Free Republic

Senator Graham aggressively fought President Obama's union appointees at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) when they filed a frivolous complaint against Boeing's decision to build a production facility in South Carolina. The labor unions were so upset about Lindsey's efforts they retaliated by filing a baseless ethics charge. Lindsey's response: "I will not be intimidated." He refused to back down, the ethics charge was dismissed, and Boeing prevailed - saving thousands of South Carolina jobs. Lindsey has introduced legislation to restrict the NLRB's authority and prohibit the NLRB from having a say in where American companies can do business....

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu initiated a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to discuss bilateral issues, Iran and Ukraine, the Kremlin said in a statement. ... Netanyahu does speak to Putin by phone from time to time, so Tuesday night's conversation - though not a regular occurence - is by no means unprecedented. Russia is a major player in three areas of major concern to Israel: Iran, Syria and arms sales to the Middle East. ... On Monday, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki denied a Haaretz report last week...

Russia and Israel seem to have a growing affinity for each other. A few weeks ago, Israel abstained from a vote in the UN censuring Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported [link at URL] that this is a sore spot for the White House and a diplomatic novum on the world scene. A senior Israeli official said that Israel's absence from the United Nations vote was viewed around the world as an extremely irregular measure, a departure from a long-standing Israeli policy of voting with the United States in the UN. While the Americans viewed...

Between having Republican presidential candidates fly to Las Vegas to kiss his ring, billionaire Sheldon Adelson has managed to fit in time to talk Sen. Lindsey Graham into sponsoring a bill banning Internet gambling. As you may know, Sheldon Adelson is a CASINO OWNER. Internet gambling would compete with his casino business.

The Lindsey Graham campaign is still trying to defend the establishment incumbent’s “yes” vote on a key ObamaCare measure – not to mention their highly deceptive TV ad that is now running. “Lindsey Graham still doesn’t get it,” said Lee Bright, the upstate Senator who is the leading challenger to Graham for the Republican nomination. “Leadership takes vision and an understanding of the times. Ted Cruz understands, Graham does not, and that’s why he was joining Team Obama and the Washington establishment in criticizing Cruz at the very moment Cruz was taking the hard stand.” Bright went on to say,...

Today, three Republican U.S. Senators and one Representative who feel stymied on their investigation into the Benghazi, Libya Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks are calling for House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) to convene a Select Congressional Committee. “Segmenting the investigation will never get to the truth,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is holding a news conference on the effort today with Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC). There have been multiple hearings in the nearly 17 months since the terrorist attacks that killed four Americans including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The hearings, subpoenaed...

Status quo Republicans and Democrats will do everything they can to help two-term incumbent Senator Lindsey Graham in the upcoming primary. Case in point: The South Carolina GOP Chairman Chad Connelly dropped out of a lawsuit (read here) intended to create a closed primary, meaning that to vote in the Republican primary, a voter would have to be a member of the Party. Now, the status quo continues. Any registered voter can vote in either primary, meaning that a weaker candidate whose views don’t reflect the majority could get a boost by scamps, using their votes as a weapon. Even...

It’s the morning after. You stayed up late watching election results on TV. By the time you went to bed, the Republicans had won five of the six Senate seats they needed to take control of both houses of Congress. As the networks called each state for the GOP, it felt like a trap door had opened beneath your feet, like a Munch scream, like a nightmare — a nauseating, slow-motion wreck you were powerless to prevent. Too rattled to sleep, you reached for the melatonin. Then, when you wake up in a sweat, the real nightmare begins. Republicans are...

A push by the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson to outlaw online gambling has ignited a bitter civil war in the gambling industry, dividing one of Washington’s most powerful interest groups and posing a major test of the Republican megadonor’s political clout. Mr. Adelson’s effort officially kicked off on Wednesday, when lawmakers, including a senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has accepted tens of thousands of dollars from the businessman and his family, introduced legislation originally drafted with Mr. Adelson’s lobbyist. The bill would close a three-year-old loophole in federal law, banning online gambling — a growing industry that Mr....

Once a top target of conservative groups, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has used his full-throated criticism of President Obama on foreign policy to tamp down the threat of a serious primary challenge. From his perch on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Graham has attacked Obama on everything from Benghazi to Syria to defense cuts to Israel, shoring up his conservative bona fides and helping to quash a potential Tea Party challenge -- he faces a handful of nominal primary opponents, none of whom who have much of a chance. Even though he's likely safe in his June primary even if...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was caught Thursday on a live microphone offering to help the Obama administration pressure Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) into supporting the Senate’s aid legislation for Ukraine. According to multiple reports, Graham, who is facing a tough reelection race this year, was caught on a live microphone after a hearing telling Secretary of State John Kerry, “Let me know what I can do to help you with Boehner.”

KIEV - The man Russian President Vladimir Putin has cast as one of Europe's potential new Adolf Hitlers is a little late for coffee this Saturday morning. Igor Mazur, or Topoyla (Poplar) as he's known because he's 6'7" is the leader of the Ukranian Right Sector at Maidan, Kiev's Independence Square. The Right Sector are the radical nationalists of this Ukranian Revolution. There are others: the right-wing Svoboda (Freedom) Party, for one, which has an actual political following, 12 percent of the vote in the last elections. It used to identify itself as a national socialist movement, just like the...

Though Barack Obama is widely regarded as a weak president, is the new world disorder really all his fault? Listening to the more vocal voices of the GOP one might think so. According to Sen. Lindsey Graham, Vladimir Putin’s move into Crimea “started with Benghazi.” “When you kill Americans and nobody pays a price, you invite this type of aggression,” said Graham. Putin “came to the conclusion after Benghazi, Syria, Egypt” that Barack Obama is “a weak indecisive leader.” Also blaming Obama for Crimea, John McCain got cheers at AIPAC by charging, “This is the ultimate result of a feckless...

As the U.S. Senate took up a bill to provide financial aid to Ukraine, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, rose to object to an IMF bailout Majority Leader Harry Reid attached to the legislation. In the process he blasted Reid for repeatedly demonizing the billionaire Koch brothers - Reid tried to blame the Koch brothers for halting progress on the Ukraine bill. "I'm beginning to think [the Koch brothers] are a character almost out of Dr. Seuss in the majority leader's mind, they are the grinch who stole Christmas in his telling," Cruz said. Cruz accused Reid of "using his...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was caught on a hot mic Thursday telling Secretary of State John Kerry to let him know how he could “help” with House Speaker John Boehner. Screengrab via NBC News Screengrab via NBC News Kerry had just testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee on the need to provide Ukraine with economic assistance amid its turbulent transition following the ouster of former President Viktor Yanukovich. Both House and Senate Republicans have expressed opposition to the proposed bill, mainly over a provision that would give unused U.S. Military money to the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.). Graham was offering...

Dear President Obama, We watched with great interest your recent interview with Bill O'Reilly. Unfortunately, we believe the interview raises more questions than it answers regarding the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi that resulted in the death of four Americans. The American people and their representatives in Congress deserve to know the truth regarding what happened before, during, and after the terrorist attack. For that reason, we ask that you help clarify some of the questions raised by your interview.

In what could be a major turning point in the race to oust Lindsey Graham from the U.S. Senate, most of South Carolina’s grassroots and Tea Party leaders are officially lining up to endorse Lee Bright Thursday morning on the front steps of the State House in Columbia. The announcement is set for 10 a.m. The boost for the upstate Senator comes a little over a month after the Tea Party Convention in Myrtle Beach, where the consensus was that Bright carried the candidates’ debate – and had a clear plurality of support – dynamics that have been supported by...

"...Currently, South Carolina holds its primary election June 10. If no candidate reaches 50 percent, there is a runoff, currently scheduled for June 24. The group filed with the U.S. Department of Justice, contending that the existing system violates the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, passed in 2009, which “requires states to transmit validly-requested absentee ballots to service members no later than 45 days before a federal election,..."

"If these negotiations [with Iran] fail, there are two grim alternatives," said Sen. Richard Durbin, "a nuclear Iran, or war, or perhaps both." Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham returned from the Munich security conference saying that even John Kerry agrees that President Obama's Syrian policy has failed. They are urging another look at air strikes. North Korea is warning that should the annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises go forward in March, it could mean war, possibly nuclear war. Philippines President Benigno Aquino III this week compared his country's situation to Czechoslovakia in 1938, and the disputed islets off his...

Upstate Senator Lee Bright’s campaign appears to be gaining steam while incumbent Lindsey Graham looks to be in deep trouble according to a recent poll of likely Republican Primary voters in South Carolina. The big picture results of the survey show that South Carolinians are deeply dissatisfied with Graham, Bright is dominating the crowded field of challengers, and both trends seem to be building. Only 38% of voters said that Graham deserves to be re-elected, while 49% said it’s time for someone new. That someone would appear to be Bright, who polled more than Nancy Mace, Bill Connor and Richard...

Hell-bent on arming opposition forces in Syria—despite strong evidence that they’re run by Islamic terrorists—John McCain displayed behavior unbecoming of a United States Senator during a recent meeting with Syrian Christian leaders touring Capitol Hill. The delegation of Syrian clergy came to Washington to raise awareness among lawmakers of the growing crisis among the region’s minority Christian community. Christians make up about 10% of the Syrian population and they are being targeted and ruthlessly murdered by radical elements of the rebel forces, according to the visiting church officials. They say the media and human rights groups in the west have...

  This Candidate Fights for His ConvictionsHear what Richard Cash, the U.S. Senate candidate from South Carolina, had to say In this week's "On the Campaign Trail" podcast, we are joined by Richard Cash. Richard discusses his campaign for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina where he hopes to replace Republican incumbent Senator Lindsey Graham. Cash's story includes being married for over 28 years, a proud father of eight children, a corporate computer analyst, a full time pro-life missionary, a volunteer youth coach and athletic director, and the founder and owner of two small businesses. In this Podcast, he...

Sen. Lindsey Graham blasted President Obama for the foreign policy portion of his State of the Union address Tuesday night. “The world is literally about to blow up,” the South Carolina Republican told Roll Call. “The world as I know was not remotely described by the president.” “Syria is a contagion … Iraq is disintegrating. The whole region is moving toward chaos, and we’re doing nothing. We’re talking about limiting drones?” he continued. “I hope he will leave a residual force in Afghanistan [so] they can do the job, because if he doesn’t,

THE WORST REPUBLICAN SENATOR Lindsey Graham's sorry record. By Quin Hillyer – South Carolina's Lindsey Graham is a flop. He pretends to be a conservative, but sells out conservatives and insults them while doing so. He pretends to be effective at reaching across party lines, but the only thing he effectively does is help the other party. He inhabits the Senate seat of Strom Thurmond, legendary for great attention to his South Carolina constituents, but Graham spends most of his time trailing behind John McCain like a valet as McCain criss-crosses the country in pursuit of the presidency. He called...

WASHINGTON — For more than a year House Republican leaders have insisted the chamber would act on new immigration laws. And for more than a year, Republicans have done virtually nothing on the issue — despite intense pressure from activists, business groups, and the nation’s changing demographics. And although there are a variety of reasons for inaction, one Republican lawmaker recently offered a frank acknowledgement that for many House Republicans, there’s one issue at play that’s not often discussed: race. “Part of it, I think — and I hate to say this, because these are my people — but I...

Reposted article at Spectator.org. Every bit as relevant today as then. South Carolina's Lindsey Graham is a flop. He pretends to be a conservative, but sells out conservatives and insults them while doing so. He pretends to be effective at reaching across party lines, but the only thing he effectively does is help the other party. He inhabits the Senate seat of Strom Thurmond, legendary for great attention to his South Carolina constituents, but Graham spends most of his time trailing behind John McCain like a valet as McCain criss-crosses the country in pursuit of the presidency. He called Ted...

HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS — A Mexican national was executed Wednesday night in Texas for killing a Houston police officer, despite pleas and diplomatic pressure from the Mexican government and the U.S. State Department to halt the punishment. Edgar Tamayo, 46, received a lethal injection for the January 1994 fatal shooting of Officer Guy Gaddis, 24. Asked by a warden if he had a final statement, he mumbled "no" and shook his head. As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began taking effect, he took a few breaths and then made one slightly audible snore before all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead...

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (RINO-S.C.) has been censured by yet another local Republican Party organization, the website BenSwann.com is reporting. With the support of 78 percent of its members, the Pickens County Republican Party passed a cookie cutter resolution this week accusing Graham of committing “a long series of actions that we strongly disapprove of and hold to be fundamentally inconsistent with the principles of the South Carolina Republican Party.” The resolution lists roughly thirty such actions – most of them copied and pasted from prior censure resolutions against Graham. Included on the list? Graham’s support for the National Security...

Perfectly rational in one sense, deeply surprising in another. And not just for the obvious “RINO versus RINO” reasons. How the heck did Rand Paul lose the “bash Christie” sweepstakes to Lindsey Graham? “It seems to me that this whole bridge thing reinforces a narrative that’s troublesome about the guy, he’s kind of a bully,” Graham told NBC News on Thursday on Capitol Hill, referring to the scandal over land closures on the George Washington Bridge that’s engulfed Christie over the past two days… “If anybody in my office had done such a thing, they knew what their fate would...

By Sharyl Attkisson CBS NewsJanuary 8, 2014, 5: 45 PM U.S. Benghazi compound lease renewed without security Updated 7:25 p.m. ETThe State Department renewed the lease for the U.S. compound in Benghazi two months before the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks without requiring the facility to meet normal security standards. That news comes from an interview Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., conducted with a survivor of the attacks.   The survivor, a State Department diplomatic security agent whose name isn't being disclosed, spoke behind closed doors in late November to Senators Graham, Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Robert Menendez, D-N.J. The previously-undisclosed existence...

GREER, SC (FOX Carolina) - Rosyln Weston, spokeswoman for Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, confirmed to FOX Carolina a United Flight headed to Dulles International Airport made an emergency landing shortly after takeoff Monday afternoon. Weston said the plane took off at 2:37 p.m. and shortly thereafter the pilot reported there was a problem. The decision was made to turn around and make an emergency landing. The plane landed safely at 3:06 p.m. and all 40 passengers on board are OK. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham confirmed on Twitter he was on the flight. He tweeted "About 5 minutes into today's flight...

Between 2007 and 2011, there were over 43,000 bankruptcies just in South Carolina. That number grows substantially when you include businesses that failed or closed-up even if they did not end in a technical bankruptcy. Unfortunately, my own business was one of them.

It may come next week or maybe six months from now, but House Republicans will decisively determine whether to kill immigration reform or make a real attempt at passing it. No one would be surprised if Speaker John Boehner chose the former option. But the longer Boehner takes to decide, the more ground he cedes to states dominated by single party politics and eager to craft immigration laws in the face of a crippled Congress. Congressional inaction has left millions of families increasingly living in two parallel universes. Republican-run states turn cops into border patrol agents and cut undocumented immigrants...

Twelve-year-old Jason Penate spent the holidays hanging close by his father. They picked out a Christmas tree and decorated the front window of their Gainesville, Va., home with candy canes, and Jason tried very hard not to think about whether his father would still be here in the new year. Jorge Penate, a Guatemalan national who came to the United States illegally in 1997, has a hearing scheduled Monday that will determine whether he can stay in the country. A drunken driving arrest two years ago launched deportation proceedings and cast his family’s future into uncertainty.Jason wrote a letter to...

Mike Huckabee is making ads supporting Lindsey Graham for a Karl Rove, or Rove-like front group calling itself conservative. Huckabee has also made some noise about running for President in 2016. In essence, Rove and other establishment Republicans may end up recruiting him in 2016 to split off some number of social cons in hopes of preventing a more conservative Republican candidate from winning the nomination in 2016.

In his press conference on December 20th, President Obama urged the House of Representatives to support the Senate’s immigration bill, which passed 68-32 in late June. Among the concerns cited by Americans who oppose reform are that immigrants will take their jobs, drive down wages, increase criminal activity, burden the welfare system, and reshape the cultural dynamic of the country. These concerns are mostly ill-founded. The legitimate concerns have real solutions, and a more open immigration policy will be a net benefit for all Americans... Highlights from Article: - A 2013 study by the American Action Forum states that "immigration...

Above: Bob Clark, director of classic "A Christmas Story",and his son were killed by a drunk illegal alien on 4/4/2007. by John HillFor many Americans, Christmas means something else besides faith, family, food (and presents). It means movies: It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol (pick one), Miracle on 34th Street. On Christmas I often watch a modern classic: A Christmas Story, the irreverent adaptation of Jean Shepherd's memoir of Christmas memories from childhood. Many of our readers also caught this extraordinary film (at least) once yesterday, as the cable network TBS shows it non-stop for 24 hours every year at Christmas....

An illegal alien suspected of causing a traffic accident and killing movie director Bob Clark, whose “A Christmas Story” has come alongside “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th Street” as a perennial holiday must-watch, has been placed under an immigration hold by federal authorities. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency placed the hold on Hector Velazquez-Nava, 24, a Mexican national who was living in Los Angeles as an illegal immigrant, according to a report from Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee. Agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice said the hold means Valezquez-Nava, when his Los Angeles court proceedings...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he prayed Sarah Palin does not get involved in a GOP Senate primary fight in South Carolina. But the Arizona senator said he does not expect her to target the primary fight with his friend, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “Oh, I pray she wouldn’t do that,” McCain told The New York Times in a wide-ranging interview. “And you know, I find it hard to believe that she would.” ADVERTISEMENT Palin, McCain’s vice presidential running mate in 2008, has hinted about targeting South Carolina and a number of other states housing GOP incumbents up for reelection....

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., announced Tuesday that she will be introducing legislation to roll back provisions in the pending budget deal that would cut military retirement benefits by reducing cost-of-living adjustments. Shaheen, who is up for re-election in 2014, said that the plan would be paid for by closing “select corporate tax loopholes,” even though Republicans resisted doing so in the budget agreement that has yet to pass the Senate. “This bipartisan budget agreement will create economic certainty for small businesses, help promote job creation, and protect our country from another government shutdown but like I’ve said before, it’s not...

According to a new Gravis Marketing poll, If the election were held today, Lindsey Graham would win the South Carolina Senate primary. However, voters say they would support a Tea Party Challenger and still prefer former Senator Jim DeMint over Senator Lindsey Graham.

LINDSEY GRAHAMS APPEASEMENT APPROACH PROVEN FAILURE The naïve bipartisan strategy preferred by Republican moderates like Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Mitch McConnell was further embarrassed on Thursday, as Harry Reid and the Democrats rammed through a measure limiting the rights of the Senate minority on a party line vote. “I wonder if Lindsey Graham and John McCain have learned their lesson yet” said Lee Bright following the 52-48 vote engineered by Reid that takes away the 60 vote cloture rules on certain Senate votes. The conservative challenger to Graham who has been picking up major endorsements and straw poll victories...

The leading challenger to Lindsey Graham, Lee Bright, took on NBC Political Director Chuck Todd on Todd's "Daily Rundown" show on MSNBC - in an interview just completed. Todd repeatedly tried to trip Bright up on Common Core, but Bright was having none of it - calling one of Todd's questions "absurd" at one point. Todd's facial expression clearly showed disappointment, as he obviously thought he had some "gotcha" moments….but they all failed. I'll post video as soon as available.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has an 89.12 lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union and has been in Congress since 1995. Yet the Republican fixture on Capitol Hill will face four primary challengers next year, all of whom accuse him of not being a true conservative. Graham, who is much in the mold of his friend, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is known for often reaching across the aisle on important legislative issues. One notable example of this is his being a member of the bipartisan Gang of Eight immigration reform group this year. Before being elected to the...

A reminder that as primary season rolls in, our Priority #1 must be to replace the abominations of pro-amnesty RINOs in Red States with actual conservatives-- having an Obama-bootlicking liberal like Lindsey Graham in a state as solidly conservative as South Carolina, or a spineless wimp like Lamar Alexander in a reliably Red State like Tennessee (both of whom backed that traitorous, Constitution-shredding immigration bill earlier this summer), is even worse than dealing with a Democratic Senator. The Democrats could never win a Senate seat in such solidly Red States after all, so these are essential power bases for us...

Thirty years ago President Ronald Reagan famously said, “We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression.” Winston Churchill summed up the fatal flaw of appeasement years earlier this way: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—hoping it will eat him last.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken these words and the lessons of history to heart. He has warned repeatedly how a bad deal with Iran over its nuclear program can have catastrophic consequences for international peace and security. Unless and until Iran is verifiably stripped entirely of its nuclear enrichment capabilities, he believes, the...

One Senate aide blamed Corker’s spotlight-grabbing role as Cruz’s foil on weak Republican leadership. “Because our leadership has not led for a number of months because of electoral politics, Senator McCain and Senator Graham and Senator Corker have sort of emerged as sort of de facto leaders in a leadership vacuum,” he says. “I like Senator Cornyn, I like Senator McConnell, I respect them, I know their colleagues respect them, but in fairness there just has not been a whole lot of direction, there’s really been no strategy.” “It might not work,” he adds of Cruz and Lee’s efforts (we...

A primary challenger to South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the incumbent Senator may be vulnerable in 2014 because his embrace of the Senate's immigration bill has angered South Carolinians who are against amnesty for illegal immigrants. Nancy Mace, who is the first female graduate of The Citadel, appeared on Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125 and said it was unfair to legal immigrants to award those whose first step was breaking the law. "Amnesty does not sell down here," Mace said. "People are very upset with it." The 35-year-old wife, mother, and small-business owner said,...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus backed Sen. Ted Cruz’s anti-Obamacare quasi-filibuster Tuesday, possibly sending a message to senior GOP leaders who are criticizing Cruz’s tactics in defunding Obamacare. Cruz is speaking against Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid’s plans to hold a vote on a stopgap continuing budget resolution Wednesday, where Reid is expected to strip out language from the House version of the budget resolution that defunds Obamacare. Cruz doesn’t want the vote to happen until Obamacare is definitively defunded — without Reid’s expected changes. “In a fight between Harry Reid and Ted Cruz, I will stand with Ted...

The Obama administration appears to be on the verge of a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran after three and a half decades of low-level warfare. Now comes the hard part: convincing Congress. Skeptical lawmakers are gearing up to thwart efforts to lift the pressure on Iran. Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) warned this week that he may introduce legislation making it harder for President Obama to loosen existing sanctions, while several others have vowed to slap on new ones. “The United States should negotiate from a position of strength, not weakness,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a possible 2016...