Good morning,

Good ideas die without active engagement. To end the week, I reflect on the importance of our civic persitence.

This is the Texas Minute for Friday, Nov. 21, 2025.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Texas Moves To Open Criminal Probes Into Islamic Organizations

• Gov. Greg Abbott is escalating the state's actions against the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhood. On Thursday, the governor directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to launch criminal investigations into the organization and its affiliates. Brandon Waltens has the story.
    
• In a letter to the head of DPS, Abbott wrote that CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood “have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world.’” He accused the groups of supporting terrorism, engaging in intimidation, and attempting to subvert state law through radical activity. 
      
• Earlier this week, in accordance with new state law, the governor issued a declaration designating CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations. The designations make them prohibited entities in the state and subject to heightened enforcement.
     
• In his directive yesterday, the governor ordered DPS to initiate criminal investigations into any individuals or entities seeking to enforce Sharia law. 

More Than 3,500 Illegal Aliens Arrested by ICE Houston During Government Shutdown

• Although many officers worked without pay, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement continued to arrest illegal aliens in Southeast Texas during the 43-day Democrat-led federal government shutdown. Addie Hovland reports that ICE agents in Houston nabbed more than 3,500 illegal aliens during the shutdown.
    
• Among those arrested by ICE are murderers, sex offenders, child predators, gang members, and individuals convicted of aggravated assault. Included in those arrested was Brayan Josue Pineda-Ayala, an illegal alien and MS-13 gang member from Honduras who was released into the U.S. by the Biden administration in 2024. Ayala has been accused of committing a triple homicide in Dallas.

Audit Finds Lapses in Oversight of U. of H. Foundation Funds

• An internal audit has found “insufficient” oversight of funds University of Houston departments received from the University of Houston Foundation. It also found the foundation failed to maintain documentation to verify if students who were provided scholarships met the criteria. Robert Montoya has the details.
       
• The University of Houston Foundation is an independent nonprofit that supports the University of Houston System and its three campuses.
     
• UH System auditors “found numerous instances where supporting documentation did not provide reasonable assurance” that these payments were appropriate, adding that “some expenditures appeared questionable.” The audit also found that university departments did not manage foundation funds with the same diligence as their own.

UT Regents Rewrite Governance Rules

• To bring their system into compliance with new state law, Adam Cahn reports the University of Texas regents voted to rewrite their governance rules. Among other things, they instituted annual reviews of senior campus personnel and limited the role of faculty advisory bodies.
      
• The UT regents also went beyond the new law by requiring that they and their successors hold formal reviews of institution department chairs “at least every six years.”
      

• The new state law abolished the practice in state universities of “shared governance,” in which boards and university presidents had delegated formal decision making authority to selected faculty. The new law only permits universities to establish such faculty groups on a strictly advisory basis.

Judge Goes ‘Scorched-Earth’ in Dissent From Texas Redistricting Decision

• Earlier this week, a three-judge federal panel issued an injunction against Texas from using the legislature's recently-adopted congressional map in the 2026 election. As Travis Morgan notes, the 2-1 ruling is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. 
    

• Judge Jerry Smith has now filed his dissent, accusing his fellow judges of judicial misconduct and leaving him out of the process. The majority opinion was written by Jeff Brown, who had described a previous redistricting effort as being "mean-spirited."
     

• Smith began his dissent by slamming Judge Brown for "pernicious judicial misbehavior." He wrote that Brown blatantly disregarded expert testimony from both sides to reach a flawed conclusion.
      

• "The main winners from Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and Gavin Newsom. The obvious losers are the People of Texas and the Rule of Law." – Jerry Smith

This Sunday on REAL TEXANS

Friday Reflection
Lighting the Fires of Liberty

Even though there is no record he said it, many people attribute to the American patriot Sam Adams the phrase, “It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.”

It may be a spurious citation, but I think Sam Adams probably would have agreed with the sentiment.

The idea contained in that quotation is a simple one, with examples scattered throughout ancient and modern history. That is, perhaps, why the saying has such staying power. We know instinctively it is true.

Yet in modern politics we have allowed ourselves to be told to believe, and even to act, in contradiction to that truth.

We’re expected to believe a majority must be on our side to prevail before we even get started. Polls are used and abused to tell us to ignore our beliefs, because no one else shares them (they claim), we’re doomed to fail.

We want engaging to be easy. We want victories to come with minimal work.

And so, maybe the naysayers are right—in the moment. After all, no great effort to right an injustice or reform a corrupt system ever began with a majority. It began as a good idea nonetheless abhorred by many.

Let me here make a simple observation and take a swipe at one of the conservative movement’s favorite sayings. It comes from the French poet Victor Hugo and goes like this: “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

In fact, almost everything is more powerful than a good idea. Good ideas die ignoble deaths all the time. And they die because the originator of the idea either assumed it would be recognized on its face and adopted by all who beheld it ... or was intimidated by the work of making it real.

What propels forward good ideas isn’t much different than what it takes to start a fire with a bit of flint and steel. That is, persistent effort.

Let’s be honest: it’s actually hard work to engage with our friends and family. We risk scorn and rejection. We worry about social standing and professional retribution.

Yet it is also immensely rewarding. One lit match might illuminate a step or two for a minute, but blazing bonfires can turn night into day.

With a “tireless minority” keenly at work, we can push against the darkness and illuminate the lives of our countrymen. It’s up to us. So regardless of who said it, let’s get busy setting those fires!

Our republic needs the light now more than ever.

Quote-Unquote

"What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right."

– Albert Einstein

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