This issue will feature our choices in key Texas races. Available on our website will be the reasons why in the key races.
This year you must vote in each race - no straight ticket voting.
In Texas, we still elect judges on a partisan basis. Your Editor supported reform years ago with Texas going to an appointed-retention elections. It ended up not going anywhere but in the large counties it makes perfect sense. The straight ticket sweeps brought in many great judges regardless of party and also brought "not ready for prime time" judges whose presence cripples the administration of justice. This year in Harris County, some Democratic incumbents are unopposed and they earned it. Some are opposed and they deserve it. Hopefully, the Legislature will end the present system of the judicial lottery and significantly raise the standards for eligibility to be a Judge.
"It’s Not Over Till It’s Over" John 'Bluto' Blutarsky, Animal House 1978
Like 2016, the major media and their pollsters say the election is over and President Trump is down 8%, 10%, 15%, etc.
However, it appears the election is being fought for the most part in battleground states. How do we know? Look where the Biden campaign is traveling to last week and this week: Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota, all battleground states.
It says here if the race was over, why go to those states? In short, it is not over. So make sure you vote.
The choice is clear and if we elect Joe Biden he will bring with him the radical left, led by AOC and the squad. They will bring in those who want to defund the police, ban guns, ban fossil fuels, legalize abortion until birth, pack the Supreme Court with radicals, and reinstate the insane deal with the Ayatollahs of Iran, among other things. The America we know will be destroyed by the same radical left forces destroying San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, and New York City, to name a few. Do you want that for your town?
Let's Get Real, The V.P. Debate Was Important, One Of Them Will Be President In The Next 4 Years
Given the ages of President Trump (74) and Joe Biden (78), the odds are that they will be replaced by their respective Vice Presidents.
Since the debate was so important, a few observations are in order:
In regards to V.P. Pence, he was calm, cool and polite. Senator Harris was nervous and hectoring. The failure by her to answer questions that matter is disturbing. Like full disclosure on Biden's health or dodging from answering the question about "packing" the Supreme Court with at least four more left-wing judges so the left get the majority. She tried to have it both ways on income tax increases, banning fracking, and on raising money for the bail fund that released domestic abusers from jail!
The voters see the future. From where we stand, Pence is ready to be President, Harris, not so much.
What Keeps Me Up At Night
The number one threat facing the nation, our coming debt debacle and no one seems to be talking about it.
The parties in Washington are arguing about another stimulus (much wasted by local government's giveaways) be it $1.5 trillion or $2.2 trillion. Did everyone forget that the federal money is all borrowed or monetized by the printing press?
Right now the U.S. Government owes $2.7 trillion, if you include our private sector debt, then $80 trillion we owe. Wait, if we count unfunded U.S. Government liabilities (you know, Social Security, pensions and Medicare), $210 trillion we owe.
With debts this large, there are a few choices: pay it off (not happening), inflate it away (yes, but do we want an economy like Iran, Venezuela, Zimbabwe or other basket cases), or massive devaluation of the dollar (so debts are easy to pay off). None of these are good options.
One other thought, if the dollar ceases to be a reserve currency we will see an immediate 35% drop in our purchasing power.
Pulitzer Prize To New York Times Nikole Hannah-Jones Should Be Revoked
Hannah-Jones was the author of the lead essay in "The 1619 Project." Once scrutinized, the project lost credibility. Many of the most distinguished historians starting in September 2019 that criticized the project as filled with factual errors, and misplaced conclusions.
The project if you recall, came to the conclusion that the American Revolution was based on protecting slavery.
In response to her myriad of critics, Hannah-Jones did not respond to her critics, she simply dismissed them.
In fact, one of the New York Times own fact checker, Leslie Harris, pre-publication, warned the Times that "the patriots fought the American Revolution in large part to preserve slavery..." was false.
Now we learn the New York Times secretly without fanfare altered the original article with no public acknowledgment. This came to light in September when historian and friend Phil Magness discovered the doctoring done to the article.
The acts of the author and New York Times should be the basis for the revocation of the Pulitzer prize, unless it is an award for duplicity, misinformation and lies.
Ongoing Lawsuits Risk Voter Confidence in 2020 Election, And They Need To Stop By TX House Representative Stephanie Klick, 91st District
With less than 50 days left before the pivotal 2020 presidential election, one would think that elections officials would have the voting procedures ironed out by now. They don't.
In must-win states for both presidential candidates, including Texas, ballots are ensnared with litigation over procedural questions: whether to mail ballots or ballot applications en masse, whether the state will pay for return postage, who will (and will not) be on the ballot, and so on. Until the courts answer these questions - barring any appeals, which are commonplace - the ballots are stalled. Even worse, tying the procedures up in court inhibits ballot access and diminishes people's confidence that their vote will be counted.
Texas is a hot bed of litigation, no matter that Election Day quickly approaches. Just one week ago, Texas Democrats argued in federal appeals court that allowing mail-in voting for Texans aged 65 years or older, but not for younger voters, amounted to age discrimination prohibited by the Constitution's 26th amendment. The court rejected that argument. Despite the ruling, the party chairman promised to keep fighting in district court, setting up another round of rulings, appeals, and continued uncertainty on who can vote by mail and who cannot in the Lone Star State.
While unlikely at this point, imagine the plaintiffs are successful, with every Texan made eligible to cast a mailed ballot. With early voting beginning in less than a month, how do the plaintiffs expect officials to immediately and suddenly process a potential avalanche of ballot applications from newly qualifying Texans? Is it realistic for an untold number of applications to be received and verified, and corresponding ballots sent out to be received and counted, all in less than 50 days? This late in the campaign season, such a monumental change would amount to mass voter confusion and millions of unreceived, unvoted ballots. Continuing the lawsuit at this late hour is a disservice to voters.
In Texas' most populated county, the Harris County clerk is fighting to send out mail-in ballot applications to every one of the county's 2.4 million registered voters. By Texas law, only a slim percentage of those receiving the application will be eligible to use it. Attorney General Paxton sued to stop the mass mailing of applications on the grounds that it encourages people to use them when they are legally ineligible, but a state judge sided with the Harris County clerk earlier this week. The Attorney General promised to appeal; the Texas Supreme Court agreed that the Harris County clerk could not mail the applications until the litigation was resolved.
Plaintiffs are trying to build a plane mid-flight by seeking legal overhauls through the courts in the twilight of the campaign season. In doing so, they substantially increase the risk that Harris County voters will not have sufficient time to complete the application, have it verified, receive a ballot, and send it back in time to be counted. Compare to North Carolina, which is several steps ahead already: thousands of completed ballots (not applications) have already been received by elections officials. Sending out the applications in Harris County now, at the eleventh hour, could do more harm than good.
The litigation tactic abounds in other states, too. By Pennsylvania law, counties could send out requested mail ballots beginning on September 14. None did: the ballots were not yet finalized, pending a lawsuit before the state Supreme Court fighting to keep the Green Party off the ballot. In Ohio, it remains uncertain whether completed ballot applications can be sent in by email or fax, pending the outcome of a lawsuit. In Florida, a lawsuit in Miami argues that every registered voter should be mailed a ballot directly, without a ballot request form - arguably the most enormous task that could be asked of election officials, and one fraught with concerning implications given the tight timeline before Election Day.
Today's political climate means confidence in the election process, and the outcome's validity, is more important than ever. By miring procedural questions in litigation, Americans have more fodder for doubting that the outcome will be legitimate and fairly decided. To put such doubts to rest, the litigation must stop, and promptly. Meanwhile, Texan voters looking to cast their vote with confidence should vote as they always have: in-person, either early (beginning on October 13) or on Election Day.
Stephanie Klick has served the 91st District in the Texas House of Representatives since 2018.
Biden Plan for the Economy By Bruce Bialosky, Contributing Editor
The Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force provides recommendations in six areas of domestic policy which are a roadmap for what Biden and his team want to accomplish if he is elected president. Despite little discussion about public policy at their convention, this is a detailed plan for domestic policy. Today we will take a look at their plans for the economy called Building a Stronger, Fairer Economy.
There are two parts of the plan: a 10-page narrative of what they want to do and then a 14-page description of their policy recommendations. A lot of it overlaps, but there are 24-pages and a lot of material. An important note: there is no statement of how much any of these proposals would cost or how they would be funded.
Here are some points of what they describe:
1. They completely redefine a self-employed individual by providing unemployment for them which we can only assume the self-employed will now have to pay into the unemployment system. They also provide sick leave. It is left to wonder if anyone self-employed want this governmental meddling.
2. They use the word 'invest' 11 times in 10-page narrative. They used the term "supercharged investment" once. They, of course, are addressing the fact that they will take tax dollars and direct them toward policies they support.
3. They declare housing is a right - another right they have given to Americans. They are calling for a Homeowner and Renters Bill of Rights.
4. To address the housing crisis that they say exists, they are calling for government intervention and new programs despite all the programs currently in place. Reading their narrative one is led to believe they were not in America and have no understanding there was a housing collapse in 2008 caused by the government loosened minimum requirements for home purchases.
5. They mention Black Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and women as suffering due to COVID, but no mention of Asian Americans. Just a point of information.
6. They are going to solve the homelessness problem. This is the party that created the problem in cities Democrats have run for decades, allowed it to fester and then has thrown hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem, but in the Biden presidency they will solve the problem. Will that involve single apartments at a cost to build of $500k each as in Los Angeles?
7. Because of the COVID crisis, they are going to start a brand new New Deal federal jobs program.
8. Social Security benefits will be increased in many areas with no new curbs or raising of the eligibility age. This can only mean higher taxes.
9. They call for reparations for Black people. No comment on that because that would take days to address.
10. They want to redesign state-run unemployment programs. This would centralize control of what has historically been a state authority, handing more power to a federal government with too many responsibilities already.
11. They want to make franchisors responsible for the labor practices of their franchisees. They have been trying to do this for years. There are hundreds of thousands of franchisees who run their own businesses. This would destroy the franchise model that has allowed millions of Americans to own and operate their own businesses.
12. The document is written with a tilt of everything toward the economy as racist and as if everyone is a union member. 6.3% of private employees are unionized so it would seem the orientation is not directed at anything other than union membership. The vice-chair of the drafting committee is the head of a union. The chair is Rep. Karen Bass who is perceived as a far Left individual.
13. They ban arbitration agreements for employee contracts thus throwing everything into expensive court litigation.
Then there are three proposals that stand out for special discussion.
They propose nationalizing the new law in California that has very much eliminated independent contractors and mandated everyone working for a company be a W-2 employee with some delineated exceptions. They refer to this as the ABC rules. It is often referred to as AB5 after the number of the bill. This has caused great turmoil for businesses in California causing many independent contractors to either close or leave.
This next one is really fascinating. They want to create a new agency within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) called the Public Credit Reporting Agency. This agency will be directly in competition with the four main credit bureaus - Equifax, Experian, TransUnion and Innovis. The new rules would require the federal government to get a credit report from the new in-house agency, meaning virtually every home loan would have to use the government agency destroying a large portion of the business of the privately operated agencies. This is a massive attack on free enterprise turning over more power to the government.
They want to expand their deep dive into the Federal Reserve after creating the funding source for the CFPB outside of Congress. They want a huge expansion of the Fed including them basically opening banks in competition with the thousands of banks that exist in this country to open bank accounts for people. This is obviously because they are unhappy with the fact that banks set limits on who can open a bank account to mitigate their risks they assume, that are reviewed by the federal government and limited by the feds. The fed opening bank accounts has never been done and they are not set-up for such.
In addition, they want to redefine the mandate of the Fed which currently is to contain inflation and maximize employment. Those are two very large responsibilities. That want to add to those responsibilities to aggressively target persistent racial gaps in job, wages and wealth. This is not just on paper; Mr. Biden has personally called for this reorientation of purpose. Do you think something could go wrong here with this? An independent agency that has been a stable force in our economy for well over a century will now have to desert its primary goals to help favored minority groups within the Democrat party.
This is just a taste of what they want to do, and the Wall Street Journal analysis says Biden will raise taxes $4 trillion. Of course, that will be on the rich, but somehow it always, always seeps down to the middle-classes.
We will be back to let you know what else the Biden team wants to do so you can make an educated decision of whom to vote for November 3rd.
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
Gary Polland has recently undertaken the hosting duties on a new interview show, Tell It Like It Is. The show is available at American Star TV or at its YouTube Channel. New shows post Wednesdays. This week's guests are Wesley Hunt GOP congressional candidate CD 7 Texas and Yoram Ettinger, Israeli based foreign policy expert
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 & Blue, Like all business and education campuses, our show is off the air as we can't meet to tape. We hope to be back as soon as possible.
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-fifth year of editing a newsletter dealing with key conservative and Republican issues. The last nineteen years he has edited Texas Conservative Review. As a public service for the last 17 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 20th 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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