Free Republic

Trump-resistant and election battling Republicans including two former Presidents, two former Republican nominees, and several former 2016 presidential hopefuls are offering up excuses for why they will not attend the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next week, notably among them a break with a history of former Presidents attending their party’s convention. Here are ten of the most prominent Republicans who say they’ll skip out on the convention and a few more who will or maybe won’t.

But after losing his job, he wondered if they were going to be able to afford their condo. So he started looking into using his house as a short-term rental. Zaatari applied for a Type 2 license, which is for residential rentals the owner doesn’t claim as his or her main dwelling, or homestead, according to city regulations. In November 2015, the Austin City Council placed a temporary moratorium on new licenses for Type 2 short-term rentals. In February, the City Council voted 9-2 to amend the law and implement new regulations for those rentals, including a ban on them...

Three Republican senators have filed a bill to ratchet up penalties against anyone who intentionally targets the police, a response to the deadly shooting that left five officers dead in Dallas last week. Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) filed a bill Wednesday to make attempting or conspiring to kill a law enforcement officer or judge a federal crime punishable by up to 30 years in jail, with lesser penalties for assaulting such officials or trying to flee prosecution by crossing state lines. In states that have capital punishment, a murder of a police officer...

<p>A man with an AK-47 who robbed customers at a Waffle House in Texas is on life support after being shot by a customer with a licensed handgun.</p> <p>According to the DeSoto Police Department, Antione Cooper, 26, entered the restaurant in the 1500 block of North Beckley Avenue at 2:30 a.m. Thursday. Patrons at the Waffle House told police Cooper robbed several customers before leaving the restaurant and entering the parking lot.</p>

On Tuesday, President Obama descended on Dallas to hijack the memorial service for five slain police officers. He’d planned to do this for days – his White House stated in advance that Obama would get political. But for the first few minutes of Obama’s address, it appeared that he might take stock of the moment and hold himself back. Then it all collapsed. Here are the seven worst moments of his latest opportunistic, highly political, egregiously inappropriate address: 1. Equating The Murders of The Dallas Police Officers With The Killings of Alton Sterling And Philando Castile. This is a trap...

President Barack Obama converted the commemoration of five Dallas police officers killed by a cop-hating African-American into an extended speech in support of the radical Black Lives Matter movement. “If we are to sustain the unity we need to get through these difficulties, if we are to honor these five outstanding officers who we have lost, then we will need to act on the truths that we know … America, we know that bias remains,” he said at the Dallas event, without criticizing or demanding anything of his supporters living in violent, undereducated, poor African-American communities. Throughout his speech, Obama...

After extracting major policy concessions from Democrats, Marxist grandstander Bernie Sanders finally ended his primary campaign and endorsed his rival Hillary Clinton for the presidency. The endorsement, which New York Times columnist Andrew Rosenthal promptly labeled "uninspiring," sounded perfunctory. Bernie's heart wasn't in it.

In Dallas, Obama mentioned the name of dead sex offender Alton Sterling more times than those of the murdered police officers whom he was pretending to memorialize. After quickly dispensing with the formalities of eulogizing the slain officers, Obama demanded that “even those who dislike the phrase ‘black lives matter’” should “be able to hear the pain of Alton Sterling’s family”.

President Obama on Tuesday telephoned the family members of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, who were killed in separate police shootings last week in Louisiana and Minnesota. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama called the families while traveling aboard Air Force One, en route to the Dallas memorial service for five police officers who were killed last week. Earnest said Obama wanted to "offer his and the first lady's condolences on behalf of the American people for the death of their loved ones."

On Friday night, BET and MTV convened an hour-long, commercial-free townhall on police-involved shootings of African-Americans with only distant mentions of what transpired the night before in Dallas but focused heavily on denigrating law enforcement as hunters and “a gang” meant to terrorize blacks from America’s founding, the need for white people to recognize privilege, and lobby for the defunding of police nationwide. Aside from a brief discussion with a former New York City detective, the so-called “historic” conversation was anything but in its one-sided, anti-police rhetoric that even went as far as to suggest the media at large weren’t...

Rapper Chuck D of the 80s group Public Enemy ranted against the police on CNN's New Day on Tuesday. When Chris Cuomo played up how "you have a lot more diversity in the police force," the guest wildly claimed that "when it comes down to enforcement...people feel like it's still a slave patrol." He also likened the Black Lives Movement to the anti-Vietnam War protests: "People feel is that Black Lives Matter is this violent movement. It's not what it is. It's a movement against the violence....almost like in the '60s, when you had people protesting against Vietnam." [video below]

CLEVELAND — Ted Cruz is making an extra trip to Cleveland to address a closed-door meeting of influential conservative leaders this Friday ahead of the Republican National Convention, according to four people familiar with his plans. Cruz will speak to a gathering of the Council for National Policy, a secretive group of conservative activists, many of whom backed the Texas senator in his failed presidential bid earlier this year. The Council for National Policy is a nonprofit but some of its members, including CNP President Tony Perkins, who also serves as head of the Family Research Council, are part of...

Micah Johnson never balked at the $600 asking price for an AK-47 assault rifle. The buy was arranged via Facebook, and consummated in the parking lot of a Target. Seller Colton Crews forgot about the deal until last week, when ex-Army reservist Johnson killed five Dallas police officers — and federal investigators tracked Crews down. “I don’t even know how I feel about it right now,” Crews told the Daily News. “I have no idea. It’s awful. It’s just bad.” Crews, 26, said there was no inkling during their 15-minute November 2014 transaction that Johnson was anything except a military...

#BlackLivesMatter leader DeRay Mckesson may claim to be leading a grassroots revolution for racial and economic justice, but he has close connections with the privileged and elite. Mckesson lives in a home owned by philanthropists James and Robin Wood in Baltimore, Maryland. It’s the same address he used when declaring his residency on his campaign committee registration form for his failed mayoral run in the city’s Democratic primary earlier this year. The Woods have owned the home since 1996 and are wealthy donors to the Baltimore chapter of George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

Authorities are now investigating whether Johnson was directed by the militant groups he "liked" on social media — including the African American Defense League, the Black Riders Liberation Party, the Huey P. Newton Gun Club and the New Black Panther Party — or merely emboldened by them. "I think it's safe to say we'll leave no stone unturned," Dallas police Deputy Chief Scott Walton said. It's unclear if Johnson was merely a follower or a more active participant of those groups. Babu Omowale, co-founder of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, a black militia that performs armed community patrols in...

Dallas sniper Micah Johnson was shunned by the New Black Panther Party after he began encouraging fellow members to take up arms, the hate group's leader X claimed Monday. Houston-based New Black Panther Party leader Quanell X told radio station KTRH he "excused" Johnson when the Army veteran encouraged the group to stockpile guns and ammunition. Quanell X,leader of the New Black Panther Party, said he "excused" Johnson from the group when he espoused violence. "I knew brother, and brother had spent some time with us in New Black Panther Party nation and he also worked some security details for...

US Obama: Every American Is Racist [VIDEO] Photo of Steve Guest STEVE GUEST Media Reporter 3:25 PM 07/12/2016 During the memorial service for the five Dallas police officers who were killed, President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that every American is racist. Obama said, “America, we know that bias remains. We know it. Whether you are black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or of Middle Eastern decent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point. We heard it at times in our own homes.” (RELATED: Hillary: ‘All Of Us’ Are Racist...

WOW! Barack Obama lectured the people of Dallas today at the memorial service for the five slain police officers be a racist Black Power activist. Obama went off on a history lecture of racism in America. He included mentions of Alton Sterling (twice) and Philando Castile (twice). He even mentioned poor black children in hoodies. The police officers were not impressed. When the camera panned on the police officers they were not applauding.

Friday, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (F.L.E.O.A.) Foundation announced its request that President Obama honor the ultimate sacrifice of our fallen Dallas police heroes by illuminating the White House in blue. It did not happen. FLEOA Foundation President Jon Adler issued the following statement: "While we appreciate the President's proclamation to have our flag flown at half-mast in honor of our fallen Dallas police heroes, I respectfully request that he demonstrate his full respect for their ultimate sacrifice by illuminating the White House in blue. Actions speak louder than scripted words, and the honorable act of displaying law enforcement's...

Dallas was not just another attack by a lone shooter against defenseless civilians. Rather, it was a highly symbolic act against those who defend order. The target was order. The target was the uniforms and badges the officers were wearing. Those who died were merely representatives of order. They were the defenders of the principles and institutions around which society agrees to be organized.