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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Twin Peaks company has revoked the franchise agreement for its restaurant in Waco, Texas, the scene of a biker shootout that killed nine people this weekend. "We will not tolerate the actions of this relatively new franchisee and are revoking their franchise immediately," said the Dallas-based company. The company laid the blame on the managers of the Waco franchise who "chose to ignore the warnings and advice from both the police and our company, and did not uphold the high security standards we have in place to ensure everyone is safe at our restaurants." The...

With each election come innovations in ways that the very rich donate and the candidates collect and spend increasingly large amounts of money on campaigns. And with each decision on campaign financing the current Supreme Court’s conservative majority, with Chief Justice John Roberts in the lead, removes some restrictions on money in politics. We are now at the point where, practically speaking, there are no limits on how much money an individual, a corporation, or a labor union can give to a candidate for federal office (though the unions can hardly compete). Today a presidential candidate has to have two...

Presidential candidate Ted Cruz, a Tea Party favorite and leading figure in the 2013 government shutdown that rattled investors, isn’t the kind of politician who usually wins a lot of friends among Wall Street campaign donors. The freshman Republican senator from Texas has none of the moderate tendencies that financiers often prefer in presidential candidates. Cruz relishes his image as an anti-establishment figure and boasts of his aversion to compromise. He has vowed to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and repeal President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare plan, commonly known as Obamacare. Despite the uncompromising rhetoric, Cruz is winning praise from...

The Washington establishment is “terrified” by grassroots conservatives who are powering Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)96% ’s (R-TX) presidential campaign with small-dollar donations. In an interview from South Carolina’s Freedom Summit that aired on Breitbart News Sunday, Cruz scoffed at a New York Times story that brushed off his chances of winning the GOP nomination because “Cruz has done nothing to endear himself to the elites.” Political scientists the Times interviewed after Cruz announced his candidacy in late March asserted that “the single most important determinant of the outcome of the nomination is the support from party elites” like donors, establishment...

Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz will stump in Beaumont on May 19 during a campaign fundraiser at the MCM Elegante, 2355 Interstate 10. Sen. Cruz, 44, announced in March that he intended to seek the GOP presidential nomination. Contribution amounts for the Beaumont fundraiser range from $100 to $500 for general attendance, which will go 6:30 to 8 p.m., according to a release from the Jefferson County Republican Party. VIP contributors – donors giving more than $1,000 – will get an extra half-hour with the Republican candidate, the release said.

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-07/conservative-boy-wonder

Republicans have a problem for 2016: Too much money. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush expects to raise $100 million by the end of this month. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas raised $31 million in one week. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida pulled in $40 million in pledges. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker expects to raise $25 million by the end of June. As many as 14 other potential Republican candidates have also been busy raking in the dough. So have Democrats Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders, though the Democratic race does not look as competitive as the GOP contest....

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Muslim agitation, attrition, the litigation jihad accompanies all counter terror programs in these United States. We are constantly being told, scolded, admonished and clubbed with the now well worn meme that “only a tiny minority” “a radical few” Muslims engage in jihad. And yet we never see Muslim organizations supporting, encouraging cooperation and applauding any counter terror efforts.Why is that? Based on everything we are constantly being told about moderate Muslims – this is an impossibility. And yet this impossibility is our constant companion.Is it any wonder there is a stream of young Muslims from these communities and mosques flocking...

BALTIMORE — A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.

Obama’s Lawyer: Religious Institutions May Lose Tax-Exempt Status If Court Rules for Gay Marriage by JOEL GEHRKE Religious institutions could be at risk of losing their tax-exempt status due to their beliefs about marriage if the Supreme Court holds that gay couples have a constitutional right to wed, President Obama’s attorney acknowledged to the Supreme Court today. “It’s certainly going to be an issue,” Solicitor General Donald Verrilli replied when Justice Samuel Alito asked if schools that support the traditional definition of marriage would have to be treated like schools that once opposed interracial marriage. “I don’t deny that.” Alito...

The state’s most dedicated activists are getting showered with attention.CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa—The Monday after Easter, 73-year-old Joni Scotter found herself at the hospital for the second time in as many days. The two-time cancer survivor, having just been treated for a skin condition, was about to be hospitalized for three days after a series of tests revealed another problem: kidney failure. It didn't take long for the well-wishes to pour in from concerned friends, family—and Republican presidential contenders. Jeb Bush sent flowers and a handwritten note. Ted Cruz passed along flowers as well. Scott Walker mailed a copy of his...

During a Saturday briefing, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said her city government “gave those who wished to destroy space to do that,” seemingly approving of the rioters who smashed the city’s police vehicles in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray.

LGBT activists are urging a boycott of two openly gay New York hoteliers who hosted a controversial campaign event for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. The “Boycott Fire Island Pines Establishments & Out NYC Hotel” page on Facebook, which had amassed nearly 4,000 likes by Friday, questions the conservative company that OutNYC owners Mati Weiderpass and Ian Reisner chose to keep. The page quotes a critical profile of Cruz written by the Human Rights Campaign. Weiderpass, the co-owner of the Hell’s Kitchen hotel, enraged LGBT activists when he posed for a photo with the Republican presidential hopeful during the Monday affair....

The money fueling Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign for president comes in both trickles and torrents. And the sources of much of it are murky. A hedge fund billionaire is reported to have poured $30 million into the cause isn’t talking. So it’s unclear why he picked Cruz and how much he’s willing to spend to keep the Texas Republican’s hopes alive as the race plays out. Nor will Cruz identify supporters who’ve agreed to raise up to $500,000 from their networks of friends and associates — bundlers who’ll be rewarded with special access to the candidate in coming months. “Some...

In the wake of the tragic murders of two Michigan children whose mother tortured them before stuffing them into the family’s freezer, lawmakers are calling for more stringent regulation of homeschooling in the state. The proposed legislation from state Rep. Stephanie Chang, a Detroit Democrat, would require homeschooled children to be inspected twice per year by a licensed social worker or law enforcement officer. The bill would also require homeschooling parents to register their children — like dogs or sex offenders — with the superintendent of the school district in which they reside. Michigan is one of eleven states that...

PAMELA GELLER'S CONTROVERSIAL GROUP WINS IN COURT Soon, you could see MTA buses in New York with the words "Killing Jews is Worship that draws us close to Allah" on the side. That's because a controversial pro-Israel group wants to run the ads—they show a man with a Palestinian keffiyeh covering his face alongside the aforementioned quote, which is attributed to "Hamas MTV," plus the slogan, "That's his Jihad. What's yours?"—and this week a federal judge decreed that the MTA must comply in order to abide by the First Amendment, Courthouse News reports. (There is no "Hamas MTV"; the ad...

To: Recent Donors SUBJECT: DO IT NOW Dear Freeper, Free Republic is, in my opinion, the best conservative news and discussion site on the web. It has been the best for so many years running, that I really cannot think of any other site that comes close. I've gone to other news outlets, conservative ones, and they allow you to comment on their articles, there's some possibility of those comments starting a discussion, and with great difficulty one can carry on that discussion. With Free Republic it is automatic. The very nature of the software makes discussion possible, comments findable,...

Ben Affleck insisted on censoring the fact that one of his ancestors owned slaves from PBS show “Finding Your Roots,” the Sony email hack has revealed. In a hacked Sony email from July 22, 2014, now available on WikiLeaks, the show’s host, Henry Louis Gates Jr., writes to Sony USA chief Michael Lynton asking for advice: “One of our guests has asked us to edit out something about one of his ancestors–the fact that he owned slaves. Now, four or five of our guests this season descend from slave owners, including Ken Burns. We’ve never had anyone ever try to...

Ted Cruz is raising money for his presidential campaign at a significantly faster rate than Mitt Romney did four years ago, eclipsing the early total raised by the former Massachusetts governor who went on to win the Republican nomination in 2012. The conservative Texas senator, who is seeking to unite the Republicans’ tea party wing behind his White House run, raised $4.3 million during the final days of March – his first full week after declaring as a candidate for president. Cruz proved particularly popular with small donors, raising more in his first week from contributors giving $200 or less...