Bay Area Houston

Tilman Fertitta donates to both sides……sort of.

In a previous post I noticed billionaire Tilman Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets, had donated $40,000 in 2022 to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. $40,000 isn’t a lot of money compared to other one time donations Paxton has received including $200,000 from Dallas Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones, but it did catch my attention.

According to the Texas Ethics Commission Fertitta has donated over $5.2 Million to candidates/PACs in Texas since 2000. He has donated over $1.8 Million to Greg Abbott, $842,000 to Dan Patrick, $347,000 to Rick Perry, $165,000 to Ken Paxton, and $220,000 to Glen Hegar (Texas Comptroller), 145,000 to Speaker Phelan, for a total of $3,519,000 for these 5 Republicans.

But he does play both sides, sort of. Senator Alvarado received $48,000, Senator John Whitmire $195,000, Senator Zaffirini $12,500, Representative Wu $6500, Representative Walle $5000, Mayor Turner $11,800, and $116,000 to other various Democrats for a total of $394,800.

So, yes. Tilman Fertitta plays both sides.

He doesn’t have enough campaign cash to pay the $3.3 Million dollar settlement from the whistleblower lawsuit.

Over the last two years impeached Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton raised over $14 Million, spent about $12 million and has just over $2 Million remaining. He recently settled a whistleblower lawsuit against him for retaliation against four attorneys after they contacted the FBI over allegations of illegal activity.

Needless to say Paxton doesn’t have $3.3 million to pay his debt so he asked the Texas Legislature to pay it which started an internal investigation and ended in his impeachment. It’s almost funny. Almost.

$11.3 Million of his $14 Million haul came from individuals/PACs who donated more than $10,000, or about 80%. His largest donor is the extreme far right PAC created by the two billionaires featured on CNN, Defend Texas Liberty PAC for $1,300,000. Even Jerry Jones contributed to Paxton with a $200,000 donation as well as local billionaire Tillman Fertitta for $40,000. His top donors are listed below.

Paxton also has a debt in the form of loans to Defend Texas Liberty PAC for $750,000 and someone in California for $480,000. So he has enough in his campaign account to repay his loans but will not have enough to pay his lawsuit settlement.

It’s a stretch but it show the how much money there is in republican politics.

Impeached Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will be on trial in the Senate to determine his future as Attorney General. One of Paxton’s largest donors, Defend Texas Liberty, was also involved in the latest CCISD election. As reported CCISD candidate Pete Lauzon was funded by Defend Texas Liberty with a $5000 donation. He raised $278 from his district and gave himself a $2000 loan. The voters of CCISD voted against Lauzon by a wide margin.

Defend Texas Liberty also donated $5000 to CCISD candidate Glencora Rodgers but she returned it. (good for her!!)

Defend Texas Liberty also donated $12,000 to Galveston’s State Representative Terri Leo-Wilson. Wilson raised nearly 90% of her entire campaign donations from just 3 PACs and 2 individuals.

Over the last two years Defend Texas Liberty PAC has raised $5,701,482 from 20 donations from 11 individuals. 94% of all donations came from just 4 individuals. Dunn and Wilks are billionaires spreading their money to take over school boards. They have been featured in a CNN investigation. Since 2020 Defend Texas Liberty has donated $550,000 to Paxton and has loaned his campaign another $750,000.

Top Donors:

Now we know who she represents.

In 2022 Terri Leo-Wilson won her seat in Texas House District 23 serving the Galveston county area with a little help from her out of district friends.

According to the Texas Ethics Commission 90% of her fundraising came from PACs and 2 individuals. She raised $790,665 not including the $204,000 loan from her husband. $690,166 of this total, or 87%, was from 5 individuals/PACs, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, Senator Money Mayes Middleton, Representative Little Baby Briscoe Cain, Texas right to life, and Defend Texas Liberty. Another $21,847 came from various PACs making a combined total of $712,013 or 90% of her total fundraising.

Defend Texas Liberty PAC attempted to interfere in the CCISD elections but lost.

The five individuals/PAC that made up 87% of her total donations are:

So…..who’s her daddy or daddies?

WARNING: THE REPORT ISSUED BY THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL INVESTIGATING IS GRAPHIC.

Prior to voting to expel State Representative Bryan Slaton, the Committee of General Investigating issued a report on their investigation into allegations against Slaton which included providing alcohol to a minor, having sex with a staff member, and threats. The report is just 16 pages long and is chock full of gross details.

Slaton is accused of providing alcohol to a number of under aged staff members including a 19 year old identified as “Sophie” (not her real name). Slaton is a holier than thou, twice married, former pastor who has led the republican efforts against the gay community. Sophie is probably also a right wing holy Christian who porked a married man 26 years older than she is. From the report:

Sophie A. told Emily J. that she and Slaton had sex in various places throughout his apartment and that it “went on the entire night.” Sophie A. told Emily J. that it felt weird to have sex with him [Slaton] with pictures of his wife in the apartment. 

Yep. That is so very Christian of both of them. But it gets worse. Here is another snippet:

Emily J. recalled her conversation with Sophie A. on the morning of April 1. Emily J. asked Sophie A. “did you have sex with him [Slaton]?” and Sophie A. replied “yes.” Sophie A. told Emily J. that she had lost her virginity and that she bled a great deal as a result. Sophie A. told Emily J. that “they” had to change the sheets the next morning because of the blood. Sophie A. had bloody underwear with her that she attributed to her loss of virginity. Sophie A. told Emily J. that she was keeping the underwear as a memento from the night. Emily J. saw bloody underwear on Sophie A.’s bedside table.

I warned you this report was graphic. Now this isn’t graphic but it is disturbing. Republicans think they are above the law.

Other than Sophie A., all employees of Slaton are male. All five men employed by Slaton were represented by the same attorney, Connor Ellington. Ellington is employed by the Law Office of Tony MacDonald. Upon the advice of Ellington, all five men employed by Slaton refused to meet with the independent investigator for an interview, even after being informed that a person must cooperate with an investigation in accordance with the Committee Rules.

You can read the entire report here. I hope the Committee has referred Slaton to the District Attorney. What he did was gross, illegal, and representative of the current Republican Party.

You have to be an idiot to vote against impeachment after reading the 158 page transcript of the hearing on Ken Paxton. (BTW I have read it)

Only 23 Republicans voted against impeachment of Ken Paxton. 121 House members voted in favor even Little Baby Briscoe Cain of Deer Park voted in favor. Dennis Paul was in the minority joining Representative Leo-Wilson of Galveston which leads me to believe Senator Money Mayes Middleton will be voting against removing Paxton from office.

Paul claims in a statement, below, that the process was rushed which, if you read the transcript of the hearing of the Committee of General Investigating, is total bullshit. Paul is just repeating the talking points of the extreme far ignorant which included Democrat Harold Dutton. Impeachment in the House does not remove Paxton from office, but just last month after a two week investigation by the Committee, Paul voted to actually remove a member of the House, Representative Bryan Slaton for allegedly having sex with an intern among other things. That 16 page transcript is also posted.

Paul didn’t’t whine about that process, or rushing to remove him after Slaton was voted in by his Khristian Konservative Konstituents but he did whine about Paxton. He claimed he had read the 158 page report. I bet he didn’t. He claimed that his Khristian Konservative Konstituents wanted him to not impeach. I bet that isn’t true. As I said you have to be an idiot not to impeach after reading that transcript. Don’t believe me? Take a hour to read it.

The transcript of the hearing by the Committee is riveting. After reading 25 pages I would have voted to impeach and remove Paxton. It is just that bad. The transcript is the testimony of four, highly qualified, dedicated, non-partisan, (even though they are republicans) investigators giving a report to the Committee on what they found about Paxton. This included the evidence of bribery, securities fraud, misuse of the office, and 17 other claims which could get Paxton from 2-99 years in jail. It’s bad. It is very bad. If he was a Democrat he would have been impeached and removed in a heartbeat by a unanimous vote.

There are so many “OMG” moments in this transcript I would have to cut and paste the entire transcript, but let me just post a few lines:

VICE CHAIRMAN JOHNSON:··So is it fair to say the OAG’s office was effectively hijacked for an investigation by Nate Paul through the Attorney General Ken Paxton?
MS. EPLEY:··That would be my opinion

CHAIRMAN MURR:··So just — I want to summarize really succinctly.··And I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, but what your investigation of allegations by whistleblowers tells us is that the Attorney General himself chose to hire an attorney with five years experience based on the recommendation of Nate Paul’s attorney, give that attorney some job title that doesn’t even exist with Office of the Attorney General, and somehow give him the authority to issue 39 subpoenas to go after business interests for an individual and law enforcement that is conducting an investigation on that individual.
MR. DONNELLY:··That’s correct.

The entire transcript of the hearing can be found on the Committee of General Investigating website as well as the transcript concerning the ousted Bryan Slaton. Dennis Paul is either a liar, scared of a primary challenge, or just plain stupid.

Michael Smith of the Galveston Daily News had a great editorial concerning outside PAC money infiltrating local elections. He wrote an interesting tidbit that caught my attention:

Political operative Joseph Lowry, who has run toxic campaigns against elected officials in La Marque, paid for a billboard urging voters to reject Skipworth.

Lowry, of course, has been supported by the Galveston County Connects political action committee, which has a habit of suggesting elected officials are criminals, but won’t follow the state’s campaign finance laws itself.

So I thought I would look up GCC’s financial reports and it is interesting. GCC was created in early 2021 with Sarah Dougherty of La Marque appointed as Treasurer. They have an address in Austin. Initially they started with a couple of small donations totaling over $800 from Joseph Lowery, Vice CEO of Six Brothers Concrete Pumping in La Marque. Sarah Dougherty is an assistant at this company.

In 2022 they raised $10,725 from two big donations of $5000 each, MSW Investments Group and Robert Michetich of La Marque. The treasurer listed MSW Investments Group with an address in Winnie Texas. I couldn’t find a MSW Investments Group with a Winnie Tx address. There are a number of MSW Investments listed with one being listed in Stowell, Texas just a mile from Winnie Texas. This organization has a registering agent of Matt Wooten of Dickinson at 7011 S South Oak Avenue. According to OpenCorporates.com MSW Investments Group is an inactive organization.

Robert Michetich is a former La Marque City Council Member.

Senator Jane Nelson was appointed by Greg Abbott to the Secretary of State responsible for elections in the State. In a recent bill, if passed, she will be able to overturn an election in Harris County if she believes (even with no evidence) there is fraud. She has a bit of baggage to discuss.

Stay with me on this. It’s good. I promise.

Prior to 2009 there was an issue of using campaign donations to buy a condo or house, then selling it and keeping the profits. At the time Senator Nelson had been paying $2000 a month to an entity called “Twin Star” for a “lease”. At the time I actually thought Twin Star was a plane company and she was renting a plane to travel from Dallas to Austin on official business. But…

On her campaign finance reports she reported the address of the company called “Twin Star” as PO Box 603 Lewisville, TX 75067 which caught my attention. I began to research and could not find a company called Twin Star. After a search of the PO Box I came across a document filed with the Environment Protection Agency with the PO Box associated with Mayday Manufacturing, making aerospace parts.

Mayday Manufacturing is located in Denton, Texas. Mayday was owned by James Nelson, her husband.

I believe there was enough evidence that showed Senator Nelson was paying her husband from $1500-$2000/month for a lease on a condo/house that he bought, so I filed a complaint with the Texas Ethics Commission alleging that over $160,000 of her campaign money was used to indirectly purchase real property againts the rules of the Ethics Commission. First she was paying her husband for services. TEC does not allow you to spend your campaign money on services from your immediate family. And you cannot convert campaign donations to personal use such as buying a condo.

The TEC accepted the complaint, investigated it for almost two years. It was eventually settled, but, the results of the investigation was kept secret. Why? I don’t know and they have refused to say. We will never know. We will never know who Twin Star is/was or who she actually paid the money to, or what services were actually purchases.

Payments to Twin Star stopped in Febuary of 2007 after 7 years of payments totally $163,500.

Good huh?