Free Republic

Has weird title. Great video of Palin talking about Cruz and the shutdown of the government over the (UN)affordable healthcare act. This video is worth watching.

Donald Trump leads the polls nationally and in most states in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. There are understandable reasons for his eminence, and he has shown impressive gut-level skill as a campaigner. But he is not deserving of conservative support in the caucuses and primaries. Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones. Trump’s political opinions have wobbled all over the lot. The real-estate mogul and reality-TV star has supported abortion, gun control, single-payer health care à la...

Trump nevertheless offers a valuable warning for the Republican party. If responsible men irresponsibly ignore an issue as important as immigration, it will be taken up by the reckless. If they cannot explain their Beltway maneuvers - worse, if their maneuvering is indefensible - they will be rejected by their own voters. If they cannot advance a compelling working-class agenda, the legitimate anxieties and discontents of blue-collar voters will be exploited by demagogues. We sympathize with many of the complaints of Trump supporters about the GOP, but that doesn't make the mogul any less flawed a vessel for them. Some...

Sarah Palin decided to make a political issue of combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder. "My son, like so many others," she said at a rally endorsing Donald Trump for President, "came back a bit different." Normally, veterans like me would view this positively - as a needed discussion after two wars that have impacted nearly 2.5 million U.S. service members. But we're talking about Palin here, and that's not where she took it. Instead, she used PTSD to excuse - or at least shift blame away from - her son's arrest on domestic violence charges the night before. According to police...

Thank you for the love expressed on Bristol's blog post. The homegoing of our Grandma Lena yesterday is so sad, but we'll always be uplifted and encouraged by her strong, tenacious Christian spirit. This beautiful 95-year-old Yupik Eskimo elder is matriarch to our five generations here; she was a hard working commercial fisherman who loved God and family so much! She's been a blessing to our entire state of Alaska. But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love...

Conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck showed his disappointment with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Tuesday. After Palin publicly threw her support behind Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump at an Ames, Iowa, campaign rally, Beck took to social media to express his disappointment: -snip- Beck also tweeted commentary stating that with the endorsement, Palin may not be as conservative as she purports to be.

News that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would endorse Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary was first broken by people posting on an online chat forum, and not by members of the media.

The fight heats up Texas Sen. Ted Cruz returned fire on establishment Republicans Thursday, including former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, who suggested that Cruz would fare worse in a general election than Donald Trump. Speaking to reporters following a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Cruz said Dole, among others, were looking to continue the "cronyism" and "corruption" of Washington. "If you think of the last time we beat the Washington cartel it was 1980, it was the Reagan revolution, where millions of Americans rose up," Cruz said. "And I would note that Mr. Dole then opposed Reagan, and said we...

... Beltway Republicans say they consider Donald Trump the lesser of two evils. Cruz wears their loathing as a badge of honor...

Trump has the formula to win. He is combining a country-wide populism with a national conservative mood instigated by seven years of abuse from the Obama administration and acquiescence by the uniparty. People are fed up. For years now, 70% of Americans have felt the country is going in the wrong direction. I have written many rants. You each have your own rants about what's wrong with the country and everyone has just had it up to here; we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. People say Trump sold out in Iowa on the ethanol...

... Washington (CNN)Republican Party leaders and prominent senators are sharpening their knives against Ted Cruz, expressing growing alarm over his candidacy as he continues to mount a serious threat in Iowa. In interviews with CNN, a growing number of Republicans are beginning to echo remarks made by the likes of former Sen. Bob Dole and Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, warning that the party would suffer deep losses down the ticket and risk electing a Democratic president if the Texas senator wins the nomination. "I think we'll lose if he's our nominee," said Orrin Hatch, the most senior Republican in the...

Link only: http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-sarah-palin-s-endorsement-fails-to-excite-donald-trump-rallygoers-2168360

... "I don't want to see Donald Trump cut a deal with (New York Democratic Sen.) Chuck Schumer to allow amnesty. I don't want to see Donald Trump cut a deal to expand eminent domain, which he supports. I don't want to see Donald Trump cut a deal to pass another TARP big bank bailout," Cruz said. "I like and respect him personally, but when his policy is to support TARP, to support Obama’s stimulus, to expand Obamacare…those are real policy differences and I think they are differences the people of New Hampshire care about. I get that in the...

... The former Alaska governor maintains a community of millions of Facebook fans, and while some cheered her backing of Mr. Trump, others called her a sellout who was only seeking another moment in the political spotlight. "Very sorry to see that Sarah Palin has decided that being a maverick is more important than being a conservative," said Dale Roberts, of Calvert City, Ky. "Trump supports gay marriage. He is pro abortion. He is anything but a conservative." John Guy Lockwood Burpee, of Fort Worth, said that he was disappointed that Mrs. Palin would be...

It’s pretty clear Donald Trump isn’t a conservative. The problem is many voters in the Republican Party think he is. These voters are real, they care about the constitutional principles that make America exceptional, and Trump needs them. He can’t afford to have the base of the Republican Party leave him for Ted Cruz.This is why he needed Sarah Palin’s endorsement. This is why he went to Liberty University and talked about “2 Corinthians.” This is why Cruz’s comment about New York values was problematic for him. Many pundits made the mistake after the last debate of thinking the comment...

I am sure there are a great many conservatives who were deeply disappointed with Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump Tuesday. It was hard on the ears and harder on the heart. If anything, Sarah Palin and Donald Trump made Sen. Ted Cruz look more presidential...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is going after Glenn Beck for throwing his support behind GOP primary rival Ted Cruz, calling the conservative activist a "wacko" and a "lost soul." Trump also said his endorsement from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin trumps Cruz's endorsement from Beck. "Wacko [Glenn Beck] is a sad answer to the [Sarah Palin] endorsement that Cruz so desperately wanted," Trump said in a tweet on Thursday. "Glenn is a failing, crying, lost soul!" Beck announced on Tuesday that he would campaign with Cruz on Saturday in Iowa. A longtime opponent of Trump, the Tea Party icon...

Let' just call her tasteless. Real tasteless. And classless. Very classless. She showed that in spades this week, when she blamed President Obama for her son Track's recent domestic violence arrest. Track spent a year in Iraq with the Army, and Palin says his problems with domestic violence exemplify what happens to soldiers who come back home with PTSD. And who does she blame for this? Yep, Obama. "My son, like so many others, they come back a bit different, they come back hardened," Palin said at a rally where she was supporting Donald Trump. She went on to whine...

Florida Atlantic University released a series of polls Wednesday that will dishearten those pushing the idea that Trump cannot win a general election. The poll not only shows that Trump beats Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) 16% in a general election match-up in the must-win state of Florida, it shows that Trump is the only Republican who beats both. Against Hillary, Trump wins 47% to 44%. Against Bernie, Trump wins 47% to 42%. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 97% loses to Hillary 47% to 42%. The Texas Senator ties with Sanders, 43% to 43%. Florida Senator Sen. Marco Rubio...

As a political journalist, you never forget the first time you stop just covering a politician and start identifying with her. The first time you wed your high-minded vision of what politics should be to a real candidate's perishable breath. My first time arrived in 2008. It lasted only a short while. Her name was Sarah Palin. Let me explain. That spring, in between the Republican primary and the fall campaign, my friend Reihan Salam and I had published a book called "Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream."