Author: Bob McCranie

I am so proud to run Texas Pride Realty Group. We set out on a mission in 2009 to serve the diverse communities of Texas and to hire kick-ass agents who practice the highest ethics and professionalism. I believe that the agent's role is to help the consumer make well-educated decisions, even if those decisions lead away from a purchase or sale. I believe that education is vital in this industry. I currently have over 1300 hours of real estate courses on my transcript with the State of Texas. Additionally, I am a Real Estate Business Coach at Tom Ferry International, the largest-real-estate specific coaching company in the world. I coach agents in the US and Canada, and have coached clients in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Switzerland. I also have knowledge of the UK and Irish markets. Opening Texas Pride Realty was always a goal of mine and I am working night and day to be sure it is successful. The best way to do that is to be sure clients are satisfied and agents are busy. What better legacy could someone leave in this industry than a group of well-trained, high-quality brokers who do your job better than you?

The College Board Says A.P. Psychology Is ‘Effectively Banned’ in Florida

This blog originally appeared at The New York Times.

The nonprofit said it would not remove a section on gender and sexual orientation, as Florida had requested, and advised districts not to offer the course.

The Florida Department of Education, pictured, accused the College Board of “playing games with Florida students” and said it had not banned the course.

The College Board announced on Thursday that Florida school districts should no longer offer Advanced Placement Psychology, one of the most popular A.P. courses, the latest skirmish in its battle with the state’s Department of Education over how to teach race, gender and sexual orientation.

The College Board, the nonprofit that oversees advanced placement courses and the SAT, revoked its support for A.P. Psychology in Florida, saying it would not abide by the state’s demand to remove a longstanding section on gender and sexual orientation.

“The Florida Department of Education has effectively banned A.P. Psychology in the state,” the College Board said in a statement.

The Department of Education fired back, accusing the College Board of “playing games with Florida students” one week before school starts.

“The Department didn’t ‘ban’ the course,” the department said in a statement. “The course remains listed in Florida’s Course Code Directory for the 2023-24 school year. We encourage the College Board to stop playing games with Florida students and continue to offer the course and allow teachers to operate accordingly.”

More on U.S. Schools and Education

Houston Schools: The decision to fire librarians and effectively close libraries in some of the Texas city’s poorest schools has been the most contentious one yet made by new leaders who were imposed on the district by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Florida Schools: As a new school year begins in Florida, parents are facing bureaucracy and new rules on gender, books, bathrooms and pronouns, an offshoot of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s muscular push for “parental rights” in education.
Reading Crisis: Many states are taking steps to improve reading instruction for struggling students. But New York, once a national leader in education reform, lags behind.

Under an expanded Florida rule, instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation is now restricted in most cases through the 12th grade. The Florida Department of Education had asked the College Board and other providers of advanced, college-level courses to search their offerings for potential violations.

But the College Board said that it would not modify its content, and that any course that did not address gender and sexual orientation should not be labeled “advanced placement.”

“To be clear, any A.P. Psychology course taught in Florida will violate either Florida law or college requirements,” the College Board said.

The College Board, a powerful nonprofit, has been waging war with the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, since earlier this year when his administration rejected the College Board’s new African American studies course. The curriculum included topics such as “queer studies,” reparations and the Black Lives Matter movement, and the administration objected, citing a state law limiting how racism and other aspects of history are taught in public schools.

click here to see full blog: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/us/florida-ap-psychology-courses.html

September 25, 2023

Missouri GOP Politicians Use Flamethrowers For Symbolic Book Burning In Alarming Video

This blog originally appeared at Comic Sands A Font News And Info.

Members of the Missouri Republican Party have been widely condemned after they were filmed participating in a symbolic book burning at the St. Charles County Freedom Fest over the weekend.

State Senator Bill Eigel—a GOP candidate for the Missouri governorship who has pledged to burn books if elected—is seen on camera gleefully using a flamethrower to burn empty cardboard boxes while joined by State Senator Nick Schroer, highlighting what he would actually do to books if given the chance.

Eigel defended the video in a statement to the Kansas City Star, saying it’s symbolic of what he wants to do “to the leftist policies and RINO corruption of the Jeff City swamp.”

He added:

“But let’s be clear, you bring those woke pornographic books to Missouri schools to try to brainwash our kids, and I’ll burn those too – on the front lawn of the governor’s mansion.”

Click here to see full blog: https://www.comicsands.com/missouri-gop-book-burning-video-2665592334.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter&s=09#Echobox=1695563660

September 25, 2023

Trump-appointed judge won’t force Texas university to allow drag show

This blog originally appeared at Reuters.

Sept 22 (Reuters) – A LGBTQ student group did not have an inherent constitutional right to hold a charity drag show on West Texas A&M University’s campus over the objections of the school’s president, who deemed such performances “misogynistic” and mocking of womanhood, a federal judge ruled.

Sept 22 (Reuters) – A LGBTQ student group did not have an inherent constitutional right to hold a charity drag show on West Texas A&M University’s campus over the objections of the school’s president, who deemed such performances “misogynistic” and mocking of womanhood, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who before becoming a judge in Amarillo, Texas, was a Christian legal activist opposed to LGBTQ rights causes, on Thursday ruled that it was far from clear that drag shows were covered by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment’s protections for free expression.

The LGBTQ student group, Spectrum WT, sued in March after the school’s president, Walter Wendler, barred a charity drag show set for that month from going forward even though, he said, “the law of the land appears to require it.”

The group later moved that event off campus, but it continued to seek an injunction barring him from banning future events including a planned drag show in March 2024.

But Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump, said Wendler was wrong that the law required him to allow drag shows, which can involve “sexualized conduct” that can be regulated to protect any children in an audience from “lewdness.”

The group later moved that event off campus, but it continued to seek an injunction barring him from banning future events including a planned drag show in March 2024.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, which defended the university, did not respond to a request for comment.

Kacsmaryk gained national attention in April when he suspended approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. An appellate court overturned parts of that ruling, and the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the pill to remain on the market while appeals proceed.

His ruling on Thursday conflicted with recent decisions by judges in Utah, Tennessee, Montana and Texas blocking state and municipal laws banning drag shows.

Kacsmaryk in reaching his conclusion cited “older rules” of First Amendment case law that recognized an “outer limit” for expressive conduct.

He said those remain valid even under modern free speech jurisprudence, which “only intermittently” examines what is protected historically, in contrast to how the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms is interpreted.

The conservative-majority Supreme Court last year ruled that gun laws must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” to pass muster under the Second Amendment.

The case is Spectrum WT v. Wendler, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas, No. 2:23-cv-00048.

For Spectrum WT: J.T. Morris of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

For the West Texas A&M University defendants: Charles Eldred of the Office of the Texas Attorney General

September 25, 2023

Part 3: Under Trump, Texas’ foot soldiers became federal judges, securing a conservative stronghold in the courts

This blog originally appeared at The Texas Tribune.

A federal judiciary full of ideological allies is helping Texas block Democratic priorities and advance right-wing legal doctrines. But the bigger prize is conservative control of the rule of law itself.

Righting the Rule of Law

For decades, an increasingly powerful movement of conservative lawyers, born from the Texas Office of the Attorney General, had been shouldering its way into the federal judiciary, filing lawsuit after lawsuit in an attempt to slowly reshape the nation’s jurisprudence to its liking.

The election of President Donald Trump swung the doors wide open and ushered them inside.

Trump entered office with more judicial vacancies than almost any president in U.S. history, and a resolute commitment to fill those openings with conservative loyalists. Texas, the workhorse of the movement, was rewarded especially richly, with more new federal district and appellate judges appointed than any other state.

Many of these new appointees shared a strikingly similar professional background.

“The number of alums from the [Texas Office of the Solicitor General] who now wear robes on a daily basis, and not just because they have curious sartorial decisions, is an amazing and impressive thing,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general himself, at a Federalist Society event in 2019.

The progeny of Texas’ conservative legal revolution no longer just bring their legal theories before the federal bench. Now they’re sitting on it, ready to decide cases built on the same legal arguments they helped shape over the last two decades.

“They’re young, they’re smart, they’re principled, they’re constitutionalists,” Cruz said. “That is an incredible legacy, and it’s a legacy Texas is going to be benefitting from 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years from now.”

Transforming the district courts

When President Barack Obama left office, about half of Texas’ 52 federal judgeships were filled by Republican appointees, about a third were Democratic appointees and a full 20% were vacant, having languished under a Democratic president who didn’t prioritize judicial nominees and two Republican Texas senators who did.

After Trump was elected, those roadblocks swiftly resolved. Politically aligned with the president, Cruz and Sen. John Cornyn basically had free rein to nominate district judges. In 2013, Democrats eliminated the 60-vote requirement for judicial appointments, so with a Republican majority in the Senate, Cruz and Cornyn didn’t have to worry too much about finding consensus picks.

After years of helping Texas bring conservative causes to the courts, the senators had an opportunity to influence who would hear those cases going forward. And they took it, nominating a class of young, conservative judges, many of whom had helped build the litigation machine at the Texas attorney general’s office.

Brantley Starr, who worked under Cruz in the solicitor general’s office and “side by side” with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, was appointed as a district judge in Dallas. David Morales, one of Abbott’s top deputies at the attorney general’s office and former general counsel to Gov. Rick Perry, was appointed in Corpus Christi.

Former Deputy Solicitor General Sean Jordan was appointed in Plano, and then attended the swearing-in for J. Campbell Barker, who joined the bench in Tyler.

click here to see full blog: https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/31/texas-federal-courts-conservative-takeover-trump/

September 22, 2023

Part 2: Texas backlash to Obama fueled conservative drive to reinterpret U.S. Constitution

This blog originally appeared at The Texas Tribune.

Barraging the Obama administration with lawsuits, the Texas attorney general’s office wasn’t just trying to block policies. It was injecting disruptive, overtly Christian legal philosophies into the mainstream, and grooming a generation of conservative legal warriors.

Righting the Rule of Law

In November 2008, almost 70 million people turned out to vote for the nation’s first Black president and their hope for once-in-a-generation political change.

Barack Obama, a young, former community organizer, promised he’d help more people afford health care, stop the pollution of the planet, expand pathways to legal citizenship and help families dig their way out of the worst recession in decades.

With congressional majorities at his back, it seemed Republicans in D.C. would be hard-pressed to stop Obama’s liberal juggernaut. But 1,500 miles away, a group of conservative attorneys were loading the canons and pointing them north.

Over the previous eight years, the Texas Office of the Attorney General had transformed from a Democrat-led bureaucratic workhorse into a Republican war machine, peppering the federal courts with conservative cases and friend-of-the-court filings. Now, Greg Abbott, a man elected by 2.5 million people to be the top lawyer for one of fifty states, stepped up to do what his fellow conservatives in Washington could not: stop, or at least slow, Obama’s agenda.

During the Obama administration, Abbott’s office, and especially its elite appellate unit, the Office of the Solicitor General, became a government in exile, a refuge for the Republican party’s brightest minds. Top-tier conservative attorneys came to Texas for the chance to gain courtroom experience, burnish their bonafides and strengthen their commitment to the cause.

They had plenty of opportunities. Under Abbott, Texas brought more than 30 lawsuits against the Obama administration in six years, including an average of one suit a month in 2010. Texas used the federal courts to try to stop the federal expansion of government subsidized health care; block protections for young people who entered the country illegally with their parents; guard businesses against environmental regulations intended to stave off climate change; and even extend the fishing season by two weeks.

Texas emerged as an almost co-equal party to the federal government, casting itself as the defender of state sovereignty, federalism and the U.S. Constitution, and quietly helping push the nation’s legal apparatus to the right.

Abbott defined his role quite simply: “I go into the office, I sue the federal government, and then I go home.”

Reformation takes root

Several forces aligned to allow Texas to punch above its constitutional weight during the Obama administration.

In the previous decade, state attorneys general had taken a more proactive stance in the federal courts, banding together to pursue consumer protection and environmental regulation cases. Many states, including Texas, built solicitor general offices to improve their performance before appellate courts, and even bring cases to the U.S. Supreme Court.

This accelerated after a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, granted states “special solicitude” to bring lawsuits against the federal government, effectively lowering the bar for states to get into court. The ruling’s true meaning has been hotly debated since, but Texas took it as pre-clearance to file more, and more ambitious, cases.

“The AG’s have really latched onto that,” said Paul Nolette, a Marquette University political scientist. “They’ve really expanded their ability to be, in some ways, unlike any other plaintiff. It’s just a lot easier to get into court for them.”

click here to see full blog: https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/31/texas-federal-courts-conservative-takeover-obama-paxton/

September 22, 2023

Part 1: In 1998, a legal revolution was quietly born in Texas. It would pull America’s courts rightward. | The Texas Tribune

This blog originally appeared at The Texas Tribune.

With his election as Texas attorney general, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn planted the seeds of conservatism. Gov. Greg Abbott used his tenure to cultivate them into an aggressive strain of right-wing activism aimed at driving the nation’s courts and laws to the right.

Righting the Rule of Law

In March, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sat before the next generation of conservative legal warriors and shared with them the gospel of Texas.

The story began several decades earlier, when conservative lawyers like himself looked out over the nation’s legal landscape and saw “opinion after opinion after opinion that seemed to rewrite the Constitution,” Abbott told this gathering of law students put on by the Federalist Society.

The nation had strayed from its constitutional roots, as divined by these conservatives, and their vision of America as a Christian nation was slipping away: Federal courts were protecting abortion rights, keeping prayer out of schools, restricting gun ownership and letting the federal government rein in the liberties of states, businesses and individuals.

It was long past time to put an end to it.

“A principle that causes America to stand apart from all other countries is our Constitution and our adamant insistence on the rule of law,” Abbott explained. But the way things were going back then, “we would soon become the rule of men, whoever was interpreting and applying the law.”

The rule of law is often cast as democracy’s equalizer, a nonpartisan social contract insulated from politics and arbitrated by impartial judges. But as these conservative lawyers realized, quite the opposite is true.

Whoever shapes the courts shapes the law.

So it was to the federal judiciary, paradoxically ripe for ideological influence with its unelected, lifetime appointees, that those conservative lawyers turned for salvation. In that crusade, Texas would become their Jerusalem.

Gov. Greg Abbott speaks about this year’s legislative session to an audience at the Texas Public Policy Foundation offices in Austin on June 2.

In less than a generation, the Texas Office of the Attorney General transformed into the beating heart of a nationwide conservative legal revolution. Under three occupants, including Abbott, the office barraged the federal courts with state-funded lawsuits born of increasingly overt right-wing activism. The best and brightest of the conservative legal elite came to Austin to help Texas become “the standard bearer for the United States in showing what the rule of law is,” Abbott said.

By the time Abbott spoke to this auditorium of rapt law students in March, his was a success story. Disciples of this movement — alumni of the Texas attorney general’s office and their ideological allies — now fill the federal bench, often deciding the lawsuits Texas continues to bring against the federal government.

click here to see full blog: https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/31/texas-federal-courts-conservative-takeover-cornyn-abbott/

September 22, 2023

Piraeus becomes new magnet for Golden Visa suitors

This blog originally appeared at Ekathimerini.

Foreign investors, who are keen on securing a residence permit via the Golden Visa program, continue to show unwavering dedication to purchasing properties valued at a minimum of 250,000 euros.

In this particular scenario, real estate market leaders underscore that the demand has undergone a significant transformation, now concentrating predominantly on the regions within Attica where the 250,000 euro threshold remains intact. This shift has led to a marked reduction in interest for areas where the threshold has doubled to 500,000 euros, with such locations being largely avoided.

Alexandros Risvas, the head of the Risvas & Associates law office, points out that a significant portion of investors is currently directing their attention towards properties in Piraeus and its surrounding areas. These regions remain unaffected by the recent changes that have impacted Athens and its suburbs, making them more appealing to potential investors.

Click here to see full blog: https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1219922/piraeus-becomes-new-magnet-for-golden-visa-suitors/

September 22, 2023

Texas professor suspended hours after criticizing lieutenant governor in lecture

This blog originally appeared at The Guardian.

Joy Alonzo accused by student of disparaging Dan Patrick in lecture on opioid crisis at Texas A&M University

The swift investigation sparked criticism from free speech advocates over the interference of politicians into classroom discussions.

The Texas A&M University professor Joy Alonzo criticized the Texas lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, during a visiting lecture in March 2023 on the opioid crisis at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas.

Just hours later, Alonzo learned a student accused her of disparaging Patrick during the lecture. The complaint reached her supervisors and the chancellor of Texas A&M, John Sharp, who was in communication directly with the lieutenant governor’s office.

The student is reportedly the daughter of the Texas land commissioner, Dawn Buckingham, who served in the Texas senate with Patrick for six years, received an endorsement from him in her run for land commissioner, and had attended Sharp’s wedding in May.

Less than two hours after the lecture had ended, Patrick’s chief of staff forwarded Alonzo’s professional biography to Sharp, reported the Texas Tribune. The chancellor responded to the lieutenant governor directly via text message that Alonzo would immediately be placed on administrative leave pending an investigation to fire her.

The University of Texas Medical Board quickly issued a censure statement, distancing itself from any comments Alonzo made during the lecture.

Texas A&M and the University of Texas Medical Board did not specify what Alonzo said during the lecture that prompted the investigation. Students interviewed by the Texas Tribune only recalled a vague reference to Patrick during the lecture on opioid overdose policies. Texas A&M ultimately allowed Alonzo to retain her job after the investigation did not reveal any wrongdoing.

The swift investigation sparked criticism from Alonzo’s colleagues and free speech advocates over the interference of politicians into classroom discussions and how state universities are managed.

Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a non-profit legal group focused on protecting free speech on college campuses, criticized the investigation as “inappropriate” in an interview with the Tribune and noted its chilling effect, regardless of the outcome of the investigation.

Marcia Ory, a professor at Texas A&M Health and co-chair of the university’s Opioid Task Force with Alonzo, noted the long-term consequences of the interference in an email to Jon Mogford, vice-president of Texas A&M Health.

The reporting of the suspension and investigation of Alonzo comes as the Texas A&M president, Katherine Banks, resigned last week over the backlash to politically motivated outsiders halting the hiring by the university of Kathleen McElroy, a Black journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, to revive the journalism school at Texas A&M.

On Alonzo, a spokesperson for the university system told the Tribune: “It is not unusual to respond to any state official who has concerns about anything occurring at the Texas A&M System,” claiming the system followed standard procedure investigating the claim against Alonzo.

The Guardian has contacted Texas A&M, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and Joy Alonzo for further comment.

click here to see full blog: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/25/texas-am-university-professor-suspended-dan-patrick

September 21, 2023

Trans patients sue hospital that provided their records to Tennessee’s attorney general

This blog originally appeared at NBC News.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has been under a fraud investigation involving medical billing since last year.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Vanderbilt University Medical Center is being sued by its transgender clinic patients, who accuse the hospital of violating their privacy by turning their records over to Tennessee’s attorney general.

Two patients sued Monday in Nashville Chancery Court, saying they were among more than 100 people whose records were sent by Vanderbilt to Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. His office has said it is examining medical billing in a “run of the mill” fraud investigation that isn’t directed at patients or their families. Vanderbilt has said it was required by law to comply.

The patients say Vanderbilt was aware that Tennessee authorities are hostile toward the rights of transgender people, and should have removed their personally identifying information before turning over the records.

Tennessee has stood out among conservative-led states pushing myriad laws targeting transgender people, enacting some of the nation’s most anti-LGBTQ restrictions, even as families and advocates have voiced objections that such policies are harmful. The lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of everyone at the clinic whose private medical records were released to Skrmetti.

“Against that backdrop, its failure to safeguard the privacy of its patients is particularly egregious,” the lawsuit says.

The attorney general’s office has said the hospital has been providing records of its gender-related treatment billing since December 2022, and that the records have been kept confidential. Elizabeth Lane Johnson, an attorney general’s office spokesperson, noted Tuesday that the office isn’t a party to the lawsuit, and directed questions to Vanderbilt.

VUMC spokesperson John Howser said Tuesday that it’s common for health systems to get such requests in billing probes and audits, and “the decision to release patient records for any purpose is never taken lightly, even in situations such as this where VUMC was legally compelled to produce the patient records.”

Many of the patients involved are state workers, or their adult children or spouses; others are on TennCare, the state’s Medicaid plan; and some were not even patients at the transgender clinic, according to the lawsuit. It says that records for more than 100 current and former patients were sent without redacting their identities.

The lawsuit says that since the patients learned that their information was shared, they’ve been “terrified for their physical safety, have had significant anxiety and distress that has impacted their ability to work, has caused them to increase home security measures, and drop out of activities in which they normally would participate.”

The lawsuit accuses Vanderbilt of negligence that inflicted emotional damage and violated patient privacy protection and consumer protection laws. It seeks monetary damages, improved security procedures, an injunction blocking further release of their records without notice, an acknowledgement by Vanderbilt that it violated its own privacy policy, and an admission that the policy inadequately informs patients of their rights regarding disclosures.

The hospital waited months before telling patients their medical information was shared, acting only after the existence of the requests emerged as evidence in another court case. Howser said that at that point, hospital officials thought patients should hear it from them instead of media reports or other ways.

The attorney general also requested a slew of additional information, including the names of everyone referred to the transgender clinic who made at least one office visit, as well as people who volunteer for the hospital’s Trans Buddy initiative, which aims to increase access to care and improve outcomes by providing emotional support for the clinic’s patients.

Howser said Vanderbilt’s lawyers are in discussion with the attorney general’s office “about what information is relevant to their investigation and will be provided by VUMC.”

The attorney general’s office made the requests several months after conservative commentator Matt Walsh surfaced videos last September that include a medical center doctor saying gender-affirming procedures are “huge money makers” for hospitals. Vanderbilt paused all gender-affirming surgeries for minors the next month under pressure from Republican lawmakers and Gov. Bill Lee, who demanded an investigation.

Vanderbilt said it had provided about five gender-affirming surgeries to minors each year since its clinic opened in 2018, all to people over 16 who had parental consent. None received genital procedures.

Tennessee lawmakers then passed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors. A federal appeals court recently let it take effect after a lower court judge blocked it.

click here to see full blog: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/trans-patients-sue-hospital-provided-records-tennessees-attorney-gener-rcna96319

September 20, 2023

GOP governors defy Supreme Court, federal government

This blog originally appeared at NBC News.

First Read is your briefing from “Meet the Press” and the NBC Political Unit on the day’s most important political stories and why they matter.

If it’s TUESDAY… President Biden signs proclamation at noon ET establishing Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument… Israeli parliament passes key part of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s controversial judicial overhaul… Donald Trump attends fundraiser in Louisiana… Nikki Haley and Chris Christie campaign in New Hampshire… And it appears that seven candidates have now qualified for next month’s GOP presidential debate.

But FIRST… It’s Republican governors vs. the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal government.

Late last week, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law a new redistricting map that defied a Supreme Court ruling ordering the state to draw two Black-majority congressional districts — or something close to it.

Instead, the GOP-controlled legislature drew only one.

“The legislature knows our state, our people and our districts better than the federal courts or activist groups, and I am pleased that they answered the call, remained focused and produced new districts ahead of the court deadline,” Ivey said.

And on Monday, the Biden Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Texas and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott for placing buoys in the Rio Grande River to deter migrants from crossing into the United States.

The administration argues that Abbott’s buoys violate the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899 (which prohibits the creation of obstructions not authorized by Congress) and failed to obtain necessary permits.

“Texas will see you in court, Mr. President,” Abbott wrote President Biden.

Now presidents have routinely quarreled with governors and states controlled by the opposition party. (Remember all of California’s lawsuits against the Trump administration?)

But Alabama’s defiance appears different — and it harkens back to clashes from the 1950s and 1960s between southern states and the federal government.

Headline of the day

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/texas-gov-greg-abbott-promises-legal-battle-river-buoys-doj-warns-will-rcna95979?utm_source=NBC&utm_medium=iframely

Data Download: The number of the day is … 7

That’s how many candidates so far appear to have qualified for the first GOP presidential primary debate, per the NBC News Political Unit’s analysis of public polling and statements about fundraising.

Six appeared to qualify on Monday, and that list isn’t surprising: former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

And on Tuesday morning, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum also appeared to qualify for the debate thanks to Morning Consult’s weekly tracking poll, which finds Burgum at 1% in the GOP primary.

But there’s still a month to go for other candidates to get the donors and reach the polling requirements to qualify (remember: all that is moot if you don’t agree to back the party’s eventual nominee, since that’s another piece of the criteria candidates have to meet).