As a working trial lawyer with decades of experience, your Editor understands our judicial system.

The verdict in the Rittenhouse case is not guilty, but in reality it means for the State it did not meet its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, in other words, not proven. The jury applied the law to the facts and the prosecution overcharged and had a weak case.

The verdict had zero to do with should Rittenhouse have been in Kenosha, with a gun, or why the three people shot had criminal and/or mental health records, or why did the local police, handicapped by reckless Wisconsin politicians, fail to control the violent rioting and property destruction.

The Woke left media, social media and clueless politicians like Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, have totally blown what happened and why.

Ellis could not resist the temptation to inject race where race was irrelevant as everyone involved was Anglos! He actually issued a press release on November 19, 2021. Ellis has become one of many reckless politicians who cry race about everything. His comments follow:

"Today's verdict is another sobering reminder of this nation's two-tiered justice system. One that treats a heavily armed white shooter as a child and a victim, while treating actual children of color - like 12-year-old Tamir Rice - as a fully grown man and a threat to be eliminated."

"Kyle Rittenhouse intended to hunt and murder people protesting for racial equality and succeeded by taking the lives of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber.

"Our justice system failed and did not find this slaughter of innocent lives criminal - and sent a murderer home to his family.

"We must find a way to fix this broken system that rewards the radicalization of white men and punishes people of color for simply existing."

He conflates the Tamir Rice case which the U.S. Justice Department declined to bring charges, which is not related, he claims that we have a two-tier justice system, another lie. Ellis is just another Woke leftist who doesn’t believe in our justice system.

Why a new university? President Pano Kanelos explains:

"So much is broken in America. But higher education might be the most fractured institution of all."

"Nearly a quarter of American academics in the social sciences or humanities endorse ousting a colleague for having a wrong opinion about hot-button issues such as immigration or gender differences. Over a third of conservative academics and PhD students say they had been threatened with disciplinary action for their views. Four out of five American PhD students are willing to discriminate against right-leaning scholars, according to a report by the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology.

"The picture among undergraduates is even bleaker. In Heterodox Academy's 2020 Campus Expression Survey, 62% of sampled college students agreed that the climate on their campus prevented students from saying things they believe. Nearly 70% of students favor reporting professors if the professor says something students find offensive, according to a Challey Institute for Global Innovation survey. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education reports at least 491 disinvitation campaigns since 2000. Roughly half were successful.

"On our quads, faculty are being treated like thought criminals. Dorian Abbot, a University of Chicago scientist who has objected to aspects of affirmative action, was recently disinvited from delivering a prominent public lecture on planetary climate at MIT. Peter Boghossian, a philosophy professor at Portland State University, finally quit in September after years of harassment by faculty and administrators. Kathleen Stock, a professor at University of Sussex, just resigned after mobs threatened her over her research on sex and gender.

"Our democracy is faltering, in significant part, because our educational system has become illiberal and is producing citizens and leaders who are incapable and unwilling to participate in the core activity of democratic governance.

"Universities are places where society does its thinking, where the habits and mores of our citizens are shaped. If these institutions are not open and pluralistic, if they chill speech and ostracize those with unpopular viewpoints, if they lead scholars to avoid entire topics out of fear, if they prioritize emotional comfort over the often-uncomfortable pursuit of truth, who will be left to model the discourse necessary to sustain liberty in a self-governing society?

"Our project began with a small gathering of those concerned about the state of higher education - Niall Ferguson, Bari Weiss, Heather Heying, Joe Lonsdale, Arthur Brooks, and I - and we have since been joined by many others, including the brave professors mentioned above, Kathleen Stock, Dorian Abbot and Peter Boghossian.

"We count among our numbers university presidents: Robert Zimmer, Larry Summers, John Nunes, and Gordon Gee, and leading academics, such as Steven Pinker, Deirdre McCloskey, Leon Kass, Jonathan Haidt, Glenn Loury, Joshua Katz, Vickie Sullivan, Geoffrey Stone, Bill McClay, and Tyler Cowen.

"We are also joined by journalists, artists, philanthropists, researchers, and public intellectuals, including Lex Fridman, Andrew Sullivan, Rob Henderson, Caitlin Flanagan, David Mamet, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Sohrab Ahmari, Stacy Hock, Jonathan Rauch, and Nadine Strossen.

"Our backgrounds and experiences are diverse; our political views differ. What unites us is a common dismay at the state of modern academia and a recognition that we can no longer wait for the cavalry. And so we must be the cavalry.

"We believe human beings think and learn better when they gather in dedicated locations, where they are, to some extent, insulated from the quotidian struggle to make ends meet, and where there is no fundamental distinction between those who teach and those who learn, beyond the extent of their knowledge and wisdom.

"We believe that the purpose of education is not simply employment, but human flourishing, which includes meaningful employment. We are therefore also reconceiving the relationship between a liberal education and the demands of our dynamic and fluid professional world.

"Our rigorous curriculum will be the first designed in partnership not only with great teachers but also society's great doers – founders of daring ventures, dissidents who have stood up to authoritarianism, pioneers in tech, and the leading lights in engineering and the natural sciences. Our students will be exposed to the deepest wisdom of civilization and learn to encounter works not as dead traditions but as fierce contests of timeless significance that help human beings distinguish between what is true and false, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. Students will come to see such open inquiry as a lifetime activity that demands of them a brace, sometimes discomfiting, search for enduring truths.

"An education rooted in the pursuit of truth is the antidote to the kind of ignorance and incivility that is everywhere around us. As Frederick Douglass proclaimed: ‘Education ... means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light only by which men can be free."

This is a refreshing reinvention of higher education at its best.

Our friends at the Houston Chronicle can only lament this new college will be a tool of the right wing, ignoring the diverse background and ideology of the founders. Sorry Chronicle, wrong again. There is no woke higher ed to be found here.

This is a worthy cause to support, go to www.uaustin.org.

Did you see the Houston media coverage in the Houston Chronicle (for a change) and Fox 26? Texas is being penalized by the climate provisions of the bill and taxes are raised on the middle class.

The slight-of-hand games by Pelosi, et al., phasing out the programs in the bill is not their real plan, but they have tax increases in the bill that run for 10 years. The fact is the true cost is an incredible $4.9 trillion, of which the majority will be funded by increasing the deficit. Remember government deficit spending fuels inflation.

The largest component of this 2,000+ page ominous bill is raising the state and local tax deduction cap to $80,000 from $10,000 and would cost the county $340 billion in lost revenue.

The Wall Street Journal reported the true cost of this bill is at least $4.6 trillion. They concluded, "When the spending all kicks in, and the rich are all taxed out (after pocketing their giant tax break), the middle class will be hit with a huge tax increase. This is the most dishonest spending bill in American history."

It is not 2018. The so-called moderate nice guy challenger to Senator Ted Cruz created a lot of financial support (a record $80 million) and excitement as Cruz was a Republican, the left loves to hate and he still lost.

Recall that 2018 was a good Democratic year nationwide, 2022 will not be. There is no national Democratic wave, in fact, the opposite appears to be coming.

Robert of course ran for President and tried to "out left" the field. In many ways, he succeeded and won no delegates. With out of touch with Texas positions like support of open borders, amnesty, his advocacy of gun confiscation, support for limiting law enforcement, the Green New Deal, opposing election reform, universal health care (who pays?), abortion up until birth, and supported the catastrophic bail reform in Harris County. You know the one where 200 plus murders were committed by criminals released from the county jail.

All in all, in 2022, O'Rourke will fail in his candidacy and fail in helping down ballot Democrats, which will signal the end of his political career.

Incredibly, the Biden administration abstained on a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution endorsing the misnamed "Rights of Return" for Palestinian refugees to Israel. This demand, if implemented, would result in millions of foreign-born Arabs moving to Israel which would destroy the country. The only Jewish country in the world.

Keep in mind this resolution if implemented would not result in the 320,000 who left during the war of 1948, returning after 73 years, most of which are deceased. So we are talking about children and grandchildren, great grandchildren, which in UN history have never been accorded refugee status.

The other side of the coin is the 800,000 Jews in Middle East and North Africans were driven out of their homes by violence and anti-Jewish program after 1948, most (586,000) were resettled in Israel.

Unfortunately, the Biden team does not know the facts or history or does not care. Throughout recorded history, population resettlement has taken place, especially after wars. This is no different. It's time to end the Palestinian Refugee charade.

We all know how important our schools are and we regularly read about how our children are falling behind compared to many first world countries. Now, when the woke mob is doing its best to change education from reading, writing and arithmetic, to critical race theory, voting for the pro-traditional education candidates is critical.

HISD

Dist V: Caroline Walter

Dist VI: Kendall Baker

Dist VII: Bridget Wade

Bellaire, Texas is a city of homes. Issues have arisen over the last decade that spotlighted problems with the City bureaucracy and loose supervision by the Mayors and City Council men and women.

Most recently, rising debt, a failure to secure beneficial rate discounts on flood insurance, mishandling of zoning rules, zero lot line commercial development, and allowing a parking lot to be built that was never approved.

This year, there is one more chance to elect a reform candidate:

Position 5, Andrea Ehlers.

Biden Out Of Touch - Grrr Graphics

Answer me this question. What are the benefits of being an American citizen? You pay taxes, share your country with illegal immigrants who have more rights and benefits than American citizens. The federal government and the justice system place burdens on American citizens that restrict their freedom. The borders are unsecure and illegal entry is accepted and occurs so easily. The federal government issues mandates that are placed on its citizens, but not the people who break our laws. Therefore, what is the benefit of being an American citizen?

There is a census every ten years that counts the numbers of legal citizens and residents, but not the millions of illegals in our country. Now, President Biden wants to give the illegally separated children whose parents and them entered our country illegally over $400,000, for separating children from their parents. This is rewarding illegal conduct. I feel sorry for these children being separated from their parents but DOJ settlements should not settle these claims. Make the ACLU go to trial and present a case as to reward illegal conduct of entering our country illegally is not any benefit to American citizens and no taxpayer funds should be given; not one cent to fund or settle these cases. It is a sad day in America when a sitting U.S. President bows down to the ACLU. This organization encourages law breaking individuals and should be held criminally responsible under a conspiracy to commit criminal activities. They gave advice to these illegal migrants on how to enter the U.S., what to say to law enforcement officials and get the benefits of being in our country. Since this current federal government has no objection to the millions of illegals in our country with its open borders policy and no venting of illegals, here is an idea to at least know how and where they are. When an illegal enters our country and turns themselves into Customs and Border Patrol, insert a GPS tracking device on them like an ankle brace that would register if removed. That way you can account for them and know where they are when their hearing date comes up in the future. Most of them never show up for the hearing and live in our country entitled to benefits. If you view this suggestion to be absurd then I feel it is more absurd to give these separated children and parents a settlement over $400,000 of U.S. taxpayer funds and reward them for illegally coming into our country. The American people get their day every two and four years and need to vote all these elected officials out of office. There needs to be term limits for all public offices as I have written in many articles before. But we need it now more than ever.

The damage is already done and being an American citizen is a hindrance more than ever before. A solution starts with term limits, revising the public education system to teach English, reading, writing, computer skills, math, science and our legitimate history which has good and bad events. Teach shop courses to train students with a skill they can use. Parents, you need to hear this: NOT EVERY CHILD NEEDS TO GO TO COLLEGE. They need a year after high school to do a mandatory service program like the Peace Corps or other charitable type programs that teach respect and work ethics and get paid by the federal government or earn tuition rebates. Get these children off the couch or internet.

But do not worry, our government will continue to give away your tax dollars as we keep electing the same losers that will make your American citizenship valueless. Then look at our criminal justice system which has become a political partisan system. The law and our Constitution is being held hostage by partisan federal DOJ attorneys, State Attorney Generals and District Attorneys that enforce laws based on a political agenda. They have placed American citizens in a position of either agreeing with their views or being subject to prosecution. This is very dangerous as justice is supposed to be blind. So they are making being an American citizen a burden and not the benefit past generations fought for.

This used to be a self-reliant country. When people suffered either through physical maladies or economic challenges, they turned to their neighbors, community, or religion-based organizations to help them through. The onset of COVID has collapsed the mores of most Americans. Now accepting government help has not only lost its stigma, but it has also become acceptable no matter your economic status.

As you know, initially we were told our economy would shut down for fifteen days. That was a fallacy. Then when the federal government cancelled mandates, many Governors stepped in and elongated the period which put millions of Americans out of work. We were told these rules were saving lives, but the infection spread and will continue to spread and will never go away. It has become endemic. The shutdowns forestalled the inevitable medically but redefined our lives economically.

Governments from the federal level on down determined that, since they were disrupting so many people's lives and cutting off their self-supporting resources, they had to give us handouts. They came in many forms – direct deposits, tax credits, PPP loans, enhanced unemployment benefits and more. There were definitively people in need for a period, but that largely ended a long time ago. Many of the handouts did not.

What we have seen is that people who neither have the need nor in the past would not have taken government handouts have been dipping their toes (some their entire body) into the freebie trough.

To give people the benefit of the doubt, there was a period of uncertainty in the beginning, but did not last for most people. That is because we only had two months of an economic downturn. That is not even close to be an official "recession," defined as two consecutive quarters of an economic downturn, not two months. There are vocations, like performers and actors, who were completely shutdown and only recently able to perform with many still hampered. Most of them are not financially stable enough to endure such a blow to their incomes.

We are not just addressing the people who stayed out of work because of excessive, prolonged unemployment benefits and rental eviction moratoriums. Many of these people took the opportunity to pay off their credit card balances while not meeting their other obligations like their landlords.

We are talking about people who took unemployment benefits when they had spouses still earning significant money. Even if they did not have spouses making money, they had adequate resources to continue their lifestyles without impediment. The government expanded unemployment benefits to self-employed individuals even though they were not part of the insurance system and did not pay into the fund. Otherwise, pure welfare.

There are people who had an excellent year in 2020 due to their PPP loans who went back to the trough and got a second PPP loan or Employment Retention Credits (ERC) in 2021. They took the benefits because there is an attitude today that others are taking the benefits; if I do not, I will be paying for their benefits and losing out. And why not? "Why not" used to be because there was a societal agreement these benefits were only for people in real need. Now it seems most everyone is feeding at the trough.

The state of California decided to add additional freebies instead of using a surplus to pay down debt or keep the money for an inevitable downturn or God forbid return the excess funds to the people who paid the excess taxes. Instead, they decided to provide breakfast and lunch for all students without income limitations in public schools. That concept alone warrants a full analysis, but we will only address a NYT commentary.

The New York Times has a daily column called California Today. On Friday October 1, 2021, it was written by Soumya Karlamangla. When addressing the reason for making every student at public schools eligible for free breakfast and lunch she wrote: "Families also felt stigma. Some had been reluctant to fill out the needed paperwork because they didn't want to rely on government benefits." Stigma? What about, "we don't need help from the government so why take it?" Now every child in a public school has become a ward of the state. Why not keep them around and give them dinner also?

Many of the proposed programs that the Leftists want to add in the $2.0 trillion (or is it $4.0 trillion?) are not income limited like most programs have been in the past. Many of the existing benefit programs have been stripped of work requirements.

The Leftists want to make us dependent on government benefits. It seems virtually everyone is playing along. It has become every person for themselves and damn the country.

When did we become such a selfish, non-self-reliant country?

Gary Polland is now a regular on "What's Your Point?" hosted by Greg Groogan on Fox 26 Houston, appearing every other week. Tune in or set your recorder for 7:00 am Sundays.

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 returns in who knows?

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-sixth year of editing a newsletter dealing with key conservative and Republican issues. The last twenty years he has edited Texas Conservative Review. As a public service for the last 18 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 21st 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.