Author: Sherry Sylvester

Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. Coming off a tsunami election in Texas and across the country, the smoke is just beginning to clear, but as of today, here’s who made the list:

WINNER: American Democracy

Despite the fact that Gallup reported earlier this year that more than half of Americans “distrust the honesty of our elections,” and hundreds of “No Kings Protests” have been held across the country, on Tuesday night millions of Texas voters (and voters all over America) affirmed our democracy, stood up and were counted.

A majority did not vote for the same people I voted for, but they are still Texans and you gotta love them. My colleague Eric Oldfather wrote yesterday that he was too young to remember a time when Texas conservatives were not in charge of all three branches of state government, and the same may be true for many other Texas voters.

But many of us have seen this movie before. I worked for a Republican gubernatorial candidate in New Jersey in 2005 who was the first victim of the giant blue wave backlash against George W. Bush in 2006, when Democrats won control over the U.S. House and the Senate. Most people blamed the Iraq war and the economy for that wave — sound familiar?

Waves happen. America’s political parties have been rising, falling and rising again since Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams for the presidency in 1801. Those two guys, who had worked together for years to build our democracy, got so mad at each other over that election that they did not speak for 11 years. Again, sound familiar?

But in just this one thing, we cannot follow those two founding fathers. Waves happen and Texas just experienced a big one, but there is simply no time to waste being angry. The future of Texas is on the line. This is not our first wave here at TPPF. We are the people who worked for 32 years to pass school choice, and we will continue to do what we have always done: put forth policies built on freedom, hard-work and independence — policies that have made Texas the largest job creator in the country and have given us a $2.6 trillion economy, making Texas the best place in America to live and raise a family. These Texas miracles and many other Texas miracles did not happen by accident — they happened because Texans remained committed to the conservative principles that have made our state a beacon of hope for America and the world. They happened because serious Texans were not thrown off course by a wave.

LOSERS: Pollsters and the New Electorate

No Texas pollster predicted the complete and total Democrat victory in Texas on Tuesday night. I even heard from Democrats that their pollsters didn’t see the scope of the wave coming. Less than an hour before the polls closed, prediction markets like Kalshi were pointing to a loss by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, but they affirmed that Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and the rest of the statewide GOP ticket would be re-elected by wide margins. Yet 18 of their prediction losses on election night were in Texas.

This election cycle saw pollsters employ many different kinds of strategies — new generations of modeling and measurements of social presence and messaging. But in the end, none of it was very accurate. Old style polling has become the eight-track tape of electioneering and the data guys and women need to figure out something else.

What the majority electorate told us on Tuesday night is that voters are no longer tethered to either party or particular leaders. We used to say that most people define themselves as either Democrat or Republican before they get out of high school, which makes them easy to count, but that is clearly no longer true. The same voters — suburban and rural, minority and younger — who put President Donald Trump in office in 2024 voted to throw out the Republican majority on Tuesday, and, for the most part, pollsters didn’t see the wave coming.

WINNER: President Trump the Deal Maker

Bet you didn’t think you’d see the president on the list today, but here’s the thing. On Wednesday morning, it was clear that Trump has two options for the next couple of years — issue rubber stamp vetoes or talk with the Democrats to see if he can make some deals that accomplish his goals. Trump said he doesn’t want to just sit and veto everything for the next two years and he also said he thought he and the Democrats could come up with something on several issues. He named immigration reform as one. Deals are absolutely not the same thing as compromising principles — the president made it clear he won’t do that. But Trump is a deal making guy and if he believes he can move the country forward on some issues that matter in the next two years, then he is a winner.

LOSER: California Congressman Thinks Election Was About DEI

California Congressman Ro Khanna’s big reaction to the Blue Wave on Tuesday was to scream from his X account that DEI is back! Khanna tried to insist that the election of three African American governors, the first Muslim U.S. senator, the first openly gay U.S. senator and Texas’ newly elected Latina governor prove DEI is working. In fact, it proves just the opposite. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, none of those candidates were elected because of their race, ethnicity or gender preference. They won on their merit. Voters clearly believed they were the best people for the job, or at least better than the people they were running against.

WINNER: Texans Say No to More Local Spending

Even Texas counties that landslided blue on Election Night voted down almost $6 billion in new property taxes and bond debt. The city of Dallas voted down a $423 million bond and the state’s largest school district — Cy-Fair in Cypress — said no to a 9-cent property tax increase. Texas Democrats have promised to eliminate the spending restraints on local cities and counties, which means higher property taxes and more bond debt. So either voters weren’t reading the fine print in the Democrat platform or Democrats don’t understand who elected them. It will be interesting to watch. According to the Texas Scorecard, 75% of all bonds and property tax increases failed — even Plano voted against a half-billion dollar funding package for the Dallas Stars.

Predictably, school board leaders blamed their losses on the timing — saying it is difficult to pass ballot measures in November because so many more people are voting. More than one school district official promised to put their bond measure on the ballot again in May when fewer people are paying attention. So let this be your first alert for the next election. Make a plan now to keep paying attention.

WINNERS: Four More States Ban Boys Playing in Girls’ Sports

Arizona and Nebraska voted on Tuesday to ban boys who think they are girls from playing in girls sports. Importantly, so did the bright blue states of Washington and Colorado. Again, blue wave or no blue wave, that brings the number of states that have banned so-called transgenders from playing in opposite sex sports to 31. LGBTQ+ leaders called it a major disappointment — but it is another reminder to progressives that they should be careful how they interpret the recent election results. A lot of things changed on Tuesday night, but I am willing to bet that the country didn’t suddenly decide that there is no difference between men and women, or that there are more than two genders.

WINNER: California Says No to Billionaire Tax

Los Angeles may have elected a Democratic Socialist as their next mayor, but you have to give Californians credit for voting down the proposed tax on billionaires. The “Tax on the Ultra Rich” ballot proposition would have required the state’s 200 billionaires to pay 5% more in taxes on everything — not just their income, but all their wealth. California has almost 40 million people, but the SEIU — which includes the state health care workers union — put forth the tax on the “ultra rich” to get the money to pay for their health care plans. California’s top earners already pay 40-50% of their income in taxes to California, a figure that has caused many wealth creators, including transplanted Texan Elon Musk, to flee the state. Voting down the billionaire tax makes it clear that a majority of Californians understand that.

WINNERS: Texas College Football

Three Texas state schools made it to the first round of the CFP Playoff Rankings which were released on Tuesday. The Longhorns of Texas are ranked No. 7, Texas Tech is ranked No. 15 and the University of Houston is ranked No. 18. Texas plays Missouri tomorrow and I will be among the thousands of people in Lubbock who will be rooting for the Red Raiders against West Virginia on Saturday. The University of Houston is playing Cincinnati.
Have a great weekend!

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

If you were forwarded this email, you can sign up to receive it every week at www.texaspolicy.com/9thandCongress

Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. Today is the last day of Early Voting, so we are now beginning the endgame. So far, 6.2 million Texans had cast their ballots as of Wednesday and the GOP deficit has dwindled to 56,000—half of what it was last week. Those numbers don’t show winners and losers, of course, so here’s who made the list:

WINNER: USA Swamping World in AI Computing

The U.S. is locked into an ongoing battle with China over artificial intelligence (AI), but a new report released this week shows that the U.S. is currently in the lead. America currently has over 70% of the world’s AI computing — the processing power that makes AI work. That means we’ve got the chips, the means of producing more chips and the capital investment to make that happen. China, at a little over 10%, is not even close — and Europe isn’t really in the game.

Texas Tech recently announced a partnership with NVIDIA, the largest chip maker in the world, to “deploy next-generation accelerated computing infrastructure” on the Red Raider campus in Lubbock. Meanwhile, using their usual “head in the sand” strategy, Canada invited the European Union over to Montreal yesterday to try to talk them into letting the Canadians join — so Canada will retain its spot on the losers list.

WINNER: Nancy Pelosi — Mamdani and El Sayed are “just wrong.”

I am not sure if former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a first time winner in this space, but she made the list this week for clearly condemning the frequent anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments of Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Pelosi was on a podcast called “On Brand,” where the host provided quotes of both the Democratic Socialists refusing to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Pelosi called that “wrong,” and said it did not reflect the position of the Democrats in Congress. Pelosi distanced herself from El-Sayed, noting he hasn’t actually been elected, and said bluntly that she did not agree with Mayor Mamdani. She also said other House members should not tolerate anti-Semitic and anti-Israel views from their colleagues in Congress (which would be a big change). It is not often we hear much sanity coming from Democrats in general, and Pelosi in particular, but it is worth noting that she took a stand.

LOSER: Talarico and the Classrooms Lie

Going down to the wire, candidates are throwing everything they’ve got into whatever race they are running, so it was great to see that the New York Times (really) called out Texas Democrat Senate nominee James Talarico this week for a whopper. While on the campaign trail, Talarico whined that when he taught in public school in Texas, his classroom had over 45 students, several of whom didn’t have desks and had to sit on radiators. He even claimed the experience was so awful that it moved him to run for office. The Times checked with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and learned that it wasn’t true — Talarico never taught a class with more than 30 students.

Texas Democrats frequently make up stories about the dire straits of Texas public schools, always ignoring the billions of dollars spent on administrative bloat and astronomical superintendents salaries. If you are in the mood for some facts about our public schools, my TPPF colleagues, Mandy Drogin and James Quintero lay out some of the most outrageous truths HERE.

LOSER: Blue City Rain Forecasts

It goes without saying that conservatives win elections on merit — more people agree with principled, common-sense policies than don’t. However, in the fog of the war that is the current mid-term election, the forces of darkness are strong and confusion can sometimes obscure the light. It is critical to use every tool you have.

That’s why many conservatives are praying for rain on Election Day. Traditionally, Democrat voters have proven more likely to be deterred by bad weather. The fact that three of the Lone Star State’s big blue cities—Dallas, Austin and San Antonio—are bracing for “severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfall” next Tuesday is good news.

While Democrat turnout far exceeded the GOP in the first week of early voting, Republicans are closing the gap in the second week, so the Election Day turnout could be decisive.

WINNER: Two States Put Saving Girls Sports on the Ballot

Texas has rightfully outlawed boys playing in girls sports and gender mutilating surgeries for children, both of which are allowed in most Democrat-controlled states. But Washington state and Colorado have put boys playing in girls sports on the ballot for next Tuesday, and Washington Democrats are panicked. Using big scare tactics, they are telling voters that every girl will have to be examined before every game — something that doesn’t happen in Texas and other states where boys are already prohibited from playing in girls sports. Colorado is also voting on whether to ban gender mutilating sex change surgeries. Polling shows that virtually nobody in either party supports either one of these things, but we’ll see how the voting turns out.

Loser: Dirty Tricks in Alaska

The story of how the Alaska Democrats found a guy with the same name as the Republican U.S. senator in Alaska, Dan Sullivan, to run against him would make a great movie. Apparently, former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, the Democrat who is challenging Sullivan, wanted to increase her odds — or at least her team wanted to increase her odds — so they recruited another man with the same name as her opponent and got him to file for the election. Predictably, voters are confused.

The U.S. Dept. of Justice is investigating and President Donald Trump is threatening to get the race thrown out if Peltola wins. Yesterday, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who is also a Republican, also announced an investigation, which means Alaska will be on everybody’s watch list on Election Night. You can’t blame Alaska’s awful “jungle primary” system for making this possible, but it didn’t help.

WINNER: Halloween Shout Out to America

Halloween is tomorrow, so I want to do my annual shout-out regarding the Salem Witch Trials, which occurred in the summer of 1694.

Every year at Halloween, some lefty trots out the Salem Witch Trials as proof that America was rotten from the beginning, but just the opposite is true. When you look at what happened in Salem and compare it to the rest of the world, it was already clear that America was an exceptional place.

The numbers tell the story: In the 17^th and 18^th centuries, at least 12,000 women were executed for witchcraft in Europe and some estimates are much higher. During that same time period, the body count in America was 35, including the 19 women who were executed at Salem. That doesn’t make any of it right, of course, but it does provide perspective. If you were a woman, or even a witch, during that time, the safest place in the world to be was America. To read my entire article on the Salem witch trials, click here.

WINNER: Pope Votes by Mail

Pope Leo XIV made history this week when he became the first Pope to vote in an American election. He cast his ballot by mail in Illinois, where he is registered. In fact, Robert Francis Prevost, his name before he became Pope Leo, has been voting by mail since 2012.

We are all proud that the pope, who was born on the South Side of Chicago, is an American and now we know he takes every aspect of his citizenship seriously. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Illinois doesn’t have “absentee ballots,” and any registered voter can vote by mail if they want to. There’s a federal law governing military personnel who are serving overseas, so they don’t lose their voting rights, but this is a call by the state of Illinois, which is not challenging the Holy Father.

WINNERS: Brewers, Longhorns and Cougars

Unless you were watching closely, it was easy to miss Milwaukee winning the World Series in the middle of the week. They defeated Tampa Bay in five games to take home the first championship in their history.

Meanwhile, after Week 8 of college football, the No. 11 ranked Texas Longhorns had sort of a comeback after a solid defeat over Ole Miss. Unfortunately, Texas Tech is no longer undefeated after their tragic loss to Cincinnati. The Red Raiders are now ranked No. 13.The other Texas team in the top 25, the University of Houston, plays Cincinnati on Saturday. The Longhorns face Mississippi State and Tech will play Arizona tomorrow. Texas A&M is off this week. I believe the college football reformers should also consider outlawing bye weeks—nothing good ever comes from them.

Have a great weekend!

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

Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. Texas is wrapping up the first week of early voting with massive lines all over the state. According to Longhorn Derek, the only person who knows anything real about what is going on in the midterms — 2.3 million Texans have voted — more Democrats than Republicans at the beginning of the week, but GOPers are beginning to close the gap. There’ll be more numbers later today. Meanwhile, here’s who made list:

LOSER: University of Texas Faculty Dressed in Black

According to a story in the Houston Chronicle this past week, about 20 faculty members at the University of Texas at Austin, all members of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), dress up in black and walk across campus every day at lunch time to protest what they call the “death of academic freedom” on the 40 Acres. Their entire list of complaints is enumerated in a new million-word article in Texas Monthly lamenting what they call the “conservative takeover” of the University. These “demonstrations” have been going on for a while, but one AAUP member whined that University officials have not reached out to the AAUP protestors to ask about their “grievances.”

The AAUP has been wailing and gnashing their teeth since 2023 when Texas closed down DEI offices at UT and other public universities in Texas. After the university governance reforms passed last session, via Senate Bill 37, the AAUP entered a permanent state of hysteria, but nobody was listening to them, so they came up with this dressing in black stunt. Setting their hair on fire is undoubtedly next.

The Texas AAUP doesn’t really represent anyone. Their website says they have 2,700 members statewide on 100 campuses, public and private. That number isn’t even a blip of a percentage of the almost 102,000 people who teach, just at Texas public universities. The 20 or so AAUP members who are demonstrating on the UT campus also are barely a statistical trace of the 2,900 professors who teach full-time at UT and another 500 or so who teach part time.

The Texas AAUP continues to insist that ending DEI and removing requirements for “grievance studies” classes like gender studies and lesbian migration patterns are scaring good faculty away from UT, but that claim was also debunked this week by UT administration, which revealed that they received over 12,000 applications for just 94 job openings.

Still, anytime any professor decides to leave Texas for any reason, the Texas AAUP will call a reporter and, like the Houston Chronicle or Texas Monthly, they’ll usually write a story about the “brain drain” or “exodus” of Texas faculty. This simply is not happening at UT or any of the Texas flagships as Texas higher education reforms are recognized as the national model for returning rigor and trust to our universities. No clue how long before the Texas media figures that out.

WINNER: Texas Crime Fighters

Aaron Reitz, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, announced an indictment this week of the Fort Bend County Tax Accessor Collector, Carmen Patrice Turner, who is charged with theft of federal funds and wire fraud. Texas Bullpen has the most colorful write-up, noting that the Tax Accessor-Collector was charged with paying county employees to do personal work for her, including taking care of her mother. She was also funneling money to one of her “baby daddies,” who was sending her kickbacks from Chicago. The investigation was a joint operation with the Houston FBI, the Texas Rangers and the Harris County DA. There will be trials, of course, but we’d also like to know who is optioning the movie rights.

LOSER: AOC redefines “Girls’ Girl”

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, apologized to a self-identified transgender person on the campaign trail this week for Democrats who have come out in opposition to boys playing in girls sports and other policies that support men who say they are women. Although almost 80% of Americans oppose men in women’s sports, AOC says that’s wrong. She says, “the right to choose over our bodies is the right to choose over our bodies.” Huh?

WINNER: A Good Economic Story Ignored in Texas?

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that unemployment claims dropped to an almost 60-year low in mid-October, suggesting that the low job growth rate reported in September was a blip. The WSJ report said that the data indicates that oil prices and the war in Iran has caused “no material stress to the labor market.”

At the same time I got that email alert with the unemployment claims story, I received this headline from the Dallas Morning News: Texas shed thousands of jobs in September, lowering 2026 growth forecast. The “news report” is basically a rehash of the September jobs report, which came out three weeks ago. No clue why the folks at the Dallas Morning News thought they should re-write it and run it on the first week of early voting.

Almost makes you think those folks who believe Democrats are collaborating with the media to depress GOP enthusiasm and turnout are right. Why else would the media fail to report good economic news in the days before an election?

WINNER: Florida issues an arrest warrant for Raul Castro

It seems like every week we see more data showing that young Americans are increasingly enthused, not just about socialism, but also communism. That is why it is important that the state of Florida issued an arrest warrant last week for Raul Castro, brother of Fidel, who ordered an air-to-air missile to strike down two civilian planes in 1996, killing four people. Reportedly, Castro believed they were carrying out a humanitarian mission, even though the aircraft were traveling away from Cuba and received no warning despite contact with Havana air traffic control. Castro, who is 93, is no longer head of the Cuban Communist Party, but it is important for the young admirers of communism to learn how these ruthless regimes actually operate.

WINNER: Long Shot Baseball Fans

The World Series starts today so if there are any fans of Tampa Bay or the Milwaukie Brewers out there, the long wait is over. Neither team has ever won the World Series before, so we know we’ll get a first-time champion when it’s all over.

WINNER: The Red Raiders of Texas Tech

While the dreams of Longhorns and Aggie fans seem to be crumbling, the undefeated Red Raiders of Texas Tech face off against Cincinnati tomorrow at 11 a.m. The Red Raiders are ranked No. 8 nationally. The No. 19 ranked Texas Longhorns are playing Ole Miss tomorrow in Austin, and Texas A&M, which fell off the ranking charts a while ago, is traveling to Alabama to play No. 13 Crimson Tide. We should note that another Texas public university, the University of Houston, is ranked No. 14 and will play No. 10 ranked Utah. After what happened last week, there is absolutely no way to know what to expect anywhere, but it should be a good Saturday.

Have a great weekend!

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

Every Friday morning I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. With early voting in the mid-terms starting on Monday, and almost half a billion dollars dropping in advertising spending in Texas, the only clear winners at this point are television and live streaming companies. But there are others who have distinguished themselves, in one way or another, in the past week. Here’s who made list:

WINNER: HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Demands AMA Put Up or Shut Up

Over the last several legislative sessions, TPPF and other advocates for Texas children have sat in countless legislative hearings and heard testimony from those pushing so-called “gender affirming care,” including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and even mutilating sex-change surgeries, point out that those practices are approved by the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics. In February, the AMA backed off recommending unnecessary mastectomies and castrations for children, conceding that those surgeries should only be performed on adults, but they are still on board for the powerful and dangerous hormone treatments.

This week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. sent a letter to the AMA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the Endocrine Society and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, demanding they prove their contention that drug, hormone and surgical based “gender affirming care” treatments for children who are gender confused actually work.

The British National Health Service, which started these awful programs decades ago, determined almost five years ago that the evidence for the effectiveness of gender affirming care treatment is “remarkably weak” and several European countries have followed their lead with their own research, ultimately reversing their medical protocols for dealing with children who are gender confused. Hospitals that were performing sex change operation have closed down all over Europe as countries have pivoted to recommending counseling for kids who are gender confused.

Although 19 Democrat states are suing HHS over their attempts to stop Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals that perform sex change surgeries on children, a half dozen hospitals have already closed down those programs in response. Can’t wait to see what they say to Secretary Kennedy.

In somewhat related news, new data from the Center for Disease Control found that the number of high schoolers who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual has dropped substantially in since 2023—most dramatically among ninth grade girls, where the percentage who say they are lesbian, gay or bisexual has decreased from 30 percent in 2021 to 17 percent in 2025.

WINNER: Marco Rubio Says ‘No’ to Fake International Criminal Court

President Donald Trump should stop yearning for a Nobel Peace Prize, because, of course, those prizes have nothing to do with peace.

Last week, when Navi Pillay won, the Peace Prize Committee listed one of her “accomplishments” as getting the International Criminal Court (ICC) to pronounce that Israel is guilty of genocide. Pillay served as a judge on that court.

The ICC has been anti-American and anti-West from the beginning. It was established in 2002 to provide a mechanism to prosecute the U.S. for war crimes. Then-President George W. Bush didn’t join at the time, saying no American statesman or soldier should ever be placed under the jurisdiction of a foreign court. Every president since—Democrat and Republican—has agreed.

Recently, the ICC has been escalating its left-wing attacks on Israel and America, and this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had finally had enough. After calling the ICC a threat to U.S. sovereignty, he cut off any U.S. resources it might be receiving and banned all transactions between the ICC and any American company. To make his point crystal clear, Rubio said, “the United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC.”

LOSERS: Gen Z Data Continues to Alarm

Anyone who believes higher education reform in Texas isn’t urgent should look at a new Rasmussen Poll released this week that found that 43% of likely voters between the ages of 18 and 24 have a positive view of Sharia law. This is particularly frightening when you consider those surveyed were likely voters, not simply registered voters. Likely voters actually vote.

A Texas Scorecard story lays out the details, adding that about 25% of those in the same age group would allow a city to impose Sharia law if a majority of the people voted for it.

Meanwhile, a new survey by the Buckley Foundation found that 22% of college students believe, like Democratic Socialist Hasan Piker, that America deserved the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

Additional data points in the Buckley Poll reveal why college students have such wacky beliefs—they don’t talk to anyone who disagrees with them. More than half said they could not be close friends with someone in a different political party and, among liberal students, 55% said they wouldn’t take a class from a professor who had political opinions contrary to theirs. In fact, some believe opinions that differ from theirs could cause mental illness.

Add that to the data from the Cato Institute that 53% of Gen Z voters have a favorable view of socialism and 38% view communism favorably, and you can see the Red Alert.

LOSER: Gavin Newsom Signs California Reparations Bill

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the first-in-the-nation slavery reparations bill that will require California companies to investigate and disclose their historic ties to slavery.

Kristin Nimmers, a spokesperson for both the California Black Power Network and the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth, told Fox News Digital that Newsom’s so-called Truth in Disclosure Act is critical for corporate accountability.

But truth is not always simple or easy. Another reparations group in Illinois called the U.S. Freedman Project told Fox News Digital that any funds for reparations should only go to so-called “foundational” black Americans and not to any person of color, underserved communities, immigrants and marginalized groups. They were protesting some reparation programs that have been established by a few blue cities.

California’s Commission on Reparations, which recommended Newsom’s new law, limited eligibility to those who are directly descended from slaves, but the vote was five to four, as some reparation advocates believe every black person should be eligible, regardless of how and when they arrived in America.

If governments begin actually appropriating reparation funds, this debate is only going to get more heated. A new book released last month called History by a Hair: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings and Solving a 200 Year Old Mystery, raises some additional questions. The book documents recent research into the DNA in a lock of Thomas Jefferson’s hair, establishing beyond doubt that the former president fathered the children of Sally Hemmings, a slave who lived at Monticello. In the six or seven generations since they passed, Jefferson and Hemings have at least 3,000 descendants and maybe as many as 8,000, some of whom identify as white and some as black. Their story is not unique, and it is just one American family. If any one of them applied for reparations, how would their application be judged?

WINNER: Texas Football — ‘We’re not dead, we’re okay.’

Yes, the University of Texas Longhorns lost the Red River Rivalry against Oklahoma last week, but I suspect that Coach Steve Sarkisian is right when he says they are “okay and not dead.” We all know that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and Texas could actually thrive without having to carry the weight of No. 1 ranking onto the field for a while. Their ranking toppled to No. 7 nationally this week as a result of their defeat by an unranked team.

The Longhorns play Florida tomorrow in Austin. Kickoff is at 11 a.m. The No. 10 ranked Red Raiders of Texas Tech are now the only undefeated Texas team in the Top 25. They play Arizona State tomorrow. Texas A&M fell out of the Top 25 three weeks ago, but the Aggies are still fighting. They go up against the Citadel tomorrow and we’ve finally got some football worthy weather!

Have a great weekend!

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

Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle and Woolley Show on 1370 Talk Radio in Austin to discuss the week’s Winners and Losers. As we put up our decorations to celebrate Columbus Day, on Monday, we can remember that President Trump officially declared last year that on October 12 we celebration the Spanish explorer. For those who celebrate, Indigenous People’s Day is some other time. Here’s who made the list:

WINNER: Showing Up

We all know that half the battle in life is simply to show up, which makes Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton a winner this week in his effort to be elected to the U.S. Senate. General Paxton was on stage with President Trump in San Antonio and traversed the state making dozens of campaign stops. Meanwhile, his opponent, State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, has gone missing. No one has seen him for 13 days. The last time anyone saw Talarico in the flesh was on September 25 at a fundraising event in New York City, hosted by actor Robert DeNiro and attended by all the folks who raised money for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Talarico’s campaign says he has a flu — which as we all know can be awful — but, reportedly, even his supporters are worried. It is not clear where we should send “Get Well” cards.

LOSERS; Anti-Israel Protesters at Too Many American Universities

This week marked the third-year anniversary of the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel that resulted in the killing of over 1,200 people and the abduction of 251 hostages. Students at Columbia, UCLA and other universities around the country, as well as in the City of New York, launched commemorative protests to affirm their support for Hamas, chanting, “there is only one solution, intifada revolution,” which provides some insight into the worldview of these American students. Even more difficult to understand is another popular chant uttered throughout the protest, “NYPD, KKK, IOF [Israeli Defense Force} they’re all the same.” Think about that.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani made an October 7 statement that seemed to acknowledge the terrorist murdering spree that took place in Israel, but as Politico reported, all but one sentence of his message went on to condemn Israel for what he insists on calling “genocide.” As outrageous and absurd as that statement is, it is important to remember that there are more Jewish people living in New York City than in any other place in the world outside of Israel — and they are outraged.

WINNER: Huffines Launches ISD Audits

Texas Comptroller Don Huffines announced this week that he will be auditing four independent school districts to take a closer look at how their state funds are being spent. The schools are Austin ISD, Barbers Hill ISD, El Paso ISD and Prosper ISD. Austin ISD, with almost 70,000 students, is the largest district being reviewed, reporting a huge budget deficit and a loss of almost 6,500 students in the last year alone. I spoke with Comptroller Huffines about the audits last summer. In came you missed it, you can listen here.

Huffines did not say why he picked those four school districts, although there have been questions raised about their financial operations and transparency over the past year. The State of Texas added an additional $8 billion to public education in the last legislative session and Huffines says his goal is to make sure that state funds are directly applied to classrooms and educating students rather than increasing administrative bureaucracy.

WINNER: Trump in San Antonio Takes on Loser Media

President Trump was in my hometown, San Antonio, this week, where he actually had to make it clear to the media that when he said Iran had the power to hit Los Angeles or San Diego with missiles, he wasn’t suggesting they do it. As hard as it is to believe, the media has never really believed that Iran was an actual threat to America’s security — or even the security of the rest of world.

While in the Alamo City, the President patiently explained that an attack on Los Angeles or San Diego — which is in the realm of possibility with a well-armed Iran, could set the United States into a free fall. He pledged that he would not let that happen. Instead of reporting that, the media pretended that Trump had called for an attack on California.

It gets tiresome to continue to report how biased the media is, but Newsweek reported this week that several American news outlets were very slow to call the FlyDubai terrorist attack what it was despite information surfacing almost immediately of the attacker’s Islamist radicalization. The New York Times described the harrowing fight in the cockpit of the plane as an “altercation between a pilot and co-pilot,” while ABC News noted that the “suspect in the incident had been previously described as a security risk.” The Los Angeles Times got it right the first time — calling the incident a “terrorist attack.”

WINNER: Red River Shoot Out

With 24 days to go until the mid-term election, many of the daily polls are tight, but anyone looking for a sure thing might think they have it in tomorrow’s game between the No. 1 ranked University of Texas Longhorns and the unranked Oklahoma Sooners. Still, everyone knows that anything can happen in a rivalry game, and Texas – Oklahoma is one of the best rivalries in the country, so it should be fun to watch. Kick-off is at 2:30. Texas A&M is playing Missouri and Texas Tech is off this week.

Have a great weekend!

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

Follow Sherry on X @sylvester1630 and find her on Substack at sherrysylvester.substack.com 

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

Every Friday morning I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. Today is Dolly Parton Day, 9.25 (get it?), as love for the legendary artist continues to unite the country. Nashville is renaming their airport. Here’s who made this week’s list:

WINNER: Trump Bans CNN, MS NOW & Politico from White House Press Briefings

Trump is a winner for taking away the White House press passes of CNN, MS NOW and Politico last weekend even though the three news outlets took him to court and got their press passes restored for 14 days while the issue moves through the courts. I understand Trump will probably lose this fight. Everyone, even conservatives, thinks it’s unconstitutional for the president to throw some reporters out of the White House just because he doesn’t like what they report.

Maybe, but Trump is also right because what he is protesting in the left-wing news is not simply reports from a different perspective, it is the daily onslaught of lies, distortions and half-truths that fuel so many American beliefs in things that just aren’t true.

Just take one example from this week – a group of Jewish shareholders sued the New York Times for persistent lies in their coverage of Israel, which has bolstered a pro-Hamas narrative and anti-Jewish bias, likely contributing to the rise of anti-Semitism throughout the country.

Before they were forced to delete it last week, the New York Times inexplicably noted that “Israelis still view themselves largely as the victims of October 7.” Huh?

They also ran a horrifying photo of an emaciated child who they portrayed as starving in Gaza as a result of Israeli tactics, but after several days of pressure the paper was forced to admit that the unfortunate child actually suffered from muscle atrophy and several other diseases which accounted for his appearance. The fact that Israel has sent over 2 million metric tons of food into Gaza since October 7 is rarely reported.

All these stories were echoed by CNN, MS NOW and Politico. The conservative half of the country doesn’t pay attention to those outlets so we tend to think it doesn’t matter. But their phony presentation of what is going on in the world so heavily pollutes the news stream that everyone ends up hearing it.

We see the same thing in the Texas press which pushes false narratives on virtually every issue. One of last week’s losers was a story that university professors were leaving Texas because they didn’t like the new higher education reforms. Not true. Since the incredible new Bluebonnet Curriculum has been given the green light, there have been dozens of stories that Texas public schools do not teach about slavery and that they force students to embrace Christianity. Neither is true.

In Washington, every press outlet has rallied around the banned reporters waving the First Amendment flag. We are all big fans of the First Amendment, but it is important to remember that when Thomas Jefferson famously said he’d prefer to have “newspapers without a government rather than government without newspapers,” it was 1787. George Washington hadn’t been elected president yet and there actually wasn’t a government. After Jefferson became president, he said that Americans would be better informed if they read nothing at all – because newspapers were filled with “falsehoods and errors.”

What Jefferson said then is not all that different from what Trump is saying now. The President is not attacking Freedom of the Press, he is simply pointing out that nothing in the Constitution guarantees a daily briefing in the White House.

Of course, conservatives argue that if Trump throws out lefty media, the next time a Democrat is in the White House, he will ban Fox News and other conservative outlets, to which I say, “so what?”

Years ago, I was honored to work for the legendary H.L. “Sandy” Schwartz, who had reported the Watergate story for the Associated Press. I was covering New Jersey politics and one of the most important things Schwartz taught me was to never waste my time going to press conferences. “There is never any news made at a press conference,” he said, and he was right.

White House daily briefings are livestreamed. Anybody can watch them. The reporters who have been kicked out of the White House press room should go and search out some real news stories – maybe look at something no other reporter is writing about. Then, they should thank Trump for doing them a favor.

LOSER: Nikole Hannah-Jones’ Bad School Confession

So much has been said this week about the New York Times story in which Nikole Hannah-Jones confesses what a bad parent she is, under the arrogant and obnoxious title — In Fighting for Every Black Child Did I Betray my Own?

As a reminder, Hannah-Jones wrote the 1619 Project, a lie that “reframed” American history exclusively around race and slavery. The 1619 Project did not propose broader inclusion of black people in our history. Instead, it insisted on the complete exclusion of white people, pronouncing everything from the revolutionary war to the Constitution as rooted in racism and white supremacy. Until now, the 1619 Project has been Hannah-Jones’ only claim to fame and she has been blasted because it has been shown to be wildly inaccurate by historians across the spectrum – right and left.

In this new “personal” report, Hannah-Jones tell us, with huge doses of self-righteousness, that although she could send her daughter to a good school, she chose to enroll her in a low-performing, predominantly low-income and black school, because she believed that is what affluent black people should do.

Finally, after 9 years – 9 years! – her daughter, who couldn’t do math or anything else, begged her parents to take her out of the school, which she did, concluding that poor performing schools like her daughter’s will not succeed until they receive the same funding as white schools.

So now Hannah-Jones is pushing a new lie: that black public schools fail because they are underfunded – it’s the teachers’ union lie. In fact, the school that Hannah-Jones’ daughter attended, PS 307 in Brooklyn, receives $52,000 per student, three times the national average of $16,226. Teachers earn more than $100,000 annually.

WINNER: Cuellar Challenges Hasan Piker on Anti-Semitism

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, repeated his concern this week that Hasan Piker is scheduled to speak in Austin next week, saying his statements that America deserved 9/11, his praise of Hamas and his denial of the rapes that occurred during the October 7 massacre reek of anti-Semitism. Cuellar said there is no place in Texas for Piker’s “rhetoric excusing terrorism” if Jewish students are made to feel threatened or unsafe.

The San Antonio Express-News quickly came to Piker’s defense, reporting that Piker says he isn’t anti-Semitic, so he must not be.

Piker will not be appearing on the University of Texas campus as originally planned, causing local Democratic Socialists to scream that they have been “soft-cancelled.” No word yet on where he’ll be dishing out his anti-American, pro-terrorist stand-up routine.

LOSER: Abdul El-Sayed Goes After College Football

We know that Democratic Socialists hate America and want to destroy our way of life but nowhere was that more evident than last week when Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed blamed college football for the housing shortage in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

El- Sayed was speaking at a “Students versus Billionaires” Town Hall and claimed one of the factors that contributes to a lack of affordable housing in that college town was “Football Saturdays.” El-Sayed lamented that Ann Arbor had become a tourist destination because of University of Michigan games and too many people were buying houses there to use as rentals, depleting the housing supply.

El-Sayed apparently is unaware that college football is the lifeblood of towns and cities like Ann Arbor. Let’s ask business owners there what happens to them if there are no “Football Saturdays.” Finally, not being judgey here, but El-Sayed got his undergraduate degree at Michigan and owns a rental property in Ann Arbor.

WINNER: San Antonio is Smarter than Dallas and Houston

Some outfit called Maxwell Studios put out one of those reports this week ranking the Top 50 Most Intellectual Cities in the Country. Their methodology is unclear but one red flag is that all the top cities are Blue – Boston, San Francisco, Providence, Portland – Austin is No. 13, wedged in between Seattle and Philadelphia. Other Texas cities don’t make an appearance until the bottom of the list but I did want to note that these lefties ranked San Antonio as more intellectual than Dallas or Houston – both of which are included in the top 5 dumbest cities list. If we were taking this seriously, we might ask why so many people are moving out of those “smart” cities, but why bother?

WINNER: Texas is Still No. 1, Texas A&M is Not

The University of Texas at Austin must face down its road curse this week and travel to Tennessee to play that other school that calls itself UT. President Trump is reportedly scheduled to be in the stands. Texas A&M, which has fallen to No. 23, must go into Death Valley to play No. 10 LSU tomorrow. Texas Tech is playing Sam Houston State. Going into Week 4, it is still very hot in Texas, but some weather reports indicate we might be getting some football weather soon.

Have a great weekend!

Listen to Winners & Losers on Talk 1370, the Cardle & Woolley 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.

Every Friday morning I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. Yesterday was the 239^th Anniversary of the Miracle in Philadelphia when America’s Founders signed off on the Constitution – a document that is still looking pretty good today, despite being constantly under assault. With 48 days to go until the midterm elections, here’s who made the list:

WINNER: America is Beating Poverty

You didn’t see this on most mainstream media reports, but the Census Bureau just released some bright news in these inflation-fueled economic times: the percentage of Americans who are living in poverty is lower than it has been since they started keeping records. A little over 10% of the country is living below the poverty line, which the Census Bureau set at $32,649 for a family of four. Adjusted for inflation, the real median household income jumped 2.6% to $87,460, an all-time high.

Despite criticism from the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility at the University of Chicago, the new data includes all cash and noncash benefits, including transfer payments, received by American families – a move long advocated by former U.S. Senator and Texas economist Phil Gramm.

Even the folks at the University of Chicago begrudgingly admit the rise in median household income is positive.

WINNER: UT Eliminates “Grievance Studies” Classes

University of Texas at Austin students will no longer be able to major in African-American Diaspora studies, Mexican-American Latino/a Studies, women and gender studies and race, indigeneity and migration studies.

The Texas media found a Social and Cultural Analysis professor at UT who charged that ending these majors is “censorship” that “curtails students’ career prospects.”

First, nobody at the 40 Acres has said students can’t study these issues. But reviews reveal that if so-called “grievance studies” courses are not required, few people take them. The classes aren’t actually history or cultural analysis but instead are loaded with race and gender theory ideology and calls for activism.

Second, you have to wonder how even one professor believes that not being able to major in one of these “grievance study” programs hampers anyone’s career prospects. The only future with such a degree is teaching the same classes somewhere or working as a barista.

This is another win for UT leadership as they continue to implement Senate Bill 37.

WINNER: Lt. Gov. Patrick Slaps Down ERCOT

With Texas ratepayers paying 32% more for electricity since 2020, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick stood up for every fed-up Texan when he slapped down the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) this week after they tried to give their CEO, Pablo Vegas, a new $6.4 million annual salary contract while increasing the salary of every board member by $50,000. Board members currently draw about $160,000 annually for serving on the ERCOT Board, which meets 4 times a year.

The ERCOT Board is busy backtracking on these lavish salary enhancements as Lt. Governor Patrick proclaimed that he had lost total confidence in them to look out for Texas ratepayers. Us too. Watch this space for what comes next.

WINNER: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz Breaks the Spell

After the University of Texas’ epic win over Ohio State on Saturday, it is clear the “Cruz Curse” is no longer being enforced by the football gods. Cruz was on College GameDay, in Austin this week to talk about the Protect College Sports Act, which cleared its first hurdle in Congress by moving forward in the Senate on a 76-24 vote. Throughout his interview Cruz was loudly booed by UT student fans, who were celebrating their free speech rights before the game.

There is no way to know why the Longhorn fans were chanting “Ted, you suck.“ It could have been about the “Curse,” which had held that when Cruz shows up for a game, Texas teams lose. Or it could have been about opposition to the Protect College Sports Act, which some Longhorns oppose because their football program isn’t threatened. Everyone knows that whatever happens, University of Texas football will survive even if the rest of the FBS schools are weakened or destroyed by the current madness in college sports.

Or, the heckling Longhorns could have just been protesting Sen. Cruz because he’s a principled conservative and they don’t like conservatives. The latest survey from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) found that the ratio of liberal students to conservatives at UT has increased to almost 7 to 1 over the last year. The survey also found that 76% of UT students believe it is acceptable to shout down a speaker they disagree with to prevent him from speaking on campus.

LOSER: Hasan Piker Coming to Austin

The Democratic Socialist guy who said America deserved 911, and has nothing but praise for Hamas, must have missed the news about declining poverty rates yesterday. In his latest podcast rant, he repeatedly proclaimed America to be “the absolute worst country on the face of the planet, straight up, bar none, a capitalist s***hole.”

Piker is scheduled to be in Austin in the next week or so. It will be interesting to see if a Longhorn crowd heckles him.

LOSER: Gavin Newson Will Step Aside for Kamala

California Gov. Gavin Newsom told CNN this week that if former Vice President Kamala Harris decides to run for president again, he will bow out.

This may seem like a gallant move, but it is more likely that Newsom is simply directing big Democrat donors to push her out of the race by refusing to fund her – as many have already done.

Understanding how Democrats think, we know this saves Newsom from being attacked as a big white guy trying to keep a minority woman from succeeding. Still, there is no way to understand why any Democrat thinks nominating Harris to run again is a good idea.

Polls this week show Harris is the leading Democrat contender in the presidential race by a couple points with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Newsom and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, all close behind within the margin of error.

LOSER: Dallas Morning News False Report on Professors Leaving

A headline in the Dallas Morning News this week screamed that “More Professors Want to Leave Texas This Year Citing Political Climate, censorship survey says.” The story was picked up by several radio and TV stations and other newspapers around the state even though it is almost certainly not even close to true.

The survey, which came from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), was conducted in 13 southern states. It was not a random sample designed to accurately measure the sentiment of Texas higher education faculty. Instead, the AAUP emailed the survey to their members in Texas, who represent less than 5% of Texas professors. 1,126 people answered the questions about whether they had considered leaving Texas because of the political climate, loss of academic freedom or shared governance, DEI policy, salary or other workplace conditions.

According to the Dallas Morning News story, about a third of the respondents – a little over 300 people from a self-selected group – said they had applied for a job out of state in the last two years. That’s 300 professors out of an estimated 100,000 people who teach in Texas public universities.

Even the Editorial writers at the Dallas Morning News was skeptical, saying the AAUP pushes for the “politicization of campuses” and “uniformly takes popular leftist positions with a special focus on Israel and Zionism.” Was their reporter not aware of that?

WINNER: Gov. Abbott Pushes for a 3-Year College Degree Path

Speaking of the AAUP, this week, Gov. Greg Abbott appointed a number of higher education thinkers to develop a 3-year college degree program. A 3-year degree would save Texans anywhere from $15,000 to $40,000, not to mention getting back an extra year in your life. Everybody thinks it’s a good idea except the AAUP, which opposes 3-year degrees.

LOSER: Houston Congressman Al Green’s Last Stand

Rep. Al Green, D-TX, wanted to take one last stab at impeaching President Donald Trump before he leaves Congress so he introduced an impeachment resolution this week. 232 House members voted to table it while only 147 voted to move it forward, so that’s a wrap.

This is the 8th time Green has tried to impeach Trump. Beyond that effort, he has passed no significant legislation for at least a decade. Houston Democrats voted him out in the March primaries.

WINNER: Texas Longhorns on Top of the Leader Board

Nothing can tarnish the glorious 24-23 Longhorn victory over the Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturday — although there were several efforts to change the conversation. But when the smoke cleared, the University of Texas at Austin was sitting at No. 1.

Tomorrow, the Longhorns will take on the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). A good factoid to take to the tailgate is that, like Longhorn star Arch Manning, the Roadrunner QB, Owen McCown, also has an impressive football pedigree as both his father and uncle played in the NFL. McCown attended the Manning Passing Camp with Arch this summer and was singled out as one of the stars.

UTSA Coach Jeff Traylor has some sobering thoughts about his matchup with UT tomorrow and the future of fielding $5 million teams against $50 million teams, which is not to say the Roadrunners aren’t going to drive up to Austin and give it all they’ve got.

No. 9 ranked Texas A&M demolished Arizona State last weekend and will play Kentucky tomorrow. Meanwhile, in an another all Texas match-up, No. 13 ranked Texas Tech is playing No. 22 ranked University of Houston tonight at 7PM – which means Saturday football is starting early!

Have a great weekend!

Listen to Winners & Losers on Talk 1370, the Cardle & Woolley 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.

LOSER: Houston Congressman Al Green’s Last Stand

Rep. Al Green, D-TX, wanted to take one last stab at impeaching President Donald Trump before he leaves Congress so he introduced an impeachment resolution this week. 232 House members voted to table it while only 147 voted to move it forward, so that’s a wrap.

This is the 8th time Green has tried to impeach Trump. Beyond that effort, he has passed no significant legislation for at least a decade. Houston Democrats voted him out in the March primaries.