Politics

Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

Narrow victories in the Kentucky caucuses and the Louisiana primary, the largest states decided on Saturday, have moved Donald Trump one step nearer to the nomination.

Primaries in Michigan, Mississippi and Idaho on March 8, and in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina on March 15, may prove decisive. If Marco Rubio does not win his home state of Florida, he is cooked, as is Gov. John Kasich if he does not win Ohio.

Frontrunners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will both face fresh tests on Tuesday, in their respective quests for their party’s presidential nomination.

Trump put on a respectable, if less spectacular performance on Saturday, prevailing in Louisiana and Kentucky but falling to Ted Cruz in Kansas and Maine. As Bloomberg writes, “Trump’s victories also were narrower than polling had indicated, suggesting that attacks on his crude language and ill-defined policies from 2012 nominee Mitt Romney and others could be having an impact.”

Maybe.

Last Thursday, in a speech delivered at the University of Utah, Mitt Romney blindsided Donald Trump in what amounted to a scathing indictment of the billionaire’s ability to lead the country.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/video/players/offsite/index.html

The Turkish government has seized control of another news agency just days after the seizure of the popular opposition newspaper Zaman. The Chian news agency reported on its website on Monday that the operation had been carried out on the orders of a state prosecutor and that a court in the city would designate its current administrator’s replacement. The repressive move comes amid criticism from European officials over its crackdown on opposition media.

Michael Lind argues that the Trump phenomenon is the result of neoconservatives’ abdication of responsibility. According to Lind, figures like Irving Kristol once defended (white) working class interests. But: