On July 4th it is important to take the time to appreciate our country. We are not perfect, but we are the best major country in the world. We have a better lifestyle, better opportunities, and generally get along with each other.
Our diversity is a strength, but so is our heritage of what America is about and what its founding principles mean. This is why it is important to study our founding fathers and history (not the negative hate-filled versions of the revisionist left.)
So on this 4th, instead of dividing us into various interest groups we should celebrate and accentuate our shared values.
A Commentary: The First Four Hours Of The Democrats Debates
As a TV host, radio commentator, and chronicler of our political lives, your editor needed to watch the four hours of the Democrats debates last week.
It was long, scary, and hard to endure the vast majority of candidates not worthy of being considered for President. The real winner was President Trump. The real losers were the American people because we had a bunch of unserious candidates trying to out-left each other and the "media" panelists were in the same boat with the candidates. So much for objective journalists.
Based on the debate here are the critical issues the Democrats see facing our country:
- They oppose any effort to stop anyone from crossing our borders, AKA open borders.
- Free health care for illegals.
- The return of busing our children to distant schools.
- Free college.
- Government run single-payer health care and abolish all private insurance.
- Abortion up to and including time of birth.
- Student loan debt erased.
- Reparations for descendants of slaves.
- Green New Deal - abolish carbon-based energy (so good-bye Texas oil and gas industry.)
- Tax the rich at historically high levels, which in fact means tax the rich and the middle class.
- Abolish the Electoral College and upend our entire history of Presidential elections.
- Revive the discredited idea of FDR of packing the Supreme Court. It was rejected in the 1940's and turns the Constitution on its head.
Joe Biden Was Treated Unfairly, But Also Was Not Ready
The attacks on Joe Biden are in many ways off base and not appropriate. That being said, Biden was clearly not on his game and failed to respond with energy about Kamala Harris' stupid attack on busing.
Let's review what happened and this time involve the facts:
Kamala Harris, in a planned attack, pummeled Joe Biden because he worked to stop involuntary busing of children across town to go to school.
Biden's response was weak, he said he only opposed busing ordered by the Department of Education, but his facts were wrong as busing started in the early 1970's and the U.S. Department of Education was not formed until 1979!
Polling from the busing era shows that the vast majority of parents whether white or black opposed busing. A Gallup poll from that era shows 9% support for forced busing among Afro-American's. Which makes sense since the message of the left wing do-gooders to them was your schools were not good because they needed people from across town to make their schools better. When all parents cared about was a good education for their children.
Biden lost a big opportunity to show Harris to be flat wrong. So will the Democrats now supporting forced busing of children across town for school.
Losing Two Families -- Thanks Governor Newsom By Bruce Bialosky, Contributing Editor
Hopefully you spent Father's Day weekend celebrating a man you honor and cherish. I spent my weekend with my family, but more importantly with two young families that were leaving the state of California. They had enough and are moving on. Members of the middle class that believe they will never achieve their dreams in the state where everyone used to dream their dreams.
The first couple is moving to Henderson, Nevada. They are done scrambling for schools, scared of the quality or lack of quality in the LAUSD for children. I met the husband through politics close to twenty years ago and became his CPA and then his family's CPA. Ironically, he later married the niece of one of my closest friends since my first days at Grant High in the Valley almost 50 years ago. They both have spent their entire lives in California but see no livable future here for them. They raved about their new home at a very reasonable price where their kids can go to a local school.
We spent time speaking of the craziness going on in California. They brought up climate change. We talked about the lack of water in California, which is not an issue in Henderson. They both have been to Israel many times and spoke of how that desert land is awash in water. I suggested that the logical thing to do if the "environmentalists" are so concerned about the oceans rising then they should be all in for desalination plants to soak up the water along the coast and move it inland where it is really needed and stem the water shortage. The husband –who does real estate loans — stated when the liberal elite want to sell him their houses along the beach in Malibu at 70 cents on the dollar because of their concerns about climate change then he will believe it. Until then he said they are just blowing smoke.
The second couple is moving to Austin, TX. The husband moved here 15 years ago after graduating college. We know his mother through Jewish community activities, and I had met his father through political activities. We were to look after their son in this foreign land as the family is from Houston. I recently told his father I liked his son more than I like him. That is how close he became to us.
Five years after being here he met a young lady at a wedding in Chicago. She came here and started working as a professional in the Jewish Community. We soon found out her two parents were in my eighth-grade class in Shaker Heights, OH. Strange twists of fate. The young couple married and became the parents of two young daughters.
They started looking around about impending schools, the homeless factor in their relatively high-end community of Sherman Oaks, the high cost of living and all the other craziness about California and said "Hasta la Vista."
While dealing with the devastation of losing these two families that I love having moved away, I received an email from my uncle who is now living in Florida as a refugee from NY. He is one of those guys who says he will never be a Floridian and always be a New Yorker even though NY mirrors California in so many ways, driving their residents to greener pastures.
He asked why an (estranged) nephew is also leaving CA to move to Indiana. My response: "Probably because California is driving out many young couples because the government sucks here. Had final meal with two couples over the weekend — one moving to NV, one moving to TX. Not totally surprising. High taxes, bad schools, bad roads, highest poverty rate in nation, homeless abound. Surprised anyone stays."
He objected to that. Then he asked, but why he is leaving. "I just told you. BTW, unaffordable housing here. Why don't you live in NY? You are in favor of paying for health care for illegal aliens and now you can get in an auto accident with an illegal who has a driver's license, but no insurance. As insane as CA."
Then I replied once more "BTW, if you read anything other than the NY Times you would know Indiana has basically a zero-unemployment rate. They are enticing people to move there. They have a sane government, low taxes and affordable housing. That is why he is moving there."
If you read Joel Kotkin, a demographer out of Chapman Univ., millennials are leaving California in bunches. The middle class is getting crushed. They have figured out they cannot make it here with two kids and a mortgage and bad schools and everything else. Their chances of moving from the middle class to upper middle class are frozen thus they are relocating to defrost their dreams.
Governor Newsom is not solely responsible for this, but he wanted the big job and now he has the big woes. He recently wasted his time deriding Republicans. He misses that they are not listening because they are leaving.
He apparently is smoking some of the newly legalized dope because recently Newsom stated this: "Every year, the (business) executive magazines come out and say, 'California is the worst place to do business, No. 50 in the nation. They say the best places are Tennessee and Texas ...' but if it's all about (gross domestic product), we outperform everyone." California "is still the envy of the world."
Young families are leaving, businesses are relocating, the highly successful soon will leave due to high taxes no longer deductible. "California dreamin' on such a winter's day." Those days are gone.
But Gov, you are giving free healthcare to illegal aliens while our Vets live in the muck on the streets. I hope you are proud Governor. I am just sad.
Bruce Bialosky is the founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition of California and a former Presidential appointee. You can follow Bruce on Twitter @brucebialosky.
TCR on the Air
Red, White, and Blue featuring TCR Editor Gary Polland on Fridays at 7:30 pm on Houston Public Media TV 8, replaying Saturday at 6:30 p.m. on Channel 8, Monday at 11:30 pm on Channel 8.2 and on the web at www.houstonpublicmedia.org.
Red, White, and Blue now this summer features the best of Red, White, and Blue. Shows are available for streaming at Houston Public Media.
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-second year of editing a newsletter dealing with key conservative and Republican issues. The last eighteen years he has edited Texas Conservative Review. As a public service for the last 16 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 18th year of co-hosting Red, White and Blue on Houston Public Media TV 8 PBS Houston, longest running political talk show in Texas history. Gary serves on the Board of Directors of American Values, a national pro-family, pro-faith, conservative organization supporting the unity of the American people around the vision of our founding fathers and dedicated to reminding the public of the conservative principles fundamental to the survival of our nation. Gary is a practicing attorney and strategic consultant. He can be reached at (713) 621-6335.
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