Remember When Hillary Said Russians Are Grooming Tulsi Gabbard As 3rd Party Spoiler?

Ed. note: This entry was written shortly after HRC made her remarks, found transcribed herein, but remained unpublished. As of publication today, Wednesday, 11 March 2020, Tulsi Gabbard remains a candidate to be the Democratic Party’s Presidential Nominee, though her viability as a candidate is practically non-existent, while Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are the two major candidates remaining in the race.

Tulsi Gabbard, Official Portrait

In the recent edition of the podcast “Campaign HQ with David Plouffe,” (Google podcast link) the former 2008 Obama campaign adviser interviewed Hillary Clinton on a wide range of topics, primarily about strategy and tactics that Trump and Republicans will most likely use in an attempt to defeat the 2020 Democratic party presidential nominee.

In the hour-long, often-rambling podcast, guest Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom was the 2016 Democratic nominee for POTUS, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and a former United States Senator from New York, obliquely and surreptitiously accused Tulsi Gabbard, a current Major in the Hawaii Army National Guard, current Hawaii U.S. Representative (D-CD2), and Iraq War Veteran, of being a “Russian asset.”

The shocking incredulity which Hillary accuses a fellow Democrat of being – an open traitor to our nation, not merely a “faithless” candidate – could possibly be taken seriously, if not at face value – but for at least two things:

Tulsi Gabbard, Promotion to Major

1.) Tulsi Gabbard is a Major in the Hawaii National Guard, and as such, has sworn an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”;

2.) Tulsi Gabbard is an Iraq War Veteran, and;

3.) Tulsi Gabbard is a current Representative for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District, and in that capacity has similarly sworn an oath of fealty – fidelity to and support of the Constitution.

If what Hillary surreptitiously claimed, suggested, or intimated (she did not mention Rep. Gabbard by name) were true (which it is not), Tulsi would be an open traitor – and she is not.

The seriousness of such charges are not to be taken lightly, which is also why, in large part, that they’re incredulous. Hillary’s claims are not even specious, they are fully unjustified, and wholly unwarranted. And so, they should not, and cannot be taken seriously.

Most American journalistic and media outlets have hardly taken notice, save for a nominal categorical mention on Twitter, and a CBS Evening News report by Norah O’Donnell, and one, or two other stories, including Fox News Tucker Carlson’s brief interview with Tulsi Gabbard about the ordeal shortly after it came to light.

Even Chuck Todd, the marshmallow-soft replacement for the late, take-no-prisoners attorney/host Tim Russert on NBC’s once-revered Sunday newsmaker program Meet the Press, only had a passing interaction on the subject with South Bend, Indiana “Mayor Pete” Buttegieg, who is also a Navy Iraq War Veteran and Democratic candidate to be the party’s Presidential Nominee. Their brief exchange follows:

CHUCK TODD: Before I let you go, I was curious if you had any reaction to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton implying that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard might be a Russian asset.

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: What I’ll say is, I’m not going to get into their dispute. What I will say is we know right now –

TODD: Is that appropriate?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I suppose when you become a private citizen you can say whatever you want. But…

TODD: I understand that, but she’s a sitting member of Congress. She served.

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I certainly honor her service. As we saw in the debate, I also have strong disagreements with her on topics like Syria. But the bigger issue here is Russia is working to interfere with our elections right now. And we know a big part of how they’re going to do it is exploiting divisions among the American people, with their information operations. We’ve got to become a harder target and as president, I will make sure using all of our tools, diplomatic, economic, and security there is enough deterrence that Russia, or any country, would never again calculate that it is in their interest to mess with our democracy.

TODD: I just wonder if you are comfortable at all – I mean, throw a charge out there making her deny it. That’s a Trumpian move.

BUTTIGIEG: Well, we got to focus on the task at hand right now. And that includes making sure that this presidency comes to an end. That is my focus. That, and what happens after this presidency comes to an end.

TODD: So, you’re comfortable with Hillary Clinton’s critique of Tulsi Gabbard and how she went about it?

BUTTIGIEG: No, I’m not. I’m also not getting in the middle of it because we as a party and as a country have to focus on the future.

NBC’s Chuck Todd was asking “Mayor Pete” Buttegieg about the exchange with David Plouffe and Hillary Clinton in which she spoke about the possibility of another unexpected potential outcome like 2016 (in which the Vladimir Putin-run Russian government significantly meddled online using false narratives and “bots” to alter the outcome according to their wants, thereby getting Donald Trump elected), and the likelihood of Trump’s re-election in conjunction with the possible strategy and tactics they’ll use against the Democratic nomine.

The pertinent part comes about 35 minutes into the one-hour interview. After her controversial remarks, the podcast took a break. In context, and in pertinent part, she said the following:

HILLARY CLINTON: “Getting those two appointees on the Supreme Court… it’s not just about abortion, or guns. It’s about economics. Y’know, I remember having studied in Law School the time back in the late 19th, early 20th Century, when the Court was totally in the bed of corporations. Whatever corporations want, the Court just said, ‘sign me up, here I am.’ That is the unfortunate cycle that we could be re-entering. And another term of Trump would just nail that down. And it wouldn’t be just him. It would be all the others who are doing his bidding, but also their own mission to change the country back.”

INTERVIEWER DAVID PLOUFFE: Two more Brett Kavanaughs, potentially.

HRC: Absolutely!

PLOUFFE: So, let’s talk about _?(unclear/mumbled)?_ again. I’m not gonna’ ask you to handicap the primary campaign – unless you’d like to. But, this ultimately – the debates, and the campaign themselves – are about who’s gonna’ be squared off on the stage with him. And you’re the only person in the world who had the experience… so I’m just curious – one of the things I reflect on in ’16 is, I think by any objective measure, you won the big moments. You had a better convention. You won all three debates. But the national news spent 32 minutes total in your whole campaign covering policy.

HRC: Right.

PLOUFFE: He, you know, lies, and Tweets, and sort of dominates the auction in a way we haven’t seen before. We talked about social media. And he’s – in a way, for all of his craziness – has sort of perfected that art. So… how… do you have any advice for someone, whoever comes out of our primary… how do we deal with that? Like, even if they win the debates, and we have a great convention, and get a great VP, there’s big moments that are undeniably important – the day-to-day execution of the campaign against him seems really difficult.

HRC: It is really difficult, because he knows that if he can keep the spotlight on him, no other voice will break through. So it’s not only that he’s doing things that seem disqualifying – at least in my view – he just cares how much airtime he gets. He just cares how dominant he is in people’s living rooms, and their earbuds, and all that he is counting on. And he knows that he’s not gonna’ lose his hard core. His hard core is with him no matter what. They like the fact that he insults people. They like the fact that he’s rude. They like all of that. I think it’s, you know… their own frustrations. But however one explains it, it has very little to do with economic anxiety, and a lot to do with cultural anxiety, and so they are very much behind him.

And then you got the religious element. And you’ve got religious – so-called religious – leaders saying things like ‘we’ll, he’s not a religious man, but he’s protecting what we care about.’ And that’s… abortion, for example; try to push the clock back against gays – you don’t have to bake them a wedding cake, you don’t have to hire them, you can fire them… all the things that the religious right wants, which he is trying to deliver, because they’re a loyal voting bloc.

So, I think that it’s going to be hard, no matter who our nominee is, to break through. And there’s gonna’ be the below the radar screen battle being fought out, as we talked earlier – online in particular – that will be hard for us to compete with.

So I think you’ve gotta’ have the grit and the toughness to be able to go day-after-day, pushing – in as an emotional and positively-delivered way that you can – what it is that he will do that’s bad for the voter; the promises he made that he has not kept, the dangers that he’s put our country in, while you’re still trying to – on a separate, parallel channel, talk about what you would do. It’s a really difficult balancing act.

And what he’s counting on, is that – whoever our nominee is – will have made some promises in the primary, taken some positions, that they will be able to blow up out of all proportion to beat that person, because what they’ll try to is, is say, ‘I may be bad, in fact, I am bad, and I admit it, and I love it, so just live with it! But this other person is gonna’ take your insurance away! And this other person is gonna’ give healthcare to ILL-EGAL IMM-I-GRANTS! And this other person is gonna’ take your gun away!’ And, I mean… you know, the whole panoply of horrors, and try to piece together getting back some of those suburban voters – particularly women suburban voters, Republicans and Independents – who went for Democrats in 2018. So that’s how they see this.

And they’re also gonna’ force the Democratic nominee to defend places that should not have to be defended. So, watch what happens in Oregon. Watch what happens in Colorado. Watch what happens in New Mexico. They’ve been pretty open that those are places they’re going after. And New Hampshire. And so they’re gonna’ have more money than they can possibly ever spend. And they’re gonna’ really put financial pressure on whoever our nominee is. And they’re already kind of boiling the waters.

You know, look at Oregon in particular. Everybody thinks it’s a very reliable blue state, and our big advantage in Oregon is they vote by mail. So it’s really hard to suppress it, it’s really hard to tinker with it… but, they’re also stirring up a lot of cultural antipathy toward the Democratic party. And… I don’t think they’ll be successful, but they’re gonna’ spend money there, and they’re gonna’ force our nominee to spend money there, which will be harder to come by for our nominee.

So, I just think that… they have a game plan, and you know as well as anybody, that you get the nomination when you’re a Democrat, and then you basically have to get a game plan for the General Election.

When I became the nominee, I inherited a bankrupt organization, and Donald Trump inherited a well-funded, well-prepared organization. The day he got the nomination, having done nothing for Republicans his entire campaign, was a day that… he already, there already were like, 21 offices in Florida. I had to do all that. There was nothing. I had nothing. And so, from my perspective, I think we’ll be a little better off than we were back then, but we’re gonna’ be out-gunned, out-spent, out-lied… I mean, we’re gonna’ have a lot of problems. And the thing we have to do is get enough people to turn out so that they can’t, you know, steal those votes through suppression in Wisconsin, or convince Blacks not to vote in Michigan… all this stuff that they did this last time, which was very effective, and the Russians played a big role in.

PLOUFFE: And they’ll double down on this time. And Trump had those advantages, but he was was not an incumbent. So as we know – whether it’s Ronald Reagan, your husband, Barack Obama – those first 18 months of the election cycle were as important as the last six months. I think that should give us pause.

So, one, it’s connected to the discussion we just had, and actually, about social media earlier in our discussion. Donald Trump, as you know, better than anyone in the world – and we got 46.1% of the vote nationally, he got 47.2 in Wisconsin, 47.7 in Michigan – if you had said those before the election, you would have said he’s gonna’ lose in a landslide. But one of the reasons he was able to win is the third party vote.

And what’s clear to me, you mentioned, he’s gonna’ just lie. He’s gonna’ say whoever our nominee is will ban hamburgers, and steaks, and you can’t fly, and infanticide, and people believe it. How concerned are you about that? For me, so much of this does come down to the win number – if he has to get 49, or even 49.5 – and I don’t think he can.

So he’s gonna’ try and drive people to vote, not just for him, but to say, ‘you know, you can’t vote for them either!’ And that seems to be – I think to the extend that I can divine a strategy there – a key strategy right now.

HRC: “Well, I think there’s gonna’ be two parts, and I think it’s gonna’ be the same as 2016: ‘Don’t vote for the other guy. You don’t like me? Don’t vote for the other guy, because the other guy’s gonna’ do X, Y, and Z. Or, the other guy did such terrible things, and I’m gonna’ show you in these flashing videos that appear and then disappear. And they’re on the dark web, and nobody can find ’em. But you’re gonna’ see them, and you’re gonna’ see that person doing these horrible things.’ They’re also gonna’ do third party again. And, I’m not making any predictions, but I think they got their eye on somebody who’s currently in the Democratic primary, and are grooming her to be the third party candidate. She’s a favorite of the Russians; they have a bunch of sites and bots, and other ways of supporting her so far, and… that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up – which she might not, because she’s also a Russian asset. Yeah! She’s a Russian asset! I mean, totally! And so, they know they can’t win without without a third party candidate. And so, I don’t know who it’s gonna’ be, but I will guarantee they’ll be a vigorous third party challenge in the key states that most need it.”

In response to Clinton’s remarks, Tulsi Tweeted the following, beginning at 1:20 PM, 18 Oct 2019:

Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a …

… concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and …

… powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.

It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.

At Monday’s Cabinet Meeting (21 October 2019), Trump waded into the fray, somewhat, by segueing from talk about international trade deals, saying in part that (video of the meeting via C-SPAN, starts at 4:45):

“We have other trade deals that we’ve done. We’ve done South Korea. Which is a fantastic deal for us. Turned out even better than we thought. South Korea was a terrible deal. The person in charge of that particular deal – Hillary Clinton, if you’ve heard of her – she’s the one accusing everybody of being a Russian agent. Anybody that is opposed to her is a Russian agent. So that’s a scam that was pretty much put down. Tulsi… I don’t know Tulsi, but she’s not a Russian agent. I don’t know Jill Stein. I know she likes the environment. I don’t think she likes Russians. If she does like ’em, I know she’s not an asset. She called her an asset of Russia. These people are sick. There’s something wrong with them. But ahhh… I think that Tulsi Gabbard probably got helped quite a bit by this stir. I think we were helped, because it shows that for two-and-a-half years, we end up winning. I had to go through two-and-a-half years. If she would of done this earlier, people would’ve realized what a scam it is. Everybody’s a Russian, or a Russian agent, or a Russian asset.”

The fact that Trump took thought to make mention – only minutes after the Cabinet meeting started – of the relatively quiet matter, which superficially appears as nothing more than a personality dust-up, or even “cat fight,” is significant for the fact that he continues to be significantly motivated by animus toward her, and by extension, toward the Democrats. And the very fact that she still gets under his skin – even after three years into his presidency – is very telling, if not curious, or even outrightly disconcerting.

Of course, for anyone who knows anything about Hillary, they know that she’s never unprepared. She’s thorough, calculating, and a very strategic thinker, to say the least. She is an unmistakably polarizing political figure – even within her own party – and love her, like her, loathe her… she is not to be underestimated. As evidence of that fact, consider her Federal political career – from the FLOTUS, to Senator, to Secretary of State, to party presidential nominee candidate.

In the broader picture, there are at least three, or even several matters, at play in this otherwise quiet, seemingly innocuous matter:
1.) Hillary – like her, love her, hate her, voted for her, or not – is still very much a player working to get Democrats elected, and thus exerts influence. In some sense, she could be considered a behind-the-scenes, semi-pseudo-Democratic operative, per se – regardless of what appears otherwise.
2.) Trump is afraid of Hillary.
3.) Power struggles and personality conflicts within the party, and their interaction history.
4.) Changing public policy trajectory of the Democratic Party.

While there is some truth to what Tulsi Gabbard Tweeted about Hillary – incendiary as it was – it should be borne in mind that since 2001, when Hillary was then a U.S. Senator from New York, she voted FOR the Iraq War in 2001. She has since publicly stated that she regrets that vote.

OFFICIAL DOD publication: “Estimated Cost to Each U.S. Taxpayer of Each of the Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria”

America’s Foreign Policy has largely been a selfishly misguided, fucked-up mess (pardon the language) for at least the past 50 years, and, as Tulsi Gabbard pointed out, has been significantly, if not exclusively involved in “regime change” abroad.

Think about it: Since 2001 in Afghanistan, in one form, or another, the United States has been in continuous, open, active armed conflict in the Middle East. It is, by far, the LONGEST, and MOST COSTLY undertaking this nation has EVER embarked upon, or endured. In March 2019, the Department of Defense published a study titled “Estimated Cost to Each U.S. Taxpayer of Each of the Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria” (view/download Section 1090 FY17 NDAA Cost of Wars to Per Taxpayer-March 2019 from this blog) which estimated the fiscal cost of American involvement (“war‐related” estimated costs from FY 2001 to FY 2018, which exclude non‐Department of Defense classified programs) in the Middle East to taxpayers at $1,497,006,000,000.

That’s ONE point FOUR NINE SEVEN TRILLION dollars.

No, it’s NOT a typo.

The DOD report identifies the “Cumulative Estimated Cost of Wars by Number of U.S. Taxpayer” as being $7,623.

That’s based upon 196,380,165 taxpayers – which, if you’re reading this, includes you. Thank you for your service… to the Treasury.

In conjunction with the Ivy-League school Brown University, in a paper titled “Costs of War: United States Budgetary Costs of the Post-9/11 Wars Through FY2019: $5.9 Trillion Spent and Obligated,” by Dr. Neta C. Crawford, PhD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Boston University and Co-Director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University, which was published November 14, 2018, economics researchers found that “The United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $5.9 trillion (in current dollars) on the War On Terror through Fiscal Year 2019, including direct war and war-related spending and obligations for future spending on post-9/11 war Veterans. This number differs substantially from the Pentagon’s estimates of the costs of the post-9/11 wars because it includes not only war appropriations made to the Department of Defense –spending in the war zones of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and in other places the government designates as sites of “overseas contingency operations,” – but also includes spending across the federal government that is a consequence of these wars. Specifically, this is war-related spending by the Department of State,past and obligated spending for war veterans’ care,interest on the debt incurred to pay for the wars, and the prevention of and response to terrorism by the Department of Homeland Security.”

That’s five point nine TRILLION already spent in direct -and- indirect costs.

The essence of what’s been happening is… regime change. There’s no other word for it. Maybe “war mongering.” That shoe fits – as uncomfortable as it may seem.

And what do you have to show for it?

It’s a bottomless pit.

At a barber shop in Huntsville, AL, a gent there said to me that defense contracts are nothing more than “middle class welfare programs.” I found great truth in that terse remark.

Why isn’t Saudi Arabia paying?

Why does America come galavanting to the rescue, as if on a white horse?

American foreign policy is misguided, if anything.

Perhaps Tulsi Gabbard should be Secretary of State.

The Washington Post wrote of her Iraq War “YES” vote, (noting that “Clinton declined requests to be interviewed for this article”) that “The path to Clinton’s decision was paved by her evolving sense of presidential power, forged during years in which she played a bigger role than widely realized in pushing her husband to intervene militarily in the Balkans, Iraq and Kosovo. She continued that path when she advocated intervention in Libya as secretary of state.”

In the NBC “Commander-In-Chief Forum” September 8, 2016, she said in part to host Matt Lauer, that, “I think that the decision to go to war in Iraq was a mistake. And I had said that my voting to give President Bush that authority was – from my perspective – my mistake.”

So, yeah. Hillary is the “queen of warmongers.”