Republicans and Russians Want Tulsi Gabbard

Tulsi Gabbard, who represents Hawaii’s second district in the US House, has been complaining that the national media have been ignoring her run for president, according to Honolulu’s Civil Beat.

Of course, one reason is that her rating in the polls drags along at one percent. Compare that with the eight percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents who are supporting William Weld (who?) in his challenge to Donald Trump in the GOP race.

The congresswoman’s claims of being ignored fall flat, however, especially when considering she’s a frequent guest on national news shows, and — according to tallies compiled by CQ’s Newsmaker — has participated in more than 100 interviews since being elected to Congress 2012.

Her relationship with the local Hawaii press is another matter. Gabbard has a reputation for ducking interviews with journalists in her home state. She’s also come under fire for refusing to debate her political opponents.

Gabbard is not being universally ignored by the national media. She’s been featured several times on RT (Russia Today), including an interview with former Republican primary challenger, Ron Paul.

Ron Paul said Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is the “best” Democratic presidential candidate and would be the best chance at “bringing about peace.”

However, the Arc says Gabbard is not anti-war.

Since she announced her candidacy, Gabbard has appeared regularly on television to cycle through her talking points, many of which sound strikingly familiar to those Trump offered up on the campaign trail in 2016. . . And like Trump, she believes in putting “America first,” regardless of the global consequences. . .

But despite what she and her supporters claim, Gabbard is not. . . ”anti-war” she’s a nationalist, hiding behind a mask of anti-interventionism. . . She has accepted huge sums of money from the defense industry, expressed support for increasing the use of drone strikes, and hinted that she would consider using torture. . .

Her hawkish foreign policy stance has earned praise from Republicans and placed her in the company of neoconservative [“NeoCon”] figures like Dick Cheney and Bill Kristol. The associations aren’t by happenstance—she’s been invited to events held by right-wing think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and frequently appears on right-wing news networks like Fox News.

Since Rep. Gabbard officially declared her candidacy back in February, she hasn’t drawn a lot of attention. At least, not the kind she wants. Even before she officially became a candidate, Politico reported that her campaign was in disarray.

Rolling Stone says she’s out of step with other progressives and has skeletons in her closet.

CNN reported that in the early 2000s Gabbard touted working for her father’s anti-gay organization, the Alliance for Traditional Marriage. . . which described homosexuality as “unhealthy, abnormal behavior that should not be promoted or accepted in society”

Regarding a resolution that would have addressed anti-gay bullying, Gabbard delivered what the New Yorker described as a “long, fierce speech” railing against the prospect of children being taught that homosexuality is “normal and natural.”

She’s also been praised by former KKK grand wizard David Duke, white supremacist Richard Spencer and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. She’s rejected these endorsements, but as Mehdi Hasan of the Intercept points out, it’s more than a little troubling that some of the vilest people in America are supporting her.

Two years later, she met with Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad. He’s far from the only problematic figure with whom she’s aligned herself.

That’s a lot to digest at the beginning of a campaign, and there’s more. FiveThirtyEight says she could win, anyway. However, the article really has hardly anything positive to say.

Although she has voiced support for progressive positions. . .She has broken from her party on votes to increase restrictions on refugees and weaken gun control. She has introduced legislation supported by GOP donor Sheldon Adelson and interviewed for a possible position in Trump’s Cabinet. She [is] more conservative than 83 percent of House Democrats in the 115th Congress.

NBC News did a profile that pretty much said Gabbard is Putin’s choice this time.

The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 U.S. election is now promoting the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat who earlier this month declared her intention to run for president in 2020. . .

Since Gabbard announced her intention to run on Jan. 11, there have been at least 20 Gabbard stories on three major Moscow-based English-language websites affiliated with or supportive of the Russian government. . . Gabbard was mentioned on the three sites about twice as often as two of the best known Democratic possibilities for 2020, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.”

Whether you want to call it a conspiracy, or the fact that there are so many Democratic candidates this year, it is hard to find any articles that are supportive of Rep. Gabbard. As noted, even the FiveThirtyEight article, which said she “could win” the nomination, was framed in the same way as they might do an article saying, YOU “could’ marry Beyonce. Well, yeah, but. . .

Then there’s the question of where she really stands. On The Issues lists actual quotes in which she contradicts herself.

ON ABORTION
• Abortion should remain legal and accessible. (Jan 2019)
• I consider myself pro-choice. (Sep 2012)
• Ban anti-abortion limitations on abortion services. (Feb 2014)
• Funding abortion avoids discrimination against poor women. (Jan 2015)
• Constitutional right to terminate pregnancy for health. (May 2015)
• Endorsed by EMILY’s list for pro-choice Democratic women. (Aug 2012)

ON CIVIL RIGHTS
• My time in the military changed my anti-gay views. (Mar 2019)
• I never personally supported gay conversion therapy. (Mar 2019)
• Regrets past anti-gay statements; now pro-LGBTQ+ rights. (Jan 2019)
• 2002: Amend Constitution to protect traditional marriage. (Jan 2019)
• 2004: We shouldn’t represent views of homosexual extremists. (Jan 2019)
• 2012: Apologized for anti-LGBT past; pro-LGBT bills now. (Jan 2019)

ON GMO LABELING
• Require labeling genetically engineered food. (Apr 2013)
• Voted NO on requiring limited GMO labeling. (Jun 2016)

The FiveThirtyEight article does have one thing positive to say, which may appeal to Democrats this year: “She is undeniably a very talented politician, as observers of Hawaii politics can attest. When she first ran for Congress in 2012, she trailed the primary front-runner, the well-known former mayor of Honolulu, by 45 points in early polling, but she wound up defeating him by 21 points. According to the most recent Honolulu Civil Beat poll, she is now Hawaii’s most popular elected official, with a 61 percent positive and 24 percent negative rating. She won her 2018 general election with a whopping 77 percent of the vote.”