’ failed ideological crusade, Oklahoma is restoring evidence-based history and bringing basic sanity back to public schools.

Hunter Walker @ Talking Points Memo: A Conspiracy Fueled Report Preceded ‘Black Pill’ Tulsi Gabbard’s Fulton County Election Raid

Trump’s spymaster is a hero to the MAGA fringe after extraordinary ballot seizure that followed up on their longtime fixations.

Ron Dicker @ HuffPost: GOP Rep. Has Probably The Most Outrageous Reaction To Bad Bunny Super Bowl Show

The right-wing congressman made Trump’s criticism look tame.

Catherine Bouris @ The Daily Beast: Megyn Kelly Accuses Bad Bunny of ‘Stealing Our Football’ in Epic Meltdown

The former Fox News is still fuming about the Super Bowl.

Will Sommer @ The Bulwark: Meet Clavicular, the Looksmaxxing, Drugged-up Streamer Taking Over the Internet

He lives in a roided-out hell of his own devising. Now we’re stuck in it with him.

J. David Goodman @ The New York Times: Without a Border ‘Invasion,’ Texas G.O.P. Turns to an Old Enemy, Islam

Republican politicians and strategists in Texas are amping up anti-Muslim rhetoric as a way to energize Republican voters after several elections when the border was the animating force.

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AN 2 26

A whistleblower tells the Gurdian that National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard blocked the publication of an intelligence report concerning an “unusual phone call between an individual associated with foreign intelligence and a person close to Donald Trump.”

The details of the communication are not known, but the Wall Street Journal reported it could cause “grave damage to national security" if it becomes public, according to an official. The information also "implicates another federal agency" and reportedly includes "claims of executive privilege that may involve the White House."

Last spring, the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted the highly sensitive communication, but when the info reached Gabbard, she ducked the standard procedure of allowing NSA officials to distribute the information further and instead delivered a paper copy of the intelligence directly to the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, according to attorney Andrew Bakaj.

“One day after meeting Wiles, Gabbard told the NSA not to publish the intelligence report. Instead, she instructed NSA officials to transmit the highly classified details directly to her office,” reports the Guardian. “Details of this exchange between Gabbard and the NSA were shared directly with the Guardian and have not been previously reported. Nor has Wiles receipt of the intelligence report.”

On April 17, a whistleblower contacted the office of the inspector general alleging that Gabbard had blocked highly classified intelligence from routine dispatch, according to Bakaj, who added that the whistleblower filed a formal complaint about Gabbard’s actions on May 21.

The Guardian said the intelligence report was been “kept under lock and key” for eight months, even after the whistleblower pressed to disclose details of the report to congressional intelligence committees.

“Acting inspector general Tamara A Johnson dismissed the complaint at the end of a 14-day review period, writing in a June 6 letter addressed to the whistleblower that ‘the Inspector General could not determine if the allegations appear credible,’” reports the Guardian. Johnson added also informed the whistleblower that they could only approach Congress after receiving DNI guidance on how to proceed due to the highly sensitive nature of the complaint.

After nearly a year, Gabbard’s office issued its first public acknowledgment of the complaint to lawmakers on Tuesday, the day after the Wall Street Journal broke the news of the classified brief.

“Two attorneys and two former intelligence professionals who reviewed details of the incident and ensuing complaint shared with the Guardian have identified what they believe are a series of procedural anomalies that raise questions about Gabbard’s handling of national intelligence and the whistleblower disclosure,” the Guardian reports.

Two Republican lawmakers have dismissed the report and remain loyal to Gabbard, but Democrats are raising alarms.

“The law is clear: when a whistleblower makes a complaint and wants to get it before Congress the agency has 21 days to relay it,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) who is on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “This whistleblower complaint was issued in May. We didn’t receive it until February.”

Warner said the months-long delay reflected an effort to “bury the complaint.”

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An 2 26

President Donald Trump's administration seems very confused as to why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was in Georgia for the FBI's raid on the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center late last month. The story has now changed four times, and twice in the past 24 hours.

The first to comment on Gabbard was Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who claimed that Gabbard just happened to be in Atlanta when the raid happened. Gabbard then said that Trump asked her personally to go to Atlanta for the raid.

In a letter she sent to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), Gabbard wrote, "My presence was requested by the President and executed under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate and analyze intelligence related to election security, including counter-intelligence, foreign and other malign influence and cybersecurity."

By Wednesday, Trump appeared to forget about it.

In a conversation with "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Llamas, Trump spoke about his conspiracy theory that he lost the 2020 election. Llamas asked Trump point-blank, “Why is Tulsi Gabbard there?”

“I don’t know,” Trump answered. “But a lot of the cheating comes from, it’s international cheating.”

Less than 24 hours later, Trump's story changed again.

While he was speaking to the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump gushed over Gabbard for attending the raid.

“She took a lot of heat two days ago because she went in at Pam’s insistence,” the president said, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“They say, ‘why is she doing it’… because Pam wanted her to do it. And you know why? Because she’s smart," Trump added, relayed The Guardian.

Georgia lawmakers are concerned about Trump's spreading of conspiracy theories and the purpose of the Fulton County raid. Georgia’s Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Bondi on Thursday morning, asking for specifics.

“We are deeply concerned that President Trump’s consistent spreading of misinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories about the 2020 election fundamentally undermines the electoral process, endangers election workers, and erodes public trust in our democracy,” the lawmakers wrote. “This unprecedented seizure only heightens those concerns.”

If "the Trump administration is investigating a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus," it would legally require "an immediate congressional briefing," said Sen. Raphael Warnock and Reps. Lucy McBath and Nikema Williams all Democrats from Georgia.

The search warrant that demanded "copies" of the necessary documents didn't come from a local judge. According to the lawmakers, “unusually, the warrant was filed by the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Missouri and follows the reported firing of the Atlanta FBI special agent in charge Paul Brown after expressing concern about this search."

The Associated Press reported that Brown was ousted the week before the raid. He was overseeing the Atlanta office. MS NOW confirmed in the days that followed that the Brown was pushed out because he refused to cooperate.

The group requested a briefing from the Department of Justice “concerning this activity and its related investigation by February 13, 2026."

The statute of limitations on the case has long expired. So, the only way the administration would be able to do anything about it is if there was some kind of ongoing conspiracy, said Georgia lawyer Michael J. Moore when speaking to CNN.

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AN 2 26

Tulsi Gabbard is said to be conducting her own "solo" investigation into the 2020 election, according to a new report from The Guardian, one of multiple investigations currently underway as Donald Trump's obsession with his reelection loss nearly six years ago ramps back up.

On Friday, FBI agents conducted a raid at an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing records and ballots related to the 2020 election. This came not long after comments from Trump indicating that he was ramping up his focus on the false claims that the election, which he lost to Joe Biden, was stolen from him due to widespread fraud.

Gabbard, meanwhile, generated headlines, confusion and controversy when she was spotted at the site of the raid, for reasons that were not clear. As the Director of National Intelligence, her focus would typically be far from issues pertaining to the FBI, especially since she otherwise lacks any sort of law enforcement experience.

According to a Wednesday report from The Guardian, three officials with knowledge of the matter said that Gabbard is conducting her own parallel investigation of Trump's accusations of voter fraud in 2020. One of the sources said simply, "She’s doing her own thing." This, the report argued, suggests the increased scope and focus that Trump's 2020 obsession is now taking up.

Gabbard has reportedly been briefing Trump and other "senior White House advisers" about her investigation on a weekly basis. The president was reported to have specifically requested that she be present for the raid to observe it. Administration officials had previously claimed that Gabbard had just so happened to be in Atlanta when the operation took place.

"The parallel investigations into the 2020 election underscore the extent to which it has returned as a priority for the president," the outlet explained. "And Gabbard being sent to the raid showed the interest on voting machine manipulation claims that Trump has cited as evidence the election was stolen. The review led by the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI), authorized on the basis that it is assessing election integrity, has been focused for months on potential vulnerabilities in voting machines and the possibility of foreign interference."

Trump's renewed focus on his 2020 loss gained significant attention during his address to the World Economic Forumin Davos two weeks ago, where he falsely claimed that his accusations had been proven and threatened that prosecutions would begin shortly.

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an 2 26

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is facing a highly classified whistleblower report, and there is concern about how to safely share it with lawmakers.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday morning that the sensitive report is "said to be locked in a safe." President Donald Trump's administration has avoided telling lawmakers about it, claiming that it involves such secret information.

The information could cause “grave damage to national security" if it becomes public, an official claimed. The information reportedly includes "claims of executive privilege that may involve the White House."

This is an administration, however, that has claimed "national security" liberally, such as the rationale for taking over Greenland and the immigration crackdown.

“If everything can be a national emergency or a threat to national security or a matter of foreign policy, then essentially all constitutional powers are ceded to the president,” said Shirin Sinnar, a law professor at Stanford Law School in an Aug. 2025 report by Paul Blumenthal. “And that can’t be intended by the constitutional design.”

Gabbard's office claims the allegations are “baseless and politically motivated.”

However, the whistleblower's lawyer, Andrew Bakaj, said he was never aware that the inspector general's office had made any determination about the complaint's credibility. However, the inspector general's office decided that some of the allegations weren't credible while others might be.

Bakaj sent a letter to Gabbard that was also sent to the House and Senate in November, which the Journal has viewed.

"Months later, lawmakers still haven’t received the complaint itself. Some Democratic staffers on the intelligence committees have tried to learn more about the complaint in recent weeks, with little success," congressional aides told the reporters.

The month before the complaint, Republicans approved a new inspector general for the intelligence community on a 51 to 47 vote.

The new IG is Christopher Fox, who worked for Gabbard before the new job overseeing her work.

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OFF BS

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“I'm deeply honored to take on this critical role," said IC IG Chris Fox. "Under my leadership, the Office of the IC IG will focus on building trust across the Intelligence Community and, above all, with the American people. Beyond identifying fraud, waste, abuse, and misconduct, our mission is to strengthen intelligence operations through independent oversight and an unwavering commitment to seeking the truth."

:{IC IG Fox brings nearly two decades of national security experience spanning military service, intelligence operations, legal practice, and entrepreneurship. He began his career serving in the U.S. Air Force as a Special Warfare Airman and Joint Terminal Attack Controller, with combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. After returning from his overseas military service, IC IG Fox joined the Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events. He later served in the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, at Matrix International as a Mission Manager leading global intelligence operations, in CIA’s Directorate of Operations as a Specialized Skills and Covert Action Officer, and at

TWO SIX?

and at Six Technologies, managing intelligence for the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program.

2024 - now Founder and CEO @ Vigilant

Vigilant | LinkedIn

2023 - now Senior Operations Manager @ Two Six Technologies
2023 - now Judge Advocate (National Security Law Attorney) @ U.S. Army JAG Corps

Chris Fox Education

Georgetown University Law Center

Juris Doctor

2016 - 2019

University of Southern California - Sol Price School of Public Policy

Master’s Degree (Public Administration)

2014 - 2015

University of Southern California - Sol Price School of Public Policy

Graduate Certificate (Public Policy)

2014 - 2015

Chris Fox Summary

Chris Fox, based in Arlington, VA, US, is currently a Founder and CEO at Vigilant. Chris Fox brings experience from previous roles at Two Six Technologies, U.S. Army JAG Corps, Central Intelligence Agency and Matrix International. Chris Fox holds a 2016 - 2019 Juris Doctor @ Georgetown University Law Center

My name is Joshua Fruth, and I am a co-founder of risk consultancy Section 2 Financial Intelligence Solutions (S2FIS.com). I was previously the Director of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Advisory Services at New Jersey based Matrix International Financial Services (MatrixIFS).

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rww

01/29/2026

Kyle Mantyla

Doug Bock Clark and Jen Fifield @ ProPublica: FBI’s Search of Georgia Election Center Is “Dangerous,” Experts Warn

The search warrant, which sought 2020 election ballots, tabulator tapes, digital data and voter rolls from Fulton County, marked what experts described as a significant escalation in President Donald Trump’s breaking of democratic norms.

Richard L. Hasen @ Slate: Trump’s Continued Obsession With 2020 Is a Joke. His Raid on a Georgia Election Site Is Not.

It’s about the raid being a test run for messing with election administrators and the counting of ballots in the midterm elections in 2026, when control of both houses of Congress could be at stake. Now is the time for state and local governments, the courts, and the people to work against such potential election subversion.

Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Why did Tulsi Gabbard join an FBI raid tied to Trump’s election conspiracy theory?

The director of national intelligence was looking for ways to return to the president’s good graces. She apparently found one in an unexpected place.

Kiera Butler @ Mother Jones: Right-Wing Influencers Want Women to Love ICE

“We need more stories and images showing the professionalism and compassion of ICE.”

Will Sommer @ The Bulwark: Did Ilhan Omar Stage Her Attack? Of Course Not. But Trump Thinks So.

A real false flag story for your favorite False Flag newsletter.

Ed Mazza @ HuffPost: Trump Makes Wild Accusation Against Obama In Unhinged Evening Posting Spree

The president pushed conspiracy theories in a series of Truth Social posts.

Noah Dowe, Isabella Sherk, and Alex Kaplan @ Media Matters: The right-wing media figures who have justified Alex Pretti's killing by Trump’s DHS

MAGA media and far-right figures smeared Pretti, calling him a “race traitor” who aimed to “commit a mass murder.”

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an 8 25

The minimally redacted classified report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released late last month contains information so sensitive that it could allow America’s enemies to detect top-secret spying techniques and human sources, and could result in America’s allies reconsidering the trust they place in the U.S. Intelligence Community, one top Democrat is warning.

The CIA and other intelligence agencies opposed the release of the 46-page report, according to The Washington Post, but Director Gabbard released it “with the blessing of President Donald Trump.”

“The document contains multiple references to CIA human sources reporting on Putin’s plans. Such sources are among the agency’s most closely guarded secrets,” the Post reported.

IFrame Content

“Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Attorney General Pam Bondi have released a slew of intelligence and law enforcement reports over the last month that they claim — without evidence — prove that spy agencies’ finding that Moscow intervened in the 2016 presidential contest to help Trump is a ‘hoax’ concocted by the Obama administration,” according to the Post.

Indeed, the report Gabbard released, stemming from a 2017 Republican majority House Intelligence Committee review, disputes U.S. intelligence agencies’ findings that Russian President Vladimir Putin preferred the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump in 2016, over Democrat Hillary Clinton, and made efforts to help him get elected.

A Republican majority U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report confirmed that Russian President Putin endeavored to help get now-President Donald Trump elected in 2016:

“The Committee found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president. Moscow’s intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process.”

U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, blasted Gabbard’s release of the 46-page House report.

“The desperate and irresponsible release of the partisan House Intelligence report puts at risk some of the most sensitive sources and methods our Intelligence Community uses to spy on Russia and keep Americans safe,” Senator Warner said in a statement, according to the Post. “And in doing so, Director Gabbard is sending a chilling message to our allies and assets around the world: the United States can no longer be trusted to protect the intelligence you share with us.”

Separately, on Tuesday, Senator Warner wrote on social media, “Tulsi Gabbard is a threat to our national security and should be fired.”

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Tulsi Gabbard’s Russiagate conspiracy theory can’t even survive a softball Fox News interview | Media Matters for America

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Global Project Against Hate And Extremism: Tulsi Gabbard’s “Claims” that the Obama Administration Staged a “Coup” Fuel Far Right’s Fantasies of Political Violence

On July 18, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard made a post on Twitter alleging “the most powerful people in the Obama administration,” including former President Barack Obama, were involved in a “years-long coup” and a “treasonous conspiracy” against Donald Trump. Her post quickly went viral, amassing over 13 million views over the weekend, and galvanized the online fringe to fantasize about violence against their political enemies. Trump fanned Gabbard’s flames, sharing a racist AI-generated video of Obama being arrested on Truth Social, which Trump owns.

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MMA

Right-wing media use Tulsi Gabbard's flimsy memo to call for imprisoning Obama

The right-wing media efforts to implicate Obama come as Trump tries to deflect from the Epstein files

Written by Gideon Taaffe & Chloe Simon

Published 07/23/25

As the MAGA world continues to rail against the Trump administration over the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard issued a report suggesting former President Barack Obama pressured national intelligence agencies to fabricate or exaggerate Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election in favor of President Donald Trump.

Right-wing media have reacted to the story — which Trump has seized on as he tries to distract from the Epstein chaos — by demanding or predicting that Obama be charged for “treason” and “seditious conspiracy” in a “military tribunal” or accusing him of orchestrating “a three-year project to overturn the will of the American people and to destroy an administration.”

Tulsi Gabbard suggested Obama pressured intelligence agencies to fabricate or dramatize Russian influence operations in the 2016 election

- On July 18, Gabbard released emails along with a press release that misleadingly suggested intelligence agencies changed their assessment of Russian operations in 2016 at Obama’s behest following Trump’s electoral win.The press release concluded: “Tulsi Gabbard revealed overwhelming evidence that demonstrates how, after President Trump won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, President Obama and his national security cabinet members manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.” Office of the Director of National Intelligence, [7/18/25, 7/18/25; CNN, 7/22/25]

- :{:{Gabbard has previously acknowledged that Russia attempted to “influence our elections” in 2018.On Joe Rogan’s podcast, Gabbard cited “Russian troll farms” used to “influence our elections,” adding, “The American people need to be aware of where this information is coming from.” Twitter/X, [7/21/25]}:

Trump seized on Gabbard’s claims in an apparent effort to detract from the Epstein files}:

- After Gabbard’s release, Trump shared what seemed to be artificial intelligence-generated photos and videos of Obama in prison.On Truth Social, Trump shared images of an Obama mugshot and a video of Obama getting arrested in the Oval office. Time, [7/21/25]

- As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz pointed out, “Trump is seeking to reunify allies enraged by his administration’s repudiation of MAGA claims about late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein by offering up spurious attacks on common and familiar enemies,” including Obama.Media Matters, [7/21/25]

- A spokesperson for Obama called the allegations “outrageous” in a statement, adding, “These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.” “Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response,” the spokesperson said, “But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one." NBC News, [7/22/25]

## Gabbard’s memo “conflates” different intelligence assessments to craft a misleading narrative

- The New York Times highlighted that Gabbard’s release conflated two things: attempts to hack election infrastructure and influence operations aimed at changing public opinion. As The New York Times wrote, “The Obama administration assessment never contended that Russian hackers manipulated votes. Russia also conducted influence operations to change public opinion. That included using fake social media posts to sow division among Americans and leaking documents stolen from the Democratic National Committee to denigrate Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee. Multiple reviews, including a Republican-led Senate report, backed the findings of American spy agencies in late 2016 that Russia was trying to influence the election by damaging Ms. Clinton’s campaign and bolstering Mr. Trump. … The new report by Ms. Gabbard’s staff conflates those two activities by the Russians and tries to suggest that the Obama administration forced the intelligence community to alter its conclusions.” The New York Times, [7/18/25]

- MSNBC noted that Gabbard alleged that an assessment claiming Russia “did not impact” the 2016 election “was abruptly pulled,” but a week later Obama acknowledged that the election infrastructure was not tampered with.MSNBC contributor Katty Kay said Obama told the press on December 16, 2016: “I can assure the public that there was not the kind of tampering with the voting process that was a concern and will continue to be of concern going forward. That the votes that were cast were counted, they were counted appropriately. We have not seen evidence of machines being tampered with. So, that assurance I can provide.” MSNBC, *The Morning Joe*, [7/22/25]

- CNN’s Daniel Dale noted that Gabbard “is emphasizing … that previous assessments did not find that Russia had altered the election results, altered vote counts. Well, the new assessment didn’t either.” Dale continued, “What the new assessment found was that Russia engaged in hacking operations targeting Democrats, had engaged in influence operations online to attempt to alter the results in favor of Trump, to hurt Clinton. That is not contradictory as far as we know.” CNN, [7/22/25]

- The National Review’s Andy McCarthy also noted that a report released a few days prior to Gabbard’s press release reasserted that Russia did attempt to interfere in the 2016 election. McCarthy wrote: “No new light is shed on this episode by Gabbard’s email disclosures last Friday, which, unsurprisingly, were accompanied by an overwrought and misleading press release rather than an analytical report. Perhaps that is because Gabbard’s intelligence community peer, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, did issue an analytical report just a few days earlier that contradicts Gabbard’s implication that there was no evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election.” The National Review, [7/21/25]

- NBC reported that Gabbard’s memo also contradicted then-acting Intelligence Committee Chair Marco Rubio’s claim that there was “irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling” in the 2016 election. In 2020, Rubio signed off on a bipartisan committee’s findings that while it found no evidence Trump colluded with Russia, “what the Committee did find however is very troubling. We found irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling.” NBC News, [7/22/25]

- The Gabbard release suggested that the Obama administration changed its intelligence assessment in part to leak “false statements to media outlets,” but the press examples the memo cited are not inaccurate.The Bulwark highlighted Gabbard’s claims that media reporting on “cyberattacks on election infrastructure” from the Obama administration’s reports are misleading. Instead, these stories reported on hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. The Bulwark noted: “Even the Gabbard memo is compelled to admit that there is ‘supporting evidence indicating the Russian government directed hacking of the DNC and [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee].’” Office of the Director of National Intelligence, [7/18/25; The Bulwark, 7/21/25]

- The Washington Post similarly flagged examples of Gabbard citing media reports about a “hack” and misleadingly suggesting media outlets were referring to a hack of election machines rather than the hack of the Clinton campaign.One example of this misrepresentation is an NBC News article about the “U.S. Election Hack.” The Post notes: “The NBC News report, which confirmed the earlier Washington Post reporting, does not use the phrase ‘’election hack’ — though the headline does. Moreover, Gabbard does not report the section of the article that makes clear that reporters are referring to the DNC hack, not general election systems: ‘Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used.’” The Washington Post, [7/22/25]

PROJECTION

## Right-wing media responded to the memo by suggesting Obama weaponized intelligence agencies “to sabotage an election”

- Right-wing podcaster Laura Loomer: “Obama WAS in fact spying on Trump and weaponizing the intel agencies against Trump.”Twitter/X, [7/18/25]

- Fox News’ Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery claimed the Obama administration created the Russia collusion scandal “because they wanted to stay in control.”She continued: “Donald Trump was operating so far outside the establishment that I think to a lot of people whom many would consider the deep state, he was uncontrollable.” Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [7/21/25]

- Fox News host Laura Ingraham claimed, “Once again, everything Democrats accuse Trump of — subverting the election, hurting democracy — is what they did.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [7/21/25]

- Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hansen said, “This was a three-year project to overturn the will of the American people and to destroy an administration. Makes Watergate … look like small potatoes.” Ingraham agreed, adding, “My God, I mean, it's a miracle that Trump was able to win in 2024. It is an absolute miracle from God that Trump could win. I mean, he was obviously fighting his way through, but still.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [7/21/25]

- Fox News host Jesse Watters complained that “the media spent years obsessed with the Russia hoax, and now that it’s been debunked and has Obama’s fingerprints all over it, they’re ducking their heads from the boomerang.”Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/21/25]

- On Newsmax’sFinnerty, presidential aide Sebastian Gorka called Obama a “traitor to the oath of office” for directing the directors of the FBI and CIA “to use the most powerful intelligence tools in the world to sabotage an election and go after an innocent man.” Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [7/21/25]

## Right-wing media also suggested Obama should or would be arrested for treason, should face a military tribunal, or is guilty of “seditious conspiracy”

- OnThe Benny Show, QAnon conspiracist and former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn called for officials to take Obama’s passport and raid his house.Flynn said, “Starting with Obama on down, they all ought to have their passports revoked,” adding, “I do think that what the DOJ should be considering, if not getting ready to conduct, is a raid of Barack Obama's home up there at Kalorama, in Washington, D.C.” Rumble, *The Benny Show*, [7/21/25]

- Podcaster Benny Johnson and Flynn suggested the U.S. should explore a “military tribunal” for Obama.Johnson asked Flynn, “Could you have a military tribunal for the commander-in-chief?” Flynn responded, “It'd ought to be explored, Benny. It should be explored.” Rumble, *The Benny Show*, [7/21/25]

- Johnson claimed that Trump posted Obama mug shots because “accountability is coming.”Twitter/X, [7/20/25]

- OnThe Benny Show, right-wing legal activist Mike Davis claimed Obama needs to “lawyer up, buddy,” because he may go to prison. Davis: “I would say to Barack Hussein Obama, ‘Lawyer up, buddy.’ Because your conspiracy after you left the White House could land you in prison.” Johnson responded, “We’re waiting for those days.” Rumble, *The Benny Show*, [7/21/25]

- Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk suggested “Russiagate” was “demonic” and claimed, “We need perp walks. We need arrests.” Kirk: “We need perp walks. We need arrests. We need accountability. And if we do not smash the administrative state and the deep state in the coming 6-12 months, then we’re actually — we're not going to bring this entire intelligence apparatus to heel. We have to lance the boil because it’s gotten so out of control.” He added, “That’s why I think Russiagate really matters is that it's a way to hold them accountable, to see how dark and honestly, demonic, their activities have become.” YouTube, *The Tucker Carlson Show*, [7/21/25]

- Right-wing podcaster Liz Wheeler called to prosecute Obama for “treason” and “seditious conspiracy,” writing, “We demand JUSTICE.” Wheeler: “We don’t want silly perjury charges against Obama & his spooks for the high crimes they committed against Trump. We demand JUSTICE. Treason. Seditious conspiracy. Conspiracy to defraud the government. Deprivation of rights under the color of law. Grand conspiracy. … Arrest them.” Twitter/X, [7/21/25]

- Right-wing podcaster and Trump ally Roger Stone called for Gabbard to investigate “seditious conspiracy orchestrated by Obama.” Stone: “I demand that she continue to expose these seditious conspiracy orchestrated by Obama himself. What is Hines afraid of?” Twitter/X, [7/21/25]

- Right-wing outlet The National Pulse published a blog titled “Obama committed ‘treasonous conspiracy.’”The outlet wrote: “U.S. intel agencies first found no Russian impact on the 2016 election. After an Obama-led meeting, the assessment was revised to say Moscow helped Trump—triggering three years of investigations that dogged his presidency.” The National Pulse, [7/21/25]

- Right-wing influencer Catturd posted: “Arrest all the Obama traitors.”Twitter/X, [7/21/25]

- Right-wing podcaster Kyle Becker claimed the “Russia hoax” was a fraud perpetrated by Clinton and Obama and now it is “time for jail.” Becker: “The Russia Hoax is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated against the American people. Hillary knew it was false. Obama knew it was false. Rice knew it was false. Clapper knew it was false. Brennan knew it was false. They all knew it was false. They pushed it anyway. Time for jail.” Twitter/X, [7/20/25]

- Right-wing activist Mike Crispi posted, “Nobody’s above the law they tell us. So ARREST OBAMA!” Twitter/X, [7/20/25]

- The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh: “Either top Obama officials are arrested or Tulsi Gabbard should be fired.”Walsh: “The typical pattern by Republicans since forever is to make these kinds of claims, but to make them only on social media and Fox News and to never actually bring it to a court of law so the parties responsible can be held accountable.” The Daily Wire, *The Matt Walsh Show*, [7/21/25]

- Right-wing pundit Wayne Allyn Root said, “I hope Obama’s home practicing his mugshot because Trump set the bar high.”Root also suggested Obama could face the death penalty, saying, “Does the Trump DOJ have the cojones to charge Obama and Hillary with treason. And treason comes with either death penalty or life in prison.” Real America’s Voice, *War Zone with Wayne Allyn Root*, [7/21/25]

- Right-wing streamer David Nino Rodriguez said he would be discussing the “future arrest of Barack Obama.”Twitter/X, [7/21/25]

- QAnon influencer SunTzu posted, “Start by arresting Obama.”Twitter/X, [7/20/25; Media Matters, 4/24/24]

---

7 25

NPR

Trump's spy chief claims the Obama administration 'manufactured' intel on Russia

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has published the latest in a series of reports that scrutinize years-old intel community...

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, has published the latest in a series of recent Trump administration reports aimed at scrutinizing years-old intelligence community conclusions about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in favor of Donald Trump.

For years, President Trump has spread disinformation about those conclusions, calling the entire Russia investigation a "hoax," despite supporting evidence that has been systematically reviewed by intelligence agencies, lawmakers and Department of Justice lawyers.

The Two-Way

Putin Ordered 'Influence Campaign' To Help Trump, U.S. Intelligence Report Says

On Friday afternoon, ODNI published a press releaseasserting that its director, Tulsi Gabbard, "revealed overwhelming evidence" that President Obama and his national security officials "manufactured and politicized intelligence" to launch a "years-long coup against President Trump." Gabbard echoed those conclusions across social media platforms X and Truth Social, and in interviews on Fox News in the days that followed.

Among the materials Gabbard declassified are emails and memos published under the banner of the new "Director's Initiatives Group," formed to "execut[e] President Trump's Executive Orders aimed at rebuilding trust in the [Intelligence Community]."

In those files, Obama officials exchange correspondence about Russian attempts at election interference, concluding that it was unlikely Russian hackers would successfully compromise physical election infrastructure or alter vote totals without detection but might be successful in influencing voter confidence in the election.

"There is no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count through cyber means," wrote an ODNI official whose name was redacted in a newly published email. "However, as seen in recent media reporting, any cyber activity directed against the election infrastructure is likely to have an effect on public confidence," they continued.

Author Interviews

Mueller investigator says Russia interfered in 2016 — and in the 2024 election too

Gabbard also released a timeline that outlines events leading up to the 2017 assessment that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election. The timeline focuses on the conclusions by intelligence community officials that Russia likely had not and would not use cyber means to directly compromise voter systems or change vote tallies.

Gabbard argues that these conclusions are hypocritical and poke holes – if not directly contradict – the intelligence community's 2017 assessment that Russian attempted to influence the election.

But Obama officials never claimed that Russian hackers had successfully changed votes or hacked election infrastructure at scale.

The 2017 assessment focuses on Russian influence, from social media disinformation networks, hack-and-leak campaigns, Russian bot farms and other more psychological efforts made by Russian actors. Intelligence community experts acknowledge that Russian hacking targeting election infrastructure was likely limited and aimed at gathering intelligence.

Democrats were quick to criticize the new ODNI publication as contradictory to previous reviews of the assessment, as well as dishonest and politically motivated.

"This is utter nonsense," wrote Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

[

The Two-Way

Trump Denies Allegations Of Secret Ties, Collusion Between Campaign And Russia

"It is sadly not surprising that DNI Gabbard, who promised to depoliticize the intelligence community, is once again weaponizing her position to amplify the president's election conspiracy theories," wrote Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on X.

Meanwhile, earlier in July, CIA Director John Ratcliffe published a separate report reviewing the CIA's internal processes while compiling the 2017 assessment. On X.com, he claimed that Obama officials had "manipulated intelligence" in an effort to "get Trump."

However, like the newly declassified emails and memos, the CIA report doesn't appear to directly contradict the central thesis of the 2017 assessment: that Russia attempted to influence the American public and their perceptions of the 2016 election.

The CIA's "lessons-learned" review of the analytic procedure behind the 2017 assessment identified several recommendations for stricter compliance with CIA standards, but ultimately said that the actual conclusions made in that assessment were "defensible."

---

MSNBC STEVE B

#DNI Gabbard concocts odd ‘treasonous conspiracy’ theory, eyes Russia probe prosecutions

Tulsi Gabbard's new findings on the Trump-Russia scandal have been panned as “ludicrous.” The DNI is seeking criminal prosecutions anyway.

July 21, 2025,

By Steve Benen

By all appearances, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been struggling for months. On Capitol Hill, she’s become the subject of bipartisan ridicule, with one Republican senator recently questioning whether she should be medicated.

In the White House, it’s worse. In recent months, there’s been reporting from major outlets about the intelligence chief being sidelined, being left out of important meetings, and falling out of favor in the Oval Office. Indeed, in the run-up to the president launching a pre-emptive military strike in Iran, Donald Trump twice told reporters — out loud and on camera — that he didn’t care what Gabbard thought.

If the DNI were looking for a way to return to the president’s good graces, she apparently found one. The New York Times reported:

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Friday issued the latest in a series of reports from the Trump administration attempting to undermine the eight-year-old assessment that Russia favored the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said the information she was releasing showed a ‘treasonous conspiracy in 2016’ by top Obama administration officials to harm Mr. Trump.

Late Friday afternoon, Gabbard’s Director’s Initiative Group (DIG) unveiled a report with a title that read, “Declassified Evidence of Obama Administration Conspiracy to Subvert President Trump’s 2016 Victory and Presidency.” In an accompanying press release, the DNI added, “The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.”

It was over-the-top nonsense that Gabbard was quick to bring to Fox News during multiple on-air appearances, including an interview in which she raised the prospect of an anti-Trump “coup.”

IFrame Content

The president appeared delighted. I lost count of how many items he published to his social media platform about Gabbard’s claims, but The Daily Beast tallied “at least 17 times,” which sounds about right.

Those who apparently believe it’s their job to parrot Trump played their predictable roles. House Speaker Mike Johnson, for example, wrote online in response to the DNI’s findings, “DISMANTLING THE DEEP STATE! New evidence from [Gabbard] confirms what we’ve long known: The Russia hoax was a political hit job manufactured by Obama officials and weaponized by intel agencies to take down President Trump.”

And if that were true, it would certainly be a big deal. But it’s not true at all.

Right off the bat, it’s worth noting that the hapless intelligence director could have better timing: The week before she released her weird report, Trump’s handpicked CIA director released the findings of his own internal investigation that concluded, once again, that Russia attacked the U.S. political system in 2016 because Putin’s regime wanted to put Trump in the White House — which is the same thing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found, and which is the same thing the Senate Intelligence Committee found when it was led by then-Sen. Marco Rubio, before he became Trump’s secretary of state.

But even if we put that aside, and consider Gabbard’s findings on their own, the DNI released a document that can charitably be described as an embarrassment to herself, her office and the U.S. intelligence community. An analysis from The Bulwark explained, “[E]ven a cursory look at the actual substance of Gabbard’s dramatic claims shows ... a nothingburger. There is no actual substance. Instead, there is blatant sleight of hand and manipulation of evidence, debunking a theory of Russian election interference that the Obama administration never endorsed.”

Maddowblog At the six-month mark, Trump claims he kept promises he never actually made

Similarly, Philip Bump, who spent years covering the underlying scandal at The Washington Post, described Gabbard’s conclusions as “ludicrous.”

Broadly speaking, there are two main points to Gabbard’s pitch. The first is that Democratic officials in the Obama administration somehow manufactured the entire Russia scandal after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race, following a period in which the intelligence community was largely indifferent to Vladimir Putin’s tactics before. We already know that’s not true: Not only did administration officials warn Americans about Russian efforts weeks *before* Election Day, but those same officials famously brought their concerns to Congress, only to be brushed off by GOP leaders.

Gabbard focused heavily on the fact that the Obama White House sought a revised assessment the month after Trump’s electoral victory, and the changes that were made at this point. But as The Bulwark explained, “this supposed scandal rests on a crude bait-and-switch.”

A quick look at the media reports Gabbard cites shows that they weren’t talking about altering the election outcome through ‘cyberattacks on election infrastructure’ — that is, actual tampering with the vote count. Rather, the claims of election interference via cyber warfare concerned, as the Washington Post put it, ‘individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.’ ... Was this a new, post-election assessment, as Gabbard seems to claim? Hardly: The same conclusion was announced at the start of the October 7, 2016, joint statement issued by the DNI and the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of seventeen intelligence agencies.

All of this dovetails with the second problem with Gabbard’s findings: The DNI leaned heavily into the fact that there was no evidence of Russia targeting U.S. vote-counting machines and election infrastructure. That’s true, but it’s also irrelevant: Democratic officials never claimed that Russia targeted U.S. vote-counting machines and election infrastructure.

Looking ahead, the fact that Gabbard released a pitiful report might seem unimportant. The DNI already lacked credibility, so the fact that her findings make her appear like an even more brazen partisan activist will strike some as trivial.

But Gabbard has also spent the last three days claiming that she’s now pushing for “indictments” and “prosecutions” of Obama administration officials who committed outrageous crimes that don’t appear to have actually happened in reality.

In other words, the release of a misguided report on Trump’s Russia scandal wasn’t just a desperate ploy to make the president happy; it was also an apparent first step toward pushing the Justice Department to act on a silly partisan stunt.

---

GGL 7 25

Time Magazine

Trump Envisions Jailing Obama as Tulsi Gabbard Threatens Prosecutions

Tulsi Gabbard recently referred evidence supposedly showing Obama Administration officials conspiring to subvert Trump's 2016 election...

.11 hours ago

Fox News

Tulsi Gabbard reveals 'historic' intelligence plot allegedly targeting Trump and more top headlines

Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox.

.11 hours ago

The Independent

Tulsi Gabbard openly accuses Obama of longstanding effort to overthrow Trump in coup

Gabbard claimed Obama and his officials committed 'treasonous conspiracy' over the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016...

.1 day ago

Newsweek

Tulsi Gabbard Unveils 230,000 MLK Docs Under Trump Executive Order

Gabbard announced the release of 230000 pages tied to MLK Jr.'s assassination, fulfilling a Trump-era transparency directive.

.2 hours ago

CBS News

Tulsi Gabbard claims Obama administration "conspiracy" to subvert 2016 election

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is claiming she has evidence that the Obama administration attempted to subvert the 2016...

.5 hours ago

MSNBC News

DNI Gabbard concocts odd ‘treasonous conspiracy’ theory, eyes Russia probe prosecutions

By all appearances, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been struggling for months. On Capitol Hill, she's become the...

.7 hours ago

The Times of India

Trump Teases Obama Arrest By FBI As Tulsi Gabbard Hints At More Coup Details | 'Russiagate' Row

U.S. President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated (deepfake) video that shows ex-President Barack Obama being arrested by FBI agents inside...

.17 hours ago

KFOX

Gabbard unveils docs claiming Obama officials skewed 2016 election intelligence

(TNND) — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified documents on Friday that show reports alleging the Obama...

.2 days ago

The Daily Beast

Top Dem Deflates Gabbard’s Obama ‘Coup’ Claims in Two Words

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner blasted Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as “not competent,” moments before she dropped a report...

.1 day ago

---

----

WOW DEFLECTION ON EPSTEIN IMPLOSION OF MAGA

mma

Trump’s latest attempt to defuse the Epstein revolt: Point supporters at common enemies

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 07/21/25

President Donald Trump is seeking to reunify allies enraged by his administration’s repudiation of MAGA claims about late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein by offering up spurious attacks on common and familiar enemies: the media — in this case Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal — and former President Barack Obama.

Trump brought together an ideologically diverse coalition and a fractured right-wing media ecosystem during his 2024 campaign based largely on their shared hatred for Democrats, liberal institutions like the press, and the left. His administration’s actions have at times sparked criticism from different factions over the handling of issues like the Russia-Ukraine war, tariffs, U.S. strikes on Iran,, and, most of all, disclosures in the Epstein case.

The president spent last week failing to tamp down discussion of the Epstein story that seemed to be fracturing the MAGA movement. He tried claiming that his political enemies had “written” the “Epstein Files,” argued that the Epstein case is “pretty boring stuff,” and even lashed out at supporters who talk about it as “weaklings” and “stupid people.” But while the propagandists at Fox News were willing to play ball, Trump’s statements backfired elsewhere, leaving many right-wing media figures and the base alike in a state of revolt.

On Thursday, however, The Wall Street Journal reported that a “bawdy” letter bearing Trump’s signature had been included in an album created for Epstein’s 50th birthday (before allegations of his sexual abuse of girls became publicly known). The document, according to the Journal, had been reviewed by Justice Department officials who handled Epstein’s case.

The Journal report could have focused the right’s attention on Trump’s voluminous ties to Epstein. But Trump redirected them at a familiar target: journalists. responded that night by calling the letter “FAKE,” denouncing the paper, and claiming that he would sue. The following day, he followed through with a defamation lawsuit seeking $10 billion in damages from the two authors of the article; the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones & Co.; parent company News Corp and that company’s CEO; and Murdoch himself.

Trump’s lawsuit is both unprecedented and consistent with Trump’s authoritarian treatment of a free press whose criticism he seeks to curtail through corrupt means. The message it sends is straightforward: If you publish reporting that displeases the president — even if, like Murdoch, your support was crucial to his political ascension — he may try to ruin you, so don’t try it.

While the Journal’s corporate cousins at Fox News mostly avoided the story on Friday, the network’s competitors throughout the fractured marketplace of right-wing media responded by sharpening their knives and attacking the paper. Laura Loomer deemed the Journal story “totally fake,” Charlie Kirk accused the Journal of a “terrible drive-by,” and Benny Johnson claimed that the real “scandal is in who wrote the story,” referencing a baroque conspiracy theory that was circulating on the right at the time.

The same day Trump’s lawyers filed their suit, former Fox contributor and current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard offered even more grist for the right-wing media mill. In a story served up to Fox as an exclusive, Gabbard claimed to have uncovered documents proving “a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government” which aimed “to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup.” She suggested that figures including Obama “must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” and said she was referring the documents to the Justice Department. Leaving nothing to subtext, Trump subsequently posted to Truth Social an AI video featuring Obama beng arrested and imprisoned.

Those documents, however, demonstrate nothing other than Gabbard’s own ignorance and/or malice. They show that Obama received an intelligence report that Russia had not hacked election systems to change vote totals in the 2016 election — which is consistent with what the Obama administration said publicly at the time — then asked for and subsequently received another intelligence report detailing other actions taken by the Russian government in an effort to influence the election. That effort, according to the intelligence community, the Justice Department, and a Senate committee helmed at the time by current Secretary of State Marco Rubio, included hacking and releasing Democratic emails.

Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy, in a withering piece at National Review, described Gabbard’s argument as a “frivolous” attempt to further Trump’s “foolish stance” that Russia had not tried to influence the 2016 election via “overwrought and misleading” language and “thundering claptrap.”

But her attacks served to reignite years of conspiracy-mongering about the Russia “witch hunt,” and thus were credibly regurgitated elsewhere on the right, including by Fox’s stars, with some echoing Gabbard’s demagogic language about purported “treason.” Trump, meanwhile, repeatedly posted Fox clips and articles from right-wing media hyping the purported scandal.

Much of MAGA media seems eager to target the Journal and Obama on Trump’s behalf. But it remains to be seen whether those influencers — or their audience — will be willing to allow the Epstein story to fade away altogether.

That said, Trump’s best hope of keeping his supporters happy may very well be increasing the scale and tempo of his authoritarian attacks — and that means there will be more to come in the months ahead.

---

July 21, 2025, edition of The Benny Show, streamed on YouTube

BENNY JOHNSON (HOST): I mean, you're simply left to assume that all of it's been a lie and that they're 100% authentic, and I think most people in this audience already believe that.

But then if that's the case, then there's a lot of questions that are gonna be asked of Hillary Clinton. Now there's reports that Hillary Clinton and her team were aggressively pushing Barack Obama to launch Russiagate. We'll wait to see those documents — perhaps that's what Tulsi Gabbard is telling us is going to be dropping soon. We're not sure. But Tulsi Gabbard is saying not only are there major whistleblowers from inside the IC, but also that there's a lot more to come. And, you know, at what point do you begin to pull the threads back to Hillary Clinton? Could she potentially be culpable in any of this?

JULIE KELLY (HOST): I doubt it. I mean, you know, let's cut to the chase. No one's gonna indict Hillary Clinton. No one's gonna indict Barack Obama. So we can, I think, disabuse ourselves of that vision or —

JOHNSON: Really? You don't think Obama either?

KELLY: No. No. No. No. No. No. And, you know, of course, you got the issue with Barack Obama. What would you charge him with? We have the immunity ruling from the Supreme Court, really, a year ago that carves out only specific instances where a president in office could be held criminally liable. And I'm sure that Barack Obama, if anything came down, would be smart enough and his lawyers would figure that out. So no.

But look. I really wanna see the henchmen like Lisa Monaco — and I know I keep going back to her. But look, she also ran the Biden DOJ. So she was the one that really ran the first two invest — the two investigations into the president for classified documents and for January 6. She, I'm sure, worked with special counsel Jack Smith, was involved in his appointment. People from the DOJ leaving the Department of Justice, going to the special counsel's office — Chuck Grassley just, last week, I believe, the last several days, releasing emails showing how Tom Windom, another prosecutor who went to the DCUS attorney's office, which was in constant contact with the DOJ, I'm told, specifically Lisa Monaco's office, how he was pushing top-down the FBI to open this January 6 investigation into the president, which of course they did.

So I'm looking for a lot more records related to that as well. And so, those are the people who I think are the most likely to be held responsible, criminally liable, and the ones who should be.

---

an 5 25

Salon Reporter Amanda Marcotte says director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard is knowingly cultivating violence from supporters of President Donald Trump by inflating the facts of a federal memo on the role COVID-19 disinformation played in domestic terrorism.

Marcotte says Gabbard declassified the memo and took it to the right-wing punditry circuit, pushing the “flat-out lie” that President Joe Biden was labeling Americans as "terrorists" because they opposed COVID-19 mitigation measures like masks and vaccines. The memo does not say this, and Biden did no such thing, says Marcotte, but by pushing this lie, Gabbard is encouraging the kind of radicalization “that does lead to domestic terrorism.”

“For those who bother to read the 2021 memo, the report isn't surprising, but simply stating the obvious fact that far-right extremists ‘threatened or plotted violence against the healthcare sector and state and local government officials’ in 2020,” Marcotte writes.

IFrame Content

The memo anticipated there could be a secondary round of threats in 2021 in response to the COVID-19 vaccine, but it did not equate the U.S. anti-vaccine movement with terrorism. Rather, the memo was careful to identify members of organized militias and white supremacist groups as using anti-vaccine sentiment as an excuse to foment violent threats.

“The average anti-vaccination MAGA rube is not part of this memo,” Marcotte said. “They may be disease vectors, but no, the FBI did not think they were terrorists.”

But that did not stop Gabbard from appearing on Fox News last week and for "using their First Amendment rights" and to label them a "domestic terror threat."

A footnote on Page 4 of the memo declared, "The mere advocacy of political or social positions, political activism, use of strong rhetoric, or generalized philosophical embrace of violent tactics may not constitute violent extremism and are constitutionally protected." Yet Gabbard “keeps shamelessly lying about this,” says Marcotte.

“She retweeted right-wing pundit Michael Shellenberger'sdeclaration that "the Biden administration viewed millions of Americans as a terrorist threat." She also retweeted Cain insisting that the Biden administration labeled ‘some COVID-19 opponents 'domestic violent extremists,' as if it was their views on COVID-19 alone that drew the label.

Marcotte argues the jingoistic wordplay gives cover to an administration declaring its own war on free speech as Trump moves “to arrest people who have broken no laws, simply because they voice opinions he doesn't like.” She is also encouraging more violent extremism by creating a victim narrative in the MAGA community “that extremists can use to justify violence.”

“Her story is that they are innocent people unjustly targeted by the nefarious Biden administration. Having been recast as victims, any violence they commit now can be narrated as 'self-defense' against the imaginary Democrats coming for their free speech rights,” Marcotte said.

Read the full Salon report here.

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judd

2 10

today, the National Security Agency (NSA) is planning a "Big Delete" of websites and internal network content that contain any of 27 banned words, including "privilege," "bias," and "inclusion." The "Big Delete," according to an NSA source and internal correspondence reviewed by Popular Information, is creating unintended consequences. Although the websites and other content are purportedly being deleted to comply with President Trump's executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion, or "DEI," the dragnet is taking down "mission-related" work. According to the NSA source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, the process is "very chaotic," but is plowing ahead anyway.

A memo distributed by NSA leadership to its staff says that on February 10, all NSA websites and internal network pages that contain banned words will be deleted. This is the list of 27 banned words distributed to NSA staff:

Anti-Racism

Racism

Allyship

Bias

DEI

Diversity

Diverse

Confirmation Bias

Equity

Equitableness

Feminism

Gender

Gender Identity

Inclusion

Inclusive

All-Inclusive

Inclusivity

Injustice

Intersectionality

Prejudice

Privilege

Racial Identity

Sexuality

Stereotypes

Pronouns

Transgender

Equality

The memo acknowledges that the list includes many terms that are used by the NSA in contexts that have nothing to do with DEI. For example, the term "privilege" is used by the NSA in the context of "privilege escalation." In the intelligence world, privilege escalation refers to "techniques that adversaries use to gain higher-level permissions on a system or network."

The purge extends beyond public-facing websites to pages on the NSA's internal network, including project management software like Jira and Confluence.

The NSA is trying to identify mission-related sites before the "Big Delete" is executed but appears to lack the personnel to do so. The NSA's internal network has existed since the 1990s, and a manual review of the content is impractical. Instead, the NSA is working with "Data Science Development Program interns" to "understand the false-positive use cases" and "help generate query options that can better minimize false-positives." Nevertheless, the NSA is anticipating "unintended downtime" of "mission-related" websites.

While Trump's executive order claims to target "illegal and immoral discrimination programs," the NSA's banned-word list demonstrates that the implementation is far broader. The Trump administration is attempting to prohibit any acknowledgment that racism, stereotypes, and bias exist. The ban is so sweeping that "confirmation bias" — the tendency of people "to accept or notice information if it appears to support what they already believe or expect" — is included, even though it has nothing to do with race or gender.

The government memory hole

Since Trump took office, thousands of web pages across various federal agencies have been altered or removed entirely. Federal agencies have taken down or edited resources about HIV, contraceptives, LGBTQ+ health, abortion, and climate change. Some web pages have later come back online “without clarity on what had been changed or removed.”

An analysis by the Washington Post of 8,000 federal web pages “found 662 examples of deletions and additions” since Trump took office. The analysis found that words like diversity, equity, and inclusion were removed at least 231 times from the websites of federal agencies, including the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Transportation.

One example included a job listing page for the Department of Homeland Security that removed language about maintaining an “inclusive environment.” The Post also found examples of words being removed that had nothing to do with DEI, such as a page on the Department of the Interior’s website that boasted of its museums' “diverse collections,” removing the word “diverse.”

Following Trump’s executive orders targeting transgender individuals, multiple federal websites have removed transgender and intersex people from the acronym “LGBTQI,” NBC News reported. On the State Department website, a web page that used to provide resources for “LGBTQI Travelers” now addresses “LGB Travelers.” The Social Security Administration has made similar changes, with a page heading now reading “Social Security for LGBQ People.” Some agencies, including the Department of Education, have removed web pages with LGBTQ resources altogether.

On X, Elon Musk's United States DOGE Service is celebrating the deletions:

Federal agencies have also been scrubbing websites for mentions of climate change, which Trump has called a “hoax.” The Department of Agriculture’s Office of Communications issued a directive to “archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change,” the Guardian reported. Resources on the Forest Service website, including the Climate Change Resource Center and the Climate Action Tracker, appear to still be unavailable. The Department of Transportation website replaced the phrase “climate change” with “climate resilience.”

Among the agencies with the most deleted web pages is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which took down over “3,000 pages,” according to the New York Times. In one example, data from the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which tracks important health metrics, was temporarily unavailable, only to come back online later with “at least one of the gender columns missing and its data documentation removed.” A banner on the top of the CDC website states it is “being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”

Last week, the Trump administration was sued by Doctors for America, a physicians' group, for removing health resources and data from government websites, arguing that it "deprived clinicians and researchers of tools necessary to treat patients.”

---

ggl 2 25

[### The NSA's "Big Delete"

Popular Information | Judd Legum

https://popular.info › the-nsas-big-delete](https://popular.info/p/the-nsas-big-delete)

Feb 10, 2025 — The analysis found that words like diversity, equity, and inclusion were removed at least 231 times from the websites of federal agencies, ...

[### Federal list of forbidden words may jeopardize research at ...

KPBS

https://www.kpbs.org › news › economy › 2025/02/07](https://www.kpbs.org/news/economy/2025/02/07/federal-list-of-forbidden-words-may-jeopardize-research-at-ucsd)

Feb 7, 2025 — The banned words include: women, disability, bias, status, trauma, Black, Hispanic communities, as well as socioeconomic, ethnicity and ...

--==

ay que lastima

an 2 25

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) to serve as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence. Republican senators almost unanimously voted for Gabbard despite unified Democratic opposition, with a final vote tally of 52-48.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who was the Senate Republican leader for nearly two decades and a former member of the "Gang of Six" that gets classified intelligence briefings, was the lone dissenter among his party. After casting his "no" vote with Democrats, McConnell ripped Gabbard over her "history of alarming lapses in judgment."

"The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is a key participant in the process that informs every major national security decision the President makes. The ODNI wields significant authority over how the intelligence community allocates its resources, conducts its collection and analysis, and manages the classification and declassification of our nation's most sensitive secrets," he stated. "In my assessment, Tulsi Gabbard failed to demonstrate that she is prepared to assume this tremendous national trust."

Multiple Democratic elected officials also tore into their GOP colleagues over their decision to be a rubber stamp for Trump. On Bluesky, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) wrote that Gabbard amplified "propaganda" for Russian President Vladimir Putin and deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad for years. Anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project tweeted that Russia refers to Gabbard as "Putin's girlfriend." And Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) slammed Republicans as "worse than useless" for confirming "Tulsi F—ing Gabbard."

"Confirming her as DNI serves only to tell Trump that Senate Rs would rather lick his boots than do a single damn thing to protect our national security," he tweeted. "They are worse than useless. And they are putting every American at risk."

Around the same time Gabbard was confirmed, Fox News liberal host Jessica Tarlov tweeted a video of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (also one of her former Fox News colleagues) calling for Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula — which Russia has been illegally occupying since 2014 — to be considered Russian territory. Hegseth added that Ukraine shouldn't be considered for membership in the NATO alliance anytime soon.

"Tulsi confirmed at virtually the same time," Tarlov wrote. "A sunny day in Moscow even if's still only 19 degrees out."

Software engineer Alex Cole wrly noted on Bluesky that Gabbard — who was once the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee — has found far greater political success after abandoning the Democratic Party.

"Tulsi Gabbard was once on a government watchlist. Now she’s running U.S. intelligence," Cole wrote. "Moral of the story? If at first you don’t succeed, just switch political parties."

Gabbard's alleged closeness to Russia didn't go unnoticed by MSNBC columnist Brandon Friedman. He recalled a time when social media platform Instagram announced it was going dark in Russia on March 13, 2022. He then posted a screenshot of a March 23, 2022 Fox News interview with Gabbard where the former congresswoman complained that her Instagram video views had dropped from 250,000 to 300,000 to just 15,000, suggesting that Russian Instagram users were the main source of her traffic. Friedman called that complaint "the funniest thing" Gabbard said.

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob took a more somber tone, writing: "No foreign country in its right mind will share sensitive intelligence with Tulsi Gabbard. We are now a country that's flying blind in a dangerous world."

---

===

i have not been able to figure her out; many ads on AN

AHA/DOH PENSION PLAN DEFECTION // SINEMA?

angling for sec of defense?

cpac?! 3 2/ 24

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an 2 25

Officials in President Donald Trump's administration are reportedly "scrambling" in an all-hands-on-deck operation this weekend to gin up support for Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard.

Axios reported recently that Senate Republican Conference chairman Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has turned the conference's official X account into an unofficial Tulsi Gabbard "war room," in an effort to get her across the crucial first hurdle in her confirmation battle. Gabbard will need every Republican vote in the Senate Intelligence Committee to advance her nomination to the full Senate, and more than one Republican has indicated hesitancy in their support of Trump's pick to lead the United States' 18 spy agencies.

According to the outlet, the Trump administration is focusing particularly on convincing Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) to back the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii and military veteran. During Gabbard's confirmation hearing this week, Young and other senators confronted her on her refusal to call National Security Agency contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden a "traitor."

Trump is reportedly considering reaching out to Republicans on the Intelligence Committee to assure them that he would not pardon Snowden — who was granted political asylum in Russia by President Vladimir Putin — in order to ensure they vote for Gabbard's confirmation. One unnamed Trump advisor told Axios that "the president will have those conversations" if necessary.

"We feel OK about Tulsi's chances," an anonymous senior White House official told the outlet. "But we want to feel better."

Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) are among the other senators that could vote with Democrats against Gabbard's confirmation. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) already suggested that he wouldn't bring Gabbard's nomination before the full Senate if she failed to win over all nine Republicans on the Intelligence Committee. But MAGA activists are already promising to back primary challenges against any Senate Republican who votes against Gabbard.

"We are 100% serious," said Andrew Kolvet, who is a spokesperson for Turning Point Action. "GOP senators in red states will open themselves up to well-funded, well-organized primary challenges if they stand in the way of confirming the Cabinet the president wants and the American people voted for."

Click here to read Axios' report in full.

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rww

01/16/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Phillip Nieto @ Mediaite: Republican Georgia State Senator Thrown to The Ground And Arrested During Governor’s Speech

Georgia State Senator Colton Moore (R) was arrested at the State Capitol on Thursday while attempting to attend the governor’s State of the State address.

Frederick Clarkson @ Barn Raiser: Pete Hegseth’s War on Religious Freedom and the Constitution

Hegseth is not only a proponent of Christian Nationalism, as it is commonly understood as the fusion of government with conservative Christian values, but an advocate for a revolutionary theocratic vision for the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States.

Robert P. Jones @ White Too Long: Senators Clear the Way for Hegseth's Christian Nationalist Crusade

It’s hard to find strong enough adjectives to describe the unmitigated disaster the senate hearing on the nomination of Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense was. Even the few Republicans who had expressed previous concerns about his nomination handled him with kid gloves.

Angry White Men: Elijah Schaffer: ‘If You Get An Abortion You Should Be Put To Death’

Antisemitic white nationalist Elijah Schaffer appeared on The Baptist Bias — a Rumble show hosted by Christian extremists Jonathan Shelley and Benjamin “Ben the Baptist” Naim. During the show, Schaffer declared that women who have abortions “should be put to death,” and joked about bombing Planned Parenthood facilities.

Dan Friedman and David Corn @ Mother Jones: Inside the RFK Jr.-Alex Jones Bromance

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. set out in late 2021 to hawk a conspiracy theory-drenched book attacking Anthony Fauci for his work to limit the spread of infectious diseases, he ran into a problem. Mainstream TV networks weren’t interested, due to Kennedy’s penchant for spreading falsehoods about childhood vaccinations, Covid, and other topics.

Daniel Bates @ The Daily Beast: Listen to Tulsi Gabbard’s Anti-Gay ‘Guru’ Ranting Hate Against ‘F****ts’

Tulsi Gabbard’s spiritual “guru” called gay people “perverts” and spewed homophobic slurs when she was involved in his tiny group, an audio recording obtained by the Daily Beast reveals.

David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement: Marjorie Taylor Greene Targets Former Biden Official’s Religious Faith in House Hearing

During a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) invoked God and religion to harshly question Martin O’Malley, the former Commissioner of the Social Security Administration and a former Governor of Maryland, about his personal views on abortion and his Catholic faith.

Tim Dickinson @ Rolling Stone: The Oath Keepers Are Back — and Targeting America’s Youth

The infamous paramilitary group has a new honcho, and designs to influence cops, politicians, and the Boy Scouts.

===

an 12 24

NOTE NOT ON FOX BUT X

Fox News' chief national security correspondent on Monday questioned the validity of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's nomination as President-elect Donald Trump's potential director of national intelligence, Mediaite reports.

Jennifer Griffin wrote via X: "Tulsi Gabbard’s long involvement with the Science of Identity Foundation raises questions about the judgment and autonomy needed to advise the president on national security – Hawaii reporter looks at Gabbard’s ties to group that many classify as a cult."

The top Fox News correspondent shared a link to an article written by Honolulu Civil Beat's Washington correspondent, Nick Grube.

Grube reported last week that Anita van Duyn — "a former member of a secretive Hawaiʻi religious sect" — said Gabbard "spent 15 years inside the Science of Identity Foundation, a fringe offshoot of Hare Krishna that was formed in the 1970s and has been described by defectors as a cult."

Per the report, Van Duyn notified Democratic lawmakers by sending letters to Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-WI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), "detailing Gabbard’s deep ties to the organization and its reclusive founder, Chris Butler, who still resides in a multimillion-dollar beachfront home in Kailua."

The Democratic lawmaker turned MAGA activist maintains a personal relationship with the group, as her parents were members of the Science of Identity Foundation when she was born, Grube also notes.

Regarding Gabbard's professional life, "Science of Identity members have donated to her campaigns, sign-waved on her behalf and even staffed her most ambitious political endeavors, most prominently her run for president," Grube reported. "In some cases, these followers were simply volunteering their time and efforts. In others, they were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars."

===

an ah 12 24

Trump has been drawing vehement criticism from Democrats — as well as from Never Trump conservatives — for his more controversial administration picks.

In the U.S. Senate, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) for secretary of state and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum for secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior are likely to enjoy bipartisan confirmations. But controversial Trump picks like Kash Patel for FBI director and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could run into problems if enough Senate Republicans join Democrats in voting against them.

The Bulwark's Marc Caputo, during a Wednesday, December 4 appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," predicted that Fox News star Pete Hegseth — Trump's choice for defense secretary — will suffer the same fate as former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), who withdrew from consideration for U.S. attorney general.

But the Trump pick who may be the most vulnerable, according to The Hill's Al Weaver, is former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard — a former Democrat turned far-right MAGA Republican who Trump is proposing for intel director.

"Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) is emerging as a tough confirmation lift for President-elect Trump, even as other nominees such as Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick for the Pentagon, run into serious hurdles," Weaver explains in an article published on December 4. "Gabbard, Trump's pick to become director of national intelligence, has received less attention in recent days compared to Hegseth — who has seen multiple bombshell reports pop up about his treatment of women — or Kash Patel, the president-elect's controversial pick to lead the FBI. But a number of aides and senators view her path as the most difficult of those three."

Gabbard's views on foreign policy have been drawing intense scrutiny. Her critics see her as an apologist for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine, and state-operated Russian media outlets have dubbed Gabbard "Russia's girlfriend."

A Senate GOP aide, making a Gabbard/Hegseth/Patel comparison, told The Hill, "I think Gabbard, out of the three, still has the toughest path. (She) is the most at risk…. There are members of our conference who think she's a (Russian) asset."

Weaver stresses that although Gabbard is a "favorite of Trump World," the "Senate Republican conference remains a different type of playing field" — one in which GOP "defense hawks" will have a major problem with her Putin-friendly views.

"Some members of that crowd remain skeptical of Gabbard, especially due to her past remarks about the Ukraine War that were sympathetic to Moscow and echoed by Russian state media — which has also praised her selection," Weaver reports. "She also has views on the Middle East that break with the political establishment of both parties."

A Senate Republican, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told The Hill, "She's not going to get any Democratic votes. You can do the mental math."

READ MORE:[Chomsky at 96: The linguist, educator and philosopher's massive intellectual and moral influence

*Read The Hill's full report at this link.

===

mma 11 24

On MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone explains the role extremists in conservative media are playing in the Trump transition

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 11/19/24

Video

From the November 19, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House

NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): At a time when global tensions are high, the war in Ukraine is intensifying, Donald Trump's decision to tap Tulsi Gabbard as his incoming Director of National Intelligence is raising alarms, as you heard there. New reporting uncovers how she has become a favorite among the state media, of one of America's adversaries, Russia.

That's according to The New York Times, which reports, "In Russia, the reaction to her potential appointed has been gleeful, even if Putin's government remains weary of American policies, even under a second Trump administration. 'The CIA and the FBI are trembling,' a Russian newspaper wrote on Friday in a glowing profile of Ms. Gabbard, noting positively, that Ukrainians consider 'an agent of the Russian state.' A state television channel called her a Russian 'comrade' in Mr. Trump's emerging cabinet." The Times goes on to report, "among members from both parties, her tacit support of Russia's war games in Ukraine, and her repetition of Kremlin disinformation have raised doubts about whether she should be given oversight of the intelligence agencies, including the responsibility of preparing the highly classified daily intelligence briefings for the returning president."

Which, we have just learned Trump is now receiving as the President-Elect after having chosen not to receive them while he was a candidate. Trump receiving intelligence briefings is remarkable, for the fact that just last year he was criminally charged for mishandling national defense information and classified information. His already established as disregard for the safety of our nation's secrets makes his cabinet choices, especially those with access to top intelligence, all the more serious.

...

WALLACE: Angelo, there's something so impossible to articulate about the MOU that officially commences the landing team's arrival of the national security agencies and green lights this process that we're all talking about.

But the reason it's hard to bring that to life is because it's never really been an issue, even in 2000, where there was a recount, even in 2020 when Trump refused to concede the election, there was a transition. There were teams named, there were government officials to be selected, so that the FBI could back them and you would take an oath and you would swear that your allegiance was to the United States. That is the process that has a been aborted in the Trump transition. And with your expertise in what the plan was all along, just share your thoughts and reflections on where we are.

ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah, the thing that is worth keeping in mind -- we're all pointing out your accurate assessment. And part of it is that they've spent the last four years -- and it started before them, but the last four years -- really entrenching this idea that all of the United States government is the actually enemy, is enemy number one.

So, every time you point out, accurately, that they want to dismantle it, undermine it, that it's going to make us less safe, they say "Yes, yes that is exactly right because that is the enemy number one." And where that starts from, what that originates, who that benefits, those are all real questions, and as has already been discussed, we don't even know necessarily to what extent, in this case, Gabbard's relationship is with foreign entities and whether it is just sympathies or something deeper than that because it is not being investigated. The normal channels and processes of a transition are not even being followed this time, which is a reflection of the fact that it is so deeply internalized that all of these institutions are the enemy and they need to go away or be dismantled or be destroyed.

To just put a wrapper on it, I think there's something unsettling that's hard to articulate, here. And so, the best way that I can sort of illustrate it is to start with, yea there is something unsettling here. And some ways to understand that is, where the news about Tulsi Gabbard's appointment was broken in the first place.

It was broken by Alex Jones on InfoWars. It wasn't broken by a far right-wing outlet or something like that, it was broken there. That's where that news came out first and that's significant. It wasn't by accident, it was by design, that the news of her being put there came first because that is a reflection of where the power is being organized now. It is being organized on what used to be considered the fringes.

And Gabbard is an example of somebody that came in as a Democrat, at least ostensibly, and she validated as a Democrat all of the right-wing narrative that they were telling about these government institutions and in a way, "See, even a Democrat believes all the things that we're saying about the deep state, about the nefarious forces."

And so, not only was she a part of that validation process, but she's also an illustration of what that transition is and how you live and survive and thrive in the right-wing fever swamps. And so, when you pull it all together, she not only helped validate and cultivate that narrative and is clearly a responsive to that audience and landscape, but now she's going to be in a position where when Trump was previously getting from right- wing media -- and we saw that play out in his first term -- is now going to be echoed in whatever the internal intelligence that he receives because the underlying institutions are in fact going to be actively and intentionally dismantled, or at least disrupted. And that's the reality that we're heading into here.

WALLACE: I mean Angelo, let me illustrate that this is Tulsi Gabbard describing the court approved search of Mar-a-Lago to retrieve classified national defense information on Fox News.

...

The only people known to have been targeted by all those agencies were Trump's political adversaries. I mean, the complete inverse is what comes out of her mouth, which is, again, whether her sympathies lie with Russia or whether it's something deeper I think is a known unknown, but the tactics are straight out of a Russian disinformation playbook.

CARUSONE: They are, and the thing that I always jump to is not only was she a fixture on Fox News for a while, but she guest hosted -- she used to be a guest host for Tucker Carlson, who as you know, did increasingly more sympathetic Russian content. He did that whole big thing in the supermarket laughing and talking about how great the country is and how what we're being fed is a lie.

And I think that to me is the tie-in here, is that we already know what she's going to do in this role because she's been doing it in the right-wing media for the past few years, which is taking these attacks on American institutions and American credibility -- and I agree with what Frank was saying, we shouldn't always defend reflexively institutions and bureaucracies that need to be adapted, modified, improved, optimized, that should always be something we aspire to.

But that's not what -- that what it sort of sounds like they are talking about to their audiences, but they're talking about something deeper. They've identified an enemy, which is the government and they're acting accordingly. And that is why they're not participating in this process, this transition, because they don't even want to undermine their own argument and their own narrative to the audience that they've been feeding this to. So every action and every day that goes by, they further reinforce the very story that they've been telling as they get one step closer to those official positions.

Video

From the November 19, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House

NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): Some alarming news to tell you about, of Russia's unprovoked illegal invasion of Ukraine that proves the stakes have perhaps never been higher when it comes to supporting our Democratic ally over Vladimir Putin's Russia. Putin just formally lowered his own threshold for using nuclear weapons, now saying Russia can conduct a nuclear strike is attacked by not only a nuclear power, such as the United States, but also a nation that is backed by a nuclear power, such as Ukraine.

It was a long planned move that Putin first announced back in September after warning that he would do so for years. The Kremlin says the use of nuclear weapons still would be a "last resort measure" but its timing makes it appear to be a clear signal to the West from Vladimir Putin. U.S. Officials telling NBC News that Ukraine fired into Russia overnight, using U.S.-made missiles, the time after Joe Biden gave the Ukraine military the go-ahead over the weekend.

From the New York Times, "the doctrine's publication on Tuesday appeared to be the latest suggestion from the Kremlin that Russia could use nuclear weapons to respond to attacks by Ukraine carried out with American support and that the response could be directed against American facilities as well as Ukraine itself.

...

WALLACE: Angelo, the person who authored the most scathing report and indictment of Donald Trump's affinity for, ties to, and questions about Trump and Russia is his incoming Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. When he took over from Richard Burg for the Senate Intelligence Committee. Do you think they know that, do you think they don't care, do you think the chaos is the point in this mishmash of Gabbard and Rubio's Trumpian-mixed messaging? What do you think?

ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah, I think they don't care, and I think ultimately, Rubio is sort of one small piece of it but it's certainly not reflective of the larger administration or their posture. And I think ultimately what has been signaled, both during the campaign and as well as by who he is putting into these places from Pete Hegseth on down, that the affinity for Russia is not just sort of the geopolitical worldview or that they have been fed right from the ground up because they are consumers of the right-wing media, what Russia has been doing with our information landscape for quite a while, and sort of seeing the ground.

But that we should also not lose sight of the fact that there's an affinity there that is born out of there that Russia is an ethno-nationalist state and that is one of the biggest appeals that Tucker sort of pushed into it, which is this idea that like with Mike, that Mike makes right. And that was one of the things that Tucker was advocating for when he was on Fox, when he was holding it up as an exemplary, saying, "Yes, we have to know who our enemies are, Russia's never hurt us, but more importantly look how well their society is because they embraced ethnic nationalism."

And if you put that in the context of other attacks on DEI or all these other issues, it does sort of boil down to this core idea that there is something there in Russia that is if not aspirational for them, at least something that we should take and incorporate into our society. And so Marco Rubio is not going to have a lot of influence or power in the broader administration and I feel like everybody knows that.

...

---

omfg

'Email Putin all our war plans': Experts blast Trump for picking 'Russian spy' Gabbard as intel chief

AN 11 24

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AN 11 24

Ethics experts, legal experts, and current and former members of Congress are blasting Donald Trump and his transition team for skipping critical FBI background checks on at least some of the President-elect’s nominees to top posts in his upcoming administration, leading one member of Congress to warn she sees his top intelligence chief as a “likely” Russian asset.

“Skipping FBI background checks on nominees can be very dangerous,” warns former George W. Bush White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter. “This happened once in the Bush Administration (with Bernie Kerik) and after that fiasco, never again.”

Kerik, a protégé of Rudy Giuliani, had been nominated to become U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, but was forced to withdraw after an allegation of immigration law violation. He later pleaded guilty to eight felony charges, including tax fraud, and served time in prison.

The Trump transition team “is bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs, people close to the transition planning say,” CNN reports. “Trump and his allies believe the FBI system is slow and plagued with issues that could stymie the president-elect’s plan to quickly begin the work of implementing his agenda, people briefed on the plans said.”

“US officials are still waiting for the Trump transition team to submit a list of names, including those under consideration for Cabinet-level roles, to be formally vetted for security clearances,” CNN added, citing an unnamed source. “Trump’s team has, to date, resisted participating in the formal transition process, which includes signing memorandums of understanding and secrecy agreements typically considered a prerequisite for accessing classified material before the new administration assumes office.”

CNN also detailed the controversies surrounding two of Trump’s top, Cabinet-level nominees.

The now-former U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz, who is Trump’s nominee to become Attorney General — the nation’s chief law enforcement official — “has been mired for years in Justice Department and House ethics investigations related to sex trafficking.,” CNN reported. “The Justice Department declined to charge Gaetz, and the House ethics probe, days away from being completed, was effectively ended when the Florida congressman resigned from his seat this week. Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.”

On Friday, Speaker Johnson publicly declared the House Ethics Committee should quash the report on its investigation into Gaetz, drawing backlash.

Democrat turned Republican Tulsi Gabbard, also a former member of Congress, “has frequently appeared to take positions more favorable to foreign leaders widely considered not just American adversaries but, in some cases, brutal dictators, including the presidents of Syria and Russia, raising questions from allies and critics alike,” CNN added. “Gabbard notably met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria in 2017, and said in 2019 that he was ‘not an enemy of the United States.'”

“In early 2022, she echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rationale for the country’s invasion of Ukraine, pinning the blame not on Moscow but on the Biden administration’s failure to acknowledge ‘Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO’ — a popular strain of thought in some right-wing circles.”

On Friday, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) blasted the choice of Gabbard, nominated to become the nation’s top intelligence officer, the Director of National Intelligence. The DNI oversees every U.S. Intelligence Agency and has access to all intel, not only American but intelligence shared within the Five Eyes community: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

“Tulsi Gabbard is someone who has met with war criminals, violated the Department of State’s guidance, and secretly clandestinely went to Syria and met with Assad, who gassed and attacked his own people with chemical weapons,” the Florida Democratic Congresswoman told MSNBC (video below). “She’s considered to be essentially by most, by most assessments, a Russian asset.”

Asked if she shares that belief, Wasserman Schultz replied: “Oh, yes, there’s no question, I consider her someone who is likely a Russian asset, who would be as the DNI, responsible for managing our entire intelligence community, hold all of our most significant intelligence information and secrets, and essentially would be a direct line to our enemies.”

Legal experts and current and former members of Congress are blasting the Trump team’s decision to not do FBI background checks.

“Eliminating the traditional FBI background checks for those who would flunk them – MAGA DEI,” Republican former U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock observed,

“You don’t have to do this if you think your nominees can pass a background clearance. You only do it if you know they can’t,” remarked professor of law and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance.

“For decades, Presidential nominees have been subject to FBI background checks to ensure that those individuals do not have ties foreign governments or criminal groups. If Gaetz and Gabbard have nothing to hide, they should do the background checks,” noted U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI).

“This is unacceptable. We cannot have our cabinet secretaries overseeing our most sensitive information go without background checks,” added U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY). He said that Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin “should immediately request a background check for all nominees from the FBI while he is still Chair of the Judiciary Committee.”

Watch U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s remarks below or at this link.

===

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PUBLIC NOT RUPAR

Lisa Needham

During a get out the vote call Monday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. disclosed that “President Trump has promised me control of the public health agencies,” including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Kennedy also said Trump plans to put him in charge of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Trump has more of less confirmed this publicly. During his don’t-call-it-a-Nazi rally last Sunday at Madison Square Garden, Trump declared he would let RFK Jr. “go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on medicines.” (Watch below.)

RFK Jr. having so much power is a horrifying thought, as he touches all the bases when it comes to full-fledged conspiracy-mongering. Besides his anti-vax stance, he believes that 5G phone networks are being used for mass surveillance, that wifi causes chronic illness, that chemicals in drinking water are turning people trans, and that school shootings are increasing because kids take antidepressants. The guy shouldn’t be in charge of a local 7-Eleven, let alone running an array of powerful federal agencies regulating public health and medicine.

Kennedy is far from the only freak show Trump plans to empower in his second term.

Thanks to a leaked Trump transition planning document, everyone is now aware of the entirely depressing and predictable possibility that Judge Aileen Cannon might be Trump’s next attorney general.

And why not? Cannon gave Trump an incredible pre-election gift by slow-walking his classified document case and then throwing it out entirely back in July. She’s proven her worth and usefulness to Trump, exhibiting exactly the kind of moral flexibility required to serve in his cabinet.

...

Along with Bobby Kennedy, Trump is floating the name of another former faux-Democrat, Tulsi Gabbard.

:{:{Gabbard, who recently confirmed what everyone already knew — that she’s a Republican — is currently on the campaign trail stumping for Trump. According to Gabbard, Vice President Kamala Harris is the reason we are all “staring down the barrel of nuclear Armageddon” because she instigated the war in Ukraine.}:

This requires, of course, ignoring the fact that Russia started it openly and brazenly, but Gabbard has been a Putin fan for years now. Gabbard has said she wants a role in foreign policy in the Trump administration. Just what the foreign policy world needs: a backer of murderous Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and brutal authoritarian General Abdel Fattah el Sisi in Egypt.

---

8 24 tulsi gabbard endorse trump b/c no start war tho kpfa gave eg of escalation

===

Conspiracy theory filmmaker who was behind viral COVID misinformation film says he’s working with Tulsi Gabbard on a new movie

Gabbard is an honorary co-chair on Trump’s transition team

Written by Alex Kaplan

Published 10/14/24 mma

Mikki Willis, the director behind the 2020 coronavirus conspiracy theory video Plandemic, said that he will be collaborating with former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on an upcoming movie “about the border.”

Gabbard is a former Democratic member of Congress and presidential candidate turned Fox News contributor, podcast host, and Trump supporter who has played a role in his 2024 presidential campaign and is co-chairing his transition team.

In addition to directing Plandemic, which spread misinformation about vaccines and COVID-19, Willis has been involved with QAnon figures and spoke at a rally in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, he had just come from the Capitol. In 2021, Willis also said he was collaborating with Lara Logan, who was a Fox Nation host at the time.

During an October 12 X Space, Willis said, “Right now we’re making a movie with Tulsi Gabbard about the border.” Willis had also posted in September that he had become “part of Tulsi’s production team.” (During the X Space, Willis also said he is working on a movie project with Infowars’ Alex Jones.)

Mikki Willis: "Right now we’re making a movie with Tulsi Gabbard about the border"

October 12, 2024

CitationFrom an October 12, 2024, X Space

MIKKI WILLIS (PLANDEMIC DIRECTOR): And right now we’re making a movie with Tulsi Gabbard about the border. We’re doing a film with Alex Jones, which will be very important film. It’s going to shock people what it’s truly about and what it unveils.

We’re doing a film — ironically, you mentioned water. We're actually doing a film about the critically important value of water and how it can be restructured to give us greater health and better — and longevity.

So all these subjects that — we’re doing one on geoengineering, which is a big subject right now, after all these questionable hurricanes and weather events are taking place in a way that just even the professionals are saying, all I know is this is not natural. This is a one-in-a-bazillion chance of this occurring, so what’s up? And so, we’re making a film on that. And we’re very busy. I’ll just say that we’re very busy right now, and grateful to be so busy.

mma

//1. ### Joe Rogan and Tulsi Gabbard spread the debunked internet hoax that students are using litter boxes at school

10/13/22 5:58 PM EDT

### Fox News’ Tulsi Gabbard compares diversity policies and the Democratic Party to “Nazism and Adolf Hitler”

02/24/23 7:56 PM EST

### “Plandemic” director says he's working with Fox's Lara Logan on a new video

11/18/21

===

Shouldn’t Fox News suspend its contributor deal with potential Trump running mate Tulsi Gabbard? | Media Matters for America

===

american agents of misinformation: Tulsi Gabbard, Russian propaganda and article 88

*Kremlin apologists spreading disinformation during the ongoing conflict in Ukraine can be found on both sides of the aisle in US politics.

October 12, 2022 - Alan Cunningham - Articles and Commentary

Then US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard speaking with attendees at the Presidential Gun Sense Forum in Des Moines, Iowa. 2019. Photo: Gage Skidmore flickr.com

The war in Ukraine is obviously one of the most important geopolitical developments of the 21st century. Russia is clearly failing militarily in Ukraine, much of the developed world has placed harsh (and justifiable) sanctions on the Russian government, and numerous countries been prompted to join or consider joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Many in the United States and throughout the West have seen through Russia’s attempts to justify the war with baseless claims of genocide, and strongly support the Ukrainian people. However, in many countries some still identify with Russia and engage in rhetoric that supports it.

For the most part, at least in the United States, this comes from far-right members of the Conservative ideology, including political commentators like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, but also political candidates like JD Vance in Ohio and Joe Kent in Washington and Representatives Madison Cawthorne, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Paul Gosar. For the most part, these are Republicans, yet there are those who identify as left-leaning or are registered Democrats who strongly support Putin. One of those is former Representative Tulsi Gabbard.

Gabbard’s background

Many will likely be familiar with Gabbard, given that she was a contender for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 US Presidential Election. Her run catapulted her into the national spotlight, however she has had a wider career than her run for president. Gabbard first entered politics in 2002 at the age of 21, when she was elected to the 43rd District of the Hawaiian House of Representatives. Declining to seek re-election in 2004 after having enlisted in the Hawaiian Army National Guard, Gabbard achieved the rank of officer in 2007 and served on the Honolulu City Council in 2011 and 2012. From 2013 to 2021, Gabbard was the elected Representative for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District. During her time in office, she was the Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee, serving on a variety of foreign affairs committees and subcommittees.

Gabbard is a registered Democrat and has supported a number of leftist initiatives, including Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for All” plan, calls for campaign finance reform and the legalisation of marijuana at the federal level. Simultaneously, she has often sided with Republicans on legislation that is anathema to Democratic policies such as imposing extra restrictions on Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Gabbard also exhibits an equivocal record on LGBTQ+ rights, while she has accused the Democrats of “weapon[sing] religion for their own selfish gain”.

Gabbard’s foreign policy has often resulted in intense criticism from the left. The Council of Foreign Relations notes Gabbard identifies as a hawk on Islamic terrorism. She has decried US support for militants fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, advocating for Washington working with Russia and Assad to fight terrorist groups instead. For some time, Gabbard opposed the release of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, and is against removing the Assad regime.

During her campaign for the Democratic nomination, she sold herself as having an anti-establishment, anti-interventionist foreign policy, which drew support from many controversial and far-right figures like Richard Spencer and David Duke. Also contentiously, Gabbard frequently appeared on Fox News as a sitting member of Congress, making more than 20 appearances between 2013 to 2017, and often opposing Obama’s foreign policy.

Not only is Gabbard’s foreign policy at odds with the majority of the Democratic Party, but her own actions have appalled people both on the political Left and Right. In early 2017, Gabbard held a private meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad; in the immediate aftermath, while many foreign policy experts and US citizens were shocked, elected officials were largely silent.

This came at a time when the Al-Assad regime’s repeated war crimes, including the deliberate targeting of civilians, were known to the public. When Gabbard announced she was running for President, she defended her actions in a CNN interview; when asked if she had any regrets, she argued that it was important to meet with other leaders, “whether they be friends or adversaries or potential adversaries if we are serious about the pursuit of peace and securing our country”.

Putin’s American cheerleader

While Gabbard’s foreign policy decisions and statements were alarming during her time in office, her most concerning actions have occurred since she stepped down in early 2021. She has since started her own podcast, where she frequently calls for donations, and has remained very concerned with and invested in foreign affairs and politics in general. Gabbard has grown increasingly vocal, while taking a significant turn to the political right.

In appearances on Fox News, in particular on *The Ingraham Angle* and *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, Gabbard has openly criticised Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and has called for Democratic congressman Adam Schiff and former CIA Director John Brennan to be considered “domestic enemies” of the US. She considers the pair a greater danger to the United States than the rioters who stormed the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021, while she has also warned of “efforts to combat domestic insurgents through surveillance and other monitoring activities”.

In August of 2022, perhaps driving the largest wedge between herself and the Democratic Party, Gabbard guest hosted for Tucker Carlson. During the broadcast, Gabbard said “there’s no denying that the unprecedented raid on [Donald Trump’s] Palm Beach home earlier this week has set our country on a dangerous new course, and there’s no turning back”. She also claimed that US law enforcement had been weaponised “to target the political opponents of the … Biden regime”, a move which had the “hallmarks of a dictatorship”.

While it is one thing for Gabbard to voice her own views, this becomes rather problematic considering her position as a Commissioned Officer in the US Army Reserve and the potential for her to serve Russian government interests as a useful idiot — a term often attributed to Lenin, and which describes a naïve person who can be used to further a political cause without necessarily properly comprehending it.

The danger of Gabbard’s use by the Russian government and the appropriate consequences

Gabbard’s comments are not surprising considering the number of people in both the political sphere and on social media who espouse Russian or non-Western aligned views. However, her comments are particularly surprising given her position within the US Armed Forces. In addition to her political career, Gabbard is a currently serving Lieutenant Colonel (O-5) in the US Army Reserve, assigned to the United States Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs Command-Airborne (USCAPOC(A)) as a Civil Affairs Officer. According to the official webpage of the US Army Special Operations Recruiting Battalion, any Civil Affairs Officer must be eligible for (and maintain) a Top-Secret Security Clearance, one of the most demanding and stringent security clearances within the United States government.

Within the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), the military legal system, there is one area in which Gabbard’s comments could land her in hot water. Under 10 US Code § 888 – Article 88, “Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct”.

Gabbard’s statements against President Biden have been numerous, while she also took direct shots at Nancy Pelosi, high-ranking members of Congress and the Executive Branch long before she starting hosting Tucker Carlson Tonight. Gabbard has asserted that the Russian Federation and the United States are “not so different” in terms of the censoring of free speech. She also claimed, in the early days of the Russian invasion, that “[Biden] wants Russia to invade Ukraine so that they can impose ‘draconian’ sanctions on the country”, while she also seemed to support Putin using his military to deter Ukraine’s NATO membership as a case of Russia pursuing its own national security interests.

What is of particular concern, however, is the fact that Gabbard’s top-secret security clearance gives her access to sensitive special operations and intelligence information, while she simultaneously operates within a mutually reinforcing dynamic with Russian propaganda outlets. Gabbard has claimed, for example, that the US supports several dozen former Soviet biolabs in Ukraine, which work with diseases like COVID-19, while also accusing the Biden administration of covering this up, claims which are directly based on Russian disinformation. Gabbard’s accusations are in turn rebroadcast by Russia propaganda outlets to further the country’s policy goals. According to *The Intercept*, Russian media “… featured translated clips of Tucker Carlson or his guest Tulsi Gabbard … attacking the Biden administration” at least four times in the month of February 2022.

In the aftermath of her hosting Carlson’s Fox News segment in August, the government of Ukraine placed Gabbard on a list of American citizens who have promoted Russian propaganda. Meanwhile, Alexander Vindman, the former US Army Officer who testified against Trump during the Trump-Ukraine Scandal, called her out on social media for being a liar and “an agent of Russian disinformation [who promotes] Russian aggression and endanger[s] America”.

Time for a review of Gabbard’s privileges

Gabbard’s actions have greatly benefitted the Russian government. Putin has been gifted a mouthpiece who commands the national attention of his main adversary, and who is supportive of his foreign policy goals. It would be wise for the US Department of Defense, the US Army Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs Command, and the US Army Reserve to reconsider her status within the elite field of Civil Affairs officers, and reevaluate her top-secret security clearance.

Gabbard has met the head of state of a sanctioned nation whose forces were actively engaged in combat with US-allied (and possibly US Special Operations) forces, called the Biden administration a dictatorship, and labelled the senior ranking member of a House Committee a domestic terrorist. She has not distanced herself nor seemed at all concerned that her face and views are being propagated by Russian state owned media for what are clearly nefarious and detrimental purposes. It is time for her privileged military status to be reviewed.

Alan Cunningham is an Illicit Finances Analyst. He holds an MA in International Relations from

Norwich University and a B.A./B.S. degree from the University of Texas. He aims to pursue a PhD

in History from the University of Birmingham in the UK.

===

creating hype /violence by denouncing ? see bizzaro rubber glue reverse, projection on projection 12 23

mma 12 23

tasteful grey streak for gravitas?

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Tulsi, you're saying they're inviting someone to take a shot at Trump. I think you're right.

TULSI GABBARD (GUEST): Yes, this is what is dangerous. They're sending a message to a rogue actor, a lone wolf saying, "Hey, we need someone to save our country from this modern day Hitler-like person." And that is what should alarm every single American. This is not how the United States of America is. This is not who we are. And, yet, this is what these people in positions of power are doing and abusing their power and undermining our democracy, cause in their minds the end justifies the means.

INGRAHAM (HOST): I am terrified for our country right now, given that type of rhetoric. I mean, unlike the left, we don't believe in censoring people's speech, but by doing what they're doing and saying what they're saying, they can talk about dog whistles, that's a dog whistle to violence. If Hitler is in waiting, then you've got to stop Hitler. AND THEREFORE WHAT?

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Fox spent only 4 minutes on Trump’s “vermin” rant, repeatedly downplaying the remarks | Media Matters for America

Fox News anchor Bret Baier called former President Donald Trump's promise to “root out” his political enemies, whom he described as “vermin,” the weekend’s “biggest political news” during a Monday segment on Special Report. But not on Fox, where the story has received only 4 minutes of coverage — including repeated criticisms of other news outlets for supposedly covering it too much and too harshly.

“We pledge to you that we will root out the communist, Marxist, fascist and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” Trump said in a Saturday speech and post on Truth Social. He added that his foes want “to destroy America and to destroy the American dream” and that “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within.”

Experts on authoritarianism warned that Trump’s rhetoric compares to that of fascist dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. But Fox’s zealous support for Trump requires ignoring or downplaying the increasingly unhinged remarks and authoritarian vision of the runaway leader for the Republican presidential nomination.

Fox devoted only 4 minutes to Trump’s “vermin” remarks, according to a Media Matters review. The coverage, all on Monday, consisted of a brief mention on the “news side” program America Reports, a correspondent report and panel discussion on Special Report, and discussion during “opinion side” host Laura Ingraham’s interview with right-wing pundit Tulsi Gabbard on The Ingraham Angle.

:{Video

CitationFrom the November 13, 2023, edition of Fox News' Special Report.

During the Special Reportpanel segment, Baier highlighted a Washington Post report on the comments that, in Baier’s words, “goes on to talk to historians and effectively using the language of Hitler and Mussolini” and added that the remarks had received “a lot of coverage.”

In reality, while CNN and MSNBC both devoted extensive time to the story, Baier’s network, which before his Monday evening program had dedicated only a single brief mention to Trump’s Saturday remarks, was among many major news outlets providing relatively scant coverage of Trump’s “vermin” remarks.

Baier then asked Fox political analyst Brit Hume, “What's your thoughts on that and the framing of it?” Hume replied in part by downplaying Trump’s remarks, saying, “Well, I don't see Hitler and Mussolini. We had four years of Trump; we didn't get Hitler or Mussolini out of it.”

Ingraham’s subsequent broadcast provided nearly half of Fox’s coverage of Trump’s “vermin” remarks. She and her guest criticized CNN and MSNBC personalities for noting that Trump’s rhetoric echoed that of Hitler before engaging in whataboutism regarding “antisemitic loons on college campuses.”

:{Video

CitationFrom the November 13, 2023, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle.

Newsmax, Fox’s primary cable news rival, has likewise minimized Trump’s remarks and lashed out at news outlets for treating them critically.

“You're allowed to talk about draining the swamp,” prime-time host Greg Kelly said on Monday. “They say that Donald Trump is like Hitler, he's using the same words that Hitler used. Well, Hitler used the word chair, OK? I sit in a chair. That doesn't make me – right? You see? But they don't stop, do they?”

Methodology...

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https://www.alternet.org/sinema-2662303351/

7 23 tulsi sis sec

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-tulsi-gabbard-will-headline-gop-fundraiser-violation-networks-policy-against

https://www.alternet.org/kyrsten-sinema-2659457754/

sis sec

an 2 23 badash

Former Democratic U.S. Congresswoman **Tulsi Gabbard** stunned a far-right Fox News host Friday night, falsely claiming President Joe Biden has chosen his cabinet members based solely on factors of "genetics" and "race" – while comparing Biden to Hitler.

In a segment attacking President Biden's cabinet, as The Daily Beast reported, Gabbard, a Fox News contributor, suggested he was "proud" to be "hiring people, selecting people…based on genetics, race, based on your blood, your genes. And where do we see that connection? Well, these are the very same geneticist core principles embodied by Nazism and Adolf Hitler."

President Biden put together one of the most qualified Cabinets in history. He also promised his Cabinet, unlike his predecessor's, would be as diverse as America itself.

"President Biden's proposed cabinet would be the most diverse in U.S. history," The New York Times reported one day after his inauguration, "comprising more women and people of color than any cabinet before it — which, in many ways, fulfills Mr. Biden's campaign promise to select a team that 'looks like America' and modernizes the predominantly male, white institution."

"'Building a diverse team will lead to better outcomes and more effective solutions to address the urgent crises facing our nation,' he said in a speech in December when announcing some of his cabinet nominees."

The Times also pointed to some "notable firsts" in Biden's Cabinet:

"In addition to the barrier-breaking Vice President Kamala Harris, there will be America's first female Treasury secretary (Janet Yellen), its first openly gay secretary (Pete Buttigieg, for the Department of Transportation), its first Native American secretary (Deb Haaland, for the Department of the Interior), the first woman to serve as director of national intelligence (Avril Haines) and the first immigrant to lead the Department of Homeland Security (Alejandro Mayorkas), to name just a few."

Gabbard shared with Fox News host Jesse Watters her theory that "what we're seeing here is [Democrats'] philosophy, identity politics. And this is one of the main reasons why I left the Democratic Party because you seeing how their agenda of identity politics is directly undermining the traditional Democratic values that were expressed so beautifully and clearly, by Dr. Martin Luther King, that we should judge each other not based on the color of our skin, but based on our character."

It's demonstrably false to claim President Biden considered only diversity factors to build his Cabinet, which is comprised of people with tremendous experience and accomplishments. A look at their extensive biographies exposes Gabbard's claim as false.

Watch Gabbard below or at this link.

an 2 23

its first hearing isn’t until Thursday but already Chairman Jim Jordan‘s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is being mocked after the list of witnesses was released.

NBC News’ Garrett Haake reports testifying before the committee on Thursday will be ex-Democratic Congresswoman **Tulsi Gabbard**, **U.S. Senator Ron Johnson** (R-WI), **U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley** (R-IA), and former FBI special agent Nicole Parker.

Gabbard left the Democratic Party and is now an independent and a Fox News contributor. In 2019, Hillary Clinton suggested she was a Russian asset being groomed for a third-party presidential run. She sued the former Democratic presidential nominee and former U.S. Secretary of State but later dropped the defamation lawsuit.

Also, Gabbard “shared false information,” Forbes reported last year, “about U.S. involvement in Ukraine biological laboratories … giving credence to an unfounded Russian-backed conspiracy theory the U.S. has warned could serve as justification for Russia to use biological and chemical weapons against Ukraine.”

Sen. Johnson, who narrowly won re-election after being among the top promoters of Donald Trump’s “Big Lie,” is a conspiracy theorist who uses his Senate seat to spread false information about COVID and a host of other crises.

CNN’s Chris Cillizza branded Johnson the “Senate’s leading conspiracy theorist” just one year ago. The Washington Post reported last May that Sen. Johnson “expressed openness” to “a fervent anti-vaccination” commentator’s “idea that maybe the coronavirus vaccines are a conduit for deliberately giving people AIDS.”

Sen. Grassley has come under fire for his racist remarks about COVID-19, dangerously false claims about the IRS, and apparent falsehoods about the January 6 insurrection and its participants.

Last year The American Independent reported Grassley told a constituent “what you said is accurate.” According to The Independent, the constituent said during a town hall: “Knowing that the FBI and Capitol Police were complicit in Jan. 6, what have you done to get the political prisoners being held in gulag conditions out on bail?”

Some were quick to mock Chairman Jordan’s choice of witnesses to testify before his subcommittee’s first hearing.

“Johnson actively pushed the WI legislature & the VP to overturn the election. Tulsi used her perch in Congress to secretly meet with Assad & whitewash his war crimes. so in a sense, they are indeed experts on weaponizing gov’t.,” mocked former Hillary Clinton foreign policy spokesperson Jesse Lehrich.

Jim Manley, a top aide to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, described the panel as “low energy.”

NBC News Justice reporter Ryan J. Reilly pre-deflated Parker’s possible contributions, citing her as saying: “’I was never asked to participate in anything that was political,’ Nicole Parker said in one of her Fox News hits (Hannity, specifically).”

Even CNN did not hide its skepticism, beginning its reporting with this line: “The GOP-led House select subcommittee on so-called weaponization of the federal government will draw upon a prominent ex-Democrat, two of their Republican Senate colleagues, and a former FBI agent in their first public hearing to discuss how they believe the government has been weaponized against conservatives, multiple sources familiar with the plans tell CNN.”

https://www.alternet.org/marjorie-taylor-green-tulsi-gabbard/

boing 12 22

one of my favorite podcasts, QAnon Anonymous, just released the first of a two-part series all about Tulsi Gabbard. Part One dives into Gabbard's early life, and specifically her family's involvement in the deeply homophobic Science of Identity Foundation cult run by surfer-turned-spiritual-grifter Chris Butler. Google Podcasts describes Part One, Episode 211: Tulsi Gabbard P1 (The Cult) feat Mike Prysner:

A political chameleon now considered a rising star of the GOP was raised within a cult run by a surfer who broke away from the Hare Krishnas to focus more on himself as the conduit of God on earth — and to attack homosexual rights. Our guest writer is Mike Prysner (Empire Files, Eyes Left Podcast) who helps us explore Tulsi Gabbard and her family's intimate involvement with the Science of Identity cult.

Part Two will be released next week and will explore Gabbard's more recent history including her years as U.S. representative from Hawaii's 2^nd congressional district, her bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination for President, and her move from Democrat to Independent. I was truly floored by some of what I heard in Part One, so I can't wait to hear what Part Two brings.

mma 12 22

Joe Kent was an election-denying candidate for Washington's third congressional district in 2022, and ended up losing his race. Kent embraced far-right politics in the race, appearing frequently on Infowars, Steve Bannon's podcast, and even a QAnon show. He's made multiple appearances on Carlson's Fox News show.

[vid]

GABBARD (HOST): Is it true before you got into journalism you were thinking about joining the CIA?

TUCKER CARLSON (GUEST): Yes.

...

CARLSON: I wanted an interesting life, that's the main thing that I wanted out of life. I never was interested in money,I had the privilege of not being interested in money because I didn't grow up in a family where we were worried about moneyso I just never thought about money.

...

CARLSON: I didn't think the CIA was a sinister force, it never occurred to me the CIA might be playing a role in domestic politics, like that was insane. First of all, it's illegal. Now, the CIA is all over domestic politics – they clearly took out Joe Kent in Washington state I think. And a lot of other ways they are tampering with our democracy.

an 10 22

don't let the dr hit you...

In avideo posted on Twitter on October 11, frequent Fox News guest and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced that she was leaving the Democratic Party. Gabbard’s talking points were right out of the MAGA playbook when she slammed Democrats as “an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness” and declared, “The Democrats of today are hostile to people of faith and spirituality. They demonize the police and protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans. The Democrats of today believe in open borders and weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents.”

:{Gabbard has gone from praising Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in 2016 and running for president as a Democrat in 2020to endorsing far-right “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theorist Kari Lake in Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial race. Right-wing media, following Gabbard’s October 11 announcement, were quick to paint the former Hawaii congresswoman as an example of someone Democrats have alienated.

But one conservative who isn’t the least bit impressed with Gabbard’s defection from the Democratic Party is Never Trumper and Daily Beast opinion columnist Matt Lewis. In a biting October 20 column,}: Lewis is vehemently critic of Gabbard and slams her announcement as a cheap political stunt designed to promote “her new role as celebrity influencer.”

“To the degree that ‘wokeness’ is the 2022 update of ‘political correctness meets identity politics,’” Lewis argues, “Dems have been trafficking in that for decades…. So, why did Tulsi decide to break up with the Democrats, and why now? Gabbard may want to take a page from ex-Democrat Ronald Reagan, who famously said, ‘I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the party left me.’ But the two are hardly analogous.”

Lewis continues, “I struggle to find any coherence in Gabbard’s political philosophy or strategy, but as a lifelong conservative, one possible answer may be that the Republican Party has left us. It has become the kind of MAGA party that is attractive to people like Lake, a former Obama voter; Donald Trump, a former Clinton supporter; Kanye ‘George Bush doesn't care about Black people’ West; Dr. Mehmet Oz of ‘Oprah’ fame; and now, the ex-Bernie-booster Tulsi Gabbard.”

The conservative columnist goes on to describe Gabbard’s defection from the Democratic Party as an example of former President Donald Trump’s toxic influence.

“In these reactionary times,” Lewis explains, “ambitious right-wing newbies just have to make the right enemies, and they are parlaying their fame into taking over not just the GOP, but the conservative movement…. A common thread among the MAGA upstarts is that they are opportunistic and attention-starved. Politics, once dreary and boring to the general public, is now a gateway to widespread attention, and the far right has by far the lowest barrier to entry. In this regard, Gabbard is merely the latest celebrity brand to hop on the conservative entertainment wing’s wagon in pursuit of even more clout.”

Lewis continues, “Seen in that light, Gabbard’s conversion, seemingly timed to coincide with the launch of a new podcast, is less confusing…. Tulsi didn’t have to pay her dues or show her conservative credentials — all she had to do is slam her own party. Instant MAGA stardom!.... Welcome aboard, Tulsi. You’ll fit right in!”

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-outlets-are-pushing-unfounded-conspiracy-theory-about-collapsed-cryptocurrency

After the cryptocurrency exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy protection on November 11, right-wing outlets spread a baseless conspiracy theory drummed up by a white supremacist radio host claiming that FTX’s downfall was related to CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s donations to the Democratic Party and FTX’s role in supporting relief efforts in Ukraine.

Multiple outlets have confirmed that Bankman-Fried had made a number of high-dollar personal contributions to Democratic campaigns during the 2022 midterm elections. However, there is currently no evidence that FTX was laundering taxpayer money or private funds through Ukraine and into Democratic campaigns. A Ukrainian official has also refuted the conspiracy theory, calling it “nonsense.”

The conspiracy theory appears to have originated from white supremacist Hal Turner on November 11, when Turner published a post to his radio show's website. The post asserted without evidence that “tens-of-billions in American ‘Military Aid’ to Ukraine” was actually invested into FTX by the Ukrainian government,and then reinvested into Democratic Party campaigns. In the post, Turner also claimed that “to some observers,” this appears to be "pure, criminal, money-laundering, and a criminal conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws.”

A Twitter thread that linked to Turner’s content and was retweeted thousands of times was then posted on November 11.The same unsubstantiated theory was subsequently amplified by embattled Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who posted content that seemed to originate from 4chan to support this theory.

Following Musk’s promotion, the FTX conspiracy theory rapidly gained traction with right-wing figures and online outlets. Musk has historically used his personal Twitter account to bring attention to right-wing conspiracy theories and those amplifying them, recently tweeting and then deleting a link to a website espousing the unhinged theory about the attempted assassination of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and subsequent assault of her husband. Right-wing figures and online outlets were quick to amplify that falsehood as well.

Here are some of the conservative media outlets that spread the baseless conspiracy theory amid the fallout of FTX’s bankruptcy.

Fox News walked its viewers through the conspiracy theory without concern for lack of evidence

Fox News hosts wasted no time in wildly speculating about FTX's collapse, seeming to take the underlying premise that Bankman-Fried and the Ukrainian government were in cahoots as a given despite the lack of evidence.

Fox host Jesse Watters discussed the unfounded conspiracy theory as fact, baselessly stating that Ukraine invested in FTX to “reward their favorite mega donor,” and later claimed that FTX collected money from Ukraine and “plowed it right back into the Democratic Party.” He later added, “I don’t know if this is money laundering or war profiteering — I don’t even know, but it needs to be investigated."[vid]

While guest-hostingTucker Carlson Tonight,former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) claimed that there was “speculation that the U.S. government might have sent taxpayer money to Ukraine which then ended up at FTX and ultimately to Democrats.” Gabbard’s guest, New York Post columnist Miranda Devine, further speculated by bizarrely claiming that Bankman-Fried was “in the bosom of the left” before asking why the U.S. government is spending so much money on Ukraine and why Ukraine was linked to FTX.

Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt, along with Fox and Friends Weekend host Will Cain, rejected Ukrainian officials’ denial of the theory, with Cain stating that “denial is not proof” that FTX wasn’t being used as a slush fund. He later stated that “the Ukrainian angle” in the story was “not a conspiracy” but still an “important question to ask.”

Right-wing media outlets and figures spread the theory online

Right-wing media outlets and figures began to allege that Democrats laundered Ukrainian aid into donations through FTX on November 12, with many sharing these allegations on Twitter and Facebook.

Right-wing outlet The Gateway Pundit published two articles on November 12, claiming without evidence that “tens of billions of dollars going to Ukraine were actually laundered back to the US to corrupt Democrats and elites using FTX cryptocurrency.” Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters found that these articles were shared across Facebook more than 10,000 times. The Gateway Pundit, [11/12/22, 11/12/22]

Infowars published an article claiming without evidence that FTX’s collapse “revealed” that it had been “nothing more than a slush fund for Democrat candidates.” The article went on to say, “The fact Ukraine military aid funds had invested heavily in FTX earlier this year is starting to make a lot more sense.” Infowars, [11/12/22]

Neo-Nazi collaborator Jack Posobiec tweeted, “It is increasingly looking like the Democrats 2022 campaigns were funded by kickbacks from Ukraine funding using FTX as the pass-through vehicle. No wonder dude is scared for his life after ripping off these people.” Posobiec later complained that media haven’t backed up his baseless assertion. Twitter, [11/13/22, 11/13/22]

Failed Arizona secretary of state candidate and election denier Mark Finchem tweeted,“Seize assets of all candidates, orgs, politicians, executives, campaigns, PACs & companies who were involved in the Ukraine money-laundering scam that spent money in the 2022 elections and ripped off the American People; then give the money BACK to the taxpayers. #AZSOS #FTX.” Twitter, [11/13/22]

Sinclairanchor Jan Jeffcoat read a tweet from right-wing podcaster Eric Matheny on-air, baselessly accusing the Democratic Party of money laundering with FTX as the intermediary. Sinclair Broadcast Group, *The National Desk*, [11/14/22]

The Daily Wire published an article with the headline “Biden, Ukraine, And A 30-Year-Old Crypto Billionaire: How The Implosion Of FTX Connects To The Global Elite.” The article mentioned that Bankman-Fried “comes from an extraordinarily well-connected family” and has ties to the “controversial” World Economic Forum, but it did not explicitly accuse anyone of money laundering. (The Daily Wire and its network of Facebook pages have also shared this article across Facebook, where it has earned more than 4,000 total interactions.) The Daily Wire, [11/14/22]

Disgraced former Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) tweeted, “Here’s why the FTX story matters: For an entire year Democrat law makers have stood on the House floor and demanded taxpayer $ for Ukraine. The whole time, Ukraine was funneling those tax $ into FTX, who in turn donated them back to Democrat lawmakers. This is #bluewashing.” Twitter, [11/14/22]

Right-wing influencer Terrence K. Williams wrote, “Joe Biden & Zelenskyy have been laundering money. Biden funded Ukraine. Ukraine funded FTX. FTX funded Democrats with millions. They impeached Trump for a phone call, they should escort Biden out of office now and we need to cut ties with Ukraine immediately!” Twitter, [11/14/22]

Fox’s Cainasked on Twitter, “Was FTX laundering money through Ukraine back to Democrats (any politician) voting to fund the war in Ukraine? Finding the answer to this question used to be the top story and a path to the Pulitzer.” Twitter, [11/14/22]

Breitbartsenior editor Joel Pollak tweeted, “The FTX collapse goes to the heart of the Democratic Party in the same way as the Jeffery Epstein scandal and will be covered up in the same way for that reason.” Twitter, [11/15/22]

Newsmax host Benny Johnson shared the aforementionedJesse Watters Primetime segment to Twitter and in a video on Facebook, where it earned at least 27,000 views. Twitter, [11/14/22; Facebook, 11/15/22]

Failed GOP congressional candidate Sandy Smith shared Johnson’s video on Facebook, writing, “Explains where the millions the Dems poured into NC against me came from. #FTXScam #Investigate #FTX.” Facebook, [11/15/22]

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last Friday, the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh held a rally in Tennessee against gender-affirming care, a follow-up to his targeted misinformation campaign against Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. Footage from the rally, which included speeches from Walsh, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and other media figures and local politicians, shows that it attracted a cadre of extremists, including members of the violent Proud Boys extremist group and multiple protesters brandishing signs explicitly calling for violence against medical professionals. Following the rally, Walsh called the protesters “normal decent Americans” while Blackburn said she was “proud” to have participated.

Walsh, an opportunist who has committed himself to an anti-trans crusade, recently claimed to be “building a nationwide organized movement” to target hospitals and medical providers with harassment after helping to drive harassment against Boston Children’s Hospital. After the facility reported threats against doctors and staff, Walsh continued to target the facility, which later received more than one bomb threat. In September, Walsh targeted Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital with similar false claims and mischaracterizations of procedures offered to minors, falsely claiming the hospital would “castrate, sterilize, and mutilate minors as well as adults.”

The efficacy of gender-affirming medical care for trans youth, and the serious psychological risks of denying that care, have been shown by numerous studies, and such care is supported by every major medical organization in America.

Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital responded to Walsh by saying it did not provide gender-affirming genital surgeries for trans youth but would temporarily cease other gender-affirming surgeries for minors, despite such surgeries having very low rates of regret. Following the success of his targeting of Vanderbilt, Walsh announced the rally at the Tennessee state capitol on October 21, which was billed as “The Rally to End Child Mutilation.”

Walsh’s rally attracted extremists, some of whom explicitly called for violence against medical professionals

Leading up to the rally, Walsh, who has a history of promoting or defending political violence, continually targeting healthcare providers and the LGBTQ community, comparing doctors who provide gender-affirming care toNazis, calling for police to “[break] down the doors” of establishments hosting drag events, and tweeting he was “not just reporting” on the trans health clinic at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital but was “going to put a stop to it.”

Footage of the rally streamed by Walsh and local news outlets on YouTube showedmultiple attendees at Walsh’s rally directly calling for violence against doctors, with one attendee’s sign reading “Doctors who mutilate children should be killed.”

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the sign was visible at the front of the crowd for the duration of the rally, including during speeches by Walsh and Blackburn. The man holding the sign, who can be seen cheering for Matt Walsh during a speech byTea Party activist Matt Meckler,was also recorded by local media confronting counter-protesters before the rally yelling, “No mutilators, mutilators go home.”

Footage from a of the event also captured an attendee positioned further back in the crowd holding a sign that said, “mutilate the mutilators.”

Following the bomb threat made against Boston Children’s Hospital, Walsh claimed that “no critic of gender ideology gains anything or has any incentive to make a threat.”

Footage from the rally also shows a number of members of the violent extremist group the Proud Boys, one of whom can be seen flashing a white nationalist hand signal as he passed counter protesters.

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the rally also attracted fringe Christian fundamentalists who held oversized signs declaring, “homo sex is sin,” and that “hellfire awaits” gay people and “baby killers.” Another protester near the front can be seen holding a sign declaring, “We are at war,” with the other side reading, “No justice, no peace, free the J6’ers,” referring to those arrested for participating in the January 6 insurrection.

Walsh and other speakers at the rally used incendiary language directing anger at medical professionals

In addition to Walsh, speakers at the rally included GOP state politicians from Tennessee, who earlier this year passed multiple anti-trans bills (helping to perpetuate mental health crisis among trans youth in the state), and Blackburn, who used the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to push anti-trans talking points. Other speakers included Tulsi Gabbard, Dr. Colin Wright, and Chloe Cole.

During the rally, Walsh engaged the crowd with incendiary language, asking the audience, “As Tennesseans, do we believe in castrating children? Do we believe in that? Do we believe in drugging and mutilating kids?” Walsh added, “They believe in it.” He continued, saying, “I'm not going to leave it to my kids to fight this fight. We don't leave it to our kids. We stand up and we fight. It isn't our kids’ battle,” before going on to characterize his “fight” as “a battle of good versus evil.”

In her speech, Blackburn directed the attention of the extremists in the crowd to Vanderbilt, saying Walsh and the Daily Wire did an “amazing job” targeting Vanderbilt, referencing “what was taking place just down the street right here in Nashville.” Later in her speech, Blackburn said she was going to “carry this movement to take care of our children, to end this child mutilation.” As she neared the end of her speech, Blackburn said, “Look, you all arehappy warrior freedom fighters, and you are not going to let the left get their way with our children.”

Vanderbilt’s proximity to the crowd’s location was also referenced by State Rep. William Lamberth (R-TN), who said during his speech, “If not for Matt and his team, a certain university medical center just down the road would still be performing child mutilation surgeries.”

Walsh and other speakers reacted to the rally by targeting counter protesters and lauding the anti-trans protesters

Immediately following the rally, Walsh, who last year called Kyle Rittenhouse a “victim” after Rittenhouse shot dead multiple people at a Black Lives Matter protest, tweeted a photo of the crowd where the sign calling for violence against doctors is visible, with Walsh simply captioning it, “We are winning.”

Blackburn tweeted after the rally that she was “proud to defend Tennessee kids from these dangerous procedures today.” Tulsi Gabbard wrote in her newly-launched Substack newsletter that there were “a handful of very noisy protesters who were there to support continued child mutilation” at the rally, but made no mention of those calling to murder doctors.

During his podcast on Monday, Walsh targeted the counter protesters at the event, calling them “satanic leftist zombies'' and “emotionally disturbed freaks and losers,” and claimed some of them were “of the paid variety.” Walsh contrasted them with his supporters.

In the end I have to be grateful that thedisgusting hellspawnsdid show up because it provided exactly the kind of contrast that I want people to see. On one hand, you have normal decent Americans of all ages and demographics speaking out against one of the great atrocities of our time, and on the other hand you have a bunch of screeching goblins who have no argument to present, no point to make, and are only interested in silencing the other side by whatever means necessary.So it's just up to each member of the public to decide whose side they want to be on. You see that footage, you decide, who do you want to line up with?

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Some of Fox News’ most influential commentators are misconstruing recent remarks from Vice President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, falsely claiming that the Biden administration is preparing for “war” against the Republican Party as Fox continues to push the fallacy that conservatives are being persecuted.

Fox News has relentlessly attacked Harris since she joined President Joe Biden’s ticket in 2020. In addition to a constant stream of racist and sexist remarks, the network has waged a war of manufactured outrage against Harris, either by claiming she was laughing at gas prices — when in reality she was just laughing at a meme — or by inexplicably blaming the vice president for Russia’s violent escalations against Ukraine.

During the September 11 edition of NBC’sMeet the Press, host Chuck Todd asked Harris, “We are now as a nation battling a threat from within. Is the threat equal or greater than what we faced after 9/11?” Harris replied that she had taken an oath to “defend and uphold our constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic” and that “we don’t compare the two in the oath, but we know they both can exist.” Harris also noted that she wished that domestic threats were not filtered through “some partisan lens,” but notably did not say domestic threats were more dangerous than the threat of terrorism during and after 9/11.[dan ball Hoe?]

Similarly, during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union on September 11, Clinton reflected on “how important it is to try to deal with extremism of any kind, especially when it uses violence to try to achieve political and ideological goals.” (The network’s obsession with Clinton is well-documented.)

It didn’t take long for Fox News to latch on to the narrative that Harris, Clinton, and the Democratic Party writ-large had issued a “declaration of war” against MAGA Republicans.

During his prime-time show on Fox, Jesse Watters falsely claimed that the “Biden White House used this day to politicize the worst terrorist attack in American history and declare war on you.” He then baselessly characterized Harris’ vow to “defend against all enemies foreign and domestic” as a “declaration of war,” saying, “Make no mistake, the Democratic Party, the media, and obviously the FBI have designated the Republican Party as a terrorist group.”:{ Fox News, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Jesse Watters Primetime*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[9/12/22:{]}:
Tulsi Gabbard claimed that the Biden administration and the Democratic Party are “pushing our country to the brink of civil war.” Gabbard also claimed that Harris and others were “demonizing, targeting our fellow Americans as worse than Al-Qaeda terrorists” as a ploy to “hold on to their power:{.” Fox News, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Jesse Watters Primetime*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[9/12/22:{]}:
Fox host Tucker Carlson claimed that Harris’ comments about defending the constitution against domestic enemies amounted to a declaration of war against “you and anyone else in the way of the Biden administration.” Carlson also referred to the January 6 insurrection as an “election injustice protest” and called Todd a “freaking lunatic” for suggesting the United States has a “threat within.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [9/12/22]
On Hannity, former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed that Clinton had compared Republicans to terrorists during her appearance on CNN’s State of the Union. “Drawing a comparison between American citizens and the heinous monsters who committed one of the most evil acts in our country's history. That is despicable,” McEnany:{ said. Fox News, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Hannity*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[9/12/22:{]}:

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/january-6-select-committee-hearing-revelations-fox-news-didnt-want-its-viewers-seeing-live

fox News is a Republican propaganda outlet whose stars have spent the last 17 months downplaying the January 6 insurrection, so of course it had no interest in allowing its viewers to see live, unedited coverage of tonight’s first hearing by the House select committee investigating it. The Fox audience missed out on stunning video of the attack and a host of revelations about the events leading up to and during it, including that President Donald Trump had been told by top aides that he had lost the election and that the voter fraud claims he was making were baseless; extensive details about the role the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers played in the insurrection; and that Trump never called in the National Guard to defend the U.S. Capitol.

Fox was created to generate alternate narratives that would shield Republicans from scrutiny and pseudoscandals that would hurt Democrats. When a violent mob of Trumpists, riled by voter fraud lies from Trump, Republican leaders, and Fox personalities, breached the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the network sprang into action. Fox has diligently avoided reporting on many of the key developments about the right-wing coup attempt, as The Washington Post’s Philip Bump documented.Instead, led by Tucker Carlson, Fox fabricated a counternarrative in which the insurrection’s perpetrators were actually its victims.

Live coverage of the January 6 hearing could have broken through that alternate reality bubble. And so while its major cable and broadcast news competitors carried the hearing, Fox aired its regular prime-time lineup of propagandists, with the network’s “news team” banished to sister channel Fox Business until 11 p.m. ET, after much of the audience has gone to sleep. That allows the network to either ignore the damaging new details in future programming, or develop propaganda rebutting that information, either way denying the audience a full understanding of the events.

Here is a sampling of what Fox’s viewers didn’t see while the network’s stars were instead recapping conspiracy theories about the attack, downplaying the violence and the hearing's findings, and hosting kooks and white nationalist fellow travelers who described January 6 as “a clear hoax”:[many twt/pix]

kooks michael tracey,tulsi, julie kelly...matt sclapp

john solomon, kash patel, mike lee? jim banks...fellow trav

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Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard featured in Russian state television segment pushing disturbing propaganda

Meaghan Ellis March 31, 2022

Fox News' Tucker Carlson and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) have repeatedly defended Russian President Vladamir Putin and it appears their actions have granted them applause from the Kremlin and Russian state media.

Last week, Gabbard was featured during a segment on Russian state television where her remarks were referenced by renowned Putin supporter, Vladimir Soloviev.

Per Julia Davis, a Russian media analyst and columnist for The Daily Beast,Soloviev referred to Gabbard, a former Democratic U.S. presidential candidate as “our girlfriend Tulsi." The segment then shifted to a clip of Gabbard's recent appearance on Fox News.

Following the clip, one panelist reportedly asked if Gabbard is "some sort of Russian agent?” According to Davis' translation of the Russian discussion, she is.

During her appearance on Fox News on Monday, March 28, Gabbard accused President Joe Biden of attempting a plot to have Putin removed from power as she claimed he was advocating for "regime change in Russia through 'economic warfare.'”

"They are doing so by waging this modern-daysiegeagainst Russia, isolating, containing, destroying their economy, starving the Russian people in the hope that the Russian people or the military will rise up and revolt and overthrow their government and get rid of Putin,” Gabbard said during a portion of the excerpt that aired in Russia.

Gabbard's remarks came shortly after Biden's speech in Poland. On Sunday, March 27, according to Yahoo! News, Biden delivered a speech in Poland saying "that Putin 'cannot remain in power' in off-script remarks during a speech in Poland." However, White House officials swiftly released a statement to offer clarity on Biden's remarks. According to White House officials, the president was not pushing for Russian regime change but insisted that “Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region.”

However, Gabbard argues that “'it was not a gaffe at all' and Biden is 'lying' about his true motives."

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'Actual Russian propaganda': Conservatives pile on as Tulsi Gabbard named 'most influential' spreader of disinformation

Jon Skolnik and Salon March 17, 2022

Republicans are attacking former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for spreading "Russian propaganda" after she posted a video claiming that the U.S. is funding and operating bioweapons labs in Ukraine.

On Sunday, the Hawaii Democrat published a two-minute video laying out the completely unproven conspiracy theory that the U.S. is funding between 25 and 30 biolabs in Ukraine to develop "dangerous pathogens".

"Like COVID, these pathogens know no borders," Gabbard said. "If they are inadvertently or purposely breached or compromised, they will quickly spread all throughout Europe, the United States and the rest of the world, causing untold suffering and death."

Those comments did not sit well with many Republicans, some of whom accused the former lawmaker of playing into the hands of Kremlin-backed disinformation.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., called Gabbard's remarks "actual Russian propaganda." "Traitorous. Russia also said the Luger center in Georgia was making zombies," he said on Sunday. "Tulsi should go to Russia."

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, expressed similar thoughts, accusing Gabbard of "parroting false Russian propaganda."

"Her treasonous lies may well cost lives," he wrote on Sunday over Twitter.

On Monday, Alyssa Farah, the former director of strategic communications under Donald Trump, said that Romney was "absolutely right."

"What this is, is the Russians are spreading propaganda to try to create a pretext for potentially using chemical weapons against the Ukranians," Farah said during a segment of ABC's "The View."

"What Tulsi Gabbard is spreading is actually helping Putin get away with criminal acts against innocent Ukrainian civilians," she added.

The U.S. has repeatedly dismissed claims that it is holding or developing bioweapons in Ukraine. However, there are a number of biological labs in Ukraine, which the U.S. funds, to prevent the deployment of bioweapons, according to The New York Times. The funding of those labs stems from the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), founded in 1998. In 2005, the U.S. and Ukraine signed an explicit agreement ensuring that the labs would not be used to develop bioweapons.

Back in 2018, Filippa Lentzos, a Norwegian scientist researching threats posed by biological agents, called the Kremlin's claims "unfounded" after visiting a number of Ukrainian biolabs herself.

"We were given access to all areas of the site, examined relevant documentation, and interviewed staff, and concluded that the Center demonstrates significant transparency," Lentzos said. "Our group observed nothing out of the ordinary, or that we wouldn't expect to see in a legitimate facility of this sort."

Gabbard has since scrambled to explain her tweet and called on Romney to resign.

Suggesting that there might have been some "miscommunication and misunderstanding" about the terms bio labs and bio weapons labs, Gabbard tweeted: "'Biolabs' are facilities which contain and experiment with dangerous pathogens, ostensibly for the purpose of serving the public good (i.e. vaccines, etc.). 'Biological weapons labs' are facilities which exist for the purpose of turning pathogens into weapons so they can be used against an enemy (i.e. 'bioweapons')," Gabbard tweeted.

On Wednesday, Gabbard was listed alongside GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA and Fox News' Carlson as the "most influential" in spreading anti-Ukraine disinformation and misinformation. Disinformation and digital authoritarianism researcher Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor of Middle East studies and digital humanities at Hamad bin Khalifa University, featured Gabbard's tweets about Ukraine and "biolabs" as the latest Russia conspiracy theory propagated by right-wing media in the U.S.

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How ‘Kremlin-friendly’ MAGA Republicans — and Tulsi Gabbard — became propaganda for Russia’s Ukraine invasion

Alex Henderson March 14, 2022

Some conservative Republicans have been unwavering in their disdain for Russian President Vladimir Putin, including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah. But in MAGA World, Putin has a long list of apologists — even as thousands of people die during Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. And Never Trump conservative Amanda Carpenter, in an article published by The Bulwark on March 14, takes a look at some of the “Kremlin-friendly” talking points coming from America’s far right.

“During the Cold War,” Carpenter explains, “the Soviet Union invested heavily in its global disinformation and propaganda efforts. And back in 2016, the Russians had to go to the trouble of creating a troll farm to push their divisive messages to the American audience. But today, they needn’t go to such lengths: Plenty of prominent right-wing media figures in the United States are pushing out Vladimir Putin’s propaganda for him.”

The media figures and politicians that Carpenter slams as “Kremlin-friendly” in her article include Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, the Daily Wire’s Candace Owens, former President Donald Trump, “War Room” host Steve Bannon and Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina. Carpenter notes that these are the sort of MAGA Republicans Cheney has dubbed “the Putin wing of the GOP.”

“It’s all the same people: fringe internet figures, Fox News hosts, Steve Bannon and his acolytes, Marjorie Tayor Greene caucus members, and the millions of people who love them,” Carpenter observes. “Most of these people claim to be free-thinking contrarians, but their accusations, questions, and conclusions about the United States, Russia and Ukraine always seem to go one way: The United States and Ukraine are somehow wrong, and the Russians have their reasons for waging war. If you don’t believe that, it’s only because all the Democrats are lying to you. Well, all the Democrats except for2022 CPAC special guest Tulsi Gabbard, anyway.”

Carpenter notes that Carlson’s commentary on Fox News has been “so Kremlin-friendly” that according to a Kremlin memo obtained by Mother Jones, Kremlin officials have asked government-run media outlets to feature more clips of him.

Mother Jones’ David Corn reported, “On March 3, as Russian military forces bombed Ukrainian cities as part of Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of his neighbor, the Kremlin sent out talking points to state-friendly media outlets with a request: Use more Tucker Carlson.”

Carlson has promoted the conspiracy theory that the Ukrainian government is manufacturing bioweapons in laboratories and that Putin is merely protecting Russia’s safety by invading Ukraine.

Carpenter comments, “One could have guessed that the same people who blamed Dr. Fauci for the coronavirus might try to find some other government bureaucrats to blame for Putin’s war. This time, according to Carlson, ‘Dangerous biological agents remain, thanks to the Biden Administration, unsecured in a chaotic war zone’…. This is the big story in their minds. Not the Russian invasion and the unfolding humanitarian disaster, but the Russian disinformation about bioweapons, which provides a cudgel for whacking the Biden Administration — no matter how bogus the claims.”

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/tulsi-gabbard-continues-her-move-to-the-far-right-with-cpac-2022-appearance/

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Gabbard files $50 million lawsuit against Hillary Clinton — alleging ‘significant actual damages, personally and professionally’

Alex HendersonJanuary 22, 2020

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, has been highly critical of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton — and vice-versa. And on Wednesday, Business…

That’s just stupid’: Tulsi Gabbard raked over the coals for bizarrely voting ‘present’ on impeachment

Igor Derysh / Salon

"We were sent here to lead," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said as she questioned why Gabbard didn't "take a stand."

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So is Tulsi Gabbard really a ‘Russian asset’? How would we know for sure?

Tulsi Gabbard/CreativeCommonsTulsi Gabbard/CreativeCommons

Written by Matthew Rozsa November 16, 2019

Is it valid to accuse Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii and a current presidential candidate, of being a “Russian asset”?

It’s a strange question, and one that normally wouldn’t need to be answered. Gabbard has never polled above the low single digits and has no realistic chance of being the 2020 Democratic nominee. Surrounded by controversy and facing a primary challenge from a more conventional Democrat, she has already announced she won’t run for re-election to Congress either.

But in recent weeks, Gabbard has been making news in peculiar ways. Although in most respects she is a left-wing Democrat, Gabbard has lately become something of an icon among Republicans and other conservative-leaning types. She has appeared on Fox News to criticize the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, has claimed that the Democratic presidential primaries are “rigged” and has been praised by far-right pundits, from online troll Mike Cernovich and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke to former Trump strategist Steve Bannon.

At least some of that praise derived from Gabbard’s war of words with Hillary Clinton, who had seemingly accused Gabbard — an Iraq war veteran and an officer in the Army Reserve — of being a tool for Russian subversion. In this context, it’s important to look at what Clinton actually said during a podcast interview with David Plouffe, onetime campaign manager for Barack Obama:

They’re also going to do third party. I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who’s currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians, they have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far, and that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she’s also a Russian asset. Yeah, she’s a Russian asset, I mean totally. They know they can’t win without a third-party candidate. So I don’t know who it’s going to be, but I will guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in the key states that they most needed.

Clinton’s PR team later clarified that word-salad, saying that she was not accusing the Russians of “grooming” Gabbard as a third-party candidate. Even so, Clinton still referred to Gabbard as “the favorite of the Russians” and appeared to describe her — depending on how you parse the sentence — as a “Russian asset.” Clinton has not retracted either of those claims, and Gabbard responded by labeling Clinton as “queen of the warmongers” and an “embodiment of corruption” and, later, demanding an apology. (Gabbard has also said several times she will not run as a third-party candidate.)

Donald Trump got into the fray by defending Gabbard and describing Clinton as “sick,” while Sen. Bernie Sanders — whom Gabbard supported against Clinton in the 2016 primaries — tweeted that “people can disagree on issues, but it is outrageous for anyone to suggest that Tulsi is a foreign asset.” Several other current and former Democratic presidential candidates also defended Gabbard, including former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who served with her in Congress.

This brings us back to the original question: What does it mean to accuse someone of being a “Russian asset” — and does that apply to Gabbard? I reached out first to Bill Browder, an American-born British businessman who spent many years in Russia and became a leading foe of Vladimir Putin. He later pushed Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, which allows the U.S. government to freeze assets and ban visas for human-rights violators around the world.

“All I have is an observation on a number of observable facts about Tulsi Gabbard in connection with Russia or Russian interests,” Browder said. “The first fact is that Tulsi Gabbard had hired a man named Chris Cooper from a firm called Potomac … to help her run interference on people who were doing negative reporting on her. Chris Cooper has an ugly history of having been involved in the anti-Magnitsky campaign,” including work in 2016 intended, Browder says, to discredit him personally along with the Magnitsky Act.

Adding that Gabbard was one of the few members of the House to vote against the Global Magnitsky Act in December 2016, Browder cited as his “next piece of circumstantial evidence” the fact that “Tulsi Gabbard is celebrated on Russian state television.” He also pointed to the “very unpleasant fact” that Gabbard “is a supporter of Bashar al-Assad, the dictator in Syria, and the person responsible for the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians. And that is a position which is exactly consistent with the position of the Russian government.” (Gabbard has said she does not support the Assad regime, although she has met the Syrian president and has at times expressed skepticism about charges that Assad has used chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war.)

Gabbard “may be entirely innocent” of any actual collaboration with Putin, Browder said, “but she may be an asset as far as the Russians are concerned because they may see her candidacy as an opportunity to further spread chaos in the U.S. political process.” He noted that Putin is likely “extremely happy” with the chaotic consequences of his meddling in the 2016 presidential election, noting that Trump’s ascent to power has earned Putin “some huge geopolitical wins,” such as Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.

I also reached out to Michael McFaul, who was Obama’s ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014 and is also despised by Putin, so much so that during the infamous Helsinki summit last year, Putin tried to persuade Trump to hand both Browder and McFaul over to him on charges that could generously be called dubious.

Like the seasoned diplomat he is, McFaul was far more cautious in the language he used about Gabbard. “I do not believe generally that somebody should be suspected of being an agent for a foreign country because of a foreign policy position that they have taken,” he said, adding he had not closely followed Gabbard’s positions and associations. “I think one needs to be very careful about insinuations of working for a foreign government. One should have some firm documentation before saying such matters.”

Gabbard’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding this article. When an NBC reporter asked Gabbard last month about her alleged ties to Russia, she characterized the accusations as a “smear campaign.”

While Browder and McFaul seemed to take very different approaches to the Gabbard controversy, both made valid points. It’s generally not appropriate to make such a serious accusation based only on circumstantial evidence. If Hillary Clinton knows of any such evidence, she did not offer it.

Donald Trump, by contrast, was revealed by special counsel Robert Mueller to have actively sought the Russian government’s assistance during the 2016 election. There have been no investigations that have yielded any comparable evidence about Tulsi Gabbard.

Furthermore, it’s unwise and deeply un-American to suggest that people have been compromised by a foreign power simply because they hold controversial or unpopular views on foreign policy. Although the accusation of “McCarthyism” gets thrown around too freely, it is legitimate here. Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s infamous witch hunts against alleged communists often targeted men and women who held unorthodox foreign-policy positions or who spoke out against the U.S. government’s Cold War policies.

It’s also fair to note that America has a mixed record on human rights, at best, and exposing such violations can sometimes be helpful to our global rivals. When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaked information about U.S. human rights abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan, that was almost certainly welcomed by the Kremlin. There may be other reasons to suspect that Assange was in league with the Russian government, but releasing evidence of war crimes belongs to a totally different category.

All that said, there’s little doubt that Putin is trying to subvert the governments of other countries to create an “illiberal international.” We can be mindful of that without becoming paranoid. In a conversation I had with McFaul last January, he compared Putin to Vladimir Lenin, revolutionary founder of the Soviet Union.

“Lenin and his comrades created the Communist International,” he explained. “I do think Putin is leading something akin to an Illiberal International, not only in our country, but trying to find like-minded individuals, and movements and parties first and foremost, in Europe, in the United States, and he’s investing in those relationships.”

He added that Putin’s ultimate goal is “the end of the liberal international order. … The breakup of states as you have in the U.K., the breakup of alliances and NATO, the breakup of the European Union — those are all things that Putin thinks are in his national interest.”

Despite Republican claims to the contrary, it is clear that the Trump campaign was eager to work with the Russian government in 2016. Putin has meddled in other nations’ political processes in order to bring about results he sees as favorable to his interests. Just as there really were Communist agents in the West during the Cold War, there are politicians today who serve Putin’s interests in the post-Cold War world.

How do we identify those people and those forces without smearing innocent people simply because of the opinions they hold? If we don’t raise red flags where appropriate, we risk being played for suckers, as happened in the 2016 election. If we’re overzealous in exposing “Russian assets,” for example, purely by identifying people who hold unorthodox or unpopular positions, we risk creating a latter-day McCarthyism. That challenge will persist long after Tulsi Gabbard has faded from the public consciousness, and long after the political tribulations of this decade have entered the history books.

an 1119

Gabbard’s strategy makes no sense — unless she just wants to be a disrupter

Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly

The fifth Democratic debate will take place on November 20th in Atlanta, Georgia. The 12 candidates who participated in the last one have been whittled down to 10, with O’Rourke…

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/russia-accusations-a-distraction-from-tulsi-gabbards-actual-troubling-ties

no lnx docs?

Russia accusations a distraction From Tulsi Gabbard’s actual troubling ties

Written by Ari Paul / FAIR October 26, 2019

When 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (Campaign HQ, 10/17/19) accused Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a long-shot Democratic primary candidate, of being a Russian-groomed foil, the media reverberations were sweeping. Coverage of the row prompted more coverage, with some takes defending Gabbard’s moral compass and others prolonging the obsession with the idea that Russia is interfering in American politics.

Lost in the noise is the reality that Gabbard’s most troubling attribute is her documented connection to the far-right Hindu nationalist, or Hindutva, movement known as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent organization of India’s ruling BJP party.

There is no evidence that Gabbard, who rarely polls above 3%, is any kind of Russian agent, plucked by Moscow to sway the 2020 election toward the reelection of Donald Trump. But those silly accusations eventually mix into the media as they look to explain how an idiosyncratic candidate like Gabbard can gain the support not only of anti-war leftists who see her as a champion of nonintervention, but also of far-right white nationalists like David Duke and Richard Spencer.

NBC: Russia's propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard

NBC (8/2/19) presented Tulsi Gabbard as a possible catspaw of the “Russian propaganda machine.”

The New York Times (8/2/19) portrayed her as an idealistic crusader for peace, and then came out (10/12/19) framing her stances as part of, intentionally or not, a Moscow-led disinformation campaign. NBC (2/2/19) sounded the alarm about an “upcoming Russian campaign of support for Gabbard,” saying she had become a favorite of the “Russian propaganda machine.” In a profile in Rolling Stone (8/9/19), Matt Taibbi scoffed at Gabbard’s critics, summing her up as “simply opposed to bombing the crap out of, and occupying, foreign countries for no apparent positive strategic objective, beyond enriching contractors.”

Lost between these hit jobs and puff pieces is the RSS’s influence on Gabbard, despite the evidence that this is much more a part of her life than Russian intrigue. The best chronicle of her affiliation with the Indian right comes from the Indian publication Caravan (8/1/19). Religion News Service (1/27/19) had earlier outlined her connections to Hindu nationalist groups, and how these affected her votes and political positions. The Intercept (1/5/19) also covered the issue.

Anyone interested in Gabbard should read these articles in their entirety, but the key take away is this: The RSS draws much of its power from its followers in the Diaspora, and Gabbard has been crucial to revamping the image of the Hindu nationalist in the United States, and has in turn received crucial financial support from the Indian-American far right. (Gabbard, who is of Samoan and European descent, is a practicing Hindu.) Much of that RSS support has come from donations from Indian-Americans who are part of the movement’s US efforts—think of them as like US Zionists who aren’t just pro-Israel, but pro-Likud. “Gabbard’s donors have publicly applauded her for supporting Modi before he was elected, for speaking against the US decision to deny him a visa after 2002 and for working against congressional efforts to recognise human-rights violations in India,” the Caravan article states.

India Abroad: Gabbard’s apparent justification of 2002 Gujarat pogrom sparks social media furor

Gabbard seemed to blame the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots (India Abroad, 10/6/19).

She has even brought her Modi connection into the primary: As India Abroad (10/6/19) reported, she defended Modi’s role as chief executive of Gujarat during 2002 anti-Muslim riots, quoting one Indian minority rights advocate who accused Gabbard of engaging in the “‘most abominable form’ of victim-blaming.”

It has long been known that she has a close relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose government has launched a military assault on Kashmir and has stripped millions of Muslims of citizenship (Telegraph, 7/30/18); at a meeting between the congressmember and the prime minister in September 2014, she gave him her childhood copy of the Bhagavad Gita, the copy of the sacred text she had taken on her deployments to Iraq and which she had sworn her oath of office on. But what these articles outline is that Gabbard was pivotal in a global public relations effort on the part of the Hindutva movement to remake Modi from an outcast for his complicity in the Gujarat violence of 2002 to the legitimate statesman the West considers him today.

From various political angles, Gabbard has been painted almost like Democratic Party’s version of Ron Paul, a marginal force but one who is seen both on the left and the right as principled opponent to US-led war and intervention. This is why her RSS affiliation is so damning, since it very much validates a regime carrying a large-scale military occupation that many observers interpret as being rooted in anti-Muslim animus. This is hardly jumping aboard the peace train.

Caravan: All in the Family

Caravan (8/1/19) presented one of the most in-depth accounts of Gabbard’s ties to the Indian far right.

Modi could have been a forgotten piece of the past. Instead, he’s hobnobbing with the global power elite while India’s Muslim minority shakes in the face of state terror. The Caravan article lays the case out at length, but in short: “The greatest diplomatic triumph for the American Sangh was rehabilitating Modi’s tainted reputation in the United States. Gabbard played a significant part in that project.”

As Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of the South Asian progressive community Equality Labs, told FAIR:

Gabbard’s connection to the RSS/BJP matters most urgently now because the Democrats have positioned themselves not just as the resistance against Trump, but also to white nationalism and all sorts of other populisms that are destabilizing democracy everywhere. She was one of the first Democrats to platform Modi, using her role as congressman to jettison bipartisan legislation that would have addressed the issue of Gujurat riots and religious freedom in India. At every step, her foreign policy interventions around India has been to gaslight Indian minorities who are in crisis because of the attacks of the Modi government. And that is not the act of a progressive.

Gabbard’s connections to the Hindu right are well-documented. She has shared the dais on many occasions with leaders and members of India’s right-wing political party, the BJP, the electoral front of the Sangh Parivar, a family of organizations affiliated with the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS); and has actively fundraised from its affiliated platforms in the United States, including the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) and the American branch of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP-A).

These are not innocuous faith-based organizations; they are supremacist groups whose Indian counterparts have been identified as “militant religious organizations” by the CIA. They use violence against religious and cultural minorities in their pursuit of a “Hindu nation.” By standing with these extremists, Gabbard stands against vulnerable minority communities in India.

And that record isn’t just important to what she’s done for the right-wing government of India; this history is central to understanding Gabbard’s expressions of anti-Islamic sentiment (Islam being seen as the prime obstacle to a Hindu-nationalist India), as well as the rest of her enigmatic political tenure, which includes voting to restrict refugees from Syria and Iraq, as well as joining Republicans in attacking then-President Barack Obama for not using the term “radical Islam.”

Allegations of Russian affiliation are conveniently apolitical, in the sense that they can deployed against the left, using long-outdated fears about Soviet competition and the idea that disloyalty to the US empire is orchestrated by a Communist cabal, as easily as against the right, seeing xenophobic nationalists around the world as part of a new international led by Vladimir Putin. Such a catch-all can be used by anyone against anyone, as Clinton did with Gabbard, and can create headlines and rile emotions with no expectation that the accuser will have to come up with a real argument about why the accused should be seen as repugnant.

But Gabbard’s RSS connections are far more real, with very earthly consequences. Her history of Islamophobia becomes more frightening when viewed through her support for a political movement that has supported anti-Muslim violence and discrimination in India. If she were to become president of the United States, how would she respond to the Indian military’s brutality in Kashmir?

It’s much harder for the media to focus on Gabbard’s very real connections to the Indian far right than on her more fanciful connection to Moscow, because “RSS” simply doesn’t stir emotions the way “Russia” does in a population still seemingly influenced by decades of Cold War propaganda. Russia talk of any kind sparks discussion from all sides on social media, and can rally coverage in places like MSNBC, but the factions of Indian politics don’t carry the same weight in US media.

And digging too deep into Gabbard’s connection to Hindutva presents an ideological quandary for the press. The far-right government of India is most known for its ethnic politics, but it’s also responsible for neoliberal restructuring of the national economy. The latter isn’t so offensive to top editors.

And much like acknowledging the role of Israel’s influence in US politics can invite accusations of antisemitism, writers might fear being branded as anti-Indian or anti-Hindu—even if there are countless Hindus in India and worldwide who support secular democracy over Hindu nationalism—if they make much of a connection between Gabbard’s faith and her political ties.

Gabbard lags far behind the frontrunners in the primary, namely Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. She matters little in terms of the race for the White House. But she is young, ambitious and enjoys enthusiastic support from a small but loyal core of supporters. Thanks to her presence in the 2020 race, Gabbard may have a louder voice in the House of Representatives for years to come, and may seek higher office.

Clinton may have done Gabbard a favor by putting her into a news cycle despite her low polling, and the Russia buzz drowns out reporting on more pressing issues about her candidacy. The media would do well to spend less time speculating about her connections to Putin and more time examining her association with the Indian far right, and how that might be shaping her policy worldview.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/i-will-not-be-seeking-reelection-to-congress-in-2020-says-tulsi-gabbard-hours-after-appearing-on-fox-news/

no lnx

‘I will not be seeking reelection to Congress in 2020’ says Tulsi Gabbard – hours after appearing on Fox News

Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement October 25, 2019

U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) has just announced she will not run for re-election to Congress, instead choosing to devote herself to her presidential campaign.

Gabbard becomes just the sixth Democrat this term to leave office or announce they will be leaving office at the end of their term. The late Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) was the fifth.

The Hawaii Democratic Congresswoman just days ago battled former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who suggested she is being groomed by the Republicans to run as a third party candidate. Gabbard, replying to erroneous news reports based on reporting from The New York Times, blasted Clinton for suggesting she is a Russian asset.

But Gabbard also promised at the time she would only run as a Democrat and would not run for president as a third party candidate.

@TulsiGabbard

Replying to @TulsiGabbard

... end our interventionist foreign policy of being the world’s police, toppling dictators and governments we don’t like, and redirect our precious resources towards serving the needs of the people here at home ...

@TulsiGabbard

I'm fully committed to my offer to serve you, the people of Hawaii & America, as your President & Commander-in-Chief. So I will not be seeking reelection to Congress in 2020. I humbly ask for your support for my candidacy for President of the United States http://tulsi.to/mahalo

Aunty Pilahi Paki said: “The world will turn to Hawaii as they search for world peace because Hawaii has the key … and that key is Aloha!”

Mahalo, Hawai?i - Tulsi Gabbard

Aunty Pilahi Paki said: “The world will turn to Hawaii as they search for world peace because Hawaii has the key … and that key is Aloha!”

Gabbard is currently polling in the low single digits, with an average of 1.3%.

Thursday night she appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity,” parroting GOP talking points,but did not make her announcement until later:

Acyn Torabi

@Acyn

Tulsi Gabbard appears on Hannity and criticizes the impeachment inquiry process by saying she doesn’t know what’s going on behind closed doors and that she wants transparency

Embedded video

Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly October 22, 2019

Hillary Clinton stirred up quit the hornet’s nest when she said this during a podcast interview with David Plouffe.

“I’m not making any predictions but I think they [the Kremlin] have got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” Clinton said. “She’s the favorite of the Russians… They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.”

Even though Clinton didn’t say the name of the person she was referring to, Tulsi Gabbard immediately knew who she was talking about and responded with an unhinged rant about Clinton on Twitter—then proceeded to go on Tucker Carlson’s show to repeat her attack.

A lot of reporters in the mainstream media claimed that Clinton had accused Gabbard of being a Russian asset without any evidence, while Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia, took to the New York Times to suggest that Clinton’s remarks were a conspiracy theory based simply on innuendo.

I suspect that Clinton chose her words carefully and, rather than accuse Gabbard of anything, was connecting the dots about Russia’s interference based on evidence that has been widely reported. For example, back in February, Robert Windrem and Ben Popken reported that “Russia’s propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard.”

An NBC News analysis of the main English-language news sites employed by Russia in its 2016 election meddling shows Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is set to make her formal announcement Saturday, has become a favorite of the sites Moscow used when it interfered in 2016.

Several experts who track websites and social media linked to the Kremlin have also seen what they believe may be the first stirrings of an upcoming Russian campaign of support for Gabbard.

Having been on the front line of Putin’s last attempt to interfere in a presidential election, Clinton is very aware of the tactics that were used against her. It wasn’t simply that Moscow supported Donald Trump. In his indictment against those who participated in Russia’s social media campaign, Robert Mueller documented that they were also involved in supporting candidates during the Democratic primary.

A 37-page indictment resulting from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation shows that Russian nationals and businesses also worked to boost the campaigns of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Green party nominee Jill Stein in an effort to damage Democrat Hillary Clinton…

The document, which spells out in detail how the Russians worked to support Trump’s campaign, alleges that on or about Feb. 10, 2016, the Russians internally circulated an outline of themes for future content to be posted on social media accounts.

“Specialists were instructed to post content that focused on ‘politics in the USA’ and to ‘use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump – we support them),’” the indictment said.

On or about Nov. 3, 2016, just five days before the election, the Russians tried to boost Stein’s campaign by buying an ad to post on the Instagram account “Blacktivisit,” according to the indictment. The ad read in part: “Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it’s not a wasted vote.”

The evidence is clear: Russia established a pattern of attempting to disrupt the Democratic primary in 2016 and is obviously doing the same thing this year. The only remaining question is why they chose Tulsi Gabbard.

The most obvious answer to that question is that Gabbard has centered her campaign on a message of ending regime change wars, like the one in Syria. That is based on a lie, and just so happens to reflect the talking points embraced by Assad and Putin. The United States condemned Assad’s use of violence to put down civilian protests against his regime, which is how the civil war in that country began. But U.S. military involvement in Syria has always been about defeating ISIS, particularly by working with the Kurds.

Gabbard also tries to sell herself as the anti-war candidate who stands for peace. But in addition to calling herself a “hawk” when it comes to the war on terror, her past positions hardly qualify as peaceful. When Putin and Assad began bombing northwestern Syria—a campaign that has been labeled a war crime—Gabbard endorsed their efforts.

When it comes to Gabbard’s voting record in Congress, she is one of only a handful of representatives who voted against the Magnitsky Act, which sanctioned Russians involved in the murder of tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009. In addition, she was one of only three representatives listed as “not voting” on two other bills related to Russia.

Last week, the House voted on a bill honoring slain Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated in Moscow in 2015. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), came with a number of provisions, including calling for an investigation into Nemtsov’s death and sanctions against those responsible. The bill also condemned Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin for persecuting political opponents…

Soon after, the House voted on a bill sponsored by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) that reiterated America’s position of not recognizing Russian sovereignty over Crimea.

Vladimir Putin has focused his efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy on three areas: (1) Ukraine, (2) Syria, and (3) overturning the Magnitsky Act. On all three, Gabbard has either provided direct support or failed to oppose his aims. Of course, it also helps that Gabbard has positioned herself to malign not only Hillary Clinton, but the entire Democratic Party as well—specifically by claiming that the 2020 election has already been rigged.

None of that is evidence to suggest that Gabbard is an active agent of the Kremlin. It might be that Putin is supporting her because her views align with his. As John Sipher notes, Russians calls someone like that a “useful idiot.”

The Russians – like the Soviets before them – generally have a much larger stable of assets. They utilize fellow travelers, terrorists, and members of fringe groups as well as maintaining friendships with people who either knowingly or unknowingly accept their propaganda. They call these people “useful idiots.”…

One reason the intelligence services in Russia are more comfortable with sources that have not signed on the dotted line is that the Kremlin uses its intelligence services for more purposes than western counterparts. …Russian intelligence services play a more central role in carrying out their foreign policy objectives. It plays an active and offensive role. They use their services to engage in information warfare, disseminate disinformation, support propaganda, engage in perception management and sow chaos abroad.

That was the focus of Clinton’s claims about Gabbard and the evidence is overwhelming that she is right to sound the alarm. To ignore it is to invite the same kind of interference that infected the 2016 presidential election.

no lnx

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that she thinks Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, is being “groomed” by Russia to run as a third-party candidate in 2020.

Clinton made the allegations during an interview with David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s former campaign manager. During the interview, Clinton alleged that Russia used 2016 Green Party nominee Jill Stein as an “asset” and suggested that Gabbard would play a similar role in the upcoming election without mentioning her name.

“They’re also going to do third-party again,” Clinton said. “I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on someone who’s currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.”

Clinton went on to label Stein a “Russian asset.”

“And that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she’s also a Russian asset,” Clinton said. “Yeah, she’s a Russian asset — I mean, totally. They know they can’t win without a third-party candidate. So I don’t know who it’s going to be, but I will guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in the key states that they most needed.”...

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/how-duplicitous-trolls-are-using-tulsi-gabbards-candidacy-to-foment-disruption-and-chaos/

nolnx

ous trolls are using Tulsi Gabbard’s candidacy to foment disruption and chaos

Written byNancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly August 23, 2019

Tulsi Gabbard is not going to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2020. At this point, her polling average at Real Clear Politics is 1.4%. Nevertheless, conservative media celebrated the fact that Gabbard won the online poll sponsored by Drudge Report after the first round of debates. Similarly, Gabbard won polls from both Breitbart and Drudge after her performance in the second debate. Those results were not replicated by any reputable polling firm.

Not long after the first debate, we learned what had prompted Gabbard’s success in those online polls.

Users from pro-Trump communities on 4chan and Reddit implored fellow members to vote for lower-polling candidates in online polls, specifically Tulsi Gabbard and Bill de Blasio, in the hours after Wednesday’s Democratic debate — a sign that digital manipulation efforts related to U.S. politics and elections remain very much alive.

Users on 4chan’s anonymous far-right /pol/ message board repeatedly posted links to polls across the web, encouraging one another to “blow the polls out” for Gabbard, the congresswoman from Hawaii who has developed a substantial support base among many of its users…

“GIVE HER YOUR POWER,” read one 4chan post from 1 a.m. Thursday, pointing to a screenshot of the still-active Drudge poll showing Gabbard leading.

Charles Davis highlighted some other Gabbard supporters.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is set to have lunch with a prolific conspiracy theorist who argues the mass shooting in Las Vegas was an intelligence operation meant to distract from the Harvey Weinstein scandal — and who is also, by far, the most successful digital fundraiser for her campaign, according to a recent announcement from the Hawaii Democrat’s presidential campaign staff.

In seeking the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Gabbard, while struggling to register in most polls, has attracted a good deal of support from the fringe of both the left and right, especially online. Even former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke tweeted his support. The congresswoman has repeatedly disavowed Duke’s endorsement. The campaign has, however, embraced some of its lesser-hinged fans.

As Davis suggests, Gabbard also garners support from so-called “progressives” on the left. In critiquing the slogan “Vote Blue No Matter Who,” Kathy Copeland Padden complained that, “the Democratic Party has no incentive to take the candidacy of Progressives like Sanders and Gabbard seriously, no matter how loud the people clamor for them.”

Another Sanders supporter, Michael Tracey, has become one of Gabbard’s strongest defenders. Tracey is one of those people who don’t fit nicely into a linear left-right political continuum. He has been associated with news organizations as diverse as The Young Turks and The Federalist. He garnered a lot of attention on Twitter when he accused Representative Maxine Waters of assaulting him.

@MTracey: REP. MAXINE WATERS JUST SHOVED ME

[flashback]

*old woman gently pushes microphone out of her face*@MTracey: *smiles, sup-nods* pic.twitter.com/gYhcsEkUyW

— Jules Suzdaltsev (@jules_su) June 3, 2017

In other words, the label that might best fit Tracey is “shit-stirrer.” He not only denies Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election, but once suggested that if Russia did interfere, the American public should be thankful.

These days, Tracey is stirring up some shit that is reminiscent of a myth that was promulgated by Sanders supporters during the 2016 presidential primary: that the Democratic National Committee is rigging the game against Gabbard. At this point, the congresswoman from Hawaii hasn’t qualified for the September debate, with the deadline for doing so coming up next week. Even though the DNC announced the criteria to qualify for this debate back in May, Tracey is suggesting that it was rigged to keep Gabbard out. That message is now being picked up by right wing outlets like American Thinker.

Back in January when Gabbard announced her candidacy, I questioned whether Democrats could trust her. That was primarily based on her support for leaders like Syria’s brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Of equal concern is the fact that she has never denounced the leader of the cult in which her family participated during her childhood. There is also the fact that, while she and her supporters tout her as a progressive Democrat, her record in Congress says otherwise.

While I am sure that there are voters out there who genuinely support Gabbard, it is clear that they make up no more than 1.4% of Democratic primary voters. It is the people who are using her candidacy—with or without her consent—to foment disruption and chaos in the process of selecting a nominee that is cause for concern.

https://www.ecowatch.com/off-act-congresswomen-2502316531.html

Congresswomen and Environmental Groups Urge Congress to Pass the OFF Act to Combat Climate Change

Reps. Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02), Barbara Lee (CA-13) and Nanette Diaz Barragán (CA-44) joined Food & Water Watch, first responders, non-profit organizations and local government officials to urge Congress to pass H.R. 3671, the OFF Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act (OFF Act) to transition the U.S. to a 100 percent clean energy economy by 2035.

"Our country cannot passively standby while we watch the climate crisis devastate our planet and the livelihoods of working families across the country and the world," said Gabbard, who introduced the bill. "It is our obligation to protect the most vulnerable in our society, to protect our planet, to grow the economy and rebuild America's infrastructure with a stable, domestic clean energy economy."

Gabbard's bill prioritizes the health and wellbeing of the country and the future of the planet by tackling the climate change crisis head on and building on the progress of states like Hawaii.

The OFF Act sets an ambitious timeline to end America's reliance on fossil fuels and avert the catastrophic effects of climate change that have exacerbated natural disasters like the recent hurricanes that devastated Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands and deadly wildfires in California.

Without urgent action, climate change will continue to intensify and accelerate the pace of extreme weatherevents that devastate coastal and low-lying communities causing widespread unemployment, wage stagnation and deadly health problems, which disproportionately affect low-income, minority, Native Hawaiian and Native American families.

This legislation protects the country's most vulnerable populations from the harmful effects of carbon emissions and toxic chemicals that pollute America's air, land and waterways by strengthening civil rights protections, creating clean energy jobs, and prioritizing the safety and security of the planet above profits for major corporations and the fossil fuels industry.

"We cannot afford any more delays or half-measures in this climate crisis. It's time for bold action to address this emergency and save our planet, before it's too late," said Lee. "This bill is a critical roadmap for climate justice in Congress at the moment we need it the most."

Passing the OFF Act will increase America's global competitiveness by creating domestic clean technologies, jobs and training programs. In addition, this legislation will improve the health and wellbeing of the American people and our planet from toxic pollutants, asthma and respiratory illnesses, and environmental degradation.

"Our dependence on fossil fuels has created a public health crisis. In my district, children exposed to smoke and chemicals from oil and gas drilling operations are wearing asthma inhalers around their necks. It's heartbreaking to see," said Barragán. "This bill is about moving America forward and embracing the energy sources of the future. Getting off fossil fuels and moving to 100 percent renewable energy will help end this public health crisis and can create millions of good jobs."

The OFF Act has been cosponsored by 14 Members of Congress and has been endorsed by nearly four hundred clean energy, climate change and environmental justice organizations.

"The science is clear," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. "In order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of deepening climate chaos, we must break our foolish dependence on fossil fuels, and we must do it now. Fortunately, we have a solution. The OFF Act is the key to a livable future for all of us, and we are mobilizing from coast to coast to make it the law of the land."

1st to endorse bernie? quit dnc to work for him

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/02/28/tulsi-gabbard-rising-democratic-star-endorses-bernie-sanders/?_r=0

...

“As a veteran of two Middle East deployments, I know first hand the cost of war,” said Ms. Gabbard, one of the first female combat veterans to serve in Congress. “I know how important it is that our commander-in-chief has the sound judgment required to know when to use America’s military power and when not to use that power.

“As a vice chair of the D.N.C., I am required to stay neutral in democratic primaries, but I cannot remain neutral any longer,” she added. “The stakes are just too high. That’s why today I’m endorsing Senator Bernie Sanders to be our next president and commander in chief of the United States.”

Ms. Gabbard, while not mentioning Mrs. Clinton by name, went on to cast Mr. Sanders as being more interested in peace and as someone who would be better trusted with the lives of American troops. She also implied that Mr. Sanders had better foreign policy judgment than his rival.

“We need a commander in chief who has foresight, who exercises good judgment, and who understands the need for a robust foreign policy which defends the safety and security of the American people, and who will not waste precious lives and money on interventionist wars of regime change,” Ms. Gabbard said. “We can elect a president who will lead us into more interventionist wars of regime change, or we can elect a president who will usher in a new era of peace and prosperity.”

Ms. Gabbard, who was born in American Samoa and is the first Hindu elected to Congress, is seen as a young, rising star of the party but has publicly battled Democratic leadership. In October, Ms. Gabbard said she was uninvited from the first Democratic presidential primary debate by the chief of staff to Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the chairwoman of the national committee, after Ms. Gabbard appeared on television and called for more debates.

At the time, the party’s leadership had been criticized for allowing only a limited number of debates, which some viewed as an effort to deny Mr. Sanders more time to confront Mrs. Clinton when she was ahead in polls. Ms. Wasserman Schultz has denied that Ms. Gabbard was uninvited from the debate....

https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/2020-democrats-dont-only-have-to-face-trump-they-must-say-how-theyll-take-on-the-blob/

If a Democrat is elected president in November 2020, he or she will have two challenges: one global and one municipal.

The first challenge will be how to run the worldwide $643 billion a year military empire of the United States, which surveils the planet while fighting four undeclared wars. The second challenge is much smaller but still formidable: what to do about “the Blob” in Washington, D.C.

No, this isn’t a science fiction joke. The Blob is the nickname that Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s speechwriter, gave to America’s foreign policymaking elite in a May 2016 interview. According to Rhodes, the Blob included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other supporters of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

More generally, Rhodes was referring the coterie of operatives who have made U.S. foreign policy under every president from Truman to Trump. With his unkind epithet, Rhodes suggested these men and women responsible for the U.S. foreign policy record are a shapeless mass lacking a coherent identity yet somehow ominous.

While Rhodes was reviled inside the Beltway, his coinage has stuck. The Blob is useful shorthand for a recognizable and powerful group: the former officials, analysts, diplomats, writers and military officers who espouse orthodox U.S. foreign policy views.

They are not a secret cabal. They work at think tanks and elite universities and consulting firms. They talk to reporters. They opine on cable TV talk shows. And they rotate in and out of government positions. They range from multilateral liberals to hawkish neoconservatives. While they have had deep differences, they have collectively promoted a broadly consistent set of policies that has defined the United States in the world over the last 30 years.

Right now, they favor a hard line on Russia, intervention in Syria and Venezuela, bolstering NATO, and promoting free-trade agreements. They oppose defense spending cuts, rapid denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and a jobs-driven foreign policy.

At its best, the Blob gave us the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal, Cuba normalization, the Millennium Challenge to address global poverty, and the now-abandoned treaty on nuclear weapons in Europe.

At its worst, the Blob gave us proxy wars (leading to failed states) in Central America; expansion of NATO (to the fury of Russia); free-trade agreements (which did little for Americans living inside the East and West Coasts); invasion of Iraq (on false pretenses); the (unsuccessful) occupation of Afghanistan; the implementation of a torture regime (and its removal); the furtive implementation of mass surveillance (since abandoned); the illusory “two-state solution” in Israel/Palestine; and unauthorized wars in Libya, Somalia, Niger, and Yemen, the last with catastrophic human consequences.

What should President Sanders (or Warren or Biden or Buttigieg or Gabbard) do upon taking office on January 21, 2021? Should they follow the Obama strategy of implementing incremental course corrections in the trajectory of current policies? Or force a fundamental change of direction on issues of war and peace?

The answer depends, in large part, on how she or he thinks about the Blob.

The Blob Today

Trump has marginalized the Blob. He has abandoned the orderly policymaking process they revere. He ignores their briefings. He scorns their expertise. He demonizes their concept of a (neo)liberal world order. Instead, he uses the U.S. foreign policy apparatus for his own ends: to feed the family business, withdraw from land wars, collaborate with like-minded autocrats, stimulate arms sales, demonstrate belligerence, and dominate the news cycle.

The Blob fears Trump, for good reasons and bad ones.

This is the Democrats’ dilemma. Trump’s successor cannot run, much less reorient, America’s global empire without a policymaking elite. Yet the existing elite—the Blob—is wedded to the status quo ante Trump, and adamant in defense of its unimpressive-to-awful record since 9/11.

Exhibit A: Robert Kagan, liberal-minded neoconservative, adviser to both George Bush and Hillary Clinton. He is using the platform of the Washington Post to offer an alternative to Trump’s foreign policy. Since Trump has no use for the Blob, Kagan is appealing to Democrats and post-Trump Republicans to return to the foreign policies of the Clinton-Bush-Obama era. He wants America to face the challenge of the populist authoritarianism.

Kagan doesn’t spend much time defending the Blob’s record on Iraq’s non-existent WMD, torture, mass surveillance, election-meddling, Libya, or Yemen. He doesn’t spend any time addressing what Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have said about the roots of today’s authoritarianism.

Kagan’s eloquent disquisition on the course of world history ends with the argument that to oppose his policy prescriptions is to oppose democracy itself:

“A broad alliance of strange bedfellows stretching from the far right to self-described ‘realists’ to the progressive left wants the United States to abandon resistance to rising authoritarian power. They would grant Russia and China the spheres of influence they demand in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. They would acquiesce in the world’s new ideological ‘diversity.’ And they would consign the democracies living in the shadow of the authoritarian great powers to their hegemonic control.”

One could describe the same reality by saying the repeated failures of the U.S. foreign policy elite—two unsuccessful trillion-dollar wars, the use of torture and mass surveillance, and near-total indifference to the impact of foreign policy on the U.S. economy have generated widespread opposition to the pretensions of the foreign policy elite. It is a “broad alliance” indeed.

The idea that post-Trump U.S. policymakers will act in defense of democracy is belied by the failures of democracy that have occurred on their watch. Kagan’s rhetoric of democracy is about as convincing as when Hillary Clinton tweeted “America is already great.”

What Is to Be Done?

The position of the three leading Democratic candidates on the Blob are pretty clear.

Joe Biden, who has not yet announced, was among the most dovish of Obama’s advisers, but he seems comfortable with the national security status quo. He might invite Kagan for an interview but not give him a job.

Bernie Sanders, gruff socialist, is an outsider. Along with his foreign policy adviser Matt Duss, he insists on a fundamental change from Blob policies. Sanders wouldn’t return Kagan’s phone calls.

(See David Klion’s “Who Is Matt Duss, and Can He Take On Washington’s ‘Blob’?” on the Nation.)

Elizabeth Warren, impassioned Harvard professor, is a policymaking insider par excellence (she almost single-handedly created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau). She too wants to break with the Blob. Warren would return Kagan’s phone call—and tell him to hold her beer.

In short, Biden would most likely embrace the Blob, Sanders would purge it, and Warren would bend it to her will.

Another Democratic aspirant who has signaled their independence from Blob thinking is Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii,who served two tours in Iraq as a medical specialist. She is an outspoken anti-interventionist, who has flouted liberal sensibilities with her willingness to take meetings with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a brutal dictator.She serves on the board of a foreign policy group funded by the Koch Brothers. She’s a Blob-buster.

https://deepstateblog.org/2019/03/05/rep-tulsi-gabbard-advises-a-koch-funded-university-center/

Beto O’Rourke, the El Paso congressman, has shown an independent streak. According to Jacobin’s Branko Marcetic, O’Rourke “bucked Obama on several important issues, pressuring him to close Guantanamo, supporting legislation to curtail NSA spying, opposing war in Syria and arming the country’s rebels, and demanding Obama get congressional authorization for his continued war on ISIS.” O’Rourke looks like a Blob skeptic.

Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, served as naval intelligence officer in Afghanistan, but has not focused on foreign policy or national security issues. He did endorse the suggestion of Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent that all Democratic presidential candidates pledge to abide by the War Powers Act. The oft-ignored 1975 law requires the president to get congressional approval for U.S. military action lasting longer than 90 days. That’s the kind of useful reform the Blob would never propose but could probably live with.

Jay Inslee, governor of Washington state, is running a one-issue campaign: climate change, which implies a U.S. foreign policy agenda very different than the Blob consensus. He’s a Blob skeptic.

The foreign policy views of John Delaney, a Maryland congressman and former businessman, flow from his belief in free trade, long a staple of semi-official Washington thinking. He’s Blob-friendly.

The other declared candidates—Sen. Cory Booker, former HUD secretary Julian Castro, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Sen. Kamala Harris, Senator Amy Klobuchar and entrepreneur Andrew Yang—have said little about issues of war and peace beyond platitudes. What they have (or have not) said about Venezuela indicates they are Blob-friendly.

Of course, the 2020 campaign has just begun, and voters are notoriously uninterested in foreign policy issues, at least until they become issues of war and peace. The candidates have just begun to face questions about how they would administer the American empire after Trump. And those questions begin with: What do you think of the Blob?

Jefferson Morley is a writing fellow and the editor and chief correspondent of the Deep State, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He has been a reporter and editor in Washington, D.C., since 1980. He spent 15 years as an editor and reporter at the Washington Post. He was a staff writer at Arms Control Today and Washington editor of Salon. He is the editor and co-founder of JFK Facts, a blog about the assassination of JFK. His latest book is The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster, James Jesus Angleton.

This article was produced by the :{Deep State:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, a project of the Independent Media Institute.