Lavandera Exposes Texas Politics, Barkley Backs Saudi, Murdoch Turns on Trump | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room
MEDIA WINNER: Ed Lavandera
CNN senior national correspondent Ed Lavandera exposed how two Texas billionaires are propelling the state’s far-right political shift.
In a new CNN documentary special, Deep in the Pockets of Texas, Lavandera traced the money trail between a small group of Texas billionaires and the state’s far-right political shift.
Because of Texas’ campaign finance law, Texas billionaires, including Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, can underwrite staggering sums for their chosen candidates, sometimes providing a majority of their total contributions.
“They don’t have to win the election to have moved the needle in Texas,” Quorum Report editor Scott Braddock told Lavandera.
“Let’s say you’re a Republican representative in the Texas House and you get a well-funded challenger and that challenger is funded by some of these West Texas billionaires, and, therefore, you have a tough race — you’ll adopt some positions that you otherwise might not have adopted.”
“They force Republicans to the right, whether they win or lose,” Lavendera replied.
“That’s right,” Braddock agreed.
These billionaires have also donated heavily to races with more of a national impact. Wilks and his brother Dan Wilks provided about two-thirds of the funding for the Super PACs that backed Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) 2016 presidential campaign and Dunn backed a $1 million loan that helped secure a primary win for Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-TX), who spearheaded a lawsuit attempting to overturn the 2020 election and spoke at the Jan. 6, 2021 rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol.
Lavandera impressively uncovered how these families have been leveraging their wealth into enormous influence, ultimately disclosing that “a handful of billionaires” could do that in a state of 30 million people.
Correction: This section has been updated to reflect that Dunn backed the loan to Paxton and the Wilks brothers donated to the Cruz Super PACs.
MEDIA LOSER: Charles Barkley
Charles Barkley wants us to ignore Saudi Arabia’s abysmal human rights record.
After admitting that he might resign from TNT to join Saudi-backed LIV Golf, the NBA legend went after critics of the league, saying they should focus on “civil rights here in the United States.”
“Everybody picks and chooses. I just think it’s funny they’re more worried about civil rights in Saudi Arabia, a place 99.9 percent of people in the United States have never been and all of a sudden they’re worried about civil rights in Saudi Arabia,” he told sportscaster Dan Patrick on Sunday.
Perhaps Americans are “worried” considering U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Any concern regarding the Saudi’s violation of human rights, however, gives Barkley “a chuckle.”
“I say you don’t worry about civil rights of people here in the United States,” he said. “But all of a sudden when guys start taking money you’re like ‘I’m more worried about civil rights in Saudi Arabia.’ And that just makes me laugh.”
Apparently unable to grasp how one could be concerned or interested in multiple things at once, Barkley went on to advise that Americans worry about the U.S. “before we worry about what’s going on in Saudi Arabia.”
Barkley has also already admitted that his decision to potentially join the league is propelled by money he does not even need.
“Hey, I don’t need the money. I need to kinda — I need the kinda money they throwing around though,” Barkley told Gary McCord.
Barkley also joked that he would “kill a relative” for $150 million while on The Next Round.
And whether or not Barkley joins as a broadcaster, he is set to play in the LIV Tour Pro-Am event at Trump National in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Links We Like:
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is taking cues from Homer
– Adam Kirsch, Wall Street Journal
Is Mike Pence too late?
– Elaine Godfrey, The Atlantic
Lemire on the effects of Trump’s 2016 election lies
– Jonathan Lemire, Vanity Fair
Johnson on the unraveling of the American myth
– Theodore R. Johnson, Bulwark
Read the full Mediaite Green Room Newsletter here, including an update on two Rupert Murdoch-owned media outlets turning on Trump.
Comments
↓ Scroll down for comments ↓