The Midday Brief: July 12, 2010

Your afternoon reading:

"The Back to Basics PAC will announce today that it’s expanding circulation of a television ad it first aired last month. The spot criticizes Gov. Rick Perry for the amount of taxpayer money spent at his western Travis County rental home." — PAC buys more air time to hammer Perry, First Reading

"Sen. John Cornyn should have the last bit of information needed to evaluate Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's credentials. With Kagan's confirmation vote scheduled for Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee posted on Friday her answers to Cornyn's 27 submitted questions." — Kagan answers Cornyn's last set of questions, Trail Blazers

"Texas Rangers' president Nolan Ryan will soon talk money beyond the sale of the Rangers. The former Rangers' pitcher and Hall of Famer has agreed to chair the finance committee for Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples' campaign." — Nolan Ryan tapped for Staples' campaign finance team, Trail Blazers

New in The Texas Tribune:

"More than 120 college students worked 12,300 hours-plus on Innocence Project of Texas cases from 2007 to 2009, according to the Task Force on Indigent Defense. As student participation has increased, so have exonerations." — Student Work, Wins Increase on Innocence Projects

"Charles Bowden, author of Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields, on how he keeps his sanity, when the narco-wars will end and Mexican President Felipe Calderón's Pandora's box." — Charles Bowden: The TT Interview