CCI Friends,
Some of you began flooding me last week with a Daily Beast article (a publication I’ve never read). Apparently, the Beast identified three of us who purportedly gave contributions to Tulsi Gabbard for the 2020 election. Out of all of the millions who are interested in and may have contributed to this candidate, how could the Beast have come up with my name?
Then on May 22nd, Matt Taibbi, formerly an anti-Putin,”anti-Russia” writer in Moscow, came out in The Rolling Stone (another edgy outlet I’ve never followed), still with only three of us identified. Mentioning Professor Stephen Cohen is sensible, since he’s spoken truth about Russia for years and has met with Gabbard. But they must have searched hard to have chosen the other two of us. Undoubtedly, we’ve reached an all-time low in American journalism.
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
We’ve Hit a New Low in Campaign Hit Pieces
Recent efforts to sandbag Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard are crude repeats of behaviors that helped elect Trump in 2016.
By Matt Taibbi
May 22, 2019
Marco Garcia/AP/REX/Shutterstock
Last week, the Daily Beast ran this headline: “Tulsi Gabbard’s Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists”
That was followed by the sub headline: “The Hawaii congresswoman is quickly becoming the top candidate for Democrats who think the Russian leader is misunderstood.”
The Gabbard campaign has received 75,000 individual donations. This crazy Beast article is based on (maybe) three of them.
The three names are professor Stephen Cohen, activist Sharon Tennison and someone using the name “Goofy Grapes,” who may or may not have once worked for comedian Lee Camp, currently employed by Russia Today