Actually, Jane, Yugoslavia’s history was even more bizarre than you mention.

You’re correct when you point out that there was never a Yugoslavia historically but when the country was first established after WWI, it was created as a bit of a front for Serbia. After the Serbs gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in the late 1870s, it had slowly been enlarging, mainly to the south at the expense of the Ottomans (especially following the Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913). But it was also promoting itself as the “defender of the South Slavic peoples” and its leaders were looking to bring in the other Balkan Slavic peoples (the Bulgarians, Macedonians, Croats, Slovenes and Montenegrins) under Serbian control leadership. And it was this mindset that led to the extremist, Gavrilo Princip, to assassinate the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, sparking WWI. (Ironically, in the early days of the war, Austria-Hungary overran Serbia so completely that the country’s leaders had to flee and if, in 1916, a cease-fire and peace treaty had been signed, Serbia would’ve ceased to exist as an independent country.) After the end of the war, Serbia simply wanted an “enlarged Serbia” rather than a Yugoslavia but Serbia’s parliament had agreed to a unified Yugoslavia but, when the country emerged, it was as the “Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes” (note how the Serbs got first mention) and the first king of the new country just happened to be Peter I, the King of Serbia.

The Pan-Slavic movement had hoped this would put an end to the differences between the various Slavic nationalities while Serbs saw the new country as vindication of their hopes. And, as Serbia was better established as a country (Montenegro had united with Serbia immediately after the Central Powers armies had withdrawn from the Balkans), the Croats and Slovenes accepted Serb leadership but expected to be treated as equals—something the Serbs didn’t really intend. That was part of the reason that led, during WWII, to the Slovenian acceptance of being reannexed to Austria and the independence of Croatia under a Fascist/Nazi regime (other territories, mostly non-Serbian, were annexed by Bulgaria, Italy and Hungary or turned into protectorates of Italy and Germany). During WWII, the Communists under Tito put aside all nationalistic differences while the non-Communists tended to fight as separate nationalist groups which led the Allies to fund Tito’s Partisans.

Tito himself was the child of a Croat father and a Slovene mother and when he led the Partisans, he saw how the “tribal rivalries” could work against them and strongly put down any attempts that might put one group over the others, and he maintained that policy throughout his leadership of Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, like many dictators, he didn’t have a real successor who had the same personal strength to keep disparate groups loyal and, while the country held together under a rotating leadership of Croat, Slovene and Serbian politicians, the Serbs began pushing their way into more and more prominent positions, leading to resentment by Croats and Slovenes and a fracturing of the country and independence movements.

Perhaps Mr Buchanan might want to take another look at Nixon’s career. I’m not really sure how Nixon “carried California five times.” He was elected as a Senator (which would mean a vote by all the people of California) and only ran as the LEAD in a presidential contest 3 times (who really casts their Presidential vote based on the VP candidate?). In the 1960 Presidential election, Nixon won California by a mere 35000 votes (out of more than 6.5 million cast—or a difference of a little over 1/2 of 1%). After losing the 1960 Presidential race, Nixon reluctantly ran for Governor in 1962, only to lose to Pat Brown (interestingly, Nixon faced a lot of opposition from the THEN far-right members of the GOP). Nixon then ran in 1968 and won California but ONLY by plurality (Nixon won the most votes and had 47.8% of the vote, but Humphrey got 44.7% and Wallace picked up 6.7%, with the rest split among smaller parties or spoiled ballots) and as the Electoral College is set up, whoever wins the most votes—not necessarily a majority—gets all the electoral votes; so the “carried California” story isn’t quite there. Now, 1972 did give Nixon a real outright win BUT there was a lot of behind-the-scenes shenanigans which helped. For starters there was the Watergate break-in but there was also a lot of trouble within the Democratic Party as well. The early front-runner, Edmund Muskie, was actually a victim of some of Nixon’s “dirty tricks” (forging a letter that had Muskie making disparaging remarks about French-Canadians, a group with some strong ties to many New Englanders and a newspaper attack on Muskie’s wife’s character which led to Muskie’s defending her and being accused of “breaking down” emotionally while defending her). The Dems had also switched to a new system wherein the primaries would be the major factor in determining the nominee—a system which George McGovern had championed, and the system alienated many prominent Democratic Party leaders. Then, there was the convention which had more drama than an average afternoon soap opera which culminated in the selection of Thomas Eagleton as VP (and that selection itself was so bizarre that people would reject it as the plot of a political dramatic series). Then came the revelation that Eagleton had been treated for depression and McGovern’s “stand behind him 1000%” only to turn into “I accept your resignation” decision certainly didn’t help. And I’m pretty certain that the Watergate issue—if the American people had known the depth of the matter in, say October of 1972, instead of the summer of 1973—would’ve turned a lot of apathetic voters (many of whom who sat out the election figuring Nixon would win anyway) and possibly swayed even some GOPers away from Nixon.

And as to Reagan, he got his first Presidential win in California in 1980 by a fairly narrow overall margin (compared to just Carter, it was a big margin, but when you look at ALL the votes cast, more than 47% of the voters went AGAINST Reagan). And I’d be willing to bet his win wouldn’t have been even that close if the tricks that Reagan’s team did regarding the hostages in Iran had been made public before the election (hell, if they’d even been made public before the 1984 election, Reagan wouldn’t have won California then either).

Well we are a collective of states. Sounds kinda socialistic to me, maybe even commie! Time to bust up the Union. Feel sorry for all those land locked states, though. Oh well, more tax revenue for those of us near water!

If its a day ending in the letter y then there has got to be something that will spark a raging fear in the hearts of Fox viewers. Thanks Fox, my dear old dad will probably order another round of Patriot Survival Food after viewing this segment. Which means one day, if I’m lucky, I’ll get to ‘inherit’ several huge boxes of barely edible dry food. I plan to ship it all to Hannity in care of Fox.

Our President has pushed for sensible immigration reform for years now. Orange Boner and his House Teabaggers won’t discuss it as they continue their endless phony investigations into Benghazi-gate and IRS-gate.

Pat seems to be enjoying all the love he gets on Fox.

Paddy and lame brain Hannocchio are in no position to talk about poor immigrants, given their own Irish-Catholic history.

The Stop Hannity Express is asking the masses to call all radio stations, and educate the masses on poor refugees from Ireland.

http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/america.htm

Americans discriminated against the Irish.

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/irish5.html

Fox “News” and aging mouthpieces like Hannocchio and Paddy will be 100% responsible for the Republican Party’s loss in 2016.

Send Reince Priebus a Tweet @reince : "The GOP will lose in the next election. You can thank Pat Buchanan and Fox “News” for that loss."

What’s so screamingly funny about Buchanan’s hysterical rants on this subject is that he rails to Hannity, “It’s going on all over the world!!!” and points to — wait for it — the Scotland referendum on leaving England’s unwelcome embrace, and even worse, Yugoslavia, neither of which have squat to do with immigration.

Yugoslavia was a country not unlike much of the Middle East, where totally disparate groups were forced together into one artificial national entity by the tyranny of a dictator. There never was a “Yugoslavia” historically.

And Scotland, of course, was an unruly separate country with a distinct culture and language militarily conquered by England and forced into a subservient union with them for the benefit of England, not Scotland.

Buchanan is actually a smart man, and it’s just a demonstration of how utterly unhinged he is in his extreme xenophobia that he would cite those countries as having any similarity to the issue of immigrants to the U.S.

Given that Mr. Buchanan himself is a member of an immigrant group that was not so long ago despised and persecuted here, it’s really quite amazing.

Glad to see that Slanthead Hannity still gets only A-list wingnut guests.

I can’t see the clip, but didn’t our boy Sean tell Buchanan NOT to fear, that he, Seanny, went down to the border and got UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL to secure the border once and for all?

Hannocchio is making sure the word of his heroic and patriotic mission is spread wide and far. Yet another example:

http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/yael-t-abouhalkah/article704257.html

One more question comes to mind: Did Slanthead get one of his rare woodies when he got UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL with that belt-fed machine gun?

What's not to love about Pat Buchanan if you're Sean Hannity?