Monday Roundup: Record Vote Hearings, BRAC Feature

This week's feature, by Karl Lynch, examines the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission and the impact that commission's decisions had on Texas. He seeks an answer to what should be a basic question: is the process worth it? Check it out here.

There's a hearing today on the several bills up for consideration that would alter how votes are recorded. By the time any vote is recorded in the current process, the legislation is already more or less decided upon. The only measure that requires a record vote at all is an internal rule, which we can agree is quite different from and significantly less powerful than a law. In several editorials, newspapers from all over Texas are calling for transparency and record votes throughout the legislative process, and they want a law to require it. It is the right idea, and I'm not sure how anyone can vote against it, but I have no doubt the road to such a policy change will be long and winding, even now.

Lest you thought last week's market hijinx were over, guess again: emotions seem to be ruling global markets at the moment, and early trading is down all over the world. The Nikkei is down around 3%, and it seems as if last year's run of risky mortgages with insufficient consumer education have lead to a greater field of default for many American banks. On NPR this morning they described the international market scene as in the throes of a "domino effect," in which fear in one market is feeding off of similar emotions in all the others. It isn't Black Monday or anything, and this could still be simply a sign of a self-correction, but it is something to watch.

Problems at Walter Reed are getting their share of hearings as that process begins this week. Several inquiries have been opened, some congressional, some presidential, some military. My gut tells me that what they have found so far is neither the worst of it nor the majority of it, and that Washington Post story linked above may be the first of many stories like it.

In military matters, something I think most of us suspected but none of us wanted to admit came to light recently when the Bush Administration and Gen. Peter Pace from the Joint Chiefs revealed that there really isn't a Plan B for Iraq. Plan B, they say, is to make Plan A work. Things like this are why I grind my teeth at night. Defense Secretary Gates says that he's thinking about alternatives, and think-tank eggheads assert that Plan B is getting out of Dodge, and no one wants to talk about it, but they know the score. I'm not so sure. If nothing has been a sufficient indicator of the need to vacate so far to the Bush administration, I don't know that failure is something the administration can identify autonomously.

This editorial argues that the major thrust of the opposition to Perry's vaccine order is not about morals, but rather about Perry's seeming move towards a rule by decree. I don't buy that as a general blanket truth for a minute. Obviously some people will mind that the governor does anything that affects so many people via executive order, but those arguments are few and far between when the orders don't conflict with the core beliefs of his base. What the author writes is true for her and her family, but I do not think it is true for the majority of the order's opposition.

The Washington Times has a story this morning about a Palestinian college with ties to Hamas that has been the recipient of USAID funds in previous years. Payments to the Islamic University in Gaza will no doubt end soon, and the system for sending money to schools overseas will no doubt get a thorough going-over.

Stay tuned this week for some discussion on John Edwards' activities in Iowa, what's wrong with John McCain, Bill Trackers and other features. Thanks for reading.