Whew! And, this is just a partial list.

The big one was, of course, the response to Covid. From the decision to "lockdown" came many of our economic woes.

The state and federal governments' Covid response severely damaged civil liberties by quarantining the healthy rather than the sick, failed to "flatten the curve" in a time frame close to that proposed, ignored normal protocols for the safety and efficacy of vaccines, completely overstated both the effectiveness of vaccines and masks, failed to diligently pursue treatments, distorted the labor markets and the economy in general, and failed to investigate the origins of the virus, regardless of where that investigation would take us.

On the educational front, the most recent The Economist simply says "Covid learning loss has been a global disaster" and that new data shows it "far worse than anyone expected."

In addition, there has been a failure to investigate conflicts of interest among federal health officials and their financial ties to government-regulated pharmaceutical companies.

One of the "bipartisan" measures touted by both parties was the Paycheck Protection Program or PPP.

You might remember these were non-collateralized loans, with no recourse, extended to small businesses (fewer than 500 employees) to offset the effect of the "lockdown." In a sense, it was justified because it was the government that was putting companies out of business and creating huge layoffs.

For a government program, it was developed and executed quite rapidly, barely three weeks after the emergency for the Wuhan virus was declared.

Initiated under Trump in March of 2020, most of the "loans" were forgiven by Biden by June 2022.

This and other handout programs drastically increased money in circulation. Unlike Quantitative Easing which bolstered banks' reserves (which stayed mostly within the banking system), this and other programs just handed out newly created money to the public in general. This is largely responsible for the inflation crisis and acculturating the public to expect direct payments from the government.

Moreover, the program itself was grotesquely inefficient. A new study has found that while it did save some jobs (jobs that would not have needed saving if the government had not adopted lockdown), it did so with great waste.

A new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis finds that it cost between $169,000 to $258,000 to save a job that average $58,200.

The authors of the study concluded it cost taxpayers about $4 for every $1 in "saved" jobs.

Besides this miserable outcome, the study found that 72% of PPP funds went to households in the top 20% of income. In short, it was a massive handout to the rich and affluent. This simply exacerbated further the problem of income inequality.

Well, you could say, this is what happens in emergencies. But it was the government (mostly public health officials) that created the emergency. Further, it appears that government-funded programs gave birth to the virus itself!

Covid deaths were concentrated among the very elderly and those with co-morbidities, often two or more. There has never been any real threat to the great majority of workers or small businesses.

Even if there was a threat to the general population, you have to wonder if government SBA loans and bolstering the use of unemployment insurance would not have been a less wasteful way to handle the problem. Spending $4 to save $1 makes little sense.

Moreover, many small businesses "saved" are never coming back. It has been estimated that some 60% of businesses that were closed during lockdown are not coming back.

It was a monumental waste and failed in the end to save a huge swath of small businesses.

This is the downside to the "never let a crisis go to waste" mentality of those of both political parties in Washington, DC.

Often programs are ill-conceived, wasteful, set terrible precedent, and are difficult to repeal.

About the only good thing about this program that can be said, is that it ended in fairly short order.

This raises a very interesting macro question: given the string of errors made by our government leaders and corporate elites, why does a large segment of the population still insist that government programs, using compulsion and public money, are the way to solve complex problems?

Given how opinion is divided on this issue, the reaction to that headline will either be there are too many to count or nothing the committee does is dangerous because Trump is the real danger. There are lots of reasons to question the committee, however one stands out, but you must dig deep.

I recently had lunch with a friend who is of a different political persuasion. We did not discuss politics except for him asking me two binary questions. One was whether I was watching the hearing. The simple answer was no. The answer produced a bodily reaction from him but elicited no follow-up questions.

I spoke to him the next day and told him I thought his questions were inadequate because he had not asked for further definition of my thoughts. He blamed me for not offering more information even though I answered his questions as posed. We then discussed my thoughts on both matters.

There are many reasons to have disdain for the J6 committee, but it starts with how it was conceived. We all know that Nancy Pelosi rejected Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's selections for two people to serve on the committee. This broke long standing House rules. Of course, Nancy had an excuse as she always does. I recently saw a recording of her saying it. Nancy and her friends like the President do not believe recordings of their statements will be kept. "The unprecedented nature of January 6th demands this unprecedented decision," was her statement. As Daniel Henninger stated in his WSJ column this week, "For progressive Democrats, every waking moment is Armageddon." We ended up with a committee who have the same views and the same mission.

Most Americans have never been near a courtroom, even to sit on a jury. Yet, they instinctively believe we have a system of justice that is unparalleled in the world. It is inscribed in our Constitution through the Bill of Rights. It goes astray at times. We are all unhappy with some verdicts, but we believe it works. That system of justice provides the accused many protections to best assure that if they are found guilty of the charges presented, they are guilty. That is why we offer them an attorney if they cannot afford one of their own.

To get my friend to understand the problem I painted him a picture. I asked him if he was a Michael Connelly fan. Connelly is a great author of law-and-order type novels featuring two main characters: Harry Bosch, a cop, and Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer. Hollywood needs product and finally discovered Connelly, thus developing both characters into series.

The Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix perfectly exemplifies why matters such as those presented by the J6 Committee need two sides of the argument.

Without revealing any of the story line, for the first seven episodes the prosecution made the person charged look guilty. Then in the eighth Mickey Haller, the defense attorney, destroys the prosecution's case. He brings forward that the prosecution did not look for alternative facts. What a perfect metaphor for why the J6 Committee is not only errant in its methods, but purposefully deceptive in their presentation to America.

When I asked my friend's response to this vis-à-vis the J6 Committee, he responded "They are simply presenting the facts." This red-blooded American is willing to toss aside the Bill of Rights, something he would never allow if he were accused, because he too believes like Nancy in the "unprecedented nature of January 6th".

Think of the worst evil you can - the Nazis. They had defense attorneys at the Nuremberg Trials. We did not have show trials for them, so why would we have one in America? The problem is my friend is not the only person who believes "They are simply presenting the facts."

The most recent "alarming" testimony came from Cassidy Hutchinson, whose White House stature was raised to being an indispensable aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. She had been interviewed four times, but suddenly, a special hearing day was set, and she got glorious reviews. The MSM christened her a national heroine - a modern-day Rosa Parks. The problem is no one asked her questions other than Liz Cheney, the woman she hugged at the end of the hearing.

We now know questions about her testimony generally but specifically the most inflammatory aspects became known promptly after the conclusion of the proceedings. Ask yourself this: For the past six years everything Donald Trump did was under a microscope. If he farted, it became a national incident. The career staffers in the Executive branch leaked negative information about him and his key people akin to the Johnstown Flood. The MSM carried all of it and amplified it to the highest decibel. Yet Trump supposedly reached over from the back of the Presidential limousine and wrestled with a Secret Service agent to commandeer the vehicle on January 6th, and we did not hear a peep about it for nearly eighteen months? Have we really become that gullible? Do these people hate Trump that much that they will believe any fairy tale brought forth about him?

As you know, this "sensational" story was disavowed by the agents on the scene who stated they would appear under oath to annihilate this fable.

They had already been interviewed, but Ms. Cheney chose to ignore their testimony. Then the second huge revelation of the conversation with the White House Counsel Pat Cipollone fell by the wayside. Ms. Hutchinson stated (talking about January 6th), "I saw Mr. Cipollone right before I walked out onto West Exec that morning, and Mr. Cipollone said something to the effect of 'please make sure we don't go up to the Capitol.'" The problem is multiple staffers have stated Cipollone was not at the White House that morning, something that was easily verifiable by logs. Hutchinson apparently made that up as well.

We unfortunately don't know whether her statement was true because Cipollone was interviewed this past week behind closed doors. Based on the history of the Committee anything that becomes public will only be information that is derogatory to Trump. I don't know what your thoughts are, but I will have no faith in anything leaked from those interviews.

I fault my friend for falling for this, but there are many more "informed individuals" who have done so. Andrew Sullivan, one of the smartest columnists around and an avowed Never Trumper, wrote glowingly of Cheney and Hutchinson, ignoring that one of them did not allow the witness to be cross-examined and the other was not cross-examined and invented stories as she went along. Of course, Peggy Noonan, a WSJ columnist, who does not believe there have been any decent Republicans since Ronald Reagan, ignored due process rights and our Constitution and joined the Hutchinson fan club.

When Americans believe that we can have Congressional committees make presentations like this and say "they are just presenting the facts" we have come to a point where our Constitution is in danger. The First and Second Amendments are essential, but the single most important recurring theme of the Bill of Rights is no one will be tried without a fair trial. Apparently, a broad swatch of America does not need those safeguards; they just need "the facts."

TCR Editor Gary Polland returns to Fox 26 Houston this Sunday, July 24th, on What's Your Point? hosted by Greg Groogan. The show will be a wide ranging discussion of current political issues. As always, Gary will bring a reasoned conservative viewpoint to the show. Just tune in at 7:00 am live, YouTube it, set your DVR or go to:
https://www.fox26houston.com/.

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.

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-one 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 also for 20 years cohosted 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.