The Hill: “Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said that Texas should secede if Democrats “fundamentally” destroy the U.S. but added that “he is not ready to give up on America yet.” “If the Democrats end the filibuster, if they fundamentally destroy the country, if they pack the Supreme Court, if they make D.C. a state, if they federalize elections,…

TX Observer: “Those actions gel with the reports by Commission Shift and Texans for Public Justice, which found that as a commissioner, Wright has supported deregulation policies that would benefit oil waste companies like the one he once owned. The groups also found that Craddick and Christian, the agency’s chair, had similar conflicts of interest,…

NY Times: “Then the vaccines arrived. They proved so powerful, and the partisan attitudes toward them so different, that a gap in Covid’s death toll quickly emerged. I have covered that gap in two newsletters — one this summer, one last month — and today’s newsletter offers an update. The brief version: The gap in Covid’s death toll…

Political Wire: ““Donald Trump once described Mitch McConnell as his ‘ace in the hole’ and wrote, in a foreword to the Senate Republican leader’s autobiography, that he ‘couldn’t have asked for a better partner’ in Washington,” The Guardian reports. “Except, according to Trump, he didn’t.” “Speaking to the Washington Post for a profile of the Senate minority leader published on…

WLOX: “NASCAR denounced its association with the “Let’s go, Brandon” political cry being used across the country as an insult directed at President Joe Biden. Steve Phelps, NASCAR’s president, said Friday the top motorsports series in the United States does not want to be associated with politics “on the left or the right.” Phelps also…

Right Wing Watch: “North Carolina’s Christian nationalist Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has been under fire since Right Wing Watch posted various clips of him making outrageous comments, particularly his rant that Christians must take control of public schools and ban the teaching about “filth” like LGBTQ issues. On Tuesday, Robinson appeared on a conference call hosted by radical right-wing pastor and radio host E.W. Jackson, who shares Robinson’s aversion to gay…

Slate: “For two months, it appeared as if the Supreme Court was divided 5–4 on S.B. 8, the Texas law that lets bounty hunters collect $10,000 from anyone who performs or “abets” an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. During oral arguments over the law on Monday, however, a different split emerged. Three justices obviously loathe the measure as a…

The Telegraph: “High-profile candidates with national followings. Fierce debates over a new election law. And deep divisions over former President Donald Trump’s future political role. Georgia is right back in the middle of the political spotlight. One year out from the midterm elections, Georgia is poised to be one of the most hotly contested states,…

AR Times: “Anna Beth Gorman, executive director of the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas, has announced her campaign for secretary of state. Nothing in her release mentions that she’s seeking the Democratic nomination, but she’s wearing a blue blouse in her campaign kickoff and the state Democratic Party is tweeting about her, so there you go. She’ll face…

People Magazine: “A Texas man has been arrested after allegedly murdering a woman and shooting her husband because they supported President Joe Biden in last year’s election. On Sept. 8, the El Paso Police Department SWAT team and detectives arrested Joseph Angel Alvarez — nearly a year after Georgette Kauffmann was killed and her husband Daniel Kaufmann’s…