Miami Herald: “The chants of dozens of students from across Florida could be heard through the walls of the Senate chamber on Monday as lawmakers debated a contentious proposal to bar lessons about sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten to third grade. “We say gay!” “We say gay!” “We say gay!” A day later,…

The North State Journal: “The U.S. Supreme Court denied a motion to stay the court-drawn congressional map that will now be used in the state’s 2022 elections. The court voted to deny the application by a 6-3 decision, with Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court’s three…

Watauga Watch: “The New Yorker article that outed Trump’s last chief of staff Mark Meadows is here, and it’s not behind a pay-wall. The fact seems to be that after Meadows sold his only North Carolina home in March 2020 and moved permanently to northern Virginia, he had no residence in North Carolina from which to…

Politico: “Donald Trump’s pick in North Carolina’s contentious Republican Senate primary is struggling to gain traction, raising concerns among his powerful backers about his prospects in a race that is key to control of the Senate. Rep. Ted Budd, the congressman Trump unexpectedlyendorsed last summer, has fallen in recent polling and lagged in fundraising, leaving him…

Off the Kuff: “The former CEO of one of the nation’s biggest pipeline companies and a major donor to Gov. Greg Abbott is suing Democrat Beto O’Rourke for defamation, slander, and libel for talking about his company’s role in the 2021 Texas winter storm and referring to the executive’s subsequent donations to Abbott’s re-election as…

TX Tribune: “For high school senior Gabrielle Izu, Texas’ public school book bans feel personal. The books Texas is targeting — mainly novels that focus on discussions of race, sexual orientation and gender identity — tell the tale of Izu’s past and future. The 17-year-old high school student is Asian American, Black and Hispanic and bisexual, and…

The New Yorker: “Mark Meadows, who grew up in Florida, moved to North Carolina in the nineteen-eighties and opened Aunt D’s, a sandwich shop in Highlands. He later sold the restaurant and started a real-estate company with a line in vacation properties. (He showed a few to my parents, in the nineties.) He became active…

AR Times: “Facts? Who needs ’em? It’s complicated, but nuance isn’t in the GOP playbook. The U.S. is a net energy exporter. The domestic energy industry has leases it isn’t using. We get a very small amount of our supply from Russia. There are some arguments, beneficial to U.S. refiners and our allies, for continuing…

Off the Kuff: “Time for an OG Paxton scandal update. The state’s top appeals court on Wednesday agreed to take up the question of where Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton should be tried for alleged securities fraud, a small victory for prosecutors pursuing the criminal cases against the Republican official. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will…

NY Times: “Such efforts are being encouraged statewide, putting Tennessee at the forefront of a nationwide conservative effort to reshape what students are learning and reading in public schools. One proposed Tennessee law prohibits textbooks that “promote L.G.B.T.Q. issues or lifestyles”; one that passed in June would prohibit materials that make someone feel “discomfort” based…