Punish Putin, But Not at the Expense of South Carolina’s Business Community

By Tom Swatzel

South Carolina has a strong tradition of supporting our national security, and no one embodies that heritage more than Sen. Lindsey Graham. His efforts to crack down on Russia for election interference and other bad behavior are motivated by the best of intentions.

But economic security is an increasingly important part of national security, especially in this era of cross-border travel and trade. Unfortunately, a bill in Sen. Graham’s committee — the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act — would imperil our economic security, especially in South Carolina.

DASKA does the opposite of its stated purpose: it would actually target U.S. companies instead of the Kremlin. As it is written, DASKA would force many of the nearly 3,000 U.S. companies doing business in Russia to leave joint ventures with Russian firms or exit the Russian market. The Russians would then take over those projects, enriching them at our expense, or partner with other U.S. adversaries like China.

How does that help our economic and national security?

Even worse, DASKA’s effects would ripple down the global supply chain, disrupting and damaging the tens of thousands of small U.S. businesses that equip major companies with supplies and parts. Many of those companies are in South Carolina.

Take Boeing suppliers, for starters. Boeing’s decision in 2009 to choose South Carolina for its first commercial airplane assembly plant outside of Washington state was a huge development. 

The aerospace giant has since followed through by investing more than $2 billion in South Carolina, building a vast presence that includes a 787 Dreamliner assembly and delivery facility; a research and technology center; and a decorative paint facility.

But DASKA would undo much of that economic progress. With Boeing having also invested billions of dollars in Russia, the legislation would make it much harder for the company to acquire crucial titanium needed to build its planes, since Russia is the source for the vast majority of that titanium.

That would mean negative effects for Boeing and for the nearly 300 South Carolina firms that are Boeing suppliers and vendors. Among them are Safran Electrical and Power Charleston, which doubled its square footage and moved into a new facility to accommodate Boeing work, and Composite Resources, a 50-employee Rock Hill-based Boeing supplier that has hired new workers in recent years.

Why would we hurt vital South Carolina small businesses in the name of punishing Vladimir Putin?

Aerospace is not the only crucial South Carolina industry that DASKA would target. The bill would also severely damage the agribusiness sector, especially firms such as Cargill, which has a major presence in Russia.

As employers across our state know, agribusiness is “the true homegrown industry of South Carolina,” with an annual economic impact of more than $41 billion. Cargill is among the agribusiness players in South Carolina which in 2016 purchased a Columbia-based beef processing plant, then invested further in the same facility.

As if all that weren’t alarming enough, DASKA would also significantly harm U.S. energy companies that employ hundreds of thousands of Americans and help ensure our energy security. Among them are ExxonMobil and other American energy companies, which have extensive business in Russia. 

That won't help the largest energy economy in the eastern United States - located right here in the Carolinas.  With South Carolina’s economy booming and the state’s unemployment rate significantly below the national average, it makes little sense to put at risk all we have accomplished with a well-intentioned but deeply flawed sanctions bill. Congress can and should fix DASKA. We need to sanction Putin, not U.S. companies.

Tom Swatzel is a former Georgetown County councilman and county Republican Party chairman who lives in Murrells Inlet.

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Damn it, GOP: Do Something!

From American Thinker

By Shari Goodman

 

Day in and day out, Americans are witnessing the political assassination of President Trump along with continuous verbal and, at times, physical attacks upon conservatives, yet we encounter no visible defense or offense from the GOP. Nada! And we are beginning to wonder why.

President Trump steamrolled his victory train through statehouses across the country, turning once-Democratic states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and West Virginia from traditional blue to red. Republicans captured 35 state governorships along with the House and Senate. One would think the GOP leadership would be ecstatic and exhibit gratitude to the man who is responsible for such a victory, but instead, the GOP establishment is sitting back with near passivity, much as they did during Obama's administration.

Granted, President Trump was an outsider who had never held office before. Unlike Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham, he was not part of the elite Washington Establishment. He came out of nowhere to grab the leadership position normally extended to those who wait in line, play the political game, and abide by the rules established by the political mavericks before them. President Trump did none of that. He saw a vacuum, and he was determined to fill it, and fill it he did.

Instantaneously, the Democratic left declared war upon him, with the Never Trump conservatives not far behind. His primary win was a political earthquake not only for the Democratic left, but for the GOP establishment headed by folks such as Mitt Romney, who were waiting in the wings to re-establish their command of the GOP leadership. However, once Reince Priebus and the GOP reluctantly declared their support for candidate Trump, those of us who had supported him from the start were hopeful for a new beginning of mutual respect. How naive we were!

Since President Trump's election, our president has been under daily siege from within and without. Not a day goes by without an attack by the mainstream media and the press. The attacks range from unfounded accusations of Russian collusion, which have been debunked, to obstruction of justice, since there is no evidence of collusion. The whole scenario is a concocted schizophrenic scheme by the entire left to paralyze the Trump administration's agenda with a mission to impeach and remove President Trump from office.

This seditious plot is organized by Barack Hussein Obama from his compound in D.C. and financed by billionaire George Soros, who favors a one-world government. Obama has boasted of his 30,000-strong OFA (Organizing For Action), with 250 offices throughout the country to resist and persist. In effect, they are organized to resist the will of the people who legally elected President Trump. When President Trump delivered an executive order to ban immigration from seven hotbeds of Islamic terrorism, Obama delivered his orders to resist and obstruct to his henchmen in those 250 urban areas. Likewise, his propaganda arm, the mainstream media and the press, along with Soros Brownshirts (antifa), sprang into action with violent protests while activist Obama-appointed judges nullified the order. Whether it be immigration or health care, the scenario is always the same.

It is illegal to plot the overthrow of our republic, and it boggles the mind why this plot is permitted to continue with impunity. Instead of an investigation into the likes of Obama, Soros, and Hillary Clinton, for numerous criminal activities (using an unsecured server; deletion of thousands of classified emails; pay to play; money-laundering; the sale of 20% of our uranium to Russia; and actual Russian collusion by her campaign manager, John Podesta), special counsel (Robert Mueller) with close personal ties to James Comey, who has admitted leaking classified material, has been assigned to investigate President Trump.

In 2011, John Podesta, while an adviser to Hillary Clinton in the State Department, came onboard a small energy company, Joule, based in Massachusetts. Two months later, a Russian entity by the name of Rusnano put a billion rubles ($35 million) into Podesta's company. It's important to note that Rusnano is not a private company. It is totally funded by the Kremlin. Podesta owned 75,000 shares in Joule, but nowhere did he disclose that during his time spent in the Obama administration. In light of this information, why is the GOP silent? Why are they not calling for an investigation into possible Russian collusion with the Clinton campaign?

Where is the justice? Where is the outrage, and more importantly, where is the GOP? Instead of defending President Trump on national television or in the press, they are deafeningly silent. Not only are they not defending our president, but they are not seeking investigations where evidence of real criminality has taken place. The GOP must not only refute, reject, and defeat the left's contentions of Russia-Trump collusion and obstruction of justice, but also go on the offense and attack Clinton and her cronies for actual and real criminal activity. We hold all three branches of government, but by their silence and timidity, they have yielded power to the Democratic left, who behave as if they were in power.

The GOP may erroneously believe we the people will not notice their lack of action. Perhaps they are banking on putting one of their own into the Oval Office should President Trump be removed, with a return to business as usual. Such an assumption would be a huge mistake. Nearly 63 million of us voted for President Trump, and should he be removed from office, we will view his removal as a personal breach against us. We will not forget their silence, nor will we forgive. It will signal a time to begin a new party – perhaps a Constitutional Party composed of those who have the conviction and courage to stand for the Constitution instead of their own interests.

Americans need to know that the GOP has the president's back. Now, damn it! Do something!

 

Tricky Nikki's Appointment as UN Ambassador

President-Elect Trump with South Carolina Lt. Governor Henry McMaster - A team to make America and South Carolina great again!

For my friends outside of South Carolina who may not understand the appointment of Nikki Haley as United States UN Ambassador -- a woman to whom the President-Elect owes NOTHING -- this is more a maneuver to reward South Carolina Lt. Governor Henry McMaster, a popular leader to whom the President-Elect owes a great deal.

Nikki Haley is a powerless and disliked Governor who has attempted to achieve national recognition by betraying the people of her own state and conservative principles. She is an opportunist and has no future in South Carolina whatsoever, and her success to date has depended on the same factor which helps elect Lindsey Graham to the United States Senate. Democrat voters have known that they are unlikely to obtain anything closer to one of their own and have therefore cast their votes for the RINO candidate.

Lt. Governor Henry McMaster, on the other hand, is a popular figure who will be a well-respected, popular Governor. He was also the most prominent elected official in South Carolina to support the President-Elect in South Carolina's "first in the South" Republican primary. Trump's win here was the first in what became an unbroken and unprecedented string of victories throughout Dixie.

Haley's role at the UN will be that of a TV news anchorwoman; she will read statements prepared by others in the White House and State Department and take the slings and arrows of a world community hostile to the United States. She will have no policy role and will be a place-filler until someone qualified can take the job, unless the Trump administration can extract the US from that enormous waste of money. Many of us will be grateful for an ingenious way to get Haley out of the state.

Now South Carolina will have a superb, new Governor who reflects conservative South Carolina values and will be an important ally to the Trump Administration in making America great again.

Pat Buchanan: At Last, America First!

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Whether the establishment likes it or not, and it evidently does not, there is a revolution going on in America.

The old order in this capital city is on the way out, America is crossing a great divide, and there is no going back.

Donald Trump’s triumphant march to the nomination in Cleveland, virtually assured by his five-state sweep Tuesday, confirms it, as does his foreign policy address of Wednesday.

Pat Buchanan: Can the GOP Get Together in Cleveland?

By Patrick Buchanan

After winning only six delegates in Wisconsin, and with Ted Cruz poaching delegates in states he has won, like Louisiana, Donald Trump either wins on the first ballot at Cleveland, or Trump does not win.

Yet, as that huge, roaring reception he received in his first post-Wisconsin appearance in Bethpage, N.Y., testifies, the Donald remains not only the front-runner, but the most exciting figure in the race.

Moreover, after the New York, New England, mid-Atlantic and California primaries, Trump should be within striking distance of the 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination.

Pat Buchanan: The Sea Island Conspiracy

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Over the long weekend before the Mississippi and Michigan primaries, the sky above Sea Island was black with corporate jets.

Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, Napster’s Sean Parker, Tesla Motors’ Elon Musk, and other members of the super-rich were jetting in to the exclusive Georgia resort, ostensibly to participate in the annual World Forum of the American Enterprise Institute.

Among the advertised topics of discussion: “Millennials: How Much Do They Matter and What Do They Want?”

That was the cover story.

Pat Buchanan: America First — or World War III

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“If you’re in favor of World War III, you have your candidate.”

So said Rand Paul, looking directly at Gov. Chris Christie, who had just responded to a question from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer as to whether he would shoot down a Russian plane that violated his no-fly zone in Syria.

“Not only would I be prepared to do it, I would do it,” blurted Christie: “I would talk to Vladimir Putin … I’d say to him, ‘Listen, Mr. President, there’s a no-fly zone in Syria; you fly in, it applies to you.’

Pat Buchanan: Is Putin Our Ally in Syria?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Among the presidential candidates of the Republican Party and their foreign policy leaders on Capitol Hill the cry is almost universal:

Barack Obama has no strategy for winning the war on ISIS.

This criticism, however, sounds strange coming from a party that controls Congress but has yet to devise its own strategy, or even to authorize the use of U.S. military force in Syria.

Congress has punted. And compared to the cacophony from Republican ranks, Barack Obama sounds like Prince Bismarck.

Lindsey Graham -- Working to Bring Third World Terrorists to America

Senators Graham and Leahy

South Carolina's delusional presidential candidate, Lindsey Graham, is working hard, across the aisle, to earn his 0% support in presidential preference polls.  He has now joined Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) in introducing the Middle East Refugee Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act (S-2145), which will provide $1 billion in funding to resettle refugees in the United States.  The legislation could resettle as many as 100,000 refugees over two years, compared with the Obama administration's plan to resettle a mere 10,000 refugees in Fiscal Year 16 and 25,000 in Fiscal Year 17.

Graham's latest treasonous act comes after FBI leaders stated in Senate hearings earlier this year that massive resettlement of refugees in the United States poses national security concerns and that the Bureau has no system to determine which refugees pose a threat to the United States.  The new refugees would also pose a massive chain migration nightmare.

Lindsey Graham: Socialist Ratcheteer

Hannity interview illustrates GOP’s real problem.

It all began so innocently.

Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican and newly minted if long-shot 2016 presidential candidate, sat down with NBC’s Chuck Todd for an interview. Riding along in the back seat of (presumably) an SUV, the two discuss Graham’s presidential ambition. Todd poses a question wondering about what Graham thinks of the country’s current state of polarization. In a bit of a windy answer Graham blames talk radio, cable TV, and money. Then he tosses the kind of political flare that rarely gets tossed in today’s carefully restrained and tailored-for-public-consumption politics.

To illustrate his point, Graham conjures a scene of modern media covering the Constitutional Convention in 1787 Philadelphia, replete with satellite trucks surrounding Independence Hall and Ben Franklin exiting the building only to be besieged by Fox’s Sean Hannity and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Translation: the two hosts are polarizing.

Hannity picked up on this, inviting Graham on his television show to discuss. Fatefully, Graham agreed. And in the doing (seen here) Graham quickly proceeded to illustrate exactly the problem that faces the Republican Party and the nation.

Read more at The American Spectator >>

 

Lindsey Graham Is An Unhinged Kook Who Shouldn’t Be Taken Seriously

Yesterday Lindsey Graham expressed his interest in yes, for real, becoming a presidential candidate for 2016. Spend any amount of time around the good senator and you’ll hear more extreme sentiments expressed publicly than from any other candidate for the Republican nomination.

He holds an expansive view of the unrestricted powers of the executive branch; a steadfast belief in protecting the administrative state; and he has expressed doubts about much of the Bill of Rights. He does not believe bloggers deserve first amendment protections. He does not believe Americans suspected of terrorist acts deserve to be read their rights. And he, like Hillary Clinton, believes the Citizens United decision was a monstrosity that ought to be overturned – he has called for a Constitutional amendment to do so.

Read more at The Federalist >>

Lindsey Graham for President?

Is there a member of the United States Senate who doesn't look in the mirror in the morning and see a future President of the United States?  The most laughable of the egotistically deluded must surely be our own Lindsey Graham.  He wants to determine if there is a "viable path" to the nomination.

While the presidential standard has been seriously lowered in recent years, surely it is not this low.  We'd like to suggest to the traitorous RINO that he look to the party and those voters who secure his election in South Carolina - the Democrats.  But even they are likely to suggest that he go to the back of the line.  Or maybe he can have his friends Mike Huckabee and John McCain cut some ads telling us what a conservative he is.  

It will be fun watching Republicans, all over America, handing him his big head.

Sen. Lindsey Graham sets up committee to explore 2016 presidential bid

 

 

Pat Buchanan: Is War in the Cards for 2015?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you,” said Calvin Coolidge, whose portrait hung in the Cabinet Room of the Reagan White House.

Among the dispositions shared by the two conservatives was a determination to stay out of other people’s wars.

Peering into 2015, there are wars into which our interventionists are eager to plunge that represent no immediate or grave threat to us.

Pat Buchanan: Against Obama, But for What?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

After billions in attack ads that turned the approval ratings of almost every candidate, in both parties, upside down, Republicans appear primed to take control of Congress.

 

Why are Democrats falling like dominoes?

 

Easy. Theirs is the Party of Government. And government is failing. And their leader Obama projects diffidence and incompetence.

 

National surveys also show that large majorities believe America is heading in the wrong direction, that our children will not have it as good as we did, and that the United States is in a long-term decline.

 

Measuring the performance of Obama against the promise, America is voting for another change in leadership and direction.

 

But where does she wish to go? And whom does she wish to lead her? The country is voting against Obama, but voting for what?

 

John McCain Likes Lindsey Graham for President

From The New American
By Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.

Do you ever think to yourself, “Boy, Senator Lindsey Graham would make a great president of the United States”?

Maybe not, but John McCain (not surprisingly) has.

According to an article published October 5 in the Arizona Republic, the senior senator from Arizona describes himself and Graham (R-S.C.) as “the closest of friends.”

For his part, Graham (shown, right) hasn’t declared his candidacy, but has hinted at it (as everyone does at this stage of the race) and has begun attacking potential rivals for the GOP nod, calling out Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as someone who is “not quite ready” for the Oval Office.

Has Hillary Ever Been Right?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Sen. Rand Paul raises an interesting question:

When has Hillary Clinton ever been right on foreign policy?

The valkyrie of the Democratic Party says she urged President Obama to do more to aid Syrian rebels years ago. And last summer, she supported air strikes on Bashar Assad’s regime.

South Carolina GOP US Senate Debate

Tomorrow is the day when South Carolinians can begin to end Lindsey Graham's betrayal of our state in the United States Senate.  We believe that of Graham's six challengers, Bill Connor is best prepared by ability, temperament, education and experience to represent South Carolina in the United States Senate, but every vote for a candidate other than Graham will help deny Graham victory without a runoff, and any one of his challengers would be a marked improvement over Graham.  We need two conservative votes in the United States Senate, not one vote cancelling out the other.

DreamHost review

Bill Connor Airs New Ad in Quest to Rid South Carolina of Lindsey Grahamnesty

 Time to Clean Out Washington

June 10 is the day South Carolinians can rid themselves of a traitorous quisling, Lindsey Graham.  With Bill Connor and Tim Scott in the United States Senate, we will finally have two votes that reflect the conservative values and views of most South Carolinians.

Senator Ted Cruz Questions FBI Director Comey on IRS "Investigation"

In Bill Connor, South Carolina could have a Senator with this kind of intelligence, integrity and fierceness in defending the right and the U.S. Constitution.  Or will we again allow Democrats and other low-information voters to continue in place John McCain's treasonous manservant, Lindsey Graham?

Bill Connor on How to Defeat Lindsey Graham