Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk 1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. Now that the shutdown is finally over, three Texas football teams are in the Top 10 and the Northern Lights are blasting out all over the Lone Star State, here’s who made the list:
LOSERS: How Did the Democrats Lose the Shutdown War?
It was great seeing the headline in the Washington Post proclaiming the Democrats had lost the shutdown battle after that newspaper spent 40 days proclaiming that the blue team was winning. Granted, the liberals at the WaPo predict that Republicans will ultimately lose on the health care issue, and maybe they will, but, in fact, nobody ever really understood what the Democrats were trying to prove.
It’s no surprise Americans were confused. A report from the Media Research Center found that broadcast coverage of the shutdown almost exclusively favored the Democrat narrative. Fully 87% of news reports were pro-Democrat while only 13% focused on Republican talking points, including the fact that Democrats had voted in March to end the subsidies to Obamacare that they were now demanding be restored.
Using their own eyes, Americans could see despite the barrage of biased media coverage that the military weren’t being paid, until Trump paid them. The Democrats didn’t care. Then, after thousands of flights were cancelled because air traffic controllers weren’t being paid, Democrats still didn’t care. They didn’t even care when poor people lost their SNAP benefits. On Day 40, when the Dems announced they wanted to push on with the shutdown until Thanksgiving, the entire country roared back, “Noooooooo!”
After almost six weeks of shutdown, at a cost estimate of anywhere between $7 billion and $15 billion a week, eight Democrat senators heard them and broke the logjam. The majority of Democrat lawmakers are outraged at the defection of the eight and, as they try to regroup, most seem to think all their problems will be solved if they get rid of their minority leader, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, who couldn’t hold his caucus together and refused to endorse New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
They have no idea why they lost.
P.S. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, gets a high five for being the only Texas Democrat to vote to end the shutdown.
WINNER: Dan Patrick Wins on THC Ban
The bill that ended the government shutdown was also a big win for Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick because it includes a ban on the THC products that the Lt. Governor campaigned for during the last legislative session. The budget bill that President Trump signed on Wednesday also caps the amount of allowable THC, the intoxicating compound found in marijuana and hemp products, at 0.4 milligrams. The ban will eliminate the sale of most edibles, which have been marketed to children.
The Lt. Governor got another win this week when his former opponent, Mike Collier, announced he will run against him for the third time. Collier is an accountant from Houston who is popular with political reporters, but he’s never caught on with voters. When Collier ran as a Democrat in 2022, Patrick defeated him by almost a million votes. This time he’s running as an Independent.
WINNER: Texas A&M Targets Woke Curriculum
The regents at Texas A&M established new regulations this week to require academic presidential approval of classes that “advocate” race and gender ideology to ensure that nothing is taught that shames any race or ethnicity. The guidelines also prohibit advocating gender ideology that is disconnected from the biological realities of sex.
The word “teach” was changed to “advocate” in the final version of the regulations, but that didn’t appease the A&M faculty, who insist they won’t be able to teach anything—including the Holocaust and World War II—under the new regulations.
Offices pushing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs were closed down on Texas campuses in 2021, but weeding out DEI in the curriculum is much more difficult. Remember that the mission of DEI professionals, stated on their website, is to “engage in ongoing ways to incorporate alternative narratives in the curriculum and provide robust learning opportunities on the history of racism, colonization, and conquest on how higher education and other sectors of society have been complicit in maintaining systems of privilege.”
The new regulations at Texas A&M are designed to flush out those “alternative narratives,” and eliminate the “opportunities” to teach history as a singular reflection of systemic racism. Keeping in mind that a large percentage of the faculty at A&M shared that mission when they were hired and you can understand why they are pushing back so hard now.
If you want to know more about how progressive ideology permeates curriculum, take a look at this study of syllabi by three professors at the Claremont Colleges released this week from campuses around the country. They found that there is virtually no ideological diversity in course readings and lectures. For example, a book like “The New Jim Crow,” released in 2010, argued that mass incarceration of African-Americans reflects the same systemic racism as slavery. That book appears more than any other book in criminal justice courses throughout the country. Meanwhile, Dr. James Forman, Jr., a professor at Yale Law School, wrote “Locking Up Our Own,” which disagrees with “systemic racism theory” in “The New Jim Crow.” It appears in fewer the 4% of criminal justice classes, even though it won a Pulitzer Prize. The study authors argue that on this issue and others, including America’s policy toward Israel and abortion, college courses only teach the progressive side of the argument.
Senate Bill 37, passed last session in Texas, gives the power to monitor curriculum back to Boards of Regents and takes it away from faculty members whose track record is poor. Kudos to Texas A&M for hacking a path through this jungle.
WINNER: The Spirit of Ronald Reagan
Reagan believed that our education system must be rooted in the “self-evident truths of Western civilization.” That’s the exact opposite of DEI, which is why it is especially fitting this week that TPPF presented Chancellor Brandon Creighton and House Education Chair Brad Buckley our Ronald Reagan Award for their work transforming education in Texas.
Both championed school choice and Education Savings Accounts which finally busted the teachers’ union monopoly on our public schools and will give parents the right to send their child to the school they believe is best.
Creighton, who has been selected as the incoming chancellor at Texas Tech University, is the author of Senate Bill 17, which ended DEI on Texas campuses and Senate Bill 37, which reformed university governance and curriculum reform (see above.)
The leadership of Creighton and Buckley has not only changed Texas education, it will change the future of our state going forward, unleashing the potential of millions of Texas kids.
LOSER: Wacky Democrat Candidates Update
Democrats had hoped to gain another U.S. Senate seat next year by finally knocking off Republican stalwart Susan Collins, R-Maine. Collins, a moderate who frequently draws the ire of President Trump, often leaves both sides angry up there in the Pine Tree State as she tries to represent all sides of that purple state. But a Democrat poll was leaked this week showed her likely Democrat opponent, Graham Platner, is not strong enough to beat her based on past statements on social media where he called himself a communist, denigrated the police and called white people in rural Maine “stupid” and “racist.”
You gotta wonder why they wasted money doing a poll.
LOSER: Wacky Democrat Candidates Update—Part 2
California State Sen. Scott Weiner is said to be the leading candidate to replace former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who announced last week that she is going to retire. One of Pelosi’s claims to fame is that she was a special guest on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Weiner also revels in his San Francisco drag queen base, and has floated the idea of adding “Drag Queen 101” to the K-12 public school curriculum.
Of course, drag queens aren’t trans, so apparently there was at least one voter in San Francisco who wondered where Weiner stood on the issue of men in women’s sports. Weiner provided a clear answer this week. In a town hall, Tish Hyman, a Grammy nominated singer, asked him to respond to this question:
“As a lesbian woman who was attacked in the women’s locker room at Gold’s Gym this week by a self-identifying trans woman with a documented history of domestic violence, I’m deeply concerned about women’s safety in female-only spaces.”
Weiner replied that, if he is elected, he’ll make protecting all women, including men who think they are women, a priority. By all means, California, send this guy to Congress.
WINNER: Olympics Look at Banning Men in Women’s Sports
In related news, this week the International Olympic Committee (IOC) indicated it is taking steps to ban men in all female sports—a move undoubtedly pushed forward after a man beat a woman’s face in during a boxing match in the last summer Olympics in Paris.
The hero of the story appears to be Dr. Jane Thornton, director of medicine and science of the IOC, who said their research shows that anyone who goes through puberty as a male has permanent advantages over females, and it cannot be mitigated by hormone treatment. The plan is to have this all sorted before the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
WINNER: BBC Admits Doctoring Trump Jan. 6 Footage
Using the same tactics CBS used to try to make Kamala Harris sound coherent, the British Broadcasting Corporation in England admitted this week that they had edited Donald Trump’s speech to supporters on Jan. 6, 2021 to make it appear he had told the crowd to storm the Capitol.
An apology from the media is always news worthy—plus, the Director General of the BBC and the CEO of News and Current Affairs both quit, saying they were appalled at the lapse in journalistic standards and insisting it had never happened before.
President Trump threatened to sue them for a billion dollars if they didn’t apologize and retract the news report. The story is fun to watch because the Brits say things like “dodgy edits” as well as that funny way they pronounce the word “controversy.” You can view the story here.
LOSER: Gavin Newsom in Houston on Saturday
A couple thousand people showed up to see California Gov. Gavin Newsom in Houston on Saturday for a rally after his big redistricting win in last Tuesday’s election, which catapulted him to the top of the Democrat presidential ticket.
As noted last week, Newsom chose to speak in the Lone Star State while millions of Texans were cheering on either Texas A&M or the Texas Tech Red Raiders both of whom had defining games last Saturday. Newsom apparently doesn’t get how much Texans love football.
Not only did he show up in the middle of college game day—as mentioned, we have three teams in the Top 10, and that’s just among the flagships—but then he left to fly to an international climate change conference where they plot ways to get rid of fossil fuels, which we produce here, big time. Newsom just doesn’t get Texas.
WINNER: Christmas Cookies Ice Cream
They say its back by popular demand, but I am wondering where you go to actually slam your fist on the counter and demand that an ice cream flavor be re-instated—but that’s beside the point. The good news is that Blue Bell Ice Cream—which as we all know is based in beautiful Brenham, Texas—announced this week that Christmas Cookie flavored ice cream is back just in time for Christmas season. Of course, we haven’t gotten through Thanksgiving yet, but go ahead, stock up.
Gig ‘em #3, Wreck ‘em # 6 Hook ‘em #10
The No. 3 rated Texas Aggies are the heavy favorites in tomorrow’s game against South Carolina. Coming off what proved to be an easy victory over Missouri last week, they are playing at Kyle Field at 11:30 am. No. 10 ranked Texas has the tougher game against the No. 5 ranked Georgia Bulldogs. That game is in Atlanta at 6:30 Texas Time. Meanwhile, the Texas Tech Red Raiders, ranked No. 6, are coming off their smashing victory against BYU last Saturday, cementing their spot at the top of the Big 12 and pushing them into undisputed playoff territory. Everyone expects them to beat Central Florida tomorrow. The game starts at 2:30 p.m. in Lubbock.
Today is Day 14 of the YouTube TV/ESPN Split—manage however you can and have a great weekend.
Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.
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