Well, we made it, barely, through 2016. And while my prediction that the former President of Metro Garcia would be mayor by famously riding the wave of Adrian Garcia's name ID proved to be incorrect, my prediction that Houston was in for a rough fiscal time of it proved telling. Also accurate was my tongue-in-cheek prediction that an angry Annise would burn hot, and then fade away.
Of course, the reality in 2016 was almost weirder than the fiction I created. We elected a lifetime back-bencher as Mayor of the City, who immediately did what back-benchers do: Kick the can down the road on important issues and talk, a lot. In short, for 2017 I see more of the same. Houston will continue down her spiral of trinket governance and irresponsible spending. Progressives will do their level best to chase "world-classiness" while continuing to try and keep the poor just above water, while enjoying their "white-linen nights" in the Heights and telling us how good they have it.
But, and let's face facts here, 2016 was foul.
Not just bad, but historically bad. Not only were we forcibly exposed to an election campaign that felt like the political equivalent of Ebola, but we had to sit through three Presidential debates where an ape in a suit and the worst political candidate in the history of ever dressed up like the Emperor Palpatine in a pant-suit and then wondered why she wasn't "connecting with the people."
It was Sally Fields who famously gushed "You like me! You Really Really like me!" We really didn't (although the Hollywood establishment did) which is kind-of the same dynamic that Hillary has going for her.
2016 saw Katy Perry cry, Kanye West meltdown and a host of Hollywood stars welsh on their promise to leave for Canada should Trump win. The Bastards.
Nationwide the Democrats took a political beating, their power now confined to some failing metropolitan areas, the West Coast, and pockets of New England. As the Country continues to geographically sort itself out along political ideological lines a stunning realization has hit the Left. They are currently so concentrated that they've messed up the electoral math for themselves. Plus, 1/2 of the country simply can't stand them.
This has led to some amusing temper tantrums from the dimmer of the dim lights in the Dim party. Markos Moulitsas responded to the election results with an f-bomb laced tirade against pretty much everyone, Ezra Klein has pushed Vox into La La Land with wild theories and stories of fantasy and whimsy, and has just realized that "Star Wars" is *gasp* about......war. Greg Sargent is ranting to everyone his little Washington Post blog reaches that something is amiss, and the king of clowns Paul Krugman seems perpetually stuck in the anger stage of coping.
In fact, a LOT of people are ending 2016 firmly planted in the Anger stage. Celebrities from what's-her-name to Lena Dunham have had a good public cry, shaken their fist at 'white people' (think about that) and have pretty much declared the election of the ape in a suit to be the worst thing in America since ever.
Locally however Harris County Democrats are doing fairly freaking spiffy. They had a complete sweep in the down-ballot elections taking every contested county office, judgeship, most of the Constables and contested legislative races at the State and Federal level. In fact, it's pretty safe to say that, except for Commissioner's Court, Harris County and Houston are in total Democrat control.
What this means is for another post. For the look-ahead to 2017. But if the City of Houston is any predictor the County is in for a bumpy ride.
Because Houston did NOT have a good 2016. Financially the city is struggling, Annise Parker tore us apart trying everything she could to provide the transgender community with a special accommodation, and the oil and gas industry has gotten shellacked due to a glut of supply, relatively weak global demand, and some fairly short-sighted business leadership.
But Houston keeps spending money like a terminal cancer patient on a last, blow-out-the-pension smash-up in Las Vegas. Turner continues to take junkets like his frequent-flyer miles will expire if he doesn't, plans are in place to spend Millions on bike paths, Millions on concert venues, and Billions on as yet to be determined flood-control project whose parent funding mechanism, the rain tax, was declared null-and-void in a court of law. In short, Houston has stolen the taxpayers credit card, has maxed it out, and is now openly kiting checks from their stolen check-book.
All in the name of trinkets.
Which means that, in many respects, 2016 was not all that much different than the years that preceded it. Just a little bit worse.
Amazingly, this is better than the 2016 that the media in Houston had. That was like prior years but a LOT worse. As meaningful reporting in Houston has gone the way of the DoDo and is being replaced with info-tainment and fake news.
2016 was supposed to be much, much better than 2015. Or so we hoped. What we ended up with was a turd of a year floating around in the pool of time.
Thank goodness it's coming to a close.
