If you have been breathing the post-primary air from some in the local party leadership and candidates, you know that many think the GOP will lose big in November.

Of course, if you give up you indeed have already lost. To be clear, this contest is just beginning.

If Republicans want to win, it's past time to unite and fight together.

And while we're talking about November, this is a local election not a national one.

If you care about flood control, the runaway homeless crisis, our infrastructure, our out of control property taxes, our declining public services, ensuring quality and experience in our justice system, then it's a local election. Neither President Trump nor Speaker Pelosi are on the ballot, and cannot really impact any of these key issues.

On the countywide tickets in Harris County as of today, the Republicans have 17 minority candidates, 10 Hispanic and 7 African Americans; the Democrats have 14 African Americans and 3 Hispanics. While we're at it, the GOP will have 33 women countywide with a few races still to be decided.

And the Democrats and their allies claim we have a lily white Republican ticket. Facts are stubborn things.

Who doesn't have a diverse, quality ticket? NOT US, WE DO.

Arthur Brooks, Retiring AEI - President Reflections:

"I am in my 10th year as president of the American Enterprise Institute. After a decade promoting this mission, what worries me most today - not for AEI, but for America - is that the competition of ideas is under attack. Many would rather shut down debate than participate in it."

"Politicians from both parties try to discredit their opponents with name-calling and ad hominem attacks. On too many college campuses, people with the 'wrong' viewpoints and ideas are unwelcome. Much of the mass media has become polarized, meaning readers and viewers on the right and left are never challenged in their conviction that the other side is made up of knaves and fools."

TCR Comment: Wow, dynamite comment of what has gone wrong in our political discourse, that we can civilly discuss much of anything anymore. Pathetic.

If you review the Conor Lamb campaign in Pennsylvania; pro-life, pro-tariff, pro-gun and compare that to what the liberals in Texas are running on, they are far to the left of Lamb.

The GOP job; expose them as out of touch, radical leftists running as Democratic challengers to incumbent Congressmen. Different beliefs equal different results, if we do our job.

With all the gun shootings, especially the school shootings, killing many innocent students, and the debate that rages on between gun restriction advocates and the NRA, the Second Amendment protections and gun advocates, nothing is going to be solved in the current political climate. This article is focused on how to make public schools more secure.

First, we need to look at school designs to construct schools to limit the access of entrances and exits. Schools need to be designed with structures of bulletproof windows, steel doors, and limit the number of access entry points, cameras placed on the outside and inside halls and in the classrooms recording real time footage. Each person that enters the school must have an ID and must wear it on them visible at all times so we know who is on the premises. For larger schools we need metal detectors, and all schools need to use clear backpacks for all students. High schools would need to limit the students ability to park and enter school and leave only with permission to return from school administration. Former students or students no longer enrolled because of discipline reasons should not gain access as they have no reason to be on the premises and their school ID's should be revoked.

Larger schools need armed guards or police officers and depending on the number of students needs more security officers with training in use of guns, but also interaction with their students. You cannot have one armed security officer and unarmed guards at these larger schools. I know of many schools in Houston that have over 3,000 students with just one armed officer and three or four non-armed guards. This is an accident waiting to happen.

Designated Teachers should be required to take a course in gun training usage and if they want to carry they should have the ability as long as they notify the administration. Teachers and counselors need to report any student that displays a history of violence or threat of violence and it should be reported to their parents and an incident report should be on record with the local police department to investigate. Parents or legal guardians should be held accountable for their student's actions and if not then students should be kicked out.

Public education is not free education and there are limits of behavior that is acceptable. The federal government can set up a fund to make these changes to schools and pay for the cost associated with the added security. The local school board will decide which security measures to adopt but consider these and any additional changes needed to assure our children's safety.

I have a grandson, and as a grandfather and father of children that attended public school and I am concerned what measures we will have in place to assure my grandson and all other children are safe when they are in school. Parents and grandparents need to know that sending their children to school is secure and these learning centers are for them to reach their full potential. We cannot afford to have one more child killed or injured because of a violent act of another who we claim is mentally ill or the system broke down.

We need to tell our elected leaders to stop with excuses and make these security changes that we all agree need to be done now. Our elected leaders will not address the real issues created by the violence on social media such as rap music, lyrics and video games that our children are exposed to at younger and younger ages. Parents are not teaching children respect and are not monitoring their children's behavior and access to social media and music and blame the system instead of taking responsibility for their children's actions. But that is a topic for another article.

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.

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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-first year of editing a newsletter dealing with key conservative and Republican issues. The last sixteen years he has edited Texas Conservative Review. As a public service for the last 15 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.