Free Republic

"No Labels" national director Joe Cunningham told "Fox & Friends" on Sunday that the group would "definitely" be interested in giving Nikki Haley a platform to run as a third-party presidential candidate if and when she drops out of the Republican primary. "We’re talking to a lot of spectacular people right now, and we’re not ready to unveil those folks just yet," Cunningham said. "This has been a project to essentially give Americans another choice if they’re unhappy with the presumptive nominees. Which, you know, it appears it’s going to be Trump vs. Biden right now, but we don’t know,"...

There is no denying that Donald Trump still holds the most sway over the Republican base. He is a former president, he is still (in their eyes) being persecuted unfairly by the Democrats and the Biden administration, and he is certainly an attention-grabber. But there is a major difference between dominating a primary and winning a general election, and the most recent polling seems to show that, for all his support among Republicans, Trump is still not yet favored over Joe Biden in a “Devil You Know vs. Another Devil You Know” election fight. On Sunday, NBC News released its...

Krystle Matthews - Screenshot: Charleston County Democratic Party Top Democrats in South Carolina are urging the party’s U.S. Senate candidate, state Rep. Krystle Matthews, to drop out of her race against Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) after an audio recording of her was released that showed her making racist remarks about white people. Conservative activist group Project Veritas released the video of Matthews sitting in a restaurant while speaking to one of their undercover operatives in which Matthews states that she represents a “mostly white” district as a state representative and that she keeps white people “under my thumbs” or else...

Project Veritas on Wednesday released undercover audio of Democrat South Carolina State Rep and US Senate candidate Krystle Matthews trashing white people. “My district is slightly Republican, and it’s heavily white,” Matthews told an undercover PV journalist. “I’m no stranger to white people, I’m from a mostly white town.” She continued, “And let me tell you one thing, you oughta know who you’re dealing with, like…you gotta treat them [white people] like shit, like I mean that’s the only way they’ll respect you.” Krystle Matthews proceeded to tell the PV journalist that she keeps white people “under her thumb” otherwise...

Project Veritas on Sunday released leaked audio of a Democrat US Senate candidate’s phone call with an inmate at Perry Correctional Institution calling for “secret sleepers” to infiltrate the South Carolina Republican party. “We need some secret sleepers. Like you need them to run as the other side, even though they for our side. And we need them to win,” Krystle Matthews, a Democrat South Carolina State Rep. running for US Senate said in the leaked audio. “We need people to run as Republicans in these local elections. This is the only way you’re gonna change the dynamics in South...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Democrat vying to oust Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott is facing calls from within her own party to fold her campaign, following the publication of additional leaked audio in which she appears to make disparaging remarks about her constituents. The calls for state Rep. Krystle Matthews to withdraw just two months ahead of the general election came Thursday in reaction to leaked audio published by conservative activist group Project Veritas of Matthews speaking to one of its members, without her knowledge. Sitting in a restaurant, Matthews, who is Black, is heard saying that...

OLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Democrat vying to oust Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott is facing calls from within her own party to fold her campaign, following the publication of additional leaked audio in which she appears to make disparaging remarks about her constituents. The calls for state Rep. Krystle Matthews to withdraw just two months ahead of the general election came Thursday in reaction to leaked audio published by conservative activist group Project Veritas of Matthews speaking to one of its members, without her knowledge. Sitting in a restaurant, Matthews, who is Black, is heard saying that...

It should be expected that a Democrat who could not win her own state in a year the Republicans were not expected to do well would not have a snowball’s chance in a Georgia summer of winning a gubernatorial race in 2022. But it’s much tougher for incumbents, even in years their party is in power, to lose to candidates who are perceived as weak given past performance on the campaign trail. Yet, a new poll out today shows that Stacey Abrams, who is polling eight points behind Governor Brian Kemp, can’t do any better than about 45 percent in...

During his short press conference Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland gave no real inclination as to the severity of the actual documents being sought by the Department of Justice in former president Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago.All we’d known up until Thursday night is that the documents were related to the Presidential Records Act of the 1970s, and that the National Archives were demanding the remaining documents still in Trump’s possession. The raid happened despite the fact that Trump’s lawyers had been cooperating with federal agents in the months prior.However, a new report from the Washington Post strongly indicates that...

**SNIP** But to believe Bowman’s ouster of Engel is a sign that the Ocasio-Cortez wing of the Democratic Party is taking over would be a severe misreading of the political landscape at the congressional level - and nationally. She attracts an inordinate amount of attention for a first-term lawmaker, keeping up an active and innovative social media presence, and appearing frequently on television. It’s easy to conflate the publicity with political influence. In fact, the vast majority of Justice Democrats who have run over the past two House cycles have lost, often in humiliating fashion. Since emerging on the national...

Republican state Rep. Nancy Mace will face off against incumbent Rep. Joe Cunningham (D) in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District this November. Cunningham ran unopposed in the Democratic primary Tuesday, while Mace was declared the victor of the GOP primary by The Associated Press with a 33-point lead with just over 25 percent of precincts reporting. Cunningham’s seat is a top target for the GOP after the Democrat flipped the district by just more than 1 point in 2018. The district went for President Trump by 13 points in 2016, giving Republicans hope that higher turnout will help unseat Cunningham....

U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham, one of only two Democratic congressmen from South Carolina, forcefully rebuked U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday, jolting the state’s “First in the South” presidential primary race just hours after the Vermont senator won in New Hampshire. In a statement to The Post and Courier, the first-term congressman from Charleston said he does not plan on making an endorsement ahead of South Carolina’s Feb. 29 primary but will “defend our Lowcountry values of opportunity, pragmatism and common sense.” “South Carolinians don’t want socialism,” Cunningham said. “We want to know how you are going to get things...

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ) said Tuesday that he will likely vote against a resolution by House Democrats to formalize their secret impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, prompting more uncertainly around whether Thursday’s expected vote will go on as planned. Asked by NBC News reporter Alex Moe if he supports the measure, Van Drew replied: “I would imagine that I’m not voting for it.” Van Drew, whose district President Trump won in 2016, is among roughly a dozen House Democrats who oppose the impeachment inquiry. “I have long maintained the position that the impeachment or potential impeachment would not...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have moved forward with an impeachment resolution but not all House Democrats are on board.Democratic Rep. Jeff Van Drew (N.J.) said Tuesday he hasn’t been supportive of impeachment efforts.“I would imagine that I’m not voting for it,” Van Drew told a reporter from NBC News. NEW: “I would imagine that I’m not voting for it,” Dem @CongressmanJVD says about the impeachment process resolution the House will take up Thursday saying he hasn’t been supportive of impeachment all along.— Alex Moe (@AlexNBCNews) October 29, 2019 Van Drew represents New Jersey's 2nd Congressional District, which President Trump...

Rep. Joe Cunningham's wife says therapy and marriage counseling are 'basic well-known needs' Democratic congressman Joe Cunningham's wife is furious that their taxpayer-subsidized healthcare plan declined to pay for therapy sessions, according to a rant on an insurance bill she posted on Instagram. The South Carolina Democrat is currently serving his first term in Congress, where members are given access to Obamacare "gold" plans from Blue Cross Blue Shield and are responsible for paying about a quarter of the premiums. The plan is apparently not good enough for his wife, Amanda Cunningham, who told her Instagram followers she would be...

In the waning days of her congressional race, Republican Katie Arrington attempted to paint her opponent as a one-issue candidate, concerned only with offshore drilling. The issue, however, is likely one of the main forces that helped Democrat Joe Cunningham turn the 1st Congressional District blue for the first time in four decades. And it may have resonated with an important constituency that Cunningham’s staunch opposition to fossil fuel exploration likely spoke to: conservation-minded conservatives. “It’s a huge group in the 1st District,” said outgoing Rep. Mark Sanford. Sanford, who lost to Trump loyalist Katie Arrington in a primary for...

I object to the reference in a recent Joe Cunningham article that Archie Parnell had “no credible opposition” in his primary for the fifth congressional district seat in South Carolina. I was his opponent. I graduated from Dartmouth. I’m good on the stump. I know what the hell I am talking about. Parnell spread the rumor that I was a Republican plant. (S.C. Democratic Party chairman) Trav Robertson told me everyone was saying that (there was only one place that rumor could have come from). Parnell stared so menacingly at my wife that she was upset and told me about...

Mueller’s team continues to flop around with no clear direction as the trial of former Trump associate Paul Manafort approaches the end of it’s first week. A few days ago, RedState Editor Joe Cunningham wrote about the Mueller team’s attempt to publicize Paul Manafort’s clothing choices. That was clearly an shot at coloring jury perceptions while having no factual basis to the charges at hand. You can read about that here. To be sure, anyone who wears a jacket made out of ostrich probably deserves to do hard time, but the relevance to which it played in proving Manafort a...

So, anyone endorsed and supported by Steve Bannon should be a non-starter. Even if it is someone who agrees with all of my views 100 percent, if that person fully embraces Bannon, I will stand opposed to him or her. It’s that simple. Embracing and trading in on that power and influence means you’re tainted, and that is not what the conservative movement needs right now. And, yes, that also means that I will support some of the more liberal Republicans if their only opponent is a Bannon-pushed candidate. We have already allowed Bannon’s influence to be felt too much...

Did this become the new Common Core math problem: If 13 principals place orders for school supplies, and they only receive 65% of what they paid for, where did the other 35% of the money go? Don’t try to work it out on pencil and paper, because the New York Times has provided the answer for you.