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Volume XVI Number 13 - September 6, 2017     RSS Feed   

A Periodic Newsletter for Committed Texas Conservatives

In This Issue

Three 100+ Year Floods In Three Years Means Flood Control Needs To Be Number One

County Judge Emmett A Seasoned Pro When It Comes To Disaster

Trump Comes To Texas In Aftermath Of Harvey And The Mainstream Media Attacks

The Obama Iran Deal Legacy - Disaster In The Making

Houston's November Pension Plan Election, Not At This Time

If You Need Help Or Want To Offer Help

Changing Our Open Door Immigration Policy By Bruce Bialosky, Contributing Editor

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Thoughts This Fortnight

Three 100+ Year Floods In Three Years
Means Flood Control Needs To Be Number One

Symbolic of poor planning and neglect of our regional flooding problem, the City of Houston has a proposed bond issue for November of around $1.6 billion, and the amount for flood control is zero! This time we need to get it right. Bring the best and brightest together and let's come up with an innovative solution that works and get it done.

As for the recovery we need to be smart, careful and effective. There is so much opportunity for fraud, waste and abuse. Remember the City of Houston's former Public Works Director was recently indicted on bribery charges.

We need to have people that are trustworthy administering the relief program. The City of Houston's track record on Federal funds is not good so let others do it. It's because their track record has earned our distrust.

County Judge Emmett A Seasoned Pro
When It Comes To Disaster

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett is to be congratulated. Calm, cool and collected, it seems that he made a lot of appropriate decisions during Hurricane Harvey and is probably responsible for saving a lot of lives and property.

Trump Comes To Texas In Aftermath Of Harvey And The Mainstream Media Attacks

At TCR we are tired of the constant whining about President Trump. It doesn't seem to matter what he does, he is attacked. It's to the point now that it is just plain silly.

For the record, TCR says the President did just fine in Texas and the First Lady can wear whatever shoes she wants.

The President is not perfect, but the media and left wing attacks are beyond the pale as they go on non-stop 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Like the boy who cried wolf when there was no wolf and when one really came no one listened, the media is the boy who cried wolf.

The Obama Iran Deal Legacy
Disaster In The Making

The latest on the Iran (Obama) deal, it's getting worse all the time.

Let's see what is now wrong:

  1. Instead of spending the money (bribe) Iran got in the deal to boost its economy, the money is being spent on the military and support of Iran's terrorist friends.

  2. Iran now has a surplus of heavy water beyond the agreement limits.

  3. Iran refuses to allow full inspections of its military sites where suspected nuclear work might be ongoing.

  4. The IAEA hasn't been able to do onsite in-person inspections in Iran.

  5. Iran continues to advance work on ICBM's capable and in fact designed to carry nuclear weapons.

  6. Iran has acquired advanced centrifuges such that they could have a weapon within weeks of withdrawing from the JCPOA.

Iran is compliant only if you ignore all their violations. There will be no positive legacy for President Obama on this turkey and we will all pay the price of this dangerous deal. It's past time for the U.S. to walk away and tell the world why.

TCR Comment: For an outstanding resource on the Iran deal disaster, download the following: Strategy to Restore U.S. Leverage Against Iran by JINSA's Gemunder Center Iran Task Force, Co-Chairs Ambassador Eric Edelman and General Charles Wald, USAF (ret.)

Houston's November Pension Plan Election,
Not At This Time

The so-called $1 billion bond issue to "support" pension reform is on the ballot in November. The timing couldn't be worse.

After the worst flood in United States history, the gross inadequacies of flood management in the City of Houston and in our region point to only one real priority for us: FLOOD CONTROL.

At TCR, we are big supporters of our first responders, but we are first and foremost with the taxpayers.

These pension bonds have too many unanswered questions:

  1. Since the city budget is so tight (and that was before the Harvey disaster) how do we pay off the bonds? The answer Mayor Turner and the City Councilmembers who support this is to raise taxes after getting rid of the spending cap.

  2. The plan does nothing to stop unfunded liabilities from increasing. Only a "corridor" agreement that merely calls for talk if (more likely when) the investment returns falls outside the corridor. Nothing on what happens if the talks fail.

  3. The plan is overly optimistic on the rate of return the pension investment will achieve. The pension bonds require a 5% rate to meet the debt service. In the most recent ten-year period, most of the City of Houston pensions failed to consistently meet even the 5% return.

The TCR recommendation is to vote NO and go back to the drawing board and let's deal with our flooding disaster and deal with a regional prevention plan. If we don't get this right, we won't have Houston to worry about anymore. How many times do you think our Houston region can handle $150 billion in losses and survive?

If You Need Help Or Want To Offer Help

From Conservative Republicans of Texas News:

Second Baptist Church has a massive relief effort in the greater Houston area. If you need help cleaning your home, food, water, or cleaning supplies then go to www.second.org. There are 6 campuses. You can also donate money, supplies or volunteer to help. Thank you.

Changing Our Open Door Immigration Policy
By Bruce Bialosky, Contributing Editor

Who needs Games of Thrones when all one needs to do is watch a White House press conference? President Trump endorses the RAISE Act put forth by two U.S. Senators (Cotton and Perdue), that is meant to create legislation regarding just one facet of our immigration policy, and the world goes off its axis. What would happen if we confronted our national challenges regarding this issue?

Mr. Trump campaigned on shutting down the inflow of illegal people principally from our Southern border, but has met resistance on measures proposed for accomplishing his goal. Forget his silly campaign pledge of having Mexico pay for the wall. There are three ways to cut the flow of illegals into this country:

  1. Scare the dickens out of them and they will not come. That appears to be working to some extent since Mr. Trump ended the cavalier attitude of his predecessor toward enforcing our border laws.

  2. Construct a barrier (wall, fence - whatever you want to call it) that deters people from coming in.

  3. Hire more patrol guards to catch those who are coming illegally from doing so.

Even if you are an open borders person, you should endorse steps 2 and 3 as we have serious problems with criminals (MS-13, for instance) and drugs (heroin, cocaine and fentanyl) flowing in and harming our citizens. Yet Mr. Trump has met heavy resistance to doing both 2 and 3, largely from people saying neither is necessary. I would love to hear their solutions, as there never seems to be any except charges of racism.

Then comes a real proposal by two U.S. Senators which is endorsed by the administration. It is a starting point for discussion on one of the central aspects of how many people should be allowed to become members of our community - the United States of America.

The rules really go back to the mid-1960s. First, President Johnson killed the Bracero program in 1964. It was originally initiated in 1942 and then expanded and successfully operated, allowing temporary workers to fill needs in certain seasonal industries. Johnson killed it to win the backing of unions in his upcoming election. Though the numbers had slimmed down, the numbers of participants reached over 400,000 in some years. If businesses have temporary employment needs, why did we never reestablish this program? It is because of continuing union resistance.

The Immigration Act of 1965 changed the flow of immigrants from being based on country of origin to focused on skills and immigrants' family relationships. That may have worked in 1965, but the world has changed a tad since then.

Not only did we have 194 million people in 1965 versus 325 million now, but also our needs have changed. Our economy is largely skills based and our under-skilled people are already losing their jobs to machines, giving them fewer options just to find a job. No amount of training programs will solve all of that. It has not yet; why would it in the future?

Stephen Miller shows up to answer questions on this preliminary proposal that needs to work its way through committees in both the House and Senate, to the respective bodies, to a conference committee, back to the House and Senate and then the President's desk. Miller answers questions for 28 minutes. They were mostly just tough questions from the White House Press Corp. They did skip essential and basic questions. For example, why was the level of 500,000 legal immigrants chosen? Why did they choose to emphasize knowledge of the English language as a key skill?

Miller starts the press conference for five minutes explaining calmly, plainly and coherently the proposal which alters the existing program by establishing a points-based system including skills, will they be paid a high wage, can they speak English and will they be immediately employable. The point system mirrors one established in Canada and Australia.

Let's first address the English speaking rule (which is not all determining). This is not the 1880s. English is the language of the world. My wife and I are near traveling to 70 countries. We have only once have had a problem - in Japan - which is fascinating because every one of the Japanese studies English in school. We were told it is a cultural thing; they do operate a fairly closed society. At least they speak the world's other most important language - baseball.

Our favorite story comes when I surprised my wife and took her to Cabo San Lucas for a big birthday. On her actual birthday we did something very unBialoskyish. We went to a straight-out-Mexican restaurant and did shooters. But through the haze of the tequila I noticed that even the busboys spoke very clear English. The next night we went on a sunset cruise which was run by an American expat. I inquired why that was. He said, "because if you do not speak English in Cabo you don't get a job." I observed that I wished that were so at most restaurants in Los Angeles, where you better know the Spanish word for water or you may go thirsty.

As for how many people around the world speak English: we just visited a country (India) that probably has more English speakers than we have in our entire population.

Yet, a reporter went after Miller because of this and his perception of why the French built and gifted to us the Statue of Liberty. What was skipped over in this highly-unprofessional encounter with Miller was the reporter's biggest act of unworthiness; He told the story of his father arriving in the U.S. in 1962 as a refugee from Cuba. Thus, we should base our public policy 55 years later on his family's experience at that time. Maybe we have become unhinged. At least a new term entered our lexicon from this encounter - cosmopolitan bias.

It is clear that there is a certain element of our society that has obliterated the distinction between illegal and legal immigration. Their use of terminology such as "undocumented workers", and their reflexive hysteria upon use of the legal term, "illegal aliens", accentuates that desire. Most frequently, they just use the term immigration with zero differential between the two facets, acting as if there exists a universal right to take up residence in our country.

Addressing the issue of how many new immigrants we should have each year, could someone explain to me why in the state of California such a high number of people who work for our tax agencies not only are foreign born, but speak less than comprehensible English? Is it because these are jobs no Americans will take? Maybe as part of this discussion we can do a study of what jobs these immigrants are taking to provide background as to how many we should bring into the country and with what skills. Wouldn't that be rationale policy?

We are at historic highs in the history of our country for legal immigration. This has been going on for 25 years. We might consider higher levels of legal immigrants, if we did not have so many illegal immigrants. That needs to be discussed. For 50 years the means by which we have prioritized our immigrants has been one way. Does that way still make sense? These are vital questions for all of us to review and answer. This has nothing to do with race, gender or religion, the fallback position of the weak.

Our Congress needs to commence a responsible, grown-up discussion. The future of our nation depends on it.


Bruce Bialosky is the founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition of California and a former Presidential appointee. You can follow Bruce on Twitter @brucebialosky.


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About Your Editor

Gary Polland is a long-time conservative and Republican spokesman, fund-raiser, and leader who completed three terms as the Harris County Republican Chairman. During his three terms, Gary was described as the most successful county Chairman in America by Human Events - The National Conservative Weekly. He is in his twenty-first year of editing a newsletter dealing with key conservative and Republican issues. The last sixteen years he has edited Texas Conservative Review. As a public service for the last 13 years, Gary has published election guides for the GOP primary, general elections and city elections, all with the purpose of assisting conservative candidates. Gary is also in his 15th year of co-hosting Red, White and Blue on PBS Houston, longest running political talk show in Texas history. Gary is a practicing attorney and strategic consultant. He can be reached at (713) 621-6335.

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