Free Republic

Twitter has taken the unusual step of locking down its source code after its board of directors accepted Elon Musk’s bid to take over the company, according to a new report. According to Bloomberg, the code lockdown will make it harder for employees — disgruntled or otherwise — to make changes. Bloomberg cited as its source “people familiar with the matter” who were not named. Any changes to Twitter’s code will require approval from a vice president, Bloomberg reported. Twitter acted “to keep employees who may be miffed about the deal from ‘going rogue,’” the Bloomberg report said, citing one...

Back in the spring of 2011, House Republicans had refused to raise the nation’s debt ceiling unless the president first conceded to massive spending cuts—a gratuitous game of chicken that put the global economy at risk and defied decades of bipartisan Washington tradition. At the time, many Democrats, including Bill Clinton, were urging Obama to go it alone. I’d raise the debt ceiling on my own, “without hesitation,” Clinton told a reporter. “[I’d] force the courts to stop me.” But the White House insisted that unilateral action was “not an option.” Instead, Obama spent 44 days trying to forge a...

Here is the why Romney will be the republican nominee and why Perry or Cain or Bachmann will not save the republicans. Romney is moving left on global warming and staying the course on Romneycare and you will see him take his natural left positions on other issues as the campaign gets underway. His goal is to attract as many democrat voters into the republican open primaries as possible to vote for him. Meanwhile , Bachmann has been brought into the race by the establishment as well as Cain who has no idea. Perry is coming in too. This is...

MANCHESTER, N.H. - As it played out on TV this week, Sarah Palin’s “One Nation” road trip of U.S. historical sites was a masterpiece of political mischief-making – a wild dash up the East Coast that delighted her fans and cornered the market on 2012 coverage for days on end. That’s not how the bus tour looked to Republicans on the ground, many of whom are more convinced than ever that the former Alaska governor is simply not serious about running for president. While Palin has reveled in giving an extended one-fingered salute to the national press, refusing to give...

GOP megastar Sarah Palin’s bus tour rumbled toward the Hub last night, driving into a Republican Party furor as her headline-grabbing East Coast trip threatened to overshadow today’s presidential announcement by party front-runner Mitt Romney. “She will certainly be in New Hampshire to rain on Mitt’s parade,” wrote Massachusetts GOP spokesman Tim Buckley in an e-mail obtained by the Herald. Bay State GOP officials confirmed yesterday that Buckley wrote the e-mail, but said it was a private exchange and not an official communication. “I guess she blew in with the storm,” sniffed state House minority leader Bradley H. Jones (R-North...

<p>Twisting the political knife in a bit further Palin said that appealing to the tea party will be a “big challenge” for Romney.</p> <p>Romney’s campaign did not respond to an email seeking a response to Palin’s comments.</p> <p>Palin’s jab is a clear sign that even if she chooses not to run for president, she will almost certainly be a major factor in the race. That’s not great news for the frontrunners since Palin delights in being a thorn in the side of the establishment.</p>

According to Chris Matthews, Sarah Palin is the most divisive figure since Abraham Lincoln "caused" the Civil War. In an odd historical analogy, the Hardball host marveled at Palin's bus tour: "Leading off tonight, civil war on the right. Not since the election of Abraham Lincoln has a Republican caused such a war." The anchor frothed, "Sarah Palin went right to New Hampshire, serving as a human grenade, blowing up his announcement by saying Romney's health care is a total violation of Tea Party beliefs."

Comparison of results of a national PPP poll of GOP presidential contenders released on May 10 when Huckabee, Trump and Daniels were still in the race vs. today's poll post-Huckabee, post-Trump and post-Daniels showing the net difference for each candidate. Brackets May 10. (Herman Cain and Jon Huntsman were not polled on May 10) OVERALL MODER SOMEWH CONS VERY CONS ROMNEY 16 (18) 26(23) 19 (20) 11 (15) PALIN 16 (12) 8 (13) 15 (9) 20 (13) PAWLENTY 13 (5) 15 (4) 15 (6) 12 (6) BACHMANN 9 (7) 5 (0) 6 (5) 13 (12) GINGRICH 9 (13) 7 (7)...

Trying to play up the idea of chaos in the Republican 2012 field, on Thursday's NBC Today, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd argued Sarah Palin's bus tour making a stop in New Hampshire on Thursday was "a little bit of a slap in Mitt Romney's face" on the day he was planning to announce his candidacy. Co-host Meredith Vieira had asked Todd about Romney's upcoming announcement and claimed the former Massachusetts governor would have to "steal back the spotlight" from Palin. Todd declared that Palin was "not even giving him [Romney] one news cycle to make his case."

Her strategy of not revealing the stops on her “one nation” tour? Crazy brilliant. Who needs a campaign kickoff when you can get a week’s worth of attention hiding on a bus. Romney, meanwhile, will be lucky to get a few hours of the spotlight with the more traditional “I’m running for president” speech today. The former Massachusetts governor has been running for years, anyway, so it’s barely even news. The only news will be how much Palin disrupts Romney’s event by coming to New Hampshire at the same time. Palin seems to understand what other candidates don’t right now....

<p>Before Sarah Palin posted her infamous “Blood Libel” video on Facebook on January 12, she placed a call to Fox News chairman Roger Ailes. In the wake of the Tucson massacre, Palin was fuming that the media was blaming her heated rhetoric for the actions of a madman that left six people dead and thirteen others injured, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.</p>

Sarah Palin never apologizes for what some attribute to her as weaknesses. Krauthammer recently criticized her as not looking very presidential because of her shows and books. But she makes it clear that she brings a different game than what some are accustomed to, and win or lose that’s what she’s going to stick with. She’s going rogue! It’s a great interview all the way through. Enjoy! Link

"How's that hopey-changey stuff workin' out for ya?"  Sarah Palin's parody of Barack Obama's presidential campaign slogan elicited enthusiastic applause and a roar of laughter during a February 2010 Opryland Hotel engagement (Klein 21), and the trademark question has delighted her supporters many times since. Certainly, the size and exuberance of Palin's fan base help to explain the popularity of her memoir Going Rogue: An American Life (2009), which, according to HarperCollins, sold 700,000 copies during the first week (Barbour n.p.). Writing her memoir was such a priority for Palin that she cites it as one of the reasons...

In Going Rogue, Sarah Palin unleashed some of her most descriptive personal jabs against her former close aide turned bitter enemy John Bitney, whom she described as "a Blackberry games addict who couldn't seem to keep his lunch off his tie." Palin blamed Bitney for inspiring a still infamous comment that she made about state legislators during her early days in office and added, "the fact that his shirt was buttoned one button off and his shirt tail was poking through his open fly didn't exactly inspire confidence." Bitney, now the campaign manager for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), a fellow...

A lot has happened in the last twelve months, and I'm not known for leaving much out, so hold onto your hat. The Year of the Rogue: On July 3rd, 2009, Sarah Palin stood in her yard in Wasilla, Alaska and announced that she would be leaving the Governorship to Sean Parnell in three weeks’ time.

Where are we? Good question, and it is the reason that every March for decades we have presented the results of our solicitation of publishers for sales figures for their top books from the previous year. We all love numbers. Agents, marketing departments, sales folk, funders—not to mention authors and their accountants—all depend on them. They tell us what happened and are as good as anything else as predictors of what might be. Looking at the compilation of bestseller numbers from 2009 confirms what publishers said throughout 2009 and even into 2010—that bestsellers don't sell in the numbers that they...

Mitt Romney’s new book, No Apology, makes a very striking contrast with the most recent book entry by a potential Republican presidential candidate, Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue. Palin’s subject is Palin: her wrongs and grievances. Unlike Palin, Romney cares about the external world. His book is an action plan, not a memoir. It is crammed with factual claims and policy recommendations, with only the lightest sprinkling of self-references. You may have already heard my theory of the two Romneys, Good Romney and Bad Romney. No Apologies is mostly written by Good Romney, but Bad Romney does make himself heard at...

Governor Palin is ready for the next chapter of her publishing career. Publisher HarperCollins announced Wednesday that the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate is working on a "celebration of American virtues and strengths." The book is currently untitled and no release date has been set. Her new work will "include selections from classic and contemporary readings that have inspired her, as well as portraits of some of the extraordinary men and women she admires and who embody her love of country, faith, and family," the publisher's statement reads.

A majority of the e-mails that hit my inbox this week expressed disheartened sentiments over Scott Brown’s decision to help advance the Senate’s jobs bill. While my readers were primarily focused on what so many of them referred to as Brown’s “betrayal” of their hard work to help him get elected, their disgust with politicians in general was a close second. One question I was asked by many was ‘Have you lost hope in everyone?’ While I fully comprehend their apprehension regarding candidates’ promises, I responded to one reader in particular with this: No. I’ve seen too much rugged Americanism...

Will Sarah Palin play in Peoria? Except for a brief stop in Chicago to tape an Oprah Winfrey show last November, Palin's first public appearance in Illinois will be April 17 in Washington, a town of about 14,000 near Peoria. The local community center -- called Five Points Washington -- booked Palin for a speech and a dinner to raise money for a parking lot, youth scholarships and other projects. The 1,000 tickets sold out in a day. With VIP receptions thrown in, the center's gross -- according to my calculations -- should be about $235,000, minus Palin's fee, which...