Month: May 2024

Every Friday morning at 8:30AM, I join Cardle & Woolley show, Talk 1370 Radio, in Austin to pick the week’s Winners & Losers. It runs the gambit from public policy and political trends to sports and culture in Texas, America and the world.  The last week in May, 2024, includes major winners and losers who will impact Texas and America for years to come—and maybe even change the course of our history. Considering all that, here’s who made my list.

The biggest loser is the New York City justice system. I lived in New York City for over a decade, where I worked around the media, politics and the criminal justice system so I am not surprised that the Judge and the District Attorney sold their souls, along with any semblance of ethics or integrity, in order to deliver a guilty verdict to former President Donald Trump. Using the court system to attack a presidential candidate will further erode trust in the America’s legal system, as well as the widening conviction among Americans that the justice system is rigged. This is particularly true in New York City, where robbery and shop lifting go unpunished and illegal immigrants can punch out police officers and get free tickets out of town.  I spoke to Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, who was in the court room on the last day of the trial. He talks about biased rulings of Judge Juan Merchan in his instructions to the jury and the corruption of the judicial process. Click here to watch the interview.

There’s lots of speculation about how the verdict will impact Trump’s presidential campaign. Most of it is wrong, because the answer is unknowable. The biggest advantage for the former president is that he is still running against Joe Biden. Biden has been pronounced too feeble to go to trial for his classified documents crimes, but even though he got the guilty verdict against Trump that he wanted, he still has to explain the high cost of living, the border invasion, inflation and a couple of very awful wars that have happened on his watch. Biden is on the losers list again this week for many of the same old things—he released a million barrels of oil from the Northeast Gas Reserve, for example, telling voters it would lower the cost of gas. Americans use 9 million barrels of gasoline daily, so a million barrels will have virtually no impact.

The verdict will super-charge Trump into hyper-campaign mode, and no one who is paying attention would bet against Trump, who is still the odds on favorite to win the election, according to the Las Vegas Review (although the odds dropped a little after the verdict.) We’ll see what the polls like look over the next few days after news of the guilty verdict sinks in. It is important to remember that the polls will also determine how the verdict plays out. Sentencing is scheduled for July 11 and legal experts say it is unlikely that a 78 year-old first offender would be sent to jail for a white collar crime, but Judge Merchan has made it clear that the law, legal precedent, fairness and decency don’t really matter in this case. If Trump is still ahead of Biden in the polls, the judge will put him in the slammer.

Robert DeNiro is a loser for showing  up outside the New York City courtroom ranting about Trump, but he created a winner—the New York Post, which followed the actor’s tantrum with the front page headline, Raging Bullsh*t. Conservative media outlets in Texas are getting stronger and better all the time, but we really need a good tabloid.

Despite the dark times at the national level, we must acknowledge the big win in Tuesday’s Run-Off Election by Gov. Greg Abbott in defeating those in the Texas House who voted against school choice in the last session. Abbott put his money where his mouth is to defeat 11 incumbents who had repeatedly voted with the teachers unions instead of Texas children. Adding the new members to the pro-parental choice challengers who were also elected with Abbott’s help when 9 incumbents retired, support for school choice is virtually assured next session and Texas can join 33 other states where school choice programs have improved educational outcomes for children from kindergarten to high school. The big losers in this fight are the Texas teachers unions, which have demonstrated again and again that its members don’t really care about student outcomes. They are fighting to protect a system where fully 50 percent of the students are performing below grade level.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is also on the winners list for taking a stand on his wife’s right to fly whatever flag she wants. He’s joined by Chief Justice John Roberts who ignored Senate Democrats who said they need to meet with the justices because the flags have created an “ethics crisis” on the high court. Chief Justice Roberts pointed out that it would be inappropriate for the justices to meet with members of one party and appeared to stand by Alito who has no intention of recusing himself in any election cases because of the flags flying over his house. After this week it is hard to imagine any more appropriate display than George Washington’s Appeal to Heaven flag.

The State GOP Convention is on the loser list for a proposal to close Texas primary elections to prohibit Democrats from crossover voting and allowing the 62 people on the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) to “censure” an office holder and thereby block him or her from appearing on the ballot for two years. If this sounds a lot like those efforts in several Democrat states to keep Trump off the ballot, that’s because it is.  GOP convention-goers also want to create a kind of Texas electoral college that would require statewide office holders to not just win the popular vote, but to win a majority in half of Texas 254 counties.

Closing the primaries would prove to be a logistical nightmare for Texas. In states with closed primaries that register by political party, registration is managed by the government, not by political parties, as is proposed by the Texas GOP resolution. The Texas proposal will require voters to register four months in advance, excluding thousands of people moving into the state before the election and making military ballots dicey. In states with closed primaries, it ends up making little difference because a huge percentage of the electorate registers as independent.

The censure proposal and the Texas electoral college are not likely to make it through the courts, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do damage to Republicans. Normal Americans do not respond favorably to these kinds of abuses of power and they aren’t necessary.

Conservatives win elections in Texas and America because we have the best ideas—we are right on the economy, we are right on the border, we are right on education and we are gaining ground in the culture war as more and more people see the idiocy of woke policies. Closing down our elections is not a good strategy, even in the short term, and it is disastrous for the long term. The phrase I heard over and over again at the Republican convention is “we have to hold our elected officials accountable.” I totally agree—and we just did. Just ask the 11 incumbents who were defeated for voting against school choice. It’s called an election.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s popularity is increasing in Israel, undoubtedly after he ignored directions from Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on how to fight the war against the Hamas terrorists. Clearly a winning move for Netanyahu and a bad political call the other month by U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer who said Netanyahu had “lost his way.”

We cannot fail to acknowledge that Houston was named the dirtiest city in America making it a loser by taking the crown away from that perennial hellhole, Newark, New Jersey.  This is a really black mark for the iconic Darrel the Barrel, most recently immortalized by Ethan Hawke in this great video. Houstonites need to pull it together. Don’t Mess with Texas!

Closing out with the great news that we’ve got a Texas team in the NBA finals. The Dallas Mavericks are up against the Boston Celtics. Game 1 is next Thursday night. Let’s go Mavs!

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.

Sign up to receive this in your inbox every week at www.texaspolicy.com/9thandCongress.

Follow me on X @sylvester1630 and follow my podcast, the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Every Friday morning at 8:30AM, I join the Cardle & Woolley show, Talk 1370 Radio, in Austin to pick the week’s Winners & Losers. It’s a lightning round that runs the gamut from public policy and political trends to sports and culture in Texas, America and the world. Here’s who made my list for the week ending on May 24.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz is a big winner for taking on Secretary of State Anthony Blinken for the Biden Administration’s disastrous policy toward Iran, from refusing to enforce sanctions to slow walking arms shipments to Israel, ultimately enriching and enabling the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism.  Cruz didn’t stop there, hitting Blinken for America’s issuing of condolences following the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the “Butcher of Tehran.”

Cruz also filed a Senate bill on IVF (invitro-fertilization) ensuring parents will not lose this important option for having children. Finally, amid lots of noise that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s appearance on the ballot in Texas could negatively impact Cruz’s re-election chances, the latest poll continues to show him with a double-digit lead over his Democrat opponent.

Not sure if it’s President, Joe Biden or the American people who are the big losers this week, but Biden’s policies continue to bring hard times and there’s no indication that anything is going to change. A report by the Wall Street Journal this week found that, after adjusting for inflation, which is up 20% since Biden took office, the net worth of American households increased just 0.7%. Under Trump, household net worth increased 16%.  Unlike most Americans, the President seems to be ignoring those pesky facts and instead looking for tricks to help him win the election like forgiving more student loan debt. He added another $7.7 billion this week on top of the $7.4 billion he announced in April. This brings the total amount of student loan forgiveness to $167 billion, double the amount the federal government spends on Pell grants for low-income students. Perhaps he made the move because when the President recently spoke at the Morehouse College commencement, it seemed like the only applause he got was when he mentioned government paying off student loans.

This was a particularly big week for “gaffs” by the President including what will surely become an infamous speech before the NAACP which required 9 corrections on the official transcript, including mispronouncing the NAACP.    My personal favorite was the story he told of being Vice President during the pandemic (he wasn’t) and former President Barack Obama sent him to Detroit (he didn’t) to “fix it.” How do the folks charged with walking that one back even know where to start?

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is a big contrast to the President and earns another week on the winners list for keeping his foot on the gas, announcing that he will continue to bus illegal migrants into New York City. Abbott’s commitment to secure the border has dramatically reduced illegal crossings in the Rio Grande Valley. More illegals are now crossing the border in San Diego.

Lots of celebrities on this week’s list. Former Dallas Cowboy Emmitt Smith, makes the losers list for his statement attacking his alma mater, the University of Florida, for closing down its so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs, like we have done in Texas. Smith makes an impassioned statement that our universities succeed when there is diverse thinking from all backgrounds.  No one disagrees with that, but Smith seems unaware that DEI does not actually allow diverse thinking. Instead, the ideology proscribes that you must view America as a land of white supremacy where everyone is either a virtuous victim or an oppressor.  Smith is on the right track, however, because he says equality is his goal – like it is for most Americans. Unfortunately, the “equity” in DEI is something else – it requires the same outcomes for everyone. To understand the difference, equality means any Texan can try out for the Dallas Cowboys and the best players get a spot on the team. Equity means that 40.2% of the team would be required to be Hispanic, 39.7 % would need to be white and 11.6 % would be required to be African American in order for the Cowboys to equitably reflect the racial population of Texas. With DEI, race and identity are what matter, not skill and merit.

Along the same line, some of his fellow celebrity athletes, LeBron James and Charles Barkley, make the winners list for pushing back against some who some of have charged that basketball phenom Caitlin Clark, is making such a splash because she is white and has “pretty privilege,” (another wacky DEI term). Both athletes paraphrased the old basketball adage, “the ball don’t lie.” Clark has scored more points than any other college basketball player in history. She’s clearly earned any attention she gets.

Not really a correction but an update. Last week Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene made the losers list for attacking Texas U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for wearing false eyelashes. Greene’s shoddy behavior and lots of news on the “mean girls in Congress” spat followed this week.  Then Crockett said the whole “eyelashes” thing was actually a racist attack.  Apparently, she only has one card to play and that puts her on the Losers list.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick gave another winning speech at the Texas Republican Convention on San Antonio this week and joined the Sherry Sylvester Show podcast afterward to discuss what he saw in New York City when he attended the last day of the trial of former President Donald Trump.  Patrick was inside the courtroom and gives his views on New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan and the court proceedings. It’s Episode 28 and will be posted shortly.

Have a great holiday 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.

Sign up to receive this in your inbox every week at www.texaspolicy.com/9thandCongress.

Follow me on X @sylvester1630 and follow my podcast, the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Every Friday morning at 8:30AM, I join the Cardle & Woolley show, Talk 1370 Radio, in Austin to pick the week’s Winners & Losers. It’s a lightning round that runs the gamut from public policy and political trends to sports and culture in Texas, America and the world. Here’s who made my list for the week ending on May 17.

State Senator Brandon Creighton tops the Winners list for calling in the state’s flagship universities to report to the Senate Higher Education Committee on steps they have taken to end the so-called “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) programs that push identity politics on Texas campuses. Despite major pushback from faculty, staff and students, the state’s major academic institutions all reported that DEI offices had been closed and DEI officers had been laid off or re-assigned. The University of Texas at Austin told Creighton they recouped $25 million by eliminating 311 positions and 681 contracts. Continued monitoring and on-going audits remain essential to determine how much of what the academic leaders reported was accurate and how much was an attempt to blow smoke at the Legislature so they don’t take away their state funding. Texas A&M maintained they only had 8 DEI officers, for example, a figure that a review of the data shows is likely wildly inaccurate. All the flagships failed to provide substantive answers to questions about DEI initiatives that remain embedded in hiring practices, academic infrastructure and strategic plans, but Creighton made it clear the era of DEI is coming to an end in Texas.

Creighton was attacked during the hearing by Texas NAACP President Gary Bledsoe who makes the Losers list for accusing Creighton of racist motivations in authoring the DEI ban (Senate Bill 17) last year. A couple students who testified at the hearing also spit out charges of “white supremacy.” Not surprising. If you believe in the ideology of DEI you believe everyone is either a victim or a white supremacist.

Texas State University is on the Losers list, but it’s not their fault. They were about to become the first Texas university to host a presidential debate slated for mid-September, but President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump went around the Debate Commission and made their own deal. Virginia State University, the first historically black college or university (HBCU) to be selected as a debate venue also lost out.

Keeping with the collegiate theme, Texas A&M makes the Winners list for suspending Title IX Director Rick Olshak, who lamented that Biden’s wacky rules that expand Title IX protections to men who think they are women and vice versa did not go far enough.  Governor Abbott made the Winners list the other week for instructing educational institutions to ignore the new rules. So did Attorney General Ken Paxton, who joined 14 states in suing Biden over it.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be on the Texas presidential ballot in November. It’s not clear what impact he will have on the presidential race or any down ballot contests, but Texas can be proud that his folks are engaged and we’ve got a ballot access program that works.

Houston State Rep. Shawn Thierry is fighting back a challenge from the progressive wing of her party for voting to outlaw gender modification — Senate Bill 14 — which prohibits puberty blockers, castrations and non-necessary mastectomies, for children. Thierry has rightly called it “Black Genocide” and has put up signs throughout the district reminding voters that legalizing non-necessary surgeries for children that frequently result in sterilization is not a good idea for black kids – or any kids.

These are tough times for U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, from Laredo, but he still managed to make the Winners list this week for being one of the 16 Democrats, and the only Democrat representative from Texas, who voted to rebuke President Joe Biden for withholding offensive arms shipments to Israel after Congress had approved them.

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene voted against rebuking Biden for withholding arms shipments to Israel, but that’s not why she’s on the Losers list again. She went after U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, for wearing fake eyelashes. I don’t actually know if Crockett’s eyelashes are fake, but as a lifelong feminist, I defend her right to wear them, as well as Greene’s right to pretend she is a platinum blonde. Greene has got to stop these nutty antics. She is forcing conservative women to root for AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY).

Some staffers in the U.S. House are planning a protest of U.S. support for Israel next week and they are telling everyone to show up in a mask, hide their employee tags and wear an outfit that will keep them incognito. The staffers are certainly free to protest – that’s America – but disguising oneself while proclaiming you are standing on principle is not. Those guys who signed the Declaration of Independence were not just risking their jobs and livelihoods. They also knew the British would hang them if they caught up with them. That’s why John Hancock’s huge signature was such a big statement. The fact that the pro-Palestinian protesters are in disguise shows it’s not just Middle East history that they don’t understand. They don’t know much about American history either. Losers.

Let’s close out the Losers list with the always obtuse City of San Francisco which is spending a couple million a year to provide alcohol – a shot or a beer – to homeless alcoholics in the Tenderloin District. The strategy of giving alcohol and drugs to addicts has been tried for decades. It doesn’t work. Only Losers like the people running San Francisco would think it’s a good idea.

** Correction** Last week Barron Trump made the Winners list for being selected as a Florida delegate to the Republican National Convention. Later in the day the news broke that Barron has declined the invitation. He was out of the spotlight when his father was in the White House and it appears he will stay in the background for a while longer. However, he did graduate from high school today, so he’s taken the first step in the critically important Success Sequence – clearly a winning move.

That’s all for now – 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.

Sign up to receive this in your inbox every week at www.texaspolicy.com/9thandCongress.

Follow me on X @sylvester1630 and follow my podcast, the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Every Friday morning at 8:30 AM, I help choose the week’s Winners & Losers on the Cardle & Woolley show, Talk 1370 Radio, in Austin. It’s a lightning round that runs the gamut from public policy and political trends to sports and culture in Texas, America and the world. Here’s my list for the week ending May 10, 2024.

While Harvard, MIT and Penn whine that they can’t shut down the encampment protests on their campuses, University of Texas System Board of Regents Chair Kevin Eltife is at the top of the Winners list this week for a trifecta at Wednesday’s Regents meeting when he said flatly that divestment is not an option for the Longhorns. Eltife also dismissed a threatened vote of no confidence against UT President Jay Hartzell by UT faculty, saying when it comes to the President, the Board of Regents is the only vote that matters. Finally, Eltife praised the state police who stopped those breaking the rules on the UT campus. He invited DPS Director, Col. Steve McGraw to the meeting and the Board gave him a round of applause.

This is clearly bad news for those UT faculty who are angry at the UT President, some of whom claim that UT is pushing “a very right wing agenda.” However, a poll released this week by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) found that almost 70% of Texans agreed with UT’s decision to call in the state police. That includes Democrats, Republicans and Independents – they can’t all be “very right wing.”

The protesters clearly believe they have the moral high ground, but the state police uncovered propaganda leaflets the protesters left behind which included materials that celebrated the killing of innocent Jews and bragged about rockets launched into Israel. The Free Press did a long piece on the role of the so-called “outside agitators” in the campus protests. Almost 50 of the people arrested at UT were not affiliated with the university.

Another big Winner this week is U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson who survived a motion to vacate the Speaker’s Chair from Marjorie Taylor Greene, who earned a spot on the Losers list for ignoring former President Donald Trump, who rightly noted that attacking the House Speaker in an election year is a show of “disunity.” U.S. Rep. Chip Roy was the only Republican to vote with Greene. Four Texas Democrats also voted to vacate Johnson.

President Biden maintains his spot on the Losers list for a bunch of really bad policy statements this week:

• Announcing that he was withholding weapons for Israel right after he delivered a Holocaust Remembrance speech
• Announcing an incremental change in the asylum process that will make no difference in shutting down the border.
• Continuing to insist that Bidenomics is working. He says people have more money, they are just annoyed they have to spend more. Actually, many people are earning less.
• To back up his economic case, the President told CNN that inflation was 9% when he took office. It was actually 1.4%. The President appears to have no clue that consumer confidence is at its lowest point in two years.  
• Biden plans to spend more on student loan forgiveness than on Pell Grants which provides grants to financially needed students.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar is a Loser for suggesting that some Jewish students are “pro-genocide.” She also credits the campus protesters with getting Biden to hold back weapons for Israel. She may be right about that.

It goes without saying that Stormy Daniels is on the Losers list, but let’s not waste space talking about the many reasons why. The whole thing is beneath us.

The Board at Katy Independent School District is a Winner for adopting a policy that notifies parents if their child asks to use a different name or pronouns while they are at school. Taking this stand for normalcy has made the Board a target of the U.S. Dept. of Education Dept. of Civil Rights which is investigating gender harassment under Biden’s wacky new Title IX Policy.

Lost Creek is also on the Winners list for voting themselves out of the City of Austin over the weekend. If you’ve ever spoken to anyone from that neighborhood, you know it’s been a long war over there.

The announcement by the Boy Scouts that they are changing their name to “Scouting America” in order to be more “inclusive” clearly makes them Losers. Give me a break.

Finally, last week comic Jerry Seinfeld made the Winners list for saying that the “P.C. left and liberal crap” had ruined comedy, but his new movie “Unfrosted” proves that’s not entirely true. Worth watching just for the spoof of Jan. 6 where Tony the Tiger in a Viking helmet crashing into the Kellogg’s headquarters is worth the price of a ticket.

That’s it. Have a great Mother’s Day!

Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.

Sign up to receive this in your inbox every week at www.texaspolicy.com/9thandCongress.

Follow me on X @sylvester1630 and follow my podcast, the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Every Friday morning at 8:30 AM, I discuss the week’s Winners & Losers on Talk 1370 Radio with Jim Cardle and Lynn Woolley on the Cardle & Woolley show. It’s a lightning round that runs the gamut from public policy and political trends to sports and culture in Texas, America and the world. Here’s who gets a thumbs up and thumbs down for the week ending May 3, 2024.

I’m making an executive decision to break protocol and pronounce University of Texas at Austin President Jay Hartzell a Winner for the second week in a row for taking quick and decisive action to bring in state police to stop pro-Hamas protesters from taking over the 40 Acres. Even rational college presidents frequently buckle under intimidation from left-wing faculty, but the list of professors at UT who want a “no confidence” vote against Hartzel has grown to over 600 and the UT President hasn’t blinked.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is also on the Winners list for telling the Biden administration that Texas will ignore the President’s destruction of historic Title IX Legislation. The President announced he wants to include men who think they are women to those who are protected by the law. Attorney General Ken Paxton joins Abbott as a Winner for suing the federal government for attempting to expand Title IX, which literally created women’s sports in America and is protecting women athletes now. The Governor and the Attorney General are fighting to make sure the feds don’t screw that up.   

The men of Pi Kappa Phi at the University of North Carolina also top the Winners list this week for their courage during the pro-Hamas protest on their campus. They stood for over an hour amid heckling and jeers to block the hoisting of a Palestinian flag at UNC and to make sure the American flag did not touch the ground. They were pelted with insults and solid objects but they did not back down.

Another Winner is U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, who is up 13 points over his Democrat opponent Colin Allred according to the latest Texas Politics Project Poll, which historically leans a little Democrat, so Cruz is probably ahead by more than 13. That poll is on this week’s Losers list for a sloppy report on what Texans think about the war in Gaza.

Echoing that poll, headlines all over the state read that Texans are divided on how they feel about the war in Gaza, but that’s probably a problem with how the questions were asked. According to a Harvard-CAPS Harris Survey American support for Israel over Hamas is 80 percent to 20 percent in almost every age group and it hasn’t changed since October 7 despite the campus protests. Even among younger people aged 18-24, support for Israel is almost 60 percent. It is highly unlikely those sentiments are much different in Texas where, despite what you see on some college campuses, Texans tend to oppose terrorists like Hamas.

In chalking up other Losers, we have to pick the worst policy idea President Joe Biden laid out this week. It’s a multiple choice:

1. Resettling Palestinian refugees in America
2. Announcing $6 billion more in student loan forgiveness for art students
3. Biden’s too little, too late statement on campus protests where he equates the current threat of Islamophobia with the anti-Semitism we are seeing everywhere.
4. His pronouncement that Japan, India, China and Russia’s economies don’t thrive because those countries are xenophobic and don’t welcome immigrants. Those countries can join New Guinea which is still waiting for an apology for his story that cannibals there ate his uncle.
5. His micromanaging Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, announcing the U.S. won’t support Israel’s invasion into Rafah.

You probably have your own list. This is undoubtedly why CNN put out a poll this week showing that 61 percent of American’s view Biden’s term as president as a failure. Only 39% believe it was a success.

The reality of that CNN poll seemed to hit left-wing cable news site MSNBC particularly hard when former commentator Al Sharpton noted that the campus protests look remarkably like January 6. Sharpton makes the Winners list by stating the obvious. Of course, MSNBC is a loser.

Jerry Seinfeld and sports commentator Charles Barkley both make the Winners list for straight talk. Seinfeld told the New Yorker that “P.C. crap and the extreme left” have ruined comedy by making people deathly afraid of offending other people. Then, while the New Orleans Pelicans were being eliminated from the NBA playoffs by the Oklahoma City Thunder, Barkley took a shot a Galveston Bay, saying the water wasn’t blue. Read the story to get the drift. Beyoncé’s mother hails from Galveston, and after she called him out, Barkley backed down, but he pivoted to re-activate his long-time allegation that San Antonio women are fat. Barkley has absolutely no room to talk, but he’s a Winner for not letting himself be silenced by “P.C. crap.”

Speaking of comedians, how about U.S. Senator John Fetterman who said this week that there are two factions among the Palestinian protestors at Columbia, “pro-Hamas and really pro-Hamas.” Funny. Winner.

Finally, it almost goes without saying that Kristi Noem is a big-time Loser for this week and many weeks to come. Don’t shoot your dog.

Gotta cut it off here. Have a great weekend!

Listen to Winners & Losers on Talk 1370, the Cardle & Wooley show, every Friday morning at 8:30 AM.  Here’s the listen live link.

Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.

Sign up to receive this in your inbox every week at www.texaspolicy.com/9thandCongress.

Follow me on X @sylvester1630 and follow my podcast, the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.