CNN posted an important article about two billionaires in Texas who are spending heavily to push state politics to the extreme right fringes on social issues. Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks despise gays, love guns, and preach a version of Christianity that is suffused with hate, not love or charity or kindness. Above all, they aim to destroy public education, which they see as the root of America’s cultural decline.
If you read one article today, make it this one. It explains the drive for vouchers for religious schools. What Dunn and Wilks want is not “choice,” but indoctrination into their selfish, bumigored world view.
CNN’s investigative team writes:
Gun owners allowed to carry handguns without permits or training. Parents of transgender children facing investigation by state officials. Women forced to drive hours out-of-state to access abortion.
This is Texas now: While the Lone Star State has long been a bastion of Republican politics, new laws and policies have taken Texas further to the right in recent years than it has been in decades.
Elected officials and political observers in the state say a major factor in the transformation can be traced back to West Texas. Two billionaire oil and fracking magnates from the region, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, have quietly bankrolled some of Texas’ most far-right political candidates — helping reshape the state’s Republican Party in their worldview…
Critics, and even some former associates, say that Dunn and Wilks demand loyalty from the candidates they back, punishing even deeply conservative legislators who cross them by bankrolling primary challengers. Kel Seliger, a longtime Republican state senator from Amarillo who has clashed with the billionaires, said their influence has made Austin feel a little like Moscow.
“It is a Russian-style oligarchy, pure and simple,” Seliger said. “Really, really wealthy people who are willing to spend a lot of money to get policy made the way they want it — and they get it…”
Former associates of Dunn and Wilks who spoke to CNN said the billionaires are both especially focused on education issues, and their ultimate goal is to replace public education with private, Christian schooling. Wilks is a pastor at the church his father founded, and Dunn preaches at the church his family attends. In their sermons, they paint a picture of a nation under siege from liberal ideas…
Dunn and Wilks have been less successful in the 2022 primary elections than in past years: Almost all of the GOP legislative incumbents opposed by Defend Texas Liberty, a political action committee primarily funded by the duo, won their primaries this spring, and the group spent millions of dollars supporting a far-right opponent to Gov. Greg Abbott who lost by a wide margin.
But experts say the billionaires’ recent struggles are in part a symptom of their past success: Many of the candidates they’re challenging from the right, from Abbott down, have embraced more and more conservative positions, on issues from transgender rights to guns to voting.
“They dragged all the moderate candidates to the hard right in order to keep from losing,” said Bud Kennedy, a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper who’s covered 18 sessions of the Texas legislature…
People who’ve worked with Wilks and Dunn say they share an ultimate goal: replacing much of public education in Texas with private Christian schools. Now, educators and students are feeling the impact of that conservative ideology on the state’s school system.
Dorothy Burton, a former GOP activist and religious scholar, joined Farris Wilks on a 2015 Christian speaking tour organized by his brother-in-law and said she spoke at events he attended. She described the fracking magnate as “very quiet” but approachable: “You would look at him and you would never think that he was a billionaire,” she said.
But Burton said that after a year of hearing Wilks’ ideology on the speaking circuit, she became disillusioned by the single-mindedness of his conservatism.
“The goal is to tear up, tear down public education to nothing and rebuild it,” she said of Wilks. “And rebuild it the way God intended education to be.”
In sermons, Dunn and Wilks have advocated for religious influence in schooling. “When the Bible plainly teaches one thing and our culture teaches another, what do our children need to know what to do?” Wilks asks in one sermon from 2013.
Dunn, Wilks and the groups and politicians they both fund have been raising alarms about liberal ideas in the classroom, targeting teachers and school administrators they see as too progressive. The billionaires have especially focused on critical race theory, in what critics see as an attempt to use it as a scapegoat to break voters’ trust in public schooling.
In the summer of 2020, James Whitfield, the first Black principal of the mostly White Colleyville Heritage High School in the Dallas suburbs, penned a heartfelt, early-morning email in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, encouraging his school to “not grow weary in the battle against systemic racism.”
The backlash came months later. Stetson Clark, a former school board candidate whose campaign had been backed by a group that received its largest donations from Dunn and organizations he funded, accused Whitfield during a school board meeting last year of “encouraging all members of our community to become revolutionaries” and “encouraging the destruction and disruption of our district.” The board placed Whitfield on leave, and later voted not to renew his contract. He agreed to resign after coming to a settlement with the district. Clark did not respond to a request for comment.
Whitfield said he saw the rhetoric pushed by Dunn and Wilks as a major cause of his being pushed out.
“They want to disrupt and destroy public schools, because they would much rather have schools that are faith-based,” Whitfield said. “We know what has happened over the course of history in our country, and if we can’t teach that, then what do you want me to do?”
Meanwhile, the legislature has also been taking on the discussion of race in classrooms, passing a bill last year that bans schools from making teachers “discuss a widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs.” The legislation was designed to keep critical race theory out of the classroom, according to Abbott, who signed the bill into law.
Some of the co-authors and sponsors of the bill and previous versions of the legislation received significant funding from Dunn and Wilks.
The billionaires “want to destroy the public school system as we know it and, in its place, see more home-schooling and more private Christian schools,” said Deuell, the former senator.
By the power of their money, these two billionaires are reshaping public policy in Texas to make it as narrow-minded and bigoted as they are. Their reactionary vision will indoctrinate students and crush the freedom to teach and the freedom to learn.
If you live in Texas, vote for Beto O’Rourke for Governor, Mike Collier for Lt. Governor, and for legislators who support public schools.
bumigored world view ?
I believe that means “gored by a Bumi” (King of Omashu)
I looked this up, thinking I had found a new word. Instead, I found no definition. I hereby claim this word to mean bigoted in a particular and annoying way.
language always evolves with need: and in these days we NEED plenty of new words! 🙂
Agreed, Ciedie! Like Repugnican and SCROTUS
TFG adds his weight:
(It’s only 45 seconds if, like me, you cannot stand the sound of his voice.)
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5025062/user-clip-president-donald-trump-trashes-teachers-turning-point-action-conference
Turning Point spreads propaganda against public schools, for example, July 29, 2022 on Instagram, “Sexual abuse in public schools far exceeds anything the Catholic Church is accused of.”
Turning Point also spread the right wing Catholic Church’s attack on Biden (2021), “Wow: A Catholic Priest Drops a Truth Bomb on Joe Biden.” The posted video shows the Arizona priest wearing his priestly robes delivering the rant in his church. Data below the video shows 12 m. views. Another right wing fan described the occasion as, “Arizona Priest Torches Biden and his Voters.”
As nonprofit organizations, church’s are supposed to be forbidden by law from supporting (and opposing) individual candidates but they do it all the time.
There are about 400,000 Catholic priests worldwide.
Some estimates have put the percentage of priests who are pedophiles at about 7%, but even Francis has said the percentage is about 2%.
2% of 400k is 8,000 .
If each one if those priests has abused just 5 children, that would put the number at 40,000.
Surely , if there were 40,000 cases of sexual abuse in public schools, it would not be a secret.
The cockroaches who deny what happened in the Catholic Church should have been driven out long ago. That’s a big part of the reason the abuse has persisted for so long.
And some of the Pope’s have been among the cockroaches.
And 5 is probably a very low estimate for how many children that each pedophile priest has abused. Some of those who were investigated were found to have abused hundreds over several decades..
An independent investigation of likely abuse in just France, put the number of abuse cases at over 200k between 1950 and 2020
SDP: I know a guy who used to be a river guide on the Colorado somewhere out west where it is free flowing. About 25 years ago, he guided a bunch of priests down the river. This guy was no wilting flower with virgin ears. He was gobsmacked by the degree of vulgarity that emanated from this pack of priests.
Poet and Roy,
The Catholic church’s PR is sophisticated, wide reaching and effective. Today, in 2022, after stacking SCOTUS and after the Jan. 6 insurrection, the Church has got the cover “Christian”, a word commonly understood as protestant. As evidence of the difference understood by media and research, do an internet search of Catholic school students and then, Christian school students. The results are for two different populations.
The promo pop-up for Turning Points Student Action conference in Tampa, Jul 22-24, featured 4 headliners. Two were raised Catholic, a 3rd was Laura Ingraham who Pat Cipollone converted to Catholicism and the 4th was Don Jr.
“for example, July 29, 2022 on Instagram”
Been back to the future? 😉
Duane – Back to the past, June 29.
Turning Point started out as simply a support group for dumb college dudes who were upset about other people on campus giving them a hard time for dropping n-bombs and cat calling women. Even campus republicans, at the time, couldn’t give them the support they needed to not feel bad about their behavior.
Laura Ingraham has the most annoying nasally voice that I have ever heard.
I tried to listen to her on the rafio for about five seconds once and had to turn her off just because of the way she sounds.
I don’t know how he ever became an announcer with such an annoying voice.
And if course, the moronic stuff she says makes it even worse.
Trump’s voice sounds to me like someone scratching their nails I’m on a blackboard. Harsh, whiny, grating, self-pitying. Poor me!!
Christine, I want to listen but I can’t do it. Can’t listen to that whiny voice for even 5 seconds.
It’s okay. I gritted my teeth so you don’t have to.
Transcription:
“You would not trust these people to babysit your children for 20 minutes and why should we then let them educate millions of American students six hours a day year after year after year? Whatever it takes the conservative movement must liberate America’s children from the capitivty of these Marxist teachers unions because what they’re doing to our children and our country is incredible, incredible. This is an issue of national survival…”
On a chilling note, Sarah Kendzior, on her Gaslit Nation podcast of July 20th listed many people in the Trump circle who have died under odd circumstances. She notes that the mob doesn’t necessarily kill their enemies, but puts a hit on those close to them instead.
Sarah Kendzior (14:24):
And so I’m just gonna give some context about this situation. As you likely heard, “On July 14th, Ivana Trump was found dead at the bottom of a stairwell in her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Within 48 hours, a medical examiner claimed that the cause of death was blunt force injury to the torso.” And, you know, that might be true. We do not know how Ivana Trump died. We are journalists and podcasters. We are not coroners. So we don’t have any special information here. Ivana Trump’s death immediately created a tide of suspicion, particularly since Ivanka and Donald, Jr. were supposed to give a long-delayed testimony in court about Trump Organization fraud crimes. And as a result of the sudden death of Ivana, that testimony was delayed. And that kind of delay, you know, due to a death in the family, is standard practice in state court.
In 1993, Harry Hurt III published “Lost Tycoon, The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump”, which includes an account of Trump’s rape of Ivana, as reported in their divorce proceedings, which Ivana later tried to walk back. Kendzior goes on to quote Hurt:
Sarah Kendzior (26:46):
There are other examples in the book of Trump ordering people to kill for him. One of those involves Trump going through Manhattan with his longtime bodyguard and sometimes chauffeur, Matthew Calamari, who worked for the Trump organization. This is the same body of individuals who are under investigation now by New York state. I’m gonna read a little from here. It says, “‘You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you Matty?’ Donald called from the rear of the limousine. ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Trump,’ Calamari assured him. ‘Anything at all?’ ‘Yes, sir,Mr. Trump.’ ‘Would you kill for me, Matty?’ Donald pressed. ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Would you kill for me, Matty?’ Donald repeated as if he were a cheerleader inciting a crowd to riot. ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Trump.’ ‘Would you kill for me, Matty’ Donald said again, in an even louder voice.”
Sarah Kendzior (27:41):
‘Yes, sir, Mr. Trump.’ ‘See,’ Donald grinned, turning back towards Fitzsimmons, ‘Matty would kill for me.’” So there’s that. And then I was looking through this book after Ivana died because it’s one of the most comprehensive sources about their relationship and I noticed that passage and I was thinking, you know, I’ve seen Matthew Calamari’s name in the news recently, where did I see it? And so I looked it up and it turns out Matthew Calamari, Sr., the same person described in this 1993 excerpt that I just read from Lost Tycoon, is standing guard in front of Ivana Trump’s building right now, the building where she died, refusing to allow people in with his son, Matt Calamari, Jr. who is the director of surveillance at the Trump Organization and that they were allegedly there on the day that Ivana Trump died. So I’ll just leave it at that. It’s good to review history.
Click to access GaslitNation_20220720_Transcipt_Dirty-World-rev.pdf
Here’s a link to the podcast. Worth a listen.
https://www.gaslitnationpod.com/episodes-transcripts-20/2022/7/20/dirty-world
And then there is this:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/06/23/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit/
According to the victim’s lawyer, the victim chose to drop the case in response to death threats.
Breathtaking, Christine. And it is ever thus with Trump. Someone takes care of the dirty work for the Teflon Don.
Raw Story’s, 7-24-2022, “Inside the Close and Personal Relationships (of) Clarence and Ginni Thomas…key players in Jan. 6”, should be read as a companion piece to the post.
Yes. Speaking of corruption
This is unsurprising since billionaires have been inserting themselves in politics on both the federal and state levels for some time, and they are emboldened by the Citizens United ruling. The US has turned a blind eye to the problem. Nobody votes for billionaires, but they can toy with the lives of working Americans with impunity.
Texas allows unlimited campaign donations to candidates so Texas elections are opportunities for allowing billionaires to remake society by sending out their political pawns to do their bidding. Public schools are a symbol of cultural decline in the perspective of Dunn and Wilks so public schools are in their crosshairs, and destroying the common good is their target.
You make good points. Public Schools get the dislike of billionaires perhaps because they do not want people educated in views which oppose theirs. They wish to control others so they want schools to make their students followers of their billionaires creed. For them God is a convenience who will help them to imprison people’s minds.
It is a pity that politicians feel the need to depend on them.
Mothers AGAINST Greg Abbott is a PAC. They also have money and they spent it on a very powerful video directed straight at the heart of Texas. A Mother’s Love.
Their advocacy ranges from the rights of transgender children to gun control to how Black history is taught in Texas schools. All of which appeared in the recent video.
Available on YouTube. “Nothing Changes”
The ad opens with a woman pushing her child on a swing.
“They say nothing changes in Texas politics,” she said. “Until it does.”
Houston Chronicle
What a beautiful ad. Gregg Abbott and Dan Patrick are horrible bigoted men.
Agree.
Great ad! So many states have leaders that are out of sync with a lot of the public. Let’s hope enough people show up to vote to countermand all the billionaire money and gerrymandering.
One of the best political ads I’ve ever seen. The p.r. company that made it just ensured staying in business the next 10 years at least.
Yes. Great ad for the true MAGA —Mothers Against Greg Abbott
This is magnificent, Kathy! Thank you for sharing it!!!
Here’s another video from this PAC:
Thank you so much for sharing these. Absolutely brilliant. As horrible as the subject matter is, these are the most make me feel “better” about politics than I have in ages. We need to show these types of ads. Someone is getting the message.
At this blog there have been questions about the Epstein videotapes. The public may not know where the tapes are but, we know what they buy, “Ghislaine Mawell Transferred to Swanky Florida Federal Prison.”
Ghislaine doesn’t have the tapes. But she knows who the clients were. It wasn’t enough to buy her freedom. Just a nicer prison.
Garland selected the new director of federal prisons-starts Aug. 2. The judge wanted Maxwell in a facility that wasn’t like a country club.
But, the Bureau of Prisons makes the decision. So, did the old appointee or the new one oversee the transfer choice?
Barr appointed Director Carvajal.
It is at least possible that she made copies and has encrypted them somewhere on the web as what is called a “dead man’s switch” which automatically gets decrypted and disseminated should she “decide” to suicide herself.
That actually would make a lot of sense, since Maxwell was supposedly in charge of Epstein’s residences and she would therefore have had access to all the surveillance equipment that Epstein’s victims said existed.
What would not make sense is if Maxwell had NOT copied all the stuff in order to use later as a bargaining chip.
If Maxwell had outed any of her clients she would have signed her death certificate.
I’d guess she is hoping to spend a couple years at a Club Hilton prison and then get a suspended sentence and he released on good behavior.
She would/will be safe as long as people believe she has copies of the incriminating evidence.
Interestingly, even in the unlikely case that Maxwell has NOT made copies, there would be a big incentive to claim that she had.
In fact, that would work almost (if not precisely) as well as an insurance policy, since there is no way I’d being certain whether a dead man’s switch e jets or not.
The key thing in all of this is that other than Epstein’s coconspirator Jeanluc Brunel (who supplied Epstein with girls as young as age 12 and who supposedly killed himself like Epstein supposedly did), not s single man has been charged in the whole Epstein sex trafficking operation.
So, we are either supposed to just ignore claims of victims like Virginia Giuffree that they were “trafficked to many other men” or we are just supposed to accept that men taking advantage of Epstein’s “sexual service” (ie, raping young girls) is just fine and dandy.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t find either of those to be a “good” reason for the total lack of prosecution beyond Epstein’s inner circle.
Excellent points, Poet
Barr’s father gave Epstein his first major job, as an uncredentialed teacher in a fancy, expensive private school in New York.
Barr’s father and seven beers ago….
Four decades and seven years ago Barr’s father brought forth* on this continent, a truly monstrous pedophile conceived in decadence and dedicated to the proposition that underaged girls should be sex slaves for his personnel pleasure and also to obtain compromising information on wealthy and poweful men.
Perhaps unwittingly
Bright forth, perhaps unwittingly
The level of corruption involved in the Epstein matter is truly staggering.
Lovely, but wait: There is ideological real estate to the right of Greg Abbott? What in the hell?
Yup. That would be the place.
Hell in Texas
“They want to disrupt and destroy public schools, because they would much rather have schools that are faith-based,” Whitfield said. “
This is a charitable evaluation. These false bearers of false Christianity no more want faith-based education than they want a case of shingles. What they want is personal dominance over democratic process with guaranteed individual liberty. This is neither Christian nor desirable.
If they care so much about faith based schools for children, they should fund them, as they can well afford to do so. They don’t have to try to dismantle the public schools. Most parents, even many that are religious, prefer a public school for its comprehensive education, co-curricular activities, professional teachers and sense of community.
Exactly right. People who love religious schools should fund them. Don’t force the public to pay for them.
The Repugnicans know that the kids are against them. They need to dismantle public schools and substitute them with fundamentalist madrassas if they are going to survive.
I just had an idea that may put a stop to extremist billionaires using their wealth to subvert the United States into a dystopian nightmare for the rest of us.
Tax the money they use to subvert America two dollars for every dollar spent. If a billionaire spends one million dollars to lobby elected representatives to do his/her bidding to subvert the United States or runs ADs or funds other media sources to spread their BS to manipulate people, tax them two million dollars. Tax them until they are no longer wealthy and then tax them into a debtors prison for someone that was once rich, if they don’t stop.
Or the US government could just tax their total wealth directly.
I think ten percent a year might be good.
Luckily for them, the amount they paid each year in taxes would go down, so everybody would be happy.
Even if he lost 10% a year of his net wealth to taxes,, someone like Bill Gates would still be a billionaire after several decades
And Elon Musk would only lose $25 billion the first year, which is only about half of what he was going to throw away on Twitter, at any rate.
More then enough to live on.
The US government could become part owner in the companies owned by people like Musk, Gates and Bezos. That way, no money would even have to change hands go the IRS. Each year, a ten percent share of a billionaires holdings would simply be transferred to the US Treasury and once the Federal government became the major shareholder it could run the company.
The stocks could be sold as needed to finance federal expenditures like Social Security.
And critically, the money that the billionaires lost go taxes could not be used to undemocratically interfere with society as is occurring now. Of course, the billionaires would still have money to do so, but just less of it.
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” No longer a prediction. It’s here. Billionaires never admit they are wrong.
Ring a billionaire means never having to admit you are wrong — and never having to admit you raped young girls.
Being a billionaire
Two billionaires wrapped in flags and carrying crosses think with unsinkable confidence that they know the meaning of life and the origins of matter in the universe and life on Earth, and are whispering sweet nothings in Ted Cruz’s ears, one one each side. These two don’t even have to rape any minors like some Billyanaires we know; they rape the human habitat by drilling and fracking. And they know God put that oil there just for them 4,000 years ago. They know science classes in public schools are the devil. They are never wrong and they know everything. They are billionaires. And fascists. And preachers. Fascist Texan state oligarchs with churches. That’s a mouthful.
And they want the schools for their churches.
Conservative state senator, from the article:
“It is a Russian-style oligarchy, pure and simple,” Seliger said. “Really, really wealthy people who are willing to spend a lot of money to get policy made the way they want it – and they get it.”
BTW, the largest donor to that state senator, Ken Seliger, gave 4 percent of Rep. Seliger’s total contributions. So, he’s a conservative, but he’s also an honest guy.
Two billionaires converged in a yellow rosed wood,
And sorry I could not outspend both
And be one working man, long I stood,
And put down one as long as I could
On the point of his fascist overgrowth.
Was George Soros in the woods too?
You are an anti-Semite. Do not post here again.
Isn’t it Kel Seliger (not Ken)? BTW, thank you, Moms Against Greg… The fascists seem to love to hate the wrong folks: women, minorities, and now teachers.
I read about these two a few months ago and continue to follow info about their very disturbing distortion about our country and it scared the —- out of me. To know how many politicians ranting extreme fascist ideologies are financed by these men reminds me of how dangerous the expansion of this “ dark “ world is for democracy , liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Let’s not even mention how these men made their fortune and how tax payers have had to pay for the reclamation and clean up of the damage they made to the environment in so many states through their lucrative exploitation of resources , many times on PUBLIC land ( similar to what we are seeing in Brazil and Russia and other nightmare authoritarian systems. The common denominator is to suppress the masses and exploit the system for power and their own personal wealth. Not exactly what I would identify as Christian . Thank you for standing up and giving all of us a voice.
This article is a joke! The punch line… Beto for Beto! Hell no… That would be like Biden running Texas. The level of incompetence is comparable… One Alzheimer’s the other plain old stupidity. The idea of money backing candidates is being exploited as a bad thing? Let’s ask Beto about all the out of state donations from socialists like George Soros!
Abbott is a competent sadist. And an incompetent governor. Remenber how he complimented the state police for their outstanding work at Uvalde? Remember the power outage? We’re you affected or were you in Mexico? This is a blog that supports public schools and opposes vouchers and all forms of privatization. Abbott is all in for vouchers, giving tax dollars to religious groups. He’s an idiot.
Diane Ravitch, how are billionaires waging war against public schools?
Read Slaying Goliath.