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Texas Megachurch Pastor Who Advised Trump Indicted For Child Sex Crimes

Texas Megachurch Pastor Who Advised Trump Indicted For Child Sex Crimes

By Robert Downen

Robert Morris, the Dallas-area megachurch pastor who resigned last year amid sexual abuse allegations, has been indicted in Oklahoma for child sex crimes that date back to the 1980s.

Morris is a former spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump, and Gateway — one of the nation’s largest megachurches — has been particularly active in politics. In 2020, Trump held a “Roundtable on Transition to Greatness” there that was attended by then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr and other prominent Republicans.

Morris faces five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said in a Wednesday evening press release.

The indictment comes less than a year after Morris resigned from Gateway Church in Southlake after an adult woman, Cindy Clemishire, said Morris repeatedly sexually assaulted her while she was a child in Oklahoma in the 1980s. Morris was at the time working as a traveling preacher.

In a Wednesday text message, Clemshire said through an attorney that she was grateful for the indictments.

“After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me as a child,” she said. “Now, it is time for the legal system to hold him accountable. My family and I are deeply grateful to the authorities who have worked tirelessly to make this day possible and remain hopeful that justice will ultimately prevail.”

Clemshire’s disclosures last summer set off a political maelstrom in Texas and nationally, and prompted prominent Republicans to call for Morris to resign. Among those who said he should step down was Rep. Nate Schatzline, a Fort Worth Republican.

Schatzline is a pastor at Mercy Culture Church, a Tarrant County congregation that was founded with financial support from Gateway. Since then, Mercy Culture has become an epicenter of fundamentalist Christian movements and a staple of that Tarrant County GOP, often hosting political events and figures.

Gateway has been similarly active in local politics: Ahead of contentious local school board elections in 2021, the church was accused of violating federal rules on political activity by churches after it displayed the names of candidates, including some church members, who were running for office.

Morris denied the allegations at the time, saying that the church was not endorsing candidates but thought the church’s roughly 71,000 members would “want to know if someone in the family and this family of churches is running.”


This article originally appeared inThe Texas Tribune, a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

GOP Lobbyists Fret Over Possible Obstacles To Trump Tax Cut

GOP Lobbyists Fret Over Possible Obstacles To Trump Tax Cut

President-elect Donald Trump has signaled he plans to focus the first months of his administration on passing border security legislation, which means another main goal — extending his 2017 tax cut package — will have to take a back seat.

This means that the estimated $4.6 trillion cost of extending the tax cuts (which primarily benefit the richest Americans) could cause potential chaos among House and Senate Republicans in the 119th Congress. Adding that much to the federal deficit is likely to ruffle the feathers of House Freedom Caucus members like Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who has indicated that he wouldn't vote for any new federal spending without offsetting budget cuts.

And as Politico reports, even Republicans are likely to be exhausted after a lengthy months-long battle over the immigration system and may not have the stomach for back-to-back legislative slugfests. One unnamed Republican lobbyist told the outlet that the timing of the tax cut negotiations could risk torpedoing them altogether.

"Can you immediately turn around and do another bill and break even more arms?" The lobbyist asked.

Republicans' majorities in both the House and Senate are razor-thin, which means that both the border and the tax cut bills could run into a wall when individual members have bones to pick with the finer points of the legislation. Politico's Brian Faler observed that Senate Majority Leader John Thune's (R-SD) three-seat majority and House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) potential one-seat majority — assuming Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Mike Waltz (R-FL.) join the Trump administration — give members a lot more "leverage" to insist on "their own pet provisions."

"Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) recently proposed a big, pricey increase in the child credit, to a maximum $5,000, from the current $2,000, per kid," Faler wrote. "Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL), meanwhile, just rolled out a plan seconding Trump’s bid to cut income taxes on Americans living abroad."

The 2017 tax cuts are due to expire at the end of 2025, meaning Republicans may have less time than they would like to get an extension to Trump's desk. Republicans have already proposed several controversial pay-fors to offset the $4.6 trillion extension, including the repeal of President Joe Biden's popular student debt relief programs. If the extension is signed into law, Americans making $450,000 and up would see their incomes increase by 3.2 percent, while the richest one percent — who make $1 million a year or more – would get an average tax cut of nearly $70,000.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Elon Musk

Trump Fanboy Musk 'Finds Out' With Tesla 2024 Sales Slump

Tesla reported on Thursday that 2024 saw the Austin, Texas-based car company’s first annual decline in sales in at least 12 years. The decline coincided with the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, endorsing and funding Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and becoming a major player within the Republican Party.

Tesla said that in 2024 it delivered 1.79 million cars, which was 1.1 percent below the 1.81 million cars the company sold in 2023. Back in 2022, Tesla confidently predicted that the company would grow 50 percent each year for the next few years. That didn’t happen as Musk went full MAGA.

Before 2024, Musk had shown some signs of conservatism. But his extremism ramped up considerably as the presidential election ramped up and he attacked the so-called “woke mind virus,” blaming leftist ideas for his child’s gender transition.

Following his purchase of Twitter and rebranding the social media platform as “X,” Musk reinstated Trump’s account, which had been deactivated by the previous management after the sore loser used it to instigate the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Musk also reactivated the account of right-wing conspiracy theorist and Trump megafan Alex Jones.

In October, Musk made his partisanship official by endorsing Trump and appearing with him at a rally in Pennsylvania.

“President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution. He must win to preserve democracy in America,” Musk said, after wildly jumping around on stage.

Musk bankrolled a super PAC supporting Trump’s campaign and spent at least $250 million to help his Republican ally win the election—in addition to allowing pro-Trump election misinformation to circulate widely on his social media network.

Following his election win, Trump named Musk as co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency, which is not a government agency but an outside watchdog group pushing to cut government spending by $2 trillion.

Even as Musk was openly embracing the Republican Party and its conservative agenda, polling showed Democrats—who have traditionally supported clean energy products like Tesla’s electric cars—turning away from the company. An analysis from the firm CivicScience released in July found that Tesla’s favorability dropped to 16% among Democrats, when it had been at 39% in January 2024.

“He completely alienated most of his buying base,” investor Mark Spiegel told Yahoo! Finance when the survey was released.

After Trump won, many X users—including journalists, who have been the lifeblood of the site—began leaving the platform in droves.

Trump has already hinted at making policy moves friendly to Musk, with his transition team announcing that he favors adopting a recommendation that would scrap federal crash-reporting requirements for self-driving cars (from companies like Tesla). But the fledgling bromance has not been smooth.

There have been grumblings from Trump allies that Musk is overstepping his role and acting as a co-president with Trump. The South African immigrant was also recently embroiled in a very public fight with anti-immigrant Trump supporters over his position in favor of H-1B visas for tech workers.

Musk’s chosen candidate will soon be president and the multibillionaire clearly has Trump’s ear. But Tesla’s growing problems—and emerging fractures within the MAGA coalition—could be an early warning sign for the richest man in the world.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Texas Governor Sends 'Condolences' To Rosalynn Carter (Who Died In 2023)

Texas Governor Sends 'Condolences' To Rosalynn Carter (Who Died In 2023)

On Sunday, December 29, former President Jimmy Carter passed away at 100.

Carter was a widower. His wife, former First Lady Rosalynn Smith Carter, died on November 19, 2023.

But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott responded to the former president's death by giving Mrs. Carter his condolences.

According to the Daily Beast's Grace Harrington, "The Republican governor released a statement Sunday saying he and his wife 'send our prayers and deepest condolences to First Lady Rosalynn Carter and the entire Carter family.' Abbott also lauded Carter for his 'selfless service to the American people.'"

Abbott, Harrington notes, was "neglecting to take into account that she died last year."

Two hours later, Harrington reports, Abbott "amended the statement on X to remove any mention of the former first lady."

Both of the Carters lived long lives. Although Rosalynn Smith Carter didn't live quite as long as the former president, she was 96 when she passed away.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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