By Patrick J. Buchanan

About the appointment by Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate, somebody big is lying, big-time. It is either the governor or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Last week, Reid declared that he would not permit Burris, the African-American elder statesman of Illinois politics, to fill Obama’s seat, or even to enter the Senate chamber, though no one had suggested Burris is other than an honorable and able public man.

Reid declared Burris “a tainted appointment,” not because of any ethical defect of his, but because of the cloud over the governor who had appointed him.

Most Americans have never heard of Sibel Edmonds, and if the U.S. government has its way, they never will. The former FBI translator turned whistleblower tells a chilling story of corruption at Washington’s highest levels—sale of nuclear secrets, shielding of terrorist suspects, illegal arms transfers, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, espionage….

Found in Translation
FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds spills her secrets.
by Philip Giraldi - American Conservative Magazine

By Patrick J. Buchanan

On the eve of the New Year, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, charged with conspiring to sell the Senate seat of Barack Obama, put the ball back squarely in the court of a Democratic Party that had disowned him.

Blago named Roland Burris, former attorney general of Illinois and first African-American ever to win statewide office, to fill the vacated seat. National Democrats and their media auxiliaries went berserk.

This governor, thundered The New York Times, “has taken his hubris to new heights and the misery of Illinois citizens to new lows.”

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Unwilling to control its fighters, who fired scores of missiles into Israel at the end of their six-month ceasefire, Hamas gave Israel the provocation it needed to deliver a savage blow to the Palestinian enclave in Gaza.

Saturday was the bloodiest day in the history of the Palestinian people since being driven from their homes in the War of 1948. One thousand were killed or wounded, as the Israeli Air Force conducted over a hundred strikes — on graduation ceremonies for Hamas fighters, police stations and storage sites for rockets.

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system,” President Bush told CNN, defending his offer of $17 billion in loans to the Big Three “to make sure the economy doesn’t collapse.”

Thus did Bush concede that protectionism, if a critical U.S. industry is in peril, must trump free-trade ideology. For in offering the bailout to GM, Ford and Chrysler, Bush, by omission, excluded BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Toyota, Nissan and Hyundai — though all operate auto plants here in the United States and all are feeling the same sales slump.

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“De mortuis nil nisi bonum.”

Of the dead, nothing but good.

So said Dean Acheson of Sen. Joe McCarthy on his death in 1957. “Tailgunner Joe” had bedeviled the secretary of state for his lassitude toward communist penetration of State in President Truman’s time.

But the passing of Mark Felt, associate director of the FBI in the later Nixon years, lately exposed as “Deep Throat,” the source for the Woodward-Bernstein stories, calls forth some rebuttal to the tributes lavished upon Felt as the honest lawman who saved our republic.

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Just two months after the twin towers fell, the armies of the Northern Alliance marched into Kabul. The Taliban fled.

The triumph was total in the “splendid little war” that had cost one U.S. casualty. Or so it seemed. Yet, last month, the war against the Taliban entered its eighth year, the second longest war in our history, and America and NATO have never been nearer to strategic defeat.

So critical is the situation that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in Kandahar last week, promised rapid deployment, before any Taliban spring offensive, of two and perhaps three combat brigades of the 20,000 troops requested by Gen. David McKiernan. The first 4,000, from the 10th Mountain, are expected in January.

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“GOP to Detroit: Drop Dead!”

So may have read the headline Friday, had not President Bush stepped in to save GM, Ford and Chrysler, which Senate Republicans had just voted to send to the knacker’s yard.

What are Republicans thinking of, pulling the plug, at Christmas, on GM, risking swift death for the greatest manufacturing company in American history, a strategic asset and pillar of the U.S. economy.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

“Something is rotten in the state,” says Marcellus in “Hamlet.”

Well, it certainly is in the state of Illinois.

Yet, on hearing U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald describe a plot by his governor to sell his Senate seat — “conduct (that) would make Lincoln roll over in his grave” — how did reform President Barack Obama respond?

“I had no contact with the governor or his office, and so I was not aware of what was happening. … And as I said, it is a sad day for Illinois. Beyond that, I don’t think it’s appropriate to comment.”

By Patrick J. Buchanan

In a deepening recession, what does the reasonable man do?

Seeing friends laid off, he will get rid of all but essential credit cards, dine at home more often, terminate unnecessary trips to the mall, put off buying a new car, give up the idea of borrowing on the vanishing equity in his house. He will begin to save and start paying down debt.

A company that has reached the limits of its credit and is staring at Chapter 11 will batten down the hatches, lay off nonessential workers, cut employee hours, put off expansion plans, cancel year-end bonuses and try to ride out the storm.

If you haven’t already, please do yourself and all of us a favor and watch this one hour video. Once you do, you will fully understand what is really going on with the banking bailouts and our current economy. Bottom line? Everything you hear on TV or read in the press regarding the bailouts and banking system is a lie. This video is possibly the most important you will ever watch - so much so that you may want to view it several times. As more Americans finally figure out what is really going on I expect to see some aggressive action against the Federal Reserve and their cheerleaders in Washington.

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Having savaged each other for a year, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have now formed a rare partnership in power. Not since James Garfield chose James G. Blaine has a new president chosen his principal rival to be secretary of state.

What does this tell us?

First, don’t take campaign oratory all that seriously.

Second, unlike Dennis Kucinich, Ted Kennedy, Ron Paul or Jesse Helms, Hillary and Barack are pragmatists. They do not let ideology or past insults get in the way of a mutually beneficial deal.

On November 6, just days after the election, Republican Strategist Pat Buchanan and Democratic Advisor Terry McAuliffe went head-to-head on how President-Elect Barack Obama’s administration could affect manufacturing and the economy-at-large in an exclusive debate aboard the Siemens exiderdome.

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Arguably the most successful act of revolutionary terror was the June 1914 assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo.

Believing his mission to murder the heir to the Austrian throne had failed, Gavrilo Princip suddenly found himself standing a few feet away from the royal car. He fired twice, mortally wounding the archduke and his wife.

Tactically, that act of terror eliminated the reformist Ferdinand, who meant to address the grievances of his Slav subjects by granting them greater autonomy and equality with Austrians and Hungarians inside the empire.

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Barack Obama and George W. Bush seem to have come away from their study of the Great Depression with similar conclusions:

To wit: After the Crash of 1929, the Federal Reserve did not move fast enough to save the banks and inject cash into the economy. Second, the New Deal, far from being wastrel deficit spending, was not bold enough. So it was that America wallowed in depression for a decade until the unbridled spending and mammoth deficits of World War II pulled us out.

Bush and Obama seem determined not to make the same mistake.