Texas Progressives talk border, Greens, Ukraine lies

Within the duopoly world, college towns are cratering the GOP statewide advantage in states that have started tilting red, but not gone totally there, like Wisconsin. Long read from Politico. The GOP's No. 1 answer is vote suppression of various sorts, but there's only so far that can go.

Abbott's border offensive is probably not that effective, but it is inhumane. Border/Lines discusses in more detail.

Stace joins the choir calling out Abbott-led inhumanity.

Texas State Historical Association's (current) executive director J.P. Bryan is, shockingly, an "Obama is a Muslim" conspiracy theorist; I looked at the escalation of the dustup between him and the TSTA board a month ago. The Monthly concludes by noting the lawsuit could wipe out TSTA's finances and wreck the organization. I'm sure wingnuts think that's OK, and that they'd get the wingnut Lege to then invent a replacement.

The Daily Beast got a leaked transcript copy of the script of "The Guantanamo Candidate" the movie that VICE wrote for Showtime about Ron DeSantis' time at Gitmo as a Navy lawyer and that Showtime killed the day after DeSatan announced his prez run.

Off the Kuff began his roundup of July campaign finance reports, including those from federal races and the City of Houston's Mayoral race.

SocraticGadfly takes a look at Cornel West and early media coverage, and without even diving into Dan Froomkin's hypocrisy.

Warren K. Paxton may have started his petard-hoisting with the hiring of Brandon Cammack.

Tex-ass may not meteorologically be Arid-zona this year, but it's looking to be one of the worst five summers on record.

Warmonger Joe's Secretary of State Anthony Blinken claims Ukraine has recaptured 50 percent of lost territory. I think he's full of shit, even by Nat-sec Nutsacks standarrds. 

Via Josh Marshall, John Ganz gets RFK Jr. totally right on antisemitism. It's not so much whether he's "really" antisemitic, it's that he knows that a lot of conspiracy thinking treads into antisemitism, and so, this is like a trope of his derpity and his bona fides in that world.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project asked Houston voters concerned with the protection and expansion of democracy in Houston, to think about where they have leverage with Houston municipal candidates and to use that leverage.

The San Antonio Report has the story behind the viral mariachi video tribute to Victor Wembanyama, which is just delightful.

Therese Odell identifies the deep cynicism behind that terrible Jason Aldean song.

Frank Strong reports on wingnut book-banner candidates for Tomball ISD.

Chris Geidner explains the latest "target letter" for The Former Guy and Michigan's crackdown on its 2020 fake electors.

El Paso Matters records its city's ridiculous heat wave in five charts.