Thursday News Roundup + Lampson

Staff Writer Cody Yocom examines the 2008 Congressional race in District 22, home of Nick Lampson.

Rick Perry gave a speech at his inaugural titled "Imagine the Possibilities!" which made me feel like I was at a job fair. The Governor took his own advice during the last election cycle and imagined the possibilities created by Bob Perry giving donations totaling a million dollars to the Republican Governors Association, which would sometimes immediately disburse like amounts to (Rick) Perry's campaign. The link is more obvious than verifiable, but hey - we are in the business of imagining the possibilities.

The Texas Congressional delegation is working on a new plan to bring federal money to the fight against drugs along the Texas / Mexico border. Specifically, it would send federal money to Mexico for equipment and training upgrades. We've been sending money to Latin America for years to combat cartels and drugs, but for some reason we send Mexico less ($61 million in 2006) than we do to countries that don't share a border with us (Colombia, $651 million). Put in that context, I'm more inclined to wonder why this hasn't already been done.

San Antonio is set to put a $550 million bond package on the ballot for May's elections, but this editorial from the San Antonio Express-News warns that even though it is the largest package ever, it is not going to fulfill the city's needs. City government is often times just as complicated as other, larger forms of government, and sometimes the interpersonal dynamics of a city's leadership can make it even more so. Sometimes there is a major disconnect between stakeholders that argue most vociferously for various projects and the people that actually benefit from those projects, who may not be inclined or able to argue it on behalf of the actual service-using public.

Houston police officers are working a lot, and in some cases, too much. The undermanned force has lead to a reliance on overtime hours to fill in the gaps, but the department hasn't been keeping up with regulated hours as well as they could have been. The sheer amount of money going to overtime causes efficiency concerns with the people who write the checks and work quality concerns with police officials. 80 hours a week and an off-duty job doesn't leave you much time for a personal life.

In a total change of heart, the Bush Administration announced that the warrantless wiretapping program would now be under the control of a judge from the FISA court. After a year of telling us that such a move would seriously compromise national security, it seemed a little weird. After Attorney General Alberto Gonzales spent time earlier this week talking about how activist, unelected judges are not qualified to make determinations on national security, it seemed even weirder. I think someone smelled a subpoena and decided to make an offering towards not ending up on a witness stand somewhere.

Robert Novak posits that Iraq may be an inescapable, crushing issue for the GOP in 2008, from which there is no escape. I agree.

Finally, did you know Ted Nugent rocked out at Rick Perry's inauguration party? He was totally wearing a Confederate flag t-shirt and reportedly hollering about illegals. My favorite line from the Chron story about it was this note of surprise:

His props were machine guns.

Well of course they were! I'm surprised he didn't drop in from the ceiling riding an ICBM. Before I ever read that line, I thought to myself "I bet he had a stage show which included ordinance of some sort." And lo, so it was.