See also: Report From Newport RI: American WASPs—Dispossessed, Degenerate…Or Both?

Former Massachusetts Republican governor Bill Weld [Email him] announced last week he will primary incumbent President Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican nomination and with him, he brings the worst immigration views the GOP has to offer.

Although Weld's chances of earning the nomination are virtually zero, his candidacy is still significant as a result of this WASP Establishment Rockefeller Republican's extreme—and apparently absolutely unreconstructed—views on immigration, which pose a serious threat to the country.

Unlike Trump, who at least campaigned on restricting legal immigration before shifting gears in the State of The Union in February (and then possibly shifting back) Weld, does not even pretend to care about the invasion happening in the country via the southern border. In 2014, Weld described himself as a "rabid liberal on immigration". On that, he is correct. And when it comes to those who believe Americans have the right to control to decide who can and cannot live in the country, his rhetoric mirrors any far-left social justice warrior.

During the 2016 campaign, Weld, who essentially endorsed Hillary Clinton despite being the Libertarian Party VP candidate, called Trump's immigration plan Nazi-esque. He said, "I can hear the glass crunching on Kristallnacht in the ghettos of Warsaw and Vienna when I hear that, honest." [Libertarian VP candidate compares Trump plan to Kristallnacht , by Rebecca Savransky, The Hill, May 19, 2016]

Earlier, by Patrick J. Buchanan: Russiagate—a Bright, Shining Lie

The release of the Mueller report has left Democrats in a dilemma. For consider what Robert Mueller concluded after two years of investigation.

Candidate Donald Trump did not conspire or collude with the Russians to hack the emails of the DNC or John Podesta. Trump did not distribute the fruits of those crimes. Nor did anyone in his campaign. On collusion and conspiracy, said Mueller, Trump is innocent.

Mueller did not say Trump did not consider interfering with his investigation. But the investigation went on unimpeded. Mueller's document demands were all met. And Mueller did not conclude that Trump obstructed justice.

On obstruction, then, not guilty, by reason of no indictment.

April 22 is the 500^th anniversary of Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes’ landing at Veracruz, Mexico, in 1519. Cortes’ small army and a growing corps of Indian allies, the coastal Totonacs and the Tlaxcaltecans of central Mexico, marched to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City and conquered the Aztecs in a two-year titanic struggle. From their empire’s ashes was born modern Mexico. But modern Mexicans are ambivalent about Cortes, and neither Mexico nor Spain is commemorating the anniversary.

This tremendous story, as John Derbyshire recently called it, is filled with unforgettable personages, including the Aztec emperor Montezuma, reigning when Cortes arrived, and the last emperor, Cuauhtémoc, who resisted the Spaniards in the culminating siege of Tenochtitlan.

Cortes’ Spanish foes included Diego Velasquez, Spanish governor of Cuba. When Cortes arrived in Veracruz he was an outlaw. Cortes formed a new municipal government at Veracruz—"True Cross,” Cortes has landed on Good Friday. That ended the authority of Velasquez, and left as Cortes’ only authority the Spanish King, conveniently thousands of miles away across the ocean.

Then Cortes sent a ship back to Spain and scuttled the rest of his vessels to motivate his men. It was conquer…or die.

In Tenochtitlan, Montezuma invited Cortes as guest, but later, the Spaniard seized the emperor as a hostage. Cortes had to leave the city when Velasquez sent another Spaniard, Panfilo de Narvaez, with a larger army to arrest Cortes. But the clever conquistador defeated Narvaez and absorbed most of his army into this own.

Last year I wrote that I could refute the article Why Is There Is No War on Easter? [by John Ellis, PJ Media, March 29, 2018] with two words: "Spring Bunny." The "Spring Bunny" was unknown in my childhood, which took place in the 1960s. You have to have been born in the 21st century to have attended a "Spring Bunny" event as a child. See my Easter 2010: Who Is This “Spring Bunny”?

Of course, it's just a Christophobic attempt to step on Easter and as such is actually gloated about as this year in the Washington Post:

Emily Johnson, who stood in line at the Fair Oaks Mall in Fairfax, Virginia one day last week with her sisters, waiting to pose for a photo with a large bunny in a patterned suit. For the trio of siblings — in their 30s and 40s — the photo and Thai lunch out afterward is their Easter tradition, and their commitment to it is orthodox and nonnegotiable.

“We went to church [on Easter] growing up and taking pictures with the Easter Bunny, and that eventually turned into family dinners and then ... ” the 43-year-old lab technician said, her voice trailing off as she made circular motions with her hand, like a wave rolling on. Her younger sisters nodded.

One parent passed away. A sister moved to Maryland. Even holiday weekends got crowded with kid baseball practices and grocery shopping. Two of the sisters call themselves Christian but Johnson says she’s not religious whatsoever. Yet the bunny-photo tradition lingers, she says, maybe because the ritual feels lighthearted after the oppression of winter, and it produces an annual image of her together with her sisters.

“Maybe it seems ridiculous for a bunch of women to snuggle up to a bunny in a costume, but it’s the only time of the year we get a nice photo together,” she says. “It’s just a part of our lives. It’s what we do.”

[Easter celebrations changing with growth of nonreligious Americans, by Michelle Boorstein, April 19, 2019]

And, needless to say, it's not the growth of "nonreligous Americans," but non-traditional immigration, that ultimately lies behind this attack on Easter. Observance ebbs and flows, but most "nonreligious Americans" (as Ms. Boorstein implicitly concedes) still respond viscerally to America's Christian heritage. Our John Derbyshire said on Radio Derb this week:

I may be temperamentally irreligious, but I had a thorough Church of England education. In my childhood you couldn't avoid it. I know the hymns, I know the liturgy, and I know the Bible pretty well.

If I told you it all had no emotional content for me, I'd be telling an untruth. You can't grow up steeped in stuff like that without it leaving some emotional residue, positive or negative.

In my case, positive. I have special affection for the old Anglican hymns, many of which are very lovely. Here's one of my favorites for the Easter season: "When I survey the wondrous cross," sung here by the choir of King's College, Cambridge.

So "Happy Easter" from all of us at VDARE.com!

Previous Easter Stories

Adapted from the latest Radio Derb, available exclusively on VDARE.com 

Three weeks ago I passed some noncommittal remarks about Democratic Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old Mayor of South Bend, Indiana. That was by way of arguing that from the point of view of the Democratic Party, an ideal candidate would be a non-crazy, unthreatening person with just a smidgen of diversity to bring out the SJW voters.

Buttigieg, I argued, fills the bill because he's homosexual—that's the smidgen of diversity—but otherwise comes across as a regular guy. He doesn't want to persecute Christian bakers or boycott fast-food outlets.

Since then, Beto O'Rourke's star has faded as people have noticed his weirdness and hyperbolic vocabulary. For just the reasons I spoke about—non-crazy, unthreatening, smidgen of diversity—Mayor Buttigieg has filled the void, now that we've all figured out how to pronounce his name.

So I've been taking a closer look at Mayor Buttigieg. From what I can gather about his positions on the National Question, there's no way I could vote for him, unless the Republicans were to dump Donald Trump and nominate Jeff Flake. I'm just trying to figure whether Buttigieg would be a plausible Democratic candidate next year.

My inquiries started out in negative territory—I mean, with a disposition to think he's not a serious candidate.

There's that name, for example. No, not the surname: Nobody can help his surname, and I'm guessing Buttigieg had stopped being bothered about jokes directed at his surname by the time he got to First Grade, at the latest.