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Good morning,

It was revealed last week that a federal agency was secretly funding leftwing "news" websites at home and abroad. This week, we want to know what you think of that practice.

This is the Texas Minute for Monday, Feb. 10, 2025.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Donald Trump Warns Texas House on School Choice

• On Saturday, President Donald Trump issued a clear warning to the Texas House, declaring that he will be “watching them closely” as they decide the fate of a major school choice initiative. Brandon Waltens has the details.
      
• In a post on Truth Social, Trump praised Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and State Sen. Brandon Creighton for their work in passing Senate Bill 2, which would create a school choice program with Education Savings Accounts. However, he made it clear that the real test lies ahead in the Texas House, where school choice legislation has repeatedly failed.
       
• “Lt. Gov. Patrick has now passed School Choice six times out of the Texas Senate, only to see it die in the Texas House every time, but he never quits,” wrote Trump. “The Texas House must now pass School Choice to deliver a gigantic Victory for Texas students and parents. I will be watching them closely.”
       
• The House, meanwhile, still does not have committee assignments and has not yet considered any legislation.

Math Goes Woke at UT-Austin

• Math courses this spring focused on Marxist theory and "racial inequality" count toward the University of Texas at Austin's core curriculum, reports Valerie Muñoz.
      
• One of the courses is titled "Measuring Racial Inequality: Indexes to calculate disparities and segregation." Another UT math class is "Numbering Race." Both attempt to present far-left ideologies as objective concepts.
       
• According to his spring 2025 syllabus for "Numbering Race," Professor Ricardo Henrique Lowe forbids students from sharing course materials with the public and requires that class recordings be kept confidential.
      
• Apparently, Prof. Lowe doesn't want his woke, pseudo-intellectualism mocked on social media...

RELATED NEWS

• At issue is House Bill 2548, filed by State Rep. Cody Harris (R-Palestine), which would allow university governing boards to make exceptions for DEI courses in degree programs that clearly and primarily focus on “racial, ethnic, or gender studies.” Harris did not reply to requests for comment.
     
• President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott have issued executive orders banning DEI across government agencies. However, how these orders will affect institutions of higher education remains unclear.

Constitutional Amendment Authored To Stop Democrats From Ever Packing SCOTUS

• U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has reintroduced a constitutional amendment requiring a total of nine Supreme Court justices on the bench at a time. As Debra McClure reports, Cruz has offered this proposal twice before, in 2020 and again in 2023.
       
• In recent years, Democrats have threatened to "pack the court" by creating new slots on the Supreme Court. He said Democrats have taken this approach because they "seek to use the Court to advance policy goals they can’t accomplish electorally.”
     
• The Constitution does not specify the number of justices on the Supreme Court. That number fluctuated until the Judiciary Act of 1869, when it was set at nine. In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt tried to increase the number of justices in order to get more favorable rulings. That push was eventually abandoned.
       
• A survey by the Wall Street Journal in mid-2024 found that a majority of Americans do not favor increasing the number of SCOTUS justices.

Harris County Empowers Attorney to Sue Trump Administration

• Joseph Trimmer reports Democrats on the Harris County Commissioners Court voted to give the county attorney the authority to file lawsuits or join existing lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s executive actions without needing to wait for a vote of approval by the commissioners.
       
• Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee requested authority to take legal action without court approval for a six-month period with the option to request a renewal. Menefee argued that he could not wait for court approval “given the sudden nature of these orders and the exigency of taking legal action.”

RELATED NEWS

• One county official said those project costs were “guesstimates,” because no engineering studies were completed before going to the voters.
       
• Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo (D) said she wants the commissioners to consider a new flood bond to pay for the shortfall and other projects.

North Texas Teacher Arrested for ‘Improper Relationship’ With Student

• An art teacher at Newman International Academy, a charter school in Arlington, has been arrested and charged with sexual misconduct involving a student. Erin Anderson has the story.
     
• Ruel “JR” Barbee, 53, was jailed last week. He reportedly worked at the district’s Gibbins campus, which serves 7th through 12th-grade students. Newman officials have not yet responded to a request for comment.

Quote-Unquote

"The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors."

– Thomas Jefferson​

One Click Survey

It was revealed last week that the U.S. Agency for International Development was funneling millions of dollars (or more) to left-leaning publications like Politico at home and the BBC overseas. Each of the outlets taking USAID money has taken strong positions in opposition to conservatives in general and President Trump in particular. The president has ordered an end to all such contracts and payments.

In Texas, state agencies have also spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars subsidizing media operations.

Do you think Gov. Abbott should, like President Trump, order state agencies to stop all payments to media outlets?

Once you’ve clicked an answer, reply to this email with any thoughts you’d like to share!