Free Republic

The more than 170 members of biker gangs that Waco law enforcement officials say were involved in a deadly biker gang shootout Sunday at Twin Peaks won’t be going anywhere soon. Justice of the Peace W.H. “Pete” Peterson set bonds for 174 gang members charged with engaging in organized criminal activity at $1 million each. “I think it is important to send a message,” Peterson said. “We had nine people killed in our community. These people just came in and most of them were from out of town. Very few of them were from in town.” Meanwhile, a lawyer for...

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...

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed into law a prohibition on cities and towns imposing local ordinances preventing fracking and other potentially environmentally harmful oil and natural gas activities. The much-watched measure sailed through the GOP-controlled state Legislature after voters in Denton, a university town near Dallas, banned hydraulic fracturing locally in November. Backed by oil and gas concerns, the new law limits not only the Denton ban but other actions communities could take limiting energy industry activities. Abbott said Monday he was protecting private property rights from the "heavy hand of local regulation." He saw no contradiction in...

A Dark Vision: ISIS War Front on American Soil? By Erick Stakelbeck CBN News Correspondent Monday, May 18, 2015 WASHINGTON -- U.S.-led airstrikes may have slowed ISIS's advance in the Middle East, but the brutal terrorist movement continues to attract followers around the world. ISIS has made no secret of its desire to attack America and it's putting foot soldiers in place to make that dark vision a reality. After two ISIS supporters attempted to storm a Mohammed cartoon drawing contest and murder everyone inside earlier this month in Garland, Texas, the Islamic State was quick to claim responsibility for...

Let’s assume, as I do, that the Supreme Court finds a constitutional right to same-sex marriage when it decides Obergefell v. Hodges sometime next month. What happens next? It may be a morning-after landscape of more confusion than clarity, with some rain falling on the victory parades. Conservative Christians, claiming victimization by the onrushing tide of marriage equality, aren’t like to be deterred in their quest for the right to withhold goods and services from same-sex couples. Indiana’s retreat last month, under pressure from some leading corporations, from a law that would have given businesses a religious excuse for discriminating...

)—Even while the horrific details from the fatal gang battle in Waco, Texas, filter in, it's not too soon to ask: Is this who and what we have become as a nation? A place where a shootout between five heavily armed criminal gangs can unfold at a restaurant, in full view of law enforcement, leaving nine dead, 18 hospitalized and some 170 people arrested? Law enforcement officers knew at least a week in advance that a horde of bikers was converging on the Twin Peaks restaurant, where the massacre took place, and stationed a dozen local and state officers on...

The Texas senator says he is concerned the CFPB will follow the path of the FDIC and DOJ based on its recent lawsuit filed against various debt collectors and payment processors. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is requesting that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publicly announce it will not participate in Operation Choke Point or any similar initiative. On May 15, Cruz sent a letter including the request to CFPB Director Richard Cordray. Operation Choke Point is a program in which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and U.S. Department of Justice reportedly apply pressure to financial institutions in order to...

You have to give President Obama credit: he is a transformational figure, and the American media are loath to give him the credit he deserves. Of course, the transformation he has had in mind and has partially accomplished had to be covert, for the American voters would never have chosen this course knowingly. For the scope of the change he has wrought, as well as the cleverness of his strategy, sooner or later the Islamic world is bound to proclaim him, “Obama the Magnificent.” The domestic aspect of the makeover is the lesser achievement. When the Mohammed cartoon contest in...

Reports on Twitter of an earthquake in Irving, Texas a few minutes ago. Scott Keenan, CBS News in Ft. Worth:Earthquake just hit #Irving. Strongest one we felt yet!

North Texas-based restaurant chain Twin Peaks Monday revoked the franchise status of the Waco location that became a battleground in a brutal biker gang melee that left nine people dead Sunday, the company said in a statement. Waco Twin Peaks Franchise RevokedWaco Twin Peaks Franchise RevokedA brutal melee among rival motorcycle gangs at a popular Central Texas restaurant left nine bikers dead, 18 injured, 170 arrested and the restaurant littered with bodies, bullet casings, knives, a club and pools of blood, Waco police say. (Published Monday, May 18, 2015) Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said Monday the restaurant had...

The deadly gun battle among several factions of biker gangs in Waco, Texas has social media users questioning the civility of its police intervention in the wake of Baltimore and Ferguson’s uprisings. “They’ve recovered at least 100 weapons,” Deray McKesson, a high-profile activist wrote on Twitter. “The (National) Guard would be mobilized now if, black.” With photos showing detained members of the criminal motorcycle gangs plugging away at their phones as police calmly stand guard, activists are quick to point out the disparity of the situation.

Gov. Greg Abbott, once reluctant to get involved in his party’s 2016 presidential primary, has a new message for White House hopefuls: Get in line. With Texas poised to play a role in determining the GOP nominee for the first time in decades, the first-term governor is increasingly making clear he does not plan to let the newfound clout go to waste. He’s laid out five criteria for the candidates and wants them to come see the border that has been central to his agenda so far. Abbott has not decided whether he’ll endorse before the Texas primary on March...

Nine people have been killed and 18 hospitalized in a shoot-out between rival biker gangs at a recruitment event in a Texas restaurant on Sunday afternoon. What started as a physical fight in the bathroom spilled out into the bar and rapidly escalated to involve chains, clubs, knives and gunfire across Twin Peaks Bar and Grill in Waco, local media reports. Diners, including young children, scrambled and many took shelter in the freezer as hundreds of gang members ran rampage around the booths, according to KXXV.

Three rival motorcycle gangs turned a local restaurant into a shooting gallery Sunday afternoon and when the gunfire was over, nine people were dead and several were injured. Waco police Sunday afternoon, assisted by Department of Public Safety troopers, police officers from several cities and deputies from the McLennan County Sheriff's Office were surrounding the Twin Peaks Restaurant, in the Central Texas Market Place after several people were reported shot during a rival motorcycle gang fight, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said. Police and troopers were in the parking lot trying to secure the area and protect citizens when...

***Officers said there were multiple types of weapons used, including guns, chains, knives, bats and clubs.******“There were maybe 30 guns being fired in the parking lot, maybe 100 rounds,” said Michelle Logan, 37, who was at Twin Peaks at the time of the shooting and said she knows some of the victims. “They just opened fire.”*** UPDATE, 4:00 p.m.(CDT): At least nine people are confirmed dead in a shooting around noon Sunday at Twin Peaks restaurant, said Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton. All of the fatalities are members of biker gangs. No patrons, servers or less enforcement officials were...

Summer is usually a relaxing time for family vacations, a little rest and relaxation, a time to recharge one’s “batteries”, hang out with the kiddos and to get in some light summer beach reading. Ahhh … summer. Pass me an ice cold Corona, por favor. This summer, however, could be the beginning of the end for several Texas politicos who’ve been doing creepy crap when they were supposed to have been representing the Texans who trusted them and put their haggard backsides into office.

In the ongoing debate (or debacle) concerning free speech/expression and Muslim grievance – most recently on exhibition in Garland, where two “jihadis” opened fire on a “Prophet Muhammad” art contest organized by Pamela Geller – one thing has become clear: the things non-Muslims can do to provoke Islamic violence is limitless – and far exceeds cartoons. Writes Victor Davis Hanson, for example: [Pamela] Geller, and not the jihadists who sought to kill those with whom they disagreed, was supposedly at fault. Her critics could not figure out that radical Muslims object not just to caricatures and cartoons, but to any...

Jeb Bush began a talk the other day by addressing the issue of his brother George, noted architect of the Iraq war, and he did not shrink from the challenge. "I can't deny the fact that I love my family," announced Jeb. So if you suspected that the Bush Thanksgivings in Kennebunkport resemble "August: Osage County" -- with lots of screaming, sobbing and clawing -- you probably feel pretty silly right now. On a more pertinent question -- whether the war was a wise idea -- the answer is not so clear. The former governor of Florida first said that,...

Ted Cruz is intellectually arrogant, like Ronald Reagan. The difference is that Reagan masked his arrogance with self-deprecating humor. Sen. Cruz does a Reagan impression that would do a nightclub comedian proud, but he doesn’t have Reagan’s easy and spontaneous humor. One doesn’t think of Reagan as arrogant, but he was in fact the most arrogant leader we have had since Lincoln. He ignored the whole of the foreign policy establishment in his conviction that America stood to win the Cold War and bring down Communism. Then as now, the foreign policy establishment resembled Jonathan Swift’s scientists on the floating...

Summer is usually a relaxing time for family vacations, a little rest and relaxation, a time to recharge one's “batteries”, hang out with the kiddos and to get in some light summer beach reading. Ahhh … summer. Pass me an ice cold Corona, por favor. This summer, however, could be the beginning of the end for several Texas politicos who’ve been doing creepy crap when they were supposed to have been representing the Texans who trusted them and put their haggard backsides into office. For those of you who don’t follow closely Texas politics, a forthcoming scandal is brewing based...