Politico: Tulsi Gabbard's daredevil act

[ucrdem]

Not a puff piece, but not a hit job either. She addresses Trojan horse accusations at the end (bolded). In respect of the DU rule I included only the last 4 paragraphs:
...............
By CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO, ERIN DURKIN and DANIEL STRAUSS 08/08/2019 05:02 AM EDT

With her attack on Kamala Harris and defense of Joe Biden, the Hawaii congresswoman is stoking speculation about her endgame.

(snip)

In the lead-up to the most recent debate, Gabbard hinted that she would criticize Harris but not Biden, unlike other Democrats. Gabbard also said that Harris’ criticism of Biden’s positions on busing for desegregation was really “a false accusation that Biden is a racist.” A spokesman for Biden’s campaign declined to comment on Gabbard. On Wednesday, Gabbard was at a co-working space in Manhattan with more than 100 supporters. The focus was on her presidential campaign, and some were wearing leis and chanting “Tulsi.”

Gabbard still needs to register at least 2 percent in three more polls to make the next debate. So she’s been instructing her supporters to answer calls from unknown numbers in the unlikely case they are from a pollster. Mixed in with her talk about the need to end costly regime-change wars and stand up to powerful interests, hallmarks of her speeches, Gabbard alluded to the heat she's gotten since the debate.

“It is about the truth and speaking truth to power. It’s amazing how power reacts to the truth,” she said at the New York gathering.“Because what happened after last Wednesday night? Was the truth responded to with facts, substance or issues?” Urged on by the crowd, she summed up her view of the backlash: “Smears.” “They responded by calling you a puppet of Assad,” a supporter cried out.

Also "smeared," said Gabbard, were Iraq War opponents in the post-9/11 era. “It’s popular today to say, ‘Yes of course I was against the war in Iraq.’ It’s an easy thing for politicians to say today. But what about standing up courageously and speaking against the regime-change wars that are happening today?” she asked. “The gall that these people have now today to try to smear me and tell me that I don’t love my country, that I’m a Trojan horse for some foreign country, that I’m a Russian, whatever you want to call it," she added. The suggestion "that my oath and loyalties lie anywhere but to the country and to the people I have sworn to put my life on the line for is offensive.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/08/tulsi-gabbard-kamala-harris-2020-1452578

[JI7]

1. .

Link to tweet

?lang=en

[ucrdem]

2. Okay and where did the Mueller report and hearings get us?

I heard some of the hearings and though I wish they'd gotten us somewhere better, they didn't.

[JI7]

3. why did Gabbard lie about what Mueller said ?

[ucrdem]

4. Can you be more specific?

I haven't read the report recently and don't know what you're referring to, sorry. That seemed to be Mueller's position in the hearings when he was repeatedly asked variations on the I and C questions. Was he lying also?

[JI7]

6. YOU show me where he said this ?

[ucrdem]

8. You start?

Look she's out there, I'll admit it. But she's right that Trump wasn't indicted and Mueller was careful to avoid direct accusations of collusion or conspiracy. So it is what it is.

What do you think of her Secure Elections legislation?

[JI7]

10. She went after Harris because Harris exposed her friend Barr during the Senate Hearing

[Eliot Rosewater]

76. I cant fucking BELEIVE gabbard is being defended on this board and it convinces me I have

no place here.

If people arent going to learn the 2016 lesson, then I will give up

Yeah, i just read more posts here, we are done, we will lose and it will be because of a lot of reasons but that people cant OBVIOUSLY FUCKING SEE who she is

SIGH

see ya, DU

[thesquanderer]

17. Gabbard didn't lie about what Mueller said. Check the date of that video.

March 28. The Barr "summary" had just been released, and many (including most of the media) was assuming that it was indeed an accurate reflection of Mueller's report. So based on what was known at the time, her statement was not a lie, nor an unreasonable thought to put forth.

[MrsCoffee]

21. Oh bullshit.

Not unreasonable? Everyone freakin knew Barr was a liar, but she had no problem throwing that load of crap right out there.

And that’s just one drop in the bucket of reasons people are suspicious of her.

[thesquanderer]

30. Here's how the New York Times headlined it that week:

and that perspective was widely echoed that week. That's obviously relevant context for Gabbard's contemporaneous statement, and I think the constant re-posting of that statement without that context is disingenuous.

[Princetonian]

34. Bingo! Bookmarked.

[MrsCoffee]

37. So?

How many were stupid enough to believe it?

[thesquanderer]

43. Sorry, I forgot, the New York Times is Fake News. How could anybody believe it? (n/t)

[Downtown Hound]

77. Bull

I knew right away that that summary was crap. If I had my doubts, I'm sure she did too. And if she didn't, she should have.

[Demsrule86]

32. She believed the initial report as did the media...I find the attacks on Gabbard wrong. She is a

Democrat, served her country and may lean more moderate but so what? Harris will not fix this issue by continuing to attack Gabbard. She needs to address her time as DA and AG if it is not already too late.

[Princetonian]

35. Amen!

[Demsrule86]

66. Thank you!

[MrsCoffee]

38. Then she has horrible judgement.

Most Democrats knew Barr was completely full of shit and didn’t push the media line.

Her initial tweet was so far off base it isn’t even funny.

[Demsrule86]

65. We didn't know that right away...I remember the media reporting it initially...

[thesquanderer]

44. I wouldn't say she leans moderate... to the contrary, I'd say she leans left.

What makes you think otherwise?

[Demsrule86]

64. She has supported Trump in some of his endeavors, and I never consider her of the left not even when

she supported Sen. Sanders.

[thesquanderer]

78. Her domestic policies, at least, are all left.

She supports Medicare for All, marijuana legalization, Sanders' "College for All Act", $15 minimum wage, breaking up the big banks, banning private prisons, she's against the patriot act, has an F rating from the NRA (though she is still not as strong on gun control as some others), and despite her past, her positions are now LGBTQ and pro-choice friendly... I'm not sure she has any domestic policy that isn't similar to something you could hear from Sanders or Warren.

Foreign policy is where things get blurry. True, she blasted NAFTA and TPP, which aligns with Trump, but so did Sanders. She has not been as liberal as some on middle east immigration, but she did not support Trump's refugee/travel bans, and she does fully support DACA and DREAM Act. She's was against Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate accords. She's criticized Trump's coziness with Saudi Arabla. But, of course, she famously prefers better relations with the dictator of Syria, though her reason is that the insurgents who oppose him are aligned with Al Qaeda.

I guess I'd say, domestic left, and foreign policy mixed?

[Devil Child]

60. Damn good post Demsrule86!

Thank you

[Demsrule86]

63. Thank you...I don't approve of beating up on Democrats...I can see no fault in Tulsi other than

she enraged Harris supporters.

[Princetonian]

68. + 10000000000000000000000000000000000000

"63. Thank you...I don't approve of beating up on Democrats...I can see no fault in Tulsi other than
she enraged Harris supporters."

Yup.

[MBS]

22. Thank you.

One of the several reasons that I do not trust either her motivation or judgment.
The quote above indicates sketchy motivation, or phenomenally poor judgment. Either way, I don't want her anywhere near the White House.

[Princetonian]

36. Check the date of that video. Facts matter when delivered in context.

Facts: https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287233150#post17

Context: https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=233278

[lapucelle]

5. "Gabbard delivered a piercing, if inaccurate, appraisal of Kamala Harris' law enforcement record

— then turned it into a misleading, yet effective, online ad push."

snip===================================================================

From the Politico piece for additional context:

Ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who had helped arrange a Trump Tower meeting between Gabbard and the president-elect late in 2016, gave her a shoutout.

snip===================================================================

David Duke praised her earlier in the year as the only presidential candidate who doesn't want to send “White children off to die for Israel.”

snip===================================================================

The wind in Gabbard’s post-debate sails was quickly clipped by a series of confrontational interviews on CNN and MSNBC about her meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2017, and her repeated reluctance to condemn the murderous despot (Gabbard did tell CNN that Assad is "a brutal dictator— just like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadhafi." )

She was on friendlier ground with Fox News. In a segment with Tucker Carlson, the host called Harris’ criticism of Gabbard after the debate “the first refuge of contemptible.”

“The one place you don’t want to be in Washington is outside the status quo, as you are,” Carlson said in a moment of on-air sympathy for Gabbard. “That’s when you start getting it from all sides.”

[ucrdem]

7. I happened to see the CNN interview with Chris Cuomo.

I thought it was pretty friendly. And so on. Anyway I left out the shit stirring to stick to 4 paragraphs. Glad to see you brought it all here anyway, I guess!

[Princetonian]

9. Wrong spot! Moved this post. :)

[lapucelle]

15. I always read the links. Everyone should, especially if they want a complete picture

rather than a filtered perspective.

[ucrdem]

18. A good philosophy. The problem here is that those claims are completely unsupported.

Basically, they are rumors. Well, that's what Politico does, as we know. So I left them out and focused on the actual reporting on Gabbard's New York event.

[lapucelle]

25. The claims that David Duke praised her and that Steve Bannon arranged her trip to Syria

and gave her a shout out on twitter after her debate performance are rumors?

The observation that she appears to be on "friendlier ground" on Fox than she is on MSNBC or CNN is a rumor?

Of course Tulsi disavows any connection to and rejects the support of neo-Nazis and the like. (That should go without saying.)

Yes, there are some unfortunate, slanderous rumors, and the Politico piece makes clear the distinction between the what gossips are whispering and what analysts and journalists and are taking note of and reporting.

[mcar]

39. She is on Breitbart too

I don't get why people try to deny this.

[lapucelle]

41. These are choices Gabbard herself makes.

Why is it surprising that people who pay attention are noticing?

From the OP's Politico link:

It’s all triggered a parlor game back in Hawaii, where the four-term congresswoman is at risk of losing a primary for her House seat as she’s stuck at 1 percent in the crowded race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Among the theories: That she’s angling for vice president or a Cabinet post; that she's weighing a third-party run; or, perhaps, that she's looking to land a contract as a TV talking head while plotting her next move.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/08/tulsi-gabbard-kamala-harris-2020-1452578

[mcar]

42. Yes.

Gabbard is choosing these sites.

[ucrdem]

47. Do you have links for all of this? It seems like a lot of Twitter chatter.

Maybe some of it is true, but who's to judge which interview is friendlier for example if it's not even clear which of several interviews the authors might be referring to? So while this part is interesting it doesn't seem particularly factual.

[lapucelle]

28. I think the reference was to the Anderson Cooper interview in the Detroit spin room

directly following the debate.

Why on earth did Tulsi keep refusing to acknowledge that Assad is a torturer and/or a murderer?

After several attempts to get an answer to the question, Cooper finally said, "Just on a factual basis, Bashar
al-Assad is a murderer and a torturer. Do you not agree with that?"

After it was clear that her attempts at deflection (during which she compared herself to FDR, JFK, and St. Ronnie) were not having the desired effect on Cooper, the direct question finally forced Tulsi to show us exactly what she is made of while giving her an opportunity to prove her mettle.

"I don't dispute that."

It was a stunning moment.

[ucrdem]

48. Cuomo did the same thing.

And she made the statement quoted in the article. So I think it was Cuomo. But since it isn't specified in the article this part is basically cocktail chatter.

[lapucelle]

54. Tulsi didn't make the statement quoted in the article to Cuomo.

It's not in the transcript.

CNN's Cuomo Grills Tulsi Gabbard: You Need To Acknowledge Bashar al-Assad Is A Muderous Despot

https://www.rev.com/blog/tulsi-gabbard-interview-transcripts-tulsi-gabbard-rips-into-kamala-harris-in-post-debate-interviews

[ucrdem]

55. LOL, you linked to Tucker Carlson's interview on FOX.

Didn't watch it. Wife wouldn't have let me if I'd wanted to.

[lapucelle]

59. No I didn't. Why would you say that?

I linked to a blog that publishes political transcripts online. Transcripts are an excellent source of accurate quotations.

Here's a tip for the future. If you want to know where a link goes, simply read the URL. It's really not that complicated once you get the hang of it.

Here. You can practice on the link I actually posted:

https://www.rev.com/blog/tulsi-gabbard-interview-transcripts-tulsi-gabbard-rips-into-kamala-harris-in-post-debate-interviews

https://www.rev.com/blog/page/2

https://www.rev.com/blog/category/political-transcripts

[ucrdem]

56. Here's what she said to Cuomo: "He's a brutal dictator just like Saddam Hussein, just like Gaddafi

in Libya." That's what I heard and that's the interview the Politico guys probably had in mind. Here's the article quotation:

(Gabbard did tell CNN that Assad is "a brutal dictator— just like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadhafi." )

p.s. The long and short is that the only newsworthy parts of the article are Gabbard's recent statements. The rest is rumor. Good for reading at the beach, but we have higher standards here.

[lapucelle]

61. Yes. Tulsi kept saying that whenever Cooper pressed her on her reluctance

to acknowledge that Assad is a murderer, a torturer, or a torturing murderer.

[Princetonian]

12. Killing the messenger again? You left out where Gabbard refuted the smear campaign by partisans.

Gabbard denied any connections between her campaign and neo-Nazis, distancing herself from the website’s solicitations. “I have and continue to completely denounce people like David Duke, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists and the evil they preach across our country,” she said.

Asked about other conservative supporters, she added: “I don’t know why people like you keep bringing them up other than to try to make it out that I’m something that I’m not.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/08/tulsi-gabbard-kamala-harris-2020-1452578

[ucrdem]

16. Thank you. This is a very important part of the article.

She's answering the accusations and for our purposes, hers should be the final word. Theoretically at least!

[lapucelle]

20. "I don't know why people like you keep bringing them [other conservative supporters] up..."

"People like you", in this case, were the Politico writer[s] conducting the interview. Tulsi doesn't understand why the analysts who cover politics keep bringing this up? Well that's interesting.

She should probably work on a better answer.

[Demsrule86]

33. You know what...attacking Gabbard on Syria does not help Harris...as the

accusations have not been answered...and the stuff Gabbard said was not a lie either. She is a Democrat ...allow me to remind you.

[lapucelle]

40. I posted a CNN interview and provided further context (through direct citation) for the OP link.

I'm not sure why anyone would call that as an "attack".

It was the Politico link in the OP that asserted

Gabbard delivered a piercing, if inaccurate, appraisal of Kamala Harris’ law enforcement record — then turned it into a misleading, yet effective, online ad push.

Anyone who has an issue with Politico characterizing Tulsi's accusations "inaccurate" and her online ads that followed the accusations as "misleading", should take it up with the editors at Politico.

[ucrdem]

49. The putative inaccuracies aren't specified, nor the misleading elements of the ads, or any elements

for that matter, so these claims are useless.

[lapucelle]

52. The quoted claims came directly, verbatim, from the link you provided.

Good to know when someone is linking to useless information.

putative adjective
: commonly accepted or supposed

putative (adjective)
commonly regarded as such; reputed; supposed

[ucrdem]

53. Sans substantiation. Thus putative.

[lapucelle]

57. "Commonly accepted" and "unsubstantiated" aren't synonyms.

At any rate, the Politico story's assertion that

Gabbard delivered a piercing, if inaccurate, appraisal of Kamala Harris’ law enforcement record — then turned it into a misleading, yet effective, online ad push.

has been substantiated by Politifact.

Tulsi Says: Harris "put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana."

Politifact says:There’s some context missing in this claim, and it’s framed in a misleading way. We couldn’t independently verify the 1,500 figure, which is cited in a February article by the Free Beacon, a conservative online news website. It says "at least 1,560 people were sent to state prisons for marijuana-related offenses between 2011 and 2016," when Harris was California attorney general. It says the data comes from reports from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. We requested that data from the state prisons agency.

The agency’s data shows there were 1,883 admissions to state prison on marijuana offenses during the years Harris was attorney general. There were another 92 admissions for crimes related to hashish, a drug made from cannabis resin. Notably, the figures dropped dramatically during Harris’ tenure, from 817 marijuana-related admissions in her first year in office to 137 in her last.

snip==================================================================

Politifact says: It’s correct that Harris has laughed about using marijuana, but Gabbard’s claim makes it seem like she laughed about people being locked up for pot crimes. We didn’t find any evidence to support that.

snip===================================================================

******************************************************************************************

Tulsi says:Harris "blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so."

Politifact says:The New York Times fact-checked Gabbard’s claim about Cooper by explaining that he was "convicted by a jury for a 1983 quadruple murder. Ms. Harris, as attorney general, did not allow new advanced DNA testing in his case, denying Mr. Cooper’s request. After The New York Times wrote about the case, Ms. Harris told Times columnist Nicholas Kristof that "I feel awful about this" and called on the state to allow for such testing."

The Times added that, "While Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has ordered additional DNA testing in the case and a number of legal and judicial experts say that Mr. Cooper was wrongfully convicted, the advanced testing has not yet proved Mr. Cooper’s innocence and allowed him to leave death row."

snip===================================================================

******************************************************************************************

Tulsi says: Harris "kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California."

Politifact says: This claim comes from a February Daily Beast article. It found lawyers in then AG Harris’ office argued in 2014 that, despite court orders to reduce state prison crowding, some non-violent offenders needed to stay in the prison system to help combat wildfires. It does not detail how many prisoners, if any, ended up staying longer than required.

A spokesperson for Harris was quoted in the article saying, "Senator Harris was shocked and troubled by the use of this argument. She looked into it and directed the department’s attorneys not to make that argument again."

snip===================================================================

******************************************************************************************

Tulsi says:Harris "fought to keep a bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way."

Politifact says:A March article by Business Insider detailed then-San Francisco DA Harris’ push in 2004 to increase cash bail. "Shortly thereafter, San Francisco's Superior Court judges moved to sharply increase cash bail costs for weapons-related felony charges, including assault with a firearm and the sale of machine guns," according to the article.

It adds that as a senator, Harris has introduced bipartisan legislation to encourage states to reform their cash bail systems so that lower-income people aren't kept in jail as a result of their inability to pay steep bail costs.

https://www.politifact.com/california/article/2019/aug/01/were-tulsi-gabbards-attacks-kamala-harris-record-c/


Under the bright lights of the debate, the fearless Tulsi stalwartly launched an attack on a fellow Democrat.

But getting her to utter the phrase "Bashar al-Assad is a murderer" for the record, well that's another matter altogether.

[ucrdem]

58. Still sans substantiation, and substance. There's no indication of what they had in mind.

I think they could use your help!

[lapucelle]

62. The fact checkers at Politifact, the NYT, the Daily Beast, Business Insider,

the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have all weighed in and have substantiated your link's assertion that Tulsi's appraisal of Harris's record was inaccurate. If Tulsi's online ads repeat the claims she so publicly made, they are indeed misleading.

"I speak truth to power!" thunders the fiery Tulsi to anyone who will listen.

But she will not call Assad a murderer. No journalist has succeeded in prying those words from her lips.

[ucrdem]

67. Could be. Your excerpt is still sans substantiation though.

That makes it dust in the wind, which is where I left it.

[lapucelle]

69. I don't blame anyone for being confused by whatever argument you are making at this point.

Let's re-cap:

1. Your Politico story stated that:

Gabbard delivered a piercing, if inaccurate, appraisal of Kamala Harris’ law enforcement record — then turned it into a misleading, yet effective, online ad push.

The folks at Politifact have confirmed that.

2. Assertions that "some politician said something somewhere" are best researched by reading transcripts.

3. It is simple to ascertain the source of published objective information (like transcripts) by reading URLs.

4. Tulsi is fond of comparing meeting with Bashar al-Assad after Trump's win to the efforts on the world stage of presidents FDR, JFK, and St. Ronnie, during WW II, an international nuclear crisis, and the dismantling of the Soviet Union respectively..

5. No journalist who has ever tried has succeeded in prying the words "Assad is a torturer/murderer" out of the mouth of a self-professed "teller of truth to power".

That should clear everything up for anyone interested.

[ucrdem]

71. Repeating faulty logic doesn't fix it. The excerpts you quoted, and I avoided, are unsupported. nt

[lapucelle]

75. Didn't you originally say:

Not a puff piece, but not a hit job either.

and

In respect of the DU rule I included only the last 4 paragraphs

How did that morph into:

The excerpts you quoted, and I avoided, are unsupported.

notwithstanding the fact that the CNN transcripts and the fact checkers at Politifact support the information contained in the article you linked to?

I always read the links, and I advise everyone else to do the same.

Caveat lector.

[Princetonian]

81. Absolutely nothing that Tulsi said has been refuted by Harris.

Gee, I wonder why?

[Tarc]

83. Perhaps we'll have to wait til Gabbard says something worth refuting

[Princetonian]

84. When will Harris refute that she refused a DNA test for Kevin Cooper until a NY Times expose...

... publicized how the death row inmate was framed?

This is The Mercury Press' Debate Factcheck from last Wednesday:

Death row appeals

Tulsi Gabbard: “She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. In the case of those who were on death row, innocent people, you actually blocked evidence from being revealed that would have freed them until you were forced to do so.”

The facts: Harris’s attorney general office did block DNA testing that some legal observers believe could have helped overturn the murder conviction of a death row inmate who has insisted he was framed.

Harris opposed efforts by lawyers for Kevin Cooper, a death row inmate from San Bernardino County, to get new DNA testing. In 2018, following a New York Times investigation into the case, Harris said she was wrong and called for further testing.

Link to Mercury News: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/08/01/democratic-debate-kamala-harris-tulsi-gabbard-joe-biden-fact-check/

Is this Harris idea of social justice? Pulitzer Prize Winner Nicholas Kristof wrote this NY Times investigative piece on what Tulsi Gabbard was referring to at last week's debate when she criticized Harris:

"One Test Could Exonerate Him. Why Won't California Do It? Was Kevin Cooper Framed For Murder?"

In 1983, four people were murdered in a home in Chino Hills, Calif. The sole survivor of the attack said three white intruders had committed the murders. Then a woman told the police that her boyfriend, a white convicted murderer, was probably involved, and she gave deputies his bloody coveralls. So here’s what sheriff’s deputies did: They threw away the bloody coveralls and arrested a young black man named Kevin Cooper. He is now awaiting execution.

<snip>

The test tube miraculously contained the blood of two or more people. This indicated that the sheriff’s office may have used the test tube of Cooper’s blood to frame him, and then topped off the test tube with someone else’s blood.

<snip>

Cooper’s lawyers ask above all for new “touch DNA” testing — capable of detecting microscopic residues... As state attorney general, Kamala Harris refused to allow this advanced DNA testing and showed no interest in the case (on Friday, after the online publication of this column, Senator Harris called me to say "I feel awful about this" put out a statement saying: "As a firm believer in DNA testing..."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/17/opinion/sunday/kevin-cooper-california-death-row.html

Gabbard is right. Harris owes Kevin Cooper an apology.

[Tarc]

85. This is the equivalent of the Willie Horton attack on Dukakis

Low smears over ancient issues by desperate partisans.

Thankfully, voters are better informed now than 30 years ago.

Keep trying, though.

[Princetonian]

86. The NY Times' story by a Pulitzer Prize winner & The Mercury Press story aren't disputed by Harris.

Your accusation is false for this reason. Why won't Harris address the facts in these and other stories about her history as DA and AG?

Voters deserve to know the truth about all of our candidates before the general election.

[Tarc]

87. That's nice

1%

[Princetonian]

88. It's "nice" that Harris refused a DNA test to a death row inmate who was framed until The NY Times..

... published an expose revealing her part in keeping an innocent man behind bars? Source links here that show Represenative Tulsi Gabbard was telling the truth at last Wednesday's debate:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=234633

Gabbard is also right when she said Harris owes Kevin Cooper an apology.

Republicans probably can't wait to arrange a four-part television interview with Kevin Cooper and his lawyers as well as all the federal judges who believe he was framed. There is damning evidence he was framed too -- which you would know if you bothered to read Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter Nicholas Kristof's expose following the source link I posted at the beginning of this post.

FYI, in a recent poll Gabbard polled at 3% right behind Pete at 6%. She has no chance of winning of course but she is not my candidate - Joe Biden is - plus that is not the point of my comments.

Harris needs to honestly and seriously address Gabbard's criticisms of her history as DA and AG. A practiced deflective soundbite or playing Killing the Messnger is not sufficient.

[Tarc]

89. That's nice

Harris owes nothing to a back-of-the-packer.

Consider this the proverbial "last word".

[Princetonian]

90. Prediction: Harris will not win the nomination nor will she be chosen to be VP.

Last edited Sun Aug 11, 2019, 11:22 PM - Edit history (1)

[Tarc]

11. When the right-wing people in your friend & family circles tout Gabbard as the only Dem they like

you know something is seriously, seriously off.

I know a guy who is having a field day with the "LOL GABBARD IZ SINKING HARRIS!" memes, which are coming straight from Breitbart and theblaze.

[sharedvalues]

13. Exactly. Don't get distracted by her.

We have a lot of other amazing candidates.

[Princetonian]

14. Have you ever heard of Obama Republicans? Biden has support from all the Republicans I know.

I have heard Breitbart has a hard-on for Tulsi - I suspect many of her fans are lonely men sitting in stale rooms who are crushing on her and her military career - their warped views do not translate into, "She is a traitor, Russian Asset, or far-right ideologue!"

[MBS]

23. Bingo. n/t

[Princetonian]

24. Then be prepared for 2020 because there are going to be an awful lot of Republicans voting for Joe.

[MBS]

27. That would be for the right reasons.

Liking what Tulsi has to say, or believing in her agenda, would be the wrong reason.

[Princetonian]

29. "wrong reason"? Republicans would say the same thing about any GOPer who votes for Biden.

Joe is not responsible for the views of people who like him, either. And I like Tulsi's agenda of defending Joe after Harris implied that Joe is a racist who "worked with segregationists".

[thesquanderer]

26. re: "In the lead-up to the most recent debate, Gabbard hinted that she would criticize Harris...

...but not Biden, unlike other Democrats."

I had seen references to this before, that she had telegraphed that her debate attack on Harris would be coming, but I've not seen any of that actual telegraphing. Does anyone have a link to her pre-debate comments that foreshadowed what was coming?

[ucrdem]

31. This CBS interview was broadcast online on July 8:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-says-kamala-harris-hatched-political-ploy-to-smear-joe-biden-on-race/

DU discussion here: https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287195499

[peggysue2]

45. Here's what I'm happy about:

A spokesman for Biden’s campaign declined to comment on Gabbard.

No sense in getting involved with all these speculations. Personally, I cannot figure Tulsi Gabbard out. But the rest of our candidates would be wise to steer clear of the Gabbard controversy, rumors, whatever.

That being said, the press would love to stir this pot because . . . juicy headlines. Our candidates need to leave it alone.

[ucrdem]

46. Yes, I agree. Except for Harris. She will need to address the charges.

Or not, it's up to her, but Joe went all in on apologizing and it seems to have repaired the damage Harris inflicted at the first debate so it might be a good model for her to follow.

[Blue_Tires]

50. Tulsi (along with Gravel) is only in this race to fuck us

and neither should be taken seriously as a candidate...

[ucrdem]

51. Anything is possible of course, but I see no evidence of this.

She says Harris doesn't have the temperament to be president for example. Well that's an inconvenient thing to hear, but so were Harris's claims about Biden and busing. And Harris's claims were very dubious, thus giving credence to Gabbard's.

[FrankBooth]

70. You don't want to see the evidence.

Fine by me, it's your prerogative. And no, I'm not going to post "evidence" as it's been posted about 1000 times on this board for months and months. If you want to bury your head in the sand we can't stop you, but Tulsi is a fraud.

[ucrdem]

72. Alrighty then.

[FrankBooth]

73. right back at ya!

Have a great night!

[Princetonian]

74. Tulsi Gabbard has been in Congress since 2012 and was Vice Chair of the DNC from 2013-2016.

Last edited Sat Aug 10, 2019, 07:55 AM - Edit history (2)

Gabbard defended Joe against Harris' repeated implication that he is a racist who "worked with segregationists". As a Biden supporter, why do you think she "is a fraud"?

[FrankBooth]

79. LOL

You sure spend a lot of time normalizing her as a candidate. Wonder why?

[Princetonian]

80. Tulsi has served in the Army National Guard since 2003 and has completed a tour of Iraq.

Why do you think she is a "fraud"?