Clearly, we made a big mistake. Now the question is, can we survive the 37 months until we can elect a President who cares first about our country?

Co-Panelist on "What's Your Point?" and independent Bill King and Fox 26's Greg Groogan, have uncovered the latest in a long line of scandals and corruption emanating from the Harris County Commissioner's Court Democratic majority.

The corrupt politicians responsible are Lina Hidalgo, Adrian Garcia, and Rodney Ellis, who as King stated:

"Several weeks ago, Harris County Commissioners Court awarded a nearly $11 million contract to Elevate Strategies, LLC to do ‘vaccine research' in Harris County. Elevate Strategies is owned by Felicity Pereyra. It does not appear that it had any employees at the time of the award and apparently is operated out of an apartment in Montrose in this complex."

"According to Ms. Pereyra's LinkedIn page, she has zero public health experience. Rather, since getting her BA in History from UH, she has spent almost her entire career as a Democratic operative, including stints with the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the mayoral campaign of Adrian Garcia, who voted for her contract.

"The Request for Proposals set out a litany of requirements, many of which Elevate Strategies patently does not meet, such as being in business for a minimum of three years. The County Purchasing Department has confirmed to Groogan that it was directed to waive some of the requirements for Elevate Strategies, including providing financial information.

"When questioned about Elevate Strategies' obvious lack of qualifications, Hidalgo, with a straight face, defended the selection saying that running a vaccination campaign is the same as running a political campaign. What an insult to the intelligence of Harris County residents.

"The contract is to be funded from grants doled out by the federal government. To put $11 million of taxpayer money in some perspective, the average family in the US pays about $15,000 in income each year. That means that all of the income tax paid by about 700 families this year will go to funnel this money into Ms. Pereyra's company.

"Hidalgo came into office promising a new era of ethics and ‘best practices' in county government. Instead, she has presided over some of the worst corruption in the history of Commissioners' Court. In nearly three years, she has still done absolutely nothing to resolve the high-profile case of the county spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money to store a private art collection."

TCR Comment: And this scandal and corruption involved are just the tip of the iceberg. We will have more to come in future issues. By the way did you read the Houston Chronicle coverage? No, me either as they enable corruption in Harris County, Texas. Now if it was Republican corruption, do you think they would cover it?

In 2011 I was in Pakistan and met with the Spiritual Leader of the Taliban in Quetta, Pakistan, which is Pakistan's largest city nearest the border with Afghanistan. Coastal Energy owned and operated a power plant in Quetta and would hire the local Taliban to protect it as it supplied gas powered energy to this region. In my meeting with this Spiritual Leader (an educated and trained ophthalmologist from the UK) he informed me the U.S. and Western Nations did not have the will to stop them from having their Crescent region of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir region of India, which is well over 300 million people. This very well educated individual told me it does not matter if this happens in his lifetime, or the lifetime of his sons or grandsons but that the U.S. and Western Nations could not stop this from happening because it is their destiny and they will have their Muslim rules with their views and laws over this region of the world. It only took 10 years for the Taliban to regain control in Afghanistan and western areas of Pakistan, which are all tribal regions. This will cease education of women, modern life, human rights and a society governed by a system of laws recognized by the international nations that protects the rights of Afghan citizens. By the weak exit of the U.S., the Taliban now controls and has access to U.S. bases, technology, weapons, vehicles and a story to do more recruitment that they beat the mighty U.S. Military establishment. I am not saying it was not time for the US. to exit after 20 years but the manner in which we exited caused total instability in this region and lead to the U.S. spending close to $1 trillion dollars and the loss of almost 4,000 U.S. service personnel, contractors, and 50,000 Afghan soldiers without a free and democratic regime in Afghanistan. This investment by the U.S. and its allies now has a country run by terrorists, drug dealers, arms dealers and has no good objectives other than to kill and imprison its people. You will read that the lives of the U.S. military personnel were not in vain as the U.S. did not have another 9/11 on U.S. territory. This is crap, as long as we had a presence there with military bases to keep the Taliban in check. Now we will have a territory full of fanatics that have access to our weapons, technology and plot attacks on the U.S., Europe or U.S. foreign assets. The only good outcome is now knowing where they will be located and can try to isolate them in their banking, drugs and weapon activities. Cutting them off from uncivilized countries such as Iran, North Korea and terrorists' groups will be harder because of a lack of real intel. Our military and intelligence leadership is weak and should be replaced as well as the current government leadership. Both parties, Democrats and Republicans are equally responsible over the last 20 years. So we will try diplomatic efforts with the UN passing meaningless resolutions, giving the Taliban money, food and medical assistance to buy them off and recognize them as the legitimate government of Afghanistan and this will fail. Then civilized countries will try to isolate them but Russia and China will see Afghanistan with its vast mineral resources and will be willing to deal with them. The U.S. will realize my suggested solution is the only course of action.

Once they refuse to give safe passage to the Americans and other Western nations' citizens, kill, kidnap or plan and execute an attack on the U.S. and its allies, the U.S. needs to authorize and the use of tactical nuclear weapons strategically dropped to limit fallout and solve this world problem since the Taliban only respects brute force. I hate the loss of any human life, but no more loss of U.S. lives, no more buying off the Taliban and seeing the Afghan people suffer under this rule and just giving lip service. Using these tactical nuclear weapons, Russia, China, North Korea and Iran will think first before they act up with their aggressive actions. The U.S. needs to act like the world superpower it was. We need real leadership with a set of balls like President Harry Truman and not only did he drop one bomb, but two, to get the Japanese to surrender. Do this and their Crescent region will not become a reality. The U.S. tried for 20 years to prop up a corrupt series of governments and the Taliban has always been in the background in the tribal areas, and they became a part of the Afghan army and trained by the U.S. military and left to go back to the Taliban. They have been fighting for thousands of years and are a very formidable fighting force. Now they have control over the entire country, next to Iran and Pakistan so we created this monster. We never learned from history going back to Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and his son Kublai Khan or the Russians. These are tribal lands, and nobody ever conquered Afghanistan. Now we created the same situation as we did in Vietnam after the French got their ass kicked out. The U.S. does not need to build up nations, so address the immediate threat and take care of it, so it does not happen again. The money we spent, and lives lost would not be in vain. We need to honor these fallen heroes and use tactical nuclear weapons to send them swiftly to their god. War is hell and innocent people always die. If someone has a better plan then let me know, but until then stop feeling bad, quit giving lip service and take action as we need to rid the world of these fanatics. America needs to find its will again to act with defined objectives and goals. Lastly, President Biden needs to fire his Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, who is a village idiot, Secretary of Defense and the Generals and bring in a new team that is qualified and listen to them.

There is a constant discussion in the public arena about the "Elites." While recently reading the thoughts of Thomas Sowell, I had a clear analysis session on what makes these people Elite. What qualifies someone as such, and why do we even refer to anyone in the American society as such?

Everything begins somewhere and the Elite began with a professor of sociology at Columbia University named C. Wright Mills. Professor Mills wrote a book, The Power Elite, which first defined the term which became shortened to the one-word definition for conversational convenience. The book describes the responsibilities of certain individuals in post-World War II America. He defines the relationships among the political, military, and economic elite suggesting that they share a common world view. He states power rests in the hands of the elites of American society.

The idea of Elites has evolved immensely since 1956 when Mills first defined the concept. So much so that if he were alive today, I doubt he would recognize his theory as defined within American society.

For example, the educational elite. In 1956, there was a small group of people that achieved the status of having a PhD. Even so Mills did not include educational elites in his original definition, but today though achieving PhD status has been dumbed down, there are now many people referred to as Elites among the largely over-educated class.

As the proliferation of doctorate degrees at even "Elite" universities has become commonplace, somehow the individuals who obtain these degrees are described as part of the Elite. As opposed to the rigors of obtaining a PhD in what we have come to call STEM studies, we now have degrees handed out in university departments where the value of the degree is only to perpetuate the studies within the narrowly defined educational departments which offer the degrees. Which means you do not have to display a particularly high level of scholarship to obtain the doctorate; you just must show a willingness to preserve the limited scope of education being defined by the existing establishment. Then you write some diatribes for publications that are dedicated to sustaining the existence of this meaningless pursuit, and you are now pronounced as part of the Elite. An award by some falsely important but highly slanted organization is soon to follow to further validate your worthiness.

Hollywood Elites are another part of this faction that is often referred to by the media. This is a fascinating element of the current Elite. These celebrities are in fact the more successful actors by having made a greater amount of money and thus can write checks. So, what exactly makes them Elite? Many in Hollywood today have no qualms with sounding off on their political views. Since the in-vogue position to take for almost everyone in Hollywood is lurching Left to be as Woke as possible, who is listening to these people?

Then there is the question of who among these people are stars that can put people in the seats? How many are Cary Grants and Audrey Hepburns? Tom Cruise is still a legit movie star and Chadwick Boseman seemed to on the cusp of being one until his untimely death. Today in Hollywood we have the "Chrises" – Pine, Pratt, Hemsworth and Evans. All worthy in their own right but tell me which movies each one made without confusing them. These people are not worthy of being referred to as Elite except among the MSM who are even more to the Left than these Hollywood players.

Another part of what are considered the Elite are politicians. How did we come to this point where our elected officials have become part of a "superior" class? There is a wide berth between respecting our elected officials and thanking them for their service and them becoming Elites who are exempt from our day-to-day obligations and treated as a special stratified class.

Our elected officials have made themselves into a protected Elite group. A few years back (Los Angeles Mayor) Eric Garcetti was visiting our synagogue for High Holiday services. We have had a multitude of politicians join us for services over the years including Gray Davis who has attended before, during and after his Governorship. Each elected official entered through the main entrance and acted as a normal person while attending services. Garcetti had an entire security team that insisted he enter through a back way as if anyone really cared he was there. This was before he destroyed the streets of the city with homeless people littering every freeway underpass.

Many of our elected officials now act as if they are a special class of citizen. Few act as if they are people of the people. The more they act as if they are Elite, the less they are thought of as Elite.

The Elite - as described by Professor Mills - earned their level of respect. Today the Elite are granted such by an adoring media because those Elite validate their Left-wing values.

This is America where all citizens are created equal and remain equal. We should remember that on this most cherished of our days as free Americans. Again think of people who were truly Elite; Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton and others.

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 has recently undertaken the hosting duties on a new interview show, Tell It Like It Is. The show is available at American Star TV and at its YouTube Channel. Currently on hiatus.

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 September, better than ever.

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.