Pat Buchanan: Don’t Take Your Guns to Town, Paul

By Patrick J. Buchanan

The honor of it all aside, Rep. Paul Ryan would do well to decline the speakership of the House. For it is a poisoned chalice that is being offered to him.

The Republican Party is not, as some commentators wail, in “chaos” today. It is in rebellion, in revolt, as it was in the early 1960s when Barry Goldwater’s true believers rejected Eisenhower Republicanism and Nelson Rockefeller to nominate the Arizona Senator for president.

A similar and bristling hostility to today’s establishment has arisen, in the GOP Congress, the country, and the presidential race.

Pat Buchanan: The Mind of Mr. Putin

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“Do you realize now what you have done?”

So Vladimir Putin in his U.N. address summarized his indictment of a U.S. foreign policy that has produced a series of disasters in the Middle East that we did not need the Russian leader to describe for us.

Fourteen years after we invaded Afghanistan, Afghan troops are once again fighting Taliban forces for control of Kunduz. Only 10,000 U.S. troops still in that ravaged country prevent the Taliban’s triumphal return to power.

A dozen years after George W. Bush invaded Iraq, ISIS occupies its second city, Mosul, controls its largest province, Anbar, and holds Anbar’s capital, Ramadi, as Baghdad turns away from us — to Tehran.

The cost to Iraqis of their “liberation”? A hundred thousand dead, half a million widows and fatherless children, millions gone from the country and, still, unending war.

How has Libya fared since we “liberated” that land? A failed state, it is torn apart by a civil war between an Islamist “Libya Dawn” in Tripoli and a Tobruk regime backed by Egypt’s dictator.

Pat Buchanan: Pope’s World and the Real World

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Pope Francis’s four-day visit to the United States was by any measure a personal and political triumph.
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The crowds were immense, and coverage of the Holy Father on television and in the print press swamped the state visit of Xi Jinping, the leader of the world’s second-greatest power.

But how enduring, and how relevant, was the pope’s celebration of diversity, multiculturalism, inclusiveness, open borders, and a world of forgiveness, peace, harmony and love is another question.

Pat Buchanan: US and Catholicism in Crisis

By Patrick J. Buchanan

During the 1950s, the twin pillars of worldwide anti-communism were Dwight Eisenhower's America and the Roman Catholic Church of Pope Pius XII.

During the 1980s, the last decade of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan and the Polish pope, John Paul II, were the pillars of resistance.

When Pope Francis arrives in Washington on Tuesday afternoon, the country he enters will be a very different one from Eisenhower's America or Reagan's America. And Catholics will be welcoming a new kind of pope.

In America 2015, homosexuality, abortion on demand and same-sex marriage — shameful crimes in Ike's America, mortal sins in the catechism of Pius XII — have become constitutional rights.

These represent the values that define Barack Obama's America, the values our officials defend at the United Nations, the values we preach to the world.

Pat Buchanan - Putin: Friend or Foe in Syria?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

What Vladimir Putin is up to in Syria makes far more sense than what Barack Obama and John Kerry appear to be up to in Syria.

The Russians are flying transports bringing tanks and troops to an air base near the coastal city of Latakia to create a supply chain to provide a steady flow of weapons and munitions to the Syrian army.

Syrian President Bashar Assad, an ally of Russia, has lost half his country to ISIS and the Nusra Front, a branch of al-Qaida.

Putin fears that if Assad falls, Russia’s toehold in Syria and the Mediterranean will be lost, ISIS and al-Qaida will be in Damascus, and Islamic terrorism will have achieved its greatest victory.

Is he wrong?

Pat Buchanan: Kim Davis vs. Judicial Tyranny

By Patrick J. Buchanan 

“If the law supposes that, the law is a ass — a idiot.”

Charles Dickens gave that line to Mr. Bumble in “Oliver Twist.”

And it sums up the judgment of Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis about the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision, which said the 14th Amendment guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry.

Davis refused to provide marriage licenses to gay couples lined up at her clerk’s office and was sent to jail for five days by a federal judge for contempt of court.

Good for her. We need more like her.

For behind her defiance are more authoritative sources than the five justices who gave us Obergefell: the Old and New Testaments, Natural Law, two millennia of Christian teaching and tradition, and the entire body of U.S. federal and state law up to Y2K.

Pat Buchanan: Dis-Integrating America

By Patrick J. Buchanan

The Wednesday morning murders of 24-year-old Roanoke TV reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, were a racist atrocity, a hate crime. Were they not white, they would be alive today.

Their killer, Vester L. Flanagan II, said as much in his farewell screed. He ordered his murder weapon, he said, two days after the slaughter of nine congregants at the African-American AME church in Charleston, South Carolina.

“What sent me over the top was the church shooting,” said Flanagan.

To be sure, racism does not fully explain why Flanagan, fired from that same WDBJ7 station, committed this act of pure evil.

Black and homosexual, he said he was the target of anti-gay slurs from black males and racial insults from white colleagues. He had gotten himself fired from other jobs in broadcasting. He carried a grab bag of grudges and resentments.

Pat Buchanan: Is Trumpism the New Nationalism?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Since China devalued its currency 3 percent, global markets have gone into a tailspin. Why should this be?

After all, 3 percent devaluation in China could be countered by a U.S. tariff of 3 percent on all goods made in China, and the tariff revenue used to cut U.S. corporate taxes.

The crisis in world markets seems related not only to a sinking Chinese economy, but also to what Beijing is saying to the world; i.e., China will save herself first even if it means throwing others out of the life boat.

Pat Buchanan: Immigration — Issue of the Century

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“Trump’s immigration proposals are as dangerous as they are stunning,” railed amnesty activist Frank Sharry.

“Trump … promises to rescind protections for Dreamers and deport them. He wants to redefine the constitutional definition of U.S. citizenship as codified by the 14th Amendment. He plans to impose a moratorium on legal immigration.”

While Sharry is a bit hysterical, he is not entirely wrong.

For the six-page policy paper, to secure America’s border and send back aliens here illegally, released by Trump last weekend, is the toughest, most comprehensive, stunning immigration proposal of the election cycle.

Pat Buchanan: Taking Down The Donald

By Patrick J. Buchanan

If his Republican opponents will not take down Donald Trump, Fox News will not only show them how it is done. Fox News will do the job for them.

That is the message that came out loud and clear from last Thursday's debate in Cleveland, which was viewed by the largest cable audience ever to watch a political event — 24 million Americans.

As political theater, it was exciting and entertaining.

But what was supposed to be a debate among the top-10 Republican candidates turned into a bear-baiting of Donald Trump.

The Plot to Destroy Nixon

By Patrick J. Buchanan

In his new biography “Being Nixon: A Man Divided,” Evan Thomas concedes a point. Richard Nixon, he writes, “was not paranoid; the press and the ‘Georgetown set’ really were out to get him.”

Carl Bernstein’s review found Thomas’ book deficient in its failure to chronicle the “endemic criminality” of the Nixon presidency.

Yet, recent revelations suggest that “endemic criminality” is a phrase that might well be applied to the newsroom of The Washington Post when Bob Woodward and Bernstein worked there.

Consider. In “All the President’s Men,” Woodward and Bernstein admit that, in collusion with Post editors and with the approval of Post lawyers, they approached half a dozen Watergate grand jurors.

Pat Buchanan: Now the Turks Are All In

By Patrick J. Buchanan
 
All through the Cold War, the Turks were among America’s most reliable allies.

After World War II, when Stalin encroached upon Turkey and Greece, Harry Truman came to the rescue. Turkey reciprocated by sending thousands of troops to fight alongside our GIs in Korea.

Turkey joined NATO and let the U.S. station Jupiter missiles in their country. When JFK secretly traded away the Jupiters for removal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba, the Turks went along.

Early this century, under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey seemed to be emerging as a major power, a land bridge between Europe and the Islamic world, a friend to its neighbors, and future member of the EU.
 
But, recently, a U.S. diplomat blurted, “The Turks are out of their lane!”

And that describes the situation succinctly and well.

When rebels rose up to overthrow Bashar Assad in Syria, and Assad elected to fight not quit, Erdogan turned on him and began to permit jihadists to enter Syria.

Pat Buchanan: ‘A New Dark Age’

 

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“If God does not exist, then everything is permissible.”

Ivan Karamazov’s insight came to mind while watching the video of Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood describe, as she sipped wine and tasted a salad, how she harvests the organs of aborted babies for sale to select customers.

“Yesterday was the first time … people wanted lungs,” said Nucatola, “Some people want lower extremities, too, which, that’s simple. …

Pat Buchanan: Trump and the GOP Border War

By Patrick J. Buchanan

In the 2016 race, June belonged to two outsiders who could not be more dissimilar.

Bernie Sanders is a socialist senator from Vermont and Donald Trump a celebrity capitalist and legendary entrepreneur and builder.

What do they have in common? Both have tapped into what the bases of their respective parties believe is wrong with America.

Pat Buchanan: Quo Vadis, America?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“Natural law — God’s law — will always trump common law,” said Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and a Christian leader in her own right, “God will have the final word in this matter.”

But, for now, Justice Anthony Kennedy has the final word.

Same-sex marriage is the law of the land, as the right of gays and lesbians to marry is right there in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1868. We just didn’t see it.

Tony Kennedy spotted what no previous court had detected.

The absurdity of the decision aside, it represents another stride forward for the revolution preached by Antonio Gramsci. Before we can capture the West, the Italian Marxist argued, we must capture the culture.

Pat Buchanan: Love and Hate in Dixie

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you.”

So said Nadine Collier, who lost her mother in the massacre at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, offering forgiveness to Dylann Roof, who confessed to the atrocity that took the lives of nine churchgoers at that Wednesday night prayer service and Bible study.

If there is a better recent example of what it means to be a Christian, I am unaware of it. Collier and the families of those slain showed a faithfulness to Christ’s gospel of love and forgiveness that many are taught but few are strong enough to follow, especially at times like this.

Pat Buchanan: NATO-Russia Collision Ahead?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“U.S. Poised to Put Heavy Weaponry in East Europe: A Message to Russia,” ran the headline in The New York Times.

“In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries,” said the Times. The sources cited were “American and allied officials.”

The Pentagon’s message received a reply June 16. Russian Gen. Yuri Yakubov called the U.S. move “the most aggressive step by the Pentagon and NATO since the Cold War.” When Moscow detects U.S. heavy weapons moving into the Baltic, said Yakubov, Russia will “bolster its forces and resources on the western strategic theater of operations.”

Pat Buchanan: The Anti-Politician

By Patrick J. Buchanan

At the declaration by Donald Trump that he is a candidate for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party, media elites of left and right reacted with amusement, anger and disgust.

Though he has been a hugely successful builder-businessman, far more successful than, say, Carly Fiorina, who has been received respectfully, our resident elites resolutely refuse to take Trump seriously.

They should. Not because he will be nominated, but because the Trump constituency will represent a vote of no confidence in the Beltway ruling class of politicians and press.

Imperial Overstretch

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Toward the end of the presidency of George H.W. Bush, America stood alone at the top of the world — the sole superpower.

After five weeks of "shock and awe" and 100 hours of combat, Saddam's army had fled Kuwait back up the road to Basra and Bagdad.

Our Cold War adversary was breaking apart into 15 countries. The Berlin Wall had fallen. Germany was reunited. The captive nations of Central and Eastern Europe were breaking free.

Bush I had mended fences with Beijing after the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square. Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were friends.

The president declared the coming of a "new world order." And neocons were chattering about a new "unipolar world" and the "benevolent global hegemony" of the United States.

Consider now the world our next president will inherit.

Pat Buchanan: Cultural Cleansing of Christian Males

By Patrick J. Buchanan

The culture war against Christianity is picking up speed.

Last week came word Saint Louis University will remove a heroic-sized statue of Fr. Pierre-Jean De Smet S.J. from the front of Fusz Hall, where it has stood for 60 years.

 

The statue depicts Fr. De Smet holding aloft a crucifix as he ministers to two American Indians, one of whom is kneeling.