We are about 23 months and counting before the 2018 elections. In Texas, these elections will reestablish GOP domination statewide, hopefully, but the major questions are Harris County (Houston) and to a lesser extent, Fort Bend County.

If the pattern of 2016 continues, the GOP will be essentially on its way out for a decade or more.

The problem now is that the DCCC is staffing up with operatives to do political organizing in 20 key Republican held districts including Texas, CD 7 - Represented by John Culberson. The Democrats in the heart of Harris County have never stopped campaigning. The seat could be in danger given the Harris County Republican Party's inept efforts in 2016 and the fact that there seems to be no learning curve to fix the errors of 2016.

What is Chairman Simpson's answer to our disaster in 2016? Three months later, essentially nothing but continue the same failed campaign plan (phone banks, regional headquarters, and, above all, as demonstrated in last week's Executive Committee meeting), no questions are to be entertained about the November 2016 debacle.

If you study the GOP's plight, 2018 will become a critical election and a repeat of 2016, except the top of the ticket and Harris County could be lost for a decade with profound implications for red Texas.

Houston just had the Super Bowl, and it was great for those who attended and for our hotels and restaurants.

Now, the special interests are saying we need to spend money ($400 million?) to be competitive with Miami, LA, Minneapolis, and Atlanta.

Now, TCR likes football, but given all the area's needs: flooding and infrastructure issues, education issues, and pension issues, before we spend more money on sports palaces, maybe we should decide our priorities.

The fact is, NRG is still a very nice stadium that has aged gracefully. However, if the primary tenants who get the naming rights and parking concessions totaling millions yearly want to spend "their" money on upgrades, have at it. The taxpayers already paid once.

We don't know about you, but what is the point of Democrats stalling votes on President Trump's Cabinet and not supporting any of their "moderate" Democrats, except for a handful?

So far, not one of Trump's Cabinet has yet to be confirmed. Although one, Labor, is withdrawing. What Democrats have done is obstruct Trump's ability to govern.

And the mainstream media says Republicans obstructed Obama. We are now at an entirely different level of obstructionism. It's bad for the country with no real point to the Democrats obstructionism.

Remember back in October of 2016 the City Council passed, essentially sight unseen, Mayor Turner's "pension reform" plan? We were told that plan would be presented later to the state's legislators.

Well, it's now mid-February 2017, and no details have been forthcoming as of yet.

It seems that the plan is to present it and ask for votes on a plan not properly vetted. But with watchdogs in Austin like Senator Paul Bettencourt, that's not going to happen.

You've heard all the complaining that there is no voter fraud. To that, TCR says "not so fast."

Per the Heritage Foundation in a 2014 study, an "estimated 6.4% of noncitizens voted illegally in the 2008 presidential election." Moreover, a 2013 poll of noncitizens found that "13% of noncitizen respondents admitted they were registered to vote." If that's not ballot fraud, then what is?

TCR wants to share with you how Dr. Steve Hotze was successful with Jeff Yates doing a 180 with a health condition. Jeff gained a lot of weight on his type 2 diabetes medications, and he had no energy. Watch this segment from Great Day Houston to learn how he got off all his medications and on a path to good health naturally:

Before we get started, let me convey the Bialosky Rule: The more protests and the more screaming and yelling, the better Trump is doing.

Hysteria reigned last weekend over President Trump's executive order (EO) restricting travelers from seven countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Somalia). These countries are located in the Middle East and North Africa. There are a few aspects of this executive order that need to be reviewed.

This is not an attack against Muslim countries. You all know that this is branding by the Left, but not real. There are 46 other majority Muslim countries that were not included in the EO. You probably also know that these countries were designated by the prior presidential administration as countries "of concern."

Let's examine why these countries are considered Muslim countries. Many of them had substantial Jewish populations, but those Jews left in the past 50 to 70 years -- partially because of the creation of Israel and partially to save their lives. A large Iranian-Jewish population settled in America. There are only an estimated 40 Jews left in Yemen. An estimated 900,000 to 1 million Jews were run out of these countries. Would any Jew relocate to these seven countries today? No. Yet many liberal Jews were vociferous in defending people coming from these countries despite the radical anti-Semitism emanating from them.

Then there is the treatment of Christians in these countries. If you review the history of how Christians have been abused in these countries, they followed the Jews out the door. You may not remember all the instances so take some time to review how often Christians have been murdered in these countries for the sin of being Christians.

Unlike most other countries which have Muslim majorities, these countries are Muslim countries because they have run out or killed people of the other major religions in the area. You can put a sign out stating "Jews and Christians not welcome." Yet I am not aware of anyone from these countries marching to stop the actions against Jews or Christians. Very few if any coming to the U.S. from these countries ever cared to act to protect Jews or Christians.

Supposedly now people coming from these nations as refugees have been properly vetted despite the Intelligence Community telling us last year they are unable to assure us of that. That is because these countries are all failed states except for Iran (and that one speaks for itself). You cannot get birth certificates for these people. We know nothing about these refugees other than what they tell us.

Take a look at the unrest over the weekend. There are a lot of questions about the people who arrived here and how they were treated. There were questions about why we would stop people who have green cards. If you are not familiar with that, these are immigrants who legally went through a process to gain the right to work here, usually with the idea they may further the process to become citizens.

Let's forget about the fact that the number of people questioned was a small number of the approximately 500,000 people entering the country from foreign lands in the first 72 hours. A little over 1,000 people who arrived here were questioned and provided waivers to come into our country, while 721 were deferred from coming here before they got on a plane. This is less than .2% of the arrivals and most were held for a very short time. Let's also forget that the crowds out protesting were organized by the same people who were at the Women's March. It was surprising they were all not out there wearing their pink hats. As Secretary Kelly stated, his people knew about the EO, executed the EO and stated "The only chaos they knew of was going on in other parts of the airport."

Let's talk about travel. If you are a regular reader, you know my wife and I are avid world travelers. We sadly have only been to somewhere north of 50 countries. My wife created a business with a blog (Travel with Teri B.) about our travels. We have a list of places to go and have trips planned out into future years. I also encourage my readers to travel because it is the best way to understand the world.

I can say without equivocation that not one of these countries is on our travel plans. Some destinations have interesting history such as Iraq, Iran and Yemen. The only thing I am familiar with that comes out of Somalia is pirates. Do you want to know why we have no plans to travel to these countries? It is because we are not nuts. Plain and simple. They are highly dangerous places. They have many dangerous people living in them. Their governments are either failed or totally belligerent to the civilized world.

Thus, my question would be why do we not have established procedures to intensively screen anyone coming from these countries whether they are American citizens, legal residents or just foreign visitors? Why would anyone visit there? I know some are saying that they went there to visit family. That does not matter to me. These countries do not have stable governments except for maybe Iran, and think of the wonderful people running that country.

I told my brother that if he went to any one of these countries, I would want to know why. I want to know exactly what he did, with whom he met, where he stayed, where he ate, and what he ate. You mean to tell us that under the prior administration you could come and go to these countries without extensive interrogation upon reentry? If that is not proof positive that we needed to revamp our border enforcement what else do you need to know?

Here are some questions for those who erupted over the weekend over the EO travel ban: 1) Would you travel to any of these countries? 2) Would you send a child to visit any of these countries? 3) Do you have concerns about the fact that these countries have either chased out or killed virtually every Jew or Christian from the country? 4) If you are so gung ho for our country to take in refugees from these countries, are you willing to take one of those refugees into your home?

We now have reality about the issue of the travel ban from these seven countries which are certainly among the most dangerous and lawless countries in the world. The only question is why are not a few more countries on the list?

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 sixteen 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.