Free Republic

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is bullish about the chances of an immigration reform bill passing the Senate — and he says Republicans need to pass it to avoid falling further into a "demographic death spiral" that could hurt their chances in the next two big election cycles. "If we don't pass immigration reform, if we don't get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn't matter who you run in 2016," Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday.

Sen. Lindsey Graham said he doesn’t care about the federal government collecting his Verizon phone records because he’s not “talking to terrorists.”

At a press conference today, he wasn’t sure if bloggers deserved First Amendment protections: “Who is a journalist is a question we need to ask ourselves,” he said. “Is any blogger out there saying anything—do they deserve First Amendment protection? These are the issues of our times.” SNIP A few candidates’ names have been brought up repeatedly, the most notable of which is Rep. Trey Gowdy, from South Carolina’s 4th district. Gowdy is well-known for being a conservative bulldog in the House and has highlighted his political skills recently during his grilling of Lois Lerner. In a fight between Gowdy...

Whether bloggers count as journalists has mostly been a matter of esoterics for reporter types. But as Congress weighs a media shield law in response to the Associated Press/Justice Department subpoena scandal, the question is gaining an urgency that lawmakers are finding hard to ignore as they turn to writing the bill. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., took on the issue—and stumbled. "Who is a journalist is a question we need to ask ourselves," he said. "Is any blogger out there saying anything—do they deserve First Amendment protection? These are the issues of our times." The verbal...

(CNSNews.com) - "The dam's about to break on Benghazi," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Fox News's Greta Van Susteren on Monday night. He said this week's testimony from State Department whistleblowers is "going to make you mad." He's also urging other witnesses to come forward. Graham was among the first Republicans to speak to Greg Hicks, the number two diplomat in Libya when Benghazi was attacked. Hicks will tell the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee on Wednesday that everyone in Libya knew it was a terror attack from the very beginning, even though the Obama White House -- two...

SNIP Graham dispatched four tweets from his campaign Twitter account Wednesday ahead of next week’s 1st district special election, including one encouraging voters not to sit on the sidelines.

Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham think attacking Syria to establish a no-fly zone will somehow stem Iranian nuclear ambitions, while Dr. Robert Gates says the whole mess is like "sticking your hand in a tornado." Gates, both a former Secretary of Defense and a former CIA director, says involvement in Syria is a slippery slope that will only lead to deeper, riskier commitments. "The question about the involvement in Syria is, can you put just a few fingers into the tornado? And at what point, when that fails, do the pressures to do more gradually draw you in further...

Two ranking Republican members of the US Senate Armed Services Committee urged the Obama administration on Sunday evening to take “decisive” action against the Assad regime in Syria. Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina spoke at a news conference in Jerusalem after meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders.

Let me repeat what I said last week after he clapped the NSA on the back for collecting Americans’ phone records: It’s not just the fact that he endorses ideas like this, it’s the ease with which he does it. There appears to be none of the usual angst you see from other pols about security/liberty trade-offs when he talks counterterrorism. He’s almost entirely on one side of that topic in much the same way Ron Paul is, but even if you think Paul’s naive about security risks, at least he’s on the side of personal freedom. You get the...

It is an amazing testament to how bad the other candidates were that Mark Sanford ran away with the race in South Carolina’s first congressional district. A deeply flawed man, he was the one guy the primary voters knew wouldn’t go wobbly in Washington. But they, and I, presumed he was over the issues with his ex-wife. Unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago we learned things were not settled. The NRCC and GOP abandoned Mark Sanford as a result. In a race the GOP could still — even now — win, the GOP decided it would rather lose than win....

Several Republican lawmakers are calling for the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings to be tried as an enemy combatant, rather than as an ordinary criminal. “It is clear the events we have seen over the past few days in Boston were an attempt to kill American citizens and terrorize a major American city,” read a Saturday statement from Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). “The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorists trying to injure, maim, and kill...

During a hearing into the constitutionality of voter identification laws enacted across the country, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) tore into claims by the Department of Justice that those laws were racially discriminatory. In the space of five minutes, Gowdy knocked down the claims, one by one, that a voter ID law passed in South Carolina in 2011 discriminated against African-Americans or was dissimilar to laws the Justice Department had cleared in a variety of other states. Gowdy began by noting that, when the Palmetto State’s voter identification law was passed, a third of the state’s congressional delegation were African-American; former...

Lindsey Graham also down on the gun filibuster. "I want this debate."

LIVE TONIGHT AT 9PM EASTERN -- a special "announcement" edition of The @gaypatriot Report on @the405radio #tcot #SCsen #GP14— Bruce Carroll (@BruceCarrollSC) March 27, 2013 To campaign or not to campaign? Earlier this month, Carroll, the Twitterer formerly known as @GayPatriot, resigned his position at GOProud to focus on a potential run against Sen. Lindsey Graham. It looks like he’s finally made a decision, once and for all.

Amid unconfirmed allegations of a chemical weapons attack in Syria, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is demanding a plan to secure chemical weapon sites in the country - even if it means sending in U.S. troops, according to Foreign Policy Graham expressed grave concerns about the prospect of "chemical weapons in Syria falling in the hands of extremists," and said in an interview with Foreign Policy today "Americans need to lead on this issue." "We need to come up with a plan to secure these weapons sites, either in conjunction with our partners [or] if nothing else by ourselves," Graham said....

Could explain why murdered ambassador was in attacked facility TEL AVIV – Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., may have dropped a bombshell in an interview with Fox News in which he stated that murdered U.S Ambassador Christopher Stevens was in Benghazi to keep weapons caches from falling into the hands of terrorists. Until now, no official explanation for Stevens deployment to Libya has acknowledged any such activity. Stevens reportedly died from smoke inhalation as a result of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. special mission and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya. The official State Department probe into the Benghazi...

<p>Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, in an extensive interview with Fox News, alleged that the injured survivors of the Benghazi terror attack have been "told to be quiet" and feel they can't come forward to tell their stories -- as he urged the House to subpoena the administration for details if necessary.</p>

interesting. This is a tough one for me. Obviously Bruce Carroll would be much better for the country and our progeny, but, on the other hand, then he'd be moving up ahead of me in status. Can I support this? Is it so wrong just to root for all of your enemies, and your friends, to fail? Is that asking too much?

SOUTH CAROLINA'S BEST BET TO DEFEAT LINDSEY GRAHAM MAY RUN AFTER ALL... Fitsnews has the scoop. Click the Excerpt link for more info.

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel declined to sign a letter circulated by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in 2007 calling upon then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to press Arab allies of the U.S. to recognize Israel’s right to exist “and not use such recognition as a bargaining chip for future Israeli concessions.” Seventy-nine Senators eventually signed the letter, which was sponsored by Schumer and by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).