Free Republic

Tell-all with president Brad Smith reveals Obama warned tech giants that a privacy reckoning was coming Microsoft president Brad Smith (pictured) has admitted that the Windows giant was "on the wrong side of history" when it came to open source.While nowadays the born-again company seems unable to resist the embrace (if that's the right word) of the open-source world, it was not always so.Former CEO Steve Ballmer memorably declared that "Linux is a cancer" back in the day. Goodness, how times have changed in Redmond."Microsoft," said Smith during a chat hosted by MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL),...

The rise of killer robots is now unstoppable and a new digital Geneva Convention is essential to protect the world from the growing threat they pose, according to the President of the world’s biggest technology company. In an interview with The Telegraph, Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, said the use of 'lethal autonomous weapon systems' poses a host of new ethical questions which need to be considered by governments as a matter of urgency. He said the rapidly advancing technology, in which flying, swimming or walking drones can be equipped with lethal weapons systems – missiles, bombs or guns –...

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti obtained majority control of Justice Democrats PAC in December 2017, according to archived copies of the group’s website, and the two appear to retain their control of the group, according to corporate filings obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. If the Federal Election Commission (FEC) finds that the New York Democrat’s campaign operated in affiliation with the PAC, which had raised more than $1.8 million before her June 2018 primary, it would open them up to “massive reporting violations, probably at least some illegal contribution violations exceeding the...

Most Pacific Northwesterners spend long, rainy months pining for summer. But Microsoft President Brad Smith is having a hard time celebrating because he sees three clouds on the political horizon. During an appearance at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., on Tuesday, Smith told Recode’s Kara Swisher that he has three immigration-related concerns that could make this “a tough summer.” If President Donald Trump takes any of the actions Smith warned about, Microsoft employees would be directly impacted. Smith told Swisher he is worried that Republicans and Democrats will fail to reach a compromise on DACA, a program...

A Tampa Tribune investigation has found previous ethical lapses in the work of Brad Smith, a former Tampa Tribune reporter who fabricated parts of a story in April.

WASHINGTON - A Republican who drew frequent criticism from government watchdogs for opposing campaign finance restrictions announced Wednesday that he is resigning from the Federal Election Commission. In a letter to President Bush, Commissioner Brad Smith said he views the commission as a "fairer, more efficient, more streamlined organization" that it was when he joined it five years ago. However, Smith added that he worries campaign finance regulations are driving people from politics. With nearly 400 pages of rules for candidates, parties and political donors, "political activity is more heavily regulated than at any time in our nation's history," he...

Later this summer, the First Amendment will lose its most valuable ally in the Bush administration: FEC Commissioner Brad Smith. From his perch at the Federal Election Commission, Smith has long sounded a brave — if lonely — note of caution against America's increasingly disastrous experiments with campaign-finance reform.... In his time at the FEC, Smith has served as the whipping boy of the campaign-finance-reform "movement" — the slew of "clean government" groups funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and seven other liberal foundations, plus Sen. John McCain and his merry band of speech police. But they've never been able...

The House Ethics Committee has just admonished Tom DeLay for the sin of twisting the arm of a reluctant fellow Republican to vote for last year's mega-super-ultra Medicare expansion. If only that were the Majority Leader's real offense. The House ethicists were distressed, if only mildly so, that Mr. DeLay offered a political favor to Michigan Congressman Nick Smith in return for a "yes" vote on the Medicare prescription-drug bill.... The Committee at least had the honesty to admit that this sort of horse-trading happens all the time on Capitol Hill. But then it rose in high dudgeon to pronounce...

It's starting to look like there's no limit to how far the campaign-finance reformers are willing to go in order to suppress political speech. ...Michael Moore has been bullied out of airing ads for "Fahrenheit 9/11" ahead of the presidential election; and a conservative group, Citizens United, has been forbidden by the Federal Election Commission from airing ads.... The charge, in both cases, is that ads for these movies would constitute "electioneering communications," aimed at electing or defeating a candidate for federal office — which the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law bans incorporated from doing in the weeks before a primary or...

Right to Life wants to stop Schwarz Abortion rights candidate vies for 7th District By Stacey Range Lansing State Journal Six Republicans are hustling to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Nick Smith, but an early endorsement by the ever-powerful Right to Life of Michigan could stop several anti-abortion candidates in their tracks. The reason: Right to Life wants to block the nomination of former state Sen. Joe Schwarz of Battle Creek, the only abortion rights GOP candidate. "We want to make sure the nomination goes to someone who supports us," said Larry Galmish, director of the Right to Life political action...

GOP Is Now The "Fraternal Twin" Of Socialist Democrats By Chuck Baldwin Food For Thought From The Chuck Wagon December 16, 2003 The Republican Party's full-court press to enact the biggest expansion of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" welfare state by passing the recent Medicare reform bill proves that the GOP is the "fraternal twin" (Howard Phillips) of socialist Democrats. In fact, G. W. Bush and his fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill make Bill Clinton look like an economic conservative! Furthermore, Robert Novak was quoted in The Washington Post as saying the arm-twisting of recalcitrant conservatives within the GOP by party...

Arm-Twisting and Vote-Switching on RX Drug Entitlement by David Freddoso Posted Nov 26, 2003 The final vote on the bill to create the largest new entitlement in decades was 220-215, but it was even closer than that for most of Saturday morning. Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.), who spearheaded the conservative opposition to the prescription drug entitlement (H.R. 1) in the House, called his own efforts a "successful failure." Pointing out that the conservative opposition to the bill grew by six votes since June, he compared the stand by 25 principled House conservatives against the bill to the battle of the...