The Midday Brief: February 2, 2010

Your afternoon reading:

• “The latest campaign finance reports, released Tuesday, show that Medina raised almost $63,000 in January from donors who gave $200 or less. Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison each brought in the less than $16,000 from small-dollar givers.” — Small donors driving Medina campaign — Postcards

• “The Department of Homeland Security unveiled a $56.3 billion budget Monday that includes funding for the virtual border fence, E-Verify and an increase in the number of border patrol officers and intelligence analysts along the southern border.” — Obama beefs up border security in 2011 budget — San Francisco Chronicle

• “Texas lawmakers on Monday hammered home that without a new funding method, the Texas Department of Transportation will be unable to build any new roads beyond 2012 and will not have enough money to properly maintain existing roads within two to three years.” — Legislators debate road funding — San Antonio Express-News

• “I had a friend at JSC in Clear Lake remind me that what they do there is manned space flight, so . . . what were they going to be working on if private industry was going to be designing future crew vehicles to ferry astronauts to and from the Space Station?” — Private Industry's Reaction to NASA's New Mission — Musings

• “After all the hype and hoopla about "distracted driving" and the implementation of new bans using cell phones in school zones and on texting while driving, why am I not surpised to see this?” — Study: Cell phone, texting bans don’t reduce accidents — Grits for Breakfast

New in The Texas Tribune:

• “Even if 84 percent of Americans believe judges should not hear cases from major campaign contributors, the big Texas law firms that have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to them over the last 10 years see nothing wrong with business as usual.” — Odor in the Court — The Texas Tribune

• “The former Houston mayor pulled in slightly more than Republican Rick Perry and nearly tripled the total reported by the GOP governor's rival in the March 2 primary, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.” — 2010: White, Perry Lead in Fundraising — The Texas Tribune

• “Sometimes, true devotion to a candidate can best be expressed through a song.” — HuTube: An Anthem for Debra Medina — The Texas Tribune