Category: Winners & Losers

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.

Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle and Woolley show on 1370 Talk Radio in Austin to discuss the week’s Winners & Losers. While the Texas Big 3—Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows—get a big thumbs up for telling state agencies to trim their budgets by 3%, here’s who made the list:

WINNER: Dolly Parton, The One Thing Americans Agree On

It has been a while since America has had such a sad loss as the great Dolly Parton—an artist, philanthropist and philosopher who rose up from poverty and represented the best of America—the spirit of our story. In these divisive times, Dolly Parton has been called the only thing most Americans agree on. We all miss her already.

WINNER: U of H Cleans Up Core Curriculum

Gov. Abbott’s directive to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board this week to develop a three year degree option is a Winner move, coming alongside the announcement by University of Houston that the Board of Regents has cut 40% of its core curriculum classes, which few could argue were integral to a college education.

U of H Professor David Mazella, a member of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), loudly disagreed, charging that U of H is following the path of former Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban. Mazella called the curriculum changes an “Orbanization of Higher Ed in Texas.”

Of course, nobody has any idea what he means (and fewer than 5% of Texas professors belong to the AAUP), and there are a couple holes in the media reporting of this story.

First, almost all the media reported that classes that were cut included Introduction to Global Climate Change, Introduction to LGBT Studies and Black Liberation Theology in order to push the narrative that there has been some kind of Republican purge of U of H’s sacred body of knowledge. No media outlet mentioned that the cuts also included Homer to Hollywood, the Bible and Modern Pop Culture and a History of Jewish Food. Keep in mind that these are courses anyone could take and get credit toward a degree.

The media also did not look at the courses that remain in the Core Curriculum. Sure, Intro to Climate Change is gone, but the Core Curriculum includes Environmental Science, Earth Systems and Natural Disasters. A student can still take LGBTQ studies as an elective, but that was no comfort to the AAUP as Professor Mazella told Inside Higher Ed, “We are under enrollment pressures…if these courses do not satisfy core requirements, they go away.”

What the professor means is if there’s no credit for these classes, no one will take them and professors will have to teach something substantive—or lose their jobs.

LOSER: Texas A&M Victoria Professors Working 9-to-5

Meanwhile, professors at Texas A&M-Victoria are outraged by an “abrupt policy change” that requires all full-time faculty to spend 40 hours a week on campus, as dictated by Senate Bill 2615, passed last legislative session.

Truth is, it wasn’t that abrupt. Senate Bill 2615 passed the Texas Legislature on May 30, 2025. Texas A&M-Victoria faculty were reminded in June that law had changed and they would be expected to comply. On July 15, faculty were required to sign a form clarifying that they understood the new requirement. Still, this week, Teresa Klein, head of the Texas Chapter of the AAUP, said “the timing of the impromptu mandate has left many faculty scrambling to rearrange their schedules to accommodate, negatively affecting their professional and personal lives.”

Of course, she also said it was probably sexist (“having a possible disproportional, discriminatory and disparate negative effect on female faculty”).

Klein told the Houston Chronicle that many faculty are resigning as a result of the rule, but so far it is not clear what she means by “many.”

When the Higher Education Reform Bill (SB 37) was passed in 2023, the AAUP predicted it would cause a giant “brain drain” in state universities, because professors would leave. They didn’t. In 2021, the AAUP predicted nobody would teach in Texas after the anti-DEI Bill (SB 17) passed. They also said students wouldn’t want to come to Texas—but college enrollment is up across the state, and university leaders told the Senate Higher Education Committee earlier this summer that there has been no exodus of faculty. The University of Texas just welcomed 150 new faculty members this year and student applications broke 100,000—the highest number ever.

LOSER: CBC Won’t Call 9/11 a ‘Terrorist’ Event

The Senior Director of Journalistic Standards and Public Trust at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) directed news reporters not to describe the attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001 as a “terrorist attack.” With the 25^th anniversary of the attacks coming up next week, the CBC official wanted to make sure she got her message out early, emphasizing her directive: “Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks,” by making the sentence both bold and in italics. Instead, she said news stories should report that: “The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes.”

This inexplicable idiocy undoubtedly will be a boost in popularity for Trump’s decision to rename Lake Ontario. I am looking for a place to buy a LAKE AMERICA tee shirt.

WINNER: Buc-ee’s Says No to Blue States

The legendary Texas gas station chain Buc-ee’s announced this week that it will no longer bother expanding its business into blue states. Announcing the Texas firm’s new outreach into Arkansas, Buc-cees CEO Arch Alpin made it clear that operating in “conservative, business-friendly” states makes a difference. We learned during the World Cup that people around the world love Buc-ee’s—not just Texans. Bad policies are why blue states can’t have nice things.

LOSER: Federal Judge Rules in Support of Drag Shows for Kids

Federal Judge David Hittner, from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, ruled this week that Senate Bill 12, which bans drag shows for children, is unconstitutional. I wrote about this earlier this summer—Why Can’t We Get Rid of Drag Queen Story Hour? The only update is Judge Hittner’s ruling is one more reason why we can’t get rid of Drag Queen story hours.

LOSER: Good Good Golf Makes Awful Awful Ad

While we wait for college football to begin next week, we want to make sure readers don’t miss this very weird story in the golf world that involves the now former title sponsor of the PGA Tournament at Barton Creek in November, Good Good Golf.

This week, Good Good put out this ad for Calloway’s new driver which depicts a male golfer pushing a woman down on a golf course. You can watch the ad here but the plot is simple—four or five young male golfers are standing around a putting green when a young woman walks up from the other side and reaches to pull a club out of a golf bag. Immediately, one of the young men runs up and forces her to the ground, then leans over her and bellows, “Do NOT TOUCH my new driver.”

Every golfer knows that if anything like that actually happened in real life—and it virtually never does—a half dozen other golfers would have punched the guy out before the golf cops arrived and escorted him off the course.

Callaway apologized immediately, explaining the ad had been made by Good Good—but they admitted they’d signed off on it. Blowback was swift and deserved. The Golf Channel has just postponed a new show Good Good was sponsoring because other companies started pulling out. We’ll see what happens with Austin’s upcoming tournament.

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.

Winners & Losers is calling an end to our summer break. The Almanac says the last 8 p.m. sunsets in the central region of Texas will occur next week, so the days are getting shorter, and we can no longer stand by and let so many winners and losers go by unacknowledged. Here’s who is on my list:

LOSER: The First Day of School in August

Public schools are launching their 2026-27 school years all around us, and the question for parents should be: “Why are kids being dragged back to school when it is still, quite obviously, summer?”

State Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, promised this week to file a bill that will require Texas public schools to not begin the fall semester before Labor Day. In the past, that debate has always come down to a legislative battle between Texas tourism and Texas schools—so we’ll see how that goes when the session starts.

Currently, Texas law says that public schools can’t officially begin classes until the fourth Monday in August, unless they are “Districts of Innovation,” which includes 80% of Texas school districts—so most schools can start whenever they want.

A taxpayer funded lobbyist for the Texas Classroom Teachers Association says the early start date is one of the most popular things about “Districts of Innovation,” but consider the source and then ask the question, “Popular with whom?” Teachers, who have been on vacation since May, apparently are big fans of getting started early in August, but can we really let teachers decide this?

These are the people who give us a school day for younger kids that begins as early as 7:45 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m.—times that are virtually impossible for any working parent to easily navigate, necessitating expensive childcare and ongoing logistical nightmares. This ridiculous schedule has been with us for so long that nobody even asks anymore why the school day is over in the middle of the afternoon. Whoever sets the hours for a public school day didn’t consider parents, but I am betting a 3 p.m. end time is also “popular” with teachers.

Also, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is a WINNER for directing Comptroller Don Huffines to do a spot review of several public school budgets to ensure the over $90 billion the state provides in school funding annually is going to the classroom—and not thrown away on administrative bloat.

LOSER: Bexar County Bet On Pandemic Funding Being Permanent

It is hard not to laugh at a story coming out of Bexar County this week as officials lament that they used $10 million they got during COVID-19 to create permanent programs—and now they don’t have the funding anymore. Who believed trillions in COVID-19 funding would go away? Now, as if it was just another random bad thing that has happened to them, Bexar County officials are wailing and gnashing their teeth because they must eliminate 28 staff positions, and such anti-COVID-19 programs as ending domestic violence and elder abuse are on the chopping block.

You have to hand it to former Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, a Democrat, who led the county during the pandemic, for being honest:

“I don’t know if they’ve done any good with it or not,” Wolff said at the time. “Maybe just another bureaucratic department, as far as I know, and if that’s true, then there’s no need to have it. But if they have done some good things and they can be transferred over to University Hospital, then that ought to be done.”

It is not clear where the funding will come from to evaluate the impact of the anti-COVID-19 programs that had nothing to do with COVID-19.

WINNER: Lt. Gov. Patrick Fights Dirty Books in Texas Schools

Lt. Governor Patrick doubled down on dirty books in public school libraries this week, threatening to dock a school’s rating, or even withhold funds if they don’t clean up their act.

Patrick distributed copies of “Let’s Talk About It” to reporters in a Capitol press conference this week. It’s a book that provides children with how-to directions on masturbation, sex toys, accessing pornography and all manner of sex. The book actually comes with a disclaimer from the publisher and author which reads: “The authors and publisher expressly disclaim any responsibility for any adverse effects which may result from the use or application of the information contained in this book.”

Huh? A safety disclaimer on a library book?

Senate Bill 13, a priority for the Lt. Gov., passed last year, but Bonnie Wallace, who has visited almost 200 school libraries in Texas, says very little action has been taken. In hundreds of public schools in Texas, children can still get a copy of sexually graphic and explicit books like “Gender Queer,” which contains gross and vulgar descriptions of masturbation and all kinds of homosexual and non-binary sex acts. I reviewed “Gender Queer” three years ago and can unequivocally report that it has no redeeming value, although it has won several lefty awards including one that seems blasphemous—the “Lincoln Award,” from the state of Illinois.

Wallace is on Patrick’s podcast, Lt. Dan, this week. You can find it here.

WINNER: DeSantis is Putting Statues Up

As part of Florida’s 250th Celebration, Gov. Ron DeSantis is putting up statues of America’s founders and other heroes all over the state—including a statue of Thomas Jefferson in Jefferson County, a statue of Ben Franklin in Franklin County, James Monroe in Monroe County, Alexander Hamilton in Hamilton County and George Washington in Washington County.

DeSantis drew his line in the sand on statues last year, calling the removal of “some Civil War general or whatever” a form of historical erasure, adding the idea of renaming Jacksonville was ridiculous. Last week, he unveiled a statue of Andrew Jackson in Jackson County.

Meanwhile, up in the deep blue Pacific Northwest, wokeism persists as officials in Portland, Oregon have announced they will return the statue of Abraham Lincoln, which was toppled by Black Lives Matters rioters in the city’s Central Park during 100 days of mob control in 2020. However, the Great Emancipator’s statue will not be returned to its previous pedestal. Instead, the statue will be standing on the ground, so no one will be looking up to him.

LOSER: AOC & the End of Woke 1

National polls continue to show Kamala Harris with a strong lead for the Democrat nomination for president in 2028, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom coming in second. But the prediction markets give the edge to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, which is undoubtedly why she is trying to re-brand herself as normal person, laughing on ABC News last week that “Woke 1 was crazy,” implying that nobody thinks that opening the borders or defunding the police is a good idea anymore.

AOC is hoping we will forget she has used terms like “menstruating person,” to describe a woman and “two spirits,” to describe men who think they are women. She also hopes we’ll forget that she said that “marginalized Americans have no choice but to riot.

As for Woke 2.0, the Democratic Socialists of America have given us a close-up of what it looks like. The focus shifts to institutional change, where they want to abolish not only police, but jails and redesign the government to eliminate the executive branch and the Supreme Court, and let something like the House of Representatives run everything. It is not clear how all this will be built by people who organize themselves around their identity rather than their skills, who believe the country is built on racism, disdain achievement on merit and support men who believe they are women. If they get any traction, Woke 1 will look like “the good old days,” and nobody will be laughing.

LOSER: Texas Blue City Blues

Texas largest cities began to make threats this week that they will have no choice but to try to increase property taxes because they are spending way more money than they have.

The budget in Dallas has a $51 million shortfall and in Fort Worth, it’s $94 million. My home town of San Antonio is looking at a $158 million deficit over the next two years and reports are predicting Austin’s is on track to be $100 million in the hole in the next few years. The cities blame all this on the state – for restricting local property tax increases – and threaten to trim costs by closing libraries and laying off employees. It does not appear that they are looking at their own spending culture, which may reveal something they are missing. City managers in all those cities have base salaries of over $400K– and by base, it means that add-ons like a $600 a month car allowance in Ft. Worth are not included. That seems like that’s a lot to pay people who can’t put together a balanced budget.

LOSER: Democrats Like Socialism

Watching the victories and defeats of Democratic Socialists of America in the Democrat primaries across the country over the past few weeks, it appears so-called “normal Democrats,” are prevailing since DSA candidates lose more often than they win. But new polling makes it clear that among all Democrats, the majority, almost 60%, view socialism positively while only a third feel good about capitalism. These numbers are driven by young, white, affluent and college educated Democrats, the same folks who commemorated 100 years of Fidel Castro’s regime this week.

WINNER: Texas Dominates AP Coaches Poll

We are 15 days from the start of college football season, but the AP Top 25 Poll came out this week and the Lone Star State dominates with five teams on the list. No other state is even close. Starting off, the University of Texas at Austin is rated No. 4, Texas A&M is No. 8 and Texas Tech is No. 12. Southern Methodist comes in at No. 19 and the University of Houston is at No. 23. The ESPN Poll has Texas at No. 5, but its pre-season rankings, like the Coaches Poll are about the same. On Sept. 5, Texas will play their season opener against Texas State, Texas A&M is playing Missouri and Tech will play Abilene Christian.

That said, only the University of Texas made it to list of “Most Arrests by College Football Teams Since 2000” which ranks the Longhorns at No. 11, with 291 arrests in the last 25 years. Florida ranks at the top with 539 arrests in the same period. This “Most Arrests” list made the rounds this week, posted on many college team websites, but it’s not clear who compiled it or what their criteria was. If one of the teams you really hate is on the list, it probably makes you happy. Oklahoma is ranked No. 12, just under Texas…just saying.

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.

Even though I’ve taken off from my Winners & Losers newsletter this summer, I still join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk 1370 Radio in Austin Friday mornings at 8:30 a.m. to announce the week’s list. You can listen live here every week or download the broadcast anytime by clicking here. This week I want to talk about one big loser: socialism in New York and Texas.

Socialism in New York — and Texas
To start, let me set the record straight. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is invariably described as the “first Democratic Socialist” to serve in the top job in New York City. 

In fact, the first member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to be elected mayor was David Dinkins, who took office in 1990. Perhaps because he was also the first African-American mayor, the DSA distinction got lost. I worked for Dinkins — more on that a little later.

 I bring this up because the big political news this week is that, buoyed by endorsements from Mamdani, three Democratic Socialists ousted three establishment Democrats, including the Chair of the Hispanic Caucus, for New York City congressional seats in the Democrat primary. The victors are calling it an “insurgency” over the Democrat establishment. Socialist senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, also endorsed the trio whose collective credentials are riddled with anti-capitalist and anti-American positions. One stated the U.S. deserved the 9/11 attack while another refused to condemn Hamas for the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack in Israel and called for “the complete and total destruction of Western Civilization.” 

When Mamdani was first elected, he was viewed by many as a fluke — something that could only happen in New York City, where voters were ultimately given a choice between him and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who many New Yorkers believe was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of elderly people during COVID-19. 

Nobody thinks Mamdani is a fluke now — he is a kingmaker, the new face of the Democrat Party — or what the Democrat Party is about to become.A half dozen more DSA members won New York State legislative Democrat primaries on Tuesday night, which virtually ensures that 16 socialist lawmakers will be seated in Albany after November, the largest socialist delegation in any state. 

Washington, D.C. also nominated a Democratic Socialist mayor this week, and Democratic Socialist Nithya Raman is in a tight race with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for control of the country’s second largest city. Seattle’s socialist Mayor Katie Wilson was elected last year and has famously driven Starbucks, which was born in Seattle, to Nashville with her “tax the rich” policies. 

Because we are blessed to live “deep in the heart,” it is easy to dismiss New York’s socialist sweep as something that could never happen here, unless you live in San Antonio, like I do, where three DSA members have been elected and currently serve on City Council. So far, they have proposed a Trans History Week and a program called LOVIN to ensure that men who say they are women are not restricted from public women’s restrooms. 

Austin has only has one DSA member on City Council now that the DSA mouthpiece, U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, has moved onto Congress. None of this should surprise us. Gallup released a poll last summer that found that 66% of Democrats view socialism positively, compared to the 42% of Democrats who view capitalism positively — a 24 point gap. 

One big problem with the media failing to report that New York City has already had a Democratic Socialist mayor is that they also didn’t report what happened under previous socialist leadership. Here’s what I saw: 

When Dinkins was mayor, I worked in his administration as part of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation. The administration operated 18 hospitals all over the city, ostensibly to provide universal healthcare to every New Yorker, but largely to provide a pipeline for federal funds. Democrats had run New York City into a ditch and it was already bankrupt when Dinkins got there, but things got much worse when his only strategy for change was to beg for a federal bailout. 

The reality was a nightmare. Like a third world country, New York City was battling four simultaneous epidemics — AIDS, low birth weight babies, asthma and tuberculosis. Crack cocaine was also rampant, and there were “crack babies” convulsing in tiny cribs in hospitals across the City while breast cancer deaths skyrocketed among African-American women because messages to get regular mammograms weren’t being delivered, and even if they were, there were no mammogram machines in black communities. 

Then, as now, most people recognized that poor people with no other options were using emergency rooms for basic healthcare, siphoning off resources and escalating costs. Five- and six-hour emergency room wait times were common. I worked for months on a program to establish a network of clinics to treat asthma patients so people — mostly kids — could go to a clinic where they could get medication or an inhaler. 

It was relatively inexpensive and we pushed the program forward without anticipating any problems. Why would we? It was in everybody’s interest to provide better care for patients, free up emergency room slots and decrease wait times.

I was wrong. It was not in everybody’s interest. The New York City Health and Hospital Workers Union didn’t mind that emergency rooms were jam-packed — that simply meant more overtime and more jobs. In a Democratic Socialist administration, the big unions had lots of clout, and they were able to shut down the community asthma clinics proposal in a day. 

Outside the hospitals, crime and homelessness skyrocketed. In a city that requires walking, constant garbage strikes kept the streets littered with huge stinking garbage bags. Rats stopped even bothering to hide. 

Finally, New Yorkers reached a breaking point and the unthinkable happened. There were barely enough registered Republicans in New York City at that time to make a blip on a chart, but Rudy Giuliani, who Ronald Reagan had made the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, narrowly defeated Dinkins in 1993 and began immediately to clean up the streets and rein in the crime. One of the first things he did was to return the hospitals to private providers.

New Yorkers didn’t forget the nightmare for a long time. While the city remained deeply Democratic, they didn’t elect another Democrat mayor for twenty years. 

It is not surprising that the media has failed to report that Mamdani is actually the second Democratic Socialist mayor of New York City. They don’t want to remind anyone what happened after the first one.

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

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

This week’s Winners & Losers was produced LIVE at TPPF earlier today with our special guest, Texas State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, who is known as:

(1) Chairman of the Higher Education & Local Government Committees

(2) The state’s most knowledgeable lawmaker on just about everything including property taxes

(3) Host of the “Three Amigos” on KSEV Radio

(4) One of Texas’ funniest legislators

Along with Talk 1370 regulars Jim Cardle and Lynn Woolley, we rolled out the biggest winners and losers of the week — some were unanimous choices — others required more debate — and many made for easy jokes. Take a look and see if you agree with who made the final list.

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

You can also listen to the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple or Spotify.

Sign up for Sherry’s 9th & Congress newsletter here.

Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. This week, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finally admitted that the human race is not close to extinction after all, so we are good to go for Memorial Day Weekend. Here’s who made the list:

WINNER: Trump’s Endorsements

As the mainstream media incessantly reminds us, President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are about as low as any presidents’ have ever been. Americans feel the same way about Trump as they did about Joe Biden after the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, or Obama after the Great Recession and even Clinton’s after the “Hillarycare” reforms.

But Republicans really love him, and Trump has been knocking off big time enemies in Republican primary elections for the last week or so, starting with Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana and U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky.

Trump also gets the credit for keeping Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger out of the governor’s race there.

Early voting in the Texas primary is happening now. The election is next Tuesday.

LOSER: NAACP/Congressional Black Caucus College Football Boycott

The NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus this week proposed that African-American athletes boycott the SEC and other public Southern universities to protest the redistricting changes several states have made following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that separate but equal Congressional districts drawn just for black voters are no longer legal.

The 13 universities targeted by the boycott include both Texas and Texas A&M, along with Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, Florida State, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Clemson and Tennessee.

It is no surprise that the response so far has mostly been crickets from college-bound athletes. Young men and women who have spent years competing and proving they are the best at what they do may have difficulty understanding the Democrats’ argument that black people can’t be elected to Congress unless they are in segregated districts where they can only vote for each other.

Recall that Californians fell flat on their face in 2016 when they initiated something similar, banning state travel to states that had passed laws keeping men out of women’s restrooms. It didn’t work. Instead, many more states passed laws protecting women and girls’ privacy in public bathrooms and California finally waved the white flag and quietly dropped the boycott a couple years ago.

WINNER: Texas Children’s Health Hospital De-Transition Clinic

The cruel outrage of telling children that they could (and perhaps should) change their gender through hormone-blocking drugs and mutilating surgery was bolstered by an even bigger outrage—the network of clinics and “healthcare” providers who made billions selling so-called “gender-affirming care.” The Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 14 in 2023 to outlaws the procedures in Texas but a whistleblower stepped forward to reveal that Texas Children’s Health Hospital in Houston was still doing sex change operations on children.

The U.S. Dept. of Justice and the Texas Attorney General investigated and this week a settlement was announced that will require Texas Children’s Health Hospital to open a “De-Transition Clinic” to help reverse the damage done by sex change operations. Texas Children’s Health Hospital will also have to pay $10 million in civil penalties.

LOSER: National Democrats Issue 2025 Autopsy

Who knows how much the national Democrat party paid for the 192 page autopsy that was finally released this week that was supposed to explain why they lost the presidential election in 2024?

The report does not mention former President Joe Biden’s age or the Democrat’s position on Israel and Gaza. The only finding that makes any sense is their conclusion that former Vice President Kamala Harris was defeated because of Trump’s ads showing her advocacy of taxpayer funded sex-change operations for prisoners and illegal aliens.

According to the Democrats’ pollsters, the transgender ad “boxed them in” and there was “nothing they could do that would have worked as a response.”
So the tagline, “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you,” may be the most effective political ad since the little girl with the daisy got Lyndon B. Johnson elected in 1964.

LOSER: UPDATE — Texas Congressional Candidate Still Hates Jews

Last week, Texas Democrat congressional candidate Maureen Galindo made it to the Loser’s List by blasting Jews, claiming they own Hollywood and are not the same people as the Jews in the Bible. This week, Galindo doubled down, calling for all American Zionists to be put in prison, stating she will use the ICE detention center in Karnes County to house them. She’s also complaining that she’s getting death threats because of negative news reports. Galindo is the frontrunner for the Democrat nomination in House District 35, which includes parts of Austin and Bexar County.

WINNER: Sen. Birdwell is Confirmed in D.C.

News reports this week say that the legendary state senator Brian Birdwell was confirmed as Assistant Secretary of Defense. The Senator got it right in his official announcement noting that his correct title is Assistant Secretary of War. Anyone who knows Birdwell knows that title couldn’t be more appropriate. Around the Texas Capitol, the former Granbury lawmaker was frequently heard belting out WHO RAH upon entering and leaving a room, and once promised, during an hours long Senate debate, that he would “not violate the rules of the Geneva Convention” during his presentation.

Birdwell, who survived the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon in 2001, is known for his dedication and service—and his dry wit. His appointment is a great day for the country.

WINNER: Both Democrats and Republicans Are Tired of Tribal Shopping

A new report by Axios released this week found that Americans are doing more “politically neutral” shopping with fewer people reporting brand loyalty linked to party loyalty—Some things haven’t changed—Democrats prefer Trader Joe’s and Republicans love Chick-fil-A—but there are also surprises. Cracker Barrel is actually rated higher by Democrats than Republicans, and the GOP appears to like Teslas. You can see the chart here.

WINNER: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Tops Presidential Poll for First Time

For those who like to keep a running score, AOC is currently leading the field for the Democrat nomination for President in 2028 with 26% of the vote. Early polls are no big deal—but the fact that a quarter of the Democrat party actually believe AOC is a serious person, is concerning news. Recall she said that the world was going to end by 2030 because of climate change. Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has 22%, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is at 21% and, in the only number that reflects some kind of sanity, former presidential contender Kamala Harris has dropped to 13% after being in the lead for a while.

The poll was conducted by Atlas Intel, reportedly one of the most accurate of the nation’s polls, if they do say so themselves. It is exactly 900 days until the presidential election.

WINNER: Texas and the San Antonio Spurs

U.S. News and World Report has compiled another one of those lists of the best places to live in the United States, and 40% of the towns are in Texas. Flower Mound comes in at No. 3 while Leander, Frisco and Sugar Land are also in the Top 10.

The ratings are based on value, quality of life, desirability, and job market.

If they had added “basketball” to that list, San Antonio would shoot up to No. 1. The Alamo City is buzzing with excitement now that the Spurs are back in the Western Finals for the first time since 2017. When Victor Wembanyama delivered an epic performance in Game 1, defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder after scoring 41 points and 24 rebounds, people were dancing in the streets.

By Wednesday, the San Antonio Express-News headlined a story that businesses all over town were dealing with workplace fatigue as a result of the late tip-offs.

Still, it is hard for Texans to complain about an 8:30 p.m. game start when you consider that game time was 2:30 a.m. in France, where it seems like the entire country is mesmerized by their countryman, Wemby. The French media describes him as “genie,” which is the French word for genius—but “genie” works too.

The Thunder came back in the second game and now the series is tied 1 to 1. Game 3 is tonight.

WINNER: NCAA Softball Update—Texas and Texas Tech Still In It

Texas A&M was eliminated from the NCAA Regional Softball Tournament last weekend but the University of Texas and Texas Tech are still in it. Texas plays Arizona State tomorrow and Texas Tech plays Florida.

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.

Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. While President Donald Trump was in China strengthening his relationship with Xi Jinping, here’s who made the list:

LOSER: Murder by Critical Race Theory

Another horrible street killing story in New York City surfaced last week when a homicidal crazy man pushed a retired teacher down the subway stairs and killed him. These reports from the Big Apple are so common that they don’t feel like news anymore, but this one has an especially awful twist.

It turns out that the perpetrator, a guy with a long rap sheet named Rhamell Burke, accosted two young women a few days before. While they were running away to escape him, they ran into some law enforcement officers who rescued them and arrested Burke. However, the young women declined to press charges, with one saying: “Maybe a part of me was just like, I don’t want to put another black man in jail.” He was released hours later.

The thinking of that poor, deluded young New Yorker (who had been repeatedly hit by Burke) appears to be driven by her likely indoctrination of Critical Race Theory, which describes incarceration as “the New Jim Crow.”

CRT zealots (and textbook writers) including Ibram X. Kendi and Michelle Alexander believe that America’s criminal justice system is built on systemic racism. The notorious Angela Davis, who is still an emeritus professor at the University of California at San Diego, says prisons are obsolete and should be abolished.

Most college graduates and many high school students have been required to read the writings of all those people over the last decade, and, as we have seen from research at Claremont Colleges, no counter arguments are presented in the classrooms. This likely explains why the young New Yorkers (who are not named in news reports) did not press charges against a man who assaulted them. They believed they were taking a principled stand against racism.

It’s too late for the murdered teacher, but it does appear to have been a teaching moment. One of the young women said she regretted not pressing charges after she learned of the street killing: “At some point, if you are a criminal, you’re a criminal.”

WINNER: Texas Parents Taking Action

Nobody is rooting for public schools to fail, but we are cheering for parents who take steps to get better options for their kids when they do. This week, the Texas House Public Education Committee reviewed the latest enrollment data showing that more than 76,000 students have left Texas public schools, the largest enrollment decline in 40 years.

Public school administrators and teachers are wringing their hands because, of course, fewer students means less money and jobs for them. No on-the-record concerns were expressed by either group about what might be best for the kids.

Responding to the enrollment drop, Democrat gubernatorial candidate, State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, immediately prescribed more money to address the problem saying, “We need a plan to ease that burden.”

Ease that burden? Texas public schools just got an historic infusion of $8.5 billion in new funding even as the latest data shows that fewer than half the students are reading at grade level. Did teachers and administrators expect parents to settle for mediocre schools forever?

Demographer, Bob Templeton told the House Committee that the majority of the enrollment declines are not demographic, but a direct result of expanded options for parents. The choices provided by Education Savings Accounts—even for families who weren’t able to get them—are making a difference for parents who are exploring charters, private schools, homeschooling and other education plans for their children.

LOSER: Democrats play the Race Card, Big Time

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could no longer use race to gerrymander set-aside congressional districts for black people, Alabama state Rep. Juandalyn Givan spewed out an ugly personal and racist attack against Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, calling him an Uncle Tom and saying, “his ancestors had to be the ones that sold us out in Africa. He is the man who has turned us back into the hands of the master.” Thomas’ crime, according to Givan, was to “take away two damn congressional votes (from Alabama) for Democrats.”

Meanwhile, U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries characterized the end to race-based gerrymandering as proof that “the ghost of the Confederacy has afflicted the Supreme Court majority and is invading and haunting the nation right now.”

Virginia Democrats know they are unlikely to win their redistricting appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court, and many believe Democrats are pumping up the volume on their race-baiting insults—throwing out accusations like “Uncle Tom” and the “spirit of the Confederacy”—to motivate voters.

Remember that former President Joe Biden tried the same thing when he called the Georgia law to require a photo ID in order to vote “Jim Crow in the 21st century.” It didn’t work.

LOSER: Democrats Play the Anti-Semitic Card in Texas CD 35

Sex therapist and housing advocate Maureen Galindo is leading in the polls in the Democrat run-off for Congressional District 35—U.S. Rep. Greg Casar’s old seat—which has tendrils in both Austin and San Antonio. The New York Times called Galindo out this week after she repeatedly attacked Jewish people on her social media accounts—claiming Jews “own Hollywood” and insisting they are not the same Jews that are in the Bible, and instead belong to a “Synagogue of Satan.” Yesterday, when asked to respond, she doubled-down, saying she was taking a stand against “billionaire Zionist Jews.”

The Texas news report on the race floats the idea that Galindo’s success is being fueled by a Republican political action committee that is secretly funneling money to her campaign—but the New York Times column makes the relevant point:

“The right didn’t make anyone vote for Galindo. It didn’t make the third- and fourth-place finishers in the Democratic primary endorse her.”

Early voting begins on Monday, May 18. State Rep. John Lujan, R-San Antonio and Carlos De La Cruz are the GOP candidates for the seat…just saying.

LOSER: WAYMO Loses Battle Against Big Rain

Those who are worried that the world is being taken over by AI can draw some solace from the fact that Waymo—the driverless cars we see everywhere—has withdrawn its entire fleet from cities nationwide, after one of their cars drove into a flooded street in San Antonio and was swept away. Luckily, no one was in it.

San Antonio streets frequently flood during heavy rain, resulting in puddles (more like small lakes) that can be several feet deep. There’s a statewide campaign warning people to “Turn Around, Don’t Drown” but apparently, Waymo cars can’t read the signs because this is the second time it has happened in the Alamo City. Waymo has 3,800 cars nationwide, but they are all back in the garage until they figure this out.

WINNER: Colleges Must Provide a ‘Degree of Value’

The latest new rule from the Department of Education is brilliant. The Trump team is proposing that if a graduate of a university does not earn more than the average salary of someone with a high school diploma, that college or university will no longer be eligible for federal student loans.

The national tab for student loans is currently at $1.7 trillion, and a report this week found that people in their 40s are most likely to default.

The Wall Street Journal did an analysis recently showing how student loans have bankrupted an entire generation. Though Millennials often complain that Boomers had an easier time coming up economically than they do, the data show their wage and employment opportunities were about the same. What is holding many back from advancing to financial stability is massive student loan debt.

Texas is way ahead on this—Texas Tech Chancellor and former Senate Higher Ed Chairman Brandon Creighton introduced the term “degree of value” into the state’s higher education reform legislation to ensure that Texas public universities provide degree programs that will lead to jobs and higher wages. The U.S. Department of Education should move forward on “degrees of value” at full speed.

LOSER: Anthony Fauci Belongs in History Books

It is unlikely that any single person has done more to undermine America’s trust in government and medicine than the former head of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci. It was no surprise this week when a CIA whistleblower confirmed that Fauci got intelligence officers to downplay evidence that COVID 19 came from a Chinese lab.

Even if Biden hadn’t already pardoned him in advance, the statute of limitations has run out on Fauci, so it’s unlikely he’ll ever be held accountable. Still, this guy belongs in the history books alongside Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr. Kids should know his name and what he did.

LOSER: Understanding Bad Bunny

Is it just me, or did anyone else think it is funny that Texas filed the most complaints with the Federal Communications Commission about Bad Bunny’s ridiculous Super Bowl half-time show in February? Many parents objected to the overly sexualized nature of Bad Bunny’s production, which was not appropriate for children, but most complained that the entire program was in Spanish.

There are an estimated 9 million Spanish speakers in Texas, so apparently, even if you understood what Bad Bunny was singing, you didn’t like it. California, which has even more Spanish speakers than Texas, had the second highest number of FCC complaints.

LOSER: Boys are Still Playing in Girls Sports

Does anybody still believe boys should be allowed to play in girls’ sports? Apparently, the people at the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) do. This past weekend A.B. Hernandez, a biological male who is a senior at Jurupa Valley High School, won the girls CIF Regional long jump competition by more than a foot and the triple jump by more than three feet. None of his female competitors came close. Hernandez has been competing in track for two years, and also plays on the volleyball team, menacing that sport.

The Department of Education is investigating Title IX violations in California schools— but whatever they find, it will be too late for the girls who were crowded out by a boy at last weekend’s track meet.

WINNERS: Texas Women’s Softball

The Longhorns are the No. 2 seed in the national NCAA tournament that begins tomorrow, where they will defend their national championship title. Texas won the SEC Tournament yesterday, their first conference title in over 20 years. Meanwhile, Texas Tech, which is the No. 11 seed in its region, was called “the new villain in college softball” by the New York Times.” It’s a fun read. Texas A&M is the 15th seed in its regional. The games start all over Texas today and tomorrow.

WINNER: Caitlin Clark Blasts Through Scoring Record

For the record, Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark scored her 1000th point last week, doing it in just 54 games, blasting the previous record of 62 games. Clark drew applause from the legendary LeBron James, who may have played his last NBA game on Monday when the Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the Lakers.

The San Antonio Spurs, the only Texas team still in the NBA playoffs, are up 3-2 in their series with the Minnesota Timberwolves. They play tonight.

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.

Related content

Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. It remains very tense in the Strait of Hormuz, and the Virginia Supreme Court just struck down the redistricting map voters approved last month, so we’ll wait to see how that all shakes out. Meanwhile, here’s who made the list this week:

WINNER: Cell Phone Ban in Dallas ISD

Here at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), we have championed the cell phone ban in public schools, and have watched its passage last year transform many classrooms in Texas. However, some of the most concrete data came out this week from Dallas Independent School District, which reports that since the cell phone ban was put in place, more than 200,000 library books have been checked out by students compared to the previous year—an increase of almost 25%.

CBS News in Dallas quoted one 9th grader who said: “Now that I’m busy with a bunch of work and college, I don’t find myself missing my phone that much, even at home.”

Huh? These are the students who have had cell phones in their hands almost since they were born—some of whose parents who opposed the new rule, insisting they needed to be able to reach their child throughout the day. That’s all over.

It’s undoubtedly related that Axios reported this week that a “digital detox” is going on nationwide, and Gen Z is taking the lead, dropping social media accounts and even ditching their smart phones for “dumb” ones.

WINNER: Rubio Meets with Pope Leo 

On some days, it seems that nobody better understands what is going on in the Middle East than Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who reminded the world in February that in the war with Iran, as in the fight on college campuses in the U.S. and Europe, we are battling for Western Civilization—“forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir,” as the Secretary has said.

So what better guy to deliver a reminder to the Pope of our shared roots in Western civilization than Rubio—diminishing the importance of the low-grade skirmishes between the president and Pope Leo.

Rubio also chose the perfect gift for the Pope—a crystal football. The left went crazy criticizing the gift, but it was brilliant on Rubio’s part. If you are truly looking for unity and world peace, nothing does it like sports—tribal disputes disappear and people re-emerge as fans.

WINNER: Abbott Pushes Back on ‘Muslim Only’ Event at Grand Prairie Water Park

Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to claw back $530,000 in state funds from Grand Prairie this week if they moved forward to allow an event at a city-owned water park that was originally labeled “Muslim Only,” on the flyer announcing it. After Abbott made it clear Texans would not stand for taxpayer dollars being spent to support a “Muslim only” event, the flyer was changed to “modest dress only,” while the organizers insisted that everyone was welcome even with the “burkinis” dress code for women. Ultimately, the city of Grand Prairie cancelled the event.

This follows the Islamic Games effort that surfaced earlier this spring. To illuminate how clueless the organizers are about America in general and conservatives in particular, the organizer of the “Muslim only” event said, “I think it’s quite funny that we’re getting pushback from other conservative groups … the thing that we’re trying to do with this event is have a modest dress code. That’s pretty conservative, right?”

They seem to be unaware of the whole “freedom” thing.

WINNER: Texas Wins the Prosperity Cup Again 

It hardly feels like news that Texas has once again won the Prosperity Cup, even with the solid national job numbers announced this morning. As Gov. Abbott points out, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Texas gained 46,000 new jobs in March. Texas gained 117,200 jobs over the last year, far outpacing the national annual job growth rate. Currently, almost 16 million Texans are working.

LOSER: Pulitzer Prizes Again

Pulitzer Prizes were announced this week and the list of winners cannot be viewed as anything but hypocritical and partisan. The Washington Post won for going after Trump’s “veil of secrecy” in reforming government bureaucracy. The New York Times won for “exposing what they called Trump’s “conflicts of interest.” The Chicago Tribune won for what was described as “reporting on Trump’s immigration enforcement” efforts and Reuters won for what they called “exposing” Trump’s use of executive power. No legacy media outlet won for reporting the cognitive decline of former President Joe Biden or the Medicaid and child nutrition program fraud in Minnesota. No major outlet reported the millions that were being wasted on luxury hotels for illegal immigrants in New York, Chicago and other cities, and nobody won for reporting that the Nashville school shooter was a woman who insisted he was a man. ProPublica, a left-wing attack site that partners with the Texas Tribune and is known for stealing IRS returns, won its nineth Pulitzer this year. There will undoubtedly be a nice dinner where they congratulate each other for what a great job they are doing.

WINNER: The Population Bombed

Hate to make someone’s death a winner, but when Paul Erhlich passed earlier this year, it was hard not to see the irony.

Ehrlich’s 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” was a best seller that predicted that 65 million Americans would starve to death by the end of the 1970s. Not only did that not happen, he couldn’t have been more wrong. Americans are drowning in fat and obesity as a result of overeating. Granted, some women are starving, but they do it voluntarily to fit into a size 2.

But being wrong didn’t stop Ehrlich’s book from ushering in the apocalyptic thinking that substantially weakened American families over the last several decades and is still paralyzing young people today. He insisted over-population would kill us, so many bought into the lie that it’s irresponsible to bring children into such a doomed world.

Before “climate anxiety” became a thing, many in my generation cited Ehrlich as the reason they were delaying marriage and kids or choosing not to have them at all. After Ehrlich’s death was announced in March, the Wall Street Journal ran this letter to the editor:

I was a college student when I read Mr. Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb.” I took it to heart and now have no grandchildren, but 50 years later the population has increased to eight billion without dire consequences. I was gullible and stupid.

Erhlich also predicted that England might not exist by the year 2000, but being wrong about everything didn’t hurt Ehrlich’s career. He continued to teach at Stanford for over 50 years and, according to his obituary, had a long marriage with children and grandchildren. He died at 93. Hopefully, he’s not resting too peacefully.

WINNER: Pentagon Releases Files on UFOs  

Fulfilling another promise from President Trump, the Pentagon declassified and released the best files they have yet on the unidentified flying objects that they have been seeing for years, along with their investigative reports of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP)—which is the politically correct term for UFOs we are using now. Some of the new stuff is great.

Several of the astronauts on Apollo 12 in1969 reported seeing flashes of light from the moon when they were flying by. Astronaut Alan Bean said, “It looks like some of those things are escaping the Moon. They really haul out of here and just press off at the stars.” Another said flashes of light coming off the moon were like the Fourth of July.

Of course, where I live in San Antonio, we don’t need any more proof that aliens are here, since we routinely watch Victor Wembanyama, widely identified as an alien, play with the San Antonio Spurs. There’s a great video spoof here.

Wembanyama almost single-handedly evened up the series with the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night. The Spurs, the only Texas team still in the NBA playoffs, face Minnesota again tonight at 8:30 p.m.

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.

Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. It’s good to be on the radio in a week when all the trades are reporting that “audio is having a moment.” Big deals are brewing across the industry. Meanwhile, here’s who made the list:

WINNER: Supreme Court Ruling Eliminates ‘Majority-Minority Districts’

The United States Supreme Court is a huge winner this week for striking down racially gerrymandered congressional districts, an idea, according to Justice Samuel Alito, that assumes that a group of voters from the same race “think alike, share the same political interests, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls.”

Ridiculous, right? Particularly in a country that elected Barack Obama president twice, not to mention Kamala Harris, who was elected to serve in the U.S. Senate from the most populous state in the country.

Still, for decades, Democrats have demanded separate so-called “majority-minority districts” to ensure that African-Americans and Hispanics can elect representatives of their own race and ethnicity. Over the years, majority-minority districts have ensured that a set number of minorities will be elected to Congress, because most states have districts set aside for them.

Majority-minority districts have not increased minority participation in politics—instead, they have created political ghettos that segregate Black and Hispanic candidates and voters, stifling their voices instead of expanding them into the larger political conversation. Currently, 55 of the 59 African-American members of Congress represent majority-minority districts. Notably, U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, an African-American who ran for statewide office earlier this year, does not.

Still, U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries thinks district segregation must be preserved. He blasted the SCOTUS ruling, calling it “voter suppression,” and insisting that it “undermines the ability of people of color to elect their own candidates.” He didn’t say exactly how that happens, so we must conclude that Jeffries also believes people of the same race all think and vote alike.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that he hopes the practice of majority-minority districts, which he has criticized for over 30 years, has finally come to an end. It is hard to believe that racially gerrymandered districts were ever allowed, and it is a great day for America that they are gone.

WINNER: King Charles III Charms the Nation

The fifth great-grandson of George III, who the Americans defeated at Yorktown 250 years ago, was a big winner this week. King Charles III reminded Americans that the British have one weapon that is currently in short supply in the USA—dry wit and subtle humor. He demonstrated what is meant by the term “soft diplomacy.”

King Charles gently pushed back on Trump’s frequent comment that if it weren’t for the U.S., all of Europe would be speaking German, noting that if it weren’t for Britain, America would be speaking French today. In the King’s speech to Congress, he accomplished something Americans haven’t seen in years—both Democrats and Republicans standing to applaud. In these tough times, it was great to have him in the country for a few days.

President Trump seemed to agree and gave the King credit for getting him to lift the tariffs on whiskey—a boon to both Scotland and Kentucky.

LOSER: White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Why is the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) still happening? Seriously? There are no “White House correspondents” anymore, no people who sit outside the president’s office whose job is to keep the rest of the country informed on what is going on. As we learned in the Biden years, many view their job as keeping the country in the dark—cognitive decline? What cognitive decline?

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner creates a platform for the lie that the legacy media still matter, even though their credibility has disappeared and trust in the press is at an all-time low.

The horrible fact that there was an assassination attempt at the event meant that we got, literally, hundreds of news stories from reporters at the dinner who couldn’t restrain themselves from writing what they saw while they were sheltering underneath the tables. The Washington Post bragged it had the worst table there and still got the story. The New York Times published four joint perspectives featuring heads bopping up and down. Probably the most embarrassing came from the usually astute Gen Z columnist, Suzy Weiss, at the Free Press, who used her under-the-table perspective to report that the shooting helped highlight that strong men can be essential in a crisis. Indeed.

Nobody reported any real news from the dinner.

To demonstrate my point, the fact that media from around the world were reporting live from the scene did nothing to dispel almost immediate charges by some on the left, including Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, that the shooting was fake. Trump should walk back his statement that the WHCD will be re-scheduled. This is a good time to just get rid of it.

LOSER: Left Justification of the Murder of Trump

Many are puzzled as to why Cole Tomas Allen attempted to assassinate President Trump. As National Public Radio (they are still a thing) reports, he didn’t have a “radical footprint.” But what exactly is a “radical footprint” these days?

Collaborators at the Network of Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University’s Social Perception Lab released a study this week that showed that 55% of respondents who identified themselves as “left of center” said that the murder of Trump could be “somewhat justified.” Almost half said the same thing about Elon Musk. Probably most of that 55% don’t have a “radical footprint” either.

We’ve been seeing this data coming off campuses from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) for years, but no one dug down on what it actually means. The latest data shows that about a third of college students believe violence is at least sometimes acceptable to stop someone from speaking. How much violence isn’t asked. Cole Allen provides some insight into the answer.

LOSER: California Billionaire Tax Going on the Ballot

In what is shaping up as a battle between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New Hampshire socialist Bernie Sanders, Golden State progressives say they have enough signatures to put an initiative on the ballot that will levy a 5% tax on California residents with at least $1.1 billion in assets. Newsom rightly points out that the move will fuel the capital drain from the Golden State—Bernie doesn’t care.

One Californian who doesn’t like it is HBO talk show host Bill Maher, a liberal who pointed out on his show last week that as a Californian, 60% of his income goes to taxes. Maher rattled off the stats every conservative knows by heart—that the top 10% still pay 72% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom half pays 3%. If you missed what has become Maher’s annual anti-tax rant, you can watch it here.

WINNER: Civitas Symposium on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Speech on the Declaration of Independence

After Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered an address at the University of Texas at Austin on April 15 on America’s Declaration of Independence, his remarks prompted a national discussion on his ideas on our founding documents. I am honored to be included in a symposium on the speech presented by the Civitas Institute at UT. You can read my article here and access the entire symposium here.

WINNER: Who knows? The 152nd Running of the Kentucky Derby

For those who aren’t traveling to Louisville, you can watch the Kentucky Derby pretty much anywhere beginning Saturday at 6 p.m. Texas time.

In other sports news, the San Antonio Spurs defeated Portland four games to one this week and will move onto play the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round of the Western Championship on Monday. The Houston Rockets are still battling with the Lakers and will play Game 6 tonight.

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.