Thumbs up, down
Refurbishing the Alamo, Trump flip-flops and county commissioners just don’t get it.
San Antonio City Council next month votes whether to give “conceptual approval” to a seven-year, $450 million plan to completely refurbish the Alamo and a large area abutting it. The design and funding mechanism is the brainchild of the Texas General Land Office and George P. Bush, the grandson of the most famous living Houstonian. Bush smartly took control of the site from the Daughters of the Republic of Texas shortly after his election in 2014. Thanks to inaction by Gov. Greg Abbott and the Legislature, many Texas shrines are in jeopardy. Close to here, the San Jacinto Monument crumbles and the Battleship Texas slowly sinks. What’s the fix? Give them — or the Governor’s Mansion — to Bush.
We’ve criticized Rep. John Culberson over the years for meddling with Metro, spending more time in D.C. than inside Loop 610 and holding public office for 30 years and having little to show for it. But let’s give credit when credit is due. He recently told the editorial board there might be alien life on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. And guess what? He’s right. In an announcement dubbed as “big,” NASA on Thursday said its researchers believe that the conditions are right to sustain life on Europa as well as on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons.
In other news of politicians doing good, Donald Trump did the right thing by flip-flopping on the Export-Import Bank. It’s Saturday and for the moment the president is “for” preserving the entity that helps fund the international purchase of American goods from jetliners to Texas cattle.
Greater Houston spends a billion-plus on law enforcement in what is often a duplicative and uncoordinated effort. When your house is burglarized, good luck getting any cop on the phone. It wasn’t a surprise, but it was a disappointment, when Gov. Greg Abbott showed up at a Monday news conference to announce the state would spend a half-million more to assign agents to fight gangs in Houston. The problem is that there was no Houston mayor, cop or Harris County official at the event.
There’s been an explosion of armed robberies in the area so any little bit helps. But if he really cared about taking down the bad guys, Abbott could have been more politically savvy and the city could have been more receptive to help.
If only Steve Radack, Jack Cagle and Ed Emmett could spend a night in jail. That’s how they might understand that the system they’re trying to defend is indefensible. Callousness, unfortunately, isn’t a misdemeanor.
In tweet-length summary, Harris County has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on lawyers to oppose a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of keeping nonviolent, low-risk defendants in jail because they can’t afford small bail payments. This week the commissioners (with only Rodney Ellis voting no), approved hiring appellate lawyers before a federal judge even issued a verdict. There is history in this county of doing the wrong thing even when elected officials knew it was bad. Think segregation or even slavery. Here’s an idea, albeit a tough one to stomach for those who run for office: admit error and settle the case.
Our unhappiness with United Airlines this week is not only because of the preposterous treatment of Dr. David Dao. The airline snubbed us by announcing it was pulling stateof-the-art Boeing 787 Dreamliners and their pilots out of Houston. We get 35-year-old 767s instead. Our take on these fiascos begins with leadership and ends with anti-trust laws.
Airlines are about the men and women at the top. Mechanic-turnedCEO Gordon Bethune was an everyman who earned respect throughout the organization, the industry, the country. Neither incident would have happened with him in the pilot’s seat nor would the disastrous melding of United and Continental, where the new company adopted the tactics and ethos of the worst player. History, we believe, will show that the Department of Justice has done us all a disservice by not scrutinizing deals that ultimately resulted in four airlines controlling 85 percent of domestic flights.
At least there’s one airline that loves Houston. The problem is that its headquarters are in Dallas.