Author: Patrick J. Buchanan

Did the Freedom Caucus just pull the Republican Party back off the ledge, before it jumped to its death? A case can be made for that. Before the American Health Care Act, aka “Ryancare,” was pulled off the House floor Friday, it enjoyed the support — of 17 percent of Americans. Had it passed, it faced an Antietam in the GOP Senate and probable defeat. Had it survived there, to be signed by President Trump, it would have meant 14 million Americans losing their health insurance in 2018. First among the losers would have been white working-class folks who delivered … Continue reading →

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Devin Nunes just set the cat down among the pigeons. Two days after FBI Director James Comey assured us there was no truth to President Trump’s tweet about being wiretapped by Barack Obama, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Trump may have had more than just a small point. The U.S. intelligence community, says Nunes, during surveillance of legitimate targets, picked up the names of Trump transition officials during surveillance of targets, “unmasked” their identity, and spread their names around, virtually assuring they would be leaked. If true, this has the look and smell of a conspiracy to … Continue reading →

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“The senator from Kentucky,” said John McCain, speaking to his colleague Rand Paul, “is working for Vladimir Putin … and I do not say that lightly.” What did Sen. Paul do to deserve being called a hireling of Vladimir Putin? He declined to support McCain’s call for a unanimous Senate vote to bring Montenegro into NATO as the 29th member of a Cold War alliance President Trump has called “obsolete.” Bordered by Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo and Albania, tiny Montenegro has a population roughly that of D.C., and sits on the western coast of the most volatile peninsula in Europe. … Continue reading →

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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 … Continue reading →

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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. Physical Gold & Silver in your IRA. Get the … Continue reading →

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The founding fathers of the Munich Security Conference, said John McCain, would be “be alarmed by the turning away from universal values and toward old ties of blood, and race, and sectarianism.” McCain was followed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who called for a “post-West world order.” Russia has “immense potential” for that said Lavrov, “we’re open for that inasmuch as the U.S. is open.” Now McCain is not wrong. Nationalism is an idea whose time has come again. Those “old ties of blood, and race, and sectarianism” do seem everywhere ascendant. But that is a reality we must recognize … Continue reading →

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As the culture war is about irreconcilable beliefs about God and man, right and wrong, good and evil, and is at root a religious war, it will be with us so long as men are free to act on their beliefs. Yet, given the divisions among us, deeper and wider than ever, it is an open question as to how, and how long, we will endure as one people. After World War II, our judicial dictatorship began a purge of public manifestations of the “Christian nation” that Harry Truman said we were. In 2009, Barack Obama retorted, “We do not … Continue reading →

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Among the reasons Donald Trump is president is that he read the nation and the world better than his rivals. He saw the surging power of American nationalism at home, and of ethnonationalism in Europe. And he embraced Brexit. While our bipartisan establishment worships diversity, Trump saw Middle America recoiling from the demographic change brought about by Third World invasions. And he promised to curb them. Physical Gold & Silver in your IRA. Get the Facts. While our corporatists burn incense at the shrine of the global economy, Trump went to visit the working-class casualties. And those forgotten Americans in … Continue reading →

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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 envoy … Continue reading →

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To those who lived through that era that tore us apart in the ’60s and ’70s, it is starting to look like “deja vu all over again.” And as Adlai Stevenson, Bobby Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey did then, Democrats today like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are pandering to the hell-raisers, hoping to ride their energy to victory. Democrats would do well to recall what happened the last time they rode the tiger of social revolution. As the riots began in Harlem in 1964 and Watts in 1965, liberals rushed to render moral sanction and to identify with the rioters. … Continue reading →

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“Disheartening and demoralizing,” wailed Judge Neil Gorsuch of President Trump’s comments about the judges seeking to overturn his 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. from the Greater Middle East war zones. What a wimp. Did our future justice break down crying like Sen. Chuck Schumer? Sorry, this is not Antonin Scalia. And just what horrible thing had our president said? A “so-called judge” blocked the travel ban, said, Trump. And the arguments in court, where 9th Circuit appellate judges were hearing the government’s appeal, were “disgraceful.” “A bad student in high school would have understood the arguments better.”Did the … Continue reading →

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Is Donald Trump to be allowed to craft a foreign policy based on the ideas on which he ran and won the presidency in 2016? Our foreign policy elite’s answer appears to be a thunderous no. Case in point: U.S. relations with Russia. During the campaign Trump was clear. He would seek closer ties with Russia and cooperate with Vladimir Putin in smashing al-Qaida and ISIS terrorists in Syria, and leave Putin’s ally Bashar Assad alone. With this diplomatic deal in mind, President Trump has resisted efforts to get him to call Putin a “thug” or a “murderer.” Asked during … Continue reading →

The post In Trouble for Telling the Truth appeared first on LewRockwell.

When Gen. Michael Flynn marched into the White House Briefing Room to declare that “we are officially putting Iran on notice,” he drew a red line for President Trump. In tweeting the threat, Trump agreed. His credibility is now on the line. And what triggered this virtual ultimatum? Iran-backed Houthi rebels said Flynn, attacked a Saudi warship and Tehran tested a missile, undermining “security, prosperity, and stability throughout the Middle East,” placing “American lives at risk.” Myths, Misunderstandings and Outright lies about owning Gold. Are you at risk? But how so? The Saudis have been bombing the Houthi rebels and … Continue reading →

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That hysterical reaction to the travel ban announced Friday is a portent of what is to come if President Donald Trump carries out the mandate given to him by those who elected him. The travel ban bars refugees for 120 days. From Syria, refugees are banned indefinitely. And a 90-day ban has been imposed on travel here from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. Was that weekend-long primal scream really justified? As of Monday, no one was being detained at a U.S. airport. Yet the shrieking had not stopped. All five stories on page one of Monday’s Washington … Continue reading →

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In this world, it is often dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, said Henry Kissinger in 1968, but to be a friend is fatal. The South Vietnamese would come to appreciate the insight. So it is today with Aleppo, where savage reprisals against U.S.-backed rebels are taking place in that hellhole of human rights. Yet, again, the wrong lessons are being drawn from the disaster. According to The Washington Post, the bloodbath is a result of a U.S. failure to intervene more decisively in Syria’s civil war: “Aleppo represents a meltdown of the West’s moral and political … Continue reading →

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