Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fled his home to avoid being served with subpoena, court record says  —  In an affidavit, a process server said that the state's top attorney tried evade him as he attempted to deliver a subpoena from an abortion fund's lawsuit against the state.  —  Copy link

Republican ex-congressman suggests colleagues ‘had serious cognitive issues’  —  Paul Gosar and Louie Gohmert were eager to believe ‘wild, dramatic fantasies’, claims Denver Riggleman in new book  —  The Republican congressmen Louis Gohmert and Paul Gosar adopted such extreme …

Russia Admits to Draft Problems as Anger Flares Into Violence  —  The Kremlin's spokesman tried to shift blame for errors in the call-up to regional agencies on Monday, the same day a gunman attacked a draft office in Siberia.  —  In a rare admission of official mistakes …

The Contradictions of Giorgia Meloni  —  Ennio Flaiano, the great Italian screenwriter, used to boast of the generosity of his compatriots, who were “always willing to rush to the aid of a winner.”  Once Giorgia Meloni took the lead in the Italian polls in July, she was unlikely to have it wrested from her.

Secret Service took the cellphones of 24 agents involved in Jan. 6 response and gave them to investigators  —  Senior leadership at the Secret Service confiscated the cellphones of 24 agents involved in the agency's response to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and handed them over to the Department …

Ex-Staffer Says DeSantis TORCHES Trump in Private: ‘Moron Who Has No Business Running For President’  —  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis routinely torches former President Donald Trump in private, calling him a “moron who has no business running for president” according to a former DeSantis staffer.

NASA's DART spacecraft successfully slams into asteroid in historic test of planetary defense  —  It was a cosmic smash-up watched around the world.  —  A NASA spacecraft on Monday intentionally slammed into an asteroid in a historic test of humanity's ability to protect Earth …

Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From China and Russia  —  Takeaways  — We took down two unconnected networks in China and Russia for violating our policy against coordinated inauthentic behavior.  — The Chinese-origin influence operation ran across multiple social media platforms …

The Russian Clocks Are All Ticking  —  This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture.  Sign up for it here.  —  Vladimir Putin's massive conscription of Russian men …

Freedom Caucus poised to pull its hardest McCarthy punch  —  As the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus plots how to exert its influence on next year's likely GOP majority, its members are poised to holster a potent political weapon: Challenging Kevin McCarthy.  —  With the California Republican still …

Women Take Center Stage in Antigovernment Protests Shaking Iran  —  Women have been casting off their legally required head scarves, forming the primary image of the protests.  But grievances against a repressive regime go far beyond the hijab.  —  For Yasi, the news felt too close to ignore …

Florida Contracts Go to Companies That Flooded Ron DeSantis Campaign Fund … Under the leadership of Florida's Republican Gov. Ron Desantis, a Missouri-based railroad and transport company that contributed generously in support of his campaign saw an astonishing 280-fold increase in its Florida state government contract awards.

Total Bomb!  Chris Wallace's CNN Show Premiere Tanks, Pulls Only 44k Viewers In Key Demo  —  Chris Wallace's much-hyped return to television with the debut of Who's Talking to Chris Wallace scored a paltry 44,000 viewers in the all-important ratings category, RadarOnline.com has learned.

Subreddit Discriminates Against Anyone Who Doesn't Call Texas Governor Greg Abbott ‘A Little Piss Baby’ To Highlight Absurdity Of Content Moderation Law  —  Last year, I tried to create a “test suite” of websites that any new internet regulation ought to be “tested” against.

Activist charged in Jan. 6 attack is among Herschel Walker's campaign ‘captains’  —  Republican Senate hopeful Herschel Walker's campaign recently listed a woman who was arrested in March on charges of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol as one of his “county captains.”

Hailey Bieber's ‘Brownie Glazed Lips’ Look Is Yet Another Example of Cultural Appropriation in Beauty  —  Hailey Bieber faced criticism over the weekend after a TikTok video she made about “brownie glazed lips” was called out for appropriating a makeup technique favored by Latinas and Black and brown women since the '90s.

The Newsweek of think tanks  —  The impressive intellectual devolution of the Heritage Foundation.  —  I opened the think tank chapter of The Ideas Industry with a discussion of the intellectual transmogrificaton of the Heritage Foundation.  It was a pretty juicy story as intellectual arcs go …

How Kevin McCarthy's political machine worked to sway the GOP field  —  Allies spent millions in a sometimes secretive effort to weed out candidates who could cause the House leader trouble or jeopardize GOP victories in November  —  Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) made a name for himself …

Hell Is a World in Which Everybody Writes Like Axios  —  In 1936, The New Yorker's Wolcott Gibbs published a celebrated profile of Henry Luce, co-founder with Briton Hadden of Time magazine.  The piece was written entirely in parodic Time-ese.  In those days Time's house style favored Homeric epithets …

Woke is now a dog whistle for Black.  What's next?  —  There's “urban” of course.  And urban's cousin “inner-city.”  —  And then there's “at-risk,” “underserved” and “fatherless” if talking about our children.  “Marginalized,” “low-income” and “welfare-dependent” if talking about the parents of those children.