The Midday Brief: July 21, 2010

Your afternoon reading:

"Gov. Rick Perry's camp is working overtime to tie President Obama to Democratic challenger Bill White — who has said he doesn't plan to attend Obama's Texas events next month." — Perry pounding White on Obama visit, Texas Politics

"Texas has the most members of any state in the newly formed House Tea Party Caucus." — Seven Texas Republicans join new Tea Party Caucus, Texas on the Potomac

"Tropical rainstorms moving toward the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday threatened to shut down undersea efforts to seal BP's ruptured well, interrupting work just as engineers get close to plugging the leak with mud and cement." — Storms threaten to shut down BP's Gulf well work, The Associated Press

"D Magazine publisher Wick Allison has urged readers of D Magazine's Front Burner blog to support one of Rep. Pete Sessions' opponents, Libertarian John Jay Myers." — D Magazine's Wick Allison: Send money to Sessions' challenger, Trail Blazers

New in The Texas Tribune:

"More than a dozen state officials have at least $1 million in campaign money — and many of them face nominal financial competition this fall." — Many Officials Have More Than $1 Million to Spend

"In the latest clash between the Houston Independent School District and those who question its use of "value-added data" to grade and sometimes fire teachers, state Sen. Mario Gallegos Jr., D-Houston, grilled an HSID representative at Tuesday's Senate Education Committee hearing over what he decried as a transparency issue." — Gallegos, HISD Spar on Data-Based Firings