Is Congress doing its job?
We know congress members are engaged in a perpetual cycle of fundraising and campaigning. We see it in their speeches, press releases, social media posts, and headlines they craft from appearances on cable news channels. The demands of seeking, winning, and keeping office put members—especially in the House—on a hamster wheel of always doing what it takes to stay in power.
But are members of Congress actually doing their job?
Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard knows the halls of power well from serving in the House as a representative from Hawaii for eight years. In her explosive new book, “For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind,” Gabbard pulls the lid off Congress and reveals it for what it truly is: a club of mostly very wealthy people who have abandoned their jobs in order to keep a hold on the influence and riches that come with their jobs.
Case in point, according to Gabbard, is how Congress no longer serves as a check on the power of the executive branch and the national security agencies under its purview. In the 1970s, as allegations of abuse of Americans’ civil rights by the FBI, CIA, and NSA poured in, Rep. Frank Church convened a committee to investigate. Gabbard writes that the Church Committee sought extensive testimony and evidence and formed a serious case against those agencies. Reforms did ensue, but as things tend to be with the government, they were not permanent.
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” Rahm Emanuel, then-adviser to President Barack Obama, infamously said, adding: “And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
In the time since the Church Committee, America has faced two serious crises, and practically no one in government saw fit to allow either to go to waste.
The first, Gabbard writes, was 9/11. America found itself reeling from the tragedy of the wanton attacks on that day and facing off against an enemy that was overseas but also, clearly, right here in the United States. Most of the hijackers had arrived and stayed on visas. Some had taken instruction in our universities and flight schools. The mastermind, Osama bin Laden, had spent time in Texas and other parts of our country. Fueled by an implacable hatred that originated with the Muslim Brotherhood, terrorists murdered nearly 3,000 and clearly sought to destroy America itself.
For the love of the country, supposedly, the Bush administration and members of both parties in Congress swiftly passed legislation built on the national security state’s wish list. The Patriot Act, Gabbard writes, is a tragic erosion of Americans’ civil rights, empowering the letter agencies to surveil nearly all of us for little or no reason. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was weaponized, and the secret court barely considers agencies’ requests before rubber-stamp approving them more than 99 percent of the time.
That same FISA court approved and acted on false allegations that then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump was colluding with Russia in his quest for the presidency. We now know that was not only untrue but was based on false evidence bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton’s allies and campaign with her knowledge. Not only has she never faced any charges for this, or for her deliberate and systematic misuse of classified information via her private computer server, she remains in a position of control over the Democrat Party that Gabbard left behind.
The Democrat Party weaponized the false claims about Trump and Russia throughout his presidency and, as Gabbard writes, continues to weaponize law enforcement and the national security state against him, his allies, and even his supporters to this day. The 91 indictments Trump faces – all from partisan Democrat prosecutors – are evidence enough. The long sentences meted out to January 6 participants, while leftist protesters routinely disrupt democratic proceedings at the local, state, and federal level with impunity, seal the case. Fifty far-left Code Pink and other protesters disrupted the Senate recently and were arrested. They were nearly immediately back on the street and will never face long-term prosecution.
The point here is not that they should. They point is that neither should any of the January 6 participants. But they do, and leftists don’t and never will because the Democrats who once championed civil rights for all have abandoned them in their quest for permanent and unlimited power.
The second crisis the government could not resist using to expand its power was, of course, COVID. We were locked down, our businesses disrupted, and government censorship became the norm in flagrant violation of the First Amendment. This crisis was not allowed to go to waste. The Biden administration has taken that ball and continues to run with it, constantly pushing for censorship of everything from Fox News–which they would like to shut down–to your tweets and Facebook posts.
In “For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind,” Gabbard courageously spells out the precarious spot Americans find ourselves in. Our civil rights no longer have credible champions in one of the country’s two major parties. Democrats today believe in party above country and in holding on to power above doing the jobs they were allegedly elected to do. They no longer serve as a check on power when a Democrat is in the White House. Instead, they serve as puppets to the agenda that the Democrat elites have in mind for us. That agenda is not freedom, Gabbard says, but something far more sinister: the end of American democracy itself.
Gabbard’s “For Love of Country” is a deeply sobering read. The times we find ourselves in demand clear thinking, courage, and real American leadership. Gabbard provides all of that and more.