Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on 1370 Talk Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. While the battle between Donald J. Trump and Elon Musk rages on (I’m betting on Trump) and since the Texas Legislature has closed up shop for the season, here’s who made the list:
WINNER: Israel Gets Forces Iran Back to the Table
Israel’s strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities last night, Operation Rising Lion, is a strong and unequivocal statement of many things—most , most bluntly, that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear bomb. Now it is time for them Iran to get back to the negotiating table with Trump and face reality. Israel took out three of their top commanders, which is a hint that regime change might also need to be on their the agenda.
Trump admits he was in conversation with Israel about their plans, which is why the U.S. moved our diplomats out—and – and why the President continues to make it clear Israel has his support.
The whole world is watching how this plays out. The Free Press is providing the most thorough and thoughtful coverage.
WINNER: Trump and Abbott Get Ahead of Rioters
Protesters are continuing in Los Angeles, Texas and all over America with big plans for the weekend. It all looks like a movie we have seen before. Rioters are burning cars, destroying police cars and vandalizing stores in Los Angeles, while CNN insists that the protests are “mostly peaceful.”
President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to California to quell the riots, so Gov. Gavin Newsom took him to court. California Gov. Gavin Newsom won the first round, but a U.S. District Court sided with Trump on Thursday so the troops, as well as the Marines, will stay in California for now.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has deployed over 7,000 Guard troops to Texas cities after they were successful in containing protesters earlier this week, including guarding the Alamo, the Shrine of Texas Liberty, in my home town of San Antonio.
Most political strategists note that the protests help Trump and increase support for his policies because they focus on immigration, crime and public order— – all winning issues for the President. Waving Mexican flags, another frequent feature of the protests both in Texas and California, brings a confusing message to an anti-deportation event, (even the New York Times can’t figure it out), but there you have it.
Many dumb comments have been made in blue states and cities about all this, but Brandon Johnson, Mayor of Chicago, wins the prize, saying that sending in the National Guard to respond to the protests indicates that some people will not accept who won the Civil War. Johnson suggests Trump is acting as if the Confederacy won the war.
It’s hard to know where to start on that one.
WINNER? Background Notes on Redistricting
Reportedly, the Trump team is suggesting that Texas hold a Special Legislative Session to re-draw the state’s congressional map. Who knows if that will happen, but here’s what we do know: Redistricting, re-drawing the maps that comprise the districts of members of Congress— – has always been a process where political parties try to gain a numbers numerical advantage in representation by drawing lines that divide their opponents’ voters and maximize the voting impact of their own voters.
It is called “gerrymandering” and it was not invented by Texas Republicans— – or any Republicans. It is named after Eldridge Gerry, founding father, former governor of Massachusetts and Vice President under James Madison, who approved a congressional map that looked like a salamander to provide an advantage to the Federalists. Gerrymandering has been with us for the whole American ride, so the incessant proclamation by the left that it is a “threat to democracy” is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
Congressional districts are drawn using the numbers from the most recent census, and that is where the partisan fight starts. When Joe Biden took over the 2020 Census, he reversed former President Donald Trump’s decision that the census would only count citizens who would be represented in the United States Congress. Biden believed non-citizens and illegal aliens also should be represented, so he had them counted as well.
The census count has lots of political history too. George Washington asked Thomas Jefferson to take a census, so they the country could go to Europe boasting 5 million residents to help them make their case for credit. When Jefferson came back to Washington to say he only counted 3.5 million new Americans, he also said that he suspected the newly freed people didn’t want to sign up for anything. Washington agreed and they told the Europeans there were five 5 million Americans.
Which brings us to today, where the red states like Texas, filled with conservatives and refugees from blue states who are fed up with high taxes and woke policies, gained most of the new congressional seats in the last census while the two big blue states, New York and California, lost seats. This was the first time in American history that California had lost seats.
So that’s why the Trump administration would like to take another look at it. It is not anti-American, it’s not a threat to democracy. It’s just what Americans do. We’ve always done it. Here’s a Texas Tribune story on it, which doesn’t explain any of that.
WINNER: CNN’s Polling Guy
I heard someone on Fox News gloatingly report that CNN had fewer than 400,000 viewers in the previous week, which is bad in some ways because they don’t get the frequent polling reports from Harry Enten, the CNN polling guy who frequently lays out data showing support for conservative policies while a stunned CNN anchor looks on.
This week, he talked about the 40 point swing Trump gained in the last election with immigrants— — voters who were born in other countries— — going from +32 for Democrats in 2020 to +8 for Republicans in 2024. Here’s Enten’s tweet on it.
LOSER: DNC Leader Cries Because He’s Losing Control of His Party
Does it seem ironic to anyone else that Democrats are spending $20 million trying to figure out how to talk to American men while Ken Martin, head of the Democratic National Committee, reportedly was on the verge of tears on a leaked call with other party leaders, complaining that his vice chair, David Hogg, is undermining him because he wants to kick all the dead wood out of the party.
Martin reportedly choked up and said, “I don’t know if I want to do this anymore.” Wait! There’s no crying in baseball…uh, politics.
Part of the $20 million the Democrats are spending figuring out how to talk to men is on polling, where I am sure they will learn that essentially crying and saying that you want to go home is not a sign of strong leadership.
Granted, Hogg has been the General George Custer of his party— – the only guy with any new ideas. Unfortunately, they are all bad. For example, he wants to replace all the “dead wood” in the party with people like U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, who he says “is the kind of leader the Democrats need.”
Crockett, who is vying to become the Texas AOC, frequently appears on the Texas Loser List, not only because of her ugly reference to Gov. Greg Abbott as “governor Hot Wheels,” but also for her strong stands against ICE and in support of open borders as well as her insistence that men who say they are women should be allowed to play in women’s sports.
Not sure what happens to her efforts now, following the news this week that Hogg is stepping down from the DNC. It’s not exactly clear why he’s leaving, but according to the New York Times, one reason is they had too many male vice presidents…which tells you something.
LOSERS: Democrats Become Permanent Residents on the Wrong Side
In addition to siding with people who are burning cars in their streets, California’s Democrat governor, Gavin Newsom decided to sue the U.S. Dept. of Justice, saying the Golden State wants to continue to allow boys to play in girls’ sports.
California’s Interscholastic Federation rules allows students to declare what gender they are and then compete in those sports.
Newsom is waffling on this, having said in March that he doesn’t think it’s fair to let boys play girls’ sports, presumably after seeing polling that shows 80% of Americans oppose it.
But maybe Newsom has joined other Democrats who don’t seem to care what regular people think. Axios posted some other polling numbers this week that they say were provided to the Senate by the White House regarding the Big Beautiful Bill, showing other areas where Democrats seem committed to sticking with the wrong side:
- Ending taxes on tips polled 77% support — 18% oppose
- Cutting taxes on overtime pay: 74% support — 18% oppose
- Making Trump’s tax cuts permanent to avoid a 22% tax increase: 53% support 34% opposed
- Hiring more ICE/border patrol officers: 55% support — 40% oppose
- Ending federal coverage of gender-affirming care: 54% support — 39% oppose
- Ending Medicaid benefits for unauthorized immigrants: 52% support — 39% oppose
LOSER: Biden’s Afghan Evacuation
Trying to figure out how Biden will once again make the losers list has almost become a drinking game. If you recall, last week Biden insisted that he was the guy in charge of the auto-pen and had signed every pardon, every law, every order— – which would presumably include the order to evacuate Afghanistan.
This week, we have a report revealing that there were 55 people in that chaotic airlift out of Kabul who were on the terrorist watch list. No one will ever forget watching the tragedy of that plane going down the runway with people trying to hold onto the wings, knowing they were as good as dead if they didn’t get out. To learn that 55 of the people who made it out safely were on the terrorist watch list (with another 22 who were added to the list later) is just one more awful fact we must swallow from the long list of really awful things that happened while Biden was president.
A Biden bonus this week. Former Vice President and Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris is also is a loser for blaming Trump for the riots in Los Angeles.
WINNER: Trump Beats the AP
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington granted President Trump a stay in enforcement of a lower-court ruling that the administration had to let the Associated Press (AP) into the White House briefing room and back on Air Force One. The Trump team took action because AP persisted in referring to the Gulf of America as the Gulf of Mexico. Trump has broad support on this because it’s not just dead-naming the Gulf. AP style dictates lots of wacky woke stuff like “birthing person,” for mother and the capitalization of Black for African Americans, while keeping the little “w” for white.
According to the ruling, “the First Amendment does not control the president’s discretion in choosing with whom to speak or to whom to provide special access.”
Here’s the write-up on the ruling by the Associated Press, which calls the ruling an “incremental loss,” and includes their differing opinion.
LOSERS: Chinese Smuggle in Wheat Blight
In a story that will make a great movie script, a couple of Chinese researchers were arrested this week at the University of Michigan when it was determined they were likely engaging in “agro-terrorism” by bringing a fungus into the U.S. that would cause “head blight” killing crops like wheat, barley and rice.
As my TPPF colleague, Chuck DeVore, wrote this week, Texas recently passed legislation designed to halt the advance of the Chinese Communist Party in Texas. Texas also passed higher education reform legislation that prohibits state colleges and universities from accepting gifts and grants from countries that are adversaries of the United States. What happened in Michigan with the researchers who were on the university staff is not a one-off. It is a routine strategy employed by the Chinese to infiltrate the U.S.
WINNER: Trump/Musk Update
Trump continues to be the best bet to come out a winner in his battle with former White House advisor Elon Musk. Musk folded pretty quickly, actually, saying mid-week that he regretted some of the really ugly things he’d said about the President, adding that he hoped the two could talk. Trump hasn’t agreed to a talk yet, but he was nice, so Musk sent him a heart emoji. Of course, Fox News is on top of this story.
WINNER: Texas Wins Women’s College World Series
The Lady Longhorns defeated Texas Tech this week to win their first Women’s College World Series. The victory is especially sweet for the Longhorns, who were defeated by Oklahoma the last two years— – and also for the rest of us, who are so proud that the top two teams in the Women’s World Series are both from the Lone Star State.
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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