The Midday Brief: November 10, 2009

Your afternoon reading:

• “The Texas Workforce Commission today took a step to moderate next year's unemployment insurance tax increase - but a spokeswoman said they still will pay a total two to three times the $1 billion they paid this year due to demand created by the high jobless rate.” — Businesses to pay higher jobless taxes, but state acts to blunt increase — Texas Politics

• “Longtime state Rep. Delwin Jones will have at least one more opponent in the March 2 Republican primary.” — Jones gets another challenger — Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

• “The number of people caught illegally entering the U.S. dropped by more than 23% during the past year, continuing a longer trend, federal data shows.” — Border Arrests Decline Again – The Wall Street Journal

• “More than 10,000 people are waiting under a hot Texas sun for the Fort Hood memorial service to begin.” — Quick update from the scene of the Fort Hood services — Texas on the Potomac

• Just what conservatives need right now -- a family feud in our largest conservative state. "You louse!" "You heel!" "Get that thumb out of my eye!" "No -- put down that frying pan first!" — Tex Mess — The American Spectator

• “There is Rafael Anchia, a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives that Texas Monthly predicted would be state governor by 2018. There is Julian Castro, the 35-year-old mayor of San Antonio, who, like Obama, went to Harvard Law School.” — Up next: A Latino president? – San Gabriel Valley Tribune

New in The Texas Tribune:

• “Governor Rick Perry's October speech at the Lake Travis Republican Women's Club is the second in our Stump Interrupted series.” — Stump Interrupted: Rick Perry – The Texas Tribune

• “Bradley, who told the Tribune last week about his plans to reform the commission, expected some verbal jousting with the committee's chairman, State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, and others on the committee. He was right.” — TribBlog: Bradley Makes His Case — The Texas Tribune