Tulsi Explains Decision To Support Biden - Jimmy Dore

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Raggedy Ann's picture

I've watched other comentors on this and had to watch her sell out every time and I just can't watch her sell out again. What is Jimmy's take?

To me, she's a sell-out. The best thing I did this go-round was not give one penny to any candidate. I wasn't so smart last time.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

snoopydawg's picture

@Raggedy Ann

on our war of terror that creates 2 'terrorists' for every civilian we kill. She says that there are some missions that are keeping us safe. However I wonder if she know that we know that we and our allies have created and propped up those 'terrorists' that we are fighting against. She says that she is proud to serve our country as are the many men and women in this military that make great sacrifices to do so instead of coming out and admitting that they are cannon fodder for the MICC. I agree that many have been duped into serving our bogus war as Jimmy just said to Tulsi. He intervened when recruiters stopped to talk to 3 teenage boys. He asked if she was making the desire to go fight in the bogus wars more attractive.

I am seeing a "WTF TULSI" bubble pop up over Jimmy's head each time he asks her to square that circle on how Biden doesn't support MFA even during the pandemic while Bernie does. Or how she supports Joe after he has been involved in sending our troops to every war he saw during his tenure in the senate and his stint as VP.

She did call out the dem's opposition to UBI or other things that the republicans say they are supporting. But what is being said as opposed to what is actually going to be done is so much different as I showed in my essay. The banks and industries are getting billions while they are griping over the small pittance for we the people. A one time bailout for us while they have received numerous ones. She understands the scope of this economic crisis and wants them to get it right the first time. A monthly $1,000 payment for the duration of the crisis. She says that the poorest are being left out and that a one time $1,200 payment is not going to do shit for anyone. Only after the economic threat has been eliminated can we talk about getting back to some sense of new normalcy.

You will have to watch it to decide what was said and was not said.

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CS in AZ's picture

@Raggedy Ann

I don’t really agree that her actions are a “sell out” because that would mean she gains something of value in exchange for giving up or turning her back on her own beliefs, plans, goals, or whatever.

But I’m just not seeing what she has gained from this, in exchange for her actions to support Biden and help push Bernie out and end the primary. What payoff is there?

I think we have to consider the possibility that she did not sell out, but rather that she acted fully in accordance with her overall stated principles and beliefs. Just perhaps prioritizing them in a way that many did not expect. But she *never* said her goal was to take down the dem party. She said the opposite, that she wanted to save and reform the party. She said she would support the party establishment’s nominee in the end, no matter who they chose.

The big question seems to be, why now? She also said, she would stay in to the convention, and wanted to contest to continue. Now she doesn’t. Why?

Well folks, she might just take the deadly pandemic we are all facing quite seriously. Like, for real.

I heard a lot of complaints about Biden and the DNC going ahead with primary voting in three states this week. It was called out as foolish, dangerous, even murderous to send people out to polling places when we’ve all been told to stay home and not even have friends over for dinner or to watch a show. But they want people to go vote! Ridiculous.

So, that’s the thing. For the primary to continue until the “convention” — which will no doubt be cancelled, and encourage further voting processes, is simply not tenable at this time. The only kind of voting that can take place would be completely vote by mail, or ballot drop off locations with controlled access over a period of time to prevent lines from forming. It is not possible to put such systems in place quick enough for all states yet to vote in the primaries. And the reality is, the contest for the nomination is going to Biden.

So continuing with the primaries now literally puts people’s lives in danger and is against current pleas with the population to stay home and avoid gatherings of people like the plague. Hah, not joking.

This is why I think Bernie is going to drop out soon and endorse Biden sooner rather than later, just like Tulsi did. If either of them care about the common good of people, which I think they do, then it will be very difficult at best to justify the risks of asking people to stand in lines for hours to vote. If they sincerely care about democrats beating Trump — which I think they do — (even if many of us don’t), then they should begin working now on ways to implement voting in the general election using new protocols.

The world has changed. I actually do not like Tulsi Gabbard and never did. I don’t agree with her on ramping up the global war on terrorism, her generally militarized mindset, her campaign filled with military-based patriotism, flag-waving, and pledge-of-allegiance rah rah USA cheerleading. It gave me the creeps, quite frankly.

But, in spite of all that, I tend to believe she is sincere about it. She does think that way. And she knows quite well that this virus epidemic is going to be a massive catastrophic wave of pain and death. Therefore I do not find it especially unbelievable that she quit and got behind Biden because that IS her belief about the right thing to do right now. That is not selling out her principles, it is living them. Even if it pisses off a whole lot of people. (Which she’s never been afraid to do.)

And Bernie will almost certainly make the same decision fairly soon. Sooner than he would have before the crisis. Things have changed on a fundamental level, and everything needs to be updated and revised accordingly. Including most of all, our plans and expectations for the future.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@CS in AZ

The big question seems to be, why now? She also said, she would stay in to the convention, and wanted to contest to continue. Now she doesn’t. Why?

Is happening during a time when Trump has the bullhorn everyday during a financial crisis and a terrifying pandemic while Joe has abdicated his role as the presumptive Democratic nominee to counter the Presidents narrative and reassure the American people . The optics are bizarre and politically unsustainable. Into to this growing narrative, the principled Tulsi ends her campaign and endorses who? The missing Joe.

The timing of her endorsement is peculiar indeed.

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23 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Anja Geitz may be considering a run for governor of Hawaii. And since recycling campaign contributions is legal from one campaign to another, perhaps that's what she'll use whatever she has left to do. Maybe she has nothing left, and I am only speculating here, but by endorsing Joe at this time she keeps her credibility as a team player with the establishment, neatly under cutting Sanders in the process.

I have always been uncomfortable with the touting of her military creds, and I am someone who does not believe AT ALL in shaming the troops who go to our wars but fully blame the war mongers who send them. That said, I do not sign up for the idea that former military members are somehow better equipped to deal with office either. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and while others out here have said that doesn't make her a full blown insider I think some suspicion there is fully warranted. After all, she would not be the first one to use a nice slick marketing campaign to get elected.

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19 users have voted.

Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

@Anja Geitz
the money for big media buys. She never expected to win. She was a message candidate. She wanted to call attention to regime change wars. She was the only candidate to talk about reducing the US use of force and cutting the defense budget. If she can't go into a town; speak before a few groups; and get some attention from the local news people; she has no campaign. So she told her supporters.

As far as "supporting" Biden, one of the more interesting segments in the interview is when Jimmy asks if she had conversations with the Sanders campaign. She says "yes". Jimmy asks what they were about. She says she'll keep those conversations to herself. Then she's asked if she had conversations with the Biden campaign. A flat out no. She didn't suggest that her supporters should vote for Biden. She kept her word to the party in the most minimal way possible.

Bernie has stopped campaigning. He's using his mailing list to raise money for virus relief. By any measure over 2 presidential cycles Tulsi has done much more for Bernie than he's done for her.

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wendy davis's picture

@CS in AZ

lost me straight out of the gate (after being asked about agreeing with torture): "i haven't read the torture report yet [wtf?], but presidential ticking time-bombs and all that...'

sure, she 'evolved' on that issue later as some of her supporters had hoped. why the fuck would it take reading the torture report' to know how evil and fruitless torture is, and creates even more enemies in foreign lands, as does the US and Nato occupying ME nations.

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Lookout's picture

Like Jimmy said afterwards it makes you want to cry.

Why this blind loyalty to a failed corporate party? I don't understand. Time to walk away!

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26 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I know ahead of time that sadness will not ensue.
If Tulsi packs up, goes home, I doubt it will make a single iota of difference in my life, or yours, Snoop.
Edit: I will need a cold beer in hand.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Shahryar's picture

@on the cusp

what hornswoggle! Did not pass the "real" test, if you know what I mean. She was peddling something I'm not interested in.

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@Shahryar I never cared one way or the other about Tulsi, but I just do not want to have good reason to throw Jimmy to the curb. His acting like some damn rejected teen aged boy really turned me off. I don't want to lose him. I want him to rant and rail against the system, and that system includes Tulsi.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Shahryar's picture

@on the cusp

some hard push back against her as they spoke.

related aside: in 2008 Howard Dean spoke at a Portland meeting of the Oregon Democratic Party..I must have been a precinct person then. After his little talk I asked him about specifics and did he have a message for the people at dailyKos who rated Nancy Pelosi at 11% and Harry Reid at 8%. He said to me "yes, elect more Democrats". That didn't really address anything at all so I continued on, in the way I wish Jimmy had done. My wife, shaharazade, who was standing about 15 feet away, tells me it was a little scary when he glared. She said later "he tasered you with his eyeballs". I wish Jimmy had risked it. He looked like he wanted to but kept politely backing off.

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@Shahryar Even Howard Dean? They are all in on the scam, and we keep on putting them at the table, don't we?
My cynicism knows no bounds.
I am sorry he showed you such disdain, friend.

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5 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@Shahryar Jimmy, while talking some good principles, has his practical side, as does Tulsi. And as happens with pols, people tend to impart to him more principled purity than is probably there.

I can see where he's taking the position of accepting the 85% of good that Tulsi represents, and is willing to live with the rest.

He also has a show to put on, now strictly confined to his garage. He might want to have on the occasional guest. Probably a good policy for him not to play hardball with political purity tests. And it's possible too that he might even be persuaded by some of Tulsi's reasoning.

Overall, he's pretty good, about 85% of the time, and more consistently than others tries to hold accountable those in power, and he certainly doesn't have much of a track record of sucking up to them, as Ellen and some Late Night hosts do. I'll take the 85% good, and agree to disagree on the rest.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@on the cusp

takes over. I don't like it either, but I can't throw him away on that basis.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

wendy davis's picture

@on the cusp

dore, but this was my absolute confirmation bias tipping point, and fuck him!:

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@wendy davis Jimmy's position, very human. Outrage fatigue, and priorities. We have so much to be concerned about with what our closest allies do around the world, and even more to be outraged about wrt what the US does and what happens here domestically. That adds up to quite a lot to worry about already, and beyond that the system for many can get overloaded and become too much to bear.

However, it's nice that there are some people out there, the ones who aren't virtue signaling, who have enough left in the tank to also get sincerely worked up about Kashmir and what Modi is or isn't doing to correct the injustices.

Generally, it's not fair to assign to Tulsi anything and everything Modi does just bc she is Hindu and has met with him, no more fair than assuming she endorses all of Assad's actions bc she met with him. It would be fair to criticize her if/when she endorses a specific Kasmir-directed policy by Modi which objectively is doing harm to many and in discriminatory ways.

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Azazello's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnwtrKJVZGs width:500 height:300]

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

boriscleto's picture

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" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

Like watching a hostage video where both the questioner and subject are being held hostage - one to his heart, the other to the DNC.

Maybe I missed it, but did Jimmy ever get around to asking about the timing and why Tusli felt the need to endorse Biden right away?

Also was she threatened or coerced in any way? Because earlier in the vid she certainly implies there was no way she could fight the DNC's version of City Hall.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

I saw some video clip of someone asking her about making a run on a 3rd party platform. Her response was almost insulting to the questioner. She just shook her head, "No, I am a Democrat. Running against my party is out of the question."
This was maybe a month ago.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

thanatokephaloides's picture

@on the cusp

But Biden has a good heart!

Compared with whom? Darth Sidious? Adolf Hitler (good evening, Counselor Godwin!)? Her Heinous?

Those like myself, who Joe Biden has spent the last 40+ years making our lives harder, would truly like to know. For he has not had "a good heart" with respect to us!

Diablo

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides
that she couldn't think of a single Biden policy to agree with. A few personal references were the best she could do.

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I'm not interested in what anyone that supports Biden or Clinton have to say. The others, yeah, I'll listen, probably skeptically, but Ill listen.
But those two? I'm not interested is why Hitler and Goering were lesser evils.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

I think that we did not really listen to what Tulsi was saying, but filled in the blanks with wishful thinking. She said she would support the dem candidate and not form a third party. The fact that her candidate choice now is 180 degrees opposed to her positions is not critical for her. I think that we assumed that she was very committed to her issues. Not so. Being a player is more important, yet she is in no way a player today. She has completely disarmed herself. Her message was conflicted too, but we overlooked that because she was a bright, well spoken progressive. How can you be a hero if you are the tip of the sword for US imperialism?

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@The Wizard

She was a much better liar and trickster than Obama. Frighteningly good.

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5 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@The Wizard happens a lot on both sides. Even with a few jaded lefties. Happens a lot in a campaign season as people let their ideals get too far ahead of the candidate.

As for Tulsi, we do have some conflicting info, as her brother tweeted about Tulsi getting a brush off from the Bernie camp before endorsing Biden. Dunno if that is true, and I don't believe Jimmy Dore asked her about it explicitly, but it could well be true as I don't recall seeing a direct denial by TG.

On the charge of her "disarming" completely, no -- she already had little to show for one year of campaigning, and never had any breakthrough in any primary state. So there was not much by way of arming in any case. But what little she had, she used to best effect given the drastically changed circumstances, with the campaign now suspended indefinitely and Biden inevitable.

She has now wisely cleared the decks of any pretense of campaigning, and can devote herself to being a leader from the left on the current C19 crisis, where she has already carved out some strong positions in favor of helping ordinary working Americans who will badly need financial assistance going forward. This is not a bad thing, as Dem leadership in Congress has been rather quiet and tepid in public statements, as it's left to a few not in official leadership to speak out.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@wokkamile

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

but at 2:08 she says - "taking a very practical view on how and where my best..."

She catches herself and corrects to "how and where my focus could best serve the people..", whatever that means.

I think she was she about to say "how and where my best interests could be served".

ah well.
fwiw

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9 users have voted.

As she well should be imo.

What, how did she think we, or her supporters would feel after being fooled once, twice, perhaps now a third time by her?

All I can say right now is, thanks Tulsi.

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@Sirena
every Bernie supporter can feel the same way. Thanks, Bernie.

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Bob In Portland's picture

this game of politics is so rigged that every dissident can be exposed as an agent or asset if you dig deep enough.

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