Will 41 million Christians ditch their responsibility as citizens? ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

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Good morning,

We're three weeks from the General Election, and 41 million Christians appear ready to sit it out—shunning their responsibilities as citizens in a haughty display of hypocritical morality. I conclude the week hoping they will change their minds.

This is the Texas Minute for Friday, October 11, 2024.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan

Congressmen Demand Biden-Harris Admin Help Texas Identify Non-citizen Voters

U.S. Reps. Chip Roy and Randy Weber have led a group of lawmakers in calling on the Biden-Harris administration to provide information from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to ensure that only citizens are registered to vote in Texas. Debra McClure reports their letter has been signed by 12 other Republican House members from Texas.
They are urging the USCIS to provide assistance in verifying that noncitizens are not registered to vote. Secretary of State Jane Nelson and Attorney General Ken Paxton have also requested the agency's cooperation.
Weber described the administration’s lack of cooperation to this point as a “dereliction of duty” and that “the administration was willfully turning a blind eye as noncitizens potentially influence our elections.”
Gov. Greg Abbott announced in late August that more than a million ineligible voters were removed from Texas voter rolls. Of those, 1,930 were noncitizens with voting histories.

Gang Member Arrested in El Paso for Trafficking

Law enforcement officials have arrested an illegal alien from Venezuela nicknamed "La Barbie," alleging that she is the ring leader for Tren de Aragua’s trafficking operation in El Paso. Addie Hovland has the story.
According to court documents, one victim told police that Estefania Primera drugged her multiple times, which caused her to pass out. When the victim awoke on one occasion, she was being raped by multiple men.
Primera entered the U.S. illegally in August 2023 and was apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol but was soon released under the supervision of electronic ankle monitoring technology, which she discarded. She was arrested with her five underage children present, who federal agents say are often used as drug mules by Primera to store and sell narcotics.

Texas Lottery Continues Meager Contributions to Education

Pitched to Texans in the early 1990s as a way to fund public education and reduce reliance on property taxes, Daniel Greer reports that the Lottery has never lived up to its financial hype.
Approximately 75 percent of the lottery’s $8 billion in annual revenue is spent on administering the lottery, advertising, payouts, and other costs. The portion of the lottery proceeds dedicated to public education is just 3 percent of total funding—or, at most, a handful of days' operating expenses.
Cumulatively, the state lottery hasn’t paid for a year of education since it was formed.
The lottery is played largely by lower-income households making less than $50,000 per year; for context, a family of four making $60,000 or less annually qualifies for welfare benefits.
Across multiple games, the median amount spent playing the lottery was twice as much for a player making less than $12,000 annually than for someone making more than $100,000.
The lottery is up for Sunset Review in 2025, which means it is under a legislative microscope. On a rolling basis, state agencies are reviewed for performance, and lawmakers consider various options for adjusting operations or ending agencies altogether.

Patrick Wants Deloitte to Pay for Role in Fraudulent Loan Application

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick believes a prominent consulting firm must make amends for overlooking a company’s “falsified application” to obtain a low-interest loan from the Texas Energy Fund. As Luca Cacciatore reports, the fund is meant to provide low-interest loans that expedite reliable energy production in Texas.
Deloitte was contracted by the state to process loan applications. At issue is the firm's decision to move forward with a proposal from Aegle Power that included a false claim about the involvement of another company. The project would have been the second-largest since the fund’s inception last year, claiming it would generate 1,292 megawatts of capacity.
It has since been revealed that Aegle Power’s CEO, Kathleen Smith, pleaded guilty in 2017 to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud while she led another energy company.
Patrick said this week he and the Public Utility Commission want to claw back "at least 10% of Deloitte’s contract value” for the mistake.

Texas Tech Business College Offers DEI Course

As part of an ongoing investigation into higher education, Robert Montoya finds that Texas Tech’s business college is offering a course entitled “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Organizations.”
The course description states the class “examines various forms of diversity, effective D&I practices, impacts of individual D&I perspectives on work experience, and the necessity of D&I in organizational performance.” It was previously offered in the spring of 2024.
Course learning objectives include explaining “privilege and how it affects individuals and institutions,” ensuring students “understand the role of prejudice, stereotypes, discrimination, racism, and oppression” and can “identify effective and ineffective approaches to diversity, equity and inclusion.” It purports to train students on how to practically apply DEI in the real world.
A spokesperson for Texas Tech confirmed that the course is still being offered, but not this semester.

Friday Reflection
Wicked and Slothful

by Michael Quinn Sullivan

The Reflections Podcast

Just three weeks out from the 2024 General Election, 41 million Christians say they aren’t voting. They say they don’t like their options, which might be the most intellectually lazy thing someone can assert in our self-governing republic.

As I read this study from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, the parable of the talents from Matthew’s gospel came to mind. In it, Jesus told His disciples the story of a wealthy man who entrusted his servants with large sums of money to oversee during his absence. One servant received the equivalent of 80 years' worth of earnings, while another 32 years' worth. A third received 16 years' worth of earnings.

The first two essentially doubled what they had been given. The third didn’t like his choices, so he buried the money in the ground, not even bothering to put it with a banker. He said he did so because he was scared of his master.

His excuses were a cop-out. He thought that by doing nothing, he would avoid responsibility. For his cowardice, the servant was called “wicked and slothful.”

That’s how millions of Christians appear to be treating this election. They mumble self-righteous pieties about the choices—implying themselves to be the standard bearers of civic and personal morality.

They seem to think they can stand before God and smugly say, “I know you put me in this self-governing republic, but I could not lower myself to do my duty, so you cannot be angry with me because none of the candidates on the ballot met my standards.”

Is that the standard these Americans want to have applied to them? Is that the standard they hope God employs as He elects us for eternal life? I know how poorly I compare to God’s standards; I’m personally counting on His mercy through Christ!

I often hear people say that they hate choosing between “the lesser of two evils” in our elections. It is like they just emerged from a state of bliss on planet Earth! We live in a fallen world. All of us fall short of the glory of God; some more spectacularly than others perhaps. But that’s a bit like comparing the stench in various sections of the city sewer.

In the real world, God calls us to be shrewd. We must make choices between what is actually in front of us. I would like to have filet mignon for lunch every day, but the budget says my choices range from chicken salad to PB&J. I guess I could just go hungry, but I choose sustenance over starvation.

The great irony is that by choosing not to vote in the election—for whatever “righteous” reason—the 41 million Christians are, in fact, casting a vote. They are choosing to let other, less biblically shrewd individuals make the governing decisions for them.

By refusing to consider the nuanced positions of candidates and the relative real-world good and harm each would bring, these Christians are letting those guided by destructive ideologies and even worse theologies pick a dangerous path for our republic. Wicked and slothful, indeed.

We were blessed to be given a self-governing republic. By hiding from the responsibilities of citizenship, some Christians are preparing to embrace an unbiblical foolishness.

Rather than hide from the hard choices, we have a responsibility to faithfully engage the world as it is. And, yes, that means—as Christian citizens in this republic—participating in the elections.