Hard Hitting Conservative Commentary by Gary M. Polland

Thoughts This Fortnight

THREE KEY HARRIS COUNTY RACES

By Gary Polland, Editor-in-Chief

Are you (if you are a voter in Harris County [Houston] Texas) tired of the corruption (housing built next to a toxic waste site), the Harris County Health Department head (making $350,000 a year and holding another six-figure job in California) which is a tip of the scandal and the elevate strategies scam. Are you tired of the failing infrastructure and wasted funds everyone? Are you tired of the soft on crime attitudes that permeate the Democratic County officials?

You have a choice – well-qualified Mike Knox for Sheriff, Dan Simons for District Attorney.

Send a message to the other high tax, big spending Democrats like Lina Hidalgo and Rodney Ellis (up for election in a heavily gerrymandered district) that the voters have had enough of the fraud, waste, payoffs, incompetence and criminal activity.

EVEN LEFTIST MEDIA IN ESSENCE SAYS V.P. HARRIS IS A BIG TIME FLIP-FLOPPER

The September 6, 2024 article in the left-leaning Axios on Kamala Harris’ media strategy is eye opening, Alex Thompson and Mike Allen list nine areas in which Harris has shifted views” from for to who knows and her current policy is unknown. Here they are:

1. Banning plastic straws

2. Outlawing new gas-powered cars by 2035; a mandate for automakers to only make electric and hydrogen vehicles by 2023

3. Banning fracking because of concerns over global warming and potential water contamination

4. Mandatory “assault weapons” buyback program for assault weapons as part of her gun safety agenda

5. Decriminalizing border crossings from a criminal offense to a civil one

6. Reparations for slavery which many progressives argued for during the 2020 primary

7. Building a wall on the Southwest border, a defining Trump promise that many Democrats have fought (was against it, now supports the February Senate immigration bill, which includes wall funding)

8. A federal jobs guarantee that was part of her Green New Deal proposal

9. Medicare for All (abolishing private health insurance) which she embraced in her first year as Vice-President

Note – So why the possible shifts? Political expediency. Harris has not commented on any of the issues – her alleged current positions all come from statements by unnamed campaign staffers and surrogates, so we do not know where she stands. Harris tells us her principles have not changed. TCR guesses we have to elect her to find out. That’s really scary.

AMBUSH

From Friend of TCR – American Values Leader Gary Bauer

The degree to which the U.S. media is merely a “subsidiary” of the American political left was on full display on Tuesday, September 10. Donald Trump had to debate Kamala Harris, as well as ABC News moderators Linsey Davis and David Muir.

Please read the lies and half-truths by Kamala Harris that they totally ignored by biased ABC News moderators while they “fact-checked” former President Trump at least seven times. Adding insult to injury, the fact checks were wrong!

VP Harris Claims: Trump wants a national abortion ban.

Fact: He has repeatedly said that since Roe has been overturned, the issue should be decided at the state level. It is Harris who wants a federal ban on the “right-to-life.” She has endorsed federal legislation that will nullify pro-life laws in 20 states.

VP Harris Claims: Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression.

Fact: In January 2021, unemployment was 6.4% lower than the 10% it hit under Barack Obama.

VP Harris Claims: There are no U.S. active-duty troops in any combat zone anywhere around the world for the first time this century.

Fact: U.S. troops are deployed in Iraq and Syria and have frequently been attacked by Iran sponsored militias. Sailors serving in the Middle East are regularly under missile and drone attacks from the Houthi terrorists, and others.

VP Harris Claims: Trump wants a 20% sales tax.

Fact: This is a complete lie. He does not support a sales tax. He wants tariffs on foreign countries that have high tariffs on U.S. made products. His goal is to force those nations to treat U.S. manufacturers fairly. If they lower their tariffs, we will lower ours.

VP Harris Claims: Trump threatened a “blood bath” if he is not elected in November.

Fact: He used the phrase “blood bath” to clearly describe the damage that would be done to the U.S. car industry if Biden or now Harris wins the election. The context is absolutely clear, yet Harris repeats this lie over and over.

VP Harris Claims: Trump called neo-Nazis in Charlottesville “really fine people.”

Fact: This lie has been debunked dozens of times, even by the liberal Washington Post.

VP Harris Claims: Trump plans to implement the ideas in Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation project.

Fact: The project has some good ideas, but it is not Trumps’ second-term agenda, which he has made clear multiple times.

VP Harris Claims: Trump promised to be a dictator on day one.

Fact: Complete lie! I was watching the interview that this quote was taken from. It was said with sarcasm in a joking back and forth with Sean Hannity on Fox.

VP Harris Claims: Trump has disparaged our fallen troops. This is a reference to the false claim that Trump, at Normandy, called World War II dead soldiers “suckers & losers.”

Fact: A complete, disgusting fabrication. Every person traveling with Trump at the time said it was false. Yet Biden, and now Harris, repeat it. In fact, both Biden and Harris have disparaged our military with their disgraceful treatment of the Gold Star families of the American heroes who died during the ill-conceived retreat from Afghanistan.

TCR comment: Trump was debating not just Harris, who he easily handled, but the so-called moderators and an entire television network. Not close to fair and the big loser is the leftist complacent media.

EDITORIAL CARTOON OF THE WEEK

AMERICA AT A TIPPING POINT

By Brian Ettinger, Guest Columnist

America is at a tipping point and if we elect the wrong set of leaders our country will never recover from these mistakes. 

Our country has gone through a Civil War, World Wars, civil unrest, economic depressions and recession, epidemics and pulled together to get through these situations.  But now we are at the tipping point because of all the division, hatred, lack of respect for each other and our views and compassion to a point of no return. The social and moral fabric of our society, because of political strife, misinformation, social media and media bias has led to the current violence and lack of intelligence in our society.  We depend on social media for our news, and they are so biased that they do not present fair and accurate information.

The time for real leadership is now. Not sure if any of our major candidates or political parties or our elected leaders are capable of not leading us to a world war as the world is on fire. The Russia Ukraine war continues with no good outcome, the Middle East is about to explode, and all these terrorist groups need to be addressed. The U.S. is letting in all these non-veTted individuals that cause harm and bring illnesses to our country through our unsecured borders. This is a perfect storm ready to explode. 

Real leadership is needed, and this means using direct preemptive intervention by our U.S. Military and taking out these terrorist groups that are funded by Iran organized criminal gangs. We have let this problem happen since Iran took our Embassy employees hostage. We showed weakness from 1979, in Benghazi, Liberia killed our U.S. Ambassador, and the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan that killed 13 brave individuals and left billions of dollars of military equipment.  The Taliban just had a parade showing off our military equipment which our current administration says was not usable.

We finally need to use our might and take out these groups and change the U.S. position of appeasement to a fighting force and rid the world of these fanatics. This has gone on too long, and the U.S. needs to act like a Superpower. Unfortunately, our current choices are poor, but Trump is the better choice as at least he tried during his previous four years to show the U.S. might and the world was a safer place. Maybe in the future we can elect real leaders that are not controlled by the media, social media and the unelected bureaucrats.

We need to take the money out of the political process, get rid of all Political PACs, limit campaign funding and punish the social and media companies that put out false information like the Hunter Laptop story being Russian interference in the election. This turned out to be totally false and was a direct election interference so prosecute these individuals and companies. A civil fine is not enough. The 51 so-called intelligence leaders who sign off on the Hunter Laptop letter should all be prosecuted so this does not happen again or at least by publicly displayed as morons they are for biased political reasons. It does not matter if your view is liberal, conservative or independent, this should be a wakeup call that these individuals, former government officials, the media and social media companies need to be accountable.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

Join Us for a Fundraising Reception Supporting Republican Candidates for the 1st and 14th Courts of Appeals

Tuesday, October 8
5:30pm – 7:00pm

Perry’s
1997 W. Gray
Houston, 77019

RSVP Jessica Colón, 713-256-4069 or [email protected]

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-eighth year of editing a newsletter dealing with key conservative and Republican issues. For the last twenty-three years, he has edited the Texas Conservative Review. As a public service for the previous 20 years, Gary has published election guides for the GOP primary, general elections, and city elections, all to assist 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 and for the last two-plus years Gary has been a regular commentator on Fox 26-Houston’s “What’s Your Point” airing Sunday’s at 7 a.m. 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.