Free Republic

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...

"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...