Neo-Nazi Website Took Credit for Tulsi Gabbard

[applegrove]

Neo-Nazi Website Took Credit for Tulsi Gabbard 

August 5, 2019 at 3:34 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 59 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2019/08/05/neo-nazi-website-took-credit-for-gabbard-qualifying/ 


"SNIP...... 

Jewish Insider: “A neo-Nazi website took credit for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-HI) qualification for the first two Democratic primary debates. The Daily Stormer, a notorious white supremacist and antisemitic website, proclaimed in April ‘we did it” — after the Hawaii congresswoman reached the 65,000 donor threshold needed to participate in the first two debates.” 

“The Gabbard campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment.” 

......SNIP"

[underpants]

1. Said it before - she's an operative. A wrench in the gears.

Russian - White Whatever. I’m sticking with it.

[MontanaMama]

2. Doesn't surprise me one bit.

What DOES surprise me is the support Gabbard gets here on DU. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does.

[applegrove]

3. Those Gabbard supporters are russian at times.

[Ponietz]

5. Several malicious intruders materialized here and were booted after last debate

[MontanaMama]

8. Really?

We have MIRT to thank for that. I got into a thing with one of the Tulsi supporters here right after the last debate...I can't find the thread right now but he/she called Malcolm Nance a clown. Gabbard is Jill Stein 2.0, imho.

[tblue37]

26. +1. nt

[lark]

4. They wasted their money, she's going nowhere.

Her 15 min. of fame and diversion are over.

[Takket]

6. And hopefully she gets the Primarying she deserves

Hawaii 2 is as safe a seat as there is. Never been red. No reason have to put up a centrist or right leaning Dem to hold that seat. We need a real Democrat there.

[lark]

7. I'd contribute to that.

Retired and don't have a lot of spending $$, but I'd send what little I could.

[Princetonian]

15. Gabbard's dad is in the Hawaii Senate. She is pro-choice, pro-MFA, and opposes TPP.

That does not sound centrist or right leaning to me.

She is against intervention in Syria, Venezuela, and Libya which is the reason why Russians like her. They are politically agnostic that way.

[Blue_true]

25. Her dad has a history. He was virulently anti LGBTQ.

Her primary opponent is currently serving in the State Senate there and comes from a revered family there. His is current military and has a bonafide progressive record in the Legistlature there.

[Princetonian]

27. Sigh. And he infected her but she has apologized and matured beyond him.

Her opponent sounds like a great candidate. You are fortunate in Hawaii!

[Blue_true]

29. I live in Florida. Cha lives there and appear to love her opponent. nt

I read up on him when he announced, he does appear to be excellent.

[Princetonian]

31. Cool. If you don't mind me asking, how does Florida look for 2020?

[Blue_true]

35. It is winnable for us.

Hillary lost by about 105,000 votes out of 9.5 million votes and she left large parts of the state un-campaigned in, including my red county which she did surprisingly well in. I actually know several people who did not vote, I begged them to vote, but they just were not excited. Trump campaigned in the largest city here and I could see in real time how that jacked up the local MAGATS, it was brutal to watch.

[Princetonian]

59. Yeah, retail politics are so important. Joe has to show up not just a few times but alot everywhere

Preferably with Barack and Michelle by his side.

[Blue_true]

60. Retail politics is what gives a candidate a winning margin.

I will likely get bashed, but I think Trump beat Hillary in Florida simply because he campaigned in all of the state, including in areas where Hillary was going to smoke him. He reduced Hillary's margins in her strongest counties by getting his MAGATS jacked up in those places, but Hillary did not return the favor by pulling more votes out of his strong counties. Then there were light red counties like mine that she could have picked up thousands of votes, but no one from her campaign got within 85 miles of my county.

[Princetonian]

61. Exactly. I hope Joe doesn't get complacent going forwards. He needs to be everywhere.

Same thing happened in Iowa in 2007. Barack and Edwards were everywhere. I was there.

[sheshe2]

69. She refused to debate her opponents.

That is not a good look.

[Blue_true]

23. She has a primary opponent. He should defeat her.

He has every advantage that she has in terms of family name recognition and he is in the military and is an officer like she is. Plus he is currently a progressive state senator in his state and is pretty high up in leadership. He has been endorsed by three former governors.

[thesquanderer]

44. She's not centrist/right leaning.

She's closer to Sanders than Biden.

[unc70]

9. Gabbard has more support at DU than Klobuchar or Booker

Rounding put each of them at 1%, but she is slightly higher

[pnwmom]

13. Yes -- and that's scary. n/t

[Princetonian]

10. Russians like anyone who is against intervention in Syria, Venezuela, Libya, etc.

Tulsi's dad is a member of the Hawaii Senate. She is the first Samoan-American and Hindu who is a member of Congress. She served honorably in Iraq and was DNC Vice Chair from 2013-2016. She is pro-choice, pro-Medicare For All, and was against TPP. She was the youngest woman ever elected to the House of Representatives at the age of 21 in 2012.

She sounds fine to me.

[Gothmog]

11. Who is surprised by this?

[yaesu]

12. so, are we supposed to believe nazis? I'm not going to bash any Dem candidate. nt

[pnwmom]

14. We don't have to believe that site. All we have to do is look at her record

and the alliances she has made over her years in office.

[applegrove]

16. And the fact she was the most googled name after the debate. Yeah right.

[Princetonian]

19. And Marianne Williamson was the most googled name after last Tuesday's debate.

[applegrove]

20. Yeah right.

[obamanut2012]

54. She was

[applegrove]

55. I heard it. But don't you think the same russian trolls who made her win the google

race right after the debate made Gabbard win being googled after the second cnn debate.

[Princetonian]

17. What are you talking about? She was Vice Chair of the DNC from 2013-2016! Hardly a radical.

[pnwmom]

22. She's gotten lots of favorable coverage from rightwing sites, according to BuzzFeed News

and Mother Jones.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosiegray/tulsi-gabbard-maga-debate

MIAMI — Among some conservative pundits there was one clear winner of Wednesday night’s Democratic primary debate: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the long-shot, anti-war Hawaii member of Congress.

More than any other Democratic candidate, Gabbard has developed a favorable presence in the right-wing media. She’s made appearances from time to time on Fox News shows like Tucker Carlson Tonight, and her unorthodox candidacy has attracted praise from those farther to the right as well. Gabbard has been controversial; she has apologized for holding anti-gay views in the past, including onstage during the debate, and she has been heavily criticized for meeting with the brutal Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and for questioning whether his regime carried out chemical weapons attacks. But Wednesday night, she appeared to cement her status as the very online right’s favorite Democratic candidate.

On Wednesday night, Matt Drudge, the reclusive Drudge Report impresario, tweeted that Gabbard had won his site’s online debate poll. As of Thursday afternoon, Gabbard was featured on the top left of the Drudge Report, with several linked headlines like “SHOCK: GABBARD WINS FIRST DEBATE POLL…” and “AND SHE IS MOST SEARCHED NAME DURING DEBATE.”

Breitbart News devoted a lot of its debate coverage to Gabbard, writing several articles about her. Breitbart writer Joel Pollak livestreamed his exchange with Gabbard in the spin room after the debate, the only candidate who got that treatment.


SNIP

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/06/tulsi-gabbard-debate-alt-right/

The internet far-right thinks Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard stole the show during Wednesday’s Democratic presidential debate.

High-profile right-wing and alt-right internet trolls like Jack Posobiec, fellow Pizzagater Mike Cernovich, and Infowars‘ Paul Joseph Watson praised Gabbard on Twitter for her performance alongside nine other candidates on the Miami stage.

Cernovich called Gabbard the “breakthrough star of the night,” while Posobiec retweeted a post calling for “a movement to push Trump to hire Tulsi Gabbard as Secretary of State.” (Documents leaked this week show that Gabbard, who served in Iraq, was considered by the Trump transition as a possible Secretary of Veterans Affairs.)

SNIP

Such support for Gabbard isn’t entirely surprising. Since January, when Gabbard announced her campaign, elements of conservative media and the far right have been receptive to the Hawaii politician and aspects of her record, especially in foreign policy, that don’t track neatly with normal progressive or Democratic policy positions. Some internet right-wingers who also feel like their politics don’t match well with most candidates, even Republicans, have felt a common cause.

[Princetonian]

24. Gabbard is pro-choice, pro-MFA, anti-TPP and against intervention abroad due to her time in Iraq.

Why the Breitbart audience is so enthused about her is beyond me. She is also non-white (Samoan American) and non-Christian (Hindu).

Could it be that she is young and attractive? It seems lots of rightwing nuts these days seem to be crazy young men.

[pnwmom]

33. Among other things, they liked it when she accused Democratic Senators

of "religious bigotry" after they questioned Trump's far right judicial nominee about his views on abortion and LGBT rights.

[Princetonian]

42. Gabbard is a maverick due to her time in Iraq watching theocracy in action.

I can see how the rightwing would get their rocks off on that. But she is still pro-choice, pro-MFA, Hindu and Samoan-American.

[pnwmom]

43. Then she shouldn't have been supporting the far right judicial nominee,

by objecting to his being questioned about his ability to separate his far right religious beliefs from his judicial decisions.

[thesquanderer]

46. One can feel that a question is not appropriate, without supporting the nominee. (n/t)

[pnwmom]

51. Why was that questioning not appropriate? Should the Senators ignore the

far right background of nominees who are up for confirmation?

[thesquanderer]

56. She answered that thoroughly.

And maybe you could have looked into it before criticizing her for it. Here's her answer, quickly found in a google search:

While I oppose the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Buescher’s Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus. If Buescher is “unqualified” because of his Catholicism and affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, then President John F. Kennedy, and the 'liberal lion of the Senate' Ted Kennedy would have been “unqualified” for the same reasons.
Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that there "shall be no religious test" for any seeking to serve in public office.

No American should be told that his or her public service is unwelcome because “the dogma lives loudly within you” as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said to Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation hearings in 2017 to serve as U.S. Circuit Court judge in the 7th Circuit.
...
The party that worked so hard to convince people that Catholics and Knights of Columbus like Al Smith and John F. Kennedy could be both good Catholics and good public servants shows an alarming disregard of its own history in making such attacks today.

We must call this out for what it is – religious bigotry. This is true not just when such prejudice is anti-Catholic, but also when it is anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Hindu, or anti-Protestant, or any other religion.

There's more, if you'd like. The full piece is at https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/religious-rights/424362-elected-leaders-who-weaponize-religion-are-playing-a

And note that she makes a point of saying she does NOT support the nominee. So like I said, one can feel that a question is not appropriate, without supporting the nominee. And that was merely a statement of logic, but it is indeed the case here as described in her own words at the time.

[pnwmom]

64. NOBODY cited as a disqualification Buescher's being Catholic. That is false.

Sonia Sotomayor is Catholic. Numerous Democratic judges on the Federal bench are Catholic and were confirmed by Senate Democrats.

And Democrats have voted to confirm other Catholics in the past, including Justice Kennedy and Justice Scalia.

So I don't know why Tulsi would say something that's so provably false.

[thesquanderer]

65. She thought that the questions being asked were attempts to...

...use a candidate's religious beliefs against him.

The fact that other Dems supported or voted for other Catholics in the past is irrelevant. She was responding to what was happening in front of her at the time she said it.

Certainly the fact that other people did the right thing in the past doesn't mean one should not call out when you think someone is doing the wrong thing today. Your argument makes no sense.

[Princetonian]

47. I agree, thesquanderer.

[thesquanderer]

45. The right liked it when she was critical of Obama's foreign policy. (nt)

[Princetonian]

48. I can see that. I suppose we liked it when Republicans were skeptical of Bush's Iraq war.

[obamanut2012]

49. lulz

[Me.]

18. Wow

Does she know?

[Princetonian]

21. Not sure why they have a hard-on for her given she is Samoan-American, Hindu, pro-choice, pro-MFA

Then again, why would we believe a neo-Nazi website? Why is it even allowed here?

[pnwmom]

30. Interesting that you left out her past positions on LGBTQ equality,

for which she had to apologize. However, she told Ozy magazine that her personal views hadn't changed. And she accused Senators who questioned Trump judicial nominee Brian Buescher about his views on abortion and LGBT equality of being "religious bigots."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/opinion-tulsi-gabbard-lgbtq-rights_n_5c3e250ce4b0922a21d93a93

The younger Gabbard, elected to the Hawaii legislature herself in 2002 at the age of 21, railed against “homosexual extremists” in 2004, coming out against same-sex civil unions in her state. That same year she opposed anti-bullying legislation meant to protect gay students, arguing that it would teach young people that homosexuality is “normal and natural.”

SNIP

However, in a 2016 interview with the publication Ozy, Gabbard suggested that her personal beliefs on homosexuality actually haven’t changed:

It was, she says, the days in the Middle East that taught her the dangers of a theocratic government “imposing its will” on the people. (She tells me that, no, her personal views haven’t changed, but she doesn’t figure it’s her job to do as the Iraqis did and force her own beliefs on others.)

SNIP

Recently, she wrote a Hill op-ed that was lauded by right-wing publications. In the piece she attacked those like Democratic Sens. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Kamala Harris of California who sharply questioned Brian Buescher, a religious extremist nominated by Trump to a federal district court vacancy in Nebraska, accusing them of “religious bigotry.” Although Gabbard did not name either senator in the op-ed, the fingerpointing was clear.

[Princetonian]

32. I do not have access to Huff Plus but it reads like a hit piece.

If she was so terrible, why did the DNC appoint her as Vice Chair from 2013-2016, the year of the Ozy interview? She did apologize. The writer of the Ozy interview used the word "suggested" which means bullsh*t.

[pnwmom]

36. There is no wall blocking this regular Huffpost piece.

And you can read the Ozy piece yourself directly:

https://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/surfing-with-tulsi-gabbard-long-before-her-presidential-bid/62604

About 10 years ago, Gabbard violated some of the tenets that now make her so popular as a Democrat with an EMILY’s List endorsement to boot — she was neither pro-choice nor pro-gay-marriage, and in fact fell in line with her erstwhile Republican father. “She’s definitely distanced herself since,” says Jacqueline Lasky, professor of state politics at the University of Hawaii. “She wouldn’t have been successful otherwise.” (Nationally, there’s little talk about it; Kennedy told me he “didn’t really know” about Gabbard’s early conservative stances.) Hawaii bloggers and reporters widely have Gabbard on record as referring to the agendas of “homosexual extremists” at one point; when I ask her, she replies, “That thing I said ages ago?” Yes, I say. “Honestly, I’d have to go back and look,” she says. After repeated follow-ups, the congresswoman replies with a note about her sponsorship of the Equality Act (adding sexual orientation to categories of prohibited discrimination) and of her support for equal treatment of gay service members’ spouses.

Fittingly for her narrative, though, the explanation for her changed ideology feints us back onto familiar territory — the military. It was, she says, the days in the Middle East that taught her the dangers of a theocratic government “imposing its will” on the people. (She tells me that, no, her personal views haven’t changed, but she doesn’t figure it’s her job to do as the Iraqis did and force her own beliefs on others.)

[Princetonian]

37. She sponsored the Equality Act and she apologized.

That Ozy piece writer wrote his own interpretation without any verified quotes. We all know what happens with a reporter with an agenda. She is a maverick to be sure but she is now listed as pro-choice. We all make mistakes especially when saddled with bigoted parents.

[pnwmom]

38. She has a mixed record on abortion rights.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/where-2020-democrats-stand-on-abortion

She told the left-leaning website ThinkProgress that she supports using federal dollars to fund abortions, but she is not a co-sponsor of a House bill introduced this year which would repeal the Hyde Act. She similarly did not co-sponsor the 2017 “Women’s Health Protection Act”, which would overrule any state laws that make it harder to obtain elective abortions or which penalize abortion providers.

[thesquanderer]

50. re: "Interesting that you left out her past positions on LGBTQ equality"

Not so interesting... Princetonian was talking about what's currently associated with her, not past. Probably every candidate's got past things they now disassociate themselves from.

[pnwmom]

53. The Ozy article, in which she said that her personal views with regard to LGBT equality

hadn't changed (despite her political position changing to support LGBT equality ) was published in 2016 -- not the distant past.

[thesquanderer]

57. The article is actually ambiguous, but more importantly, it doesn't matter.

First the ambiguity: It neither provides an exact quote from her, nor an exact quote of what she was responding to. That kind of things is classically factually untrustworthy. In this case, for example, depending on exactly how the question was phrased and how she answered, she could have been talking about her views on abortion, rather than her views on homosexuality. (Note that the previous paragraph begins by lumping the two issues together.) An exact quote of question and answer would be more reliable.

But moreover: I don't care about someone's personal beliefs if that's not how they legislate. There are plenty of politicians who say they are personally against abortion, but they do not think government should impose that personal belief on others. That could be essentially what Gabbard was saying here. And even IF she personally feels that homosexuality is an abomination (as the Christian right sometimes calls it), which we don't actually know, I still don't care, as long as she's committed to not having the government act accordingly, and instead supports gay marriage and other implementations of equality, on that same basis that the government is not there to impose her personal religious beliefs on others.

[pnwmom]

62. Are you gay? If you're not, it's easy for you to say you don't care about someone's personal beliefs

As the daughter of a gay man, I know personal beliefs matter. And we should NOT have a President who isn't solidly behind LGBT rights -- as opposed to someone just taking a convenient political position.

Sexual orientation isn't like abortion, which is a CHOICE.

[thesquanderer]

66. LBJ was racist, but also a civil rights hero.

People are complicated. They can viscerally feel the beliefs they were instilled with, but intellectually know that government policy should not be based on those beliefs. Some people's personal beliefs do change, others don't, but a politician's actions matter more than personal beliefs.

Someone who supports gay equality the way LBJ supported black equality, despite personal biases? Yeah, I'd take that. African Americans were better off for what LBJ did, more so than any president before him short of Lincoln. The entire country was better off. But LBJ almost assuredly felt blacks were inferior for his entire life.

And again, unless you have a better source than the one you provided, I wouldn't even presume that we know what Gabbard's personal beliefs about homosexuality are today.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/lyndon-johnson-civil-rights-racism

[pnwmom]

67. LBJ was NOT a civl rights hero for LGBT people. And we don't need, in 2020,

a President with the mindset of LBJ. No, thanks.

And again, you are not part of the LGBT community. Despite that you would "take that" on having a President who had moral beliefs against black people, though a different political position, isn't' particularly relevant. You clearly don't understand what it would be like to have a President with moral beliefs that you weren't of equal worth.

And it's not like the choice is between Tulsi and Trump. The choice is between Tulsi and 19 other Democrats who don't have personal or visceral views against gay people; and who have a history, as a young adult, of actively working against them.

[thesquanderer]

68. It was an analogy.

LBJ had no fondness for black people personally, but he fought for their rights, and did a lot of good.

It is possible for a candidate to have no fondness for LGBT personally, but fight for their rights, and do a lot of good.

And as I said, unless you have a better reference, we don't even know that Gabbard has the same views on LGBT personally as she did in the past.

Whether I am or am not a part of any minority community is not relevant to this point, and nothing I am obligated to announce in order to participate in this discussion.

True that it is a choice between Tulsi and 19 (actually more) other Dems. And as you can see, Tulsi is not my pick. I do think we have better choices. But whether it's Tulsi having had bad views on LGBT in the past, or Biden's past position on the death penalty, or Warren's having been a Republican, or Sanders walking away from one of his old gun votes, none of this matters to me. What matters to me is what they're saying today, because I have confidence that what they get elected on is how they will govern.

[Me.]

34. I Think It Has Something To Do

with her association with people like Assad plus her criticisms of PBO and deserved or not she's sometimes called Putin's puppet.

[emmaverybo]

41. We should not. It should not. NT

[donkeypoofed]

28. The Gabbard Campaign must know it's over now

The freakin Daily Stormer?!?!? WTF is wrong with Gabbard? She should go with "her own kind" over in the GOP, FFS.

[Princetonian]

40. I cannot believe that any claim by The Daily Stormer is believed here.

[HiloHatti]

39. I'm One of Her Constituents

And I find her quite the Enigma. She’s very pro-military and fights for veterans in Congress. But, she claims to be anti-war, while voting for additional funds for the Pentagon. She really never gave an adequate reason for going to see Assad. She refused to debate her opponent in the 2018 election, which upset a lot of people here. I’ve heard that New Hampshire roads are inundated with Her signs, like here during Congressional elections. I was a supporter during her last run, but not anymore.

[Cha]

52. Mahalo for that, HiloHatti..

I'm also one of Gabbard's constituents. She wouldn't debate Shay Chan Hodges in 2016, either.. whom I voted for.

[pnwmom]

63. Welcome to DU. And thank you for speaking up. She is an enigma indeed. n/t

[lapucelle]

58. Were these small dollar donors who didn't have to be disclosed to the FEC? N/T