Every Friday morning at 8:30AM, I join the Cardle & Woolley show, Talk 1370 Radio, in Austin to pick the week’s top Winners & Losers. We run the gambit from public policy and political trends to sports and culture in Texas, America and the world.
Here’s my list for the week ending June 14.
The first winner of the week is Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who scored a big win in federal court this week when U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth ruled the U.S. Department of Education did not have the power to change the Title IX law to include men and boys who think they are girls. The Biden administration had threatened to withdraw federal funds from schools that did not comply.
Notice in this news report how NBC News is doing their part to push the transgender agenda. They describe Biden’s regulation as preventing schools from “discriminating against students based on their gender identity or sexual orientation, such as by requiring students to use bathrooms and other facilities that correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth.”
Uh, sex is not “assigned at birth,” it is recorded. It’s a chromosome thing. Follow the science.
The same message goes to a big loser this week, Florida District Judge Robert Hinkle, who struck down Florida’s law banning puberty blockers, unnecessary mastectomies and castrations on children – so called “gender affirming care.” He accused Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republicans who passed the legislation of “racism and misogyny.”
This comes at a time when most of Europe, including England, has stopped providing puberty blockers and other medical interventions to treat gender dysphoria because there isn’t any medical data that indicates it is effective. Counter to the most prevalent propaganda, medical intervention does not prevent suicides in people experiencing gender dysphoria and the side effects of “gender affirming care” are chilling. Counseling and talk therapy are proving a better option. England is especially important to watch on this issue because they have been doing gender transition surgeries since the 1950’s and have the most data to analyze.
Another loser on “gender issues” this week is Liam Morrison, a middle schooler in Massachusetts who lost his free speech battle in a federal court which ruled that his school in Middleborough could bar him from wearing a T-shirt that reads: “There are only 2 Genders.” The Alliance Defending Freedom said, “This case isn’t about T-shirts; it’s about a public school telling a middle-schooler that he isn’t allowed to express a view that differs from their own.” Not going to put Liam on the losers list, but will chalk it up to a loss for the First Amendment. ADF is considering an appeal.
Finishing up what has turned out to be a whole “gender issues” section is a win for women athletes everywhere — Lia Thomas, a man who competes in women’s NCAA swimming, won’t be going to the Olympics. Thomas has been on the loser list for some time.
Of course, Hunter Biden is also a big loser this week. The fact that he was found guilty in Delaware says a great deal about just how guilty he was. The trial told us way more than we want to know about who he is and, unfortunately, we can’t unsee it.
Amarillo City Council is on the winners list for rejecting what was called an “abortion travel ban” to stop women who might be traveling through Amarillo to another state to get an abortion. Amarillo resident Michael Ford most clearly articulated the position of many in Amarillo’s pro-life community when he said, “I firmly believe that what women and families need most in crisis is love, compassion, and support, not the threat of public shame and humiliation.”
Unfortunately, the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard is a loser this week. As if the Title IX stunt wasn’t enough, in another move to pander to his progressive base, Biden’s Department of Fish and Wildlife Services designated the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard, which only lives in the Permian Basin, as an endangered species. The Permian is the largest oil and gas producing region in the world and the Bidenites slapped down the endangered species designation in a clear attempt to hamper oil and gas production, despite the fact that oil and gas producers in the region have been working with the Dept. of Fish and Wildlife for over a decade to ensure that the lizard’s homeland is protected. My colleagues at TPPF note that in announcing the new designation, Fish and Wildlife provided “next to no scientific data demonstrating that the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard is presently or will soon be endangered.”
Bureaucrats have been trying since 1982 to use the lizard to slow down oil and gas production, but it hasn’t worked. The lizard is not extinct and I am betting the people of the Permian can produce energy and keep on keeping the little lizard safe.
Another winner is Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson. If you haven’t read the latest Texas Monthly profile of him, take a look at it now. Johnson, converted from Democrat to Republican last year, which continues to make him a winner. In this interview, he tells it like it is, saying, among other things, “I learned that the real heart of the Democratic Party is with the criminals and that it feels more sympathy toward the offenders. The Democratic Party does not take public safety seriously… so, I joined the party that’s right on public safety.”
Also, in a series of responses that clearly drove the lefty Texas Monthly interviewer crazy, Johnson said:
Being the mayor of Dallas, in some people’s minds, was me taking something that I wasn’t entitled to. I started getting all kinds of hate, and it was coming, disproportionately, from people on the left. From a lot of white liberals. They would tell me that I shouldn’t run for mayor because I’m doing “so well” as a state representative. It felt like people were telling me to stay in my place… I do believe that some folks, primarily white liberals, have a problem with a strong-willed, competent, self-assured, highly educated Black man leading their city. Period. I said it. You got me to say it. That, as an African American, he’s always felt people from the left who patronized him and encouraged him to “stay in his place.”
Finally, the close out winners this week are the Congressional Republicans who trounced Democrat House members 31 to 11 in the annual Congressional Baseball Game. Texans had a big boost from the start since this year’s game was in honor of former President George H.W. Bush who would have turned 100 on Wednesday. Bush, who played baseball for Yale, was an avid baseball fan who participated in the game when he was in Congress. Play was interrupted by some climate protesters, but they didn’t manage to spoil the fun.
That’s all for now. Have a great weekend.
The Texan Founder and CEO Konni Burton is my latest guest on the Sherry Sylvester Show. If you missed it, you can watch it here.
Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.
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