Let's Tell-all about Tulsi

[Ragnarök_62]

(06-19-2019, 02:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(06-18-2019, 08:56 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(06-17-2019, 03:40 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Tulsi a progressive? Not according to her record. Here she is only #69 on an ideology scoring list of 200 Democrats in congress, with #200 as most progressive.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members...t/ideology

On this list of progressives, she is only ranked #153, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz is #117!

https://progressivepunch.org/scores.htm?...=down#tilt

Uh, it depends on the criteria selected for issues, Eric. I drilled down to the issues and found the supporting data wanting.  However, I've been checking on Tulsi myself.  The more I see, the more I like her. 

For example. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world...59586.html

Tulsi and Bernie supporters want to dredge up Biden's past, even though he's talking a different line now.

Quote:Wow, such a big postie.    I think everyone will be dredging everyone's past up. For, example, look at all the ammo folks have for Trump. You know play clips of his 2016 campaign stops and what he tweets now and note the differences.

The same should be applied to Gabbard. She is a war hawk, if past is prologue. She supports drone wars, and bombing, as long as they are against targets she likes. She called for the US to bomb "terrorists" in Syria, and supported Putin's bombing of Syria, which killed thousands of innocent civilians, and was not directed at terrorists, but against the moderate rebels against Assad. She opposed the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump pulled out of and is destroying. So Tulsi's statements that we should not be saber rattling against Iran now, is hollow indeed.

Quote:It's a Civil war.  All sides and proxies are responsible.  I again disagree with "moderate rebels".
"Moderate rebels = Al Quada.  So that means that we're supporting a branch of Al Quada who for now have decided to not attach Western interests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nusra_Front

So folks who believe in "moderate rebels" get yup, here it  is  *sucker fish award

If you "drilled down" into the evidence, but came up empty, then you need to drill again. Everything is clear; the evidence is unimpeachable.

Quote:I did?  I read the article you presented. She may indeed support assorted policies that achieve goal X. I just do a trade off of OK, how bad are the policies? If the price of some disagreements on said policies is less than the benefits of X happening, then I give it a mental green light. So, on Syria, she and I pretty much have the same view.  Meddling is stupid, so don't do it.  Now, as you say, if she likes drones, then I think that is stupid and should not be done.  So, of course are there other options who want to both get out of our current wars and adopt my idea of pragmatism.  The first thing to do is decide what end goal is in achievable metrics. Next, get a real cost and time frame. No more wars for profit. Profit shouldn't be a goal. So what's it gonna cost. With that just use the Powell doctrine and go from there. IOW, everyone has to pay, not just the folks who signed up.
Of course I also think "feel good" wars are stupid. If you have a better option, links please.

Quote:So, again, she's dead set against wars of choice and gets called a Putin puppet like Trump. Sorry, but Russiagate is a huge nothingburger. I do say it's important as well to have some sort of emotion free line of communications with Russia, China, Iran, etc. Just because some country isn't one of US's poodles doesn't mean it's smart to just blow them off and accuse them constantly of doing bad things. Said countries have their own interests, prerogatives and the like.

There is plenty of evidence that Roger Stone, and other Trump aides and friends, contacted Russia for dirt on Hillary and other fake news that would help Trump. Trump Jr. eagerly set up a meeting to receive this information, and Trump himself asked for it in a campaign speech. Russiagate is not a nothingburger. The only reason Mueller didn't press charges is because, he said, the evidence was destroyed by the Trumpists.

Quote:Where is the evidence you cite? And would it not be high level expertise to hide said evidence from all of our spy agencies, like 17 of them?

Russia is a horrible country that loves its murderous, lying dictator Putin, who literally owns half the country. They are invading Ukraine, threatening Eastern Europe, and are bombing Syria in war crimes that Tulsi applauds and supports. That makes Tulsi a war criminal too. And she is a Putin puppet, no doubt. If elected VP or president, she would revert to her support for authoritarian dictators, tyrants and monsters and her support for wars on Islam.

Quote:Actually Russia is a country that got invaded and suffered a lot in 2 wars [WWII, and Napoleon].  Since Russia has been invaded, Russia can get paranoid at times. Russia also got screwed by the West after the USSR collapsed. Russians didn't like austerity and Putin is the one who broke the chains. I'd guess that is part of why he's popular. As for Crimea, NATO was gonna put a base there. So, would you be comfortable if China and Russia put some bases on Cuba?  Something to think about, eh?

And her statement, recorded again in this article from the left-wing magazine The Nation,
https://www.thenation.com/article/tulsi-...ign-islam/
is so despicable that I cannot describe my disdain:

"Writing in The Nation in 2016, Gabbard said that she wanted “to give voice to the millions of Americans, including my fellow veterans, who desperately want to end our country’s illegal, counterproductive war to overthrow the Syrian government,” which risked allowing “ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups…to take over all of Syria.” "

The US did NOT invade Syria, and the enemies of Assad are the people who rose up in 2011 to depose their tyrant, but were shot down and bombed by the tyrant, period. Anyone who doesn't know that is seriously deceived, and has no regard for people or for their freedom from genocide. I'm damn sick of the conspiracy theory that conflates the honest, democratic rebels of Syria starting in 2011 with the jihadists who came in to help them because no-one else would, in around 2013, or with the horrible Islamic State that took advantage of the chaos to capture eastern Syria in 2014, and have now been mostly defeated there.

Quote:Here's the definition of "invade". "
Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To enter by force in order to conquer or pillage.
  
• intransitive verb To enter as if by invading; overrun or crowd:
  
• intransitive verb To enter and proliferate in bodily tissue, as a pathogen.
  
• intransitive verb To encroach or intrude on; violate.
  
• intransitive verb To make an invasion.
  

from The Century Dictionary.

• . To go into or upon; enter.
  
• To enter or penetrate into as an enemy; go or pass into or over with hostile intent, as in a military incursion.
  
• Hence To come into or upon as if by a hostile incursion; make an attack upon.
  
• To intrude upon; infringe; encroach on; violate: as, to invade the privacy of a family.
  

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb obsolete To go into or upon; to pass within the confines of; to enter; -- used of forcible or rude ingress.
  
• transitive verb To enter with hostile intentions; to enter with a view to conquest or plunder; to make an irruption into; to attack.
  
• transitive verb To attack; to infringe; to encroach on; to violate.
  
• transitive verb To grow or spread over; to affect injuriously and progressively.
  
• intransitive verb To make an invasion.
  

quoting The Nation article:
"The Hawaii congresswoman’s anti-interventionism masks an affinity for authoritarians, nationalists, and Islamophobes.... Taken together, Gabbard’s positions represent almost everything a left foreign policy should avoid."

I don't see anywhere she said stuff like "Assad is my friend and we should stop bombing his country".  Perhaps she's like me, that is to say, indifferent. The logic there is that the US should refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of other nation states, unless there is an existential threat.

These are direct quotes, which no amount of your drilling can erase:

"Gabbard doesn’t actually oppose military intervention, or the abusive tactics used to prosecute the “war on terror,” as long as they’re directed against those she identifies as Islamic extremists. She summarized her philosophy neatly in 2016, telling West Hawaii Today that “when it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk. When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.”

Gabbard is a staunch supporter of the United States’ counter-ISIS campaign, but her view of the fight goes much further. During a visit to India in 2014, she told an interviewer that the United States had failed in its “very clear” mission to defeat “Islamic extremism”—the fight she said led her to enlist after the September 11 attacks—and that we needed “to focus all of our efforts and energy” and “root out this evil wherever it is.” When pressed on whether torture could be part of those efforts, Gabbard didn’t reject it, saying some believed it worked. Invoking the fantastical scenario of a ticking nuclear time bomb, Gabbard said that if she were president, she “would do everything in my power to keep the American people safe.” If there was a gap between Gabbard’s philosophy and the forever war, it was hard to spot."

TULSI IS A WAR CRIMINAL!

Actually, she thinks like a war criminal. And yes, that's a mainstream view. So, who doesn't have this view and also supports no interference in other nation states as well. ?  Bernie may or may not.

Quote: I'm also plumb damn sick of the MSM fake news about Iran as of late. Stupid Neocons are at it again with their false flags and false narratives. As I see it, Assad is no worse than Bibi. Putin is certainly better than shrub for the world. Even with Xi, we have nothing to say with all that blood on our hands from our failing wars of choice. As for the site you had, perhaps it's some assortment of multiculturalism/SJW stuff?  If so, all of that has 0 priority with me. In fact, I'm going to redirect all DNC donations to her.  

All the sites I quote are bonifide news organizations, to which intelligent people go, rather than to the fake conspiracy theories that have 0 priority with me, which repeat the lies that the rebels are just terrorists, which is what the worst monster of our time calls them, and wants fools like Tulsi to believe. Ridiculous! Horrible! You get a big bird crow award for succumbing to these lies.

Quote:Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh shuckings!  I get a birdie award and for the first time even. I feel so special. You know what they say.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Noone has put forth any evidence otherwise than that Iran attacked those ships; certainly not Tulsi. None of this justifies any attack on Iran; Tulsi is right now about that. But the MSM is not to be knocked; they are not taking sides, just quoting the idiot Pompeo and others who say what they think about the situation. Was it a mine? Was it a projectile? Different stories are made, but no-one seems to have proven that Iran did either of them. But the USA says it has the evidence. Let's see it.

Quote:How about they try doing journalism instead of being prissy paid parrots of say Pompeo?  Why no analysis of why Pompoe pumps puffy platitudes instead of stating actual policy. And how about stories with investigations like how it used to be?  For example , ask puffball Pompeo, show us the beef. If he says it's classified, that means that Pompeo is for sure lying his tongue off.

Quote:And guess what, I have a secret. Trump is a 50/50 sort of deal. I despise his tax cuts and appointees. However, he's doing something I like even if he doesn't even realize he's doing it.  That is to say, every trade policy he's made is destroying neoliberalism on a long term time period. Those tariffs and sanctions over time are forcing other countries to abandon the dollar.  I wish I can, I wish I may, hope the dollar system collapses and takes the entire neoliberal order with it and makes my day./

Trump is a 0 0 deal. He is the Orange Orangutan fake president. The destruction of neo-liberalism can only be accomplished by voting the neo-liberals out of office, including the biggest neo-liberal of all, Mr. T; and not by destroying the dollar. That's silly; we all depend on a stable currency. Another great depression will likely just result in the second fascist after Trump to take over, because Americans are dunces that can be fooled by any conspiracy theory and any demagogue that comes down the pike. It won't work, Rags. I have no faith that a collapse of the American financial system will bring down neo-liberalism. It will just make our inequality and our ownership by the .1% even worse, just like the 2008 one did. You are welcome to your apocalyptic beliefs though; who knows.

Hmmmm.... So if Americans are dunces who can fall for conspiracy theories and demagogues then why are they smart enough to vote neoliberals out of office ?