Author: John Seiler

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All Paid Subscribers / Seiler

22 Feb, 2017

Trump’s First Great Month

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  It hasn’t been easy, but Trump has put in a great first month as president.  As he said, he “inherited a mess.”  The mess goes back not just through the whole eight years of the Obama regime, but at least through the Bushes and Clintons. We can stop there, because the end of the Cold War, 1989-91, marked a time when America could have used a “peace dividend” to regroup, heal domestic wounds and develop a sensible foreign policy. Instead, in foreign affairs, America’s unique power of the 1990s was wasted on establishing first  President George H.W. Bush’s New...

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Seiler

14 Feb, 2017

The Supreme Court: The Most Dangerous Branch

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With President Trump’s appointment of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court, the country again agonizes over the vast powers the high bench has arrogated to itself. But wasn’t it supposed to be “the least dangerous branch to the political rights of the Constitution,” as Alexander Hamilton promised in Federalist No. 78 way back on June 14, 1788? He continued, “The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The...

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9 Feb, 2017

Peace for Ukraine?

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By John Seiler Will Donald Trump work out a “deal” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that finally brings peace to the longsuffering Ukrainian people? First, a little history. No country has suffered more in the past 100 years than Ukraine. Not even Cambodia and Rwanda, the sites of huge massacres, which at least were of limited duration. Living under the czars was no bowl of warm borshcht to begin with, although Ukraine was so fertile it was the “breadbasket of Europe.” Then World War I hit, with much of the worst fighting on the Eastern...

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All Paid Subscribers / Seiler

1 Feb, 2017

Trump’s First 10 Days: Battling Obstructionist Republicans in Congress

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By John Seiler President Trump – it’s great writing that! – now is facing a problem similar to that of President Reagan in 1981: His own fellow Republicans are obstructing his agenda. For Reagan, the main problem was the old “root canal Republicans,” such as Bob Dole, then the chairman of the Senate’s Finance Committee. The phrase derived from Democrats going on huge spending binges, then Republicans being the supposed “adults” who performed painful oral surgery with tax increases to pay for everything, as they did under President Eisenhower in 1953 and President Nixon in 1969. The result was Republicans...

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Seiler

24 Jan, 2017

Trump’s Inaugural Address to Save America

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  I enjoyed watching Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address more than any other. I missed Ronald Reagan’s in 1980 because I was freezing to death standing off the Red Army while on maneuvers with my unit, the U.S. Army’s 533rd Combat Electronic Warfare Intelligence Battalion, in West Germany near the Fulda Gap. But I was a big Gipper supporter and would have loved to watch it. Although in many ways his administration was disappointing, he did stand down the Evil Empire in the endgame of the Cold War without getting us all nuked. Trump’s Inaugural comes at an even more critical...

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17 Jan, 2017

Trump’s Hundred Days

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By John Seiler Back in 1933 FDR set the precedent of a Hundred Days to impose a new agenda on the country. His New Deal was based on the recent policies of Hitler and Mussolini, as Wolfgang Schivelbusch detailed in his book, “Three New Deals.” As we’ve seen during this transition period before his January 20 inauguration, Donald Trump seems to have rather the opposite in mind: rolling back centralized government while pushing what remains – which still will be way too much – to be more efficient, such as protecting the borders. Obviously Trump isn’t a libertarian, or even...

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10 Jan, 2017

Obama’s Disastrous 8 Years

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By John Seiler How should we judge a president? Some say by economic growth. Or advancing global democracy. Or pushing into law new social programs. But there’s only one way: How well did he follow his oath of office? It’s specified in Article II, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” It’s similar to a man taking a marriage vow, “forsaking all others.” If he cheats...

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On the House

5 Jan, 2017

President Obama’s Missed Opportunity on Race

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I didn’t vote for Barack Obama in 2008, mainly because he was about as pro-abortion as one could get. But in discussing him with my conservative friends, some of whom actually did vote for him, two things stood out: First, he was not John McCain, the Republican nominee.  Insane McCain, like Hillary in 2016, was obsessed with confronting Russia, even if that meant sparking a nuclear war.  So far, although Obama is ending his term with several pointless provocations of Moscow, we still haven’t been atomized. Second, we thought he might–just might (but no more)–improve race relations, including the status...

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Feature / On the House

29 Dec, 2016

The Year 2016

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Shostakovich, our last monumental composer–before the light of the ability to write more than ditties flickered out of our civilization – used years for two of his symphonies. Symphony No. 11 was The Year 1905, for that year’s Russian Revolution. And Symphony No. 12 was The Year 1917, dedicated to Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution. (The links lead to YouTubes of performances of the works, if you’re inclined to listen. I did writing this.) The Year 2016 was such a year. I’ll highlight three monumental events: Brexit, Trump’s victory and the coalescing effort to stop Pope Francis from scratching adultery...

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27 Dec, 2016

Neocons Freak Out (Free)

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One of the pleasures of the impending Trump presidency is watching the neocons freak out, as we said in the 1960s. One of the biggest freak outs is by Charles Krauthammer, top columnist at the old CIA in-house organ, the Washington Post. Like almost all neocons, he’s really just a warmongering liberal. In his case, he even wrote speeches for Mondale, afterword moving slightly up from Mondaleism. In his most recent column, “Aleppo and American decline,” he wrote, “The fall of Aleppo just weeks before Barack Obama leaves office is a fitting stamp on his Middle East policy of retreat...