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 in Texas, America and the world. The latest Olympic medal count shows the USA with its big lead at 111, but we always get the most medals, so no surprise there. The big race is for the gold and USA is currently tied with China with 33 gold medals each. There’s still lots of Olympics to go plus its 87 days until the November election. Here’s who made the list this week:
Winner: Lt. Governor Dan Patrick & Texas Exceptionalism
The mainstream media hate to post corrections and virtually never run retractions. That changed last week at the Houston Chronicle when the Editorial Board, walked back an editorial charging that my former boss, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, had “botched” the emergency response to Hurricane Beryl, snidely suggesting that one party rule in Texas was the root of a management problem. But in a stunning reversal, the Chronicle published a full page update on Sunday where they concluded that “Patrick appears to be right” about what happened during the state’s emergency response. You can read the details here .
The Chronicle’s “Patrick Didn’t Flunk Beryl” op-ed not only vindicated the Lt. Governor’s leadership and management skills, it also vindicated the “Texas exceptionalism” that fuels Patrick’s approach to problem solving in every area of public policy. Texas simply does so many things right and the Texas Dept. of Emergency Management (TDEM) is one of those things. We have smart and experienced people who take great pride in getting things done. Of course the Texas has some chronic and frustrating challenges, but more often than not, Texas is the pace-setter among all the states, the job creator for the nation, a leader in innovation, a leader in productivity, a magnet for thousands of people fleeing the despair and failure of big liberal states, like Minnesota (see losers below).
The majority of Texans know this, although stories of Texas doing it right rarely appear in the Texas press. Patrick is a winner for taking the time to help the Houston Chronicle see what the state can do and acknowledge Texas’ exceptionalism … even for a day.
Winner: Ted Cruz – Bipartisan Endorsements
Sen. Ted Cruz continues to expand his brand by pulling in Democrat law enforcement endorsements. He landed the biggest one so far this week when outgoing Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said she was supporting Cruz because of his strong stand on reducing illegal immigration. Ogg blamed illegal immigration for increases in crime in Harris County and said that 12 year old Jocelyn Nungaray, who was killed earlier this summer by two Venezuelan illegals, would be alive today if Cruz’s latest immigration legislation had passed. Ogg said “public safety is more important than political parties.”
Winner: Former President Donald J. Trump
Trump is a winner this week for holding a press conference and throwing out a bunch of debate dates — taking away Harris’ absurd attack that he’s afraid to debate her. Trump also showed Harris how easy it is to hold a press conference – you just call some reporters and grab a podium. The former president talked with reporters for over an hour, responding to policy and political questions, calmly fielding both serious and silly questions and mostly coming off as presidential.
Unfortunately, he also said some dumb things. He’s never had a rally as large as Martin Luther King’s March on Washington, for example. He’s also said he’s leading in the polls – he’s not, and he seems willing to write off losing the black women’s vote because he’s getting more black male voters than he did in 2020. The former President is apparently unaware that almost 60 percent of the black vote is women, so the trade-off won’t add up to a win.
Trump is currently winning men, 54% to 43% for Harris. Those numbers are exactly reversed for Harris who wins 54% of women compared to 43% of men. Trump’s strategy appears to be to win more men than he loses women – but that’s a clear path to defeat. 54% of all voters are women and 60% of voters in swing states are women. Over ten million more women voted in 2020 than men and ten million more women than men are registered now. It’s time for Trump to look at the math and get on message.
Loser: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz
Gov. Tim Walz, the new Democrat candidate for vice president, kind of looks like a moderate, but even the New York Times calls him a lefty. Conservatives have a long list of things that ought to sink him if they play their cards right, including his economic record in Minnesota, which, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out today, is fueling a mass exodus out of the state. High taxes and government spending puts Minnesota right up there with the other big blue states like Illinois, California, New Jersey and Massachusetts fueling a mass migration to low tax states like Texas. He’s made Minnesota a sanctuary state, not only for illegal immigrants, but also for children who want to change their gender and their parents won’t let them. The charge that he has inflated his military rank and left his National Guard troop just before they deployed to Iraq also lands him the loser list.
Loser: Kamala Harris on the Liberal Scale
Former President Trump and others frequently describe Vice President Kamala Harris, as “even more liberal” than Bernie Sanders,” which is true. A closer look at the numbers also reveals how she stacks up to past Democrat leaders. According to The Hill, of the 109 people who have served in the U.S. Senate when she was there, Harris ranked 107 on the left-leaning scale, just behind Elizabeth Warren. Other important numbers to look at on this scale is that former U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton ranked 72 and former President Barack Obama ranked 62 – both far closer to the middle than Harris.
Winner: Gov. Greg Abbott
Last month, the Congressional Budget Office put out a report estimating that the migrant surge that occurred under the Biden-Harris Administration, will result in $1.2 Trillion in additional revenue to the federal budget – presumably because they assume the millions of people crossing over illegally will get jobs and pay taxes. In the small print, the report admitted that it did not factor in the costs to various states in dealing with the massive influx of illegal immigrants. Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s leadership in busing migrants to sanctuary cities has helped the rest of the country see exactly what it means to have thousands of illegal immigrants descend upon a community. Texas has also spent billions to secure the southern border, but the cost is not just in National Guard and fencing. The burden on Texas schools and hospitals is also astronomical. This week Abbott announced that all public hospitals will need to report the cost of treating illegal aliens. This data will give us a true picture of what open border policies are costing states and communities.
Loser: Delta Airlines – Ladies & Gentlemen
Just when you thought all the crazy DEI stuff was dying out, at least in business, Delta Airlines recently revealed that they have decided to “boldly pursue equity” starting with asking if gate announcements that begin with “Ladies and Gentlemen” are as “gender inclusive” as Delta wants to be.
Delta’s employee handbook reads: “Use gender-neutral language and pronouns. Do not use language that suggests a gender binary (male-female).” Can we really put people who think like this in charge of very big airplanes?
Loser: Anti-Semitic Democrats
This week saw the defeat of another member of the anti-Semitic wing of the Democrat Party, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-Missouri. In her concession speech, Bush vowed to “take down the kingdom” of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which heavily funded her opponent. The bad news is that the Democrat Party has an anti-Semitic wing. AIPAC recently led the fight to defeat another anti-Semitic House member in New York and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar is on the ballot next week in Minnesota.
Winner: Texas Gold Medalists
If Texas were a country, it would be 6th in the Olympic medal count right after Italy with more gold medals than Japan or Canada. The big name Texas winners are Scotty Scheffler, who won the golf gold this week, shooting a 62. Simone Biles and Gabby Thomas have also dazzled. The medal count changes every hour so Texas may move up in the standings.
Winner: USA Olympic Stunners
The Paris Olympics featured more great moments this week that must be included in any true winners and losers list including Team USA’s nail-biter win over Serbia in men’s basketball yesterday. Coming back from a 17 point deficit, basketball icons LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant did what it took to get the USA in the gold medal round. A great USA! USA! Moment.
Kevin Durant broke women’s basketball great Lisa Leslie’s all time Olympic basketball scoring record this week and sprinter Noah Lyles, who already had some gold medals, actually won a bronze in the 200 meter race after testing positive for COVID. Noah’s definitely a winner, even though after Lyles’ victory it is probably going to be harder for ordinary folks to use the COVID excuse to get out of going to work or blow off a distant cousin’s wedding.
WaHoo! Mountain Dew
In case you missed the Wall Street Journal report today, the beverage of choice for both Republican Vice Presidential nominee J.D. Vance and Democrat Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz is Diet Mountain Dew. It looks like that lime green soda can is a beacon of hope, proving that no matter how polarized our country has become, we can always find something to agree on.
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.
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