Free Republic

"Isolationists must not prevail in this new debate over foreign policy," warns Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. "The consequences of a lasting American retreat from the world would be dire." To make his case against the "Isolationist Temptation," Haass creates a caricature, a cartoon, of America First patriots, then thunders that we cannot become "a giant gated community." Understandably, Haass is upset. For the CFR has lost the country. Why? It colluded in the blunders that have bled and near bankrupted America and that cost this country its unrivaled global preeminence at the end of the...

The self-righteousness and smugness of Ted Cruz in refusing to endorse Donald Trump, then walking off stage in Cleveland, smirking amidst the boos, takes the mind back in time. At the Cow Palace in San Francisco in July of 1964, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, having been defeated by Barry Goldwater, took the podium to introduce a platform plank denouncing "extremism." Implication: Goldwater's campaign is saturated with extremists. Purpose: Advertise Rocky's superior morality. Smug and self-righteous, Rocky brayed at the curses and insults, "It's a free country, ladies and gentlemen." Rocky was finished. He would never win the nomination. Richard Nixon took...

Neither George W. Bush, the Republican Party nominee in 2000 and 2004, nor Jeb, the dethroned Prince of Wales, will be in Cleveland. Nor will John McCain or Mitt Romney, the last two nominees. These former leaders would like it thought that high principle keeps them away from a GOP convention that would nominate Donald Trump. Petulance, however, must surely play a part. Bush Republicans feel unappreciated, and understandably so. For Trump’s nomination represents not only a rejection of their legacy but a repudiation of much of post-Cold War party dogma. America crossed a historic divide and entered a new...

The rise of Donald Trump baffled many Republicans. His appeal to the part of the Republican Party that GOP leaders treat with kitchen gloves and a face mask — the voters that poke and prod candidates to death with their ever more stringent question: "Is he a conservative? A true conservative?" — seemed inexplicable. And how could a campaign run on the same nationalist themes that animated the unsuccessful Pat Buchanan campaign 20 years ago suddenly have so much force and life? Instead of talking about the interest of job-creators, the presumptive Republican nominee is talking about interest in jobs,...

Nativism … xenophobia or worse” is behind the triumph of Brexit and the support for Donald Trump, railed President Barack Obama in Ottawa. Obama believes that resistance to transformational change in the character and identity of countries of the West, from immigration, can only be the product of sick minds or sick hearts. According to the New York Times, he will spend the last months of his presidency battling “the nativism and nationalism” of Trump and “Britain’s Brexiteers.” Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/07/will-the-west-survive-the-century/#JRefBw4DPZPPPmWz.99

When host Michael Smerconish mentioned on his Saturday CNN program that the party’s last two Presidents—George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush—and presidential nominees—Mitt Romney and John McCain—will not be attending this year’s convention in Cleveland, Buchanan said the reason the elites and the “leadership of the party and the old leadership of the party is not showing up is because Donald Trump, the nominee, is conducting an insurrection against those individuals and against the policy they produced, on trade, immigration and foreign policy.” “If Donald Trump wins this election, he is going to take the country in a new...

Buchanan: Trump Picking Gingrich or Christie as VP Against Clinton-Warren Would Say to Voters ‘Let’s Get It On’ Saturday on CNN’s “Smerconish,” conservative commentator Pat Buchanan offered his thoughts on presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s potential vice-presidential picks and the upcoming Republican National Convention in Cleveland in two weeks. Host Michael Smerconish noted the past two GOP presidents and the past GOP presidential nominees won’t be attending the convention, to which Buchanan explained that Trump’s campaign was an insurrection and that the insurrection was the political establishment of the Republican Party, which included former Presidents George H.W. Bush and...

Some of us have long predicted the breakup of the European Union. The Cousins appear to have just delivered the coup de grace. While Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, England voted for independence. These people, with their unique history, language and culture, want to write their own laws and rule themselves. The English wish to remain who they are, and they do not want their country to become, in Theodore Roosevelt's phrase, "a polyglot boarding house" for the world. From patriots of all nations, congratulations are in order. It will all begin to unravel now,...

Stripped of its excesses, Donald Trump's Wednesday speech contains all the ingredients of a campaign that can defeat Hillary Clinton this fall. Indeed, after the speech ended Clinton was suddenly defending the Clinton Foundation against the charge that it is a front for a racket for her family's enrichment. The specific charges in Trump's indictment of Clinton: She is mendacious, corrupt, incompetent and a hypocrite. "Hillary Clinton ... is a world-class liar," said Trump. She faked a story about being under fire at a Bosnia airport, the kind of claim for which TV anchors get fired. She has lied repeatedly...

The Donald & The La Raza Judge Pat Buchanan Jun 07, 2016 Before the lynching of The Donald proceeds, what exactly was it he said about that Hispanic judge? Stated succinctly, Donald Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over a class-action suit against Trump University, is sticking it to him. And the judge's bias is likely rooted in the fact that he is of Mexican descent. Can there be any defense of a statement so horrific? Just this. First, Trump has a perfect right to be angry about the judge's rulings and to question his motives....

In his coquettish refusal to accept the Donald, Paul Ryan says he cannot betray the conservative “principles” of the party of Abraham Lincoln, high among which is a devotion to free trade. But when did free trade become dogma in the party of Lincoln? As early as 1832, young Abe declared, “My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of a national bank … and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles.” Campaigning in 1844, Lincoln declared, “Give us a protective tariff, and we will have the greatest nation...

Among others sounded out for the mission are ex-Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, retired Marine Corps General James Mattis, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks. All have begged off. Apparently, Romney, the Republican Party's 2012 nominee, personally sounded out both Sasse and Gov. John Kasich, who will be hosting the Cleveland Convention where the coronation of the Donald is to be held. How Kasich could expect to beat Trump in November, when he lost every state primary to Trump, save his own, is unexplained. And, indeed, Romney's recruitment of Kasich raises a question....

Forty-eight hours after Donald Trump wrapped up the Republican nomination with a smashing victory in the Indiana primary, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he could not yet support Trump. In millennial teen-talk, Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “I’m just not ready to do that at this point. I’m not there right now.” “[T]he bulk of the burden of unifying the party” falls on Trump, added Ryan. Trump must unify “all wings of the Republican Party, and the conservative movement.” Trump must run a campaign that we can “be proud to support and proud to be a part of.” Then,...

The only obstacle that can prevent Donald Trump from clinching the Republican presidential nomination is an act of "divine intervention," veteran political commentator and two-time presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan tells Newsmax TV. "Trump is indeed the presumptive nominee as of now and if he wins Indiana, I don't see how he is stopped absent divine intervention," Buchanan said Friday to J.D. Hayworth on "Newsmax Prime." he only obstacle that can prevent Donald Trump from clinching the Republican presidential nomination is an act of "divine intervention," veteran political commentator and two-time presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan tells Newsmax TV. "Trump...

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. Two minutes into his speech before the Center for the National Interest, Trump declared that the “major and overriding theme” of his administration will be – “America first.” Right down...

In Samuel Eliot Morison’s “The Oxford History of the American People,” there is a single sentence about Harriet Tubman. “An illiterate field hand, (Tubman) not only escaped herself but returned repeatedly and guided more than 300 slaves to freedom.” Morison, however, devotes most of five chapters to the greatest soldier-statesman in American history, save Washington, that pivotal figure between the Founding Fathers and the Civil War – Andrew Jackson. Slashed by a British officer in the Revolution, and a POW at 14, the orphaned Jackson went west, rose to head up the Tennessee militia, crushed an Indian uprising at Horseshoe...

Pat Buchanan went on Hannity to discuss the state of the Republican primary race. After New York and with the elections next week, Donald Trump has the only path to win the nomination. Cruz and Kasich are both just playing spoilers at this point. Buchanan argued the future of the Republican Party belongs to the Trump supporters. “ Pat Buchanan: The Republican Party in the Reagan era was America’s Party… Sean Hannity: I believe that if the party does not unite behind the winner. And I mean all the 17 who began, and the rest of the party and the...

Buchanan told TheDC, “we don’t have any perfect candidates,” but the other options besides Trump are more frightening. “Neocons offer nothing more than more wars,” he said, before adding that their support for free trade is “almost a religious belief.” In 2001, Buchanan released the book “The Death of the West.” He followed this book up with “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?” in 2011. When asked if a Trump victory in the United States, and the success of groups such as the National Front in France could offset this demise, Buchanan was not hopeful. “Do I...

Donald Trump has brought out the largest crowds in the history of primaries. He has won the most victories, the most delegates, the most votes. He is poised to sweep three of the five largest states in the nation – New York, Pennsylvania and California. If he does, and the nomination is taken from him, the Republican Party will be seen by the American people as a glorified Chinese tong. Last week, Ted Cruz swept 34 delegates at the Colorado party convention. Attendees were not allowed to vote on whom they wanted as the party’s nominee. This weekend, Cruz shut...

In the race for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump would seem to be in the catbird seat. He has won the most states, the most delegates and the most votes – by nearly 2 million. He has brought out the largest crowds and is poised for huge wins in the largest states of the East, New York and Pennsylvania. Yet, there is a growing probability that the backroom boys will steal the nomination from him at a brokered convention in Cleveland. Over the weekend, Colorado awarded all 34 delegates to Ted Cruz. The fix had been in since August, when...