Free Republic

A search is underway for the man who shot a gun inside of a Columbia church and hit a member of the congregation during a Sunday morning robbery, the Forest Acres Police Department said. The shooting occurred just after 6 a.m. during a service at the Centro Cristiano De Columbia Church, police said in a news release. That is near the Decker Mall Shopping Center and the intersection of Decker Boulevard and Trenholm Road. There were about 20 people attending the early service at the church with a large Hispanic congregation, Chief Gene Sealy said in an interview with The...

During Friday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told host Martha MacCallum the United States had a good hand when it came to engaging China in a trade dispute. Graham downplayed market jitters and encouraged President Donald Trump to “play it out.” “The goal is to get China to stop cheating the United States out of market share, to play by the rules that everybody else in the world plays by,” he said. “When it comes to a trade war, we’ve got more bullets than they do, so I think the president is determined to...

<p>Mike Pence is scheduled to speak at an event on Monday sponsored by a dark money group that was recently cut off by corporate donors for overt acts of racism.</p> <p>The Independent Mail newspaper reported that America First Policies is "organizing the event," labeled "USMCA: A Better Deal for Workers" at Sargent Metal Fabricators in South Carolina.</p>

More than two and a half years after President Donald Trump assumed office, focus on actions taken during the 2016 presidential campaign is starting to shift toward the CIA and its former director, John Brennan. While some observers, including this publication, have pointed out for more than a year that Brennan appears to have played a key role in the scandal that’s become known as Spygate, actions taken by Brennan and the CIA now appear to have become a central focus of investigators. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that Justice Department (DOJ) Inspector...

Remember in 2017-2018 when the media hyped every special election as a disaster for the GOP. Remember when certain Freepers would post "THE SKY IS FALLING" on every special election? Well... Two GOP won two state legislative special elections tonight by crushing margins: Republican David Rowe Defeated Democrat Jennifer Rager-Kay in the 85th Legislative District in Pennsylvania by a 62.62%-37.38% Margin. This is a R+18 seat, and Rowe won by 25 points. Republican Patrick Haddon defeated Democrat Carrie Counton 60.99% - 39.01% in South Carolina Legislative District 19. This is a R+13 seat, and Haddon won by 21 points. While...

Nothing says “welcome to the third world” quite like entering Jasper County, South Carolina on Interstate 95. Traveling from Georgia, the highway narrows from six lanes to four lanes – with rusty guardrails flanking the roadside. Trash is everywhere, greeting visiting motorists as they pass through a 1990s-era stucco display that might as well be the entrance to a drug kingpin’s barn – or a trailer park. Which … is fitting. Traffic grinds to a slow crawl, then proceeds in stop-and-go fashion for the next fifty miles. Worst of all is the pavement – which resembles an Afghan airstrip following...

President Trump on Friday morning gloated that the Baltimore home of House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) had been burglarized. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who in December stepped down as Trump’s U.N. ambassador, did not approve. “This is so unnecessary,” she tweeted, along with a rolling-eyes emoiji.

ISIL has largely taken over control of a huge camp in northeast Syria, and there’s no plan for what to do with the 70,000 people there (including more than 50,000 children). The United States and Europe must immediately address this urgent national security and humanitarian crisis, before a new caliphate is established while we watch. After the fall of Raqqa and the coalition defeat of ISIL’s strongholds, President Donald Trump announced that “100 percent” of the caliphate had been destroyed. But the tens of thousands of ISIL fighters and family members left over were herded into massive fenced internally displaced...

<p>COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina sheriff’s department says it caught one of its own deputies last week in a child sex sting that netted over a dozen other people.</p> <p>The State reports Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott announced the arrest of Deputy Derek Vandenham on Tuesday. Twelve other law enforcement agencies assisted in “Operation Relentless Guardian,” during which deputies pretended to be 13- to 15-year-old girls and chatted with men online.</p>

A South Carolina woman is recovering after being bitten by an alligator near her home in Hilton Head Island. ... Lucas says a 68-year-old woman was walking her dog about 10 p.m. near her house, which is also near several ponds. He says the 8-to-9-foot-long (2.4-to-2.7-meter-long) gator bit the woman on the wrist and leg ... The dog ran way during the attack and was not harmed.

A South Carolina mother allegedly took her 10-year-old daughter to an abortion clinic instead of calling police after a man raped her in their home. The Metro reports Tony Orlanda Singleton, 37, of South Carolina, was convicted of rape Wednesday and sentenced to life in jail by a Hampton County court. Singleton raped the girl in 2016 while she was watching cartoons at home, according to the report. He was described as an “acquaintance” of the girl’s mother. The AP reports DNA from the girl’s aborted baby matched Singleton’s. The girl’s mother, who is not named in reports, allegedly did...

You were elected to uphold the United States Constitution and represent the American people in the Senate. If you vote for this Red Flag Confiscation bill, you will be attacking our constitutional rights to bear arms, attacking our constitutional right to due process, and turning your back on the American voters who trusted you to represent us in the Senate. This bill would create a federal “bribe pot” to encourage states to pass Red Flag Gun Confiscation bills. This means SWAT teams would be empowered to show up at innocent Americans’ doorsteps, demanding they fork over their guns, all because...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said this week that Republicans would push to repeal ObamaCare if they win back the House and President Trump is reelected in 2020. "If we can get the House back and keep our majority in the Senate, and President Trump wins reelection, I can promise you not only are we going to repeal ObamaCare, we're going to do it in a smart way where South Carolina will be the biggest winner," Graham said in an interview with a South Carolina radio station. "We've got to remind people that we're not for ObamaCare." Graham's repeal bill, introduced...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCBD) – Signs for ‘school prayer zones’ are popping up across South Carolina. A local non-profit said prayers over schools, students and administrators need to become a regular practice, so a woman designed the signs and got the Department of Transportation’s approval to sell them to local churches to be placed on their property. “This is a perfect example of church and state. Whereas we’re staying out of the area of the state but we’re bringing it onto the land of the church,” said Vanessa Frazier with Christ Teens. The woman who came up with the idea said...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told me yesterday that he’d advised President Trump it would be a huge mistake, substantively and politically, to withdraw all U.S. military members from Afghanistan by the 2020 election. What he's saying: "When it comes to the election of 2020. I think it would be very easy for the president to defend leaving a counterterrorism force that was recommended by our military and intelligence community, to protect the homeland after the debacle in Iraq." "It would be hard, in my view, and a high-risk strategy, to reject such advice for political reasons," Graham added. "As to...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Monday that he will introduce bipartisan legislation encouraging states to create "red flag" laws and that President Trump is "very supportive" of the idea. Graham, in a statement, said he has reached a deal with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on a bill that would start a federal grant program to help and encourage states to create "'red flag' protection order" laws, which are meant to make it easier for law enforcement to identify mentally ill people who should be banned from purchasing guns. “These grants will be given to law enforcement...

Former U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., is calling for the release of a document he says could be a “game-changer” in the scandal over Democratic claims that the 2016 Trump campaign colluded with Russia. Top Barack Obama administration officials peddled the claims, including FBI Director James Comey, who leaked memos to the media to prompt a special counsel investigation. Robert Mueller’s probe, however, concluded there was no collusion and declined to refer obstruction of justice charges. On Sunday, Gowdy said in an interview with “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo that a transcript of a conversation between an FBI informant...

When asked by CBS's "Face the Nation" host if he supports returning to D.C. for a vote, Sen. Tim Scott (D-S.C.) said he'd "be happy to go back." "I'd leave tonight. I'll go tomorrow, it doesn't matter to me. This is such an important issue," Scott said.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham pushed through his asylum bill by waiving committee rules. The legislation narrowly moved out of committee Thursday in a 12-to-10 vote, which means it can now be taken up by the full Senate for consideration. ... His asylum proposal would increase the number of days migrant children can be held in custody, and it would require asylum seekers to file their claims from outside the U.S.

The Senate Judiciary Committee erupted with infighting Thursday as a top Republican lawmaker pushed legislation aimed at crafting new rules for asylum-seekers from Central American countries. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chairman of the committee, faced immediate accusations as he brought up the bill that he was violating Senate rules. In a dispute that quickly got personal, Ranking Member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said the committee was one Democrat shy of having a quorum during a meeting last week and therefore could not advance the bill. “Why even have rules?” Feinstein asked rhetorically. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., backed her up,...