The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
{{ site.specific_data.Twitter }}
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.

Texas May Become Center Stage For Trump's Mass Deportation Drama

Texas May Become Center Stage For Trump's Mass Deportation Drama

For more than a year, Donald Trump has pledged a vast immigration crackdown that includes ending birthright citizenship, reviving border policies from his first time in office, and deporting millions of people through raids and detainment camps.

Perhaps no state is in a better position to help him than Texas. And no state might feel the impacts of such initiatives as much as Texas.

About 11 percent of immigrants in the United States—five million—live in Texas. The state is home to an estimated 1.6 million undocumented persons—the second-most in the country after California. It is also led by Republican elected officials who are politically in lockstep with Trump.

When Trump left office in 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott surged resources to the state’s 1,254-mile border with Mexico through a border security mission, Operation Lone Star, that has so far cost $11 billion in state money. It includes the deployment of thousands of Department of Public Safety troopers and Texas National Guard troops to patrol the border. He started building a state-funded border wall after Biden ended Trump’s wall project. He sent busloads of newly-arrived migrants from border towns to northern cities led by Democrats.

Those state police and Texas soldiers could help Trump achieve his marquee campaign promise of launching mass deportations, according to immigration lawyers.

“We are in uncharted territory,” said Cesar Espinosa, the executive director of FIEL, an organization that offers education, social and legal services to immigrant families in the Houston region—home to about half a million people who are living in the country illegally.

FIEL—a Spanish acronym for Familias Inmigrantes y Estudiantes en la Lucha, which translates to Immigrant Families and Students in the Fight—tells their clients to prepare for “anything that can happen,” Espinosa said.

“We tell people that this is kind of like having a plan for a fire: You don't know if a fire is gonna happen, you can't predict when a fire’s happening, but you have a plan on how to exit,”Espinosa said.

On the campaign trail, Trump has called for a variety of measures that would significantly change immigration, asylum, and the lives of immigrants.

He’s said he will try to end automatic citizenship for children born to immigrants in the country. He’s suggested he would revoke legal status protections that the Biden administration has given to people from specific countries, like Haiti and Venezuela. He’s said he would re-implement policies from his first term, like ones that banned people from Muslim-majority countries and required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for the duration of their asylum cases.

But no proposal has received as much attention—or support from his fans—as Trump’s pitch to deport as many as 20 million people he’s said are undocumented. It is unclear how many undocumented people are in the country.

The last time the U.S. government undertook such a massive effort was in the 1950s during the Eisenhower administration, whose plan of pairing federal authorities with local police Trump has pointed to as a model for his ambitions.

“When there are state-level law enforcement officers and policymakers who support those initiatives, we might see an immigration enforcement authority that is far larger than Immigration and Customs Enforcement alone,” said Elora Mukherjee, director of Columbia Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic.

Texas, having deployed police and military for immigration enforcement on its own accord, fits the bill better than any state. While the Biden administration tried checking Texas’ authority—most notably suing to stop a new law that would let state police arrest suspected undocumented persons for illegal entry into the country—Trump has signaled he is eager to work with the state.

“When I’m president, instead of trying to send Texas a restraining order, I will send them reinforcements,” Trump told a crowd in Las Vegas in January. “Instead of fighting border states, I will use every resource tool and authority of the U.S. president to defend the United States of America from this horrible invasion that is taking place right now.”

Immigration lawyers say for Trump to accomplish his deportation promises, he could also rely on existing law enforcement agreements between federal and local authorities while expanding the use of “expedited removal,” a fast-track removal process that does not involve a person having to go before an immigration court.

Plus, he’s inheriting a ramping up of the nation’s deportation system that happened in the final year of Biden’s administration, said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

From May 2023 through March 2024 alone, the Biden administration processed more migrants through expedited removal—316,000—than in any prior full fiscal year, according to a paper Bush-Joseph co-authored. The administration is on track to deport more people than Trump’s administration did in its first four years.

“My guess—I think it's a rational guess—is that there is going to be a lot of cooperation and synthesis between the state of Texas and the federal government,” said Joshua Treviño of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank in Austin. “I don't think that Texas is gonna say, ‘Okay, it's done. I'm gonna wrap up Operation Lone Star.”

Abbott’s office did not respond to an interview request. He’s previously said the state will continue its border clampdown until there is a president in the White House who enforces immigration law. He’s also said the state won't stop its efforts until it has control of the border.

“The people who are in charge of bringing people across the border illegally are the drug cartels. The drug cartels haven’t closed out business, they haven’t gone away,” Abbott said in May in Eagle Pass. “We cannot relent in our security of the border.”

On Wednesday, Abbott told reporters that Trump will need time to bolster federal immigration enforcement and implement his border reforms, during which Texas must serve as a “stopgap.” He added that Texas “will have the opportunity to consider” repurposing Operation Lone Star money once Trump’s policies are in place.

Trump’s promised policies have the potential to upend the lives of millions in the state—as well as some big industries that rely on immigrant and migrant labor.

Immigrants account for roughly 18 percent of Texas’ population, but make up 40 percent of all employees in construction and a significant portion of workers in the oil and gas and mining industries, according to research papers published in September by the American Immigration Council, a Washington, D.C., group that advocates for immigrants.

“The impact that it could have on Texas could be monumental,” said Espinosa, of FIEL in Houston. “This could devastate a lot of industries here in Texas.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Federal Appeals Court Rules Emergency Rooms Need Not Perform Lifesaving Abortions

Federal Appeals Court Rules Emergency Rooms Need Not Perform Lifesaving Abortions

By Eleanor Klibanoff

Federal regulations do not require emergency rooms to perform life-saving abortions if it would run afoul of state law, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

After the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sent hospitals guidance, reminding them of their obligation to offer stabilizing care, including medically necessary abortions, under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).

“When a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life of the pregnant person — or draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s emergency medical condition definition — that state law is preempted,” the guidance said.

Texas sued, saying this was tantamount to a “nationwide mandate that every hospital and emergency-room physician perform abortions.” Several anti-abortion medical associations joined the lawsuit as well.

Since summer 2022, all abortions have been banned in Texas, except to save the life of the pregnant patient. But doctors, and their patients with medically complex pregnancies, have struggled with implementing the medical exception, reportedly delaying or denying abortion care rather than risk up to life in prison and the loss of their license.

At a hearing in November, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice said that while Texas law might not prohibit medically necessary abortions, the guidance was intended “to ensure that the care is offered when it is required under the statute.”

“Individuals [are] presenting to emergency rooms, suffering from these emergency medical conditions,” McKaye Neumeister said. “Right now, HHS can’t ensure that the hospitals are following their obligations in offering the care that’s required.”

In August 2022, a federal district judge in Lubbock agreed with Texas, saying this guidance amounted to a new interpretation of EMTALA and granting a temporary injunction that was later extended. The Fifth Circuit heard arguments in November, and the judges seemed prepared to uphold the injunction.

Judge Leslie Southwick said there were several “extraordinary things, it seems to me, about this guidance,” and said it seemed HHS was trying to use EMTALA to expand abortion access in Texas to include “broader categories of things, mental health or whatever else HHS would say an abortion is required for.”

Tuesday’s ruling, authored by Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt, said the court “decline[d] to expand the scope of EMTALA.”

“We agree with the district court that EMTALA does not provide an unqualified right for the pregnant mother to abort her child,” Englehardt wrote. “EMTALA does not mandate medical treatments, let alone abortion care, nor does it preempt Texas law.”

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.


Paul Pressler

Southern Baptists Settle Sex Abuse Case Against Far-Right Former Leader

By Robert Downen

The Southern Baptist Convention and others have reached a confidential settlement in a high-profile lawsuit that accused a former leader of sexual assault, ending a six-year legal drama that helped prompt a broader reckoning over child sexual abuse in evangelical churches, expanded victims’ rights in Texas and showed that a prominent conservative activist and Texas House candidate repeatedly downplayed abuse allegations.

In 2017, Duane Rollins filed the lawsuit accusing Paul Pressler, a longtime Southern Baptist figure and former Texas judge, of decades of rape beginning when Rollins was a 14-year-old member of Pressler’s church youth group in Houston.

Rollins claimed in court documents that the alleged attacks pushed him into drug and alcohol addictions that kept him in prison throughout much of his adult life. After disclosing the alleged rapes to a prison psychiatrist, Rollins filed the suit in Harris County against Pressler along with other defendants who he accused of enabling or concealing Pressler’s behavior — including the Southern Baptist Convention and Jared Woodfill, the former chair of the Harris County GOP and Pressler’s longtime law partner.

Rollins’ claims were a key impetus for “Abuse of Faith,” a 2019 investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News into sexual abuse in the SBC, the nation’s second-largest faith group. The series led to major reforms in the SBC, revelations that top leaders had routinely ignored or downplayed warnings about a sexual abuse crisis, and an ongoing Department of Justice investigation.

As part of Rollins' suit, at least seven other men came forward with their own allegations of sexual misconduct by Pressler in incidents spanning four decades. The suit also showed that Woodfill, a prominent anti-LGBTQ+ activist, was aware of allegations that Pressler was a sexual predator but continued to provide him with young, male personal assistants who worked out of Pressler’s River Oaks home. Three of the men have alleged sexual abuse or misconduct.

Woodfill is currently running for a Texas House seat against incumbent Rep. Lacey Hull, R-Houston, and has been endorsed by Attorney General Ken Paxton and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.

Pressler, 93, is one of the most influential evangelical figures of the last half-century, and is considered the co-architect of the SBC’s “conservative resurgence” that began in the late 1970s and prompted the faith group to adopt literal interpretations of the Bible, align more closely with the Republican Party, ban women from preaching and strongly condemn homosexuality.

Pressler — who formerly represented Houston in the Texas House and served for 14 years as a state appeals court judge — is also an influential figure in GOP politics. His endorsement has for years been sought by conservative evangelical politicians, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). In 1989, Pressler was nominated to lead the Office of Government Ethics under President George H.W. Bush, though the bid was later withdrawn; and Pressler is a founding member of Council for National Policy, a secretive network of conservative judges, politicians, media figures, megadonors and wealthy business owners that is currently led by Tony Perkins, head of the anti-LGBTQ+ Family Research Council.

Pressler denies the allegations and has not been criminally charged for any of the alleged abuses. An attorney for Pressler did not respond to a request for comment about the settlement, which is not public.

In a statement, legal representatives for the Southern Baptist Convention and its executive committee confirmed that they had “entered into a confidential settlement agreement” despite being “fully prepared” to proceed to a trial that was scheduled for February after being postponed twice this year.

“However, several factors ultimately made settlement the more prudent choice,” they wrote. “Chief among those factors was the horrendous nature of the abuse allegations, the likelihood that counsel for the SBC and Executive Committee would have to confront and cross-examine abuse survivors, the Executive Committee’s current financial condition, and the willingness of multiple insurance carriers to contribute to the terms of the settlement.”

Michael Goldberg, who represented Rollins along with a team of lawyers from Baker Botts, said Friday that they had resolved the matter with Pressler on "mutually satisfactory terms," and added that his team was "very proud of the settlement we reached against the Southern Baptist Convention and Jared Woodfill."

Woodfill has denied wrongdoing and said this week that he has not settled the case, though a Harris County judge signed off on a motion last week that said “all claims, counterclaims and controversies” in the suit were resolved.

"We are fighting the insurance company and oppose any payment,” Woodfill said in a text message on Thursday.

A pattern

The settlement almost never happened.

By the time that Rollins disclosed the alleged abuses to a prison psychiatrist in 2016 and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a “direct result of the childhood sexual trauma he suffered,” the statute of limitations for filing a lawsuit against Pressler had long passed.

Nevertheless, Rollins pushed forward with the suit, arguing that the alleged rapes by Pressler — a spiritual mentor who Rollins said weaponized religious language to justify his predations — were so traumatizing that he unconsciously developed a sort of Stockholm syndrome that, coupled with the drug and alcohol addictions he blamed on the trauma, made it impossible to recognize himself as a victim until decades had passed.

Thus, Rollins argued, his statute of limitations should have begun when he realized he had been abused, rather than when the last assault occurred. His lawsuit was initially dismissed on statute grounds. But Rollins appealed and, eventually, had the dismissal overturned by the Texas Supreme Court, which agreed with Rollins’ arguments. The court’s opinion was a major victory for sexual abuse victims and their advocates, who have for years pointed to research that shows child sexual trauma can remap developing brains and make it difficult for many survivors to come forward until after their 50th birthday, and after their standing to file lawsuits has elapsed.

Rollins’ lawsuit also uncovered a 40-year pattern of alleged abuses by Pressler. As part of the suit, a former member of Pressler’s youth group said in a sworn affidavit that Pressler molested him in 1977 while the two were in a sauna at the country club in Houston’s tony River Oaks neighborhood. The man was entering his sophomore year in college at the time; Pressler, meanwhile, was a youth pastor at a Presbyterian church in Houston. He was ousted from that position in 1978 after church officials received information about “an alleged incident,” according to a letter introduced into the court file. Soon after, Pressler ramped up his involvement in Southern Baptist life.

Rollins said Pressler began sexually abusing him not long after. He said the rapes continued on and off for nearly a quarter-century, often while he was working as Pressler’s aide.

In 2004, court records show that a small group of leaders at the massive First Baptist Church of Houston were made aware of allegations that Pressler, a powerful deacon at the megachurch, had undressed and groped a young man at his home. In a letter to Pressler that was unearthed as part of Rollins’ lawsuit, the church leaders condemned Pressler’s "morally and spiritually" inappropriate behavior. They also feared that publicizing the allegations would damage Pressler's reputation in their church and the Southern Baptist Convention.

An attorney for First Baptist Church of Houston, which was a defendant in Rollins’ lawsuit, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday about the lawsuit settlement. The church has previously defended its handling of the 2004 incident, saying that there were differing accounts of what happened and that Pressler’s position on church committees and as a teacher were eliminated as a result.

The same year that First Baptist was made aware of those allegations, Rollins filed a lawsuit for non-sexual assault against Pressler that was quickly settled for $450,000. Woodfill, who represented Pressler in the matter, said under oath last year that he was told by Rollins’ attorney at the time that Pressler had sexually abused Rollins as a child. Despite that, Woodfill continued to lean on Pressler’s conservative reputation, connections and influence to bolster their law firm, providing him with young, male personal assistants despite Pressler doing almost no work.

“I can think of one or two cases that he brought in,” Woodfill testified as part of Rollins’ new lawsuit last year. “He may have gone to one hearing in his entire time with us, two at the most. Really, it was his name. … He got an employee that worked for him. So he didn’t get a salary. He didn’t get a draw. He didn’t get a bonus. We paid for someone to come and assist him. That’s how he got compensated.”

Woodfill similarly downplayed sexual misconduct allegations in 2016, after a 25-year-old lawyer at his firm alerted Woodfill that Pressler had told him “lewd stories about being naked on beaches with young men” and then invited him to skinny-dip at his ranch, court records show. The attorney said he addressed the incident with a longtime employee of Woodfill’s law firm, who made it clear that this was not the first time he’d heard such allegations.

“I discovered that this was not unusual behavior for Pressler, and that he had a long history of lecherous behavior towards young men. Even going as far as bringing scantily clad men and parading them through the office,” the attorney wrote in an affidavit that was filed as part of Rollins’ lawsuit.

Woodfill — who’d just played a key role defeating an equal rights ordinance for LGBTQ Houstonians — responded to the young man’s request for help with shock. “This 85-year-old man has never made any inappropriate comments or actions toward me or any one I know of,” he responded, court records show.

The young attorney’s claims are similar in detail to those from other Pressler accusers, who said he leaned on his stature and connections in conservative religious and political circles to try and coerce them into lewd massages, naked swimming sessions or sex. One accuser — a young Houston Baptist University student — said in a sworn affidavit that he stopped pursuing a career in ministry, frequently had panic attacks and attempted suicide as a result of Pressler’s alleged behavior.

Court filings also show that Pressler’s family was alerted about his behavior in 2017, when an aide claimed in a letter that he had “both heard stories of and personally witnessed” Pressler getting nude massages from “young men who work for him.” He also claimed that Pressler had recently bragged about skinny-dipping with three boys who were younger than 10, and that he had seen Pressler “manipulate” a 20-year-old into giving him a massage and then repeatedly kiss him.

“He talks way more about nudity, the male body, being naked in spas in Europe, being naked in general than God, or his Baptist background,” the aide wrote before announcing his resignation.

Pressler, he added, “needs to be stopped.”

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

Matt Rinaldi

Texas GOP Rejects Ban On Association With Neo-Nazis And Antisemities

"Texas GOP executive committee rejects proposed ban on associating with Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Two months after a prominent conservative activist and fundraiser was caught hosting white supremacist Nick Fuentes, leaders of the Republican Party of Texas have voted against barring the party from associating with known Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers.

In a 32-29 vote on Saturday, members of the Texas GOP’s executive committee stripped a pro-Israel resolution of a clause that would have included the ban— delivering a major blow to a faction that has called for the party to confront its ties to groups that have recently employed, elevated or associated with outspoken white supremacists or antisemitic figures.

In October, The Texas Tribune published photos of Fuentes, an avowed admirer of Adolf Hitler who has called for a “holy war” against Jews, entering and leaving the offices of Pale Horse Strategies, a consulting firm for far-right candidates and movements. Pale Horse Strategies is owned by Jonathan Stickland, a former state representative and at the time the leader of a political action committee, Defend Texas Liberty, that two West Texas oil billionaires have used to fund right-wing movements, candidates and politicians in the state — including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Matt Rinaldi, chairman of the Texas GOP, was also seen entering the Pale Horse offices while Fuentes was inside for nearly 7 hours. He denied participating, however, saying he was visiting with someone else at the time and didn’t know Fuentes was there.

Defend Texas Liberty has not publicly commented on the scandal, save for a two-sentence statement condemning those who've tried to connect the PAC to Fuentes’ “incendiary” views. Nor has the group clarified Stickland's current role at Defend Texas Liberty, which quietly updated its website in October to reflect that he is no longer its president. Tim Dunn, one of the two West Texas oil billionaires who primarily fund Defend Texas Liberty, confirmed the meeting between Fuentes and Stickland and called it a “serious blunder,” according to a statement from Patrick.

In response to the scandal — as well as subsequent reporting in the Tribune that detailed other links between Defend Texas Liberty and white supremacists — nearly half of the Texas GOP’s executive committee had called for the party to cut ties with Defend Texas Liberty and groups it funds until Stickland was removed from any position of power, and a full explanation for the Fuentes meeting was given.

The proposed demands were significantly watered down ahead of the party’s quarterly meeting this weekend. Rather than calling for a break from Defend Texas Liberty, the faction proposed general language that would have barred associations with individuals or groups “known to espouse or tolerate antisemitism, pro-Nazi sympathies or Holocaust denial.”

But even that general statement was not enough to sway a majority of the executive committee. In at-times tense debate on Saturday, members argued that words like “tolerate” or “antisemitism” were too vague or subjective, and could create future problems for the party, its leaders and candidates.

“It could put you on a slippery slope,” said committee member Dan Tully.

Supporters of the language disagreed. They noted that the language was already a compromise, didn’t specifically name any group or individual and would lend credence to the Texas GOP’s stances in support of Israel.

“To take it out sends a very disturbing message,” said Rolando Garcia, a Houston-based committee member who drafted the language. “We’re not specifying any individual or association. This is simply a statement of principle.”

Other committee members questioned how their colleagues could find words like “antisemitism” too vague, despite frequently lobbing it and other terms at their political opponents.

“I just don’t understand how people who routinely refer to others as leftists, liberals, communists, socialists and RINOs (‘Republicans in Name Only’) don’t have the discernment to define what a Nazi is,” committee member Morgan Cisneros Graham told the Tribune after the vote.

House Speaker Dade Phelan similarly condemned the vote Saturday evening, calling it “despicable.”

The Texas GOP executive committee “can’t even bring themselves to denounce neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers or cut ties with their top donor who brought them to the dance,” Phelan wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “There is a moral, anti-Semitic rot festering within the fringes of BOTH parties that must be stopped.”

Before the vote, executive committee members separately approved a censure of outgoing Rep. Andrew Murr, R-Junction, over his lead role in the investigation and impeachment of Paxton.

Saturday’s vote is the latest sign of growing disunity among the Texas GOP, which for years has dealt with simmering tensions between its far-right and more moderate, but still deeply conservative, wings. Defend Texas Liberty and its billionaire backers have been key players in that fight, funding primary challenges to incumbent Republicans who they deem insufficiently conservative while and bankrolling a sprawling network of institutions, media websites and political groups that they’ve used to incrementally pull Texas further right.

The party’s internecine conflict has exploded into all-out war since the impeachment and acquittal of Paxton, a crucial Defend Texas Liberty ally whose political life has been subsidized by the PAC’s billionaire funders. After Paxton’s acquittal, Defend Texas Liberty vowed scorched-earth campaigns against those who supported the attorney general’s removal, and promised massive spending ahead of next year’s primary elections.

Then came the news of the Stickland and Fuentes meeting — a political bombshell that sharply intensified infighting and prompted some in the Texas GOP to question the party’s proximity to racists and extremists. In the wake of the Tribune’s reporting, Phelan and other House Republicans called on their colleagues to donate money they received from Defend Texas Liberty to pro-Israel charities.

Many of the PAC’s beneficiaries have been defiant in the face of those calls, instead accusing Phelan of politicizing antisemitism and attempting to discredit the Tribune’s reporting and downplay the scandal.

Ahead of Saturday’s vote, Defend Texas Liberty-backed Reps. Nate Schatzline (R-Fort Worth) and Tony Tinderholt (R-Arlington) briefly spoke to the executive committee.

The day prior, Sen. Bob Hall — an Edgewood Republican who has received $50,000 from Defend Texas Liberty — was also at the Austin hotel where executive committee members were meeting, and in a speech condemned attempts to cut ties with the group based on what he called “hearsay,” “fuzzy photographs” and “narratives.”

“If you want to pass a resolution, I would make it positive,” Hall said to executive committee members on Friday. “We don’t need to do our enemy’s work for them.”

Hall reiterated that stance in an interview with the Tribune, calling the Fuentes meeting a “mistake” but claiming that there was “no evidence” that Stickland or Defend Texas Liberty are antisemitic.

“I've had meetings with transgenders, gays, and lesbians,” Hall said. “Does that make me a transgender, gay or a lesbian?”

Asked if he was comparing gay people to white supremacists or Hitler admirers like Fuentes, Hall responded: “I’m talking about people who are political hot potatoes.”

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


Ken Paxton

Trial Date Set For Ken Paxton Securities Fraud Trial

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s long-delayed trial on securities fraud charges has been set for April 15.

State District Judge Andrea Beall scheduled the trial during a hearing Monday morning in Houston. Paxton attended the hearing but did not speak at it.

Paxton was indicted on the charges over eight years ago, months into his first term as the state’s top law enforcement official. The charges stem from accusations that in 2011 he tried to solicit investors in a McKinney, Texas technology company without disclosing that it was paying him to promote its stock. Paxton has pleaded not guilty.

The trial is a reminder that Paxton's legal problems persist even after the Texas Senate acquitted him last month in an impeachment trial on unrelated allegations. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick presided over that trial and has faced intense criticism for taking $3 million from a pro-Paxton group in the lead-up to the trial.

"Unlike the impeachment, this is going to be a fair trial," special prosecutor Kent Schaffer told reporters after the hearing. "This judge is not corrupt. This judge is not on the take."

The hearing was brief and did not settle one lingering pretrial issue: how much the special prosecutors should get paid. The judge also scheduled a February pretrial conference.

Paxton's lawyer Philip Hilder told reporters his side was "gratified" with the trial date and criticized the special prosecutors for their focus on their pay.

"It's show-me-the-money," Hilder said. "It's all about the money to them."

The prosecutors say they have not been paid since January 2016. A Paxton supporter filed a lawsuit challenging their fee schedule in the early months of the case, and both sides have been wrangling over the issue ever since.

The trial has been delayed for years over a number of pretrial disputes, including the prosecutors' pay and the venue. The case began in Paxton’s native Collin County but was moved to more neutral territory in Harris County at the prosecution’s urging.

Paxton faces two counts of securities fraud, a first-degree felony with a punishment of up to 99 years in prison. Paxton also faces one count of failing to register with state securities regulators, a third-degree felony with a maximum of 10 years in prison.

The impeachment trial centered on different allegations of bribery and malfeasance made by former top deputies in his office. When the House impeached Paxton in May, it included multiple articles of impeachment related to the securities case, but the Senate set those aside for the trial and dismissed them afterward.

While the prosecutors emphasized they expect a fairer trial than the one the Senate conducted, Hilder declined to draw any comparisons. The impeachment trial "was unrelated to what we're defending against," Hilder said.

The impeachment articles focused on allegations that Paxton misused his office to help his friend investigate claims that he was being targeted by federal and local law enforcement, in exchange for favors that included giving a job to a woman with whom he was having an affair.

While the Senate's acquittal was a political triumph for the third-term Republican, Paxton still has significant legal issues. In addition to the securities fraud case, he faces a federal investigation into the claims by his former top staffers, who allege he abused his office to help a friend and donor, Nate Paul.

In the securities fraud case, the prosecutors' pay may be the last major pending issue before the trial. In 2018, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals struck down the fee agreement, arguing that it fell outside legal limits for what such attorneys may be paid. The court ordered a previous Harris County judge overseeing the case to come up with a new payment schedule, but that never happened and the prosecutors have continued to go unpaid.

During the hearing Monday, Paxton lawyer Bill Mateja sought to propose an order addressing the pay issue from his side's perspective. But Beall repeatedly said she would decide on her own.

The judge did not indicate when she would make a ruling on the pay, according to one of the prosecutors, Brian Wice.

Wice said Paxton's lawyers are so focused on their pay because they have known "the only way to derail this prosecution was to defund it." Wice said he is owed "a lot" and Schaffer estimated he has "500 unpaid hours" dating back to 2016.

The prosecutors have previously raised the possibility they could withdraw from the case if they are not paid. Asked about that Monday, Schaffer said "we have to see what happens," while Wice promised he is "not going anywhere."

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Scandal: Racists And Antisemites Deeply Entrenched In Texas Republican Party

Scandal: Racists And Antisemites Deeply Entrenched In Texas Republican Party

By Robert Downen

Faced with ongoing scandals this month involving his allies' ties to antisemitic extremists, the leader of the Republican Party of Texas has come out strongly—to attack other conservatives who’ve criticized his friends.

For three weeks, Texas GOP chair Matt Rinaldi has been defiant in the face of calls from members of his own party to cut ties with Defend Texas Liberty leader Jonathan Stickland, who recently hosted avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes at his office for nearly seven hours. And he’s gone after those who’ve been critical of Defend Texas Liberty, a political action committee that is funded by two of the Texas GOP’s most prolific donors.

Separately, Rinaldi is at the center of a parallel controversy involving a group for young conservatives that he recently embraced despite warnings about its leaders’ openly antisemitic views and ties to white nationalist figures.

For some Republicans, the dual scandals have raised serious questions about the party’s willingness to denounce racists — and its leader’s proximity to those who embrace them.

“He has put his friends’ interests above what is in the best interest of the party,” said Mark McCaig, an attorney and chair of the Texas Republican Initiative. “He is more concerned about protecting them and their gang.”

To be sure, Rinaldi was quick to distance himself from Fuentes. The Texas Tribune spotted Rinaldi earlier this month at the office building where Fuentes, an Adolf Hitler admirer who has called for a “holy war” against Jews and encouraged his followers to beat women, was being hosted by Stickland.

Asked about the October 6 meeting, Rinaldi told the Tribune that he had no idea Fuentes was inside and would never meet with him. As for Stickland? Rinaldi said he would wait until more facts came out before commenting on his longtime political kin.

“I’m not going to make assumptions based on what I'm told by a reporter,” he said on Oct. 8.

Since then, neither Rinaldi nor the Republican Party of Texas has commented on Stickland, even as other major figures — including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Kyle Rittenhouse — have issued statements that confirmed the Tribune’s reporting. Nor has Rinaldi responded to concerns from fellow Republicans and some party executive committee members who’ve called for a break with Defend Texas Liberty, which has donated $257,000 to the party since 2021.

Instead, Rinaldi has reserved his ire for House Speaker Dade Phelan, accusing the Beaumont Republican of politicizing antisemitism before demanding his resignation. Phelan has also demanded Rinaldi step down as the party’s leader and give money the Texas GOP received from Defend Texas Liberty to pro-Israel charities.

Since news of the Fuentes meeting broke, Rinaldi has posted or amplified attacks on Phelan or the Texas House on X, formerly Twitter, more than 40 times. He has not, however, publicly criticized Stickland or Defend Texas Liberty at all — even as new information continues to emerge about their close ties to white supremacists.

On Monday, the Tribunereported that, in just the last month, at least five current and former Fuentes associates have worked with groups that are closely tied to Stickland, Rinaldi and Defend Texas Liberty. That includes True Texas Project, whose leaders have sympathized with the racist gunman who murdered 22 people at an El Paso WalMart in 2019, and who are set to host Rinaldi for a fundraiser and softball game this weekend.

On Wednesday, the Texas Observerreported that a swastika-clad neo-Nazi who was spotted handing out antisemitic flyers in Fort Worth this month had previously interned for Luke Macias, a longtime GOP consultant and Rinaldi ally who just replaced Stickland as president of Defend Texas Liberty, according to the group’s website.

And this week, the Tribunereported that the president of Texans For Strong Borders, Chris Russo, has for years been a prominent figure in Fuentes’ racist movement, and has continued to post on anonymous, hate-filled social media accounts as his group —with help from Rinaldi and Defend Texas Liberty — has emerged as an influential voice that’s pushed lawmakers to crack down on legal and illegal immigration.

Rinaldi and the Texas GOP did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

‘A moral obligation’

The controversies come amid an internecine fight between the state’s far right and the Texas GOP’s more moderate, but still deeply conservative, wing. That strife has exploded into all-out war since the impeachment and acquittal of Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Rinaldi ally who has received nearly $4.65 million from West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris and Dan and Farris Wilks. Those billionaires also fund Defend Texas Liberty and, before that, bankrolled Rinaldi’s career in the Texas House.

Defend Texas Liberty has been one of the most important players in the state party’s ongoing civil war. Campaign finance records show that, since 2021, it has given nearly $15 million to right-wing movements and candidates. The group made headlines this summer after giving $3 million to Patrick, months before he presided over Paxton’s impeachment trial. Defend Texas Liberty also gave $3.6 million to Don Huffines, a former state senator who helped push Gov. Greg Abbott to the right by attacking him on immigration and other issues during last year’s Republican primary.

Meanwhile, the Texas GOP’s far right has continued to embrace groups and individuals that others have warned are a bridge too far. Fuentes was the best-known of those extreme figures; but his visit and the ensuing controversy were punctuated by a separate-but-related, scandal involving the party and white supremacists.

That ordeal dates back to August, when the 66-year-old Texas Young Republican Federation voted to end its partnership with the Texas GOP until Rinaldi — who the group accused of initiating a “smear campaign” and partnering with far-right figures to undermine their newly-elected leadership — was removed from his position.

Things escalated last month, when Rinaldi pushed for the Texas GOP to bring a newly-formed spinoff group into the party despite warnings that its leaders included avowed white nationalists.

The warnings proved to be right: Days after the Tribune first reported on Fuentes’ visit with Stickland, an independent journalist reported that leaders of the new young Republicans group had praised Hitler online, and published photos of some of its leaders outside of an event for Fuentes’ vitriolically antisemitic “groyper” movement.

“There was a time in my life when I hated Nick Fuentes and his white supremacy views,” one of the group’s leaders, Rylie Rae, reportedly wrote on social media last year. “Now I recognize that he is one of the smartest people in our country and we need white nationalism. Oh how the tides have turned.”

Responding to the controversy, the new group’s leadership said in a statement that it “condemns bigotry in all forms” and had removed the individuals in question.

But before that, other young Republicans said they made clear to Rinaldi and the leaders of the new group that they were in bed with extremists. Those concerns were rebuffed, a move that one person said is emblematic of a broader problem and power struggle that has allowed extremists to flourish in Republican circles.

“There is a tendency among the populist right to essentially say, ‘It doesn’t matter how awful the person is, as long as they are on our side,’“ said Matt Wiltshire, finance director for the Young Republican National Federation. “We believe that we have a moral and ethical duty to be uncompromising in our stance that there is right and there is wrong.”

One of those removed was Konner Earnest, who led the group’s Parker County chapter and also recently became involved with the European American Community, a white nationalist group that argues American citizenship should be based on European ancestry.

Earnest has other ties to Rinaldi and Defend Texas Liberty: He was spotted outside the Fuentes meeting with Stickland, and has appeared in videos for Russo’s Texans For Strong Borders, which has received considerable financial support from Defend Texas Liberty. Earnest has also written anti-immigration articles for Texas Scorecard, a prominent right-wing media website that is financed by Defend Texas Liberty’s billionaire funders.

Rinaldi does not appear to have released any public statement or made any comment on social media about the young Republicans scandal.

Meanwhile, the Texas GOP’s executive committee remains at an impasse over how to respond to the party’s ongoing white supremacist problem.

Last week, after Stickland was quietly removed as Defend Texas Liberty’s president, roughly one-third of the executive committee's 64 members, including Vice Chair Dana Myers, signed a letter saying that the party had a “moral obligation to speak boldly, publicly, and clearly on this matter” and demand an explanation for the Fuentes meeting.

“Fuentes' views and Stickland’s tactics are abhorrent and totally antithetical to the principles of the Republican Party of Texas and to the conservatives who have trusted [Defend Texas Liberty] for the cause of liberty and patriotism,” they wrote. “Whether this was caused by a lapse in judgment, conscious disregard, poor leadership, or a faulty moral compass –– Stickland and [Defend Texas Liberty] must ultimately accept responsibility.”

The members also called on the Texas GOP — as well as its donors — to cut all ties with Defend Texas Liberty and the myriad groups it funds until Stickland is "removed and disassociated from [Defend Texas Liberty] and its benefactor organizations and a full accounting of the meeting is provided."

Since then, the party’s disagreements have continued to escalate in public view, as Rinaldi and his allies remain largely silent on the scandal. Two weeks ago — and after a Tribune reporter reached out to more than a dozen members of the party’s executive committee regarding Defend Texas Liberty — the Texas GOP removed contact information for executive committee members from its website.

The Texas GOP did not respond to a request for comment on the move, which has been publicly blasted as an attempt to keep members from being contacted by the public.

“You don’t stand for ‘we the people’ unless they have access to you,” said Cat Parks, a former executive committee member and vice chair of the Texas GOP. “It’s not like controversy didn’t happen during my tenure.”

For now, it’s unclear what comes next for the Texas GOP and its relationship with Defend Texas Liberty, which released a two-sentence statement saying it opposes Fuentes’ “incendiary” views but has yet to provide any other details on the meeting. Stickland may no longer be leading the group, but his removal is likely cosmetic given that he also owns Pale Horse Strategies, a consulting firm that is used heavily by Defend Texas Liberty-funded groups and candidates.

Members of the party’s executive committee have said as much this week, and reiterated their calls for the party to speak out against Defend Texas Liberty and Stickland.

The Texas GOP “must renounce [Defend Texas Liberty] until a full explanation of the Fuentes meeting is provided, those responsible are held accountable and there’s new entirely new leadership (not just the same players swapping job titles),” executive committee member Rolando Garcia wrote this week on social media.

“Don’t excuse the inexcusable just to spite your political enemies,” he added.

Reprinted with permission from Daily kos.

Texas Republicans Go Full Christian Nationalist At Party Convention

Texas Republicans Go Full Christian Nationalist At Party Convention

"Texas Republican Convention calls Biden win illegitimate and rebukes Cornyn over gun talks" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

HOUSTON — Meeting at their first in-person convention since 2018, Texas Republicans on Saturday acted on a raft of resolutions and proposed platform changes to move their party even further to the right. They approved measures declaring that President Joe Biden “was not legitimately elected” and rebuking Sen. John Cornyn for taking part in bipartisan gun talks. They also voted on a platform that declares homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice” and calls for Texas schoolchildren “to learn about the humanity of the preborn child.”

The actions capped a convention that highlighted how adamantly opposed the party’s most active and vocal members are to compromising with Democrats or moderating on social positions, even as the state has grown more diverse and Republicans’ margins in statewide elections have shrunk slightly in recent years.

Votes on the platform were collected at the end of the party's three-day convention in which party activists moved to add multiple items to the official Texas GOP platform. As the convention closed, two separate sets of ballots — one allowing delegates to choose eight of 15 legislative priorities and another allowing delegates to vote on the 275 platform planks — were gathered. Those will now need to be tallied and certified in Austin, but it is rare for a plank to be rejected, according to party spokesperson James Wesolek.

The convention reinforced the extent to which former President Donald J. Trump’s unfounded claims of a stolen election continue to resound among the party faithful — even though his claims have repeatedly been debunked, including by many of his own former aides, and after a week of televised hearings about the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The denunciation of Cornyn represented a remarkable rebuke to a Republican who has served in the Senate since 2002. The hall at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston filled with boos on Friday as he tried to explain the legislation, which would allow juvenile records to be incorporated into background checks for gun buyers younger than 21 and encourage “red flag” laws that would make it easier to remove guns from potentially dangerous people, along with more funding for school safety and mental health.

Meanwhile, the party platform vote on Saturday by roughly 5,100 convention delegates would argue that those under 21 are “most likely to need to defend themselves” and may need to quickly buy guns “in emergencies such as riots.” It also would say that red flag laws violate the due process rights of people who haven’t been convicted of a crime.

About 9,600 delegates and alternates were eligible to attend; organizers said turnout was a bit more than half that.

The new platform would call for:

  • Requiring Texas students “to learn about the humanity of the preborn child,” including teaching that life begins at fertilization and requiring students to listen to live ultrasounds of gestating fetuses.
  • Amending the Texas Constitution to remove the Legislature’s power “to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.”
  • Treating homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” language that was not included in the 2018 or 2020 party platforms.
  • Deeming gender identity disorder “a genuine and extremely rare mental health condition,” requiring official documents to adhere to “biological gender,” and allowing civil penalties and monetary compensation to “de-transitioners” who have received gender-affirming surgery, which the platform calls a form of medical malpractice.
  • Changing the U.S. Constitution to cement the number of Supreme Court justices at nine and repeal the 16th Amendment of 1913, which created the federal income tax.
  • Ensuring “freedom to travel” by opposing Biden’s Clean Energy Plan and “California-style, anti-driver policies,” including efforts to turn traffic lanes over for use by pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit.
  • Declaring “all businesses and jobs as essential and a fundamental right,” a response to COVID-19 mandates by Texas cities that required customers to wear masks and limited business hours.
  • Abolishing the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, and guaranteeing the right to use alternatives to cash, including cryptocurrencies.

Not every far-right proposal was advanced. The party chair, Matt Rinaldi, ruled that a motion to defend the due process rights of those who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and to “reject the narrative” that the riot was an insurrection was out of order and could not be voted on.

Taken together, the new provisions would represent a shift even further rightward for the Republican Party of Texas, once known as the party of Presidents George Bush and his son George W. Bush. Land Commissioner George P. Bush, a grandson and nephew of the two presidents, was defeated handily in May in his runoff race against Attorney General Ken Paxton, an arch-conservative who sued to challenge the 2020 election outcome and convinced voters that he was the truer Trump loyalist.

Party platforms are mission statements rather than legal doctrines and, in Texas, they have long reflected the opinions of the most activist wings of the parties. Republican elected officials are not bound to adhere to the platform, and party activists at times have expressed frustration that some parts of their platform and legislative priorities have not become law, despite complete Republican control of the state Legislature.

But the platforms are broad indicators of the sentiments of the most active Republican voters — those who dominate party primaries. Republicans have controlled every statewide elected office in Texas since 1999 and both houses of the Legislature since 2003, so the wishes of the party’s populist, pro-Trump base inevitably affect actions taken in Austin.

“The platform is largely symbolic but important as a measure of ideological drift,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. “Party platforms are often used as a cudgel in party primaries. A more muscular ideological platform eventually leads to a more conservative legislature as challengers knock off more moderate members.”

The convention was noteworthy for the relatively low profile of top officeholders. Gov. Greg Abbott, who is seeking a third term in the November election, only appeared at a reception on Thursday on the sidelines of the convention. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who effectively controls the state Senate, addressed the convention, but House Speaker Dade Phelan only spoke at a luncheon, not to the main body of delegates.

Tensions within the party at times got personal. Video posted online showed far-right activists physically accosting U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, calling the conservative Republican “eye-patch McCain” over his criticism of Russia. The group included self-identified Proud Boys and Alex Stein, a social media activist from North Texas. A Navy SEAL veteran, Crenshaw lost his right eye to a bomb in Afghanistan.

“A more aggressive party platform sends a clear message to politicians about where the base is going,” Rottinghaus said. “Donald Trump radicalized the party and accelerated the demands from the base. There simply aren’t limits now on what the base might ask for.”

Mark P. Jones, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston, said the 2022 platform indicated how emboldened hard-right party activists now feel — a far cry from 2020. Significant gains by Texas Democrats in state House elections in 2018 raised the prospect of the Republican Party losing its dominant status in Texas, making it moderate its platform in 2020 to focus on bread-and-butter issues. Texas Republicans did well in the 2020 elections — even though Biden won 46.5% of the Texas vote, the highest proportion for a Democrat since 1976 — and this year, culture-war issues were once again at front and center.

Jones said that Republican redistricting has made incumbents safer and less inclined to appeal to moderates. Moreover, inflation, the risk of a recession, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and growing acrimony over race, gender and sexuality make it seem increasingly likely that Democrats will lose the U.S. House in the November midterm elections.

“As a result, the 2022 GOP feels free to veer to the right to its heart’s content, confident that it won’t come back to haunt the party in November, except perhaps in a half dozen races,” Jones said. “And even the party’s pragmatic center right conservatives lack the ability to argue, as they did successfully in 2020, that an ultra conservative platform could cost the GOP its majority status in the Lone Star State. This year, even the absolute worst case scenario has the GOP winning statewide, increasing its number of U.S. House seats, boosting its Texas Senate majority by a seat, and maintaining the 83 seats it held in the 2021 Texas House.”

Before delegates voted on the platform, party activists delivered fiery speeches attacking Democrats.

“They want to destroy the racial progress we have made by saying that we are a racist nation,” said Robin Armstrong, a Black doctor in Texas City who treated COVID patients with unapproved drug therapies touted by Trump, including hydroxychloroquine. “The Democratic Party are now a party of chaos. They benefit from causing us to question the foundations that this country was built upon. The misery, the crime, the drug abuse, the high gas prices are all by design, so that the Democratic Party can permanently transform society. We Texans cannot and we will not allow this to happen.”

The Republican-dominated Legislature last year passed new voting restrictions that prompted Democratic lawmakers to flee to Washington to break quorum in an ultimately futile protest. However, Republican leaders said repeatedly on Saturday that it was the other side that was a threat to fair elections.

“The Democrats wants three things: Their goals are to steal elections, suppress Republican votes and federalize elections,” said Cindy Siegel, the chairperson of the Harris County GOP and a former mayor of Bellaire.

Immigration continued to be a major theme, with delegates lamenting Biden’s reversal of Trump-era border policies. U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, of Lubbock, described an “unprecedented, unmitigated, self-inflicted disaster that is creating the worst humanitarian and national security threat to the American people in the history of our southern border,” adding, “this is an invasion, folks.”

“President Biden has ceded control of our borders to paramilitary, narco-terrorist cartels,” Arrington told delegates.

The mood of this convention was not hopeful. The themes ran dark, and activists spoke in apocalyptic, even cataclysmic, terms about the state of the country.

“Everything is topsy-turvy. What’s right is wrong and what’s wrong is right,” said state Sen. Donna Campbell, an emergency room doctor in New Braunfels, reflecting a state of uncertainty that is shared by Americans of many political backgrounds, even if they don’t agree on the causes. “Our country is on a trajectory to self-destruct, unless we change the direction.”

Campbell and other activists frequently spoke of their Christian faith.

“I believe that in the sovereignty of God, you and I were purposely born into this moment, into this confusing time that we face,“ Campbell said. “We’re meant to be alive, at this time, right now, and here in this state.”

Disclosure: Rice University and University of Houston have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/18/republican-party-texas-convention-cornyn/.


Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Ambulance in Texas winter storm, February 2021

How Many Texans Died In Power Disaster Won’t Be Known For Weeks

By Shawn Mulcahy, The Texas Tribune


As snow blanketed much of Texas on Sunday, an 11-year-old boy in the Houston area gleefully played outside. Seeing the snow was a first for the boy, who came to the U.S. from Honduras two years ago with his mother, she told the Houston Chronicle.

Less than 24 hours later, as temperatures plunged to near single digits and homes across the state lost power, the boy died.

Early that same morning, a San Antonio man left his house for a dialysis appointment — but he never arrived. His wife found him unresponsive nearly two hours later in the frigid weather, according to KSAT. Local authorities said the man's death could have been from exposure to the cold.

In Abilene, first responders found a 60-year-old man dead in his home on Wednesday. His wife, who was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, said they hadn't had power for three days. Fire department members told KTXS that it felt as cold inside the home as outside.

Across Texas, deaths related to the winter storm continued to mount this week amid freezing temperatures, widespread power outages and a scarcity of clean water. While there have been reports that dozens of deaths are tied to the storm in Texas, experts say the death toll is likely far larger. And it could be weeks or months before the true magnitude is known.

"It's a slow process. We may have preliminary information in weeks, not days," said Chris Van Deusen, a Texas Department of State Health Services spokesperson. A statewide survey of deaths caused by the storm is underway, he said. But the state won't have a good indication until death certificates are filed.

A spokesperson for The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, which conducts autopsies, could not provide the total number of deaths associated with the storm on Thursday, and had no idea when that information would be available.

Likewise in Travis County, a spokesperson estimated a tally of storm-related deaths could be available in 30 to 90 days.

The Houston Chroniclereports that more than two dozen people in Harris County alone have died from events related to this week's icy weather. And the threat is far from over. Thousands of Texans are still without electricity, food and clean water.

As with any natural disaster, this week's storms have left a "disproportionate effect" on homeless people, said Eric Samuels, president of the Texas Homeless Network. He urged Texans with the means to provide help to support local shelters and advocacy groups, which have already been stretched thin by the coronavirus pandemic.

"Unfortunately, in a lot of our communities, [local organizations] are ones who take the lion's share of the responsibility and the burden of assisting people during these times," he said.

Officials reported an uptick in hypothermia as power outages meant people lived for days in below-freezing temperatures. A handful of deaths have already been attributed to hypothermia, including three people who died in their Harris County homes, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences said on Thursday.

Hypothermia is caused by prolonged exposure to cold temperatures, when a person's body loses more heat than it produces. The low body temperature affects a person's brain and can lead to confusion, memory loss or death.

Public officials are also warning Texans about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning, citing an alarming spike in emergency room visits due to the dangerous, scentless gas.

Most cases were caused by the indoor use of heating sources like charcoal barbecues and gas-powered generators. These machines release carbon monoxide that, if not used in a well-ventilated area, can be fatal in minutes.

Two people in Houston died, and another two were rushed to the hospital, after the family ran their car for warmth inside a closed garage, NPR reported.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo called the spike in cases of carbon monoxide poisoning "a disaster within a disaster."

Dr. Justin Fairless, a board member of the Texas College of Emergency Physicians, also cautioned that the transmission of COVID-19 remains a real threat as people gather in shelters and at the homes of friends and family. He urged Texans to continue taking precautions like wearing masks and socially distancing when interacting with people outside your household or when in large gatherings, such as water distribution sites.

Above all, Fairless warned Texans not to delay seeking treatment if they feel ill.

"If you think you have something going on medically, don't just sit at home and hope it passes," he said. "Get medical care."

Disclosure: The Texas College of Emergency Physicians has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune, a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy.

Trump train

FBI Investigating ‘Trump Train’ That Ambushed Biden Bus

By Kate McGee, The Texas Tribune, Jeremy Schwartz, The Texas Tribune and ProPublica and Abby Livingston, The Texas Tribune Oct. 31, 2020

"Biden camp cancels multiple Texas events after a "Trump Train" surrounded a campaign bus" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.


The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into a Friday incident in which a group of Trump supporters, driving trucks and waving Trump flags, surrounded and followed a Biden campaign bus as it drove up I-35 in Hays County, a law enforcement official confirmed to The Texas Tribune Saturday.

Read NowShow less
George Soros

Texas GOP Officials Smear Soros As Protest Paymaster

Reprinted with permission from The Texas Tribune

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a statewide elected Republican official, has posted multiple memes and comments on his Facebook page in recent days falsely claiming that billionaire George Soros orchestrated nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd.

The posts are similar in nature and tone to some of the racist posts by local GOP officials in recent days that suggested the killing of Floyd in Minneapolis police custody was done with the intent of starting a race war or to erode black support for President Donald Trump. The posts from those local officials have prompted calls for resignation from the state's top GOP officials.

Read NowShow less