Tulsi--The Good, and the Bad

Well, as Battle of Blair Mountain posted below, Tulsi voted for an awful piece of non-binding legislation to curb the BDS movement against Israel. That doesn't sit well with me at all. But, at the same time, I really wonder if Bernie (would he be a Representative instead of a Senator) would have voted for it? I sent an email off to her campaign denouncing the move and telling them my support depends on Tulsi doing right. Supporting apartheid and limits to freedom of speech are not my thing.

In juxtaposition to that smelly turd, however, Tulsi has done a few things in this legislative session which are pretty damn good:

Tulsi Introduces the MORE Act, a bipartisan bill to legalize marijuana, expunge all prior arrest records, and introducing a tax on it to fund underpriviledged communities around the country. Take a look at it, it has some very nice goals.

Tulsi Co-Sponsor's Audit the Fed, Tulsi is one of the co-sponsors to audit the Federal Reserve banks.

She also introduced a Hold Wall Street Executives Accountable act, which makes executives defer some of their income into a 10 year holding to pay out fines. This may be a nothingburger, because I can't find *how much* of their income needs to be deferred (could be $1 for all I know). More clarity would be good here.

Things like this and the very visible support she showed for Puerto Rico this past week make this a really hard thing for me. I'm going to see if she addresses her turd vote in upcoming days and/or see if it comes up in the debates.

Nobody is going to perfectly align with my views--I get that. But if Tulsi insists on stomping on Freedom of Speech and supporting apartheid actions of a foreign entity, that might be too much for me to take. Gonna let it play out for another week or so. Damn--it's like nobody can take the obvious moral stance on all issues. I had such high hopes!

Tulsi just got 2% in the latest Economist/YouGov national poll (not qualifying for debates 3 and 4), and she is now around 106,000 unique donors.

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snoopydawg's picture

But then no one gets to go against Israel if they want to stay in congress. AIPAC is more diligent than Santa and they keep a list for who's naughty or nice.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Is either of them perfect. Hell, no. Which politician is? Which human is?

Is either of them evil? I don't think so.

Should you vote for either of them?

Only you can decide. Vote your conscience. Or, if your conscience says, "Don't vote," then do that.

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Perhaps she should also take trip to Palestine?

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Hawkfish's picture

@Sirena

Could show her around?

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

Isn't it more than that? I don't think that Congress can legally pass enforceable laws that violate the Constitution, so "limits to freedom of speech" casts the action in a more favorable light than "Constitutional violation".

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@MichaelSF

I pointed that out in my email to her.

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@MichaelSF but it was only a nonbinding resolution, with no legal teeth.

Unfortunately some good people are now on record as seeming to side with the free speech suppressers. Last I checked, Tulsi didn't have a tweet up explaining her vote. It's now moved on to the story about her lawsuit vs Google.

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@wokkamile hypocritical.

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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

bill passed in the House are way more than a problem in terms of protecting Israel... they are a core violation of our freedoms of speech and opinion.

Bernie tweeted this in Jan..".While I do not support the BDS movement, we must defend every American’s constitutional right to peacefully engage in political activity. It is clear to me that S.1 would violate Americans’ First Amendment rights."

Anyone who voted to curb our freedoms to protect a foreign country (any foreign country) needs a re-training course on our Constitution and Bill of Rights!!

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin