Free Republic

Democrats and supporters of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Wednesday after she refused to name slavery as the primary cause of the Civil War. Haley, 51, made the apparent gaffe during a town hall event in Berlin, NH, after a voter asked the former United Nations ambassador to identify the cause of the deadliest war in American history. The White House hopeful appeared caught off guard by the question and failed to mention the antebellum South’s “peculiar institution” in her response. “I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government...

Here is my question. Was the North intending to end slavery to make growing cotton in the South untenable for the plantation owners in order to bankrupt them so that the Northern Textile barons could take over the land? I know the South seceded because the North was trying to end slavery, which would have raised the cost of growing cotton because the plantation would now have to pay wages, instead of trading labour for bodily needs. This likely was not an affordable option for the landowners, because the North was not going to pay a penny more for cotton...

Nine years ago leftists torched and looted dozens of businesses in Ferguson, Missouri after local teen Mike Brown bum-rushed and beat a cop and was shot dead. Then months later leftists burned down the business district again after the police officer was found not guilty in Brown’s death.Barack Obama sent more representatives to Mike Brown’s funeral than to the funeral in Dallas, Texas, when five police officers were shot dead during a Mike Brown riot.The left lied for months about Mike Brown being a “gentle giant” who was a peace-loving individual who was starting school in a few weeks.Then photos...

The world's largest oil producer stepped up imports of Russian oil in the second quarter despite sanctions aimed at choking Moscow's energy flows, Reuters said. Saudi Arabia imported 647,000 tonnes of Russian oil from April to June, according to data reviewed by Reuters. Saudi Arabia took possession of the oil from Russian and Estonian ports, and has thus far imported 320,000 more barrels from Russia compared to 2021 levels. The Kingdom's increased willingness to grow its reliance on Russian oil is at odds with global powers which are trying to condemn the Kremlin and cut off its exports in response...

Donald Trump, an ongoing eruption of self-refuting statements (“I’m a very stable genius” with “a very good brain”), is adding self-impeachment to his repertoire. Spiraling downward in a tightening gyre, his increasingly unhinged public performances (Google the one with Finland’s dumbfounded president looking on) are as alarming as they are embarrassing. His decision regarding Syria and the Kurds was made so flippantly that it has stirred faint flickers of thinking among Congress’ vegetative Republicans.

With never-Trump conservatives bailing on the GOP and crying out for the Party of Pelosi to save us, some painful truths need to be restated. The Republican Party of Bush I and II, of Bob Dole and John McCain, is history. It's not coming back. Unlike the Bourbons after the Revolution and the Terror, after Napoleon and the Empire, no restoration is in the cards. It is over. The GOP's policies of recent decades -- the New World Order of George H.W. Bush, the crusades for democracy of Bush II -- failed, and are seen as having failed. With...

Trump’s decision to renege on the nuclear deal was a terrible unforced error, and the process that led to that decision is no less worrisome: Even if Mr. Mattis had wanted to fight for the deal, it is not clear how much he would have been heard. Mr. Bolton, officials said, never convened a high-level meeting of the National Security Council to air the debate [bold mine-DL]. He advised Mr. Trump in smaller sessions, otherwise keeping the door to his West Wing office closed. Mr. Bolton has forged a comfortable relationship with the president, several people said, channeling his “America...

Pat Buchanan has for years been such a virulent opponent of Israel that he has frequently been accused of anti-Semitism, and this column condemning Benjamin Netanyahu for supposedly interfering in America’s internal affairs by opposing the Iran deal is not going to erase that impression. The paleocon Right hates Israel with such abiding passion that it is increasingly self-contradictory: for a small government advocate like Buchanan defending Barack Obama and tacitly supporting a deal that threatens not just Israel, but the U.S. as well, manifests a moral myopia of catastrophic immensity. But it’s no surprise. I’ve noted before how the...

Roseanne Barr has described Israel as "a Nazi state" for its conflict with Palestine. The comedian, who is Jewish, has used her radio show and blog to criticise the country's decision to attack the Gaza strip. "Israel is a Nazi state. The Jewish Soul is being tortured in Israel. The destruction of the Jews in Israel has been assured with this inhuman attack on civilians in Gaza," she wrote on her website. However, the former sitcom actress has since retracted her remarks and claimed to be pro-Israel. "I am going to shut up now. Forever, perhaps. I cannot take the...

Ron Paul’s Son Sen. Rand Paul Won’t Comment on Father’s Past Comparison of Gaza to “Concentration Camp”; Israelis Suprised Congressman Made Analogy Supporters of Ron Paul have been trying to make the case their candidate is pro-Israel despite his past statements and opposition to foreign aid to the Jewish state. Their job got a little harder after a two-year-old interview Rep. Paul gave to Iran’s Press TV was recently posted on YouTube in which he compared Israel’s treatment of Gaza to that of a Nazi concentration camp. In the 2009 interview, Paul talks about the “tragedy of Gaza,” comparing it...

Outspoken Republican congressman Ron Paul says Israel had received a green light from the United States to launch an offensive in Gaza. The Texas congressman said the Israeli attack on the impoverished Gaza Strip shapes a bleak future for the whole world as it means that, "the whole idea of preemptive or preventive war is spreading." He went on to challenge the idea of Hamas threatening Israel's security and argued that "Palestinian missiles are so minor compared to the fire power of Israel, who has nuclear weapons." The US Congressman's remarks come as Israel continues to rebuff international efforts to...

Ron Paul: Blame Israel First http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/13/ron-paul-not-anti-foreign-aid-anti-israel/2/ Posted by Daniel Greenfield on Dec 13th, 2011 Do you know who the latest Zionist on the block is? It’s the man who called Israel, “an aggressive, national socialist state” and suggested that the original World Trade Center bombing may have really been carried out by Israel. Then there’s the solicitation letter which boasted that this courageous fellow was exposing the, “Bohemian Grove–perverted, pagan playground of the powerful. Skull & Bones: the demonic fraternity that includes George Bush and leftist Senator John Kerry, Congress’s Mr. New Money. The Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like...

Buchanan defends foreign aid – for Hamas-------------------------------------------------------- Posted: February 1, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2006 Creators Syndicate Inc. Ever since President Bush, sometime after 9-11, converted to neoconservatism, his Middle East policy has suffered from the triple defects of that subspecies of the Right: hubris, ideology and immaturity. Neoconservatives see the world as they wish it to be, not as it is. Like teenagers, they act on impulse and rail against the counsel of experience. "Often clever, never wise," Russell Kirk said of the breed. Repeatedly, Bush was warned by traditional conservatives that to send a U.S. army to...

Hope the link works Video at link.

And today, President Obama should end his and his country's shameful silence over the inhumane blockade of Gaza that is denying 1.5 million beleaguered people the basic necessities of a decent life. Time to start acting like America again. That bloody debacle in the Eastern Mediterranean last Sunday was an inevitable result of Israel doing what it always seems to do: going beyond what is essential to her security, to impose collective punishment upon any and all it regards as hostile to Israel. Israel claims, and film confirms, that its commandos rappelling down onto the Turkish ship were attacked with...

From Laura Ingraham's radio show. Buchanan defends his latest broadside on the Jewish state.

....Buchanan has appointed himself defender of former Nazi leaders and functionaries, expressing sympathy and indignation at alleged injustices committed against them by the U. S. government.　His list includes Klaus Barbie, "the butcher of Lyon" and Karl Linnas, an Estonian concentration camp chief. Yet, while Buchanan defends former Nazis, he has criticized Christian leaders such as the late Cardinal John O' Connor, whose efforts to mediate a dispute over a convent on the grounds of Auschwitz were characterized by Buchanan as "appeasement toward U.S. Jewry." Antisemitism, compulsion to minimize the Holocaust, a desire to marginalize American Jews politically and delegitimizing Israel...

I like Pat Buchanan. I do. He's wise, funny and charming. But every once in a while . . . Like tonight. If Buchanan wants to criticize Israel's conduct of the current war, and its treatment of the Palestinians, so be it. But in doing so, is it really necessary to employ terms associated with the Nazis? Appearing on "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," Buchanan accused Israel of carrying out a "blitzkrieg" against Gaza and turning it into a "concentration camp." View video here.

Not the first time a Nazi analogy has tripped lightly from his lips in this area, although like Cardinal Martino, he doesn’t quite have the stones to own up to what he means. He’s not comparing Gaza to a German death camp, you see, just to your average, run-of-the-mill concentration camp. The fact that he coughed up the word “blitzkrieg” literally in the same breath is but an unhappy coincidence.

Here is video of conservative pundit Pat Buchanan on MSNBC yesterday making comments about Israel that are just amazing. Buchanan likens Israel's Ground Offensive in Gaza to the Nazi "blitzkrieg," actually using the word in describing it. He also went a step further and says that Gaza is an "Israeli concentration camp," where "cruelty" by Israel is taking place. Let's step back for a moment. I have always liked Pat Buchanan's analysis when he is talking about inside the Beltway political matters. He is a very good analyst on those things. But he has real blinders when it comes to...