Free Republic

Monday on Laura Ingraham’s nationally syndicated radio show, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan discussed the possibility of the United States escalating its involvement in the Syrian civil war days after President Donald Trump launched a military strike on a Syrian airbase in responding to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons. Buchanan noted the biggest cheerleaders of Trump’s action were Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), which he deemed to be “the war party.” However, argued that they would not “get the war they want” from Trump. “It’s McCain and Graham and Marco Rubio —...

Not long ago, a democratizing Turkey, with the second-largest army in NATO, appeared on track to join the European Union. That's not likely now, or perhaps ever. Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared Angela Merkel's Germany to Hitler's, said the Netherlands was full of "Nazi remnants" and "fascists," and suggested the Dutch ambassador go home. What precipitated Erdogan's outbursts? City officials in Germany refused to let him campaign in Turkish immigrant communities on behalf of an April 16 referendum proposal to augment his powers. When the Netherlands denied Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu landing rights, he exploded, saying: "The...

To back up Defense Secretary “Mad Dog” Mattis’ warning last month, that the U.S. “remains steadfast in its commitment” to its allies, President Donald Trump is sending B-1 and B-52 bombers to Korea. Some 300,000 South Korean and 15,000 U.S. troops have begun their annual Foal Eagle joint war exercises that run through April. “The two sides are like two accelerating trains coming toward each other with neither side willing to give way,” says Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, “Are (they) really ready for a head-on collision?” So it would seem. It is Kim Jong Un – 33-year-old grandson of...

Via Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org At Mar-a-Lago this weekend President Donald Trump was filled “with fury” says The Washington Post, “mad — steaming, raging, mad.” Early Saturday the fuming president exploded with this tweet: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” The president has reason to be enraged. For what is afoot is a loose but broad conspiracy to break and bring him down, abort his populist agenda, and overturn the results of the 2016 election. At its heart is the “deep state” — agents...

When Gen. Michael Flynn was forced to resign as national security adviser, Bill Kristol purred his satisfaction, "If it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state." To Kristol, the permanent regime, not the elected president and his government, is the real defender and rightful repository of our liberties. Yet it was this regime, the deep state, that carried out what Eli Lake of Bloomberg calls "The Political Assassination of Michael Flynn." And what were Flynn's offenses? In December, when Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats, Flynn spoke to the Russian ambassador. He apparently counseled the...

As for Trump’s disparagement of the judges, only someone ignorant of history can view that as frightening. Thomas Jefferson not only refused to enforce the Alien & Sedition Acts of President John Adams, his party impeached Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, who had presided over one of the trials. Jackson defied Chief Justice John Marshall’s prohibition against moving the Cherokees out of Georgia to west of the Mississippi, where, according to the Harvard resume of Sen. Warren, one of them bundled fruitfully with one of her ancestors, making her part Cherokee. When Chief Justice Roger Taney declared that President Abraham...

As the patriotic pageantry of Inauguration Day gave way to the demonstrations of defiance Saturday, our new America came into view. We are two nations now, two peoples. Though bracing, President Trump's inaugural address was rooted in cold truths, as he dispensed with the customary idealism of inaugurals that are forgotten within a fortnight of the president being sworn in. Trump's inaugural was Jacksonian. He was speaking to and for the forgotten Americans whose hopes he embodies, pledging to be their champion against those who abandon them in pursuit of higher, grander, nobler causes. Declared Trump: "For too long,...

Since World War II, the two men who have most terrified this city by winning the presidency are Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.And they have much in common.Both came out of the popular culture, Reagan out of Hollywood, Trump out of a successful reality TV show. Both possessed the gifts of showmen — extraordinarily valuable political assets in a television age that deals cruelly with the uncharismatic.Both became instruments of insurgencies out to overthrow the establishment of the party whose nomination they were seeking.Reagan emerged as the champion of the postwar conservatism that had captured the Republican Party with Barry...

Wednesday on Newsmax TV’s “The Steve Malzberg Show,” conservative political commentator and former staffer for Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan Pat Buchanan said President Barack Obama was acting with “bitterness” when today at a meeting on Capitol Hill he told Democrats to resist helping Republicans replace his signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act. Buchanan said, “I think what you are seeing here — If that is an accurate report of what he said — Here is a guy who really feels he’s been rejected and repudiated. I’m astonished he’s letting it show like this. As a departing president I...

That German lassitude, and the naivete behind it, allowed this outrage and validates the grim verdict of geostrategist James Burnham in “Suicide of the West”: “Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide.” Both the transnational elite and populist right sense the stakes involved here. As news of the barbarous atrocity spread across Europe, the reactions were instantaneous and predictable. Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front, leading candidate for the presidency in 2017, declaimed: “How many more people must die at the hands of Islamic extremists before our governments close our porous borders and stop taking in thousands of illegal...

How did this debacle come about? First, in calling for the overthrow of Bashar Assad, who had not attacked or threatened us, we acted not in our national interests, but out of democratist ideology. Assad is a dictator. Dictators are bad. So Assad must go. Yet we had no idea who would replace him. It soon became clear that Assad’s most formidable enemies, and probable successors, would be the al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al-Qaida, or ISIS, then carrying out grisly executions in their base camp in Raqqa. U.S. policy became to back the “good” rebels in Aleppo, bomb...

Speaking in Greece on his valedictory trip to Europe as president, Barack Obama struck a familiar theme: "(W)e are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude form of nationalism, or ethnic identity, or tribalism that is built around an 'us' and a 'them' ... "(T)he future of humanity and the future of the world is going to be defined by what we have in common, as opposed to those things that separate us and ultimately lead us into conflict." That the world's great celebrant of "diversity" envisions an even more multicultural, multiethnic, multiracial America and Europe...

“In victory, magnanimity!” said Winston Churchill. Donald Trump should be magnanimous and gracious toward those whom he defeated this week, but his first duty is to keep faith with those who put their faith in him. The protests, riots and violence that have attended his triumph in city after city should only serve to steel his resolve. As for promptings that he “reach out” and “reassure” those upset by his victory, and trim or temper his agenda to pacify them, Trump should reject the poisoned chalice. This is the same old con.

"If I don't win, this will be the greatest waste of time, money and energy in my lifetime," says Donald Trump. Herewith, a dissent. Whatever happens Tuesday, Trump has made history and has forever changed American politics. Though a novice in politics, he captured the party of Lincoln with the largest turnout of primary voters ever, and he has inflicted wounds on the nation's ruling class from which it may not soon recover. Bush I and II, Mitt Romney, the neocons and the GOP commentariat all denounced Trump as morally and temperamentally unfit. Yet, seven of eight Republicans are voting...

Issue one! To understand John McLaughlin, it was helpful to have been a 13-year-old entering an all-boys Jesuit school in the 1950s. For when John yelled "Wronnng" at me from his center chair of "The McLaughlin Group," it hit with the same familiar finality I had heard, many times, from Jesuits at the front of the class at Gonzaga. In that era, John was himself a Jesuit teacher at Fairfield Prep, where the black cape he wore and his authoritarian aspect had earned him from his students the nickname -- Father God. In 1970, Fr. John heard another calling, and,...

Alerting the press that he would deal with the birther issue at the opening of his new hotel, the Donald, after treating them to an hour of tributes to himself from Medal of Honor recipients, delivered. “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. … President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period.” The press went orbital. “Trump Gives Up a Lie But Refuses to Repent” howled the headline over the lead story in The New York Times. Its editorial called Donald Trump a “reckless, cynical bully” spreading political poison in an...

Speaking to 1,000 of the over-privileged at an LGBT fundraiser, where the chairs ponied up $250,000 each and Barbra Streisand sang, Hillary Clinton gave New York’s social liberals what they came to hear. “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” smirked Clinton to cheers and laughter. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.” They are “irredeemable,” but they are “not America.” This was no verbal slip. Clinton had invited the press in to cover the LGBT gala at Cipriani Wall Street where the cheap seats went for $1,200. And...

In accepting the invitation of President Enrique Pena Nieto to fly to Mexico City, the Donald was taking a major risk. Yet it was a bold and decisive move, and it paid off in what was the best day of Donald Trump’s campaign. Standing beside Nieto, graciously complimenting him and speaking warmly of Mexico and its people, Trump looked like a president. And the Mexican president treated him like one, even as Trump restated the basic elements of his immigration policy, including the border wall. The gnashing of teeth up at the New York Times testifies to Trump’s triumph: “Mr....

Trump believes populism and nationalism are the future. And on specific issues, Trump holds something close to a full house...... <><> The country wants secure borders and immigration vetting toughened to keep out terrorists like those seen in San Bernardino. <><> The country wants an end to the trade deficits with China and the endless export of US jobs. <><> On Americanism versus globalism, the country is with Trump. On an America First foreign policy that keeps us out of trillion-dollar, no-win Middle East wars, the country is with Trump. Americans do not want nation-build abroad...just at home. <><> On...

At stake in 2016 is the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate and, possibly, control of the House of Representatives. Hence, Republicans have a decision to make. Will they set aside political and personal feuds and come together to win in November, after which they can fight over the future of the party and the country? Or will they split apart, settling scores now, lose it all, and, then, after November, begin a battle to allocate blame for a historic defeat that will leave wounds that will never heal. Republicans have been here before. After the crushing defeat of...