Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. There was an overnight deal in the Senate to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, including the TSA workers, so if the House follows that lead, hopefully, nobody will have to stand in line at the airport to read this issue. Here’s who made the list:
WINNER: Social Media Verdict Against Meta and YouTube
If Texas’ legendary plaintiff attorney Mark Lanier is right, the $400 million verdict this week against Meta and YouTube could reverse a cultural slide that is damaging our children’s ability to think and generally turning all our brains to mush.
Lanier likened the case to lawsuits in the 1990s against tobacco companies which forced them to admit that they knew that tobacco was addictive. Ultimately, we became a nation of mostly non-smoking people in no-smoking spaces. Meta owns Facebook and Instagram, and the plaintiffs in the court case in New Mexico demonstrated they know the algorithms they use are addictive and especially damaging to children.
TPPF has deployed a variety of strategies to get kids away from screens, including our work to pass groundbreaking legislation last session that requires app stores to enforce age restrictions on digital products known to be harmful to children—which is a lot of them. Look at TPPF’s research for the App Store Accountability Act.
Meanwhile, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is leading the battle to remove federal protections for social media companies that have protected them from any accountability for what they publish or refuse to publish. Most sane people support any move that will end the virtual madness in our lives and help get us back to a world where friends are people you actually know.
LOSER: Democrat James Talarico’s Vegetarian Cover-up
There’s an old saying in politics that the cover-up is always worse than the crime, and Texas Democrat U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico’s insistence that he’s a barbecue-loving Texan could fall in that category.
In 2022, Talarico made a statement—it’s on tape—that we should respect animals and not eat them. Here’s what he said:
“We have, I think, heard more and more issues of animal welfare. I think, not just because it’s the right thing to do and the moral thing to do, but also, it’s, as all of you know, necessary to fight climate change. It is now existential that we try to reduce our meat consumption and that we try to respect animals in all aspects of society.”
Many believe this could have big implications for the general election, because Texas is the No. 1 cattle-producing state in America. We have more cattle here than in the next three states combined. If Texas were a country, we’d be one of the top 10 cattle producers in the world. This doesn’t mean that vegetarians can’t get elected in Texas—most Texans don’t actually care what candidates eat—but it does mean you can’t go around saying things like respecting “animals in all aspects of society” and then start posting photos of yourself eating big pieces of meat.
Now Talarico says he “denies all accusations of veganism,” and insists that his campaign runs almost entirely on barbecue.
The problem for Talarico is not whether he is a carnivore, the issue is whether he was lying when he said he didn’t eat meat or he is lying now that he says that he is. He sounds like just another two-faced politician who says what he needs to say to get elected.
That’s why even the Houston Chronicle, which will undoubtedly endorse Talarico, is worried about his anti-beef position. They likened it to Beto O’Rourke’s gun statement, noting this week that unlike Talarico’s other woke gaffes, there’s a video of his anti-meat declaration so the left, even with help from the Houston Chronicle, won’t be able to portray it as Republican misinformation.
WINNER: Speaker Burrows Looks at Slice of New Mexico
Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows on Thursday issued interim charges asking House members to study the “implications” of adding one or more contiguous New Mexico counties to Texas.
Texas would love to have more counties and you can certainly understand why Eastern New Mexico would want to get away from the progressive rule coming out of Santa Fe. It is not unlike the “Greater Idaho” movement in Oregon, which would free the eastern half of the state from the loony progressives in Portland, and the folks in downstate Illinois who want nothing to do with the corrupt government in Chicago. Upstate New York has a secession movement, as does Colorado, where some folks would rather be part of Wyoming. It all makes a lot of sense, but there’s just one catch—ultimately, Congress has to approve and think how hard it has been just to get them to pay the TSA workers. Hopefully, under the Speaker’s direction, the Texas House will break some new ground.
WINNER: U.S. Olympic Committee Bans Men in Women’s Sports
The U.S. Olympic Committee banned men from competing in women’s sports this week so we won’t see men beating up on women in the Los Angeles games in 2028. The IOC ruling follows a rules change by the NCAA last year that prohibits men from participating in women’s sports—although women who think they are men can compete in men’s sports if they want.
It is illegal in Texas for men and boys to compete in women’s and girls’ sports in both public school and college, but not in California where the state just filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, charging it is their right to keep a boy on the women’s volleyball team at San Jose State. San Jose State essentially shut down women’s volleyball in the Mountain West in 2024 when almost half the teams forfeited their games rather than risk injury by playing against a team with a male player.
Los Angeles is in California, of course, so this rule change is important.
WINNER: Americans Really Are Flocking to Texas & Other Red States
We see numbers like this all the time in Texas because everybody from U-Haul to U.S. News and World Report posts frequent listicles on where America is moving and why. But some new info coming out of the Internal Revenue Service lays out the hard data of Americans and their money moving from red states to blue ones. The latest IRS migration data shows that 6.7 million people moved from one state to another in 2023 including about 700,000 people who earn more than $200,000 a year. According to IRS calculations, that means that Texas gained 111,079 new residents in 2023 and $5.3 billion in new income.
Meanwhile, California and New York lost a combined 368,000 people and $23.6 billion in annual income in 2023.
LOSER: Austin Red Tape Stifles Small Business Growth
Meanwhile, the city of Austin received a report last week showing that it can take more than 400 days to get through the permitting red tape to open a business—an obstacle course that requires 105 steps and can cost $9,000. The authors of the report found that the cost of opening a restaurant in Austin is higher than it is in Philadelphia and Seattle, and costs four times as much as it does in San Antonio.
The report suggests that the red tape and high costs may be driving small businesses out of Austin or discouraging them from opening altogether. Ya think?
William Inboden: Academics, Reagan, Cold War and Hot Conflicts
Dr. William Inboden was appointed Executive Vice President and Provost of the University of Texas last year and is a leader in the effort to restore trust in American universities. He also served on George W. Bush’s National Security Council and is the author of the seminal book on Ronald Reagan, entitled “The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War and the War on the Brink.” He joined me on my podcast this week where I talked with him about all that as well as what he sees today as America is engaged in a hot war with Iran.
WINNER: March Madness Continues to Score
The University of Texas Longhorns lost an absolutely terrific game to Purdue last night in the Sweet 16. The Longhorns had to play their way into the Big Dance, and went on to win a couple of games nobody expected them to win. For a short time early in the week, they earned the coveted “Cinderella” moniker, before being outlasted at the last second by the Boilermakers.
The No. 1 seed University of Texas women face Kentucky in the women’s Sweet 16. No. 3 seed, TCU, is also still in and will play Virginia on Saturday.
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.