Another interesting election. The Democrats are down to Sanders and Biden. The rapid decline in the Democratic field looks to be an attempt by the establishment to save the House of Representatives at the price of party division. Biden is the safe choice but is he ready for prime time? In addition, he has his scandals in the Ukraine and has become a gaffe machine. (See www.ocregister.com and the article by Ron Hart)
From here it looks like President Trump will be re-elected, barring unforeseen circumstances. The Bernie brigades will not be happy with the second manipulation of the Democratic race by the insiders, which means a divided Democratic party.
As always, there are interesting winners, losers, and trends to be noted in the primary election season.
First, white males are becoming extinct as elected Democratic officials, at least in Harris County, Texas. Last Tuesday the following incumbent Democratic males lost: Judge Larry Weiman, along with Judges Moore, Kirkland, Roll and Powell were all defeated. It was a loss of significant experience on the bench and in many instances their opponents do not have the seasoning needed to be a quality judge. This also reaffirms the belief that our judicial selection system in Texas' major counties is badly broken and needs reform.
In other races of interest, long-time Democratic Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan was ousted in a three-man race and almost fell to third place. Kim Ogg won a hotly contested race for re-nomination for District Attorney and now will face GOP primary winner Mary Nan Huffman. Ogg clashed with uber-leftists on the overreaching of the failing bail reform system. She was also attacked by the crazies because she wants bonds to consider public safety too.
Finally, controversial Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis beat Maria Jackson after a spirited race. With a massive lead in funding and an intimidating network, this was a tough battle. Add to this, Ellis used about $325,000 of county funds for mailings to Democratic and independent voters. This abuse of public funds is in essence public funding of his campaign. This is being looked at closely by authorities. Ellis may not ever get to start a new term as Commissioner.
Now for Republicans, a few observations and surprises. Wesley Hunt was strong in winning without a runoff in Texas Congressional District 7. In Texas Congressional District 22, Troy Nehls and Kathaleen Wall are headed to a runoff. For District Attorney, Mary Nan Huffman won convincingly and will be a formidable candidate in November. In the key Commissioner Precinct 3 race, Tom Ramsey smashed his opponents. In House District 132, Mike Schofield won narrowly over newcomer Angelica Garcia (Governor Abbott's choice) by six points. Schofield had to work very hard to secure this victory. Garcia is a Hispanic Republican with a future.
There will be runoffs in J.P. Precinct 5, Place 1 where incumbent Russ Ridgway faces off with perennial candidate Mike Wolfe, and in the First Court of Appeals Place 5, long-time conservative District Judge James Lombardino faces off against Terry Adams.
And finally, the long nightmare of Harris County Republicans is over. The biggest loser in party history, Paul Simpson, was beaten by newcomer Keith Nielsen. The journey back to the top can now begin.
It's time to come together, nothing less is at stake than our city on the hill. We must motivate voters to come out or we can watch our freedom and our future stolen by the radical socialists dominating the Democratic Party.
On Coronavirus
TCR Comment: Rush Limbaugh has never been better. On Coronavirus, which the Democrats are screaming about, yet the greatest threat to allow the virus to spread is open borders. Guess what? The Democrats support open borders.
"If you want to really get a handle on the coronavirus, shut the border, stop airplane flights from China, stop airplane flights from where we know this virus has infected a lot of people. If we're serious about it - how much money does that take? It doesn't take that much money, and it certainly doesn't take eight and a half billion dollars. It just takes a little fortitude."
"But guess who would stand up and object to closing the borders? And Trump has already done this with certain airline flights. But I'm talking about the southern border where illegal immigrants and who knows whoever else attempt to get into the country. We've always been vulnerable in this way, be it from weaponized ammo, weaponized guns, now weaponized viruses and who knows whatever else. Our greatest vulnerability is our wide-open border. Shut it down. And you listen to howls of protest from the Democrats. They won't support that and I'm telling you if they don't, then they're not serious about this."
Bernie Sanders Terrible On Issues And Project Veritas Exposes Real Goals: A Stalinist Repression For All Who Disagree
With Nevada and South Carolina primaries coming up, the Democrats have turned on their rising star Mayor Bloomberg, which essentially left alone, Bernie Sanders' continued rise toward the Democrat nomination.
It could be that when the standard liberal Democrats wake up that they are running a carpetbagging Socialist-Marxist who is campaigning on insane ideas that if implemented, would insure the decline of America.
Just to remind you, raise taxes to reduce income inequality so if you make more than $63,179 watch out; cancel all student debt regardless of your wealth with cost to government of $1.6 trillion, Housing for All, rent control, and new 25% House Flipping Tax for selling rental property within 5 years of purchase - cost $2.5 trillion, eliminate the electoral college, felons vote while in jail, ban fracking everywhere, so long oil and gas independence, universal free meals in schools regardless of income - cost $19.6 billion a year. Medicare for All will eliminate the private health insurance sector, cost $32.6 trillion over ten years, eliminate criminal prosecution for illegal entry into the United States or open borders, a Green New Deal which ends the energy industry as we know it and will cost between $50-90 trillion over ten years, free college - cost $47 billion a year, eliminate medical debt for all Americans - cost $81 billion, Jobs for All, with a federal jobs guarantee - cost $543 billion a year; and of course, abortion without limits, slash defense spending because the world is a safe place and finally, more taxes on financial trades, special taxes on the "wealthy," and increase the capital gains tax rates.
This is just a small scary sample. So now to Project Veritas. They talked to field organizers in Iowa, they were self-described communists (Martin Weissgerber, an Anarcho-Communist and Kyle Jurak) and who said "four of the organizers in Iowa were further left than Democratic socialists."
The discussion went further out there when Mr. Jurak said what would happen if Bernie is not nominated:
"If Bernie doesn't get the nomination or it goes to a second ballot at the DNC convention ..., Milwaukee will burn," Jurak said. "The cops are going to be the ones who'll get ... beaten in Milwaukee. They're going to call out the National Guard for that (excrement). I promise you that. It'll start in Milwaukee and when the police push back on that, other cities will start ..."
"And if Sanders wins the Democratic nomination and defeats Donald Trump, Jurak promised more violence for those who refused to be "re-educated," which he said was Sanders' ultimate goal.
"Germany had to spend billions of dollars re-educating their ... people to not be Nazis," Jurak said. "We're probably going to have to do the same ... thing here. That's kind of what Bernie's whole, like, 'Hey, free education for everybody because we're going to have to teach you to not be a ... Nazi.'"
The re-education they suggest would include concentration camps.
"There's a reason Joseph Stalin had gulags, right?" he said. "Not only to remove people who were insidious to the state from the state - like, 'Hey, you guys are all causing problems. You're, like, working against the revolution. We're just going to remove you and put you in Siberia, where you can learn the ... value of, like, being a comrade.' That's what it has to be."
We could go on and on. Go to the Project Veritas website at www.projectveritas.com and read in horror what a Sanders administration would do to our nation.
Unfinished Tax Reform, How Inflation Still Increases Your Taxes
While the Trump tax reform provided a nice boost to the economy there is still unfinished business. Specifically, all our taxes are NOT indexed for inflation, which is bad. This needs to change. No more unvoted for tax increases.
- Income levels for Social Security benefits.
- A number of homeowner tax benefits erode with inflation.
- The $10,000 limit on state and local tax deductions enacted in the 2017 law also isn't indexed for inflation.
- Inflation indexing isn't applied to the amount of tax-free gain on the sale of a principal residence.
- The most egregious is the $3,000 limit on net long-term capital losses that can be deducted against other income. That limit hasn't changed since 1978.
TCR Comment: Thanks to Bob Carlson's Retirement Watch for critical information on automatic federal tax increases, all of them need to be indexed for inflation.
Where Is The Bail Reform We Were Promised? By Ken W. Good Board of Directors, Professional Bondsmen of Texas
Whatever happened to bail reform? At what point did the train derail? What we see happening in Harris County and New York State cannot be considered a viable or reasonable approach to reforming the current system. Instead, both employ a similar model whereby defendants are released with a free PR bond or no bond at all.
Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht promised we would be safer if we released the low-level grandmas from jail, but the reality is quite different. The new faces of bail reform are those of career criminals gaming the system for their own benefit. For example, Charles Barry has been convicted of six felonies and 87 misdemeanors, while also missing 21 court appearances. After being arrested for the 139th time, he was quoted as saying "Bail reform, it's lit!" and "You can't touch me! I can't be stopped!" along with "I'm famous! I take $200, $300 a day of your money...You can't stop me!"
Another poster child is Alex Guajardo of Pasadena, who was arrested and charged with a DWI-second offense, then released on a PR bond. A month later, he was arrested for assault-family violence against his wife, Caitlynne. He was released again on a PR bond and a protective order was issued for Caitlynne. Days later, Alex was arrested once more for capital murder after murdering his wife and unborn child. Guajardo told investigators that he intentionally stabbed his wife's stomach so that no one else could raise his child. A short time later, he was again given new general order PR bonds and would have been released one more time but for the capital murder charge that finally authorized detention.
The bail reform that was promised versus what we are actually getting are vastly different. The current attempts at reform may have started with a noble intent, but the reality is endangering public safety and is causing an increase in crime. Simply giving everyone a "get out of jail free card" is not reform. Can we please go back to the drawing board before more people are hurt or killed?
Ken W. Good graduated from Hardin Simmons University in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree & received a Master of Education Degree in 1986 from Tarleton State University. In 1989, he received his law degree from Texas Tech School of Law. Mr. Good has argued cases before the Supreme Court of Texas, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, along with numerous courts of appeals. Mr. Good is married and has two daughters.
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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-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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