Yep. Most smart companies know that they need customers and politicians from both sides to maximize their profit margin. We talk about red vs blue (hehe) but most places really only care about green.
US continues to go backward...
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Yep. Most smart companies know that they need customers and politicians from both sides to maximize their profit margin. We talk about red vs blue (hehe) but most places really only care about green.
NEW: Two people suffered non-life-threatening injuries from an explosion caused by an "intentionally set improvised explosive device" at the Santa Maria Courthouse in California, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office.
One person of interest — an adult male — was detained, officials confirmed.
Read more: https://abcnews.visitlink.me/lebcJk
One person of interest — an adult male — was detained, officials confirmed.
Read more: https://abcnews.visitlink.me/lebcJk
8 North Texas Mega Church pastors have resigned or been removed since June.
DALLAS — It was a summer of upheaval in several North Texas churches, as several pastors have either resigned or been fired. Some were prominent figures on the national stage, and a number have cited an undisclosed “moral failure” as the reason they left their positions.Here’s what to know.
June 9: Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship Church
On June 9, Tony Evans, a founding pastor of Dallas’ Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship Church, told his church that he was stepping down from leading the church due to what he described as a sin in his past.“The foundation of our ministry has always been our commitment to the Word of God as the absolute supreme standard of truth to which we are to conform our lives,” Evans wrote in a statement published to the church’s website. “A number of years ago, I fell short of that standard. I am, therefore, required to apply the same biblical standard of repentance and restoration to myself that I have applied to others.”
A representative of the church declined a request for further comment from The Dallas Morning News.
June 14: Gateway Church in Southlake
On June 14, a 54-year-old Oklahoma woman accused the founder of Gateway Church, a major Southlake megachurch, of abusing her from the ages of 12 through 16.Cindy Clemishire accused Robert Morris of molesting her in a blog post by the Christian watchdog website The Wartburg Watch. Four days later, Morris resigned.
A day after Clemishire shared her story publicly, Gateway elders reportedly shared a statement with staff that was obtained and posted to X by the blogger Amy Smith.
“Pastor Robert has been open and forthright about a moral failure he had over 35 years ago when he was in his twenties and prior to him starting Gateway Church,” the statement began.
The statement also included a quote from Morris, which read in part: “When I was in my early twenties, I was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying. It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong.”
Morris then said he returned to ministry with the blessing of Clemishire’s father, which Clemishire has denied. Morris has not responded to repeated phone calls from The News seeking comment.
Morris founded Gateway in 2000 and expanded the church to nine campuses across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. As of 2022, Gateway was the third-largest church in Texas, with an average weekly attendance of 20,500. It was ranked as the ninth-largest church in the country, and one of the fastest growing, by the Christian magazine Outreach in 2023.
June 19: Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury
On June 19, a youth pastor at Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a child.Luke Cunningham was the church’s student minister, and is facing two counts of sexual assault of a child and one count of aggravated assault.
In a statement to its members, Lakeside said it received information June 2 from outside the church that Cunningham was accused of inappropriate conduct with a minor at another church.
Lakeside said it immediately launched an investigation and suspended Cunningham. Within days, the statement said, the church determined evidence warranted firing the pastor, and it reported its findings to authorities.
The church’s statement also added that it would reevaluate and adopt more rigorous processes to identify predators. It urged the Southern Baptist Convention, to which it belongs, to take a more aggressive stance against sexual abuse, including adopting a sex offender database.
“We believe that, if the Southern Baptist Convention had a working database for offenders, we would likely have never been exposed to Mr. Cunningham,” the church said. “We plan to do everything possible to encourage national leaders to exercise their spiritual responsibility, identify perpetrators in the churches, and stop this from happening again.”
July 9: Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco
On July 9, a megachurch in Frisco told congregants they had removed a longtime pastor due to a “moral failure,” according to an email they sent that day obtained by The News.Tony Cammarota, a former associate pastor at Stonebriar Community Church, “confessed to church leadership of a moral failure” on July 7, the church’s email said. “He is deeply remorseful but his sin disqualifies him from serving on our staff as a pastor,” the email said.
Cammarota did not return multiple phone calls requesting comment on the situation. Representatives of the church did not respond to multiple phone calls and emails requesting comment.
Cammarota worked at the church as an associate pastor for over 17 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. More than 3,000 people attend Sunday services at Stonebriar, according to a recent church news release, and around 16,000 watch online.
The church’s email did not describe the nature of the “moral failure” it said led to Cammarota’s removal and urged readers not to speculate about it.
“And please guard against giving the Devil any foothold for more damage to our church through unnecessary speech and speculation,” it read. “This is a sad day and we don’t want the Devil making it worse through any one of us in the days ahead.”
July 28: Cross Timbers Church in Argyle
On July 28, elders at Cross Timbers Church in Argyle announced during a Sunday service that their senior pastor Josiah Anthony had resigned. At that time, the church said he was leaving due to “inappropriate and hurtful” behavior.According to his LinkedIn page, Anthony joined the staff of the Denton County church, which has about 5,000 members, in 2014 and became the church’s senior pastor in 2022. He has not responded to multiple email and phone requests for comment.
On July 29, Byron Copeland, whom the church chose as interim lead pastor, told The News in an interview that Anthony had resigned due to “emotional affairs” with female staff members. On July 30, the church sent The News a statement signed by its leadership team that said the “emotional affairs” happened while Anthony was lead pastor and that the women involved were not reporting directly to him.
In an Aug. 1 email signed by church elders, the church said they had received new information about Anthony and updated that characterization. Anthony had also made “inappropriate comments” in texts and through social media that were sexual in nature, the email said.
“After announcing Josiah’s resignation to our congregation, we then learned about additional inappropriate comments he made in text messages and through social media that were sexual in nature,” the elders wrote. “Because the power dynamic of these interactions were never equal, we do not consider these to be consensual.”
Aug. 21: Gateway Church in Southlake
On Aug. 21, Gateway Church shared that its executive pastor Kemtal Glasgow, who oversaw all of the church’s campuses, was “no longer employed at Gateway.” The church announced Glasgow’s removal in an unlisted video on YouTube.“We were informed last week of a moral issue which we believe as elders disqualifies him from serving in the role that he had at Gateway,” church elder Tra Willbanks said in the video.
Gateway Church did not immediately respond to a phone request for comment on Glasgow’s firing.
Sept. 18: Lake Country Church in Saginaw
On Sept. 17, a lawyer representing Scott Crenshaw confirmed that he had been removed from his position as senior pastor of Lake Country Church in Saginaw.Crenshaw served as interim pastor at the church starting in 2018, according to its website, and became senior pastor in 2020.
“He has been discharged because of extreme false rumors and false information that was given to the elders of this church, who did not engage in any investigation at all,” Crenshaw’s lawyer, Mark Lane, said in an interview on Sept. 17.
Lake Country Church declined to comment on Sept. 18, and the pastor’s lawyer declined to elaborate on the allegations against him.
Lane said he plans to send the church a letter demanding they pay damages to Crenshaw and publicly apologize to him.
“This is not like the other recent firings in the metroplex of pastors. This is absolutely, unequivocally, without any basis in fact, these allegations against Mr. Crenshaw,” Lane said.
Sept. 19: Trinity Bible Church in Dallas
On Sept. 19, Trinity Bible Church in Dallas announced it was removing its lead pastor due to an “inappropriate relationship” with a woman in a statement posted to its website.The church did not elaborate on the nature of that relationship, and declined to comment on Sept. 20. Lawson did not immediately respond to email and phone inquiries seeking comment.
According to the church’s statement, Lawson came forward about his relationship by telling the church’s elders, and the church will no longer be paying him. The church also emphasized that “we are ALL sinners.”
Lawson, 73, became the teaching pastor at Trinity Bible Church in 2018, the same year the church was founded. Before that, he spent over 40 years as a pastor at churches in Arkansas and Alabama. He has been an influential advocate for Reformed theology, which adheres to Calvinist doctrines about God’s sovereignty and the inerrancy of the Bible.
Florida restricts sex ed references to contraception and consent
Florida’s new sexual education standards are so committed to promoting abstinence that they omit crucial information about contraception, consent and domestic violence.The Orlando Sentinel reports on these standards:
According to the report, state officials called Broward County Public Schools instructors to warn that according to state law, “Contraceptives are not part of any health or science standard” at “any grade level.” Officials warned that contraceptives can only be mentioned as a “health resource” and that the state bars the use of pictures or demonstrations showing how they’re used. The instructors were also warned that “pictures of external sexual/reproductive anatomy” and references to “different types of sex (i.e., anal, oral, and vaginal)” can’t be included in lessons at any grade level.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ education department defended its approach in a quote to The Associated Press:
Broward County Public Schools said they'll comply with the order to "emphasize abstinence." But this kind of approach has routinely failed to deter young people from having sex, doesn't deter teenage pregnancy rates and leaves young people ignorant about crucial sexual health information, as my colleague Hayes Brown explained back in 2022.
The Sentinel also quotes Elissa Barr, a public health professor and part of an advocacy group for sexual education known as the Florida Healthy Youth Alliance. Barr said a list of words health educators told her they’ve been forced to remove from lesson plans includes “abuse,” “consent” and “domestic violence” — none of which have to do with abstinence.
Those are some pretty odd guidelines coming from a conservative movement that perpetually claims to be concerned about “groomers” (despite having some in their ranks).
The restrictions are particularly disturbing in a state like Florida, which has had one of the highest rates of sexual violence in recent years, according to an analysis of FBI data by Charlie Health. And because incidents of sexual violence tend to be underreported, the crisis in Florida could be even worse than the numbers show.
But this is the Florida of DeSantis and the state GOP’s creation: a state where young people are being denied a proper education on everything from Black history to sexual health and consent.
Newport News Shipbuilding suspects intentionally faulty welds on multimillion-dollar Naval vessels
The faulty work was discovered by internal quality assurance systems
Newport News Shipbuilding informed the Department of Justice that there may be intentionally faulty welds on non-critical components located on in-service submarines and aircraft carriers, according to a report by USNI News Thursday.
The faulty work was discovered by internal quality assurance systems and early indications show that some of the welding errors were intentional, according to a statement to USNI News.
"We recently discovered through internal reporting that the quality of some welds did not meet our high-quality standards. Upon this discovery, we took immediate action to communicate with our customers and regulators, investigate, determine root cause, bound these matters and insert immediate corrective actions to prevent any recurrence of these issues," the statement reads.
It continues: "Newport News Shipbuilding is committed to building the highest-quality aircraft carriers and submarines for the U.S. Navy. We do not tolerate any conduct that compromises our company’s values and our mission of delivering ships that safeguard our nation and its sailors."
The Navy is now investigating the allegations and are attempting to measure how much has been affected by the faulty work.
"The Navy is aware of the issue and a thorough evaluation is underway to determine the scope. The safety of our Sailors and our ships is of paramount importance. We are working closely with industry partners to address this situation and will provide additional information when available," reads the statement.
Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), is one of two nuclear shipyards in the U.S. and is currently working on building the Ford-class aircraft carrier and parts of the Virginia-class attack submarine.
Ohio AG files emergency motion to state Supreme Court to force Columbus City Schools to bus all Private and Non Public students
www.dispatch.com
Ohio AG files emergency motion to force Columbus City Schools to bus all nonpublic students
The emergency motion, filed Wednesday in the Ohio Supreme Court, urges Columbus City Schools to begin busing charter and parochial students.
www.dispatch.com
mugatu
Ranger
Elon cares about nothing other than his wallet and ability to influence with money.
Absolutely. But “this will be the last election?” That’s just not cool.
mugatu
Ranger
He's parroting Trump. Who is saying that to counter the legitimate concerns of people over past Trump actions.
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If MAGA and the like were actually interested in protecting children, they would start with the churches. But it's much easier to turn a blind eye to that and place the blame on minority groups.
Stillwater Townie
Ranger
Trump said, “You won’t have to do it anymore. It’ll be fixed; it’ll be fine; you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians." So, Trump will fix it with a dictator theocracy?
mugatu
Ranger
...maybe... don't know what his true plan is
I don't think he does either.
Pretty sure he might have concepts of his true plan though.
mugatu
Ranger
My guess is not moving out in 4 years... but that's just based on past actions. Who knows what he really means since he won't ever explain anything
Stillwater Townie
Ranger
I hope Trump loses more votes than he gains every time he says such odd things.
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