Good morning!

Test everything. Abstain from evil. Hold what is good. 

Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, August 28, 2020
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• The Democrats are absolutely terrified of a debate between their nominee, the addled Joe Biden, and President Donald Trump. They should be.
      
• Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters yesterday she didn’t think Biden should debate incumbent President Donald Trump ahead of the November general election. As Brandon Waltens reports, Pelosi is only the latest Democrat to suggest the former vice president should skip the debates altogether rather than risk damaging himself and the Democrat Party on a national stage.
      
• “I won’t make any particular diagnosis about dementia. … But what I will say is that something is not right.” – Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson (ret), former White House physician

• A massive mail-in ballot plan in Harris County is drawing concerns over costs and integrity. Brandon Waltens reports Democrat County Clerk Chris Collins announced that, for the upcoming November election, Harris County would take the unprecedented step of sending mail ballot applications to all of the county’s 2.37 million registered voters.
      
• This will put the cost of the 2020 election at seven times the cost of the last presidential election year contest. But since Harris County is the largest county in the state, the impact of election fraud from ballot harvesting could be enormous. 
   
• As such, State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) isn’t sure what Harris County is looking to do is even legal. He has requested Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Secretary of State’s office weigh in on the plan.
   
• “Is not mailing 2.37 million absentee ballot-by-mail applications an open invitation to vote harvesters and fraud?” – State Sen. Bettencourt
   
• Harris County Democrats are setting the stage for the outright theft of the 2020 election in Texas. Only Attorney General Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott’s Secretary of State can stop this. Will they?

• Questions are being raised about the quality of data being used by the City of Austin to justify keeping residents and businesses restricted. For example, reports Jacob Asmussen, with the rate of hospitalizations falling the city is now using “positive tests” to justify the ongoing mandates.
   
• Citizens are understandably upset. If the positivity rate is only measuring the small pool of the population who decides to get tested, is it really a reliable number to justify shutting down the entire city and county?
   
• For example, only 3,600 citizens were tested for the coronavirus in the first week of August (the most recent data available from the city). So, as Asmussen reports, apparently the test results of 0.3 percent of the county are now dictating whether 1.2 million people are allowed to earn money for food and rent.

• Texans were shocked last year to learn that Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth was refusing to provide life-sustaining care to Baby Tinslee Lewis – after repeated objections from the little girl’s mother. In December 2019, the hospital argued in court, “She’s got less than five months to live.” Our friends at Texas Right to Life, who have been helping Tinslee’s family fight for her right to live, noted yesterday that nearly nine months later Tinslee is still alive – with new video showing her awake and moving. Yet the hospital is still fighting for the right to euthanize the baby girl.
      
• “Why do they want to kill my baby so badly?” – Trinity Lewis, Baby Tinslee’s mother
   
• Cook Children’s has been relying on a state law – the “10-Day Rule” – found in the Texas Advance Directive Act that allows hospital committees to ignore and override the health care decisions of a patient or her surrogate and remove (or even deny) life-sustaining treatments. The 2nd Court of Appeals issued a comprehensive ruling in July arguing the “10-Day Rule” is likely unconstitutional.

• Congratulations to our good friend Charles Blain, who heads Urban Reform, on being named to the “40 under 40” list of influential Houstonians by the Houston Business Journal. Well deserved!

Today marks the start of my weekly podcast, Reflections on Life and Liberty. I’m told you’ll be able to find it on the various podcasting platforms, or by visiting the podcast section of Texas Scorecard!

Friday Reflection

by Michael Quinn Sullivan

As citizens, we have tolerated the devolution of our republic into cults of personality. Rather than a spirited contest of ideas among a self-governing people, elections have become a spectator sport complete with pompoms, jerseys, and cheerleaders. 

The result? We’re all losers. 

National cable news shows, ratcheting down their content to the lowest common denominator, put forward every question as the Elephant Team versus the Donkey Team. Yay Elephant Team! 

When it is revealed that an Elephant Team member wants to fund abortion, raise taxes, and strip people of their due process rights? The predictable response is, “Hey, at least they’re not a Donkey!”

We must do better.

The politicians of both teams, er, parties, absolutely love it. They spoon out political pablum and pretend it’s an ideological steak dinner.

And we’re to lap it up? Frankly, we should vomit it out.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22, we read, “Test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.”

That should be true of everything, but especially in the most practical application of the working out of our faith in the public square. Too many of us unquestioningly accept the false narrative of Elephant versus Donkey. We accept evil as long as it comes packaged in the appropriate colors of our political team.

There is a disturbingly high number of “Elephants” actively seeking to replace our system of God-given self-governance with one of godless socialism—or, at least, they are unwilling to fight that godless takeover being executed by the Donkeys. 

We have seen instance after instance of Republican lawmakers who would pedal us just a little slower toward the evil destination of a big, abusive, socialist state. Sometimes they themselves are deceived, worshiping the false gods of “statesmanship” and “compromise.” Others simply believe themselves ethically fit to be masters—intending to be benevolent, perhaps, but masters nonetheless.

As citizens, we must look past the packaging. We must put the promises of politicians to the test, examining what they have actually done or failed to do. We must reject those who actively conspire against us, and hold on to those who seek what is good.

By doing so, we will advance the cause of liberty for ourselves and our children.