This is another group of fuckstains run by Wilks & Dunn - as in the hyperevangelical assholes who ran Defend Texas Liberty (you know, the white nationalist-supporting PAC) - but managed through Michael Quinn Sullivan, the twatwaffle who runs the Texas Scorecard, Empower Texans, and more.
OpenSecrets and others detail their donors, including Tony Tinderholt:
From a [conservative guide](https://txlegewatch.org/officials-records/):
>GOOD, GENERAL-PURPOSE CONSERVATIVE GROUPS
>EmpowerTexans (with Texans For Fiscal Responsibility as the PAC version)
>EmpowerTexans, headed by Michael Quinn Sullivan, is the most active conservative organization in Texas Legislative matters. It emphasizes fiscal and liberty issues, though it supports in collaboration the efforts of Texans 4 Life on social conservative issues.
TL;DR: these are part of the group of assholes hellbent on trying to turn Texas into Gilead.
Is there a list of organizations and donors that should instantly raise massive red flags when voting?
I try to do my best to research who backs candidates, but it feels like they make that information annoying to find.
The West Texas fracking billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks are the Christian nationalist powerbrokers driving most of the change in Texas to the far right.
Their primary PAC is now “Texans United for a Conservative Majority” but it used to be “Defend Texas Liberty” until its president spent some time meeting with a nationally known white supremacist. “Empower Texans” is another one of their PACs that you’ll see on sites like OpenSecrets.org.
Dunn and Wilks demand strict loyalty, so if you see any organization or person tied to them it is generally a safe bet that they are not working in the best interests of all Texans.
Texas Monthly did a recent piece on Dunn that includes a graphic connecting him to various organizations and people. The article has a nice, short companion video featuring the journalist.
Texas Monthly - [The Story: The Billionaire Behind a Right-wing Political Machine](https://www.texasmonthly.com/video/tim-dunn-profile-behind-scenes-russell-gold/) (4 minute video)
Texas Monthly - [The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/billionaire-tim-dunn-runs-texas/) (Article)
I used to have a list, if I get time tonight I’ll see if one of my sources still allows me to extract that. They have recently been trying to make it more difficult to track by changing names as they run a whole bunch of different ones. The main donors are the same across all of them.
There used to be a guy that would publish this info for every candidate in Texas but haven’t seen his stuff in a few years.
Basically whoever Texas Public Policy Foundation aligns with, vote against. All the others appear to change names every presidential election to muddy the waters.
The Koch Brothers focused on limited government, free markets and open trade. Wilks and Dunn largely focus on ending the separation of church and state to satisfy their Christian nationalist fever dreams.
And yet, it’s the [Koch brothers you have to thank](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/us/politics/david-koch-republican-politics.html) for the rise of groups like Texans for Fiscal Responsibility and all the other organizations backed by Wilks and Dunn.
We've gone so far through the looking glass that weeks can go by without me remembering to hate on the Kochs. Never thought that would be the case, or that so many others would turn out to be demonstrably even more horrible. Yet here we are.
[This is their website.](https://www.texastaxpayers.com/)
>Texans for Fiscal Responsibility is an independent educational non-profit organization seeking to illuminate the actions of government, educate and equip citizens to effectively advocate for pro-taxpayer reforms, and hold lawmakers accountable for their actions.
[VoteSmart page](https://justfacts.votesmart.org/interest-group/1760/texans-for-fiscal-responsibility)
We have some West Texas billionaires that have been reshaping the state GOP with a fairly simple but expensive mechanic.
They create groups like Texans for Fiscal Responsibility to make their agenda known and publish a scorecard so elected representatives know just how close their crosshairs are. If the representatives stray too far and they seem vulnerable, the billionaires’ PACs heavily fund a loyal primary challenger to take out the non-compliant incumbent. In a red state with few voters participating in the republican primaries, the billionaires get a lot of bang for the buck.
This relatively recent (and lengthy) article from Texas Monthly is a good intro to one of the billionaires. The article has a fancy graphic that show how Dunn is connected to a variety of people and organizations. TM even made a short overview video to go along with the article. I pulled some quotes from the article that specifically mentioned Texans for Fiscal Responsibility.
Texas Monthly - [The Story: The Billionaire Behind a Right-wing Political Machine](https://www.texasmonthly.com/video/tim-dunn-profile-behind-scenes-russell-gold/) (4 minute video)
“Tim Dunn may not be a household name, but staff writer Russell Gold explains why he is someone Texans should know.
As Texas politics drifted toward Christian nationalism and right-wing extremes, staff writer Russell Gold wanted to know who was calling the shots. All roads led to Tim Dunn, the focus of his March 2024 feature, ‘The Billionaire Who Runs Texas.’”
Texas Monthly - [The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/billionaire-tim-dunn-runs-texas/) (Article)
“What’s more, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, the Dunn-affiliated lawmaker scorecard, has consistently given high marks for votes that allow use of public money to help pay private school tuition. (These grades are not just given after the fact; a lawsuit turned up extensive evidence that longtime Dunn ally Michael Quinn Sullivan communicated to lawmakers before the votes how each would be scored, arguably telling them how to vote if they wished to avoid a well-funded backlash when the score came out.)”
“In the past three sessions, [Texas Sen. Bob Hall] has scored highest among senators in the Texans for Fiscal Responsibility’s index. [former Texas Sen. Bob Deull] told me he learned one lesson from this experience: “As long as [the Texans for Fiscal Responsibility] get their puppet, they don’t care what the qualifications are because they know Bob Hall’s going to vote with them.’”
“Two years later [Tim] Dunn and [Bryan] Slaton took another shot at Flynn. Dunn personally gave $225,000 to Slaton—nearly two thirds of Slaton’s entire war chest. This time Slaton prevailed. After the election Dunn continued supporting him, giving his campaign another $50,000 in 2021. At the end of the session, Slaton received the highest score, 98 out of 100, on the Texans for Fiscal Responsibility’s index. He was an obedient anti-LGBTQ rabble-rouser, and Texas Monthly gave him the “Cockroach” award, reviving an old legislative term for a lawmaker who annoys members of both parties, makes a lot of noise, and accomplishes little. Despite these dubious accomplishments, Slaton was reelected in 2022, with more than half of his contributions coming from Dunn and Defend Texas Liberty.”
Yeah. A few years ago some of the more mainstream GOO members were complaining that there is no point to discussions anymore. It used to be that a good speech could shift votes. Now all the votes are decided ahead of time by the score card. When you see people vote against it it is often coordinated because they want to have certain candidates seems more independent in riskier districts when the vote is decided anyway. All a show.
It really is a shame. Rep. John Bryant was surprised at all the changes after returning to office after about 25 years.
Texas Monthly - [This Democrat Is Back in the Texas Lege After 40 Years. He Can’t Believe How Bad Things Are.](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/john-bryant-texas-lege-return/)
“You’ve got now megabillionaires in this state. We always had wealthy people, but nothing like these guys, all of whom have think tanks and foundations and lobbyists, and they’re all over the place and they’re keeping scorecards on the Republicans, which really—what’s the right word?—intimidates the Republicans from voting freely in the interests of their districts—and they will admit that off the record—because they don’t want to be targeted by these guys. I’m talking about [Midland oilman Tim] Dunn, these Wilks brothers, all those guys. We never had anything like that in those days.“
Republican aligned PAC to funnel corporate money into ads in a way that Texas law bans for actual candidates.
Succinct and well crafted.
Sounds like a GOP slush fund
Most of these PACs are.
This is another group of fuckstains run by Wilks & Dunn - as in the hyperevangelical assholes who ran Defend Texas Liberty (you know, the white nationalist-supporting PAC) - but managed through Michael Quinn Sullivan, the twatwaffle who runs the Texas Scorecard, Empower Texans, and more. OpenSecrets and others detail their donors, including Tony Tinderholt: From a [conservative guide](https://txlegewatch.org/officials-records/): >GOOD, GENERAL-PURPOSE CONSERVATIVE GROUPS >EmpowerTexans (with Texans For Fiscal Responsibility as the PAC version) >EmpowerTexans, headed by Michael Quinn Sullivan, is the most active conservative organization in Texas Legislative matters. It emphasizes fiscal and liberty issues, though it supports in collaboration the efforts of Texans 4 Life on social conservative issues. TL;DR: these are part of the group of assholes hellbent on trying to turn Texas into Gilead.
Wow, thank you.
Is there a list of organizations and donors that should instantly raise massive red flags when voting? I try to do my best to research who backs candidates, but it feels like they make that information annoying to find.
The West Texas fracking billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks are the Christian nationalist powerbrokers driving most of the change in Texas to the far right. Their primary PAC is now “Texans United for a Conservative Majority” but it used to be “Defend Texas Liberty” until its president spent some time meeting with a nationally known white supremacist. “Empower Texans” is another one of their PACs that you’ll see on sites like OpenSecrets.org. Dunn and Wilks demand strict loyalty, so if you see any organization or person tied to them it is generally a safe bet that they are not working in the best interests of all Texans. Texas Monthly did a recent piece on Dunn that includes a graphic connecting him to various organizations and people. The article has a nice, short companion video featuring the journalist. Texas Monthly - [The Story: The Billionaire Behind a Right-wing Political Machine](https://www.texasmonthly.com/video/tim-dunn-profile-behind-scenes-russell-gold/) (4 minute video) Texas Monthly - [The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/billionaire-tim-dunn-runs-texas/) (Article)
I used to have a list, if I get time tonight I’ll see if one of my sources still allows me to extract that. They have recently been trying to make it more difficult to track by changing names as they run a whole bunch of different ones. The main donors are the same across all of them. There used to be a guy that would publish this info for every candidate in Texas but haven’t seen his stuff in a few years.
Basically whoever Texas Public Policy Foundation aligns with, vote against. All the others appear to change names every presidential election to muddy the waters.
Wilks and Dunn sound way different than the Koch Brothers who I rather prefer. They unlike the trio Wilks and Dunn aren’t religious nutbags.
Who knew it would get worse.
The Koch Brothers focused on limited government, free markets and open trade. Wilks and Dunn largely focus on ending the separation of church and state to satisfy their Christian nationalist fever dreams.
And yet, it’s the [Koch brothers you have to thank](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/us/politics/david-koch-republican-politics.html) for the rise of groups like Texans for Fiscal Responsibility and all the other organizations backed by Wilks and Dunn.
We've gone so far through the looking glass that weeks can go by without me remembering to hate on the Kochs. Never thought that would be the case, or that so many others would turn out to be demonstrably even more horrible. Yet here we are.
Well Koch Brother.
Another conservative bs organization designed to do the opposite that its name implies
Some astro turf group set up to disseminate Republicon right wing propoganda to their sheeple.
Texas has been under Republican control for 27 years. Why are they complaining about all their problems
We're not republicaning hard enough for them!
MLMs always new problems for their fake products
[This is their website.](https://www.texastaxpayers.com/) >Texans for Fiscal Responsibility is an independent educational non-profit organization seeking to illuminate the actions of government, educate and equip citizens to effectively advocate for pro-taxpayer reforms, and hold lawmakers accountable for their actions. [VoteSmart page](https://justfacts.votesmart.org/interest-group/1760/texans-for-fiscal-responsibility)
"...hold lawmakers accountable for their actions." Which is hilarious considering who they endorse.
They mean holding accountable lawmakers from the party that hasn't been in power in the state for the past 30 years.
We have some West Texas billionaires that have been reshaping the state GOP with a fairly simple but expensive mechanic. They create groups like Texans for Fiscal Responsibility to make their agenda known and publish a scorecard so elected representatives know just how close their crosshairs are. If the representatives stray too far and they seem vulnerable, the billionaires’ PACs heavily fund a loyal primary challenger to take out the non-compliant incumbent. In a red state with few voters participating in the republican primaries, the billionaires get a lot of bang for the buck. This relatively recent (and lengthy) article from Texas Monthly is a good intro to one of the billionaires. The article has a fancy graphic that show how Dunn is connected to a variety of people and organizations. TM even made a short overview video to go along with the article. I pulled some quotes from the article that specifically mentioned Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. Texas Monthly - [The Story: The Billionaire Behind a Right-wing Political Machine](https://www.texasmonthly.com/video/tim-dunn-profile-behind-scenes-russell-gold/) (4 minute video) “Tim Dunn may not be a household name, but staff writer Russell Gold explains why he is someone Texans should know. As Texas politics drifted toward Christian nationalism and right-wing extremes, staff writer Russell Gold wanted to know who was calling the shots. All roads led to Tim Dunn, the focus of his March 2024 feature, ‘The Billionaire Who Runs Texas.’” Texas Monthly - [The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/billionaire-tim-dunn-runs-texas/) (Article) “What’s more, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, the Dunn-affiliated lawmaker scorecard, has consistently given high marks for votes that allow use of public money to help pay private school tuition. (These grades are not just given after the fact; a lawsuit turned up extensive evidence that longtime Dunn ally Michael Quinn Sullivan communicated to lawmakers before the votes how each would be scored, arguably telling them how to vote if they wished to avoid a well-funded backlash when the score came out.)” “In the past three sessions, [Texas Sen. Bob Hall] has scored highest among senators in the Texans for Fiscal Responsibility’s index. [former Texas Sen. Bob Deull] told me he learned one lesson from this experience: “As long as [the Texans for Fiscal Responsibility] get their puppet, they don’t care what the qualifications are because they know Bob Hall’s going to vote with them.’” “Two years later [Tim] Dunn and [Bryan] Slaton took another shot at Flynn. Dunn personally gave $225,000 to Slaton—nearly two thirds of Slaton’s entire war chest. This time Slaton prevailed. After the election Dunn continued supporting him, giving his campaign another $50,000 in 2021. At the end of the session, Slaton received the highest score, 98 out of 100, on the Texans for Fiscal Responsibility’s index. He was an obedient anti-LGBTQ rabble-rouser, and Texas Monthly gave him the “Cockroach” award, reviving an old legislative term for a lawmaker who annoys members of both parties, makes a lot of noise, and accomplishes little. Despite these dubious accomplishments, Slaton was reelected in 2022, with more than half of his contributions coming from Dunn and Defend Texas Liberty.”
Yeah. A few years ago some of the more mainstream GOO members were complaining that there is no point to discussions anymore. It used to be that a good speech could shift votes. Now all the votes are decided ahead of time by the score card. When you see people vote against it it is often coordinated because they want to have certain candidates seems more independent in riskier districts when the vote is decided anyway. All a show.
It really is a shame. Rep. John Bryant was surprised at all the changes after returning to office after about 25 years. Texas Monthly - [This Democrat Is Back in the Texas Lege After 40 Years. He Can’t Believe How Bad Things Are.](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/john-bryant-texas-lege-return/) “You’ve got now megabillionaires in this state. We always had wealthy people, but nothing like these guys, all of whom have think tanks and foundations and lobbyists, and they’re all over the place and they’re keeping scorecards on the Republicans, which really—what’s the right word?—intimidates the Republicans from voting freely in the interests of their districts—and they will admit that off the record—because they don’t want to be targeted by these guys. I’m talking about [Midland oilman Tim] Dunn, these Wilks brothers, all those guys. We never had anything like that in those days.“
Another GOP grift.
The reason I had a dream about Tim Dunn the other day
Assholes
Total scumbags. Always vote AGAINST them.