Every Friday morning I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk 1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. It is Friday the 13th and oil is going for over $100 a barrel this morning, but some good things are happening too. Here’s who made the list:
WINNER: Day 14-Epic Fury is Still a Winner
I married into a military family where it is frequently noted that every battle plan falls apart after first contact with the enemy. That is not exactly what happened to Trump and America—the U.S. has decimated Iran’s military capacity: destroyed its navy and eliminated its nuclear weapon aspirations. But now the focus of the war has shifted. As the Wall Street Journal reports this morning, Iran is now putting its remaining chips on the Strait of Hormuz, betting that shutting down the oil supply and driving up gas prices will bring enough political pressure on Trump that he will back off.
Many in America—Democrats, Trump’s enemies and even many of his friends—do not seem to understand this dynamic. They are blasting the president with charges of creating a forever war, but they are wrong. No president in my lifetime has been as anti-war as President Trump. No one has pushed diplomacy harder in Iran—a place where his predecessors only used appeasement, dropping sanctions and delivering cash payoffs. President Trump has said he is mystified that Iran doesn’t stop its ancient aggression—killing Jews as well as its own people—and start leveraging their wealth to make their country prosperous for everyone. But the Iranian regime doesn’t think like that.
Iran is not just the leader of the “death to America” crowd, they are the enemies of every good thing Western Civilization has accomplished for the last 2000 years. If America can take down the regime, it will substantially lower the threat level across the planet. Trump is absolutely right not to back down.
LOSER: UofH Professor Says Students Can Only Handle One Idea at a Time
Curriculum reforms at universities across Texas—fueled by the passage of Senate Bill 37 last session—have become a national model and drawn praise from the taxpayers who pony up over $30 billion for our universities every couple of years. Texas A&M stopped giving bachelor’s degrees in Women’s and Gender studies and restricted professors from advocating race and gender ideology—the idea that one race or sex are always victims and others are always oppressors—in classrooms.
Texas Tech prohibits any professor from advocating for any ideology in the classroom and has made it mandatory that classes that teach about sex recognize there are only two genders. Meanwhile, the University of Texas has launched a system-wide syllabus review to ensure that the guidelines laid down in Senate Bill 37 are followed.
The media opposed all these reforms, but the Texas Tribune led the charge against Senate Bill 37. Since its passage, the Trib has published dozens of news stories, peppered with quotes from Texas members of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), asserting that the new regulations are censoring professors and inhibiting academic freedom. The stories don’t say, but always imply, that the new law is racist and sexist and routinely characterizes the movement for higher education reforms in Texas as a Republican plot.
This week the Tribune published what looked like another one of its typical news reports featuring distraught faculty members at the University of Houston, who are aghast that their deans have forced them to pledge they are “teaching and not indoctrinating.”
Apparently, the Tribune didn’t notice the “money quote” deep in their story in which UofH professor Robert Zaretsky, a 37 year faculty veteran who teachers in the Honors College, who said SB 37 requirements “could complicate classroom instruction, particularly the recommendation that faculty present multiple perspectives on controversial topics.”
“Our students struggle with even one article,” Zaretsky said. “To have them read multiple articles … it’s going to sink the course. It’s too much ballast.”
And there it is. Faculty either don’t want to teach a wide range of viewpoints because it is too hard or they believe their students aren’t smart enough to grasp more than one idea on a topic. Whichever is true, it would seem to be a problem. The Texas Tribune didn’t ask Zaretsky to follow-up.
WINNER: Cruz and Patrick Proclaim Zero Tolerance for Anti-Semitism
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pulled no punches this week when they spoke at the anti-Semitism symposium hosted by National Review and the Republican Jewish Coalition at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. Both blasted former Fox News host Tucker Carlson for his anti-Semitic messaging, his criticism of the war against Iran and the capture of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela with Cruz calling Carlson “the single most dangerous demagogue in this country.”
Patrick also criticized Carlson, noting that he had denounced anti-Semite Nick Fuentes when he visited Texas several years ago and he has been adamant that there is no place for anti-Semitism in the conservative movement or the Republican Party in Texas.
Both Texas leaders also spoke about their continuing concern about the rise in anti-Semitism among younger people on the right.
LOSER: Harris County Judge Hidalgo Fights for “Rodeo Privilege”
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo has been at the Houston rodeo a lot recently, sitting in the Harris County suite (undoubtedly paid for by Harris County taxpayers). Rodeo officials said she’d also been given floor passes for herself and various guests worth about $9,000 so far, although they told her on Wednesday night that she would not be able to go down to the stage where Megan Moroney was performing.
The judge went anyway, saying she’d always been admitted in the past even without a ticket or wrist band. When she couldn’t get in, and refused to go back to her suite, she claimed that she was manhandled and insisted that if she hadn’t been a woman, she would have been treated differently.
Rodeo officials denied it all and added the judge had demanded to be allowed on the floor, not only for the Moroney concert, but also for Creed, Chris Stapleton, and Shaboozey. Today, the Houston Rodeo Board voted her off the island—she’s no longer an “ex-officio” member. It’s not clear what Hidalgo meant when she said the incident made her worry about people who are not “white passing,” but it looks to many like she believes she has something that might be called “rodeo privilege.”
LOSER: Daylight Saving Time Springs Forward Again
Almost 70% of Texans support ending the whole daylight saving time thing, but here we are, once again having lost an hour early Sunday morning, dragging around for the next several days, reminding ourselves that we are not sleepy because it’s not really bedtime.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, has most recently carried legislation to end clock switching twice a year, but the problem is that he and most Texans actually want to make Daylight Saving Time permanent. Federal law, which has the final say on what time it is, says states can’t legalize daylight savings time. The only option for individual states is to adopt standard time—the “fall back position.” Only Hawaii and Arizona have taken them up on that.
If Congress would pass the Sunshine Protection Act, “Springing Forward” would become standard time and changing our clocks would no longer be part of the human condition. The Sunshine Protection Act was filed again this year by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Florida, but so far there has been no congressional movement. President Trump agrees daylight saving time ought to go but he says it’s hard to get excited about it. That’s probably because he reportedly only sleeps four hours a night.
WINNER: CBS News Gets the California Hospice Fraud Story
After undergoing the slings and arrows of legacy media for months, Bari Weiss, founding editor of groundbreaking Free Press who got the top job at CBS News, proved everybody wrong this week when CBS released an investigation revealing massive hospice fraud in California.
The investigation found hundreds of phony California hospice companies—one building had 89 hospice agencies inside—that steal Medicare numbers off the dark web and perpetrate fraud. California had a 1500% increase in hospice care costs despite no real change in the number of elderly in the Golden State. The fraud estimate is over a hundred million for 2019 alone. This fraud, like the fraud in Minnesota, is appalling, but what is more interesting is that it took what Weiss calls “heterodox media” to get the story—challenging the dominant viewpoints of the mainstream media. Weiss has just shown that would include going after fraud in the largest state controlled by Democrats.
WINNER: New Oil Refinery in Brownsville
Granted, it will take a while, and the announcement timing is clearly more than coincidental, but President Trump said this week that a $3.5 billion oil refinery is going to be built at the Port of Brownsville. The refinery will be the first constructed in America in 50 years and will be built by America First Refining. The president said it is expected to contribute $300 billion to the trade imbalance.
In other oil news, ExxonMobile said this week it is planning to move its legal headquarters out of New Jersey and into Texas, citing the Lone Star State’s better business environment. ExxonMobil has been headquartered in Spring since 1989 but the company is still legally incorporated in New Jersey. The Board of Directors will vote on it in May. About 30% of ExxonMobile’s employees work in Texas.
LOSER: Democrats Growing Love for Socialism
A new poll from Fox News this week found that 55% of Democrats believe that America should move away from Capitalism. Among Democrats under the age of 45 that jumps to 66%—two thirds—who think moving toward socialism would be a good thing.
People who are old enough to know better are keeping the country in line. In fact, 75% of voters over the age of 65 understand that socialism is a terrible idea.
LOSER: Austin Facing Major Exodus
Newsweek included Austin on the list of top 10 cities people are trying to move away from because of rising home prices and the high cost of living. One of the “pandemic boom towns” that saw quick and massive growth as remote work skyrocketed, Austin, along with places like Charlotte, North Carolina, are now being abandoned alongside Los Angeles (at the top of the list) New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Austin was the only Texas city on the list.
The same story also includes a list of the top 10 cities where most people want to move and San Antonio is the only Texas city that made the cut. Most of the other destinations are in Florida although Boise and Spokane are also big draws.
WINNER: Luke Kornet Stops NBA Strip Club Promotion
When I first saw this story a few weeks ago, it didn’t look like San Antonio Spurs Center Luke Kornet had a chance at stopping an Atlanta Hawks arena promotion of Magic City Night—a legendary Atlanta strip club that is also known as a hip hop launching pad where Future, 2Chainz, Young Thug, and Jeezy, among others got their start.
When Kornet went public and said he didn’t believe the NBA should be doing a promotion for a strip club, it seemed everyone in Atlanta pushed back, insisting, that Magic City Night is a beloved institution in Atlanta and the promotion would be very popular in the community.
That was weeks ago, but Kornet stood his ground, reminding people that, beloved or not, Magic City is a strip club and doesn’t reflect his values or those of many others in the NBA.
In a victory for the forces of good, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced yesterday that while Atlanta had made a strong case, the NBA had decided to cancel the promotion. Kornet is a winner.
WINNER: Bam Adebayo Breaks Kobe Bryant’s 81-Point Record
A new stat for the history books: Bam Adebayo broke Kobe Bryant’s single game scoring record this week when he made 83 points in a game against the Washington Wizards.
WINNER: Texas Women are SEC Champions
Is that 83-point record breaker a bigger deal than the University of Texas women’s basketball team beating powerhouse South Carolina and winning the SEC championship for the first time in history? Certainly not in Texas.
Currently, the University of Texas women are projected to be a No. 1 seed on Sunday when the bracket is drawn for the Big Dance. On the men’s side, fifth ranked University of Houston is projected to be a No. 2 seed. The Men’s Bracket will be announced at 5 p.m. Texas time and the Women’s Bracket will be announced at 7 p.m.
So fill out your bracket 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.
