Free Republic

Big hitters on Wall Street are lining up to support Nikki Haley’s long-shot bid to snatch the 2024 Republican presidential nomination from Donald Trump. “There’s a desperate, desperate hunt for anybody but Trump,” said one of the roughly 30 senior executives The Wall Street Journal spoke with to gauge the mood of the finance set roughly a year ahead of the election. While Wall Street’s die-hard Democrats are sticking with President Biden, many other financiers have been casting about for an alternative to Trump, the former president they see as too unpredictable among other concerns. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s clash...

Elections up and down the ballot in 2021 have strongly indicated there is going to be a red wave next year. Republican Daniel Rickenmann won the runoff mayoral race in Columbia, South Carolina, with 52 percent of the vote, according to The State news outlet on Wednesday. FINAL: @Rickenmann will be the 37th mayor of Columbia, South Carolina. pic.twitter.com/1DGm09mVRn — Chris Trainor (@ChrisTrainorSC) November 17, 2021 “It was an incredible thing,” Rickenmann said during his victory speech, WLTX-TV reported. “Everyone who supported us. It’s about one Columbia. We are not divided; we are united!” The election results will be certified...

Lindsey Graham urged police officers to use their guns during the January 6th riot at the Capitol, pressing them to “take back the Senate!” The quotes, since confirmed to Fox News by the senator’s office, surfaced in a new Washington Post investigative report detailing the events of that day. Graham, according to the report, was livid that senators had been forced to flee their chambers due to protesters that had entered the Capitol. “What are you doing? Take back the Senate! You’ve got guns. Use them,” he told police personnel.

Attorney Lin Wood failed in his bid to chair the South Carolina Republican Party, losing to incumbent Drew McKissick.The chairman won a third term with 68 percent of the vote. Wood drew the second-most votes, 239 to McKissick’s 582, the state GOP said on Saturday.The two other challengers received just 37 votes combined.“Thanks to the grassroots activists across the state, the SCGOP is stronger than it’s ever been,” McKissick said in a statement. “We’ve proven we have a winning coalition of conservatives who are committed to beating Democrats, and I’m honored they’ve chosen to reelect me to lead that fight.”Wood...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - It’s a big decision for many teenagers. By next Wednesday, 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to get vaccinated in the Carolinas. It opens up to everyone aged 16 and up in South Carolina this Wednesday. Shots open up to everyone 16 and up in North Carolina next Wednesday on April 7.

….it is impossible to return to a time when you did not see them.Almost five years ago CTH first outlined the GOPe splitter strategy and the subsequent tripwires showcasing how the Republican political establishment manipulated the conservative movement, and our activity within elections, for many years. (snip) Those who can see the maneuvers of the GOPe may have noticed the recent positioning of two key players, Nikki Haley and Liz Cheney. Both Haley and Cheney are part of a decepticon club positioning to undermine President Trump and the America First agenda. We have previously outlined the agenda of Haley (here);...

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Friday she won't take part in a forum being held a historically black college in Columbia, South Carolina this weekend after President Donald Trump was given a "Bipartisan Justice Award." “As the only candidate who attended an HBCU, I know the importance that these spaces hold for young Black Americans," Harris, who was slated to participate in Second Step Presidential Justice Forum at Benedict College on Saturday, said in a statement. The California senator cited the fact that only a limited number of students from the school were allowed to attend Trump's remarks as...

In another sign of the dangerous predicament facing President Donald Trump, his longtime ally Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said in an interview that aired Sunday night that he could not rule out the possibility of impeachment if new evidence emerges. In an interview on "Axios on HBO," Jonathan Swan asked the South Carolina senator: "Are you open minded if more to comes out that you could support impeachment?" "Sure, I mean show me something that is a crime," Graham replied. "If you could show me that, you know, Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo outside the phone...

The bell in the Independence Hall tower rang at 9 a.m., and Mark Sanford took a deep breath. He grabbed a giant check for “one trillion dollars,” stood next to a tiny wooden lectern, and asked me if I was ready for him to kick off a news conference announcing his bid to challenge President Donald Trump in the 2020 Republican primary. It didn’t really feel like a news conference. I was the only reporter there. And when it began, the only others around besides his two aides were a family 30 yards away with a selfie stick and a...

The Iowa Republican Party is holding onto plans to have its traditional straw poll at the caucus in February to decide the Republican nominee in the bid for the White House. Still, local party leaders maintain that the party firmly supports President Trump. Muscatine County Republican chair Fred Grunder said the party is behind Trump, but there is likely to be a small number of protest votes at the caucus in 2020. “There are some people that I think they’re just trying to make a statement more than anything else,” he said. “If there’s 500 people that are at our...

ANDERSON — Vice President Mike Pence told an enthusiastic crowd of 3,000 conservatives Monday night that he was in South Carolina’s Upstate for only one reason: to ensure President Donald Trump wins reelection next year. “It’s time for round two, everybody,” Pence said at U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan’s 9th annual Faith and Freedom BBQ fundraiser. “It’s on.” Pence listed a litany of what he views as the strongest accomplishments of the Trump administration, including low unemployment, increased military spending and a raft of new conservative judges. But Pence’s stated reason for making the trip could not entirely tamp down speculation...

Joe Biden is pleading for party unity after a week of harsh attacks from his presidential rivals. “Here’s the deal — whomever the Democratic nominee is, we have to stay together,” he said at a South Carolina event on Friday night, where 20 other Dem candidates also converged. “You all know in your gut this election is more important than any one you’ve ever been involved in,” he said in a 2-minute speech. “Not because any one of us are running, but because of the man who occupies that office.” Biden’s campaign has been in damage-control mode since Tuesday night,...

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Continuing his outreach to African American voters, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg acknowledged Sunday that he needs to do more work to connect with the community, particularly in the early-voting state of South Carolina. "It shows we've got a lot of work to do," Buttigieg said after a town hall with 600 mostly white voters in North Charleston, where nearly half the population is black. Buttigieg is planning to do just that during his two-day swing in South Carolina, the first state where black votes play a major role in the presidential primaries. On Monday, he's...

President Trump's recent stonewalling tactics, aimed at blocking Congress' ability to follow up on the allegations detailed in the Mueller report, are rooted in the belief that he can run out the clock on the Democrats in the House through the 2020 election. Nonetheless, it's a strategy fraught with peril, and if the President begins to see a significant erosion in his approval numbers from Americans tired of the endless standoff, he might need to reach deep into his bag of tricks to reset the national narrative. There is one move that could prove to be a complete game changer:...

Jeb Bush calls on Republicans to challenge Trump Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush says Donald Trump should face a Republican primary challenge in 2020. Bush, who ran for president in 2016, told CNN the party “ought to be a given a choice.” “I think someone should run. Just because Republicans ought to be given a choice,” he said. “To have a conversation about what it is to be a conservative I think is important...And our country needs to have competing ideologies that people -- that are dynamic, that focus on the world we’re in and the world we’re moving towards...

During CPAC on Feb. 28, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) thanked President Trump for nominating Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and having his "back."

FOR THOSE IN ARIZONA: I invite you to come out on January 14-16 to the filming of 15 live "lessons" in U.S. history as I teach "A Patriot's History of the United States" from Columbus to Reconstruction for the March launch of my new website, "The Wild World of History." We need 8-10 "students" in each "class." Each session will last about 1 hour. You are welcome to attend one, or all with your children/students, or just for fun. The sessions will begin about 8:30 a.m, then about 9:30, 10:30, break for lunch, 1:00 and 2:00. We do not have...

The GOP senator told Sean Hannity that the president should basically appeal any Senate “no” vote to the American people. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) released a statement on Tuesday calling on President Donald Trump to renominate alleged sexual abuser Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court should his current nomination fail. Graham opened by sharing his admiration and empathy for Kavanaugh and his family, imploring other senators to “not quit on him,” before diving into the senator’s suggestion to the president. “I believe Judge Kavanaugh will be confirmed to the Supreme Court very soon,” Graham said. “However, if his nomination were...

Senator Lindsey Graham said that in a conversation with Donald Trump Thursday night, the president told him that first lady Melania Trump was “proud” of his fiery attack on the sexual allegations brought against Brett Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford. After a hearing in which Republicans had allowed female prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question both Ford and Kavanaugh, Graham took the microphone and angrily denounced Democrats and the whole process that threatened to derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. “This is not a job interview. This is hell,” a furious Graham said. “What you want to do is destroy...

Two former friends of Sen. John McCain say his daughter Meghan McCain's pointed criticism of President Donald Trump in her speech at the Arizona Republican's memorial service on Saturday reflected the character of her late father. "She is her father's daughter," South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "If you say something bad about her dad, you will know it, whether you're the janitor or the President of the United States. She is grieving for the father she adored. I think most Americans understand that." Former independent Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who joined...