sottnet--2019-11-13--None dare call it conspiracy: Pathologizing conspiracy theories is the psychopathic government's way

None dare call it conspiracy: Pathologizing conspiracy theories is the psychopathic government's way of suppressing dissent

The term 'conspiracy theory' has long been used to discredit anyone pointing out collusion between powerful people, but efforts to pathologize dissent as 'conspiracism' are doomed to collapse under the weight of reality.Conspiracy theories are divisive, dangerous, even evil, according to the mainstream media. They cause "violence, including terrorism," former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein notoriously declared , and the FBI's Phoenix field office recently reiterated . They're a way for ignorant people to make sense of the world, academics cry, or a holdover from the caveman era, when primitive man had to suspect enemies around every corner. More recently, they've been described as a way for white people to deal with demographic changes.But conspiracies are everywhere in American politics today in a way that is nearly impossible to ignore. Convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's sweetheart deal, given an open-door 13-month sentence despite evidence of abusing and trafficking scores of girls ("he belongs to intelligence," the prosecutor later claimed he was told), the machinations of the so-called Deep State ("thank God for the Deep State!" ex CIA director John McLaughlin chuckled , live on CSPAN), and the CIA's fomenting of coups around the worldUnable to drive people away from researching secret plots by calling them racist cavemen, academia has revived the word "conspiracism," a term first coined in the 1980s to describe the pervasiveness of conspiracy theories in politics as a sort of mass psychosis'Conspiracy theory' has become the go-to shorthand in the mainstream media for inconvenient outbreaks of political dissent. CNN's Jim Acosta applied it to the idea professed by President Donald Trump and many independent journalists that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election on behalf of the DNC. CNN's Chris Cillizza applied it to Trump's claim that Google was suppressing conservative news outlets in its search results, a claim echoed by many right-leaning social media users.But the mainstream media also reported on Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election, and multiple Google whistleblowers have come forward to confirm the search giant does, in fact, suppress right-leaning sources in its news searches.Indeed, the mainstream media has spent so much time peddling fantasies like the "Russian collusion" delusion - which dominated headlines for three years in the absence of concrete evidence before dying ignominiously - that trust in 'journalism' is at record lows . The abundance of real conspiracies behind many of the turning points of recent history - Watergate, the Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction" hoax, and the CIA arming and training terrorist "mujahideen" in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union being just a few examples - is rarely mentioned amidst the endless mockery of those tinfoil-hat loonies who believeEven some mainstream journalists see through the tripe they're asked to report, as Project Veritas' recent leak of an ABC reporter calling out a conspiracy to suppress her story on suspiciously-deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein proved. A media apparatus that can't even fool the people on its payroll is in a sad state indeed.Powerful people and intelligence agencies who don't want the hoi polloi probing their misdeeds are aware they have a crisis of credibility on their hands. Even the FBI, in a memo warning agents that conspiracy theorists (like literally everyone else) are dangerous loonies, had to admit that the "uncovering of real conspiracies or cover-ups involving illegal, harmful, or unconstitutional activities by government officials or leading political figures" might be behind the outbreak of conspiracy theorizing that had seized the nation.The tradition of labeling ideas conspiracy theories to discredit them is itself a conspiracy - a documented one. The term was weaponized in 1967 in a CIA memo about how to quash criticism of the Warren Report, the product of the government investigation into President John F. Kennedy's murder. The memo laments that some 46 percent of Americans did not believe the assassin acted alone, and details how the agency might "counter and discredit the claims of the conspiracy theorists" suggesting others were involved. It recommends "employ[ing] propaganda assets to refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose."Over half a century later, the CIA's plan hasn't worked very well - a 2017 poll found that the percentage of Americans who believe JFK's death was the result of a conspiracy had swelled to 61 percent. But rather than come up with a new strategy, the media's narrative managers have simply doubled down on the failed one, expanding the range of opinions smeared as "conspiracy theories" and heaping scorn upon their adherents. try to shame people , diagnosing anyone suspicious of threadbare media narratives with the societal psychosis of 'conspiracism.' It may work to keep inconvenient truths out of the mainstream media, but in the absence of a compelling alternative narrative - one that can't be disproven by the evidence of one's own senses (or a few minutes' research on the internet) - conspiracy-shaming is a weak weapon.


sottnet--2019-12-29--The criminalisation of protest in America

The US today freely interferes in the governments of so many other nations, fueling unrest and financing violence, seeking to impose on these countries a peculiarly American form of "open government" which it can control, but has always severely restricted any such activity either suspected or real, on its own soil. We have already read about the Un-American Activities Act [1] and the extensive government policies to prohibit political activism or promote other forms of government or capitalism in those years, and I briefly mentioned the Sedition Act passed by President Woodrow Wilson's government in the early 1900s. [2]This latter legislation was directed against all Americans and used to firmly silence criticism of government policies. Under this Act, the government engaged in countless illegal searches and seizures of property and imprisoned tens of thousands of US citizens simply for criticising Wilson's desire for war. The authorities organised gangs to regularly intimidate and beat up citizens, unrelated to the propaganda war on the Germans.In 1940, under President Franklin Roosevelt, the US created a law known as the Smith Act [3] which made it a crime in the US to "knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the ... desirability or propriety of overthrowing ... any government in the United States". And for the following decades the government prosecuted thousands of individuals who proposed alternatives to the US system of capitalism, or promoted any form of socialism or attempted to form another political party. The act was exclusively intended to suppress any and all forms of political dissent in the United States. Many people were imprisoned or disappeared simply for publishing or circulating pamphlets or articles that discussed alternative political or economic views.The government created internment camps where anyone suspected of being a subversive agent could be imprisoned indefinitely without charge, disappearing into a secret prison system. US authorities still continue the process they began more than 60 years ago of using the IRS - the US Tax Department - as a weapon of intimidation against those who dare to challenge the political or capitalist systems. According to records, tens of thousands of individuals and groups, colleges, charities and even religious organisations have been mercilessly harassed by the IRS as punishment for political activism.In 1950 The US passed the McCarran Internal Security Act that effectively prohibited even the discussion of other forms of government within the US. That law required that all persons objecting to the American multi-party political system were to be registered as subversive agents, a process that would automatically deny them most of their basic rights including the ability to travel freely and would place severe restrictions on the kinds of jobs they could hold. They were also subject to arbitrary deportation even though they were American citizens.Failure to register as subversive agents would lead to a $10,000 fine and five years in jail for each day of non-compliance, all in a circumstance where the definition of such persons and their need to register were by no means clear.It was apparent this law was a forceful method of using fear to intimidate individuals from criticising the government since its application was entirely arbitrary and with no transparency whatever.[4]The McCarran Act was a far-reaching piece of legislation that served to remove most of the civil liberties from a great many people on what was essentially an arbitrary basis, the set of laws that gave Senator McCarthy the freedom to introduce fascism on a grand scale, and worked in conjunction with the House Un-American Activities Committee. The Act's stated purpose was to protect the US against subversive activities by requiring registration of hostile foreign propagandists and agents, but it did far more than this. It prevented people from becoming citizens, it could withdraw citizenship, deport individuals, prevent their employment, and much more. In all, it had far-reaching consequences for both civil liberties in the US - which it totally trashed - and as a template for its own resurrection in the 1980s and beyond. It targeted intellectuals, anyone who might have written criticism of the US government. One Dr. Morrison received an unfortunate summons to a Congressional Committee simply for writing a review of a book that described the human horrors of nuclear war. At the time, the US was desperately trying to produce an improved atomic bomb and widely used the powers of this Act to silence all public criticism of its plans by categorising objections as subversive and treasonous.The Act prohibited the writing or circulation of, or any teaching of, opposition to the US form of government or the removal or replacement of the US governmental system. It was forbidden to be a member of any organisation that would "raise the presumption that such person was not attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States". It was forbidden to advocate any economic or political doctrine foreign to the US. The Act stipulated that all persons arbitrarily defined by the FBI as 'political activists' would be confined to automatic forced detention on the spurious grounds they might conspire to commit sabotage or espionage.It was forbidden for any employee of the US government or of any US corporation "to communicate in any manner or by any means, to any other person whom such officer or employee knows or has reason to believe to be an agent or representative of any foreign government". No such "agent of a foreign government" was permitted to "seek, accept or hold" any employment in the US, nor to conceal the fact that he was such an agent. All US citizens were forbidden from funding, advising or assisting any such person or organisation, and it was forbidden by law to associate with those who were not "well disposed to the good order and happiness" of America.This legislation and other similar Acts are still in force in the US today, raising yet again the vast discrepancy between what the Americans preach externally and what they do at home.And once again we can ask why, if these "seditious foreign agents" must be registered and identified in the US, cannot be funded or even communicated with, cannot publish or distribute any material contradictory to the American government and capitalist system, it is okay for the Americans to do precisely these things in China. Why is it not equally appropriate for China to force all Americans and their agents to register as "seditious aliens", forbid them to communicate with Chinese and forbid employment? And why isn't it okay for China to just deport all those Americans who are not "well disposed to the good order and happiness of China"? We must remind ourselves yet one more time that democracy is a coin with only one side.Today, the proliferation of 'anti-terror' legislation in the US essentially duplicates all this past legislation in its fascist glory, but updated to the present.The Patriot Act made all Americans potential enemies of the state, and the National Defense Authorization Act gave the US military and espionage agencies the ability to ignore all considerations of law or civil rights. You have read of some of the problems in US agriculture and the problems with so-called "factory farms" where animals are raised in abhorrent conditions.Today in the US, anyone investigating the toxic conditions and abuses on these farms risks being prosecuted under the same terrorism legislation, for causing "losses to American businesses" owned by the top 1%. One Ph.D candidate at MIT, whose name appeared on one of these prosecution lists, wrote,Simply, the puppet-masters who control the White House and also direct the large corporations are avoiding exposure and prosecution and silencing all political and anti-capitalist sentiment by directing the justice system to target civilian investigators and activists as terrorists.The process now operating within the US is that every threat, real or imagined, to the established political-capitalist order will produce increased public repression. And it is not only US government agencies and police forces that are involved in this civil suffocation; the major American banks and the Foundations play an increasingly deep role in subverting even further the free expression of dissent in America. We have already seen that the banks that were the target of the Occupy Wall Street protests surreptitiously funded the group in order to manage its direction and ensure its demise. Foundations like Rockefeller and Carnegie have done the same, with the idea of financing and participating in various civil rights movements in order to better control them and prevent the movements from taking their natural course as popular expressions of public sentiment against an unfair and brutal system. They were co-opting the movements to suit the interests of the top 1%, to make the world "safe for capitalism". Some states have introduced legislation to criminalise all investigations of corporate crimes, in transparent attempts to use frighteningly powerful and unlimited legislation to protect corporate profits. Even photographing some of these actions will be classified as terrorism and subject to the full arbitrary power of these laws. We have reached the point where a camera is now a terrorist weapon, the possession of which is punishable by life imprisonment in a black prison without any judicial process or recourse.Congress recently passed a new law that effectively criminalises all public protests, and categorises civil society movements like Occupy Wall Street as "domestic terrorism". The Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act give the military and espionage agencies unlimited powers.The intent is to intimidate all citizens and stifle any public criticism of US government acts or policies. Any of the following actions may get a US citizen labeled as a suspected terrorist today:(1) Speaking out against government policies,(2) Protesting against anything,(3) Questioning the government's many wars,(4) Asking questions about Wall Street Banks and the FED,(5) Taking pictures or video, especially of police.The US government is using the Patriot Act and various other bits of new legislation not only to outlaw most of the basic civil freedoms in the country, but these laws are so vague as to permit virtually any domestic atrocity against civilians.Anyone today who speaks out against any US government policies can be arbitrarily classified as either a terrorist or an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial. Few people seem aware that the US media are compelled by law to report to the FBI/CIA all communication (letters to the Editor, etc.) that is critical of the US government.Many government agencies, including the military, now actively monitor all US social media like Facebook and Twitter to identify those who criticise the US government, then seek them out and interrogate them. This has a particularly chilling effect on American so-called "free speech" when citizens know that espionage agencies are now monitoring every online post and comment. It is not widely known, but US authorities constantly monitor the social media, bulletin boards and other Internet sites for potential political dissent, and often exercise their authority to order people to disperse from "unlawful online assembly", which definition is as arbitrary as the authorities wish to make it.Moreover, leaked documents revealed that any students who could be identified as having been involved in protests, or posted public but 'sensitive' information, or involved in various political activisms, would forever be prohibited from employment with any part of the US government. One university student who had taken part in the Occupy Wall Street protests later said, "The system in place sublimely manipulates our social reality in ways obvious only when we realize that there is nothing between us and the police but fear". She added that if the protestors had held out and actually tried to make changes in the system, her participation would exist in a permanent record and she would never be able to get a job. And in any case, she held out no hope that the citizens could ever really change anything.The DHS hired defense contractor General Dynamics for a $12 million program to monitor the Internet for "reports that reflect adversely on DHS, especially those that have a negative spin on DHS activities". These agencies are not monitoring so-called "terrorist" activity, but normal social activity and political commentary. In its defense, DHS claimed the released documents were "outdated" - though they were new - and that social media were monitored for "situational awareness of man-made threats" and not to police disparaging opinions about the federal government. According to their spokesman, the manual's instruction that analysts should identify media reports that reflect adversely on DHS activities was not at all meant to silence criticism, but simply "to identify areas where DHS wasn't doing a good job, and to help it improve". I can scarcely imagine a greater lie than that one. [5] [6]In yet another attempt to silence political dissension, New York State proposed new legislation that would outlaw anonymous speech on the Internet, on the foolish pretense of discouraging 'cyber-bullying'.This was not presented as a removal of a civil right but rather the granting of a new one - the government's "right to know who is behind an anonymous internet posting", on the basis that a valuable resource like the Internet "ought to be used properly". Of course, there are few people anywhere so reckless as to expose themselves to the entire Internet world in this fashion, especially when it would invite a knock on the door. Naturally, government officials, media owners and anyone in the top 1% can continue to publish op-ed pieces without a byline, maintaining their own privacy while the peasants cannot.In their book Manufacturing Consent, and writing of the elite domination of the media, Herman and Chomsky noted that the marginalisation of dissidents results from filters so natural that the media can easily convince themselves they are being objective, but the constraints are so powerful and so fundamentally built into the system that alternative choices are scarcely imaginable.Ben Bagdikian wrote that the acceptable range of discourse determines what topics can be discussed and to what degree, which will be pushed into the shadows and which uppermost in the public mind. He claimed it is the power to treat some subjects obscurely and others in depth where the media ownership most effectively influences the news - and also the content in the public mind. And, as Chomsky has often noted, it is the assumptions that are not articulated that affect the range of public discourse. And again, it is the political-capitalist narrative that is so closely protected from dissenting voices. Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers made these very accurate observations:Notes(1) HUAC - Definition, Hearings & Investigations; https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/huac (2) U.S. Congress passes Sedition Act; https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-congress-passes-sedition-act (3) Smith Act; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Act (4) McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950; https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1047/mccarran-act-of-1950 (5) Lawmaker Demands DHS Cease Monitoring of Blogs, Social Media; https://www.wired.com/2012/02/dhs-media-monitoring/ (6) Department Of Homeland Security Tells Congress Why It's Monitoring Facebook, Twitter, blogs; https://www.fastcompany.com/1816814/department-homeland-security-tells-congress-why-its-monitoring-facebook-twitter-blogs Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com


theantimedia--2019-02-12--Erdogan Says Venezuelan Gold Will Be Processed in Turkey

(TM) — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Tuesday that Venezuelan gold would be processed in the Central Anatolian province of Çorum.  Speaking at a rally ahead of local elections on March 31, the president said Çorum would reach a new level in terms of gold trade amid reports that Venezuela sells most of its gold to Turkish refineries.  On Monday Reuters reported that Venezuela uses some of the proceeds to buy consumer goods such as pasta and powdered milk, citing people with direct knowledge of the trade.  Trade between the two nations grew eightfold last year.  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s gold program has developed in tandem with his deepening relationship with Turkey’s Erdoğan. Both leaders have been criticized internationally for cracking down on political dissent and undermining democratic norms to concentrate power.  A Nov. 1 executive order signed by US President Donald Trump bars US persons and entities from buying gold from Venezuela. It does not apply to foreigners. Ankara has assured the US Treasury that all of Turkey’s trade with Venezuela is in accordance with international law.  Venezuela in December 2016 announced a direct flight from Caracas to İstanbul on Turkish Airlines. The development was surprising given the low demand for travel between the two nations.  Trade data show those planes are carrying more than passengers. On New Year’s Day, 2018, Venezuela’s central bank began shipping gold to Turkey with a $36 million air shipment of the metal to Istanbul. It came just weeks after a visit by Maduro to Turkey.  Shipments last year reached $900 million, according to Turkish government data and trade reports.  Venezuela’s central bank has been selling its artisan gold directly to Turkish refiners, according to two senior Venezuelan officials. Proceeds go to the Venezuelan state development bank Bandes to purchase Turkish consumer goods, the officials said.  Gold buyers include Istanbul Gold Refinery, or IGR, and Sardes Kıymetli Madenler, a Turkish trading firm, according to a person who works in Turkey’s gold industry as well as a Caracas-based diplomat and the two senior Venezuelan officials.  In an interview with Reuters, IGR CEO Ayşen Esen denied the company has been involved in any Venezuelan gold deals. In a written statement, she said she met with Venezuelan and Turkish officials in İstanbul in April to offer her views on compliance with international regulations.  Esen said she advised the Turkish government that working with Venezuela “would not be right for leading institutions or the state.”  As for Sardes Kıymetli Madenler, no one at its İstanbul offices responded to inquiries from Reuters.  Turkish consumer products, meanwhile, are making their way to Venezuelan tables. In early December 54 containers of Turkish powdered milk arrived at the port of La Guaira near Caracas, according to port records seen by Reuters.  The İstanbul-based shipper, Mulberry Proje Yatırım, shares an address with Marilyns Proje Yatırım, a mining company that signed a joint venture with Venezuela’s state mining firm Minerven last year, according to filings with a Turkish trade registry gazette in September.  This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.  Since you’re here… …We have a small favor to ask. Fewer and fewer people are seeing Anti-Media articles as social media sites crack down on us, and advertising revenues across the board are quickly declining. However, unlike many news organizations, we haven’t put up a paywall because we value open and accessible journalism over profit — but at this point, we’re barely even breaking even. Hopefully, you can see why we need to ask for your help. Anti-Media’s independent journalism and analysis takes substantial time, resources, and effort to produce, but we do it because we believe in our message and hope you do, too. If everyone who reads our reporting and finds value in it helps fund it, our future can be much more secure. For as little as $1 and a minute of your time, you can support Anti-Media. Thank you. Click here to support us


theatlantic--2019-07-05--Europe Has Turned Its Back on Its ISIS Suspects

The irony is that some western European countries, whose representatives were appalled by America’s indefinite detention of terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay after September 11, are now by default accepting a sprawling Guantánamo in the desert.  “Europeans seem to be fine with letting their own citizens sit there,” a senior State Department official, who requested anonymity to discuss the issue, told me. This official said that the U.S. was working to identify its own citizens in the custody of America’s local Kurdish allies—the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF—and has repatriated four so far for trial. (One dual Saudi American citizen the U.S. had suspected of joining ISIS, but never brought to trial, was freed in Bahrain last year; in another case, the State Department controversially argued that an accused ISIS propagandist, Hoda Muthana, was not actually a citizen despite being born in Alabama.) But thousands of other foreign fighters—not even counting Iraqis and Syrians—are in makeshift prisons northeastern Syria.  Among democratic countries, which arguably have the best means to bring them to justice and hold them securely, there is very little interest in bringing them home to face prosecution—or even in bringing home the wives and children of ISIS fighters, who are being held separately in squalid detention centers.  A further irony is that authoritarian Central Asian countries, such as Kazakhstan, have been leading the way on repatriating their citizens from Iraq and Syria—especially women and children—and casting their efforts in humanitarian terms, Letta Tayler, a senior researcher in terrorism and counterterrorism at Human Rights Watch, told me. “Western Europe is hiding its head in the sand when it should be taking care of its citizens,” said Tayler, who recently visited separate camps in northeastern Syria, where the families of suspected ISIS members are being held in conditions she described as squalid and horrifying. “If Kazakhstan can repatriate by the hundreds, surely western Europe, with far greater resources and far fewer suspects and family members … can do the same.” (Tayler has written that France, for example, has brought back 17 children—but has left at least 400 people, including children, behind.)  Read: He was branded the ‘American Taliban.’ Now he’s getting out of jail.  In a rare moment of praise for a post-Soviet dictatorship, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, said the country was showing “much needed leadership on the critical global issue.”  There are, of course, concerns that, public messaging aside, authorities in dictatorships like Kazakhstan may themselves abuse prisoners. Ní Aoláin highlighted the country’s use of domestic-counterterrorism laws against religious minorities and political dissenters. Tayler says Human Rights Watch has been pushing for transparency about what happens to prisoners in custody. But the broader significance of policies like Kazakhstan’s, she says, is that they expose the weakness of the western European argument that it’s too difficult or dangerous to take such suspects back.


theatlantic--2019-10-11--Why Is Turkey in NATO Anyway?

Why Is Turkey in NATO Anyway?

Read: The U.S. moves out, and Turkey moves in  This soon became a case of more allies, more problems. When Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 following a Greece-backed military coup, the two allies came into direct conflict; in fact, Greece left NATO over it, before later rejoining. Later, the U.S. flew bombing raids on Iraq from Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base during the 1990–91 Gulf War; in 2003, though, Turkey refused to station U.S. troops on its territory to attack Baghdad. (Other U.S. allies, namely France and Germany, also opposed the 2003 Iraq War, though France was not fully participating in NATO at the time.) As for that whole democratic-values thing, the military stepped in to run the country about every decade or so.  But by the time anti-government protests swept Arab countries in 2011, Turkey looked like a model of stability and Islamic democracy. In an interview with NATO Review in 2012 marking 60 years of Turkey being in NATO, then–Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz said that in joining the alliance, Turkey had made its direction, and its security, “the same as the West’s.” He went on: “This was not a decision Turkey took only in 1952. This was the consequence of Turkey supporting Western values. Let’s not say Western—universal values, which are democracy, human rights, and core values of human rights based on the rule of law.” Turkey was even negotiating for membership in the European Union.  Which all now seems a bit rich, given that the current leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a self-avowed champion of the Muslim Brotherhood, has changed the constitution, rerun elections that didn’t favor his political party, and led a crackdown on journalists and political dissenters, as well as a purge of thousands suspected of involvement in a failed 2016 coup. Even on the interests front—Incirlik Air Base has been central to U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the ISIS era—hitches came up. The Turkish government did little to rein in ISIS fighters transiting its territory to join the battles in Iraq and Syria; some ISIS members even passed through Turkey to carry out attacks in Europe. Erdoğan’s government has bought Russian air defenses over vigorous American objections and in the face of sanctions threats, and as of this week, the Turkish government ditched an agreement that U.S. officials had hoped would keep the peace in northeastern Syria.  “About 10 years ago, you couldn’t swing a dead cat in Washington and not hit somebody who wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, Turkey’s a great ally’ … Now everyone’s mad at Turkey,” Cook said.  Hence the questions now about whether the alliance is even worth it. Senators Lindsey Graham and Chris Van Hollen are pushing bipartisan legislation to sanction Turkey over its Syria incursion; Graham has also floated suspending Turkey from NATO altogether. (There’s actually no clear legislative way to do this—the NATO charter doesn’t contemplate kicking out members, though members can leave on their own, as Greece did over its dispute with Turkey.) France’s EU-affairs minister, too, has said that NATO suspension is “on the table.”


thedailybeast--2019-01-15--Why Conservative Media and the Far Right Love Tulsi Gabbard for President

The latest Democratic candidate to enter the 2020 race has an unexpected base of support: The far right and conservative media.  Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who announced her candidacy last Friday, has cultivated a fandom among the right by bashing fellow Democrats and espousing views that break with the party line.  Since taking office in 2013, Gabbard, 37, has established a reputation as an unorthodox politician. While holding familiar Democratic positions on environmental issues, health care, and gun control, Gabbard was a frequent critic of President Obama’s foreign policy, met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and has questioned whether he used chemical weapons on his own citizens.  Once discussed among party insiders as a rising star who signed on to be a vice chair at the Democratic National Committee, she quit in protest during the 2016 election and endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).  When she ran for re-election in 2018, she had the backing of liberal groups including the AFL-CIO and Planned Parenthood, yet she was briefly considered as a potential member for Trump’s cabinet, and cheered on his diplomatic overtures to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.  Since announcing her bid for the presidency, Gabbard has faced a torrent of criticism for some of her more eccentric politics, zeroing in on her equivocations on Assad and her past homophobic comments.  And, in the process, she has earned one prominent defender: Tucker Carlson.  In a Monday evening segment, featuring anti-war leftist journalist Glenn Greenwald, the Fox News host argued that Gabbard had been unfairly maligned because of her deep skepticism about intervention in Syria and willingness to talk to Assad.  “There’s something so stealthy and feline and dishonest about the way they’re attacking her,” Tucker said. “If you don’t like her foreign policy views, let’s just say so. But no one ever really wants to debate what our foreign policy should be. They just attack anyone who deviates from their own dumb ideas.”  Gabbard first became an in-demand Fox News guest in 2015 after she criticized Barack Obama’s unwillingness to use the label “radical Islamic terrorism.” Her media tour explaining that position earned her positively-tilted coverage in right-wing outlets like Breitbart and The Daily Caller—a trend that continued when she later expressed skepticism of Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.  One person with direct knowledge told The Daily Beast that in the wake of her Obama criticism of Obama, Gabbard became an increasingly requested guest for Fox News hosts and producers to appear on-air. They weren’t the only ones in television news who took notice: senior executives at Sinclair Broadcasting made appeals for Gabbard to appear on their networks after she rebuked Obama.  And her emergence as a left-wing Obama critic further put Gabbard on the map in conservative media.  In May 2015, the National Review implored readers to “Meet the Beautiful, Tough Young Democrat Who’s Turning Heads by Challenging Obama’s Foreign Policy.” The conservative outlet touted Gabbard as having “endeared herself to right-wing hawks” by challenging Obama’s “rudderless” foreign policy. “I like her thinking a lot,” American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks was quoted as saying.  Gabbard has also maintained friendly relationships with high-profile, right-leaning television personalities, including Carlson and Fox News colleague Neil Cavuto, a long-time anchor and Trump skeptic who leans conservative on business issues.  And earlier this month, after she accused her fellow Democratic senators of engaging in “religious bigotry” for asking questions about a Trump judicial nominee’s faith, she received yet another round of Fox News praise. Todd Starnes, a Fox pundit with a long history of anti-gay comments, wrote in an op-ed that he found Gabbard’s comments “encouraging.”  “I respect Gabbard’s bold declaration that ‘no American should be asked to renounce his or her faith or membership in a faith-based, service organization in order to hold public office,’” he wrote. “But I’m afraid she may be in the minority within her party.”  To be sure, not all of conservative media is smitten with Gabbard—many object to some of the congresswoman’s positions that endear her to the left.  Fox News host Laura Ingraham, for example, on Monday evening cited Gabbard as being among the Democrats “who criticize Israel for nothing." Many right-leaning outlets took umbrage at Gabbard tweeting at President Trump: “Being Saudi Arabia’s bitch is not ‘America First.’” And after her 2017 visit with Assad, hawkish conservative outlets like the National Review have come around to call her “disappointing.”  But beyond her acclaim among many in conservative media, Gabbard has long earned high praise from far-right online personalities.  Search “Tulsi Gabbard” on majority-right forums like 4chan’s Politically Incorrect (/pol/) board or the social network Gab. Unlike results for Democratic candidates like Elizabeth Warren (described as a communist) or Kamala Harris (described in racist terms), Gabbard has met a warmer reception.  “Unironically listening to Tulsi Gabbard on Rogan podcast right now. I've cried 3 times so far because of how closely aligned her views are to mine. She is the Trump I hoped for but apparently didn't deserve,” one /pol/ commenter wrote Sunday.  On Gab on Monday, users favorably circled an article about Gabbard’s past anti-gay stances. These are anonymous commenters, on a forum riddled by trolls. But other, more prominent far-right figures have publicly spoken in Gabbard’s defense.  Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House chief strategist, reportedly admired Gabbard’s foreign policy, and arranged a meeting with her and Trump shortly after his election. Bannon was reportedly considering Gabbard for an administration role, although no such job ever materialized.  “He loves Tulsi Gabbard. Loves her,” a person close to Bannon told The Hill at the time. “Wants to work with her on everything.” The person added that Gabbard “would fit perfectly too [inside the administration] … She gets the foreign policy stuff, the Islamic terrorism stuff.”  Richard Spencer, a white nationalist and alleged domestic abuser who has called for “peaceful ethnic cleansing,” has tweeted multiple times in support of Gabbard. David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader and current racist, has also heaped praise upon her.  “Tulsi Gabbard is brave and the kind of person we need in the diplomatic corps,” Spencer tweeted in January 2017. “Tulsi Gabbard 2020,” he tweeted later that year.  In a November 2016 tweet, Duke said Gabbard was representative of a “political realignment” he hoped to see in the U.S., and called for Donald Trump to appoint her secretary of state. Duke ran a favorable blog post about Gabbard on his website.  Gabbard hit back at Duke. “U didn't know I'm Polynesian/Cauc?” she tweeted at the former KKK leader. “Dad couldn't use ‘whites only’ water fountain. No thanks. Ur white nationalism is pure evil.” But he continued to laud her, writing “God bless Tulsi Gabbard” later that year.  Spencer and Duke credited their Gabbard support to her stance on Syria, where civil war has resulted in an estimated half-million deaths. (Some on the far right view Assad as a hero. The Intercept reported that fascists in the U.S. and abroad see Assad as creating an ideal “homogeneous” authoritarian state, free of political dissent. And James Fields Jr., the neo-Nazi who murdered a woman with a car at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Virginia in 2017, posted a meme of Assad on Facebook, alongside pictures of swastikas and Hitler.)  Gabbard has billed herself as an anti-interventionist in Syria, but she’s gone further than many pacifists—most famously by meeting with Assad on the trip organized by members of a far-right group in early 2017.  The congresswoman described her visit as being motivated by concern for Syrian civilians, though critics have pointed out that she also voted in favor of the GOP-backed “American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act,” a 2015 bill that made it harder for Syrian and Iraqi refugees to immigrate to the U.S.  Gabbard has yet to say what her presidential policy on Syria would look like.