Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk 1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. Texas’ electric grid and the hard work of Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to strengthen it would all be at the top of the winners list, but with the threat of more winter is coming, it’s too soon to call. Here’s who else made the list.
WINNER: Trump Sends Tom Homan to Minnesota
The situation in Minneapolis remains dicey, but President Donald Trump made the right call in sending White House Border Czar Tom Homan to Minnesota. Homan’s job is to oversee federal immigration enforcement policies, and it’s obvious that more oversight is needed.
Trump has been gracious, but no one doubted the message he delivered when he sent Homan into the Minnesota hot zone and stated he’d be reporting directly to him, not Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem.
Two American citizens have been shot by federal officers in Minneapolis, and in both situations, Noem immediately went on camera to proclaim the shootings were justified before any investigations were conducted. If she had more information from people on the ground, she didn’t share it.
By contrast, Homan met immediately with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, where he stressed cooperation between law enforcement and a more targeted focus on getting criminals off the streets. Homan’s task is to identify and close the gaps in the sanctuary city and state policies in Minnesota that have allowed illegals to be released after being arrested, rather than being turned over to ICE.
The media is humming with stories documenting the shift in Trump’s immigration enforcement strategy in Minnesota — some gloating from the Left, some outraged on the right. But we should never forget that Trump is a baby boomer and when he makes an assessment, he has a longer historical memory to draw on than most of his team — including Vice President JD Vance and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
Trump undoubtedly remembers that although the country was also polarized in 1970, a majority of Americans still supported the war in Vietnam — until members of the National Guard shot four protestors at Kent State. Sympathy shifted, seemingly overnight, to the protestors, even among the Greatest Generation, most of whom hated anti-war marches. No one who lived through that time ever forgot it.
For more historical perspective, Homan pointed out that he began working on border issues under President Ronald Reagan and has worked for all six presidents since. He suggested that if protesters didn’t like immigration enforcement laws they should direct their anger at Congress rather than law enforcement officers.
LOSER: BP Commander Greg Bovino’s “Choices” Speech
We can only imagine how the astutely media savvy President Trump reacted when he saw Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino open a Minneapolis press conference following the shooting of Alex Pretti with a condescending speech explaining that everything in life is a series of choices, implying that the man shot by an ICE agent (an American citizen with a license to carry a gun) had made a bad choice.
While that is undoubtedly true, it is hard to imagine a worse message to deliver to the country after a law enforcement shooting than “it was the guy’s own fault.” No one paying attention is surprised to learn that far left networks are organizing and bankrolling the ICE protests and, just like the George Floyd riots, we know almost none of the daily street violence is unscripted or spontaneous. But none of that is an excuse for Bovino to give a win to the protesters by demonstrating a complete lack of sensitivity. Thankfully, Trump sent Bovino back to his old office in El Centro, California and he is no longer the Commander in Chief of the Border Patrol. Everything in America is prime time right now, and Bovino is nowhere near ready for it.
WINNER: Last Hostage Out of Gaza
It doesn’t feel right to be celebrated as a win, but it is a rite of passage that Hamas finally returned the body of the last hostage this week. Ran Gvili, 24 was killed on Oct. 7, 2023. Gvili was in the hospital during the attack, but he put on his uniform and left, going first to the music festival where he fought Hamas in the initial assault on Israel and then on to another battle at Kibbutz Alumim, where he was killed. Despite repeated pleas from his family and the Israeli government, Hamas refused to return his body for 842 days.
This is the first time in over a decade that no Israeli, living or dead, is being held in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that people can now remove the yellow ribbons they were wearing to remind the world that hostages were still being held.
Since the October 7 attacks, 255 hostages from the Gaza Strip were rescued and brought back home. Of those, 168 were alive and 87 were deceased. Twelve Americans were kidnapped. Four were killed and eight were freed.
WINNER: Comedian Bill Maher Says the “C” Word
Conservatives admittedly hold HBO comedian Bill Maher to a very low bar. His weekly political comedy show is filled with lefties, although conservative Sen. John Kennedy, R-Kentucky, was on this week pushing his new book, “How to Test Negative for Stupid,” and he was very funny.
His political comedy show has a bigger platform than most anybody, and he frequently takes on left-wing lunacy, which is why he can continue to compete for a spot on Winners & Losers.
This week he made the list when he called out Democrats for using mushy words to describe New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani:
“Democrats seem to be having this debate over whether Mamdani is a socialist or a democratic socialist. Let me settle it: He’s a straight-up communist.” Maher joked that he came to this conclusion by “reading between the lines” after one of Mamdani’s top advisors urged people to “elect more communists.” He told his fellow Democrats that running communists is not a good idea.
LOSER: San Antonio School District Continues to Ignore Cell Phone Ban
The Northeast Independent School District in San Antonio is still refusing to comply with Texas new law that bans students from using cell phones while they are at school. The culture has already changed at most schools, where students report that the day goes better when they are disconnected from their phones.
But at NEISD, a district with a “C” rating, students are never off their phones unless they are actually sitting in class. They can use their phone between classes, at lunch and at bathroom breaks. I am willing to bet the number of bathroom breaks have skyrocketed.
Still, school board members pretend they are taking some kind of principled stand against the Texas Education Agency, which enforces the cell phone ban, and the Texas State Legislature, elected by the people of Texas, which passed the cell phone ban. 31 states — both blue and red — have passed cell phone bans as an important step in arresting the continued decline of the reading and math scores of kids, including Texas kids.
Research shows students check their phones a 100 times a day, on average, a fact that hurts their performance. Research also shows that for every 100 minutes that a student spent using their phone per day, they drop 6.3 places in terms of academic ranking. This effect doubles when students use their phone during class. None of this research surprises anyone who has watched a kid with a cell phone. You have to wonder why NEISD is taking a stand that is virtually guaranteed to leave their students behind.
LOSER: Arresting Don Lemon for Minnesota Church Riot
Don Lemon was fired from CNN the other year because nobody watched him. Even lefties could see he is a narrow-minded, race-baiting elitist with no insight or perspective to add to the public conversation. Before last week, he was literally roaming the streets of New York City with a cell phone trying to find people to talk to so he could post on YouTube.
Attorney General Pam Bondi changed all that today when she had Lemon arrested. In one of the biggest loser moves of the week, Lemon was charged with helping plan the Jan. 18 church invasion in St. Paul. The evidence we have seen so far is thin. By arresting Don Lemon, the Attorney General just revived his career — he’s got a new brand and a whole new platform. He is already boasting that he has been made the “face of the St. Paul demonstration.” Television interview requests and speaking engagements are pouring in. By next week there will be a book deal. Lemon has declared that Bondi will turn him into “the next Jimmy Kimmel.”
Nobody watched Jimmy Kimmel either, but outrage about government overreach into free speech got Kimmel back on the air even though his show was hemorrhaging money at ABC. Granted, Lemon is just one more leftist pushing propaganda, but why help him do it?
WINNER: Musk Predicts Robots by 2027
The sale of Teslas continues to plummet as fewer people want or can afford an electric car. The company’s net income fell 61% to $840 million in the fourth quarter. But Tesla stock is rising because everyone is betting on Elon Musk to become the first mass producer of personal robots. Musk told the crowd at Davos that Tesla will begin selling robots by the end of next year, and ultimately he predicts everyone will have one. Something to ponder if temperatures drop again as predicted. Can robots shovel driveways? No word yet on cost — or on what Musk means by “everyone.”
WINNERS: Republicans in the Texas U.S. Senate Race
The latest poll shows that U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and State Rep. James Talarico are in a dead heat in the race for the Democrat nomination for U.S. Senate. Crockett leads 38% to 37% in the latest public poll, which is notable because Talarico was up by 9 in the last one.
This is good news for Republicans, because it is hard to imagine that any of the three guys running for the GOP Senate nomination couldn’t easily beat Crockett, who has managed to offend lots of Texans — including Hispanics, who she charged with having a slave mentality because many of them supported Trump’s re-election in South Texas.
Sticking with the slavery theme, Crockett has said her support for illegal immigration is rooted in the fact that African Americans are “done picking cotton” and, of course, she referred to Gov. Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, as “Governor Hot Wheels.”
The old Democrat guru James Carville said this week that Crockett’s rhetoric “offends anybody with a sense of humanity.” We are 32 days out from the March primary and Texas Democrats are trying to choose who will least offend our humanity.
By the way, Talarico whined today that Crockett told him before he announced that she wasn’t going to run for U.S. Senate until 2030, suggesting he wouldn’t have run against her if he had known she was going to get in the race. Doesn’t that kind of prove Crockett’s primary campaign message — that she’s a fighter and he’s not?
WINNER: Everybody — U.S. Life Expectancy is now 79
CBS News reported this week that U.S. life expectancy has risen to 79, highest on record, driven by the final end of the COVID-19 pandemic and lower rates of death due to cancer and heart disease. Yay!
CBS doesn’t mention this in its story, but the increase is also driven by the increase in life expectancy for women, which is 81.1. For men, it’s 75.8. They went with the average. For a global perspective, life expectancy in the U.S. still ranks in the 40s, internationally, with tiny Monaco at number one at 86.5. Japan, Australia, Switzerland, France, Italy, Canada and Spain all have life expectancies over 80.
ICYMI: Islamic Games are Identity Sports
The Free Beacon released a new report this week showing how the Qatari Foundation International (QFI) is funding dozens of educational initiatives in Georgia public schools, providing training for teachers and instruction in Arabic. TPPF documented months ago that this is also happening in Texas. Qatar, the top foreign funder in American colleges and universities, has wormed its way into public schools.
This week I published a 9th & Congress piece on why Texas schools should reject an “Islamic Games” events proposed for several Texas public schools. In case you missed it, you can read it here:
TPPF will hold an online panel discussion on how the Muslim Brotherhood, the Council for Arab and Islamic Relations (CAIR) are working to influence Texas public schools on February 10. You can register here: https://www.texaspolicy.com/events/the-muslim-brotherhood-cair-their-networks-working-to-influence-western-civilization-destabilize-texas-2
Winner: Texas Women Takes on Oklahoma Saturday
The No. 4 ranked Women Longhorns will play the No. 10 ranked Oklahoma Sooners on Sunday for the women’s basketball version of the Red River Shootout. ESPN’s College Game Day will broadcast live from Austin, the first women’s basketball game it has covered this year. Texas is 20 and 2 and are picked to win it, but Oklahoma has momentum, moving up six spots in this week’s AP poll. They crushed Texas A&M last night.
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.