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Prologue
Sounding the Alarm
I love our country. I have committed my life to defending the safety, security, and freedom of the American people. Our country is in the midst of an existential crisis.
I have friends who are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and Libertarians. I have nothing but respect for all of them. Some work in the field of politics, but most do not. This book is not being written out of spite or animosity toward anyone because of their political affiliation. My message to you is an urgent warning: Those in control of today’s Democrat Party and permanent Washington are leading us down a very dangerous path that threatens our freedom, democracy, and ability to thrive in a peaceful, prosperous country.
Regardless of your political affiliation or leanings, or which candidate you like or dislike, we should all be alarmed when those who are driven by their insatiable hunger for power are actively undermining our democracy without care for the short- and long-term consequences of their actions. They are doing all they possibly can to keep the American people from being able to choose who we want to vote for as president. They have no respect for us and our fundamental rights as citizens in a democratic republic. They are so afraid that we, the people, might make “the wrong choice” that in the name of protecting our democracy and saving us from ourselves, they are destroying our democracy and taking away our freedom to decide who our next president should be.
To make matters worse, those leading this fight really believe they’re doing the right thing. They say, with great concern in their voice, that if the American people elect Donald Trump again, he will destroy our democracy and be the dictator-in-chief. This is why they feel they are justified in trying to take away our right to vote for any candidate we choose … in other words, they say they need to destroy our democracy in order to “save” it.
This is lunacy. It’s the mindset and mentality of dictators.
As of this writing, Colorado and Maine took unprecedented action to try to remove the leading Republican candidate for president, Donald J. Trump, from their presidential primary ballots. Similar challenges have been raised in thirty-two states. In defiance of the Constitution, these people are single-handedly attempting to take away the right of American citizens to vote for Trump for president—even though he has not been charged, indicted, or convicted of the crime of insurrection they’re accusing him of. Colorado’s State Supreme Court made this decision in a 4–3 vote. In Maine, the decision was made unilaterally by the secretary of state, who is not a lawyer, and is a Democrat and vocal Biden supporter, and someone who actively supported impeaching Trump when he was president. Hardly an unbiased arbiter.
The precedent has been set. What’s to stop Republican secretaries of state from unilaterally deciding to take President Biden off the ballot? Nothing. Reacting to efforts to remove Trump from the ballot, Missouri secretary of state Jay Ashcroft posted on X, “What has happened in Colorado & Maine is disgraceful & undermines our republic. While I expect the Supreme Court to overturn this, if not, Secretaries of State will step in & ensure the new legal standard for @realDonaldTrump applies equally to @JoeBiden!”1
Those behind this are not putting all their eggs in one basket, though. This is a multi-front battle, and they will stop at nothing until they’re successful. “Progressive” Congressman Ro Khanna from California, who I’ve known for years, so desperately wants Trump off the ballot that he is demanding that the supposedly nonpartisan chairman of the Federal Reserve intervene and take action to stop the former president from getting reelected. On December 27, 2023, Rep. Khanna said in a post on X that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell “should cut interest rates now given most of inflation was caused by supply shocks. If he doesn’t, he may be the person most responsible for the possible return of Trump.”
The Democrat elite and their cronies are using our criminal justice system to prosecute and distract the Republican presidential candidate in the midst of a presidential campaign. As a result, Donald Trump currently faces 91 charges in four criminal cases—44 federal charges and 47 state charges, all felonies. They are hoping they’ll be able to convict Donald Trump of some crime—any crime—to undermine his support and thus prevent what they fear most: a second Trump presidency.
What’s at stake here is far greater than Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Our democracy is being destroyed by the permanent Washington elite in both political parties who truly believe they—and not the American people—have the right and duty to determine who we want to serve and lead our country. They readily dismiss the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, and the voices of the American people, anointing themselves as the ones who have the power and justification to decide who will become president.
Those of us who love our great country must be deeply saddened, outraged, even frightened by this reality: elected and non-elected entities who are in control of our country have no respect for the will of the American people. None. They don’t care about us. They don’t care about what we want. But they are afraid of us. Just like foreign dictators are afraid of democracy, the Democrat elite are so afraid of a free society and the possibility that the American people will make “the wrong choice” in this election (by choosing someone other than them), they are not willing to risk allowing us to make that choice. So they use the power of our law enforcement, our criminal justice system, and the national security state as a weapon to stop us from exercising our freedom.
We can’t allow them to get away with this. Our democracy is under attack. It’s up to us to save it. We must hold those responsible accountable at the ballot box and send a strong message to leaders in both parties: those who abuse their power and undermine our democracy will not be tolerated.
If we do nothing, however, and turn a blind eye to those weaponizing our criminal justice system against their political opponents and telling us who we are and are not allowed to vote for, it will set a precedent for every election and presidency in the future and our democracy will be finished.
This is not the America my brothers and sisters in uniform and I risk our lives to defend.
Is Today the Day?
In the predawn darkness of January 2005, I was strapped into my seat, the ruby red nylon restraining belts over my shoulders nearly cutting off circulation to my arms. My body armor felt like an extension of my body, and my rifle was in hand. We were packed like sardines facing each other, bouncing through a blackened sky aboard the C-130 that was taking us into Iraq. With the exception of the four turboprops whirring outside the flying metal tube, there was total silence. There was tension in the air. For most of us, this was our first combat deployment. We had trained for months—at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, in the desert of Fort Bliss’s Camp MacGregor, and in the wet swampy air of Fort Polk, Louisiana. One battle drill after another. Endless convoy operations. React to contact. Break contact. React to ambush. React to IED. As a medical unit, we rehearsed over and over what to do in a mass-casualty-producing event. We were ready. But for what, exactly, no one knew for sure.
As the military aircraft began its descent, we could feel it zig and zag, lurching and pitching in a stomach-churning downward corkscrew intended to make sure our aircraft would not be an easy target for RPGs or other weapons. We plummeted through the darkness. The flaps and landing gear deployed. Without any windows or visual reference points outside, we didn’t know exactly where or when the ground would come up to reach us. All we knew was, training was over. We were landing at our camp in Iraq, around forty miles north of Baghdad.
As a kid growing up in Hawaii, the thought of serving in the military never crossed my mind. I experienced at a young age that I was happiest when I was serving God and others. It was the small things that taught me this—bringing a smile to someone’s face, letting a fellow surfer ride a wave when they’d been struggling to catch one all morning, preparing and giving out food to those who were homeless and hungry in the park. I knew I wanted to follow a path of service with my life—and started with taking care of my community and my home. I was passionate about protecting the beautiful oceans, land, and mountains of our home state. I’d get my friends together and organize beach cleanups, and cofounded an environmental nonprofit as a teenager. But I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. I ran for and was elected to the Hawaii State Legislature at twenty-one years old. The Islamist terrorist attack on 9/11 happened, and like for so many Americans, it changed my life. I raised my right hand and enlisted in the Hawaii National Guard, and volunteered to deploy to Iraq with my fellow soldiers, leaving my seat in the statehouse behind.
As we unloaded the aircraft on that January morning in 2005, the air was brisk and cold. We moved through a brief administrative processing and found the tents where we would be staying. I was assigned to an Army GP Medium tent with eighteen other women, each of us quickly finding a spot to drop our bags and set up our cots. It was late, and I was tired. I curled up in my sleeping bag, rifle by my side, body armor within arm’s reach. Within a few hours, we heard sirens sounding, warning of an incoming mortar attack. We threw on our gear, grabbed our rifles, and ran out to the cement bunker. I don’t know how much protection it gave us—but this would end up being an almost daily occurrence for the twelve months we were there.
The next morning, I went for a walk around the camp that would be home for the next year. When I came up to the North Gate, one of the busiest for our security patrols, I saw a sign that stopped me in my tracks. It read in big, bold letters: “IS TODAY THE DAY?”
I would see that sign almost every day I was there. It bore into my consciousness. It was a reminder to us all that any day could be our last. It was also a question that I reflected on often: Life is short. My time could come at any moment. Am I making the most of every day, to live my life in service to God and working for the well-being of His children?
Too many of our fellow soldiers who passed through that gate were killed or wounded. Many of us who made the long trip home found our homecoming bittersweet. We mourned the loss of our friends. Our lives had changed. Our world had changed. Nothing would be the same again. When I got home, I had many sleepless nights. What should’ve been comfortable and familiar seemed different and out of place. There were no mortar attacks, no sirens, no incoming fire. I laid awake, remembering the words on that sign. IS TODAY THE DAY? I resolved to dedicate myself to a sense of renewed purpose—to honor the sacrifices of our fallen comrades, make every day count, and do all that I could to ensure every American could live free and in peace.
IS TODAY THE DAY?
I urge you to reflect on this same question, which is just as true and relevant to us in our lives today as it was for us in a war zone.
Today is the day. We have no time to waste. We live in troubled times. Our nation is bitterly divided. Our future as a republic, as a union, appears bleak. The news—the noise, the insanity, the darkness—is something many of us want to shut out. There are times when all I want to do is grab my surfboard and paddle out into the ocean, or go for a hike in the mountains, and appreciate the peace and majesty of Mother Nature.
But there is too much at stake, in this moment, to put our heads in the sand and go about our lives with blinders on hoping the insanity will fade away. The insanity and threats to our constitutional democracy will not fade away and will only increase unless we stand up and remind those trying to destroy this country that ours is a government of, by, and for the people.
I joined the Democrat Party in Hawaii in 2002 because I saw a party that, at that time, appeared to be the party of the people, a party that valued free speech, welcoming all comers into a big tent where the sharing of diverse opinions and views on issues was encouraged. It was a party that fought for civil liberties and rights, remembering how neighbors and friends were thrown in Japanese internment camps during World War II, their freedoms taken away in an instant. It was a party inspired by JFK and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., who showed us what is possible when we as Americans come together.
The party I joined over twenty years ago no longer exists today.
I could no longer remain in today’s Democrat Party, which is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers fueled by cowardly wokeness who divide us by racializing every issue and stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, are hostile to people of faith and spirituality, demonize the police and protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, allow our borders to remain open while claiming they are “secure,” weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and, above all, drag us closer to nuclear war with each passing day.
Aloha
I left the Democrat Party and became an Independent. For the sake of our country, peace, freedom, and our hope for a prosperous future, I urge you to do the same.
As we look to the way ahead and how we will forge our path through the darkness and toward a brighter future for all Americans, the spirit of aloha serves as the torch that will guide us through.
What is aloha? While you may be familiar with “aloha” as a word often used as a greeting, it means so much more than that.
The word alo means to share, and ha refers to the eternal life force within each of us. Aloha recognizes that we are all connected in a spiritual sense, as children of God. Knowing this truth inspires how we should relate to each other and how we can come together to defend our God-given freedoms enshrined in the Constitution against those who seek to take them away. While in this book I detail the reasons I left the Democrat Party, and the serious threat the Democrat elite pose to our freedom and democracy in this very moment, I recognize that the challenges we face in our political system and country are not limited to one political party.
Politicians from both political parties who are more interested in serving their own interests than in serving the needs of the American people have taken control of our country. They will not give up their power without a fight.
We live in the greatest country in the world, filled with potential for us to build a brighter future and a more perfect union where every American can live free, in peace, and with opportunity for prosperity … a future where we celebrate free speech and respect each other as children of God and as Americans, even if we disagree on an issue or policy. This is the country our Founders envisioned for us, and it is my fervent hope that we come together, remembering the foundational principles that connect us as Americans, to make that vision a reality. It’s up to us—all of us—to make it happen.
Will you join me?
Aloha.
