Epic Fail: Texas Dem Blasts Billionaire Donors While Cashing Billionaire's Checks

Sometimes I'm tempted to write to the folks at Merriam-Webster to have them add "hypocrite" as a synonym for "Democrat."

Case in point: Texas state representative James Talarico (D-Austin), who has made himself, well, notorious for raging against big political donors and billionaires pouring money into campaigns. He's been vocal about it, which really serves to make it all the more humorous to learn that he's been cashing checks from a billionaire - a billionaire Trump supporter, to boot.

It really is chuckle-inducing.

Talarico's single largest donation last year came from a PAC backed by casino mogul Miriam Adelson, the widow of longtime Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson. Records show Talarico received $59,000 from Adelson's Texas Sands PAC in 2024, making the group his largest donor for that year.
A representative for Talarico's office defended his accepting the funds, telling Politico that while he opposes big-donor cash influencing elections, "he will not unilaterally disarm and let Texas Republicans play by different rules.

I would advise Rep. Talarico to look up the meaning of "principles," because he's clearly not too familiar with the concept. If he thinks it's wrong to accept donations from billionaires, then it's wrong in any circumstance. And speaking of principles, and the lack thereof, it looks like that curious donation may have been as part of a pay-to-play deal.

Texas Sands PAC, the Texas-based political arm of the casino giant, has more than $9 million in cash on hand heading into the upcoming election season. That money comes almost entirely from Miriam Adelson, the billionaire owner of Las Vegas Sands and majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks.
In 2023, Talarico voted for a constitutional amendment that would have allowed Texans to vote on government-monopoly casino legalization.
The $59,000 contribution was the largest he received last year.

Well, isn't that interesting? It's an old story, of course; political graft probably goes back as far as that time when Groog promised tribal elder Ogg five nice flint spear-points in return for persuading the other tribal elders to give Groog a monopoly on the reindeer-skin trade. In this case, a billionaire casino donor just happened to drop five figures in cash into the coffers of a guy who then obediently voted for a pro-gambling measure.

I'm not faulting Miriam Adelson or the Texas Sands PAC, by the way. They are playing by the rules that politicians established long ago, and they have the right to support political candidates. No, it's the glaring hypocrisy of Representative Talarico that's on display here.

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Speaking on Joe Rogan's show, Rep. Talarico said:

"Basically every single Republican state senator in Texas has taken their money. Every single one. A majority of the Republicans in the State House have taken their money," he told Rogan, referring to oil-based billionaires in the state. "They increasingly run this whole government here in Texas."

So? Republicans aren't the ones railing against the influence billionaires have in politics - Rep. Talarico is. Yes, wealthy people have more influence than poor people. They also live in nicer houses, drive nicer cars, eat in fancier restaurants, and so on. This is a state of affairs that has existed forever, and if the history of campaign-finance laws has taught us anything, it is that no matter how many laws we pass, the donors and the pols who have their hands out will find a way to work around them.

No, it's the hypocrisy that rankles.

And, finally: