Colin Allred

Where are you going, Elon? Where have you been? The 87-year-old novelist Joyce Carol Oates unleashed her X account to excoriate the app’s owner Elon Musk this weekend. “So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates – scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died... In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the ‘most wealthy person in the world.’” OK, Joyce.

Fumbled… As Texas digs out from last weekend’s catastrophic flooding, the state’s leaders are using the only metaphor its residents understand – football – to try and shift blame. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a great protector of the Republican establishment, said at a Tuesday press conference, “Every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who is to blame. The championship teams are the ones that say ‘Don’t worry about it, man. We got this. We’re going to make sure that we go score again and then we’re going to win this game.’” But the “losing team,” in this case, appears to be the Republican-run Kerr County, which did not have a proper flood warning system in place.

Texas showdown Democratic congressman Colin Allred is mulling a run against Senator Ted Cruz, Cockburn has learned. No major Democratic candidates have announced yet, with the Castro twins, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and, of course, Beto O’Rourke considered to be names in the mixer. Allred, a former NFL linebacker and civil rights attorney, represents a Dallas district in the House and could steal a march on the field by jumping in early… Hung up on Hunter Cockburn got word from the newsroom of a popular New York tabloid this week, whose staff extensively covered the Hunter Biden laptop story.