Good morning,

Been thinking this week about the unfortunate tendency of some “conservatives” to legitimize the leftist media in a bid to seek applause from the establishment. 

But first, here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, April 9, 2021
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With apologies, an important bullet point yesterday about Wednesday’s One Click Survey was accidentally deleted. Here it is...

• Respondents overwhelmingly rejected the idea of Texans being required to have a “vaccine passport” for their daily lives: 98.3 percent of readers said NO, leaving just 1.7 percent taking the opposite position.

• A coordinated attack against election integrity is being waged by Democrats in Texas and across the country.
      
• Erin Anderson reports big corporations have been pushed to the forefront of the Democrat-led alliance of left-wing and “racial justice” activists, labor unions, the business lobby, and anti-Trump Republicans, who are working openly to promote their interests by demonizing GOP-priority voting legislation.
      
• Texas Democrats are legislatively powerless to stop election reform measures in the House and Senate. However, with help from corporate allies in the Business Roundtable – like Texas-based companies American Airlines, Dell, and AT&T – they are creating negative publicity about the issue to “fire up” Democrat voters and intimidate Republican lawmakers.
     
• If meaningful election integrity reforms fail to be enacted into law, it will be because the Republican majority in the Texas House and Senate capitulated – not because Democrats stopped it.

• Join in a live conversation with Brandon Waltens and Jeramy Kitchen on The Headline at 11 a.m. this morning, or catch the video archive and podcast shortly after noon.

• Texas’ Trey Trainor, a Trump appointee who serves as the chairman of the Federal Elections Commission, is calling out the head of Major League Baseball for rank hypocrisy by decrying photo IDs for voting but requiring “that every ticket purchaser have an ID.” Read Mr. Trainor’s commentary in the Daily Caller.
     
• While MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is opposing election integrity reforms in the U.S., Trainor notes, the league is trying to expand business in Communist China.
   
• “The truth is, he doesn’t really care about secure elections or freedom to vote. He appears to be more interested in expanding his network to a country that does not respect individual liberty, much less the sacred right of citizens to elect their leaders.” – Trey Trainor

• In light of the Biden-created border crisis, Joshua Pierce reports on efforts by State Sen. Bob Hall (R–Edgewood) to allow Texas and other states to step in and take charge.

• Even as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was publicly bashing Facebook for its censorship of conservatives, he was quietly working with them behind the scenes to build a new data-center in Texas. And, worse, Abbott may even give Facebook exclusive taxpayer-funded perks and handouts. Jacob Asmussen has the story.
   
• The governor’s office was forced to admit their backroom deals by the Tech Transparency Project. An attorney representing Facebook argued to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that releasing the 100-plus pages of communications between the governor’s office and the social media giant would uncover restricted information—including a nondisclosure agreement between Abbott’s office and Facebook.
      
• In the past, Abbott has used the “Texas Enterprise Fund” to hand out “tax incentive” deals to favored corporations. What that means in reality for citizens: taxpayers must pay full taxes to state officials, but then state officials take that money and give it as a perk to hand-picked corporations—and also exempt those corporations from taxes.
   
• Tech Transparency Project Director Katie Paul said in a statement it is “entirely likely” an agreement between Gov. Abbott’s office and Facebook would “end up being a raw deal for Texas taxpayers.”
   
• Facebook already has a $1.5 billion data center under construction in Fort Worth, and at the time of its groundbreaking several years ago, city officials gave the tech giant a lavish tax exemption deal for the project worth $147 million over 20 years.

• Combating liberal education standards of the federal government, the Texas Legislature is considering legislation to add a patriotic curriculum to Texas schools. Iris Poole has the details.

• Please join me in wishing a very happy birthday to my sister, Julia Lockhart! 

Friday Reflection

It seems there are some conservatives who suffer from an unfortunate desire to be applauded by the left. While it is tiresome to see ostensibly right-thinking men and women prop up leftwing news outlets as guests and commentators, it is downright disgusting when they rush to offer quotes to publications that attack conservatives.

The leftist, establishment media is always looking for camera-chasing Conservative, Inc.-wannabes to participate in the virtual lynching of actual citizen-activists. And, all too often, they find accomplices willing to build themselves up by participating in the character assassination of activists seeking to champion real reform. 

Let’s be clear: rarely, though not never, do these media-seekers join in directly attacking the conservatives. Instead, they give the leftwing attack-piece the veneer of respectability by being a “reasonable” voice who will offer pros and cons about whatever individual or entity is on the chopping block.

So guess which part gets the most play?

When someone from the leftwing media calls to say they are “working on a story” and are “hoping for perspective,” what they mean is that they have decided to attack someone who is effective, and want you to add a few logs on the pyre – if not maybe some gasoline. The correct course of action is to hang up, notify the subject of the coming attack, and leave it at that.

This was brought to mind recently when a reporter for Jeff Bezos’ leftwing Washington Post hounded me and others for a couple days looking for comments on a hatchet-job against the good folks at the True Texas Project. Sadly, I’m sure he found people willing to participate. 

Let me be clear: It doesn’t matter what is said to a writer penning an attack piece. By talking to them, by legitimizing their work, the source has legitimized the attack.

For my part, as the publisher of a news entity, I have stopped giving interviews of any kind to the leftwing media – no matter the subject, and no matter how often they call. They are the enemy’s cheerleaders, and one is not served by pretending the establishment media can be honest brokers. 

And, please, don’t try to sell me on how secretly conservative some particular print reporter or low-level news producer might be; they are not. Sure, at some happy hour they might have expressed a twinge of intellectual guilt over their employer pillaging our American heritage, but more often than not that was just the alcohol talking.

Yet the allure of having one’s name grace the pages of the New York Times or to be seen yammering on a cable channel is apparently too much temptation for some. They foolishly believe themselves so well-spoken, so persuasive, so likable, that they will overwhelm all opposition. It never happens that way. As Proverbs 13:30 puts it: “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

Let me add here that it is even worse when conservative organizations partner with explicitly leftwing media groups. In every case, it is a sign that the organization is no longer interested in serving anything but themselves. 

We see the truth of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’”

Preening like a red-colored peacock for the leftwing media is at best an exercise in self-adulation. Unless one aims to be a pet of the radical left, resting tamely in a blue cage and trotted out for their amusement, conservatives should stop feeding the establishment media monster that exists to torment our allies and undermine our republic.

As a self-governing people in the 21st Century, we don’t need the dying establishment media to carry our message. And we certainly should not be participating in theirs. The First Amendment guarantees your right to be your own media.

So let’s stop legitimizing the establishment attack machine. Rather than entertain politicians by singing to the leftist media’s tune, conservative activists must be about the work of building each other up with truth and facts in the fight for liberty.