Lone Star: As Texas as......Milwaukee?

How far the mighty have fallen.  Lone Star, a middling beer that is way more popular than it should be based solely on it's name and some clever marketing, will continue to be brewed by MillerCoors due to a recent Jury ruling in Milwaukee Wisconsin.

The Verdict is in. Lone Star Beer is Here to Stay. Chron.com

On Wednesday, after nearly two days of deliberation, a Milwaukee, WI  jury decided that MillerCoors will continue brewing Pabst Brewing Company's 21 beer labels, including Lone Star, according to NPR News.
MillerCoors did not want to renew its contract to brew for Pabst when it expires in 2020, saying it no longer makes financial sense, while Pabst argued the contract includes options for an extension and MillerCoors was essentially trying to put it out of business.

First off, a couple of points:

1. Lone Star is not a good beer, it is not a craft beer, it's cheap plonk.
2. Lone Star is not the "National Beer of Texas" it never has been.

Now, if you want to make a case for a true State Beer of Texas I would nominate Shiner Bock. For one, it tastes better, is actually brewed in Texas, is owned by Texans and has much deeper roots IN Texas than Lone Star ever had.

Yes, I know that Lone Star started in Texas, but those days are long behind them. And the beer market has moved on.

Lone Star is a carpet-bagger, an import, a relic from a by-gone Texas that some people seem to pine for while waddling around Austin looking for the next hemp store to open up.  A Texas that didn't exist.

Modern Texas is an urban sort, and while I disagree with the TLSPM that "all" of Texas vibrancy is found in the cities certainly some of it is.  But the wealth, and the history, are found in the increasingly empty wide-open spaces West of the Texas Triangle. Anything truly original can be found there as well.

What Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio truly are is replicators for European and outside culture.  Things will get invented in New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, etc. and the Texas 4 will do their darndest to bring it to Texas, just about 2 years after the trend is dying out elsewhere. Cupcakes? Gourmet Donuts? Chicken and Waffles? Tapas?  Light Rail? Bike Lanes?

None of those things were invented in Texas, but they were brought to its cities.  That's OK in some cases, light rail and bike lanes being the obvious exceptions here) but to find something truly Texas original you usually have to travel to the hinterlands.

Luling and Lockheart didn't invent Texas Bar-B-Q (Mexican Vaqueros did that) but they sure perfected it prior to it being exported elsewhere. You can get a great bowl of Texas red in the cities, but a better one in many small town diners. For years all of these things were brought to the cities via the State Fair. City-dwellers would try them, restaurants would open up and a craze was born. Now people see things on the Internet, or spend two weeks traveling to Europe, and pine to find something here "just like I had over there" (Hint: This is not usually an honest request, it's more a brag that they've been there and you haven't).

The same myth-making, at a much more primitive level, has been falsely attached to Lone Star Beer.

And it's time, past time honestly, to end this myth once and for all.

With that in mind, and judging by the litter I see on the side of the road, it's time to give praise to the TRUE 'National Beer of Texas"

ALL HAIL MILLER LITE!


Sad, but true.

HALV: The HISD Mess is Rotten from the Top.

It doesn't matter who takes over as the Superintendent of HISD, as long as the board is staffed by low-functioning idiots.

HISD Trustees Vowed to Play Nice, but that didn't last long. Chron.com

Trustees Jolanda Jones and Elizabeth Santos engaged in a 30-second shouting match during a workshop Tuesday, with Jones shouting for Santos to "be quiet" and Santos calling Jones a "liar."

Children, Children, can't we all just get along?

With this group of mush-puddles in charge it's quite possible that HISD hasn't yet found the bottom of the hole it's digging for itself and the only solution might be for the State to come in, sweep it clean, possibly break it up and start from scratch.

Jones and Santos are the culprits in this story, but the entire group of them have been guilty of bad behavior at some point in the past. It's a combination of wanting, desperately, to run for higher office, ego and sheer childishness that drives this group, not some burning desire to "help the children" or other such nonsense that pops up in political ads.

And Houston voters, rarely taking the time to look that far down-ballot are not going to boot them out of office, so I'm afraid that it's going to lie at the feet of the State to make sure that the biggest city in Texas has a school district (or, districts, if they knew what was good for them) that can at least nominally perform it's duties.

As long as we keep running along with this gaggle of awful, HISD is never going to get better.

I'd say "do your duty" and vote them out "for the children" but I know that's not going to happen.  So the plea goes out to the Texas Education Administration.

Please, if not for the children do it for our sanity, and some peace and quiet.

HALV (Shocker!): Your Elected Officials in Houston Don't Think All That Highly of You.

It should come as a surprise to no one that immediately after the November 6th election results for Proposition B (The Firefighter Pay Equity Item) showed that it was going to pass overwhelmingly that Mayor Turner would begin moving to issue legal challenges to it. After all, he spent a lot of time in the run-up to the vote rallying his friends at the trough and Houston's Courtier Class to advocate against it, and it was one of the worst-kept secrets in Houston that he was not going to quit regardless of what the voters said.

Sure enough, on Wednesday, the story came out that Turner brow-beat the City Council into hiring a law-firm of his choosing to "study" the proposition in what is most-assuredly the first steps toward just ignoring the Proposition altogether, or filing a lawsuit depending on which path his lawyers tell him is the most likely to succeed.

In the Houston Chronicle story regarding the hiring of the law firm there were a couple of interesting nuggets.

Houston Council Hires Law Firm to Advise City on Prop B Legal questions. HoustonChronicle.com

First, and it needs to be said.  This headline is wrong. Turner is hiring the law firm, City Council has just approved the hiring. (by a narrow 9-7 vote)

Then there's this:

Neil Thomas, a Norton Rose partner in that office, served as treasurer for the anti-Prop B PAC, Protect Houston, and the firm contributed $15,000 to the committee’s coffers.

Any way you look at it that is a helluva return on investment.  For a measly fifteen grand Norton Rose has reaped a $500K pay day.  Whoever thought up this deal at the law firm needs a raise. They, correctly, identified Mayor Turner's penchant for a) being politically vindictive and b) paying off his political patrons and acted appropriately.  Good move by them.

Then, there's this:

The mayor initially planned to seek a contract with Norton Rose the morning after Election Day, but delayed the vote over concerns that hiring the firm would look like “a middle finger” to the voters, as District G Councilman Greg Travis put it. 

So, instead of an immediate middle finger to 59% of Houston voters they waited three weeks to extend the digit, relying on their dim view of the electorate to assuage the anger.

In other words, they (and the Chron) think you to be fairly daft.

Of course, the only way to prove them wrong is to show up during the next Mayoral election and remind Turner that you're not that daft, and send him and the nine city council members packing when their number comes up.  They are betting that people are both not paying much attention to this, and that they won't care when the time comes to head back to the ballot box.

Given Houston voter history this is not a bad political gamble. After all, they'll have the media on their side, so these issues can be white washed away, and most people are too busy in their daily lives. If they need a push in the right direction they can also rely on the unproductive class to give them a boost as well. There are plenty of people around with plenty of free time and access to the Internet after all.

Despite all of this it's not at all surprising that Turner is taking the confrontational path. Since coming back one of the key topics of this blog has been his pettiness toward political enemies, and his payback to his patrons. Of greater concern is that he is showing no willingness to engage with the Firefighters Union at all after the vote, signifying that, if he loses, he's willing to make drastic cuts to the department and place his political vindictiveness over the needs of Houstonians.

This leads to the uneasy realization that Houston potentially has a Mayor in City Hall that is more concerned with satisfying his need for revenge than ensuring the City is functioning properly.

If true, that's a problem.  A BIG problem for a big city that's facing a host of challenges that could potentially be beyond the grasp of the current Mayor to address. The other option is that he doesn't care about his constituents at all.

Either incompetent or indifferent the focus of this Mayor is on "I" not "we". Which, oddly enough, puts him in the same intellectual wheelhouse and most of the Houston Chronicle opinion scribblers.

Or maybe he has a master plan that's going to shock everyone and which will resolve this mess to the satisfaction of all, thus saving the City budget and sparing the citizens the indignity of being taxed until their eyes bleed.


Yeah, that's a reach. A huge leap of faith that Houstononians are going to have to make. For now there's no other choice.

BadMedia: I still can't open up a can of care in the Houston vs. Dallas (fake) rivalry.

Another day, another media driven story about how Houston hates Dallas and vice-versa.

Houston Folk are Now in Charge of Texas, Should we be Worried? Ron Reynolds, Dallas Morning News

The city can be a very insular, self-centered place, unconcerned with the goings-on of those not within the gravitational pull of Loop 610.

Meh. The truth is Dallas is a self-centered city as well, only concerned about it's Cowboys (who reside in Arlington) and keeping up an image burnished by a long-ago television show that was really good, and really inaccurate regarding Dallas as a whole.

Part of the problem is that there's never been a "Houston" television show. If there was it would be fascinating, depicting the life of the unproductive class riding around on the light-rail system from brain-session to brain-session endlessly trying to figure out a way to glom onto the next taxpayer-subsidized project in order to put food on the table.

But, I digress....

Both Houston and Dallas are fine places to work, and horrid places to live.

Houston has sprawl and swamp-heat and gross traffic, coupled with really bad services and inept municipal government that has trouble figuring out how to handle basic services, like fixing pot-holes for example.

Dallas has sprawl and North Texas weather, which brings the dynamic of snow into the picture and inept municipal government that has trouble figuring out how to handle basic services, like fixing pot-holes for example.

The old lie is that Dallas is white-collar while Houston chugs along with it's blue-collar dynamic. The truth is not that simple.  Both Houston and Dallas are ruled and controlled by a moneyed gentry, who are serviced by a courtier class whose sole job is getting themselves invited to parties on a semi-regular basis. You might know these people as "the media".

It's the media's job to prop up the gentry, what passes for nobility in Houston/Dallas, painting on them lavish praise and layers of respectability through the dodgy use of glossy pictorials about "best dressed" or "most philanthropic" or what not. What all this really means is that they have the money and connections to throw a helluva shin-dig at fancy places the writers wouldn't otherwise attend because they can't afford it.

Below the writers are the unproductive class.  They typically come from some money, somewhere up the familial food chain, they typically don't have "jobs" in the traditional sense but have been declared "experts" in fields such as public transportation and urban planning because they either a.) once wrote a blog that had some pretty graphs attached to it, or b.) have hung around "think-tanks" for long enough that the stink of respectability clings to them like the smoke smell in your clothes after you've barbecued a rack of ribs.

The unproductive class is especially sneaky, because they don't have jobs they can spend all of their time helping the politicians figure out how to divert more of your money to the moneyed gentry through tax takings while trying to convince you that it's "for the children".  Of course, when all of this turns out to be a boondoggle (see DART) they find someone to dutifully write a story about Dallas vs. Houston which gets the chattel all fired up and concerned that the sky is falling because Houston/Dallas has SOMETHING that Houston/Dallas doesn't have and it's threatening to blow Houston/Dallas' stink of world classiness into the garbage.

And, as we all know, losing world classiness is like losing a bond election. It will require Billions of dollars of self-sacrifice on your (not their) part to ever get it back.

It's the circle of Dallas/Houston Municipal life, and one of the keys to getting elected to local office is now to pledge fealty to the system.

From that perspective, Houston and Dallas are identical twins.

HALV: All in the name of transit.

After the last Harris County Election Cycle your local quasi-governmental groups are planning on going on a spending spree.

METRO Moves to the Next Phase of Developing a Regional Transit Plan. NPR

METRO Chairman Carrin Patman said they’re also expecting feedback from a new group of Harris County decision-makers.
“We have a new county government, there are some changes on the congressional level, and we need to take all those things into account,” said Patman. “Because some of the opinions of some of the stakeholders may have changed too.”

It should be of some interest to you that METRO considers their primary stakeholders to be elected officials and NOT the people who, you know, might or might not USE their services.

On the bright side, at least they're acknowledging now that people work in different places than downtown.  They're still seemingly focused on at-grade, inflexible solutions on moving people to those various locations, and it still seems like the Downtown area is still envisioned as the hub, but at least they understand that concept. 

Further in the article Metro CEO Tom 'What part of safety don't you understand?' Lambert talks about the public which raises the question of whether or not he means the "public" or designated "leaders" who have vested financial interests at stake in seeing the Danger Train go more places (among other things)?  I guess time will tell.

Given the history of Metro however their concern for the public is probably just limited to how big of a bond issue they think they can fleece the people into voting for.  Given the hue of the County right now I'm betting it's pretty big.  All they have to do is make either the "no new taxes" or "cup of coffee" argument and people will forget that money borrowed DOES eventually have to be paid back, with interest.

On a bright note, they do have one thing in place, a scrubbed and focus grouped name: METRONext  Ooooh....sparkly. 

They also have a timeline that is making the late Peter Brown smile in his grave as it's got a big chunk saved for "planning".  OF course, then there's delivery and beating down and opposition Public Education.  As we've seen in the past the latter is very important to the success of any plan. Fortunately they have the media ready to do that heavy lifting for them.  Mrs. White is dusting off her catapult and the Chron's way too many editorial writers are ordering various coffees to see just how many per month will cover the anticipated tax increases.

Now, if Mayor Turner could ONLY get the pillow-soft revenue cap lifted some fiscal omelettes could REALLY start getting cooked up.

Until then we have what METRO is calling "The Vision".

Whether it's a vision of true regional mobility or more toys for the wealthy to play in remains to be seen. Either way, you're going to hear that without this, Houston cannot be "world class"  and you don't want to stand in the way of Houston's World Classiness do you?  DO YOU?




I didn't think so.

First and Foremost: Give Thanks.

Before we get to Thanksgiving, with Turkey and stuffing and green-bean casserole and rolls and corn on the cob, and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie and football and eating too much and falling asleep during the inevitable dog game before raiding the leftovers to make stuffing sandwiches.......

OK, you get the point.

I thought it wise to take a minute and think about the things that we're thankful for. Maybe, for some, it's little things, maybe, for others, it's big things.  The point is that we're all thankful for something, unless of course you're currently reading this blog with your foot trapped in a bear trap while being stung by bees and a family of hungry grackles is sizing up your right eye for dinner.  OK, then you might not be all that thankful.

But, for the rest of us, even those of us in the Houston area, we have cause to be thankful for something.  If you're having trouble thinking of anything we here at YDOP are here to help.  So, without Further Ado........


Harris County Democrats:  Well, this one is obvious, you're thankful that the last round of straight-ticket voting, coupled with some truly awful candidates (#firestanstanart Orlando Sanchez, etc.) and entrenched entitlement (Hi!! Ed Emmett!!!) have pretty much left you with a hammer-lock on county governance that's only slightly got you sweating because a) another flood event is surely coming and Sylvester Turner won't be able to rely on Emmett to bail him out this time and b) Oh shit, you actually have to govern!

The important bit to realize however is that you ARE in power so that should make your Tofurky and organically sourced, vegan side-dishes tasted almost a little-less like processed sawdust this year.

Harris County GOP:  OK, I have to admit this was a tough one.  But after much thought coupled with a weekend away in Lake Charles ruminating over vodka sodas (I'm lying, I didn't think about it at all) I've come up with a winner:

Be thankful that, because his law-offices were raided and stacks of documents removed, you're not going to have to live through an insufferable Jared Woodfill challenge of Paul Simpson's chairmanship.  Congratulations for that.  Of course, you're basically completely out of power now so winning the chair will feel a little like being named the Ringmaster of Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey's Circus AFTER it got shuttered but hey....avoiding that mess is something right?


Mayor Sylvester Turner:  You should be thankful that no-one who really matters has figured out yet that not only are you in WAY over your head here but also that you've not yet run out of political patrons who have supported your long career and will be wanting to reap the rewards of your victory before your next go-round.

Senator Whitmore hasn't come calling with his cronies yet and, believe me, after a lifetime in Texas politics he has a LOT of them who will be wishing to wet their beaks in the milk and honey of your victory.   And hey, you get to keep collecting the rain tax for your slush fund er...drainage projects so there's that.


Houston Fire Department: Be thankful that the few of you  who remain on the job after Mayor Turner enacts his revenge should be getting a rather large pay-raise.  You might want to spend this holiday season buttering up the current fire chief because he's going to be coming along with an axe soon to breaks some windows.

Another thing for which you should be thankful is that you appear to be fairly organized, and fairly harmonious in your opinions within the union.  It might help to channel that to form an early coalition around who you want to support in the next Mayoral race.

Houston Police Department: This one is simple. Be thankful that it surely won't be much longer before your anti-police Police Chief decides he's made enough progressive policy Tweets and decides to leave for a run for higher office.

Police Chief Acevedo: Be Thankful that you've made enough progressive policy Tweets that soon you'll be a viable candidate for higher office and can leave Houston to return to San Antonio.  I know we'll be thankful for that.

HISD School Board: Be thankful that it's the Holidays and people will stop paying attention to your corruption and dysfunction long enough for you to find an interim Superintendent who will be willing to rubber stamp your pet projects, your nepotism in hiring, and your generally awful stewardship of Houston's youth education.

Houston Chronicle: Be thankful you're still in business. That is all. I'd say something else but everything seems so excessive beyond that.

Houston Texans: Be Thankful that, even though he's not the greatest coach, Bill O'Brien appears to have hired a voodoo high priestess to put a spell on opposing coaches causing them to make exactly the wrong decisions in key moments, almost gifting you wins.

Houston Rockets: Be Thankful Carmelo Anthony is gone. and be thankful that Daryl Morey finally realized what an idiotic decision bringing him on was in the first place.

Houston Astros: Be Thankful that you're still the current best professional sports franchise in Houston, that you're still ran by competent management and that you still have a chance over the next couple of years to snag a World Series title or two.

Houston City Council: Be Thankful that Houston has a strong-Mayor form of government that hides your deficiencies behind those of Mayor Turner. Yes, we all know you're not very good, we just don't care much because you don't have any power to speak of.


And finally......

Houston-Area Political Bloggers: Be Thankful that Your Drink Order Please has returned to active blogging.  Because now the title of "Worst Local Blogger" is sewn up for at least as long as I want to keep this going.


Happy Thanksgiving y'all.  Spare a  soy plant, eat a real turkey.

HALV: OF COURSE the proposed Houston fire-fighter layoffs are avoidable.

But that wouldn't allow Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner to continue his temper tantrum.

Houston Layoffs Spurred by Prop B are Avoidable. Houston Chronicle.

You're looking at a Mayor who has no problem providing $6.7 Million dollars to his law partner and then claiming it's not a conflict of interest because it's his FORMER law partner, since Turner left the firm after becoming Mayor.

OK then.

Turner's entire political career has been about financially rewarding his patrons while trying (sometimes ineffectually) to punish his political enemies. He's a small man in a big city whose administration is about small ideas.

All he sees is a vote that went against his wishes, due in large part to organization and effective campaigning by a rival organization, so in his mind the only possible recourse is to punish the organization.

That this might actually lead to the deaths, or grave injuries, of some Houstonians doesn't even cross his mind. He doesn't care.  All that matters to him is balancing the political books back to what he perceives is his favor.

The Firefighter's union has to pay.  And pay they will, in the form of layoffs.

But the real people who pay will be Houstonians who should be able to rely on a fire department that has good response times and is sufficiently staffed.  That's not a component of Turner's political calculus however, and it probably never will be given the framework of his political education.

Something to think about during the 2019 Mayoral election.

Election 2018: Faster Danger Train: Kill! Kill!

Houston's light rail has been effective, at taking out cars, bicyclists and pedestrians one person at a time.

And proponents are hoping that the victory by Lindsey Pannill Fletcher over John Culberson will increase the miles of at-grade, Danger Train miles that Houston has to navigate around....

Can Lizzie Fletcher Unmoor METRORail? Jeff Balke, Houston Press

While Fletcher campaigned primarily on inclusiveness and healthcare, one portion of the platforms on her campaign website should not go unnoticed. "We need to partner with cities, counties, and METRO to bring additional resources and improvements to our region," she says on her website. "We need an advocate for policies that both maintain and expand our region’s mobility infrastructure. And we need to make sure that Houston receives its fair share of transportation funding to move our citizens across the region."

Similar hopes were echoed by the unproductive class' transportation Wunderkid on Twitter:

Christof Spieler on Twitter.

So @Lizzie4Congress beat longtime incumbent Republican John Culberson for Congress. This is very relevant for transit, since Culberson was unusual in his strong and determined fight to keep federal transit funding out of his district.

It was probably inevitable that this was going to happen post-Culberson, and there are good arguments to be made for increased public transportation, when done the right way.

A continuing argument should be made that a toy-train, built at-grade that doesn't do anything to alleviate congestion from the exburbs and suburbs to Houston's many employment centers is nothing more than a pretty play-thing for wealthy elites to get married and throw parties on.

Also: the rise of Lyft, Uber and the coming of self-driving cars is going to make the car and pedestrian killing Danger Train all but worthless anyway.

Granted, Siemens and the thousands of people who make their living as lampreys on the public teat won't like that too much.  As a Houstonian who gives a shit about getting around the region you probably should.

A better solution would be robust commuter buses coupled with a flexible, efficient last-mile solution would be a much more productive solution than expanding the Danger Train.

Election 2018: Texas New (True?) Blue Suburbs

Are Texas Suburbs Slipping Away From Republicans? Alex Ura, Chris Essig, Darla Cameron, Texas Tribune

Counties that haven’t voted for a Democrat in decades turned out for Beto O’Rourke in his unsuccessful bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, and he picked up enough support in ruby red Republican counties to force Cruz into single-digit wins.

There's an interesting bit of political intrigue appearing in Texas right now.  As Democrats long chastised the poor and working class for voting Republican against their interests, it seems that many Texas suburbs voted Democratic this election against theirs.

The Democrats, to an official, are an urban party. Since the rise of Al Gore and his investors they've loathed Suburbia.  Politicians pass laws against it, comedians make jokes about it, TV shows and movies mock it. Suburbia is the gated last-resort of the White elitist, the last refuge of the conservative scoundrel.

Suburbs are overheating the planet, running mom and pop shops out of business, and generally casting a shadow over the vibrancy of an economy based on home-grown, fair-trade, organic, free range donkey dung crackers sourced locally from a collective farming community.

In Houston, especially, the switch is confusing.

The Harris County Democratic Party currently takes its public policy directly from the mind of David Crossley and his non-productive class band of acolytes.  Their solution for Houston?

Empty the suburbs, force everyone to live asshole to elbow inside the Loop and ride the Danger Train everywhere (unless it's raining, then you can ride a bus, IF they go where you want).  From so-called "Complete streets" (which are really streets that make it difficult to get anywhere) to speed limits capped at 30, to bemoaning the existence of the single-occupancy vehicle, the Democrats don't like the relatively mundane, relatively sequestered Suburban lifestyle preferring instead the highly segregated, highly controlled, highly taxed urban one.

Not that Democrats won't take their votes, they're not stupid, but to think that a party that's ran primarily on reducing energy consumption and footprint is all of the sudden going to embrace Mrs. Johnston living in a $500K McMansion (their term) and driving around in her Mercedes to a nail salon, or make policy that helps Mr. Johnston load up in his SUV to go golfing and create policy to promote this lifestyle requires the suspension of disbelief.

Yes, there's the problem with modern Republicans, and the short-sighted anti-immigrant stance they are taking. And the Bronzed Ego sitting in the White House doesn't help.  But if you turn off the Twitter rage machine, block out the media breathlessly acting like every statement el Bronzo utters is "beyond the pale" you get to a place that has to, even begrudgingly, admit that this administration's actual results have been fairly positive, from a conservative perspective.

And this is the problem with politics today. Too much of it is ran through the Social Media outrage prism before being disseminated to people via what should be a calm, rational media. Not an unbiased media mind you, the media has never been that. If you think differently and are longing for some bygone day that never existed I cannot help you.

The media has always been biased to some degree because it's delivered by people. Reporters, journalists and editorialists (we need fewer of the latter) who are people with ideas, views and positions just like you.  To think that some C student can get a bachelor's degree in J-School and suddenly come out as a beacon of neutrality is to ask something of the human condition that is not hard-wired within us.

Am I biased?  You bet. I hold moderately Libertarian views that can be summed up thusly:  The government is responsible for a few things, they should focus on those few things and leave the rest up to us.  Will things be perfect?  No, but that's the cost of living in a free society. Things don't always go as you would like.

The difference here is this:

1. I openly admit my bias. Currently the media does not.  Because of this the Chron can let publicly slip a pro-light rail manifesto and still claim to be reporting on the issue in a neutral manner. Anderson Cooper can get a "tingle up his leg" when Barack Obama speaks but still claim he can moderate a Presidential debate fairly.

2. I'm not a professional media outlet.  This, in case you haven't noticed, is an opinion blog. If you don't LIKE or AGREE with my opinion you can either comment, or start your own, or ignore it. The Chronicle, and other media outlets sell themselves as truth seekers, the last line of defense in the battle for the Republic.

This is a problem because often the reporting that you see doesn't tell the truth. It allows politicians of a certain strip to claim to be for the "working family" despite wanting to raise taxes and fees to levels that will have a real impact on their daily lives. Money taken by the government is NEVER referred to as your money, but as the government's money, as if they have a god-given right to it.

A lot of what people vote on today comes down to plain ignorance.  We're mad that the VA Hospital is in shambles, a government program gone awry, yet we're sold that the solution to the problem is.....more government. People get mad at the banks for issuing sub-prime mortgages, forgetting that it was, in some cases, a government diktat that led and allowed them to do so.

Suburbanites in Texas get angry at the government, and vote for a party that's promising more......government.

Many times elections in America are a large temper tantrum. I think this one in Texas can be described as such, the question is how long it will linger, and if the low-information voter can allow the results to hold?

Election 2018: Can the Harris County Democrats Govern?

Back in 1999, when the Republicans first started their now two-decade long run in charge of Texas State Government, then Texas Monthly political scribbler Paul "the Clown" Burka asked one of the rare intelligent questions of his career:  "Can the Republicans Govern?"

It was a salient question at the time because many of the newly installed R's had little, if any experience in public office, knew little about the workings of the Texas Government and, for the first time, were looking down the barrel of not being just in opposition but of actually passing bills, and governing.

After a couple of legislative sessions it turned out that they COULD govern, and despite the fact that many on the left didn't like it their transformative approach to State governance (namely: low taxes and light regulation) kicked-off the "Texas Miracle" aided, of course, by the oil and gas shale boom.

What made Burka "The Clown" was that he continued to ask "Can the Republicans Govern?" every two years after that for just about the remainder of his career, despite the fact that it was fairly obvious they could.

Fast forward to 2018....

Harris County has just seen most elected positions switch over to the Democrats, excepting 2 County Commissioner seats, and many of the people elected have never before held public office, nor do they have a background that would suggest they are entirely qualified for the posts they hold.

To whit:

Lina Hidalgo - Harris County Judge (elect)  - Ms. Hidalgo is a 27 year-old graduate student with no prior political experience. She has been elected to the highest administrative office for one of the largest counties in America.  She is a Stanford grad who, for the past few years, has been working toward a joint-graduate degree in law and public policy at NYU and Harvard, so she seems to be intelligent enough, and she has done a lot of advocacy work in public health, criminal justice et al so she should, at the least, be familiar with the nuts and bolts of the issues, but she is going to have to learn on the fly how to be an executive of a large organization with a myriad of departments that provides key services to a lot of constituents. That's a huge difference from being an advocate.

Diane Trautman - Harris County Clerk (Elect) - The politician elected to oversee both Harris County's court records as well as administrate the elections, issue marriage licenses, and a host of other services. She does have some political experience, being elected to the Harris County Board of Education. She has a bachelor's degree in English and a Master's secondary education, both from the University of Houston, and holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Sam Houston State University. This office is also in charge of the voter rolls for Harris County.

Marilyn Burgess - Harris County District Clerk (Elect) - Ms. Burgess has an accounting degree from Louisiana State and holds an active CPA certification. As an accountant myself I can tell you that's a good thing for the office she will be holding. The District Clerk's office runs in much the same manner as the County Clerk's office, acting as the official record-keeper for district courts. The District Clerk also administers the jury system and in Harris County is operating a passport office.

It should be pointed out that, in many cases, the clerks will also be providing record-keeping for judges who are brand new, and who might not understand all of the record-keeping requirements, or the procedures. This is going to put more pressure on those Clerk positions to learn quickly.

Dylan Osborne - Harris County Treasurer (Elect)  Mr. Osborne has a degree in Social Sciences from University of Houston - Downtown and a Master's degree in Public Administration. He has worked on the staff of two Houston City Council members so he should be, at least, familiar with the functioning of government. The Harris County Treasurer's Office is a county function that many, including me, believe should be done away with. It's sole job is to handle deposits and issue payments for the county, something that could be easily folded into existing departments.  The last couple of Democratic candidates running for this office ran on a platform of abolishing it. According to Mr. Osborne's campaign site that is not on his agenda.

Adrian Garcia - Harris County Commissioner Precinct 2 (Elect) - Garcia has a long history in Houston politics, unfortunately much of it is not good.  He served on Houston City Council from 2004 - 2008 and was elected as Harris County Sheriff from 2009 - 2015. During his stint as Sheriff he came under fire for a sexual abuse scandal in the Harris County Jail and multiple problems in the sheriff's office were in the media. Since then he's jumped from race to race trying to find a soft-spot to land. It appears he finally found it.

None of the above should be taken to read that these people cannot, or will not, be effective leaders. It is not intended to be snark, belittling or disparaging to them.

What it DOES mean is that the question is fair:  Can the Harris County Democrats GOVERN?

There is an increasingly large chance now that the City and County begin working together in ways that have been hinted at, but only in backrooms.  The City of Houston could begin to exert a bigger influence on its extra-territorial jurisdiction to a point that it begins sucking up tax dollars and government functions for the outlying areas.  A bigger concern is that the County starts pouring more dollars into the areas within the Houston City Limits, providing more services there to supplement Boss Turner's fiscal irresponsibility and residents in the unincorporated hinterlands start to get left out.

Can Harris County Democrats govern?

For their own sake citizens of Harris County had better hope they can.

If they can't then the Houston Area Leadership Vacuum could be legion.

Election 2018: What's left of the Harris County GOP?

Not much to be perfectly honest.


For all of the talk of a "Blue Wave" cresting over Texas, which didn't happen, I think it's pretty safe to say that the County of Harris has flipped almost completely Blue and it's not close.

Consider:

Straight party voting:

Republicans: 408,413  44.12%
Democrats:   511,282   55.24%
Libertarian:  5,935       00.64%

All local Republican judges were voted out of office.

Harris County Elected officials:

County Judge:

Ed Emmett (R - I)      572,816  48.23%
Lina Hildago (D)       590,524  49.72%
Eric Gatlin (L)             24,379    2.05%


District Clerk:

Chris Daniel (R - I)       529,658  44.97%
Marilyn Burgess (D)     648,097  55.03%

County Clerk:

Stan Stanart (R - I)      507,394   42.92%
Diane Trautman (D)    644,792   54.54%
Abel Chino Gomez (L)  30,127   2.55%

County Treasurer:

Orlando Sanchez (R - I)   540,880   45.85%
Dylan Osborne  (D)          638,825   54.15%


As you can see from the above the defeat was all-encompassing, and total.  All that the Harris County GOP has left in the fold is Texas State Senate District 7  (Paul Bettencourt won with 57.83% of the vote) and some Texas house districts either wholly or partially contained in that geographical area.  US-TX 2 (Won by Dan Crenshaw with around 53% of the vote, has a large part of it's geography contained within, as does US-TX 7 (Won by Fletcher (D) over Culberson (R - I) 52.35% - 47.65%) but not enough to pull Culberson through. There was good news in US - TX 10, where Mike McCaul won re-election with 62.69% of the Harris County vote (the final result in the race though was much closer), but in the statewide races it was even worse....

"Beto" O'Rourke beat Ted Cruz in Harris County by a full 16 points.

No Republican state-wide candidate won Harris County in a race where they were opposed by a Democrat.

The highest Republican vote-getter, by percentage, was Greg Abbott at 46.47% and he was running against someone who couldn't pay their taxes on time.

Despite (or perhaps because of) a slew of robo-calls (I received NINE on Monday evening before the election), scary mailers about an invasion that was coming and how everyone was going to be forced to house violent immigrants and judges releasing dangerous criminals into the population, Harris County voters just said no.

The easy answer for this, for the angry Republican set, is that the "Gimme" voters (everyone but them) voted for the party that promised to give them more.  The harder answer is that the current Harris County GOP is a county party bereft of ideas, leadership, and any sense of a vision for the region that doesn't involve cutting taxes or turning the Astrodome into a high-priced parking garage.

I can't imagine that any of the current officers of the HCGOP get to hang around after this shellacking, but you'd be surprised what the crony system can produce. There is a way Paul Simpson could survive, by (incorrectly) blaming the evil mainstream media and "Betomania" he might just convince enough people that he's the guy to lead them out of the wilderness.

Of course, he's still going to have the problem of all of the pay-to-play slates sending out what basically amounts to scare-mongering and (in some cases) hate-mail to voters, and then there's the issue that on almost none of the local issues does the HCGOP seem to have much of a platform that people understand.

I believe that there are good, conservative policies that urban voters might gravitate toward as they start to understand the blight that is big-government cronyism and the damaging effects it can have on communities.  At the local level especially conservatives should have a laser-like focus on infrastructure (including flood control) better schools (which can include school-choice) through a plan that doesn't involve gutting the public school system and government transparency.

What people WANT from a local government are roads that work, traffic that flows, safe neighborhoods and a government that's not working against them and then trying to cover it up.

I don't see a Harris County Republican Party that's really all that focused on that right now.

Which is why they lost. Not because some greedy people just had their hand out.  That excuse is too easy and should be immediately discarded.

It's either that or be ready for one-party rule in Harris County for a long, long time.

11/7/2018: OK Harris County, I'm interested.

2018 was an unusual year.

Looking back on it now I have to say that it was probably my best year personally however, but this isn't about me.

It's about you Harris County Texas.

Yes, you. A county that's totally switched party allegiances to the point that the elected Republican will soon be akin to the Dodo within your borders. A county that just elected a 27-year old graduate student with no government experience, and who has never even attended a County Commissioner's meeting to your highest elected position.

Oh, this is going to be fun.

Add to this the continued hegemony of Sylvester "Boss" Turner in the Houston Mayor's office and this has the potential to devolve into quite the mess.

And I'm proud to announce that this blog will (again) be here for it.

For my two remaining readers, welcome back. It's been a while. Yes, my focus will still be on my sports/lifestyle blog for the most part but I can't help but be intrigued by this rising blue wave of ineptitude that's inundated the county in which I reside.

If you're not having a "holy Sh!t!!" moment right now you should, because things are about to get very, very interesting.

So meet Lina Hidalgo your new Harris County Judge.

If it's possible, Harris County now has a more progressive leader than the City of Houston (Turner being more traditional "Crony politicians" than actual "progressive" and you should be ready for a great many things to change.

For his part, Emmett is blaming his loss on straight-party voting and being so far down the ticket. There's probably something to that, but there's also the case that over the past several years his constituent outreach has been....flawed, arrogant and out of touch. He fiddled on top of the Astrodome while Harris County soaked in Harvey floodwaters, he never seemed to take campaigning seriously and, to be honest, he paid the price for it.

Also paying the price?  John Culberson, who lost to Lindsey Panill Fletcher, my leader in the clubhouse for "Newly elected public official most likely to disappoint those who voted for her. Ms. Fletcher's campaign was based on "reaching across the aisle" and "finding solutions" but her victory speech already started the pivot to "holding Trump accountable".

Will there be buyer's remorse here? Probably, but the power of incumbency and the fact that Harris County is now solidly Blue might mean that the only way for voters to find a course correction will be in the Democratic primary.

One last thing:  On the straight ticket issue. It's going to be easy for the Harris County GOP to try and lay this issue solely at the feet of the National media, their fawning over "Beto" O'Rourke and straight ticket voting. Emmett already has.

The flaw in this thinking can be found in Congressional District #2, where Dan Crenshaw ran a credible campaign, provided the voters with something to vote FOR, and ended up with a rare Harris County win in Harris County with 53% of the vote.

Yes, straight party voting played a role*. But it's not the entire story. Neither was it the entire story when Republicans were winning by large margins.  At the end of the day you have to be a good candidate with a good platform to sell to your potential constituents. Crenshaw figured that out, Emmett and Culberson did not.

*In the judicial elections however straight-party voting probably did tell the entire story. Most voters don't have the time or energy to pay attention to those races, and a 6% edge in straight party voting was probably enough to sweep what remains of the Harris County Republican Judge slate off of the bench.