We have witnessed something very disturbing this week. The Republican establishment which fought Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and which continues to fight the grassroots Tea Party movement today has adopted the tactics of the left in using the media and the politics of personal destruction to attack an opponent.

We will look back on this week and realize that something changed. I have given numerous interviews wherein I espoused the benefits of thorough vetting during aggressive contested primary elections, but this week’s tactics aren’t what I meant. Those who claim allegiance to Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment should stop and think about where we are today. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, the fathers of the modern conservative movement, would be ashamed of us in this primary. Let me make clear that I have no problem with the routine rough and tumble of a heated campaign. As I said at the first Tea Party convention two years ago, I am in favor of contested primaries and healthy, pointed debate. They help focus candidates and the electorate. I have fought in tough and heated contested primaries myself. But what we have seen in Florida this week is beyond the pale. It was unprecedented in GOP primaries. I’ve seen it before – heck, I lived it before – but not in a GOP primary race.

I am sadly too familiar with these tactics because they were used against the GOP ticket in 2008. The left seeks to single someone out and destroy his or her record and reputation and family using the media as a channel to dump handpicked and half-baked campaign opposition research on the public. The difference in 2008 was that I was largely unknown to the American public, so they had no way of differentiating between the lies and the truth. All of it came at them at once as “facts” about me. But Newt Gingrich is known to us – both the good and the bad.

We know that Newt fought in the trenches during the Reagan Revolution. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out, Newt was among a handful of Republican Congressman who would regularly take to the House floor to defend Reagan at a time when conservatives didn’t have Fox News or talk radio or conservative blogs to give any balance to the liberal mainstream media. Newt actually came at Reagan’s administration “from the right” to remind Americans that freer markets and tougher national defense would win our future. But this week a few handpicked and selectively edited comments which Newt made during his 40-year career were used to claim that Newt was somehow anti-Reagan and isn’t conservative enough to go against the accepted moderate in the primary race. (I know, it makes no sense, and the GOP establishment hopes you won’t stop and think about this nonsense. Mark Levin and others have shown the ridiculousness of this.) To add insult to injury, this “anti-Reagan” claim was made by a candidate who admitted to not even supporting or voting for Reagan.

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Sarah Palin told Republicans that now is not the time to retreat, but instead it’s the time to reload. She said we can’t trust this President to further manipulate our economy by raising the debt limit for him.

When pressed on what deal she would accept, she indicated that she believed they would probably raise the debt limit anyway and in that case she would only accept DeMint’s plan of Cut, Cap, and Balance our budget. Hannity pressed her on if she would accept dollar for dollar debt increase to spending cuts, immediately – not down the road, and a balanced budget in a separate bill. She said no because Obama doesn’t know how to cut like that...

A documentary celebrating the career of Sarah Palin will debut next Tuesday in the first-in-the-nation presidential voting state of Iowa.

"The Undefeated" will debut at the 111-year-old Pella Opera House in Pella, Iowa on June 28 - just one day after Palin's potential rival in the presidential race, Rep. Michele Bachmann, holds an event to formally kick off her presidential campaign in Waterloo, Iowa.

It was a scene out of a reality TV producer's dream: Sarah Palin, Donald Trump and their families eating dinner at a Times Square pizza joint.

The pizza summit happened after Palin met with "The Apprentice" star/real estate mogul at his tony 5th Avenue apartment. There, surrounded by press and curious onlookers, the two would-be/could-be Republican presidential contenders showered each other with praise.

He said: "I’ll tell you she's a great woman, a terrific woman, and a great friend." Asked if he'd endorse her, Trump replied, "I'd love her to run."

She said: "What do we have in common? A love for this country and a desire to see our economy put back on the right track." She also praised “his independence, his willingness to speak his mind.”

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is rumbling into the parking lot of the Pentagon on the back of a motorcycle as she starts an East Coast bus tour.

Wearing black from head to toe, the Republicans' 2008 vice presidential nominee stopped at a thousands-strong motorcycle ride from the Pentagon to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Palin, who is mulling a White House run, was joined by her family.

Palin chatted with other motorcyclists and joked about how warm she is in her leather jacket. Temperatures in Washington are expected to climb near 90 degrees on Sunday.

The bus tour that stands to return her to the 2012 spotlight is taking her to the part of the country that’s the least friendly to her — the northeastern U.S.

It’s a part of the country she’s mostly avoided since 2008, conspicuously not setting foot in early presidential state New Hampshire at all during her two book tours and her 2010 tea party campaign swings. Now, however, with her luster dimmed and her national relevance in question, she has chosen to venture into the belly of the beast.
“There’s no doubt in my mind the northeast is the least favorable area of the country to Sarah Palin,” said Terry Madonna, a longtime Pennsylvania pollster and analyst who directs the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College. “But she has to show she can broaden her appeal. She can’t just go to where she’s already won voters.”

The former first family of Alaska recently bought a home in Scottsdale, Ariz. for $1.695 million, according to reports. The gated home was previously sold one year ago for $803,650, according to public records.

Our nation is at a critical turning point. As we look to the future, we are propelled by America's past. It's imperative that we connect with our founders, our patriots, our challenges and victories to clearly see our way forward. A good way to do this is to appreciate the significance of our nation's historic sites, patriotic events and diverse cultures, which we'll do in the coming weeks on our "One Nation" tour.

We'll celebrate the good things that bring Americans together; those things that will give us the needed strength to meet the heady challenges ahead. I’ve said many times that America doesn’t need a "fundamental transformation," instead we need a restoration of all that is good and strong and free in America! So, together let’s prepare ourselves for the days ahead by reminding ourselves who we are and what Americans stand for.

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has moved up in the latest Gallup poll of the Republican presidential race.  A new survey, completed after decisions by Mitch Daniels, Mike Huckabee, and Donald Trump not to run for president, shows Palin in second place, close behind leader Mitt Romney.  But the number of voters who are undecided is larger than any single candidate's support.

The poll, which was limited to Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, has Romney in first place with 17 percent.  Palin is next, with 15 percent.  After that is Ron Paul, with 10 percent, Newt Gingrich with nine percent, Herman Cain with eight percent, Tim Pawlenty with six percent, Michele Bachmann with five percent, and Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, and Gary Johnson with two percent.  Twenty-two percent say they have no opinion.

In response to the revelation that about 20 percent of the latest slew of Obamacare waivers went to luxurious restaurants, nightclubs and hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s district, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told The Daily Caller the waiver process is “corrupt.”

“Unflippingbelievable! No, wait, it is believable,” Palin said in an email to TheDC. “Seriously, this is corrupt. And anyone who still supports the Pelosi-Reid-Obama agenda of centralized government takeovers of the free market and the corresponding crony capitalism is, in my book, complicit.”

President Barack Obama’s administration approved 204 new Obamacare waivers in April. Thirty-eight of them went to upscale businesses including four-star hotels, gourmet restaurants, day spas and hip nightclubs in Pelosi’s district. That’s in addition to 27 new waivers for health care or drug companies and the 31 new union waivers Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) approved.