TheWiseOldFart

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart Let’s discuss the ‘enigma’ which is Elon Musk. I don’t know what others think of him, or how much they know about the ‘man,’ not the image. Musk was born in South Africa on June 28, 1971. His wealthy mother immigrated to Canada in 1989, where she and her son became citizens. In 2002, Musk moved to the United States and became an American citizen. Musk is best known as the CEO of Tesla, and SpaceX. In 2024, he joined Trump’s campaign and donated a reported 291.5 million dollars to the orange buffoon’s campaign. Trump created a position in his administration for Musk; a position for which he was woefully unqualified. Trump named it the “Department of Government Efficiency,” DOGE. What it actually was became clear immediately. It was an illegal agency whose purpose was to rid Washington of legitimate agencies which had been focused on investigating Trump’s egregious and numerous crimes between 2021 and 2024. Thousands of hard-working government employees were summa...

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart Not one democratic government can exist with the existence of a single party. Without deliberation and compromise, democracy shrinks into non-existence and an autocracy is born. This is Donald Trump’s plan for America, and it has been fulfilled. Congress did not approve Trump’s declaration of war against Iran yesterday when he ordered our military to drop twelve 30,000-pound bombs on sites inside Iran which are allegedly dedicated to developing nuclear weapons. Not only did he refuse to follow the mandate of the Law of the Land, he ignored the entire Democratic Party. This essentially was a declaration that Democrats and Independents have no place in Trump’s new and devolved country. Only members of his American Fascist Party will be heard. Between 2017 and 2021, Trump pretended to be your dictator. In 2025 he is a dictator without opposition and therefore America’s Fuhrer. He has attained his “dream job:” Hitler 2.0. With that said, as long as Trump remains you...

In June of 2015, Donald John Trump made a life-changing mistake, and he will never recover from his folly. When he declared his intention to win the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency in 2016, he surrendered all privacy and doubt, exposing the ‘real Donald Trump’ to America and the world. He forever lost his claimed position as a New York socialite. The party was over. From that day until the election on November 8, 2016, he was heavily criticized and even denounced by the vast majority of Republicans. History proves that these same individuals revealed a level of hypocrisy not seen after his illegitimate election. They bowed to the worst man in the world without an iota of dissent. [Susan Collins: The Maine senator wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post on August 8 stating that although she is a lifelong Republican, she will not support the party’s nominee – a decision she says she does not take “lightly.” “Donald Trump does not reflect historical Republican values nor th...

Want to read a fake headline? Here it is. “Republicans demand ‘crippling’ sanctions on Russia after brutal drone onslaught in Ukraine: ‘Take action.’” Please! It is no secret that every man and woman who calls themselves a “Republican” in 2025 is lying. They are loyal to Trump, and therefore loyal to Vladimir Putin. They may be able to con millions of uninformed Americans, but not this wise old fart. On Friday, Trump engaged in a phone conversation with his puppeteer for more than two hours. Now Trump is trying to tell the American people that they “disagreed” about how to end the invasion of Ukraine. Bullshit. Putin was obviously informing Trump about actions he could take to make it appear that Putin was capitulating to Trump’s demands. It’s called a “smokescreen.” Trump has been Putin’s most valued asset since 1987. If you doubt me, look it up. In 2018, congress voted to place sanctions against Russia and Vladimir Putin for interference in our 2016 election: Trump vetoed them. Recen...

I was conceived in Seattle, Washington at the end of WWII. I was born in July of 1946 in Lewiston Idaho. My family moved to Los Angeles in 1952 where jobs were readily available. My father served in the United States Navy throughout the war. My mother was one of many “Rosie the Riveters” working at Boeing Aircraft. Everything I saw in my youngest years in public involved extreme patriotism. Flags were seen everywhere. Old posters like “Uncle Sam Needs You” were taped on the sides of buildings and on fences. Everything seemed to be painted red, white, and blue. My parents split up when I was about nine years old. My mother, brother, and I lived in a duplex near my maternal grandparents, and later to an apartment just a few doors down for my Catholic School and the church. When we got our first television with a nine-inch screen, the picture in black and white, a local television station broadcast a lot of movies: most of them were about the war, and starred John Wayne starred in many of...

They call themselves “Republicans.” They are not. I remember the Grand Old Party and today’s men and women prove day after day that they bear no resemblance to the Party of Lincoln. First and foremost, Republicans would never have nominated a fascist who is the least qualified candidate in American history for the presidency in three successive elections. Republicans had integrity, morals, and principles. Today’s fake Republicans are extremists whose priorities are themselves and their owners, oligarchs/billionaires. What these AI Republicans are not: supportive of small business, defenders of individual rights, equality for all, including minorities, the LGBTQ community, and women, freedom of and from religion, encouraging voters to go to the polls, and willing to create a system of fair taxation for all Americans. I turned 21 in 1967. The first general election I used my right to vote was in 1968. It was a difficult year to be a first-time voter. My candidate of choice was Ro...

Most of the men and women in my age group read “1984,” and saw the movie. Some of us remember the principal tenet of the story all too well, because it is happening on this very day. [Orwell's "1984" explores the dangers of totalitarianism and the suppression of individual freedom in a dystopian future where the ruling Party controls every aspect of life, including language, history, and thought, through constant surveillance and manipulation.] The book was originally published in 1949. It is an accurate portrayal of what is happening in Washington today. Attacks on our freedom and rights guaranteed by the Constitution occur every day, and no one seems to care. The entire premise of this book remains frightening, and is relative to Trump, his Fascist Party, and the policies of his handler, Vladimir Putin. However, one part of this path to a totalitarian government is more disturbing to me than all others: the intentional distortion of history. If any society refuses to le...

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart   I could easily blame the man c onfirmed as “the worst president in America’s history” by presidential historians for the irreparable damage to our country between 2017 and 2021. However, that would be ingenuous. The fact is without the support of the former Republican Party, Trump would be nothing but a nightmare and a memory which will n ever go away.   In 2016, prior to the November 8 election, every Republican leader denounced the idea of a Trump presidency. Moscow Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Lin dsey Graham, virtually every significant member of the GOP was a member of “the anybody but Trump club.” They were honest then, claiming that he was woefully unqualified t o become our nation’s 45 th president. They denounced his lack of morals , his disrespect for the traditions of our nation, and his refusal to act “presidential.” And let’s not pretend that they were unaware of his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.     How...

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart   I remember 13 U.S. Presidents. I was born in 1946 and have no memory of Harry Truman. Therefore, I witnessed 19 elections. I may be naïve, but I naturally assumed that both parties attempted to offer the best candidates available from their side of the aisle.    Of course , I know that this was far from the truth, but I never gave it much thought until it became evident that Trump and President Biden would win their party’s nominations again in 2024 .   MORE PROOF THAT THE ONCE GRAND OLD PARTY IS NOTHING BUT A MEMORY   In the last three elections, those calling themselves Republicans offered us the same, old, obese, dim witted, orange buffoon. If he is the best they have to offer, a failure in life, a sexual predator, the leader of America’s Neo-Nazi movement, and now a convicted felon, what does that say about the entire GOP?   I am not being facetious. How is it possible that voters, regardless of how ignorant they may be, c...