No Harris County Republican needs to be reminded of the November 8th debacle where Paul Simpson led the Harris County Republican Party to the worst defeat in HCRP history in which he handed every single office on the countywide ballot to the Democrats.

But if that weren't bad enough, Simpson and company found a way to hand over yet one more seat to the Democrats with a loss in the December 10th runoff election for HISD District VII Trustee. In full disclosure, it was a close race; Anne Sung, the Democrat, beat John Luman by a razor-thin margin of just 27 votes.

But it should not have even been close. This is a seat after all that the incumbent Republican, Harvin Moore, has held for a dozen years before retiring. It is also a seat that sits in the heart of Republican territory, taking in neighborhoods including River Oaks, Briargrove and Memorial where Republicans have traditionally done exceedingly well. This should have been a layup, but ended up another turnover.

Technically, this is a non-partisan race, but the political pedigrees of its contestants were rarely in doubt. In this campaign in fact, Simpson placed the weight of the party behind Luman and pointed out in an e-mail that the Harris County Democrat Party was backing Luman's opponent. Clearly, the HCDP's efforts won the day.

You may remember that Simpson offered a plethora of excuses about the November wipeout, foremost of which was the assertion that Trump was a flawed candidate with a "strong headwind" against the local candidates. This despite Trump's victory across the country, including right here in Texas - outside the areas of Simpson's influence that is. It will be interesting to see the spin Simpson and company put on this latest loss. Perhaps he will continue to blame Trump. Or maybe Santa Claus is to blame. In any case, it is doubtful that Simpson will take any responsibility for what is becoming an ongoing debacle.

One of the complaints of taxpayers is that the Sylvester Turner proposal to save a failing City of Houston pension system is still a secret.

One of the key elements of Turner's pension "plan" is the issuance by the city of $1 billion of pension obligation bonds. This will be the largest general obligation bond in the City of Houston's history. But get this, Turner wants the Legislature to approve the issuance of these bonds and not allow any taxpayer (voter) approval!

We have found a long history in Texas of controlling public debt. We normally vote on city, county, and school district bond issues. No fiscal conservation can possibly support issuing $1 billion in new bonds without voter approval. And any Republican legislator that signs off on this is asking to be voted out of office in the next Republican primary election.

Post-election, we have heard one excuse after another for Hillary's defeat. The biggest is that Vladimir Putin hacked DNC emails to give Trump an advantage.

Come on, as Bruce Thornton said in his recent column, "The Dems' Latest Excuse for Losing" in Frontpage Magazine, "Does Hillary Clinton really want to bring up computer hacking? She violated the law by passing classified materials over an unsecured server, which almost certainly was hacked by several foreign governments, including Russia. Now she wants us to believe that hacking the email chatter of her staffers and dirty-tricks henchmen is more serious and damaging to our national security than what the Russians probably got off her server?"

But yet, they say the Russians affected our election outcome.

Thornton writes, "To believe that, you'd have to believe the leaked chit-chat of the DNC and Hillary's staffers convinced about 100,000 voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan to vote for Trump instead of Hillary. You'd have to believe those voters ignored Hillary's 25 years of lying and money-grubbing, her pay-for-play State Department, her utter lack of any vision or policy prescriptions other than decrepit progressive bromides, her lousy campaign, her questionable health, her lack of trustworthiness, and her intentionally putting national security at risk with her private server, but then balked at her flunkeys' trading snarky gossip and pulling dirty tricks on the Sanders and Trump campaigns. And let's not forget that harping on who hacked the emails or why is not as important as their content--not because they changed the election, but because they revealed the sleazy tactics and sordid chicanery of the holier-than-thou DNC."

Let me tell you what is really going on - the attempt to delegitimize the election of Donald Trump and to make his governing difficult. Here's an idea, let's give Trump a chance to govern. Then, if you don't like it, you can criticize.

Red, White & Blue featuring TCR Editor Gary Polland and liberal commentator David Jones on Fridays at 7:30 pm on PBS Houston Channel 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.

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 nineteenth year of editing a newsletter dealing with key conservative and Republican issues. The last fifteen years he has edited Texas Conservative Review. As a public service for the last 13 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 15th year of co-hosting Red, White and Blue on PBS Houston, longest running political talk show in Texas history. Gary is a practicing attorney and strategic consultant. He can be reached at (713) 621-6335.