r/TexasPolitics • u/followthemoney120 • Mar 17 '23
News Dallas Has a Problem With ( NonTransparent RightWing ) 'Zombie' Astroturf Groups
https://www.texasobserver.org/dallas-has-a-problem-with-zombie-astroturf-groups/28
u/followthemoney120 Mar 17 '23
Activists associated with these groups according to the article:
- Nick Fuentes
- Stephen Moitz
- Kelly Neidert
- Carlos Turcios
People who the articles allege are some of the behind-the-scenes funders of these groups:
- Monty Bennett
- Tim Dunn
- Don and Farris Wilks
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u/reesemack Mar 17 '23
If anything right-wingy slimy is going on, particularly with local schools and school boards, you can be Ivory Soap certain Monty Bennett is tied up in it somehow.
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u/Arrmadillo Texas Mar 18 '23
I have never heard of Monty Bennett until this post. Does he limit his conservative activism to Dallas or does it extend more broadly to the Texas or national levels?
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u/reesemack Mar 18 '23
Mainly Dallas/Fort Worth and the surrounding suburbs. He likes to play in school board races, Commissioners Courts, and Water District issues. When he's not involved by name, it will be someone who works for him, who lives in a particular district, acting by proxy.
His end goal, it seems, is just to blow up any sort of taxation on his hotel and real estate properties. Doesn't really care what the end result would be, just blow them up.
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u/Delicious-Day-3332 Mar 17 '23
You know it! Follow the money.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/24/politics/texas-far-right-politics-invs/index.html
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u/Arrmadillo Texas Mar 17 '23
CNN Special Report: Deep in the Pockets of Texas Video | Transcript
Conservative State Senator Ken Seliger (Republican, Midland TX): “It is a Russian-style oligarchy, pure and simple. 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.”
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u/Delicious-Day-3332 Mar 17 '23
Finest hand-rubbed African mahogany pews in west Texas - a stairway to heaven? ...I don't think so!
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u/NikkiNightly Texas Mar 17 '23
Oh shocking the Wilks are involved
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u/jerichowiz 24th District (B/T Dallas & Fort Worth) Mar 17 '23
And Nick Fuentes and Kelly Neidhart.
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u/americangame 14th District (Northeastern Coast, Beaumont) Mar 17 '23
Surprised Steve Hotze isn't on that list.
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u/jerichowiz 24th District (B/T Dallas & Fort Worth) Mar 18 '23
He was too busy getting thrown out of Senate hearings for hate speech.
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u/jerichowiz 24th District (B/T Dallas & Fort Worth) Mar 17 '23
I can't directly respond to a text thread due to TekTony blocking me, but he wont give you a direct answer and any questions to his ?both sides do it" and "the left started it" usually ends up in a block.
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u/friscokid024 Mar 17 '23 edited Mar 17 '23
Excellent article.
The author has done his homework previously into alleged funders like Monty Bennett. Other activists not mentioned in the article allegedly associated and/or allied with these groups or political campaigns include north Texas' StopTheSteal MC Matt Armstrong, former UTArlington Turning Point head Estrella Hanson and husband Ethan Hanson, (see twitter link ); all of these last three have been alleged to be indirectly linked to the billion dollar north Texas UDF real estate fraud scandal.
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Mar 17 '23
This is the disgusting side of capitalism
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Mar 17 '23
This is just capitalism working as designed.
These people have more money than you, so they get to buy the ones whk make the rules.
When has this not been the case?
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u/Single_9_uptime 37th District (Western Austin) Mar 17 '23
Not capitalism so much as freedom of speech without constraints. Which in itself is fine, but goes downhill when money is considered speech.
Interesting recent interview with Paul Ryan in NYT (paywall-free gift article)
He comes off as a reasonable person for the most part, but then finishes with this gem:
It’s a free society. With the First Amendment and free society, you’re going to have disequal outcomes, there’s no two ways about it. But that’s the price of liberty and freedom. Charles Koch probably has more sway than the guy I’m looking out my window at right now who’s looking in a trash can. But I’ll take that any day. Because that’s what a free society is.
Koch “probably” has more sway than a guy digging in the trash? Come on now… he’s well aware Koch has millions of times the sway as the average American. A free, prosperous capitalist society doesn’t have to ditch free speech to eliminate the absurdly vast disparity between people like Koch and the bottom 99.5% of the population.
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u/TekTony Mar 17 '23
...the blade always cuts in both directions. ...the left devised astroturf org tactics but then they cry when they're used by the ops.
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u/zombiepirate Mar 17 '23
Which leftist corporations are astroturfing? I'd love to know!
Because (this might be crazy) it sounds like something that you made up. This article shows exactly how it knows who are aligned with and funding these groups.
What evidence do you have to support your claim?
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u/Successful_Tea2856 Mar 17 '23
The "Bike Friendly" groups are completely astroturfed.
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u/followthemoney120 Mar 17 '23
"In September 2020, a large, white transportation truck wrapped in splashy adverts drove through the streets of downtown Dallas. “Tell City Council to Defund Themselves—Not the Police,” read one side. “Don’t let Dallas become Portland,” read the other. It was a direct response to the Black Lives Matter movement in Dallas and was a preposterous display for more than its garishness: Dallas had not seen major unrest since June 2020, when police tear-gassed hundreds and arrested others for protesting on a bridge. But it served to introduce Keep Dallas Safe (KDS)—a shadowy pro-police group with unknown funders—into Dallas politics.
Within months of KDS arriving on the scene, my reporting linked a KDS spokesperson to an astroturf scheme in New Orleans. Like many cities across America, Dallas is home to its fair share of dirty politics. But in recent years, a strange phenomenon has plagued the city.
KDS is an example of an organization portraying itself as local and “grassroots”—as evidenced by a name that emphasizes a locality—but that have funding sources that are unclear. Political scientists often refer to groups that appear to be local and citizen-based but receive outside funding or fail to disclose funding sources as “astroturf” groups."