Trump: ‘America Is on the Edge of an Abyss’

Donald Trump on Saturday delivered stinging rebukes of the Biden administration at the Dallas Conservative Political Action Conference, one of a continuing series of indications that the still-popular former president has set his sights on a return to the White House for 2024.

Trump during his speech declared that the U.S. “is being destroyed more from the inside than the out,” and that the country “is on the edge of an abyss, and our movement is the only force on earth that can save it.”

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Three More States Are Poised to Ban Abortion Amid Court Battles

Idaho, Tennessee and Texas are moving to enact “trigger bans” restricting abortions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade June 24, ending the precedent which had banned states from restricting abortion throughout the first six months of pregnancy.

The bans in these three states will take effect 30 days after the Supreme Court officially transmitted its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Association July 26, according to The Hill. Another 10 states had trigger bans go into effect after elected officials enacted them, and trigger abortion bans went into effect immediately after the court overturned Roe in three other states.

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Arizona Latina and Former Phoenix Suns Executive Moves Up Court in Run for Congress

If 2022 will be remembered for anything in politics, it will most likely go down in history books as the year of the Republican Latina.

Earlier this year Mayra Flores made national headlines when she won a special election in Texas’s 34th district to fill the unexpired term of U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, making her the first Mexican born Latina to serve in U.S. Congress. The win also made her only the second Republican in history to represent the Rio Grande Valley.

Two other Latina Texan Republicans, Cassy Garcia in Laredo and Monica De La Cruz in McAllen are also running in congressional races in communities near the Mexican border. The combined power of Flores, Garcia and De La Cruz have prompted conservatives to call them the “triple threat.”

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Tennessee Joins Arizona and 10 Other AGs in Lawsuit Aimed to Cleanse Federal Regulations Hampering Washing Machines, Dishwashers

Twelve attorneys general filed an opening brief Friday in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for changes made this year to energy and water efficiency standards for dishwashers and washing machines.

“These arbitrary washing machine regulations are unlawful, ineffective, and absolutely ridiculous,” Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, co-leader of a suit in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals against the DOE and Secretary Jennifer Granholm, said in a statement. “They should be hung out to dry as soon as possible.”

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Arizona Attorney General Brnovich Urges Gov. Ducey to Declare an Invasion on the ‘Ticking Time Bomb’ Border

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued a legal opinion in February declaring that Arizona has the constitutional authority to declare an invasion on its border with Mexico, but since Gov. Doug Ducey has not done so, Brnovich is now urging him to. In a letter sent to Ducey on July 6, Brnovich, who is now running for U.S. Senate, laid out the reasons why.

“This horrible situation is a ticking time bomb,” Brnovich said. “It’s just a question of when, and not if, the unspeakable will occur.” He went on, “[W]e have every indication that the border crisis will continue to escalate. If there is more that we as a state can and should do, it can be pursued with your declaration of an ‘invasion’ at our southern border.”

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Texas Offers $30 Million More to Local Law Enforcement for Border Security Efforts

An additional $30 million in Operation Lone Star (OLS) grant money is available to Texas cities and counties to enhance border security operations, the governor’s Public Safety Office (PSO) announced.

The announcement came two days after six county judges and sheriffs asked the governor to declare an invasion at the southern border, and to do more to help them thwart illegal activity in their counties after experiencing a surge of drug and human smuggling and other criminal activity resulting from the Biden administration’s border policies.

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CBP Chief Tries to Reassure the Rank-and-File as Agency Levels Charges Against ‘Whipgate’ Agents

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Chief Chris Magnus promised discontented rank-and-file officials that the agency would always support them despite pursuing charges against agents involved in the now-debunked “whipgate” incident, an internal email obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller News Foundation showed.

When CBP personnel “do the right thing,” the agency “will always stand behind you,” Magnus wrote in the email before announcing the results of the investigation into the September incident that took place in Del Rio, Texas. During the incident, Border Patrol agents used reins to steer their horses and maneuver around migrants entering the United Sates at the Rio Grande, which prompted some Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates to falsely claim the agents whipped migrants.

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No Judge Has Ever Declared Invasion Before in U.S. History: Cuccinelli

U.S. judges declaring an invasion at the southern border hasn’t occurred before until this week, Ken Cuccinelli, former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director and deputy secretary of Department of Homeland Security, said.

On Tuesday, four county judges in Texas declared an invasion citing Article 4, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution and Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. They called on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to “immediately prevent and/or remove all persons invading the sovereignty of Texas and that of the United States.”

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State Senator Leach Spearheading Effort to Ban Arizona Children from Drag Shows

The Arizona State Senate GOP spoke with The Arizona Sun Times via email about planned legislation that aims to prevent children from attending drag shows.

“[State] Senator Vince Leach [R-SaddleBrooke] is spearheading the effort, and he sent his ideas on the subject matter to our legislative council who is in the process right now of researching to help craft a potential bill. They will look at what’s in our constitution, what other states are doing and not doing, et cetera,” the Arizona State Senate GOP spokeswoman said.

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Economist: ‘When It Comes to Connecticut, Businesses Are Being Incentivized to Look Elsewhere’

LEGO Group’s decision to spend $1 billion to build a new factory near Richmond, Virginia, has led economy and industry experts to raise questions about the status of the Denmark company’s Connecticut headquarters.

The global toymaker announced at a press conference with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) its plans to build a new factory in Chesterfield, a move that would expand its production in the United States and create about 1,760 new jobs.

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Texas GOP Adopts New Platform: Biden ‘Was Not Legitimately Elected’

The Texas Republican Party has adopted a new platform, rejecting the certification of the 2020 presidential election results and declaring “that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.”

The 40-page platform was adopted by the state GOP in Houston over the weekend for its biennial convention, The Hill reported.

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Report: World’s First Trillionaires Could Be from Texas

The world’s first trillionaires could be from Texas, according to a new analysis of the 30 richest people in the world.

A new report published by the software company Tipalti Approve estimates that newly relocated Texas resident, Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk, could become the world’s first trillionaire by 2024. Houston native and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell could become a trillionaire by 2033.

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DeSantis: Texas Should Be Sending Illegal Immigrants Back to Mexico

Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says Texas shouldn’t be allowing illegal immigrants to enter the state, echoing sentiments conservative Texans have been arguing for over a year.

“What Texas needs to do is just send them [illegal immigrants] back across the border,” Gov. DeSantis said at a recent press conference in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. “Who cares what the Feds are saying. They aren’t doing their job.

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Caterpillar Announces Relocation of Global Headquarters from Illinois to Texas

Construction and mining equipment giant Caterpillar Inc. announced Tuesday it will move its global headquarters from its current location in Deerfield, Illinois, to the company’s existing office in Irving, Texas.

“We believe it’s in the best strategic interest of the company to make this move, which supports Caterpillar’s strategy for profitable growth as we help our customers build a better, more sustainable world,” said Chairman and CEO Jim Umpleby in a press release. 

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Commentary: No Duty to Protect

The May 24 massacre in Uvalde, Texas outrages the conscience, though not for the facile and stupid reasons spewed by every prominent Democratic Party politician, half-witted newspaper columnist, and vapid television talking-head. 

Liberals and other simpering dunderheads make fetishes of objects, focusing on the tool rather than the tool’s misuser. “Nobody needs an AR-15,” goes the refrain, when need has nothing and right has everything to do with it. “But the tool is so easy to misuse and abuse!” comes the ovine rebuttal, when we know as a matter of fact the tool is used in a small fraction of violent crimes.  

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Questions Swirl Around Law Enforcement’s Response to Uvalde Shooting; AP: SRO Driving Nearby, Not at Campus

The director of the southern section of the Texas Department of Public Safety cut short his Thursday press conference as reporters shouted questions at him about why local law enforcement was ineffective for the hour after Tuesday’s spree shooting at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School as gunshot victims languished inside. The crisis ended when Border Patrol Tactical officers arrived, engaged shooter Salvador Ramos, and killed him.

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Nashville-Based Jason Whitlock of ‘The Blaze’ Blasts Barack Obama and BLM in Wake of Texas Tragedy

In an op-ed titled, “Barack Obama, BLM, and the summer of George Floyd contributed to ‘Uvalde massacre,'” Jason Whitlock of The Blaze said, “As Barack Obama pretends to grieve for the children in Texas, he should make time to recognize that America’s emotional and immature reaction to George Floyd contributed to the slaughter of 19 little kids.”

Whitlock is the host of the program, Fearless with Jason Whitlock, based out of the Nashville area.

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Texas Court Reinstates Transgender ‘Child Abuse’ Policy

Texas government officials can continue to investigate parents who transition their children to the opposite sex for possible child abuse, the state’s supreme court ruled Friday.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) determined that child sex change surgeries constituted child abuse in August 2021 upon prompting by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and the DFPS began investigations of families for potential child abuse over treatments their transgender children were receiving in February. An appeals court had previously blocked these inquiries throughout the state, but the Texas Supreme Court ruled the lower court had “abused its discretion.”

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Texas Mask Mandate Repeal Case Attorney Welcomes Florida Judge’s Ruling

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Robert Henneke, the executive director and general counsel of The Texas Public Policy Foundation, about Florida federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s Oct. 18, 2022 ruling that overturned the Centers for Disease Control’s mask mandate for air travelers and public transportation passengers.

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Democrats’ Worst Nightmare Is Coming True in Texas

A significant number of Hispanic women are poised to represent the Republican Party in Texas as congressional candidates in the upcoming midterms, creating a potential nightmare scenario for Democrats as they attempt to reverse GOP gains.

Four Hispanic women have already won their respective GOP primaries, while two others made it to a runoff that will be held in May. Three of them, Mayra Flores, Monica de la Cruz and Cassy Garcia, have the potential to become the first Hispanic women and the first Republicans to represent South Texas in Congress.

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Commentary: Republican Election Integrity Efforts Work

Person with mask on at a computer.

After the serious election integrity issues of 2020, Republican leaders and the Republican National Committee have not been idle, but responded on behalf of voters to ensure that free, fair, and transparent elections remain a hallmark of American democracy. Joe Biden and Democrats predictably have done everything under the sun to smear these efforts, even calling those everyday Americans who oppose the efforts racist. But now, over a year later, the results are in, and Democrats have been totally wrong.

Georgia and Texas are perfect examples. Almost a year ago, after the passage of SB 202 – a highly popular Republican-led election integrity law which expanded early voting, poll watching, and voter ID requirements – Democrats pulled out all thestops and started lying. They said the law was “racist,” would “suppress” voter turnout, and even backed a boycott meant to hurt small businesses, many of them black-owned.

Essentially, they shamefully tried to stir up chaos along racial lines. But on Election Day, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution depicted a different scene entirely, writing that voters saw “short lines,” “few problems,” and no “obstacles at the polls.” It is time for all race-baiting Democrat politicians to stop their lies and admit their claims aren’t based in reality.

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Democrat Incumbent Switches Districts, Leaving Texas 15th Congressional District an Open Target

Incumbent Democrat U.S. Representative Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX-15) has elected to run for reelection in TX-34, leaving Texas’ Fifteenth Congressional district an open seat.

Redistricting changed the district lines and made an already competitive TX-15 an even more appetizing target for Republicans, who already have a nominee while the Democrats are scheduled to have a run-off in late May.

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Texas Supreme Court Strikes Major Blow to Abortion Providers’ Lawsuit Against Heartbeat Abortion Ban

Infant with stuffed animal

The Supreme Court of Texas recommended Friday a lawsuit challenging the state’s “heartbeat” abortion ban should be dismissed since it is enforced by “private civil action,” and not state officials.

Justice Jeffrey S. Boyd concluded in the decision regarding the case of Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, that state officials, such as medical licensing boards, cannot enforce the law that bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected

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Texas Judge Blocks State Investigations of Transgender Kids’ Treatments as Child Abuse

Texas District Judge Amy Clark Meachum blocked the state’s Department of Family Protective Services (DFPS) on Friday from investigating parents of transgender children for child abuse with regard to providing hormone therapy.

The decision is the most recent in a weeklong civil lawsuit filed by the parents of a transgender child and a psychologist from the Houston area who are challenging Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s order from last month calling for “prompt and thorough investigation” into reported instances of “gender-transitioning procedures” among minors.

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Federal Judge Orders Biden Administration to Halt Release of Illegal Alien Minors

On Friday, a federal judge in Texas ordered the Biden Administration to stop its mass releasing of illegal alien minors into the country after they come across the southern border.

Breitbart reports that the ruling came from Judge Mark Pittman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019. Pittman’s order forbids the Biden Administration from releasing any more illegals by declaring them exempt from Title 42, an immigration policy first enacted by President Trump which allowed immigration authorities to immediately deport illegals after apprehending them. The policy was one of several strict immigration measures implemented shortly after the coronavirus outbreak, citing health concerns with regards to the high number of unhealthy people crossing the border and potentially spreading the disease even further.

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Texas Lt. Governor Proposes Eliminating Tenure to Rid CRT from Public Universities

Dan Patrick of Texas

The Texas Lieutenant Governor has stated his priority to eliminate tenure in an attempt to stop Critical Race Theory (CRT) from “poisoning the minds of the next generation.”

During a Feb. 18 press conference, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick argued that academia has been infiltrated by “tenured, leftist professors” and called for additional oversight methods to crack down on the controversial curriculum. 

Patrick defined CRT as “an offshoot of critical legal studies, which is an offshoot of a socialist program (which says) that everything that happened in life is based on racism.”

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University Leadership Told the Student Newspaper to Stop Printing, Students Fought Back and Won

Pro-free speech campus activism at Texas A&M University defeated the university president’s attempt to cease the print production of The Battalion, a student-run newspaper.

The Battalion reported Feb. 11 that university President M. Katherine Banks ordered the publication to stop printing physical copies of the paper at the end of the 2022 spring semester.

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Texas District Attorneys Fighting Governor’s Order to Treat Sex Change Surgeries for Children as Abuse

District attorneys for five of the largest counties in Texas are defying Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order to treat sex change surgeries for children as child abuse.

Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (TDFPS) Tuesday to investigate instances of children undergoing sex change procedures, including “reassignment surgeries that can cause sterilization, mastectomies, removals of otherwise healthy body parts, and administration of puberty-blocking drugs or supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or estrogen.”

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Abortion Funding Groups Admitting to Violating Texas Heartbeat Act to Face Depositions

Two litigation firms have filed petitions against organizations that have admitted to paying for abortions in Texas after detection of a fetal heartbeat, a violation of the Texas Heartbeat Act.

Attorneys from both America First Legal and the Thomas More Society filed petitions for discovery against the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity and the Texas Equal Access Fund, both of which have admitted in court that their organizations paid for at least one abortion of an unborn baby in Texas who had a detectable heartbeat.

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Texas Attorney General Declares Puberty Blockers and Gender Transition Surgeries ‘Child Abuse’

Doctors performing surgery

The performance of surgical and chemical procedures on children for the purpose of gender transition “can legally constitute child abuse” under Texas law, declared Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Friday in a formal attorney general opinion.

Paxton responded to questions from State Representative Matt Krause (R-Fort Worth), chair of the Texas House Committee on General Investigating, who asked whether “sex change” surgeries performed on children, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty, vaginoplasty, mastectomies, and removal of otherwise healthy body parts, constitute child abuse.

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Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi Sue Biden over Minimum Wage Hike for Federal Contractors

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration again Thursday, this time for requiring federal contractors to pay a $15 an hour minimum wage. It’s the 21st lawsuit the attorney general has filed against the administration. Joining him are the attorneys general from Louisiana and Mississippi.

“The president has no authority to overrule Congress, which has sole authority to set the minimum wage and which already rejected a minimum wage increase,” Paxton argues.

Their lawsuit follows one filed last December by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of outdoor adventure guides, Arkansas Valley Adventures (AVA), ​​a licensed river outfitter regulated by the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife, and the Colorado River Outfitters Association (CROA). The CROA, a nonprofit trade association, represents more than 150 independent operators who primarily conduct business on federal lands using special use permits through Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management.

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Attorney General Paxton: Reports Suggesting Texas’ Operation Lone Star Is Unconstitutional Is ‘Fake News’

Multiple news reports suggesting that a Travis County judge ruled that Texas’ Operation Lone Star is unconstitutional is “fake news,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Office says.

To suggest the state’s border security measures are unconstitutional “is absolutely ludicrous and wrong,” Paxton told The Center Square.

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After Defund the Police Changes Local Sex Offender Policies, Students Feel ‘Compromised’

With cops in Austin, Texas, not supervising “hundreds of sex offender cases” due to Defund the Police budget cuts, Campus Reform spoke with students at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) about their safety.

“The situation in the city of Austin has been critical for some time ever since the city of Austin council decided to defund the police unanimously in the summer of 2020, and reduce their police budget by one-third,” sophomore Carter Moxley said.

Moxley also discussed UT Austin President Jay Hartzell’s decision last November to “increase [University of Texas Police Department] patrol in the west campus area and develop additional options to enhance safety for [the] students” after a violent incident near campus.

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Lawyer in Historic Vaccine Mandate Challenge Warns Larger Constitutional Issues Remain Unresolved

One of the lawyers in the historic U.S. Supreme Court case that blocked the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate on private business is warning it is only a preliminary victory and the larger constitutional issues about government-compelled inoculations must still be litigated.

“In some ways, yesterday was a win of a major battle, but still leaves the war to be fought,” said Robert Henneke, executive director and general counsel at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which filed one of the original challenges in Texas against the vaccine mandate that was eventually consolidated before the Supreme Court.

“While it got to the right outcome for declaring the private employer vax mandate unlawful, it kind of misses the forest for the trees because it leaves these broader questions of federal power unresolved,” he told the John Solomon Reports podcast.

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Former Planned Parenthood President Says School Closures Harm Children

Dr. Leana Wen

A former Planned Parenthood president and public health professional argued in a Thursday op-ed for The Washington Post that the rise in cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant is not a reason to keep schools closed.

Dr. Leana Wen argued “both sides [of the school reopening debate] are wrong,” in her op-ed. “let’s agree that schools are essential and then work to reduce risk to get students back to in-person learning,” Wen wrote.

Wen called it “astounding” that governors in states like Texas, Georgia and Iowa are fighting against school mask mandates and that Florida’s surgeon general is discouraging testing in schools, attributing ” “low vaccine uptake among children” to “rampant right-wing disinformation.”

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott Sues Biden Administration over National Guard Vaccine Requirement

On Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) filed a lawsuit against the administration of Joe Biden over the federal vaccine requirement for members of the National Guard.

As reported by CNN, Abbott’s lawsuit declares that the vaccine mandate for the Texas National Guard infringes on “Governor Abbott’s authority as Commander in Chief and on Texas’s sovereignty,” and that “it is unlawful for Defendants to attempt to override the Governor’s authority to govern his troops, and then leave him to deal with the harms that they leave in their wake.”

The lawsuit is in response to a policy implemented by an August memorandum from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, declaring that all members of the American military must be vaccinated or else face discharge. Austin declared that the mandate would include non-federalized National Guard members, such as state National Guards, and that any states that defied the mandate would face a funding freeze or see members be prohibited from engaging in military duties.

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Analysis: The Top Governor’s Races to Watch This Year

Democrats four years ago rode a blue wave to governors’ mansions across the country, flipping Republican-held seats in the Midwest, Northeast and West alike.

Now, however, many of those governors face Republican challengers amid a political environment that looks potentially promising for the GOP, meaning that contentious races may lie ahead in some of the nation’s most pivotal battleground states. Republicans have already had two strong showings in states that lean Democratic, flipping the governor’s seat in Virginia and coming surprisingly close in New Jersey, a state that voted for President Joe Biden by 16 points in 2020.

Governors in less competitive states are also facing primary challengers from the left and right, making for multiple bitter, closely-followed primaries between candidates from different wings of the same party.

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Federal Judge Blocks Mask, Vaccine Mandates for Texas Schools’ Head Start Program

A federal judge has blocked COVID-19 mask and vaccine mandates in Texas’ schools Head Start program, a decision that GOP Gov. Greg Abbott is calling a win over “Biden again.”

“Texas just beat Biden again,” Abbott, a staunch opponent of such mandates, tweeted after the ruling Friday by Judge James “Wesley” Hendrix, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Hendrix, a Trump administration appointee, wrote in the ruling: “The Court concludes that the circumstances do not justify or require a nationwide injunction,” according to KLBK Lubbock. “The great majority of evidence before the Court is limited to harm caused to Head Start programs in Texas.”

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