Every Friday morning I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. The Austin American-Statesman reports we have not had enough rain to overcome the current drought, but they are predicting more for the weekend. Here’s who made the list while running between the drops:
WINNER: Exposing the Southern Poverty Law Center
Some experts say the legal allegations against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will be tough to prove in court, but it doesn’t matter. However the indictment works out, the SPLC has been exposed as hate-mongers who have been running a big ugly grift for a long time, drumming up racial hatred—or at least the appearance of racial hatred in America—to gin up their fundraising.
Since the SPLC only targets the right, for decades they have encouraged non-conservatives to see conservatives not as people with a different point of view, but as racists. Now we know that lie has been put forward by an organization that has actually worked to leverage racism—or even manufacture it—in order to increase their fundraising.
Their ugly narrative is pervasive in the progressive talking points. Just two years ago, President Joe Biden called white supremacy the greatest threat currently facing the American homeland. SPLC’s national “hate map” features 92 groups in Texas including every Moms for Liberty chapter, alongside Focus on the Family, and Do No Harm, the groundbreaking program that has worked to eliminate DEI programs in health care. (You can watch my interview of Do No Harm founder Stanley Goldfarb here.)
Polling makes it clear that most people are not racist and large majorities of Americans in both parties and all races believe racial diversity is good for the country. Still, the SPLC has been insisting for years that conservative Americans, half the population, are racists and their primary motivation to make that foul charge appears to be money. Their latest IRS report indicates they have about $800 million on hand. We can only hope the indictment will bankrupt them.
WINNER: Texas Wins 10 Commandments Ruling
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court this week and upheld Senate Bill 10, the Texas law that requires public schools to post a copy of the 10 Commandments in classrooms. The Washington Post was apoplectic in reporting the news, calling it “a significant win” in the Republican effort to “inject more religion in the public square.” They lamented that Texas has also developed a curriculum that includes some Bible references and even will be allowing chaplains in schools.
But the Court rightly noted that posting a 10 Commandments poster wasn’t the same as requiring students to accept an established religion. They put it this way: “It does not tell churches or synagogues or mosques what to believe or how to worship or whom to employ as priests, rabbis, or imams. It punishes no one who rejects the Ten Commandments, no matter the reason. It levies no taxes to support any clergy. It does not co-opt churches to perform civic functions.”
That seems pretty clear. A couple of dozen Texas schools, including Houston ISD and Austin ISD, filed the lawsuit. Four San Antonio school districts also were plaintiffs, but said they would post the 10 commandments after the ruling, although there are plans to appeal.
LOSER: Texas Candidate Caught in Prediction Market Scam
We knew it was only a matter of time before somebody figured out how to play one of the so-called “prediction markets” in an effort to impact a political campaign. Reports this week indicate it happened in the congressional district where I live.
Campaigns are all about momentum, and in the days before the vote, nobody knows anything for sure. Most people don’t believe polls, and everybody is bluffing.
Zeke Enriquez, a candidate in U.S. House District 21, went to Kalshi, a federally regulated exchange service that allows users to bet on the outcome of real world events, and bet he would win the Republican nomination in his race for Congress. You could see how a strategy like that could work. Enriquez was way behind in a crowded field. If he convinced others to place bets on him, he could create the impression that he had some momentum.
It didn’t work. Enriquez got fewer than 2,000 votes and has to pay a $750 fine. He’s also banned from Kalshi for five years. But it will probably work for somebody if no guard rails are put in place.
LOSER: Dan Rather Objects to Trump at White House Press Dinner
This week, a bunch of reporters issued a five-page letter listing all the reasons President Donald Trump should not be invited to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—the big shindig the press holds in Washington every year to give each other awards and pretend that their approval ratings aren’t lower than Congress.’ These are the same people whose job is to cover the presidency, but almost all of whom refused for almost four years to report that former President Joe Biden was in serious cognitive decline.
Texan Dan Rather, the guy who was fired from CBS for pushing forged documents falsely attacking George W. Bush, is one of the outraged signers—so apparently the fake documents didn’t get him kicked out of the Washington press club.
Real people don’t care much about this story, but there’s a legend that in 2011, President Barack Obama mocked Donald Trump at that year’s dinner and it so enraged Trump that he decided then and there to run for president himself. Trump usually says that’s not true, but who knows? This will be the first Correspondents’ Dinner the president has attended since he took office, so the long and boring affair might be worth watching on Saturday night.
LOSER: Virginia Wins Redistricting Vote
You can read the news reports here, but it looks like the Democrats are still holding all the cards in Virginia, where voters narrowly approved a new redistricting map on Tuesday that will likely add four additional Democrat-leaning seats to their congressional delegation. A Republican judge in Virginia immediately declared the vote unconstitutional, but an appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court has already been announced and it appears they are likely to sign off on the map.
In the current round of mid-cycle redistricting, the Virginia vote brings the increased Democrat tally of blue-leaning congressional seats to 10, while the Republicans have increased their likely seats by nine.
WINNER: America Reads the Bible
Sometimes it is difficult to see just how anti-religious and secular our culture has become. This week, a Texas-based organization, Christians Engaged, launched a week-long program that pulled people from all over the country—some famous, some not—to read passages from the Bible. Broadcast from the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., by tomorrow they will have completed both the Old and New Testament. There was no taxpayer funding involved, but still this report from the Associated Press insisted that President Trump’s reading of 2 Chronicles 7:11-22 was a call for “Christian nationalism.”
FYI, 2 Chronicles 7:11-22 is an Old Testament passage about Solomon’s dedication of the Temple. You can watch Trump reading it here, or read it yourself here with over 20 translation options. To suggest it is an appeal to Christian nationalism is quite a stretch.
LOSER: Austin ISD Pushes “Pride Week”
You might ask why Austin public schools celebrated Pride Week during March, when everyone knows that Pride Month—the 30 days set aside to glorify gender orientation and identity or the lack of it—is in June. But Austin ISD’s website helpfully notes that students are out of school in June, so they re-scheduled the celebration for March so students could participate.
Of course, the Texas Education Association and a number of state legislators are wondering why it was celebrated at all, since Senate Bill 12, passed last year, prohibits activities that reference gender or sexual orientation at K-12 public schools. Clubs based on gender identity and sexual orientation are also prohibited.
There was clearly an effort to get around the new law. The weeklong program posted on the school district’s web site seems harmless enough—except for missing the point that there is no reason to focus on the so-called “sexual diversity” of kids in public school.
WINNER: Sen. Tan Parker & Saving Texas History
I recently talked with Texas Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, about the importance of telling the Texas story and his work to establish the 1836 Project in Texas. You can view it here:
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.