Good morning,

There is nothing "mainstream" about the crony establishment media. I'll end the week with a reflection on why it's wrong for us to legitimize the illegitimate. 

This is the Texas Minute for Friday, April 12, 2024.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Patrick Puts Forward Property Tax Relief & Higher Ed Reform Ahead of 2025 Session

• Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced yesterday what he wants the Texas Senate to work on ahead of the 2025 legislative session. Brandon Waltens has the story.
    
• Patrick's list of 57 charges to the Senate covers a wide range of issues conservatives have called on the legislature to address, including property tax relief, protecting Texas land from hostile foreign ownership, and strengthening laws preventing electioneering by school districts and other political subdivisions.
      
• Some of the biggest reform proposals, however, have been reserved for higher education. Patrick has asked the Higher Education Subcommittee to study and make recommendations regarding the role of "faculty senates," antisemitism on college campuses, as well as to review the implementation of a new state law banning DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in state universities that went into effect earlier this year.
       

• House Speaker Dade Phelan, meanwhile, has not yet released his list of interim charges as he is currently fighting for his own political survival in a runoff election.

New York City Mayor Keeps Blaming Texas for Illegal Aliens

• Even though the U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretly approved the transport of 33,000 illegal aliens directly into New York City, the city's mayor is blaming Texas for the problems they are causing. Amelia McKenzie has the details.
      
• According to Todd Bensman, a senior fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, 22 percent of NYC's illegal aliens were shipped there with the permission of the Biden administration directly from foreign locales. Approximately the same number has been bussed there by Texas under a program pushed by Gov. Greg Abbott.
      
• Abbott's program sends illegal aliens in Texas given "parole" by the Biden administration to self-proclaimed sanctuary cities around the nation.
      
• NYC Mayor Eric Adams has ignored the role of the Biden administration and kept his ire directed at the Lone Star State. 

Texas A&M Pushes Race-based Hiring in Schools

• The Texas A&M University System is facilitating the advancement of race-based hiring practices in Texas’ K-to-12 public schools. Robert Montoya reviews the documents and interviews conducted as part of an ongoing investigation into higher education. 
       

• With funding from the Biden administration, Texas A&M developed a training program for educators titled “Leading Equity Across Diverse Environments with Revolutionary Synergy.”
       

• It was the focus on race-based recruiting and training that concerned Texas A&M alumnus Deborah Massey when she reviewed the 49-page document.
       

• The program repeatedly used the terms “diversity” and “equity,” two key components in the widely repudiated DEI philosophy (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). 
      

• “‘Social justice’ and ‘equity’ are not educational programs; they are activist slogans. We don’t need teachers who will be ‘agents of change’ and create ‘revolutionary synergy.’ We need teachers who will teach children how to read and write.” – Sherry Sylvester, Texas Public Policy Foundation

Small Town Fights Transparency

• The small North Texas town of McLendon-Chisholm is fighting a request to disclose the campaign finance reports and personal financial statements from one of its city council members. Luca Cacciatore has the report.
     
• Councilmember Bryan McNeal, who is also running for mayor, specifically asked the city to challenge Texas Scorecard’s request to the Texas attorney general’s office. Mayor Pro Tempore Adrienne Balkum has alleged that McNeal has a history of evading open records requests.
      
• James Quintero of the Texas Public Policy Foundation said that although the transparency standards were “truly aspirational” when first passed in 1973, they have been “hollowed out by the Legislature and the courts” since then.

Teacher Accused of ‘Inappropriate Interactions’ with Student

• Allen High School science teacher Albert Najera is on “indefinite administrative leave” while police investigate allegations of inappropriate behavior with a student. Erin Anderson reports district officials learned of the allegations on the evening of April 9 and immediately notified Allen police.
    
• In 2022, Najera was recognized as one of Allen ISD’s North Texas Teachers on the Rise. He sponsors two student groups: Musicians Connect and Space Club.

RELATED NEWS

One School District Asks for $1 Billion in New Debt

• Already one billion dollars in debt, Mansfield ISD is asking voters to add another billion to the taxpayers' tab. The bonds propose using taxpayer funds to renovate school facilities and stadiums and add on to fine arts and multi-purpose athletic complexes. 
        
• Despite the district's bond materials stating that the entire package will cost $777 million, local taxpayers will actually be burdened with more than $1.3 billion in debt when interest is included.

Friday Reflection:
No, They Are Not Mainstream

We often hear people refer to the collection of leftist newspapers and television networks that once held sway over the dissemination of facts and opinions as the "mainstream media."

In fact, there is nothing "mainstream" about them.

By definition, the dying legacy outlets are NOT mainstream. The clearest evidence for this is found in their declining sales, diminishing market penetration, and nonexistent economic viability. If the newspapers and networks that get so casually labeled “mainstream” actually were, they wouldn’t be laying off staff as their circulations and viewerships plummet.

Texas newspapers, for example, have fewer readers today than ever before, despite the massive surge in the state’s population. Sure, they will snivel about "online" readership, but the paywalls they established haven’t made any of them profitable.

Newspapers in Texas and around the nation are dying precisely because they are not in the mainstream. You might be able to say they were once mainstream, but they are not anymore. The legacy media does not sit in the “mainstream” of political or cultural thought but rather on the far-left bank.

For us to label them "mainstream" is to legitimize the illegitimate.

The establishment media operations are little more than shills for the anti-American progressives. They go out of their way to insult the values and beliefs of their audience and then become indignant when the audience walks away.

The state of the media has caused handwringing about the downfall of democracy and other such blather.

Frankly, each time a leftist publication lays off staff or closes its doors should be cause for celebration. Just like the party thrown when a bad officeholder loses an election, the contraction of a leftist media operation means that the people in that region have voted with their pocketbooks to unshackle themselves from the purveyors of lies and misinformation.

Honestly, the rapid decline of the crony establishment media might just be what saves our republic.

Despite what a couple of generations of newspaper and TV network reporters claim, the First Amendment to the Constitution has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the failing corporate media. The First Amendment did not create a special class—what some self-righteously describe as the “Fourth Estate,” as if it were a branch of government.

In fact, the First Amendment enshrines the right of the people, all the people, as individuals, to run printing presses, to publish, to speak, to broadcast. Every single one of us has the right to be the media, to be journalists.

Our republic sprang to life in part because our Founding Fathers formed committees of correspondence in each of the colonies—subverting the loyalist media of the day and keeping each other apprised of what was really happening in the colonies.

What’s old is new again. In the 21st century, citizens no longer outsource their personal responsibility as journalists to the establishment hacks. Thanks to social media, you can get news, information, and opinions from real people you trust, unfiltered and uncensored.

Technology has freed citizens from the tyranny of the establishment media. This is why the statists are seeking to place a stranglehold on real mainstream voices in social media. Apparently, the citizenry cannot be counted on to spread their lies. And it’s driving the establishment berserk.

The solution to their attempts at censorship is for each of us to speak louder.

Someone is always keeping score in politics and government; I think it ought to be the citizens. But that only happens when the citizens know what is really going on. As a self-governing people, it is up to each of us to keep each other informed and engaged—so we can save the republic.

Quote-Unquote

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."

– Benjamin Franklin