Good morning,

Since he is out of the country right now, Michael Quinn Sullivan appropriately ends the week reflecting on what it means for America to be great. You'll find that at the end of today's email.

This is the Texas Minute for Friday, May 17, 2024.

– Sydnie Henry

A&M Suspends Title IX Administrator & Begins Investigation 

• Texas A&M System Chancellor John Sharp has placed Rick Olshak on paid suspension while the system investigates his "job performance." Robert Montoya and Kristen Stanciu have the story. 
   

• Texas Scorecard began investigating TAMUS Title IX director Rick Olshak after he commented that the Biden administration Title IX rewrite to include "gender identity" did not go far enough to extend to "transgender" competition in athletics.
   

• As Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration and Gov. Greg Abbott directed K-12 government schools and public universities to ignore the rewrite, questions arose over Olshak's agreement with Texans values. 
   

• A past riddled with adherence to leftist ideology was uncovered. 
   

• For a university that bills itself as the beacon of traditional values in Texas, why was Olshak hired and will TAMUS choose to keep him?

Official Data Shows Massive Spike in Known Gotaways Under Biden

• A Freedom of Information Act request has revealed that known gotaways have increased drastically since President Joe Biden took office on January 20, 2021. Luca Cacciatore breaks down the data. 
    
• CBP data showed that known gotaways averaged around 100,000 year-over-year since 2010, which includes the latter half of former President Barack Obama’s presidency and all of Donald Trump’s.
   
• In Fiscal Year 2021, that data began to change. The number shot up to 387,398 that fiscal year, followed by another spike to 606,131 in FY 2022 and finally 670,674 in FY 2023.

Gov. Abbott Pardons Sgt. Daniel Perry 

• Last year during his trial in Travis County, Perry was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the death of an armed Black Lives Matter protester. Emily Medeiros has the story.
   
• Perry's defense team argued that BLM protestor Garrett Foster raised a firearm at Perry, leading Perry to use his handgun in self-defense.
   

• The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles said that after reviewing the case, examining police reports, court records, and witness statements, and conducting interviews with people associated with the case, they decided to grant a full pardon and restore Perry’s Second Amendment rights. 
   

• Gov. Greg Abbott released a full pardon proclamation shortly thereafter. 

Judge Orders Redo of Harris County Judicial Election

• The court held that the true outcome of the November 2022 race for 180th District Court cannot be determined. Erin Anderson has the story. 
    
• Judge David Peeples ordered a redo of the November 2022 election between Tami Pierce and DaSean Jones after finding far more illegal votes were cast in the race than the margin of victory.
   
• Pierce, a Republican, contested her 449-vote loss to Democrat incumbent Jones in January 2023, but the case was delayed for nearly a year by a motion to dismiss filed by Jones. The court also found that motion to be "frivolous" and Jones has been ordered to pay Pierce $66,000 in attorney's fees. 
   
• A date for the new election between Pierce and Jones had not yet been determined.

INVESTIGATION: Texans for Lawsuit Reform 

• In part one of Texas Scorecard's latest investigative series, a longtime supporter of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the most powerful lobbying group in Texas, explains how the group 'Lost Their Way.'
   
• Daniel Greer examined in part two how TLR exerts control over an increasingly conservative state.
   
• Part three scrutinized TLR's role in the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton. 
   
• In the final part, the 'directionless' organization's future options are considered.  

Friday Reflection
How Can America Be Great?

No modern political slogan has endured quite as long and effectively as Donald Trump’s 2016 rallying cry, “Make America Great Again.” People adorn those four words, or the acronym MAGA, on their hats, shirts, and cars. Politicians jockey to define themselves with it: You are either a MAGA Republican or you’re not.

But… why should America be great? And should we strive for greatness or something better?

When the French diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States in the 1830s, America was not “great” in the sense we think of that word today. Territorially, it was a shadow of its current self. Texas and California still belonged to Mexico, and Alaska was owned by the Russians. A financial crisis in 1837 sparked an economic depression that lasted into the 1840s.

The hideous stench of slavery hung over the nation.

Yet, de Tocqueville saw something else. He looked past what we were doing and peered into what we believed. The famous quote ascribed to him is one he never uttered or wrote, “America is great because she is good.”

Two British ministers, Andrew Reed and James Matheson, used words similar to those misattributed to de Tocqueville: "America will be great if America is good. If not, her greatness will vanish away like a morning cloud."

De Tocqueville would undoubtedly have echoed that sentiment. In the American character, he—like those two visiting pastors—saw a yearning to be something better than it was.

He wrote: “Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. … How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie be not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? and what can be done with a people which is its own master, if it be not submissive to the Divinity?”

Depending on how one defines “great,” other nation-states have claimed that badge: Macedonia, China, Rome, Spain, England, France, and even Germany. They all fell away, many to destruction.

Why should we be different? Because, to borrow from that misattributed line, we should be committed to being good.

And it does depend on how we define “great.”

Our republic’s greatness is measured not by our geographic size, military might, or economic prowess.

We should fight to make our self-governing republic great by individually seeking God’s righteousness. That will not happen because we “elect the right man” but rather because we hold each other personally accountable to ever-greater standards of submissiveness to God’s word.

Quote-Unquote

"The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous."

– Frederick Douglass