The Midday Brief: May 27, 2010

Your afternoon reading:

• “The National Guard troops President Barack Obama will send to the border won't be able to patrol it, arrest people or use deadly force, U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes said.” — National Guard will do border surveillance, intelligence gathering — El Paso Times  

• “The state-run facility in Lubbock for people with mental disabilities, where outcries of shoddy care and exploitation sparked a federal investigation five years ago, still has big problems, an independent monitoring team reported today.” —Abuse, staff shortages still vex state-run Lubbock campus for Texans with mental disabilities — Trail Blazers  

• “Harris County Sheriff's spokeswoman Christina Garza said Wednesday she could not share details. U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lloyd Easterling says he "cannot discuss specific intelligence regarding individual groups." — Somali terror member may be heading to Texas — Associated Press

• “White House press conferences are carefully orchestrated exercises. The wire services and TV networks get to ask the first questions. With the handful of remaining national newspapers thrown in, it's very, very difficult for the rest of us — even a newspaper the size of the Houston Chronicle — to get a question in.” — My question for President Obama — Texas on the Potomac

New in The Texas Tribune:

• “As might be expected, White is doing best in his home base of Houston, though not overwhelmingly. Perry, on the other hand, is somewhat ahead in the Metroplex, while the two are neck-and-neck in the Austin and San Antonio areas. But Perry is clobbering White among Texans from ‘everywhere else.’” — The Polling Center: Bill White’s “Everywhere Else” Problem

• “This is Allen High School, home of the Eagles and a study in bigness: a 5,000-student campus, with a 650-member marching band, the nation’s largest, supporting a football team that draws 8,000 fans to away games. And now — the pinnacle of the community’s collection of suburban spoils — Allen will break ground on an 18,000-seat palace of a stadium. Though only the fifth-largest high school football stadium in Texas, it’s the largest that will be occupied by a single team.” — Are You Ready for Some Football?

• “So a little over a week ago, we asked everyone who's given us their email address (12,000 of you, to be exact) to fill out a short survey. We hoped to get a couple hundred responses, but instead we got more than 1,000 in 24 hours, and the information we collected was truly surprising. The audience we've attracted is even better than we had a right to expect.” — T-Squared: We Know Who You Are