Where Are Congress' Eyes and Ears? Never Focused on Us

Congress Will Fight to Secure Its Legacy, Before It Ever Serves Us

What's Washington up to now?

While a flock of black swans circle our nation, representing calamities, think World War III, civil war (against invaders), financial collapse, supply chain breakdown, grid destruction, and cyber devastation, our Congress is mulling a potential 28th Amendment to our Constitution, which The New Yorker says needs to be "Torched."

With such a flock of deadly threats circling, what is this committee of pampered elected elites focused on?

Themselves. (Cue reader shock and surprise here.)

Retiring members of Congress, Reps. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, are spending their final days in the U.S. House addressing that all-too-common problem: the potential for a mass casualty event involving members of Congress.

Yikes. What?

It’s simple. Like a living will, a member of Congress would designate their top five successors, and their governor back home could choose one from the list.

How efficient!

So, if a madman takes out a bunch of members, we can skip the tedious process of special elections — i.e., letting We the People choose.

Instead, the deceased member and their governor could simply vault a newbie into incumbent status.

With all the problems we face today, do these outgoing politicos really think they’ll get two thirds of both houses, as well as three quarters of the states to ratify this amendment?

Is this a solution in search of a problem?

Or is the problem about to appear?

Let’s not forget 9/11.

If any congressman had proposed legislation significantly impairing our liberties prior to Sept. 11, 2001, they would have been well on their way to "former representative" status.

But in the days after the towers fell with the Pentagon smoldering, We the People couldn’t trade liberty for security fast enough, leading to the passage of the Patriot Act.

The rise of the deep state and government power took that ball and ran with it from there, taking our freedoms right along with it.

If history is instructive, and knowing full well our government isn’t always transparent, are there threats among those black swans that would have us screaming for a 28th Amendment to empanel an unelected Congress?

Maybe we can figure it out ourselves before some knucklehead at the White House podium starts yet another speech with, "Well, you see, what had happened was . . . "

We can focus on two threat vectors: foreign and domestic.

Although the Pelosis, Cheneys, and Kinzingers of this world would have you believe the peppered-with-federal-informants Jan. 6, 2021 "insurrectionists" could return in a flash (and this time, instead of taking selfies, they may hurt representatives), there are real scenarios worth considering.

There are many countries who hate us, and they like to say (and/or think) "World War III," a great deal. World War III, nuclear war, and de-dollarization have never been more common topics of daily discourse.

Sometimes the animosity is directed toward "the collective West," but ultimately, the rapidly growing BRICS+ consortium identifies America as the problem.

In one scenario, if Russia decided that their red lines on Ukraine support had been crossed and a state of war existed with the U.S., could Congress become a target? China, Iran, and North Korea all offer equally plausible scenarios in the lead-up to a global war.

The current administration is led by the "last-one-in-the-room" border czar: Vice President Kamala Harris. She's managed, without really trying, to enable the greatest invasion of fighting-age men into our nation.

Males representing every terror group and enemy military.

This means a threat to Congress may already be present within our borders (or whatever we call "borders" these days).

Could Tren de Aragua from Venezuela, backed by Iran, mount an assault on Capitol Hill?

Would Iran activate its own terror cells now here to punish America for failing to control Israel hammering their proxies?

Would these events have us burning up the switchboards to pass the 28th Amendment?

Ultimately, we should view this amendment proposal as a warning.

The two congressmen pushing it are far better informed than We the People and are driven to make this their final legislative act.

Given that our 535 members of Congress enjoy round-the-clock security, special exemptions from U.S. law, fences, barriers, and a range of methods to thwart an assailant’s bullet, why are these two representatives reading their tea leaves, concluding that our Founding document needs to be amended right away because a mass casualty event involving Congress is a possibility?

We Americans need to assess our own security as we watch these black swans, waiting to see which peril will land next.

At the local level, we need to set aside the "red vs. blue" nonsense and think about how to build resilient American communities.

Reestablishing a strong relationship with our Creator wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

Let Congress scream "Danger!"

We the People will get back to basics and look after each other.

And we can do that quite admirably, without the government’s help, thank you.

Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt (retired) is a co-founder of Restore Liberty, a former deputy representative to NATO, a lifetime member on the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Newsmax contributor. The views presented are those of the author and do not represent the views of the U.S. government, U.S. Department of Defense, or its components. Read Gen. Holt's reports — More Here.