TheWiseOldFart

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart First, an undeniable fact. Pete Hegseth is woefully unqualified to be Trump’s first Secretary of Defense. Without an iota of experience in any level of government, the well-known sexual predator, alcoholic, and a man who embezzled funds from charities involved with veterans, which he led, was given one of the most important positions on any president’s cabinet. Over the last five months, Hegseth has proven himself to be a moron who has no legitimate reason to be in any form of government. He is an embarrassment to himself, to Trump, and to his country. Trump doesn’t care, but the American people should. Hegseth is loyal to Trump, not to his country, not to 340 million people. He is lying about the effectiveness of the 14 ‘mega bombs, each weighing 30,000 pounds, dropped on Iran last Saturday evening. Although Trump and his cronies united in the last two days to falsely claim that the attacks were completely successful, reports by respected authorities contradict...

The Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of our federal government are completely dysfunctional and the situation is irreparable. Our military is useless. It is the largest and most expensive in the world, but hasn’t won a war since WWII. It was unwilling to protect our legislative branch from a violent insurrection, organized, planned, and executed by your illegitimate president. All of these complete failures continue to allow Trump to violate the Constitution every day, and commit the most egregious crimes in American history. In addition to violating the Emoluments Clause, he is holding America’s institutions of higher learning, the Department of Justice, and agencies whose only purpose is to expose government fraud hostage until they comply with his demands. Only in the story of America does a schoolyard bully win against all odds. Our “leaders” are cowards, frauds, and hypocrites. Next Sunday, June 15 th , and although he has no authority to demand their cooperation, Tru...

This promise gained Trump votes in the 2024 Election. However, it was just another lie from the man who has never told the truth. Legitimate Economists claim that the orange buffoon’s latest tariffs will raise grocery prices, causing more pain for the majority of our nation’s people. He doesn’t care. Everything is always about him. Every economist offers the same opinion: tariffs will destroy the economy and inflation will grow by as much as ten percent. When Trump was campaigning in 2024, he promised to ‘run our country like he runs his business.’ If you knew about Trump’s failures, you would never have voted for him. The only reasons he continues to have a business is because foreign nations rescued him and he used illegal methods to get undeserved loans when his world was falling away. For the latter reason, he is a convicted felon. Trump’s only tactic is no different from the schoolyard bully you might remember in elementary school. He threatens his adversaries, and lies to those f...

We hear about it all the time: national security. Stories about espionage, computers being hacked by foreign nations, individuals selling national secrets, and more, spike the interest of our nation’s people who are concerned about events which might affect themselves and their loved ones in the future. Politicians, attempting to hide their crimes and the crimes of their fellow congressmen, constantly claim that we, the people, don’t have a right or need to know, “for reasons of national security.” Our government will never tell you about the number of spies our country has around the world in key spots to learn information critical to America’s survival. However, the number would surely surprise most of you. It’s one of the oldest military tactics in history. Is all of this a cover-up for things more sinister and frightening? I ask this question because events over the last 10 years appear to reveal just that. The major policy of our government has become the prevention of our nation’...

From 1789 until today, our government promised its citizens “free and fair elections.” For the most part, it was a promise kept until 2000. Beginning in 1981, the ugliest profession became increasingly vile and destructive. The ambitions of professional politicians drove our two political parties into a frenzy, placing reelection ahead of the public interest. The desire for power replaced any intent to “do the right thing” for the people of their country. Before I continue, let me repeat myself. The two reasons our legislative branch is dysfunctional are supported by fact, and are undeniable. Our Founding Fathers admitted to the imperfection of their efforts at the Constitutional Convention. Letters after its completion written by Jefferson, Madison, Adams, and others confirmed their naivete. They believed that their successors would improve upon what they had begun, and the results would become the creation of the greatest country in the world. Unfortunately, that never happened. I ha...

During the 2024 campaign, billionaire/oligarch, Elon Musk donated at least 270 million dollars to Trump’s campaign. After Trump’s illegitimate inauguration on January 20, 2025, it was immediately clear that Musk was Trump’s co-president. An unauthorized agency was created for Musk called DOGE: the Department of Government Efficiency. In reality Musk and his children were nothing more than a “firing squad,” removing thousands of men and women who actually work in Washington from their positions in critical government agencies. As of yesterday, May 28, 2025, the bromance is over. The co-conspirators attempting to destroy our country are separating and the divorce will certainly be unpleasant for them, but cheap entertainment for the rest of us. Let me be perfectly clear about how much I am enjoying this break-up. I despise both of these old, white racists. They are unfit to hold any office in the government of the United States of America. They have no interest in improving the lives of ...

  It is an irrefutable fact: Donald John Trump is a traitor who also violated the Espionage Act. Because a corrupt and biased Supreme Court gave him total immunity and a path to a second illegitimate presidency, he is openly committing crimes against America every day in 2025. Our corrupt government allowed a convicted felon and the greatest criminal in American history to defile our White House for a second time and he’s far worse than the first. That was expected by anyone who loves this country. Donald Trump us not an American President because his loyalty is not to all of our nation’s people. Trump is the Don of the Washington Mafia. Not only is Trump following the right-wing’s fascist manifesto, Project 2025, this week he engaged in a two-hour phone call with his puppeteer, Vladimir Putin. Without a single live brain cell and suffering from malignant narcissism, Trump is nothing more than a tool for Putin and his 813 billionaires/oligarchs. Our government is allowing Don Trump...

When presidential historians and other politicos attempt to rate our nation’s 47 presidents, there are always a large number of opinions. As a writer who has been involved in American politics since 2012, I feel qualified to offer my opinion, based on years of reading historical fact and current articles from legitimate sources written by the world’s most respected journalists.   My assessment of our presidents is focused on the 13 men I have experienced in my nearly 79 years. I rate them by applying how well they served all of our nation’s people, their abilities to make decisions which positively affected all of our nation’s people, their loyalty to our country and their willingness to do the right thing every time, regardless of political consequences. Of the 13 men who affected me and those I love since 1956, I believe that only one could be considered great, five were good, and four were a disgrace to the principles and values of our founding fathers. The remaining three were ...

  Our nation’s leaders at every level, and in every enterprise, act like they are afraid of Trump. He is a senile, very old, obese man with limited intellect and no friends. Not even Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk are true “friends.” They use his desperate need for praise to use him for their own benefits. Fact, President Biden accomplished more than any other president in four years since Bill Clinton in eight years between 1993 and 2001. Most importantly to most Americans, his economic policies were nearly as successful as Clinton’s. Don’t use the usual right wing bullshit about inflation. There was no “inflation,” it was pure Greedflation by our greedy billionaires. I refer you to two articles containing information never reported by the cowardly television news. “The Biden Administration Handed Over a Strong Economy” “Treasury Releases New Analysis Highlighting the U.S. Economy’s Historic Post-Pandemic Recovery Driven by the Biden Administration’s Policy Agenda” If you read, you ...

      When any politician offers this excuse whenever they don’t want to answer a direct question: I can’t answer that “for reasons of national security,” you know they’re hiding something, and that something is not good. All politicians are professional liars. It begins with their campaigns. They make promises they never intend to keep. They will say anything to get your vote, but when elected forget you exist. Let’s get to the truth. In a Democratic Republic, the people elect men and women to represent their needs and wishes. However, in the 21 st  century we elect rule over us, refusing to serve us. The truth is simple and opposes the intents of our Founding Fathers: politicians consider themselves better and more worthy of living the “American lifestyle” than their constituents. Fascism is alive and well in D.C. It is no longer a secret: America’s federal government is the most corrupt and incompetent in the world. Look at history. R...

The national debt in 2025 is estimated to become $35,000,000,000,000. That’s a lot of zeroes and they will never be erased during my granddaughters’ lifetimes. Throughout our country’s nearly 249 years, it was not unusual for our presidents to leave office with the nation in debt. However, the numbers were miniscule compared to what has happened in the 21 st century. In 1981, Ronald Reagan’s policy of “trickle-down economics,” simply defined, this was a fiscal policy which gives money to the super-rich in the form of enormous tax cuts, hoping that they will become “job creators.” When Reagan left office in 1989, America was nearly one-trillion dollars in debt, and the unemployment rate was 5.5 percent and escalating.  George H.W. Bush succeeded Reagan, served for one term, and added more than three trillion to the national debt using the same, failed fiscal policy. Bill Clinton’s fiscal policy improved the situation. Over eight years, the national debt rose by just over one trilli...

Here’s the picture. I was born in July of 1946, making me an original ‘baby boomer.’ When I began my school years, I was sent to a Catholic elementary school. The first thing we did every morning, before prayers, was to stand, face the American flag in the corner, place our right hands over our hearts, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. This was two years before the words “under God” were added to the oath. My mother had a large family, and there were family gatherings frequently. I enjoyed them, but did not understand everything they talked about. Three of my uncles had returned from serving in WWII; one did not. Although I don’t remember them talking about what they did and saw during the war, politics and the state of our nation were frequent topics of conversation. Although politics were frequently discussed, my family was very patriotic. Movies on television were often stories about battles on the land, sea, and air during the war. John Wayne was an American hero, although he av...

It is abundantly clear that Trump learned nothing from his first, four disastrous years in the White House. I dare anyone to disagree with me that Trump’s administration is composed of the least qualified, anti-American, and uncaring millionaires and billionaires in our nation. Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Robert Kennedy Jr., Kristi Noem, Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi and the others are a slap in the face to every man and woman who previously held their positions. I find Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, the greatest embarrassment of all. Before his confirmation by a corrupt Republican-dominated Senate, he was a part-time Fox personality, and a well-known alcoholic, even while at work, a sexual predator, and a thief who embezzled funds from two organizations he led which served our veterans. It appears that Hegseth may be the first major member of Trump’s administration to be removed from his position. An anonymous federal official claims that the White House is looking for an indiv...

“Stupid is as stupid does.” Not only is Trump incapable of solving our nation’s most serious problems, he doesn’t care. He does not represent you or me, he works for his oligarchs. Voters claim that their reason for giving their precious vote to Trump was based on his promise to end inflation on day one. He lied, again, when he told the American people that he cared about them. Prices are increasing once again, as Trump lies, claiming that they are lower than they were on election day. The only necessity which declined in price and availability is the price of eggs, but that was inevitable. Trump is so stupid, he thinks that I am stupid. I have watched his failures for more than a decade. He shares one thing with the second worst president in history, George W. Bush. Both of these men who grew up in an atmosphere of extreme white privilege, failed at everything they attempted, including their illegitimate presidencies. Trump will lie, claiming that he is a “great businessman.” However,...

What did Trump do after placing huge tariffs on 185 countries, with the exceptions of Russia and Saudi Arabia. He went golfing for the 21 st time out of 78 days in office. Each time he travels to one of his golf courses or to Mar-a-Lago, his personal pleasure costs taxpayers a minimum of $650,000. Therefore, although he is taking away your retirement funding, in less than three months he spent $13,650,000. Now to get down to reality: what is he allowed to do legally and illegally? Legally: ·        make treaties with the approval of the Senate. ·        veto bills and sign bills. ·        represent our nation in talks with foreign countries. ·        enforce the laws that Congress passes. ·        act as Commander-in-Chief during a war. ·        call out troops to protect our nation against an attack. · ...

Trump will always be the biggest joke played on our nation. The slogan he adopted is a major part of that joke. MAGA has proven to be an anagram for “Make America Garbage Again.” This is a reference to the time before Franklin Delano Roosevelt when the United States government was completely controlled by the wealthiest men in America. That is exactly what is happening today: the destruction of every accomplishment over the last 60-70 years. Over my 78 years, Republicans were known as the “party of regression,” and it is even worse today. It has moved so far away from the Party of Lincoln, it has become an organization composed of fascist philosophy. It is Trump and his party who ignore the needs of all Americans. They and the oligarchs who own them, are responsible for Greedflation, why America is the only nation without universal healthcare for all, allowing the cost of higher education to rise to a level unreachable for most of our country’s people, and denial of the fact that all p...

Across America there is a new four-letter word used by tens of millions of Americans. That word is “M-U-S-K.” His fascist efforts to destroy the lives of working-class Americans is undoubtedly the greatest crime in Republican’s war on the majority since Reagan in 1981. Things the super-rich don’t care about: what other people think of them, the fate of anyone other than themselves, if their actions destroy lives, if America succeeds or fails, and if their efforts to become more wealthy harm others. This is a perfect description of Musk and the other 812 billionaires/oligarchs in America, supported by Trump’s American Fascist Party. It's not that Trump and Musk don’t know that the vast majority of Americans are angry and disappointed by their vile actions, they simply don’t care. These are two, old, white men who lack average intelligence. Here are some of today’s headlines on Google. “Trump doesn’t rule out military intervention in Greenland — again” (Inflation takes a backseat to ...