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Christopher Tackett

12 Oct, 14 tweets, 6 min read

I need the #txed folks listening intently. If you are a public ed advocate, you need to realize where dollars attempting to privatize education are coming from and who is getting them. This election and this next session are going to be battles, and public education is a focus.

We will start with the American Federation for Children. AFC is a national advocacy organization promoting school choice, with a specific focus on advocating for school vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs.
federationforchildren.org/school-choice-…

American Federation for Children was founded by Betsy DeVos, who ran the org until 2016 when she became Secretary of Education. She handed off the reigns to William Oberndorf. AFC has created Texas Federation for Children and given money to the Charter Schools Now PAC.

Here are the contributors to the Texas Federation for Children PAC from 1/1/20 - 9/24/20.
- $830k William Oberndorf, who runs American Federation for Children
- $37.5k Tim Dunn (of Empower Texans)
- $18k AFC
- $5.5k Charter Schools Now
- $5k Karl Rove

7 total contributors

Here is a connection map of who Texas Federation for Children gave money to this year.

It's a whole bunch of pretty far right Republican legislators and candidates, the Charter Schools Now PAC, and Democrats Eddie Lucio Jr (SD27) and Anna Eastman (HD148).

Now let's shift focus to the Charter Schools Now PAC and their contributors from 1/1/20 - 9/24/20.
- $475k Alice Walton (Wal-Mart)
- $176k Educational Equity PAC (more on them later)
- $110k Richard Weekley (housing developer and Texans for Lawsuit Reform)

61 total contributors

Who is Charter Schools Now PAC giving to?
It's 7 of the same people the Texas Federation for Children was giving to, and then another swath of mostly Republican legislators and candidates (including Cason, Krause, Tinderholt, Goldman, & Cook), with a few Democrats folded in.

I mentioned the Educational Equity PAC giving to the Charter Schools Now PAC. Who is behind that PAC? It's just two people:
- John Arnold (American billionaire, former hedge fund manager, and former natural gas trader, runs Arnold Ventures)
- Reed Hastings (Netflix)

Alice Walton is the biggest donor to Charter Schools Now, but I went looking to see where else she contributed. Answer is Legacy 44, a PAC "inspired by the Obama legacy"

What does the donor chart to the Legacy 44 PAC look like?
- $225k Alice Walton
- $164.7k Educational Equity PAC

And no, Larkin Tackett is not related😉

14 total contributors

Who is the Legacy 44 PAC giving to?
Only Democrats. Anna Eastman, Liz Campos, Harold Dutton Jr, and on 9/24, $100k to the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee.

Why does this bother me? I'm seeing three different PACs, all targeting different groups (mostly far right Republicans, mostly middle right Republicans, Democrats) against public ed, and when you pull back the curtain, it's a bunch of billionaires pulling strings.
#txed #txlege

@jessicashortall

A big tip of the hat to @jessicashortall for prompting me down the rabbit hole.

https://twitter.com/jessicashortall/status/1313520313758560257?s=20

*reins
I wish Twitter had an edit feature. 😠

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I track State level campaign finance in Texas. Over the past three years, I've captured pretty much all of it, in every race (right from the TEC site). There is definitely something going on in 17 Texas House districts. #txlege

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Christopher Tackett

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Jon Francis and Ted Cruz had a get out the vote event today in Granbury. Purportedly 250-300 people at the event. Based on this picture, not any visible masks and not really any social distancing, all at an indoor event.

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.@covid19riskUSA pegs it at an 89% risk that gatherings of 100 people in Hood County will have at least one person in attendance who is COVID positive (and may not know it). Gathering of 500 is 99% risk. This event is in between. Constituents beware.🤔

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Ted Cruz were there, trying to help get Farris Wilks son-in-law Jon Francis elected to a Texas House seat.

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Christopher Tackett

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As we now see a plethora of politicians lining up to condemn what Empower Texans’ staff said, let us recall all of those pious candidates and politicians who have been more than happy to line up at the trough when the checkbook was open, buying loyalty and who knows what else.

The thing is, Empower Texans is no different now then they have been over the years. The language and behaviors exhibited on the recording, I guarantee it’s been that way behind the scenes the whole time.

They are nothing but Christian nationalists attempting to buy their way to the Government mountain, so they can legislate their way to dominion over several others. And condemning them now, when they got caught, doesn’t clear you from swimming in the muck with them.

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Christopher Tackett

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04/09 COVID-19 Trends

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2. Countries per 1M - Iceland sets the pace, testing 10% of their population, finding the most cases per 1M, on a 5.05% positive case rate. But with all those cases, their mortality rate is 17th, at 0.36%. Let's contrast with the United States.

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Christopher Tackett

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7 Mar

I've pulled all of the county by county Primary and General election results from 2000 - 2020 from the Texas Secretary of State and loaded them into my campaign finance tracking site (link in the comments below), and the thing that keeps nagging at me is 2008.

2008 is this aberration in the numbers. 2008 had 22.58% of registered voters vote in the Democratic primary. For context, the next highest total is the 12.81% turnout we had in 2020. I've had people tell me it was the enthusiasm for Barak Obama, "and look how that turned out".

The Democrats dominated turnout in the 2008 primary, garnering 67.8% of those voting, or 2.8 million people. But Obama didn't win the Primary in Texas. He lost to Clinton by 100k votes. Clinton won 226 counties, Obama just 25 (3 counties didn't have any votes for a Dem).

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Christopher Tackett

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28 Feb

@mentack

To make it very easy for people to find it, I’m going to tie in a whole series of videos @mentack and I have done on Christian nationalism / dominionism / 7 mountains, where you can hear the folks in their own words.

https://twitter.com/podblesstexas/status/1233440158348906499

We will start with the first video we did, with footage from Stonewater Church in Granbury, David Barton, Rafael Cruz, and Lance Wallnau

7 Mountains - An Overview