Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard last week risked her polit- ical career by resigning as a Vice-Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders for President.

IRAQ WAR VETERAN FROM HAWAII
STANDS UP TO BE COUNTED…
FOR SEN. BERNIE SANDERS

First American Samoan and Hindu Member
of Congress has courage of convictions

BUT CHAIRWOMAN FAWNS OVER HILLARY
 
By Bjarne Rostaing
 
There are times when you stand up to be counted, and the Sanders campaign is creating them.

Leading up to Super Tuesday, Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s godawful corrupt fawning worship of Mrs. Clinton actually trumped the stench rising from the Other Party.

Fear and stupidity vie in Schultz, along with ineptitude, tone-deaf blindness and other limitations. Gross clumsy unfairness with Sanders most of all. Clinton owns Schultz and neither cares who knows about it. Major media (Morning Ho, for example) manage to look the other way with clenched nostrils.

Through all this we have heard nothing from the sainted Elizabeth Warren, whose silence is eloquent but not golden. Massachusetts is her state, and was a pivotal one for Sanders, who would have taken it with just a little help from Warren.

Now she looks like, and probably is, simply another politician covering her behind. If there was greatness in her, she would have already joined Sanders, and become potentially a decisive running mate, providing a kind of leadership she does not have the guts for. She seemed close to Sanders in her thinking, and if there were integrity in her, she would be speaking on his behalf.

She’s not; she’s a de facto sister in arms with the least talented, most sold-out woman in national politics, deeply allied with the financial interests she professes to detest, and it matters.

CLINTON INSULTS OUR INTELLIGENCE

When Clinton denies the quid pro quo that goes with huge sums of money, she insults our intelligence and forces Warren’s hand. She also opens the door for Donald Trump, who is richer, smarter, tougher and much more confident than she. Worst of all, his character and principles are no more questionable than hers.

Enter — or rather, exit — the remarkable Tulsi Gabbard.

It was e.e. cummings in “i sing of Olaf glad and big” who wrote “there is some s**t I will not eat,” a great line of American English and totally appropriate in this context. Gabbard had had enough of Wasserman Schultz and Clinton.  [Expletive bleeped by VoB.]

Who is she, this former No. 2 of the DNC?

She hails from Hawaii and is a true 21st Century American hybrid, Euro-Samoan by blood, with committed Roman Catholics in the family, and a practicing Hindu herself. She was home-schooled, spent a couple of years in a girls-only Philippine missionary school, and lives in the real world. She holds a degree in Business Administration and is an Army Reserve Major and Military Police officer with the Hawaii Army National Guard, who served and lost friends in Iraq.

POLITICALLY INCORRECT ON LGBT MATTERS

She’s also very politically incorrect on LGBT matters (nobody’s perfect), and like most Hindus, has a serious outspoken attitude about Muslims, which delights Fox News, and which she will hopefully outgrow. She’s endorsed by, among others, the Sierra Club, Emily’s List and VoteVets.

What does Tulsi Gabbard do in Congress, and what does she stand for?

She’s an active member of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, and one of the few with any real hands-on experience. She embodies the anti-Clinton/Wasserman Schultz spirit, which puts her on a formidable enemies list. (She was warned by everyone and had the courage to act anyway.)

Basically, she wants to fix the mess that we’ve become with our foolish foreign policy, imploded political process and collapsing third-world infrastructure.

Perhaps most important, she really understands the failure of the Bush/Obama/Clinton interventionist foreign policy, and wants an end to squandering our lives and treasure on stupid wars. She’s been to those foreign places and seen the hate for us.

And by putting her future on the line, she’s proved that she is a likely running mate for Sanders, capable of drawing allies now that the new Elizabeth Warren is hiding in the Senate like an obedient pol.
 
bfrostaing@voiceofbaltimore.org
 
EDITOR’S NOTE:

Democrat Tulsi Gabbard has represented Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2013. Until February 28th of this year she was one of several Vice-Chair- persons of the Democratic National Committee, required to stay neutral in party primaries. Although seen as a rising star she has publicly opposed the leadership and now takes a big risk by opposing presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton.  (View her gutsy YouTube endorsement of Vermont Senator Sanders  by clicking here.)

Debbie Wasserman Schultz represents Florida’s 23rd District in the United States Congress and is Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.  Former Harvard Law School Prof. Elizabeth Warren is the senior Senator from Massachusetts. A Democrat and the state’s first female in the U.S. Senate, she defeated the Republican who had been elected to finish out Ted Kennedy’s unexpired term when the long-time Senate leader died in 2009.
 
Bjarne (Barney) Rostaing is the author of Epstein’s Pancake, a novel published by St. Mark’s Press and available for purchase on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble — click here  and  here.

He was an editor at the SoHo Weekly News, won a First Place AFI Award for a sports video, and worked with Uma Thurman in her film debut in “Kiss Daddy Goodnight” (1987).  As a sports writer, Rostaing exposed — in Sports Illustrated — the 1984 U.S. Olympic blood doping scandal.

His earlier works include Breeders (St. Mark’s Press/2011), a crime novel set in the world of horse racing; Phantom of the Paradise (Dell), based on the 1974 horror film written and directed by Brian De Palma; and Bill Walton’s Total Book of Bicycling (Bantam Books/1985).

Originally from Bantam, Conn., the “Red Diaper Baby” lives and works in Brooklyn, N.Y.

To learn more about Epstein’s Pancake,  click here.