TheWiseOldFart

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart Fact: There are no true Republicans in Washington today. In 1981, Ronald Reagan forced every Republican to take an oath of absolute loyalty. This was the beginning of the end of the once Grand Old Party, and the destruction of our Founding Fathers’ system of governance. Reagan’s three successors, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump, adopted the same failed policies initiated by Reagan: absolute loyalty without dissention and free thought, and the failed fiscal policy of “trickle-down economics.” When George W. Bush and his V.P. Dick Chendy ignored the warnings of our security agencies and went on vacation in 2001, refusing to take their admonitions seriously. The result was one of the darkest days in American history: September 11, 2001. It was George W. Bush who overreacted and in several situations, including his reelection campaign in 2004, used the outrage and fear of the American people to secure victories for his personal agenda. It was the ...

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart Any action taken at the height of emotion will almost always be a mistake. On October 26, 2001, the signing of the Patriot Act was the first step by a Republican President to move our nation away from the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and into a fascist regime. Fear remains the right-wing’s greatest weapon in efforts to control all three branches of our federal government. This is where it all began. After your government failed to prevent the attacks on September 11, 2001, they reacted to the disaster with fear tactics. Although the Bush Administration was revealed as a group of total incompetents and a great danger to the future of our nation’s people, they responded with actions which were both desperate and unconstitutional, claiming that terrorism remained the greatest danger to our nation’s people. Every speech “W” made contained multiple references to “9/11.” This is how they passed the Patriot Act. It requires only a cursory examination of the l...

The illegal and immoral wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, waged by George W. Bush, forced many of our nation’s bravest and best young men and women to return to war zones a number of times. The human brain lacks the ability to survive this type of torture. Fact: Bush’s lies and incompetence, which placed our nation in two unwinnable and costly wars, are unforgivable sins for which he was never prosecuted or punished in any way. More than 4,500 American military lives were lost in Iraq. More than 2,400 were killed in Afghanistan. Add to this the thousands who suffered serious injuries and committed suicide, and the number rises to more than 12,000 injured or killed in wars we lost. However, one number no one has ever reported, another failure by the mainstream media, is the number of Americans who were seriously damaged by PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. These mostly men and a considerable number of women lost their ability to live a normal life after returning from multiple deploymen...

Op-ed by TheWiseOld Fart   In 1989 Reagan left office. Our country was in debt for more than one-trillion dollars. His ludicrous fiscal policy of “supply side economics,” better known as “trickle-down economics,” put money in the pockets of the super-rich, while stagnating the economic growth of the working class. This led to a huge national debt thanks to diminshing tax revenue from those who could most easily afford to pay their fair share.   His Republican successor, Vice-President George H.W. Bush, continued this failed policy and was subsequently forced out of office after one term.   Enter Democrat William Jefferson Clinton in 1993. When he left the White House in 2001, the national debt was eradicated, and America’s national treasury experienced a surplus of funds.   His successor should have been Vice-President Al Gore, who would have continued efforts to grow the economy for all Americans, but a politically biased Supreme Court illegally interfered in the ...

  Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart In just 12 days our government will celebrate “Presidents Day.” I repeat my claim that this is the worst conceived holiday in our nation’s history. Our nation has been led by 45 men, one of them twice, and less than one quarter of them are worthy of our praise. Long ago, when I was young, we celebrated two great presidents in the month of February. On the 12 th , our nation honored the birthday of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. On the 22 nd we celebrated the birthday of the man who led us to victory in the Revolutionary War, and became our first President, George Washington. However, another moronic decision changed this situation and we are forced to pay tribute to some of the worst white men in our country. That said, I offer you the worst of the worst, the bottom five men who were chosen to serve our nation’s people and failed miserably. In fifth place is our 28 th President, Woodrow Wilson. I choose him as our fifth worst president f...