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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
Yes, that’s exactly what queermunist is saying. And like all accelerationist ideas, it’s naive as fuck.
Gay marriage started getting legalized in the US in 2004. In 2006, Russia began distributing anti-LGBT propaganda. In June 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down DOMA and Russia began to criminalize the distribution of pro-LGBT materials to minors. People in Russia really to believe that queer people are a myth made up by Western ideology.
There’s almost a direct relationship - as we were more accepted in the US, Russia became more queerphobic.
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.
Joke’s on you; the tankie troll you’re feeding is into that shit.
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.
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.
The fact that Mitch McConnell voted against her is another point in her favor, but I’ll wait to see what she actually does before passing any judgements.
That’s an incredibly dumb way to judge nominees. Do you think Hegseth is somehow a good Defense Secretary? Or RFK is a good Health Secretary?
One fash voting against them doesn’t somehow imply they have a potential for good in them. Bad people oppose other bad people all the time. And I’ve been seeing what she does for over a decade. Tulsi is very much a bad person.
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.