Summary
The Senate confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence in a 52-48 vote, with only Sen. Mitch McConnell breaking GOP ranks to oppose her.
Critics, including Democrats and some Republicans, raised concerns over her past meeting with Syria’s Assad, sympathetic comments on Russia, and prior support for Edward Snowden.
Gabbard reversed her stance on key intelligence policies during her confirmation.
What’s with the skunk haircut? This chick is such a clown - listen to her on Bill Maher
I agree with McConnell? Yuck.
He only voted “no” because he knew it wouldn’t make a difference, and this way he gets to pretend like he’s a reasonable person.
From Clickhole :
For the record I also despise the old turtle man.
I never agreed with him, but he’s at least an American. Maybe not the same ideals, but it’s clear he has some standards.
Always thought John McCain would be the last person I said that about.
he’s at least an American
He’s not really. He fell in line, eventually, behind Trump’s attempted coup the first time around. He’s been undermining the American system for decades. And, in traditional fashion, now that all the walls and pillars he’s been systematically knocking out are starting to affect his living room, it’s all of a sudden a problem.
I will agree with you that the people who are still voting for Trump’s stuff are more stupid. They’re still knocking stuff out, and it’ll come back around on them pretty quickly. But McConnell certainly doesn’t get a pass for any of it. He’s not American, he just doesn’t want him to be the one getting hauled out in the street by the mob or Trotskyed, and he’s still sharp enough to see that on the horizon now.
Fuck McConnell. He played an enormous role in making this bed that we’rew all forced to lie in now. No quarter.
No quarter.
unless there is a “hang” and a “draw” in front of it.
with only Sen. Mitch McConnell breaking GOP ranks to oppose her
Oh so NOW you’re worried, it would seem, about your legacy and whether you stood against fascism?
Mitch McConnell, you will always be remembered for obstructing, gaslighting, packing the SCOTUS with toadies, and then flip-flopping on impeachment and accountability for your party, the insurrection, and enabling the orange menace to return to power. Forever. People will piss on your grave, and they will be justified.
TOO LATE.
I will always remember him as the guy who filibustered his own bill just because Democrats voted for it. That one act perfectly encapsulates who he is.
Don’t forget he’ll also be remembered for not having any health issues
“On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.”
“Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.”
“I think that all the explanations leave some mystery. When I think of it at all, I still say, with unbelief, ‘Germany—no, not Germany.’”
All from Milton Meyer.
Welcome, American Oblast!
This makes me sad.
Hold onto your chairs folks. It’s going to be kinda bumpy from now on. And not in a good way.
Ha ha ha this is ridiculous. What complete fools.
Imagine not being excited for the destruction of the US empire.
An unsurprisingly dumb take by a tankie. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Having batshit people heading the American government is going to negatively affect more than just the US.
The part where I have to live through it sucks pretty hard. I’m also not certain that what will follow will be any better.
Yeah I’m sure the brown people on their way to the newly minted Guantanamo Bay concentration camp are real excited for what the collapse will look like.
Imagine pretending that you won’t be first in front of the firing squad, “queermunist.” If it gets as bad as it can get, you’ll never have a chance to celebrate the “destruction of the US empire.”
No one is going to be lined up for a firing squad because of Tulsi Gabbard. She’s just going to ruin the US intelligence community, which is easily one of the most evil institutions on Earth. This is literally the only good nomination, she’s perfect.
I’m more worried about the dipshits running the FDA and HHS into the ground ensuring bird flu becomes pandemic. How long until they make raw milk mandatory in school lunches? 🤮
I appreciate this take, thanks. It’s conceivable that the US intelligence community does some good in the world, but holy fuckin’ crap it’s inarguable that they do a lot of damage. Putting an absolute fool in charge of intelligence will probably be a disaster, but US intelligence is already a disaster. I’m more concerned about what Trump is doing to (virtually every) other function of government.
I didn’t say it would be specifically because of Tulsi, what I’m saying is that when a country like this one implodes, people in targeted minority groups end up on the receiving end of violence.
Fucking accelerationists, always pretending they won’t suffer when everyone else does. On behalf of my trans son and my gay daughter, fuck them all for celebrating the destruction of the country my kids (currently) live in, kids who will inevitably be on the receiving end of hate.
Naive fucking idiots.
The empire collapsing is not the same as the country collapsing and the empire must be destroyed for future of humanity. The US, as a country, can absolutely survive without being an empire. I’m celebrating the death of a death machine.
We don’t have to let our home be destroyed and we should stand up to Trump’s regime on domestic issues. I’m hardly an accelerationist. I’m trans! They’re gonna fucking kill me and I’m not celebrating that. But I am a revolutionary defeatist. In cases like this, where the empire is being destroyed and dismantled by people like Tulsi Gabbard, we should be happy it’s not worse.
Don’t confuse the country for the empire. They’re not really the same thing.
Hate to say it, but I don’t think that the downfall of the American hegemony would go well for queer folks, even a fucked up as it is. To a certain extent, global power IS a zero sum game. Especially in the context of Tulsi Gabbard, who seems to be aligned with Russian interests. If American influence wanes, that vacuum will get filled by soft power coming from Russia, China, or some combination thereof. Neither of them are huge fans of the queers.
They just see queer people as Western decadence/bourgeois moral decay etc. If the US reverses position, they will too.
Also, we fought for our rights before and won. We’ll do it again. We don’t need to ally ourselves with an evil empire.
What? You’re saying if America becomes less accepting of gay people, Russia will become more accepting? Like, having a pride parade in retaliation?
The empire collapsing is not the same as the country collapsing and the empire must be destroyed for future of humanity. The US, as a country, can absolutely survive without being an empire. I’m celebrating the death of a death machine.
No, you’re celebrating the death of a country. If the government of the United States collapses, that literally is the end of the country. It cannot survive that. It’ll shatter into at least 50 pieces, and a lot of people will die. It’s naivety of the worst sort to pretend that somehow society will march on without a fucking government.
Don’t confuse the country for the empire. They’re not really the same thing.
Fucking accelerationists and their ridiculous view of human nature.
The government isn’t going to collapse just because Tulsi Gabbard is pro-Snowden and anti-NATO.
What will collapse are the overseas assets and transational corporations and military bases and intelligence assets and NGOs and US-lead task forces and all the other shit that Tulsi Gabbard is going to be responsible for - as in, the most evil shit on Earth.
The empire will collapse. The government is going to be fine.
You:
We are literally watching the government be destroyed from the inside out, and accelerationist morons are cheering it on.
She’s not bad for the job because she’s incompetent though. She’s bad because she’s compromised and willing to say whatever she needs to say to advance her own interests and the interests of her patrons (Trump definitely, Modi and Putin maybe).
Intelligence was lied about to get us into the Iraq War and Gabbard has been super is hawkish about the drone war. She’s going to lead to more of that, not dismantle the institution. Get ready for manufactured intelligence about how Gaza has dirty bombs built by Iran and transported through the Suez Canal for some reason.
Has she been hawkish? I’m not seeing that - I see she once said she supports “very limited use of drones” and that’s it. Well, and also that time she condemned Trump when he illegally droned Qassem Soleimani.
Her whole deal during the Obama administration was criticizing him on Fox News for not calling terrorism “Islamic” enough and not doing enough drone strikes.
Bad enough US has not been bombing al-Qaeda/al-Nusra in Syria. But it’s mind-boggling that we protest Russia’s bombing of these terrorists. (tweet)
Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 and must be defeated. Obama won’t bomb them in Syria. Putin did. #neverforget911 (tweet)
“In short, when it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk,” Gabbard told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald in 2016. “When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.” (source, HTH original no longer online)
Good point. She seems to want the US to kill more nongovernmental targets.
So, no more regime changes per se, but a lot more propping up unpopular regimes. I could see this resulting in a much expanded droning campaign in Syria to keep the new government in power.
I’ll temper my excitement, she’s worse than I thought even if she’s better than many of the ghouls that Republicans usually choose.
And I’ll note that my concern is less her personal ideology and more her willingness to say whatever for personal advancement. I’m a resident of her state and thus have followed her career for a long time. She’s bounced between ideologies back and forth based on whatever would advance her career at the moment. If I had to guess I’d say this current incarnation might be more legit than others (she was raised conservative and 9/11 occurred during her formative years), but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this is just what’s useful to her right now.
Not that it did much good or deserves praise, but there was resistance to fabricating the WMD intel for Bush and some limitations on what they were willing to say (even while participating in a deadly deception). I don’t think Gabbard will have any resistance at all. Putting a charismatic liar who likes to be in front of the camera in a position that can influence military action (and which is most visible when military action is happening) with little risk of the public being able to check her facts is terrifying.
She’s bad because she’s compromised and willing to say whatever she needs to say to advance her own interests and the interests of her patrons (Trump definitely, Modi and Putin maybe).
Joke’s on you; the tankie troll you’re feeding is into that shit.
Accelerationist trash.
She is literally a Russian asset, and now she’s going to be our top intel official. We’re fucked.
This is truly the “move fast and break things” administration.
”FIRST THINGS FIRST! ROUND UP ALL OF THE DALMATIONS!!!”, shrieked Gabbard.
She looks like a Marvel villain
Looks like. yeah.
Hunger Games reject villain, IMHO
And there goes the intelligence community.
Gabbard is going to be compartmentalized. They’re never going to let her near anything that matters.
They have 19 year olds named big balls gaining access to all our information. You think she is going to have problems accessing information. Ha ha ha.
Any basis whatsoever to your comment?
I wish you were right.
For awhile. There’s four years of purging and loyalty tests available to wear down institutional resistance.
Considering Gabbard’s histor, by 2028, Putin will know what our intelligence community knows before Trump does.
Trump will never know it because he can’t sit through the briefings. He prefers to get his info from Fox.
Mr Trump’s request for numerous graphics may be a reflection of his longtime career as a real estate developer, where he evaluated building designs to visualise what the property would ultimately look like.
🙄 Yeah, I’m sure that’s the explanation.
I was going to say that it’s because Trump can’t read.
You have way too much faith in a collapsing government.
You know who else said exactly that? The people who made Hitler chancellor.
“Ve can control him.”
We’re literally going to turn into a worse version of Russia aren’t we.
Yes.
Russian colony
Russian colon
Don’t know if worse is really the right word, but yeah that’s very clearly the goal the GOP have been working toward.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Dog killer.
No you’re thinking of the Secretary of Homeland Security. I hope.
On second thought, it’s a moot point.
MI5, MI6 *shrug*
Sadly a moot point indeed.
