Media, Politics

Clinton Aides Fuel Misleading Narrative After Gabbard Attack Backfires

Before my recent Washington Post column ran discussing Hillary Clinton’s attack on presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard as a “Russian asset”, I had to deal with an issue raised be a false narrative being put out by her flacks. While first taunting Gabbard, her spokesperson Nick Merrill and others started to suggest that the story was false and that Clinton spoke of “Republicans” not “Russians.” It was a masterful spin. Clinton flacks focused on the reference to “grooming” and got the New York Times and other media outlets to “correct” the story to say that it was a reference to Republicans. That suggested that people may have misheard the podcast interview. That interpretation is clearly false, but the Internet is now full of references to the “false story,” which is precisely what many wanted in putting out the “correction.” For those who continue to attack the use of “fake news” by the Russians, it seems that some disinformation is considered fair game when it is used for the right purpose.


Nick Merrill@NickMerrill and others said that the New York Times corrected its account to say that Clinton was not referring to the Russians but the Republicans.


Nick Merrill@NickMerrillOn Friday, the NYT did a piece about a podcast Secretary Clinton did with David Plouffe. They incorrectly quoted her saying that the “Russians” were “grooming” a candidate running in the Democratic primary. They rightfully fixed it to reflect that she was taking about the GOP.

Clinton did appear to be referring to the Republicans in the earlier part of her comments below, but clearly referred to Gabbard and Jill Stein as “Russian assets in the podcast with former Obama aide David Plouffe.

For many however the point was made by suggesting a confusion with “Republicans” for “Russians” in listening to the podcast. Media issues stories saying that “it turns out” Clinton was referring to Republicans not Russians. It was vintage Washington misdirection. Clinton has long loathed both Stein and Gabbard. Stein was viewed as taking votes away from Clinton who was opposed by many as an establishment figure with little authenticity. She holds a grudge against Gabbard was the first (and one of the few) members of Congress willing to buck the DNC and the establishment by endorsing Bernie Sanders in 2016.

When the story ran, the Clinton people relished the attack and taunted Gabbard. Merrill mocked Gabbard and, rather than denying the story, mocked that this is “Assad day for your candidacy” — a reference to Gabbard’s controversial 2017 meeting with the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. He added “If the nesting doll fits. This is not some outlandish claim. This is reality. If the Russian propaganda machine, both their state media and their bot and troll operations, is backing a candidate aligned with their interests, that is just a reality, it is not speculation.”

Then however condemnations grew over Clinton’s attack. Suddenly attacking an anti-war candidate was not as popular as Clinton assumed. That is when we saw the disinformation campaign.

Here is the interview and you can judge for yourself:


Clinton: “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 the stuff that they did this last time which was very effective and the Russians play a big role in.” 

Plouffe: “Right, and they’ll double down on this time. Trump had those advantages but he was not an incumbent. So as we know, whether it’s Ronald Regan, your husband, Barack Obama, those first 18 months of the election cycle were as important as the last six months. …

“You know, Donald Trump, as you know better than anyone in the world, only got 46.1% of the vote nationally. You know he got 47.2 in Wisconsin, 47.7 in Michigan, and if you had said those before the election you would have said he’s going to lose in a landslide.”

Clinton: “Right.”

Plouffe: “But one of the reasons he was able to win is the third party vote.”

Clinton: “Right.”

Plouffe: “And what’s clear to me, you mentioned, you know, he’s going to just lie. … He’s going to say, whoever our nominee is, ‘will ban hamburgers and steaks and you can’t fly and infanticide’ and people believe this. So, 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 in a bunch of…”

Clinton: “He can’t do that.”

Plouffe: “…which I don’t think he can… So he’s going to try and drive the people not to vote for him but just to say, ‘you know, you can’t vote for them either.’ And that seems to be, I think, to the extent that I can define a strategy, their key strategy right now.”

Clinton: “Well, I think there’s going to be two parts and I think it’s going to 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 is going to do X, Y and Z or the other guy did such terrible things and I’m going to show you in these, you know, flashing videos that appear and then disappear and they’re on the dark web, and nobody can find them, but you’re going to see them and you’re going to see that person doing these horrible things.’”

“They’re also going to do third party again. And I’m not making any predictions but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third party candidate. She’s the 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, ’cause she’s also a Russian asset.”

Plouffe: (Inaudible)

Clinton: “Yeah, she’s a Russian asset, I mean, totally.

“And so, they know they can’t win without a third party candidate and, so, I don’t know who it’s going to be it but I will guarantee you they’ll have a vigorous third party challenge in the key states that they most need it.”

156 thoughts on “Clinton Aides Fuel Misleading Narrative After Gabbard Attack Backfires”

  1. (music–to Henry The 8th I am I am)
    I’m Hillary the 8th I am….
    Hillary the 8th I am. I am…
    I got married to the Billy next door!
    He was a goat humper 7 times before….
    And every goat was a Hillary…
    It wouldn’t be a Willey or a Fred..
    For there ain’t no goat like Hillary!
    Hillary the 8th I am!

  2. Boom!

    Hillary Clinton, Your foreign policy was a disaster for our country and the world. It’s time for you to acknowledge the damage you have caused and step down from your throne.

    Major Tulsi Gabbard

    1. Hillary’s foreign policy has made her filthy stinking rich. That is what elected/appointed office is for in the communistic American welfare state.

      The American Founders, by contrast, intended for brief caretaker service by elected officials on hiatus from daily enterprise operations with a swift return at the end of their term. The Constitution does not allow the massive government that exists today. Congress has only the power to tax for “…general Welfare…” and can regulate only “…money…” and “…commerce among the several States…” while the absolute right to private property precludes any and all intervention and interference in the possession and/or disposition of the aforementioned absolute private property.

      Communists in America may want communism but they can’t have it. Read the Constitution.

      Americans were provided maximal freedom while government was severely limited and restricted and exists only to facilitate the freedom of individuals through the provision merely of security and infrastructure.

  3. Gabbard Appears On Sean Hannity’s Show..

    To Parrot ‘Republican’ Talking Points!!

    Let’s play a game: Can you guess which member of Congress joined Sean Hannity’s fair and balanced airwaves Thursday to utter this specious line of impeachment process whining?

    “I think that inquiry must be done in a very narrowly focused way, and it must be done transparently. I don’t know what’s going on in those closed doors. We as members of Congress don’t have access to the information that is being shared. And I think the American people deserve to know exactly what the facts are, what the evidence is that is being presented as the inquiry goes on.”

    If you guessed smarm-spewing human Pez dispenser Matt Gaetz, you’d be wrong. In fact, if you guessed name-by-name down the membership list of Gaetz’s merry band of morons caucus, you’d still be wrong.

    These words belong to none other than Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii). Remember her? She snuck onto the Democratic debate stage this month as the low-polling 12th member. That’s right, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination stopped by Fox News on Thursday night to echo the muckiest, swampiest of Republican talking points.

    She might be running as a Democrat. But she sure does sound like a Republican a lot of the time.

    Edited from: “Opinion: Tulsi Gabbard May Not Be A Russian Asset. But She Sure Talks Like One”

    The Los Angeles Times, 10/25/19
    …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

    Republicans might read Gabbard’s statement and totally agree with it. But Gabbard is ‘not’ a Republican! Yet her statement lines up almost perfectly with Trump’s most ardent defenders.

    Gabbard presumes to be a Democratic candidate for President. Therefore her appearance on Sean Hannity’s show, and the statement she made, should be viewed with deep suspicion by every Democrat. Which suggests that Hillary Clinton was not completely off-base in her warning about Gabbard.

    1. She tells the truth, which is that Schiff’s methods are a travesty (and have no precedent in impeachment inquiries). There’s a reason people call you ‘Shill’.

      1. Tabby, a Federal Judge ruled last week that the impeachment inquiry is totally legal. But that’s beside the point. Tulsi isn’t running as a Republican. None of the Trumpers here have any intention of voting for her. So why is Gabbard wasting political capital on statement Republicans can use against Democrats? None of it makes any sense.

        1. Tabby, a Federal Judge ruled last week that the impeachment inquiry is totally legal.

          Peter fancies a federal judge passes on parliamentary rules. He also fancies that legitimates a travesty.

          1. Ah, Tabby, I see: ‘Only judges who belong to the Federalist Society can be trusted to rule on important issues’.

    2. IN 2015 GABBARD SENT THIS TWEET..

      PRAISING VLADIMIR PUTIN!

      “Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 and must be defeated. Obama won’t bomb them in Syria. Putin did. #neverforget911”

      From: Twitter Account: Tulsi Gabbard, 10/1/15
      ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

      Regarding Above: This was more than a little strange; a Democratic Congresswoman chiding the Democratic president while praising Russia’s leader. Tweets like this can lead to ‘misunderstandings’

      1. So what? Putin makes good decisions for Russia, that’s what a good leader does for his country.

        And, they’re not necessarily at the expense of the US, as that incident showed correctly.

        She was right in her comment. You are a Russophobe. US and Russia can coexist!

        1. Wait! I thought Tulsi was against militarism and that’s why you all liked her?

          Why is she praising Putin for bombing and dissing Obama for not bombing?

          1. I never used the world militarism. I said interventionism repeatedly.

            Syria invited Russian forces to participate in suppressing the ISIS terrorist faction, hence, Russian assistance was not interventionism in the usual sense of the word.

            The key concept here is respecting national sovereignty.

    3. Shill,
      You can carp about who, where, when and how without ever needing to connect with the left half of your brain. Unfortunately for you, it’s the what, regarding her comment that you obviously were silent on and for one obvious reason. You have a firewall in your head preventing you from analyzing her comment and then drawing a reasonable conclusion on its merits.

      Try again.

      1. Olly, will you vote for Gabbard???

        If not, why should you care? Why should Tulsi Gabbard matter to you if she happens to be someone you would never vote for?

        The fact that you’re defending Gabbard, with a tone of deep indignation, validates Hillary’s assessment. If Tulsi’s so popular with staunch Trump defenders, she’s probably not a Democrat that real Democrats can trust.

        1. The fact that you’re defending Gabbard, with a tone of deep indignation, validates Hillary’s assessment.

          Logic isn’t your strong suit.

        2. she’s probably not a Democrat that real Democrats…

          Peter Shill thinks all registered Democrats are engaged in throuples. Alas, Peter wishes he had at least one boyfriend…

          Freshman Rep. Katie Hill’s ‘throuple’ uncovered amid bitter divorce

          “The fact is I am going through a divorce from an abusive husband who seems determined to try to humiliate me,” she told the Beltway outlet.

          “I am disgusted that my opponents would seek to exploit such a private matter for political gain. This coordinated effort to try to destroy me and people close to me is despicable and will not succeed,” she added.

          “Intimate photos of me and another individual were published by Republican operatives on the internet without my consent,” continued Hill’s statement. “I have notified Capitol Hill police who are investigating the situation and potential legal violations of those who posted and distributed the photos, and therefore will have no further comment on the digital materials.”

          https://nypost.com/2019/10/22/freshman-congresswomans-throuple-uncovered-amid-bitter-divorce/

          1. Some Democrats want to define who is a real Democrat. The thing is– the system doesn’t work that way. Whether you like it or not. I could register as a Democrat if I wanted to. I’ve voted for some before and given money– at least in local elections, where they had some good candidates in the field.

            Democrat voters have a right to think for themselves and so do Republicans!

            1. No Kurtz, haven’t you heard of RINO’s? Even “independents” (chuckle chuckle) like Paul pass judgement on Republicans who haven’t handed their balls to Trump.

              2. the parties are not strictly ideological. i have been making this point for years. i did not think this up, people have known this for a long time. all along. absurd said something about it today that was right on point, that the parties used to be mostly based on local social networks or something like that.

                even today that is true although they are more ideological than they used to be at least in rhetoric if not actual practice

                there is no consistency in the ideological basis whatever, the most consistent explanation for the trump phenomenon, is economic nationalism, as Bannon explains it, with a populist approach, which is actually antagonistic against the Republican party establishment.

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKuPYArH0Gs

                if you watch this interview, it should leave no doubt that Trump was a disruptor of the Republican establishment ,and right in the places where they used to have an overlap iwth establishment Democrats

                it’s crystal clear that Tulsi is a left-populist, anti-Establishment phenomenon. she has my respect for how she’s done it.

          2. Estovir, have you ever debated me without resorting to homophobic taunts? No, you haven’t! For al we know you’re gay as a goose. It is often the closeted gay who goes about insinuating that others are gay.

            And the fact that you posted that Tulsi Gabbard clip confirms exactly what Hillary was saying. Trump defenders like you aren’t praising liberal Democrats unless a liberal Democrat parrots Republican narratives.

            1. for nearly a year i have been pointing out that Tulsi has taken a consistent stance on legalizing sex work between consenting adults., i approve of that message. you can see where the others stand. i don’t like any of them but her

              https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/dominicholden/sex-work-legalize-2020-presidential-candidates

              i can tell you moreover that Tulsi is considered the real deal on this issue not Kamala, who actually is considered bad for sex workers such as her support for the misnamed and ineffective laws SESTA and FOSTA

              I’m a Trump supporter and a Republican. Tulsi gets credit from me where I approve of her message. and that’s a lot more than just her non-interventionism

              If Trump is ace’d out by the impeachment, and the Republicans go back to a schlub like Romney, I would certainly vote for Tulsi over him. I would also consider Yang. Because he’s bringing the impact of robotics and coming AGI on the workers to the fore and this is kind of like ignored by everybody else.

              But if it’s between Romney and an Obama or a Hillary, forget it, there’s no real difference, and the proper vote is NO VOTE at all. to deny the system of its legitimacy if all they can run are fakers.

        4. Hill,
          Thanks for trying, but you’re still not connecting with that other half of your brain. Reread my comment and then identify what I said defends Gabbard.

          Your problem is you’re not doing any thinking on your own. If you could, you would have articulated an opinion regarding Gabbard’s statement on Hannity’s show. Instead, you concluded her presence on his show + her opposition to how the impeachment inquiry was being conducted = Not a real Democrat.

          So what makes one a real Democrat?

          I’ll wait.

    4. She’s pro choice, she’s pro medicaid for all, she’s pro this and that leftists social welfare state thing, so she’s clearly a Democrat and somewhere to left of Mayor Pete actually on some of these issues.

      But she’s got a lot of good points to make on the electoral process, that’s what’s in play here. She has every right to say her peace and we have every right to applaud her!

      and then there’s some other issues like pot legalization and sex work legalization that are good ideas neither left nor right, striclty pragmatic

      Most of all she’s a beautiful well spoken woman with graceful tone which makes her a pleasure to listen to and watch unless the other ugly screeching harridans of the Left

      PS I have to say Nancy Pelosi looks well for her age and she has a pleasant tone sometimes too. Unlike Hillary who looks ugly and sounds terribly arrogant and bitter on nearly every occasion

      1. She’s pro choice, she’s pro medicaid for all, she’s pro this and that leftists social welfare state thing, so she’s clearly a Democrat and somewhere to left of Mayor Pete actually on some of these issues.

        Peter’s understanding of these matters has little to do with actual policy, but a great deal to do with affirmation of narratives (e.g. the notion that the ‘investigations’ are actually investigations and not just fodder for the Democratic Party’s media wing).

        1. Tabby, no one is ever comfortable with allies who have odd tendencies to make supportive arguments on behalf of opponents.

          In the world of office politics, we’re not comfortable with co-workers who keep saying things in support of the manager we don’t like. The point would come very soon when we would stop confiding in that co-worker. And we would strongly advise our allies not to confide in them.

          No Trump supporter would defend a Republican congressman who goes on Rachel Maddow’s show to say Trump ‘should’ be impeached. A Republican like that would be widely derided as a RHINO and targeted for a primary challenge.

          1. ah but you don’t get it. this is not about Republicans versus Democrats. This is about disruptors. Bernie was a disruptor, Gabbard is a disruptor, and the King of the Disruptors is Trump. This is about the nomenklatura of the DC Swamp against the rabble. I am among the rabble: Trump is my man, but I often like these other disruptors too.

            What I don’t like are the nabobs of negativity and their minions, and all of their “lying, timid” moralisms and phony shibboleths, and “Russian agent” is about the worst and most cynical and awful one of the whole lot.

            Praise and peace and well being to Tulsi Gabbard for opposing these cynical remarks bravely.

            https://www.tulsi2020.com/

            CONSIDER A DONATION TO THIS FINE PATRIOT!

          2. No, but why should anyone say Trump should be impeached? He hasn’t committed any offenses warranting that action and he certainly hadn’t when the FBI was running informants against him in 2016. You’ve spent three years and change trying to gin up a reason and you keep failing. (Anon1’s response to these failures is just to say “I say it’s spinach”, but that’s quite blatantly puerile).

  4. It was a masterful spin.

    Then it doesn’t take much to be the master over that ilk. Unless she is far more delusional than previously suspected, and for the correction to be true, she would have to believe the Republicans are using a bunch of sites and bots to support Gabbard and Stein. A follow up question might be; what sites and what bots?

    1. see Olly, we are just bots to Hillary. Robot comes from robotnik, a Polish word for worker. We’re just workers, not bosses like her. Or bigwigs like her friend and donor the pig Weinstein.

      We, the native workers, that don’t like being overwhelmed by the foreign workers, imported to benefit Hillary and her class, who advance globalism and do it at the tip of the American spear, which is why she never met a war she didn’t like.

      See, even though Gabbard has a leftish stand on immigrants, at least she’s got a firm stance against war and in favor of diplomacy and some respect for the core international norm of relations and law called sovereignty.

      what does Killary think of sovereignty? oh, let’s find out what she said about Libya

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlz3-OzcExI

      “we came, we saw, he died, ha ha ha”

      I’ll say one thing about Qadaffi. Maybe he was a bad guy. Maybe as bad as the media always made him out to be, more maybe not quite as bad. but either way, he was the legitimate head of state of a sovereign nation. For him to be lynched by murderous rebels with no respect for any law, supported by an undeclared American armed forces etc., was a shameful outcome of deliberately induced chaos of which she was clearly so very proud.

  5. In a perfect world, John Dunham would throw this lifelong felon and traitor in prison for her egregious political crimes as corruption since the taking of a bribe from Tyson Chicken as the wife of the governor of Arkansas, conducting pay-for-play as Sec. of State in connection with the criminal enterprise know as the Clinton Foundation (just audit its books since inception), the use of an illegal server and gross mishandling of classified material (together with the irrefutably ineligible Obama who attempted to disguise his participation by using a pseudonymous account) and concluding with her ongoing participation in the Obama Coup D’etat in America, an act, which until about two centuries ago, would have been considered “challenging the authority of the King” (i.e. the highest office in the land) and, as such, treason, which would have earned her the penalty of Drawing and Quartering (Dang! I would absolutely love to buy a ticket for that!), a more appropriate verdict there has never been.

  6. “On Friday, the NYT did a piece about a podcast Secretary Clinton did with David Plouffe. They incorrectly quoted her saying that the “Russians” were “grooming” a candidate running in the Democratic primary. They rightfully fixed it to reflect that she was taking about the GOP.”
    *********************
    Rumor has it Hillary’s pantsuit is on fire and the NYT editor has a lengthening nose.

  7. Some wild rats were entering the chicken house owned by a farmer who lives next door. I put up a copy of the Hillary photo posted here on the blog. The rats went away. The farmer’s daughter put up a sign which is mis understood by the neighbors. The sign says: Rat Stompers Say Thanks To Hillary!. She posted the photo next to her sign.

  8. Gabbard’s Trip To Syria Was Unauthorized

    It Was Funded And Arranged By Pro-Assad Lebanese Group

    Democrats were silent on Thursday as Tulsi Gabbard, one of the party’s sitting lawmakers in Congress, announced that she had met with Bashar al-Assad during a trip to war-torn Syria and dismissed his entire opposition as “terrorists”.

    Gabbard, a Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, disclosed her meeting with the Syrian president on Wednesday, during what her office called a “fact-finding” mission in the region.

    “Initially I hadn’t planned on meeting him,” Gabbard told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so, because I felt it’s important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we’ve got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we could achieve peace. And that’s exactly what we talked about.”

    Democratic leaders were mum on the decision by one of their sitting lawmakers to meet with a dictator whom the US government has dubbed a war criminal for his use of chemical weapons against civilians.

    Gabbard’s trip raised alarms over a potential violation of the Logan Act, a federal statute barring unauthorized individuals from conferring with a foreign government involved in a dispute with the US. The US currently has no diplomatic relations with Syria.

    Gabbard’s office said her visit was approved by the House ethics committee. A spokesman for the committee declined to comment, although under its rules members have a period of 15 days following the completion of a trip to make public their approval letter and financial disclosures related to privately funded travel.

    The offices of Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, did not respond to requests for comment when reached by the Guardian. The White House did not immediately return an email inquiry, nor did a spokeswoman for House speaker Paul Ryan.

    Pelosi told reporters on Wednesday that she had no knowledge of Gabbard’s unannounced trip, which drew scrutiny over who arranged and paid for the travel.

    While Gabbard did not travel in her official capacity as a representative of the American government, she is the first sitting US lawmaker to meet with Assad since the start of the conflict in Syria. She is also a member of the House committee on foreign relations.

    The House committee was not made aware of Gabbard’s trip beforehand as it was not official travel, a spokesman for New York congressman Eliot Engel, the ranking Democrat on the panel, told the Guardian.

    Gabbard’s office claims her trip was funded by the Arab American Community Center for Economic and Social Services (Aaccess) – Ohio; however, the group has not reported any financial revenue to the US government since 2006.

    Bassam Khawam, the executive director of Aaccess who traveled with Gabbard, reportedly belongs to a pro-Assad Lebanese political party, the Syrian Social Nationalist party (SSNP). The party has dispatched its members to fight on behalf of the Assad regime during the nearly six-year war.

    Gabbard was joined on the trip by former Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich, who has made prior trips to meet Assad that were also funded by Aaccess. Kucinich, who interviewed the Syrian president as a contributor for Fox News in 2013, has also defended Assad’s intentions in Syria.

    Edited from: “Tulsi Gabbard Reveals She Met Assad In Syria, Without Informing Top Democrats”

    The Guardian, 1/26/17

    1. Peter – I don’t think anyone has every been charged under the Logan Act.

      2. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Waldron v. British Petroleum Co., 231 F. Supp. 72 (S.D.N.Y. 1964), mentioned in dicta that it was likely unconstitutional due to the vagueness of the terms “defeat” and “measures,”

        that’s not a ruling, just dicta, means a side comment not a holding of law

    2. So she’s a Syrian Republican puppet? Jeez James, “Correct the Record” is out in force today. A real leader will meet with another leader or anyone else to understand what is going on and try to stop a war. The only reason Hillary meets with other leaders is to hit them up for money as she did with Saudi Arabia and Nazi’s in Ukraine.

      And P.S. Tulsi can “inform” on herself, but she doesn’t have to!!!

    3. Good for her that she engaged in dialogue.

      It’s the very essence of diplomacy that people have to talk to adversaries.

      Is it only good when Hillary approves? Or the State Department honchos from Foggy Bottom?

      They think they can tell us what to do and think! and the citizens say in reply, F U

  9. So you want to discuss misleading narratives? How about Trump claiming to have audio and video of Baghdadi dying like a dog? There is no proof that the US has audio or video of Baghdadi’s suicide vest explosion inside of a cave, if this is what happened. Since Trump lies so much, and since the military hasn’t spoken, and may not if doing so exposes the fact that Trump has lied once more, we really don’t know. How about Trump, Mikey Pence and men dressed in military uniforms posing for photos, as if they have any reason to take credit for killing Baghdadi? US would have had no idea where to look for him if Kurds hadn’t received a tip from an informer, so how does this constitute any grounds for Trump, a coward who lied to get out of military service, posing for photos trying to look legitimate and/or tough? The tipster was likely a Baghdadi follower or at least someone local who wanted a monetary reward. The relationships that brought about the tip were forged long before Trump took office, and he has placed future possible leads in jeopardy by throwing the Kurds under the bus. And, BTW, there will most certainly be another leader to replace Baghdadi, but don’t look to the Kurds or anyone else over there to help out next time. Then, there’s the outrageous claim that Barak Obama should have brought down Baghdadi? What? Is Obama at fault because there wasn’t a tipster around during his presidency? Anything to try to make himself look powerful and successful.

    Trump is truly stupid for insulting Baghdadi as some sort of coward right before he died. It’s one thing to kill him, but it’s another to insult him. Middle Easterners take such insults seriously. That is literally rubbing the noses of ISIS fighters into crap, and there will be repercussions.

    1. if you know much then you know they respect strength and not much else.

      you do not appreciate that, and so your ignorance is revealed

      there is no making nice with these guys. let their icon be smeared with the dung of his own making.

    2. also, the Kurds have been making some sort of truce with the legitimate leader of the sovereign state of Syria, Assad, who will crush the ISIS factions which remain in his territory, with extreme prejudice.

      Unlike the Turks, who may very well absorb some of the ISIS desperadoes into one mercenary formation or another, quite possibly one of the cat’s paws which we were using in our undeclared war against Assad in the first place.

      Thus the notion that we should have gone to war with the Turks over the Kurds is just a preposterous form of pretense that you fools keep spinning and discredit yourselves each and every time.

      The Kurds did not like ISIS. ISIS were Arab salafists in the extreme, even more extreme than the Al Queda faction they split from, Al Nusra front was it called? that was also part of the anti-assad civil war. The GWOT lead us to backing….. an al queda faction in Syria. Some GWOT that was! A sick joke at times. Now the Turks were backing Turkomen militias and probably aiding at lot of the other rebel factions too, the anti Assad Arab ones, but not the Kurds. Kurds they dont like, as they have their own Kurdish factions. Faction upon faction. Many or most of whom were able to get US arms or assistance at one time or another no matter how crazy or reprehensible they were. The Kurds were less crazy (just communists not salafists) than some of the others that the US was also helping in this destabilizing misadventure against the bogeyman Assad. But the Kurds are not a nation and Turkey is and Syria is. So there’s that fact too. So you may have liked them but so what. Now you guys never kept up with it. The closest thing to a viable, secular moderate faction in Syria, was actually the Syrian regime itself.

      You have been operating under carefully constructed propaganda during the whole “civil war” going on for years now. Don’t pretend to get it now at this late hour.

        1. legitimate in this sense just means legal. since 2000 the lawful government of Syria and its armed forces have held him up as head of state and so he is. like it or not. this is sovereignty in its essence. 19 years into his dictatorship if you want to call it that, he may be a bad guy but he’s the head without a doubt.

          if you want to drag ethics into it, I personally give respect to just war theory.

          So let’s just say the insurrection was a good cause, because he was bad, or whatever, for the sake of argument. What about the other factors?

          posit that an insurrection would be a righteous objective if he were deposed in favor of someone more just.
          there is another just war factor and that is feasability. ie, there must be a reasonable chance of success. evidently, so many years later, we can see it has utterly failed and that is the very proof that it was not feasible.

          moreover, that would have failed on the grounds that it was never a declared war by a proper lawful authority in the first place. neither the kurds, nor al nusra, nor ISIS nor any of the other ragtag factions were ever a lawful authority.

          the Syrian “civil war” was a debacle from the start from a just war perspective.

          and I don’t grant the initial premise in the first place. who better to govern Syria than the Syrian strongman who inherited it from his father? Nobody I can think of, not then and not now. if nobody more just was feasible then the just cause was lacking in the first place. let alone the rest of it.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory

            1. there’s law where international relations is concerned. there’s a government and assad is just as much the head of state as Kim Jong Il is unquestionably the head of state of the DPRK. as you say,. “this is not that complicated”

              1. there’s law where international relations is concerned.

                No, there are conventions. There is no one to define, enforce, and adjudicate such ‘law’.

                1. other than the International Court of Justice in the Hague which has some authority of some international treaties which make up the body of law which informs international relations, which, as you suggest, is derived from conventions.

                  I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s there.

                  the key concept I’m trying to reinforce here is sovereignty, a principle of law since the Peace of Westphalia, which permeates international relations, even in spite of how’s its been eroded. it’s an important principle to respect, in my opinion, to avoid the grim prospect of nuclear war resulting from excessive military adventurism from the likes of Hillary Clinton.

    1. “‘You want authentic, here it is!’ she’d yelled in one prep session, followed by a f#(k-laced fusillade about what a ‘disgusting’ human being Trump was and how he didn’t deserve to even be in the arena.”

      1. Joseph Sobran once said of her, “Like egalitarians from Joseph Stalin to Bella Abzug, a terror to work for…”.

  12. Oh JT, you are on fire today. First you put out a post how Democrats hate free speech, and now, throw the Hillary card in just for good measure. You should read your own blog and find out how much your base loves free speech. By the end of the day, your base will show beyond any doubt how much they truly love hate speech, not free speech.

      1. JR:

        Well historically “hate speech” is speech you don’t like, reveals an essential truth about a liar or which is positively needed to balance a tyrannical point of view.

    2. hate speech is essentially the very sort of speech most in need of protection by the First amendment. this is black letter law. you guys are ignorant about such things. i could pull case names and text to elaborate but if you credited what the law was, then you wouldnt have said that in the first place. so why bother.

      1. Ignorant? No, just operating under the assumption that liberal hate = speech and conservative speech = hate.

        1. My constitutional law professor was a liberal Democrat and an ACLU’er and she taught us that hate speech is free speech. Brandenberg vi Ohio is one of the leading cases and we briefed it.

          She was a person of integrity and insight and a facile mind. She openly admitted that the “civil rights agenda” of the ACLU might “come into conflict with the free speech mission.” She said the matter should be discussed only. Of course that was decades ago.

          The legal principles behind this are actually clear enough so that people should be able to get them across the spectrum. in theory.

          the law is very current. Matal v Tim

          https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/582/15-1293/

          Justice Samuel Alito wrote:

          “Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate”. United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U. S. 644, 655 (1929) (Holmes, J., dissenting).[13]”

          Justice Anthony Kennedy also wrote:

          “A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.[13]”

          Effectively, the Supreme Court unanimously reaffirmed that there is no ‘hate speech’ exception to the First Amendment.

          UNANIMOUSLY SCOTUS reaffirmed this in 2017! the law is clear.

  13. “If the nesting dolls fit.” (Clinton) I never realized that Republicans were known for their nesting doll carvings. That is so interesting.

    This is truly surreal. It’s just creepy. Mockingbird, we hear you!!!

  15. We all know that everything Hillary says and does….everything…..is said and done to bring about a permanent halt to, and destruction of, the Obama/Clinton scandal investigations.

  16. Must have been aimed at non complying parts of The Collective as only a part of the Stupid Party would have to be corrected in such a manner.

    False Premise One….Never believe anything put out by the lame stream media.
    False Premise Two … Especially if it originated from the menshevik faction of the Loser Party.
    False Premise Three… Useful only in cities like Seattle, San Francisco and Queens NY,

    Corrections provided by the Constitutional Centrist Coalition.

  19. The source of the former Secretary of State’s insanity: Parkinson’s or heavy drinking? You be the judge…

    1. Mark Gisleson:

      “Flacks not flaks, but their purpose is quite similar in this case.”
      *********************
      Well except that flak is at least useful to democracies. Flacks, not so much.

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