Tulsi Gabbard is amazing on domestic issues


Let us take a look at Tulsi’s record, actions and positions on domestic issues, something less discussed compared to her foreign policy.

These are the 2 websites for checking out information on issues from Tulsi :

Tulsi looks at the root cause of all issues and tries to address those root causes, not just apply bandaid solutions. On many of these issues, her depth of understanding is unparalleled among the candidates and she has a level of nuance in general that no other candidate has. Please note that when I say among candidates anywhere here, I'm only considering Democratic candidates and Trump.

Here are issues in domestic policy (at least part of the issue is domestic) where Tulsi is the best among the current candidates, in my opinion. You can either read details about them in the article text below or click on the links here to go through by topic.

I’m going to cover these in this article :
  • Environment
  • Election integrity
  • Calling out DNC - for its corruption, non-transparency
  • Whistleblower protection/1A rights
  • Immigration
  • Helping trafficking victims/curbing trafficking
  • Big tech/privacy protection
  • Respect for people of all religions AND atheists

I will cover the others in part 2.

Environment : 

Tulsi sponsored the strongest piece of legislation ever introduced in Congress to combat climate change – The Off Fossil Fuels Act.

By 2027: (1) 80% of electricity sold must be generated from clean energy resources, (2) 80% of new vehicle sales from manufacturers must be sales of zero-emission vehicles, and (3) 80% of train rail lines and train engines must be electrified. By 2035: (1) 100% of electricity must be generated from clean energy resources, (2) 100% of vehicle sales from manufacturers must be zero-emission vehicles, and (3) 100% of train rail lines and train engines must be electrified.


The bill transitions the US away from all fossil fuels, including nuclear. Bans fracking. No new fossil fuel projects in the US. Ends fossil fuel subsidies, redirects to renewable sources of energy. Unemployment benefits, training and jobs for those affected by transition away from fossil fuels. Recognises that poor people, people of colour and tribes are disproportionately affected by pollutants and offers preventive/corrective measures.

Tulsi spoke strongly against DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) as it was a threat to essential water sources. She went to Standing Rock and stood there in solidarity with the protestors. The only current candidate to do so. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hawaiis-tulsi-gabbard-joi_b_13405756

Finally the connection of this with foreign policy :

“Climate change solutions require cooperation with China/Russia, which new Cold War makes impossible. As president, I’ll stand up against the military industrial complex & warmongering media—Will anyone else? If not, their “plans” re climate change are worthless #ClimateTownHall”


This is extremely important. She is the one who has put the most emphasis on this. She is also the only candidate who has not demonised Russia or China.

Hemp :

One of the biggest threats to our environment is plastic waste. An easy way of combating this problem is by the use of natural products like hemp. Tulsi introduced the “Hemp for Victory Act” legislation in Congress. Part of the legislation focuses on research into the plant as an alternative to plastics and its ability to prevent soil erosion.

Among other areas of investigation, it would mandate research into everything from the use of hemp food products for public school lunches to the potential therapeutic value of the crop’s extracts for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder to even its ability to clear contaminants from nuclear sites.


There are many others that could be brought up regarding her dedications and contributions towards preserving and saving the environment. But let me just finish with this for now.

Tulsi is a lifelong environmentalist, who has been an activist on the environment since she was a teenager, traveling to schools across Hawai’i to educated students on the importance of watersheds and related environmental issues.


In a recent interview, Tulsi mentioned that Climate change has unfortunately become such a polarising term. She said the way to deal with this is to split it into : who wants clean air, clean water, who wants to preserve mountains/oceans etc. These are things that most people, if not all, will raise their hands and say yes to.


Even though Tulsi is best known for her great foreign policy now, her love of the environment is what drove her to join politics in the first place.

Election integrity :

Tulsi introduced the Securing America’s elections Act in early 2018.

This bill requires voting systems for federal elections to produce paper ballots that the voter may inspect and verify before the vote is cast and counted. The bill also (1) requires the paper ballot to be suitable for manual audits, (2) prescribes approved methods for such audits, and (3) directs the Department of Homeland Security and the Election Assistance Commission to report on the desirability of using open-source software in voting systems.


The Securing America’s Elections Act would authorize emergency funding to empower every state to use voter-verified paper ballots that produce an auditable paper trail ahead of the 2018 elections. It also incentivizes the use of safe and secure software in voting machines.


No other candidate introduced or took up a measure seriously for election integrity before 2019, i.e., the 2020 presidential election cycle.

She also reintroduced it in 2019 :

Note that this for protection against any sort of election interference - internal (any US entity) or external (any foreign country). 

Some legislations she has supported with respect to elections :

H.R.1 — For the People Act of 2019 to expand voter registration and voting access, makes Election Day a federal holiday, and limits removing voters from voter rolls.
H.R.51 — Washington, D.C. Admission Act to provide for the admission of the State of Washington, D.C. into the Union.
H.R.727 — Puerto Rico Statehood Admission Process Act to provide for a vote on Puerto Rico's admission into the Union as a state.
H.R.712 — John Tanner Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act to prevent gerrymandering
H.R.540 — Presidential Tax Disclosure Act of 2017 to require the disclosure of the Federal income tax returns of the President.


Calling out DNC - for its corruption, non-transparency :

This starts in the 2016 cycle. Tulsi was a rising star in the Democratic party and the DNC vice chair. Gabbard, the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Monday on "The Situation Room" she was told her vocal support for more debates had made her "no longer welcome to come to the debate."


Then of course , she quit as DNC Vice Chair in February 2016 : 
According to an email obtained by Politico, Gabbard told her fellow DNC officers that "after much thought and consideration, I’ve decided I cannot remain neutral and sit on the sidelines any longer."

"There is a clear contrast between our two candidates with regard to my strong belief that we must end the interventionist, regime change policies that have cost us so much," she wrote. "This is not just another 'issue.' This is THE issue, and it’s deeply personal to me. This is why I’ve decided to resign as Vice Chair of the DNC so that I can support Bernie Sanders in his efforts to earn the Democratic nomination in the 2016 presidential race."


Then in June 2016, 

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard encouraged her followers on Saturday to sign a petition ending the Democratic Party’s use of superdelegates.

“Whether you are a Bernie Sanders supporter or a Hillary Clinton supporter, we should all agree that unelected party officials and lobbyists should not have a say in who the presidential nominee of our party is,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “That should be left up to the voters.”

In November 2016,

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said the revelations that the Democratic National Committee rigged the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton underscores the need for an overhaul of campaign finance laws and a complete overhaul of the national party.

“The DNC secretly chose their nominee over a year before the primary elections even occurred. This shines a light on how deeply broken our campaign finance laws are, and how they’ve weakened individual candidates while strengthening and empowering political parties and special interested,” Mrs. Gabbard says in a video she blasted out Friday. “These laws allowed the Clinton campaign to bypass individual campaign contribution limits by funneling millions of dollars through the DNC and state parties — taking control of the DNC in the process.”


Now, moving on to 2019, in Aug 2019, from a press release : 

The DNC has not made their criteria for poll selection known and, in some cases, the DNC is relying on inferior, less accurate polls.

While conventional wisdom might assume DNC-certified polls are more accurate than non-qualifying polls, this is not always true. Many non-qualifying polls are more accurate than the DNC’s preferred polls (Sources: American Research Group and FiveThirtyEight).


And most recently, when the DNC altered its rules for debate qualification to fit in Bloomberg, she went straight at it :

“Billionaire Bloomberg just bought the @DNC. #PayToPlay #StandWithTulsi”

Whistleblower protection/1A rights :

Tulsi is the only candidate to come out and unequivocally say she would pardon/drop the charges on whistleblowers Manning/Snowden and journalist Assange.

Gabbard has stated the U.S. government should drop charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: "[H]is arrest and all … that just went down … poses a great threat to our freedom of the press and to our freedom of speech" She has also expressed concerns that "our government … can basically create this climate of fear against … those … publishing things that they don't like …. This … threatens every American — the message … we are getting is 'Be quiet, toe the line, otherwise there will be consequences.'"

She would also pardon NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and take action to "close the loopholes" in the law Snowden exposed. Of Snowden and Chelsea Manning, she said, "there is not an actual channel for whistle-blowers like them to bring forward information that exposes egregious abuses of our constitutional rights and liberties, period. There was not a channel for that to happen in a real way, and that's why they ended up taking the path that they did, and suffering the consequences."



Do notice the emphasis on how there should be a channel for whistleblowers to come forward without fear.

Most recently, she called out the brazenly BS charges of hacking levied against journalist Glenn Greenwald by the Brazilian govt:

For years, @ggreenwald has exposed abuses at the highest levels of government and his investigative journalism deserves our support. If we allow the powerful to silence such journalists, our democracy and freedom is in peril. #StandWithGreenwald

Immigration :

In order to understand and fix the immigration/refugee issue at the US southern border, we must first understand its root cause/biggest reason. All talk on this issue, without understanding and attempting to fix this root cause is empty.

"The root cause of mass immigration on our southern border is our history of US military intervention in Latin America that left countries destroyed. Before we talk about a wall, we need to end our ongoing threats of intervention - this time in Venezuela. #SOTU"

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1092977776066527232

These quotes best sum up her position on immigration :  

“We need to stop using immigrants as tokens in a political game & start talking solutions—funding to process asylum requests & targeted aid to address the decades of US intervention that contributed to the collapse of the countries they are fleeing.”


“We need comprehensive immigration reform to address our broken immigration laws and we need to have a serious conversation about the most effective and humane ways to compassionately secure our borders while building bridges and cooperative foreign policy with other countries. We need to ensure we have a clear, enforceable, accessible, and humane pathway to citizenship. Most urgently, we must pass DACA to ensure children who know no other home are allowed to remain in the US and take steps to ensure children are not separated from their parents. We must fund and equip agencies in charge of processing asylum claims and protect migrants, many of whom are women and children, who are going through our asylum process and fleeing natural disasters, religious persecution, or violence under an asylum status.”

https://www.tulsi2020.com/issues/immigration-reform

Tulsi understands that immigration is used as a political football by both parties and this will not lead to real solutions. These quotes show her deep understanding of the problem and how to solve it.

Note the targeted aid part in the tweet above. It shows she is careful to recognise that aid must go to the right people, through right channels and must be cash/material that are required by the people affected.

Unlike many other democratic candidates, she has not fallen into the trap of decriminalisation of border crossings - which was being hailed as a solution to stop mistreatment of illegal refugees. Decriminalisation of border crossings is a non-solution because it will not stop their mistreatment. It will instead will lead to increase in illegal immigration and more resentment from citizens. What is really required to ensure humane treatment of illegal refugees is  legislation like the one below, which has 202 co-sponsors.

H.R.541 - Keep Families Together Act

This bill limits the separation of families at or near U.S borders or ports of entry and imposes limits on the prosecution of asylum seekers.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/541

About tuition free college for illegal immigrants :

DON LEMON: Senator [Bernie] Sanders believes college should be tuition-free for undocumented immigrants as well, do you?

TULSI GABBARD: I don’t. I think it’s important to fix our legal immigration system and look at the millions of undocumented immigrants in this country who have been suffering as they have been living in the shadows.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/07/31/tulsi-gabbard-comes-out-against-giving-free-college-tuition-illegal-aliens/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSAdmrsHU7c

This is just another example of her focus on fixing the root cause of the issue and not just applying a bandaid solution or giving free handouts to people just to gain popularity/votes.

These are some of the other legislations she has supported with respect to immigration reform :

H.R.  3440 DREAM Act
H.R. 532 Dreamer Information Protection Act, which prohibits using DACA hearings for deportation
H.R. 496 Bridge Act, which codifies the DACA program
H.R. 392: Tulsi co-sponsored the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, which would remove the existing per-country cap on employment-based green cards and ensure all immigrants are treated equally regardless of their country of origin.

Respect for people of all religions AND atheists :

Through her actions and words, Tulsi has consistently shown she respects people of all religions, is a strong proponent of religious plurality and is against all forms of religious bigotry. What really distinguishes her from other candidates is her constant mention of respect for atheists.

For example:

From Tulsi’s keynote speech at the 2016 Reason Rally : 

“It is truly wonderful that embedded in the very bedrock of our nation is this recognition of free will; of this intrinsic right of every individual to worship God as one chooses, or to not worship God; to adhere to any spiritual path or to no spiritual path. No one can make that decision for another person. It is our duty to guard and protect the right of all people to worship or not worship according to their conscience. This is the nature of love. Every person has the freedom to choose to give their heart and give their life to God or not. You can't force someone to love God, or to love anyone.”


Muslims for Peace Conference in 2017 :

“Let us be inspired as we join hands, working toward the day when everyone--whether they be Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Jew, Muslim, or atheist, or others--can live in peace and freedom from fear.”


Tulsi has been recognized by the Secular Coalition as well as the America Center for Inquiry as a champion of secularism:

One instance of her highlighting examples of religious bigotry and condemning all forms of religious bigotry.


To anyone who says she is Islamophobic or something similar, Tulsi’s words and actions prove she has nothing but aloha for Muslims, just like she has aloha for followers of every other religion and also for atheists. These articles linked below show that.


Helping trafficking victims/curbing trafficking :

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard received the Ho’ola Na Pua Advocacy Award on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018, for her dedication to serving and empowering human trafficking survivors in Hawai‘i.The award was announced at the annual Pearl Gala that recognizes individuals, organizations, and companies, who have demonstrated courage and advocacy in fighting against sexual exploitation of children in Hawai‘i.

Background : Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has fought to combat human trafficking throughout her time in Congress.  She is an original co-sponsor of the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act (H.R.459) and has supported a series of human trafficking bills, including the Global Child Protection Act (H.R. 1862), the Strengthening Children’s Safety Act of 2017 (H.R. 1842), the Adam Walsh Reauthorization Act of 2017 (H.R. 1188), the Targeting Child Predators Act of 2017 (H.R. 883), the Child Protection Improvements Act of 2017 (H.R. 695), and the TARGET Act (H.R. 1625).


Let us look a bit into the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act that she was an original co-sponsor of.

Mrs. WAGNER (for herself, Ms. GABBARD, and Mr. JOLLY) introduced the following bill : H.R. 459 Trafficking Survivors Relief Act in 2017.

This bill amends the federal criminal code to establish a process to vacate convictions and expunge arrests for criminal offenses committed by trafficking victims that directly result from or relate to having been a trafficking victim.


For more information about her views and actions on countering trafficking and helping trafficking victims, check :

Big tech/privacy protection :

Tulsi has been the most prominent candidate on speaking up and taking action with breaking up big tech/holding them accountable.

Gabbard said she believes it's Congress' responsibility to break up big tech companies, such as Facebook, over antitrust concerns.

Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) says the prospect of Facebook introducing a new, digital currency, Libra, would too greatly expand the company's access to personal data.

"Giving someone like Mark Zuckerberg the power of his own currency, and what he can do with the information, the personal information, that he's already gathering, I think it's very dangerous," Gabbard told Cheddar Tuesday.


After the 1st Democratic Presidential debate of 2020, Tulsi was the most searched candidate on the night of the debate she participated in. Without any explanation, Google suspended Tulsi’s Google Ads account.  

For hours, Tulsi’s campaign advertising account remained offline while Americans everywhere were searching for information about her.  During this time, Google obfuscated and dissembled with a series of inconsistent and incoherent reasons for its actions. 

So Tulsi filed a lawsuit against Google for Censorship And Election Inference.

Tulsi gave this statement to the NYT:  “Google’s discriminatory actions against my campaign are reflective of how dangerous their complete dominance over internet search is, and how the increasing dominance of big tech companies over our public discourse threatens our core American values.  This is a threat to free speech, fair elections and to our democracy, and I intend to fight back on behalf of all Americans.” 


“A strong national defense and the protection of our civil liberties are equally important and compatible. We can strike the necessary balance between freedom and security by reforming our surveillance practices and directing the resources we have toward proven methods of eliminating threats to the safety and security of the American people.”


“We must stand up against the big Wall Street banks who gamble with our money and our future. Stand up against overreaching intelligence agencies and big tech companies who take away our civil liberties, privacy, and freedoms in the name of national security and corporate greed.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcrTy8huVH8

Gabbard has said that big tech companies abuse their power and has called out Facebook, Google, and Amazon specifically. Gabbard told the Times that tech giants have both invaded users' privacy and crushed smaller companies who they view as competition.



Privacy protection is an issue that Tulsi has been talking about and acting on from the year when she joined Congress. After the Snowden revelations in 2013 that the NSA was spying on Americans without warrants:

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02) today co-sponsored a bill to improve privacy protections for Americans and rein in the National Security Administration’s (NSA) sweeping domestic surveillance programs. The USA FREEDOM Act primarily targets reforms to Section 215 of the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act, which has been widely blamed for the bulk collection of innocent Americans’ personal data.



For some of the other legislations, Tulsi has sponsored/co-sponsored with respect to protection of civil liberties/privacy :



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