TheWiseOldFart

If the people of Iowa cared, I would feel sorry for them. However, they continue to reelect two of the worst, self-serving Senators in American history: Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst. Grassley is the senior Senator from Iowa. In his situation, it is valid to use the word “senior” in more ways than one. The press, mainstream media, late night comics, Trump, and his failed party made age an issue in 2024. This was a smoke screen. He is 82 years of age, and I believe he is too old to be our president. Trump is 78 ½ years old, and mentally impaired. He is equally unqualified to lead our nation. However, the “winner” in this discussion is Chuck Grassley. “Grassley, who will turn 91 this fall, has spent seven terms in the Senate championing ethanol and Iowa pig farmers and throwing sand in the gears of the government whenever he gets the chance.” (This part of the article comes from March, 2024. He was reelected at the age of 91). This one story should be the most embarrassing thing about Io...

I was born on July 7, 1946; an original baby boomer. My mother gave birth to me in Lewiston, Idaho. Just before my sixth birthday, my mother, father, little brother, John, my maternal grandparents, and my mother’s youngest brother moved to Los Angeles, because that’s where the jobs were. Several years later, my mother and father divorced. My mother rented a small apartment very near my grandparent’s home in West Los Angeles. My mother was a single parent, and therefore a working mom. My grandparents and my uncle were role models and helped raise my brother and me. We were a Catholic family. Besides going to church every Sunday, we went to “novena” on Wednesdays, and every celebration associated with Christmas and Easter. I went to ‘confession’ every week. From my grandfather I learned the most important things in my life: kindness, acceptance, respect for everyone in my life, a high moral standard, and a work ethic like no other. At the age of ten, I began an interest in politics. I di...

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart If you are paying attention to the most serious and destructive situation in America you are aware that the federal court system has been corrupted from the Supreme Court to every lower court in every state. Every Republican president since Reagan intentionally appointed or nominated judges who lean to the far right. Because of this irrefutable fact, justice in America is not blind, nor is it without bias. The greatest disaster and affront to the intentions of our Founding Fathers is the Supreme Court of the United States. When our Founding Fathers created the Judicial Branch of our check and balance system, they devised what they believed was a plan which would prevent the Court from becoming politicized. This has become the greatest mistake in the entire Constitutional Convention. PROOF THAT TERM LIMITS ARE NECESSARY FOR ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS AND THE COURT Justices were given lifetime appointments which prevented the need to win elections which are always divi...

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart Trump’s stacked Supreme Court is not deciding the relationship between laws and regulations and the Constitution, it is rewriting laws as it strikes down decisions made by legitimate Courts in the past. Affirmative Action was successful. Both minority students from low-income families and our nation’s companies benefitted from the program which created racially balanced institutions of higher education. Many great minds would have been lost if this program had not existed. However this biased and corrupt Court decided to halt all programs related to race-conscience admissions in colleges, declaring them unconstitutional. Apparently, only whites are protected by the Law of the Land. Contrary to Trump and his Court, not all of our most mentally gifted minds are wealthy and pure white. MIT offered statistics after the first new class was selected since the right-wing extremist Court’s decision. [About 5% of MIT’s incoming class of 2028 is Black, a significant drop ...

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart If our Founding Fathers were alive today, they would take a long look at what they accomplished in 1789. Much of what was done during the Constitutional Convention was both great and revolutionary. However, they would also learn that they overestimated their faith in mankind, and this single fact placed the future of the new country in jeopardy. At the top of their revelations would be the failure to establish term limits for all three branches of government, and their creation of the Electoral College. Their intent was to allow the people to choose their president, but the Electoral College gave that right to the states. They believed that every vote should count, but that has never happened. “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This quote describes both the legislative branch and the judicial branch in the 21 st century. The legislative branch is not broken, it is shattered and dysfunctional. Lost are the precepts of a two-party system whe...

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart I still feel the sadness and the emotional pain when it became real that Moscow Mitch McConnell, in concert with the Federalist Society, had stacked the Supreme Court with right-wing extremists. No longer would the highest Court in the land be the only branch of our to government to save the Constitution and therefore democracy in America. I remain ‘on the fence’ about John Roberts, but I am absolutely positive that five of the justices on today’s Court are wearing white robes which have been dyed black. Their beliefs are so far to the right it is clear that they support replacing democracy with fascist rule. Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have been patiently waiting for the time when their reasons for being on the Court were fulfilled. They have been on the Court since 1991 and 2006. Trump and Moscow Mitch added two men and one woman who were unfit to serve on the highest Court in the land, but would join with other politically biased men and gain the ultimat...

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart   You might remember the name Louis DeJoy . Thanks to Trump, he is now the Postmaster General of the United States. You might wonder why he is attempting to destroy the institution he was chosen to run.   First of all , he is a Trump supporter, and that means he is not very smart. Secondly, he is a businessman   whose major ambition is to run a privatized mail delivery service.   Few of you will be aware of what he is doing to Northern Nevada. He is making a major change which will likely cost Norther n Nevada residents their jobs and cause huge delays in our state’s mail delivery.   Although he has received many complaints listing justifiable fears related to eliminating the sorting stations in Reno and placing them in Sacramento, California, he refuses to listen to the people his organization serves.   Sacramento is 136 miles west of Reno. However, the mileage is only one concern. In the winter months, I-80, the highway betwe...