The world needs more daymakers

 Nov 19, 2025

Fairfield Daily Republic 

The Other Side 

The world needs more daymakers 

By Kelvin Wade

The other day I was parked outside a CVS waiting for Cathi to come out. She came out and immediately went to the back of my truck, fumbling around in the backseat.

She told me to wait just a minute and was off racing down the sidewalk. She’d seen a homeless woman and came and got a blanket and tent that we keep just for these purposes and gave them to her. The homeless woman was so overcome that she hugged her.

That's just the kind of heart Cathi has.

Last week, I got a phone call in the evening from an elderly friend who was in tears. Her roommate had left town for a couple nights and she had no food. She asked if I would go shopping for her. Slipping into my shoes I headed over and took her shopping list, went to the store and bought everything and even stopped by a restaurant to get her something to eat for dinner that evening. She hugged me and apologized for calling, but that was ridiculous. That’s what you do for people in need.

This basic kindness was modeled for me by my parents. I’ve told the story of the time I came home from Armijo High one day and told my mom that a classmate of mine had nothing to eat for lunch. She was so disturbed by that that she gave me extra lunch money for him or had me pack extra in my lunch for him to eat.

For years my brothers and I thought of our dad as a tightwad. He could be rather generous as long as you didn’t actually ask him for something. It both saddened me and moved me that at his funeral in 2003, people told me and my brothers that our dad would pay for kids’ school supplies and pay for them to go to camp.

It saddened me that I didn’t know this while he was alive. But the thing I loved most was that they did these things with no fanfare, seeking no recompense. It was just who they were.

This spirit of giving was also modeled to me by complete strangers. Years ago, one of my first jobs was picking strawberries at a farm in Vacaville. It was a blazing hot day and there we were picking strawberries, a bunch of probably undocumented Hispanic people and a fat black American kid.

It was backbreaking work under an oppressive sun. At lunch time, we all sat together and even though I spoke no Spanish and they spoke no English, they accepted me. They shared their food with me. I’ve never forgotten it. (I only lasted on that job a day so I have mad respect for what these hard workers do for us.)

Too often these days we look at who is deserving of help. For a lot of our fellow Americans there’s an empathy gap. Empathy is like a muscle and if it’s not used, it will atrophy.

A lot of people ascribe their giving nature to their religion and I can respect that. Some people feel the need to give back after achieving a certain amount of success. Some just have a philosophy of helping their fellow man. And me, well, if you’re a long time reader, you know my life’s philosophy comes from a Peanuts comic strip where Linus brings his sister Lucy a bowl of ice cream just to make her stay on the planet more pleasant.

I don’t know why that strip so profoundly moved me. Perhaps it was because Lucy was a mean sister yet her brother still wanted to do something nice for her. We all find ourselves alive together at this time and place in history, with hopes, fears, dreams and desires. Why not make someone’s stay a little nicer, a little happier?

I’m not going to tell you all of the little things I do for people because that’s not what it’s about. It’s not about keeping score or getting a pat on the back. I’m encouraging you to do the same. Be a daymaker.

For me, I’d radically changed my life in the last two and a half years through a pretty massive weight loss. It’s such a contrast for me thinking back to staying up late in the ICU scribbling my final thoughts in a notebook convinced I wouldn’t survive the night to now where I wake up every morning and look in the mirror and think, “I get to be here!”

So I get to do nice things for people and it makes me feel good. Sometimes I feel like a thief, like I’m stealing joy through making someone else’s day.

I’m thinking about this because Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching and we’re living at a time of maximum division. People are at each other's throats. People are struggling to make ends meet and there’s so much uncertainty in our country and in the world. There’s compassion fatigue and an empathy deficit and it seems like we’re all sitting on a powder keg ready to blow.

I don’t have all of the political, sociological and economic answers for people. But what I can do is do a small gesture for someone to improve their stay on the planet. Sometimes all they need is an ear to listen to them, a shoulder to lay their head on or a hug. Little things mean a lot, especially when you’re not keeping track of their immigration status, race, gender, religious or political views and just seeing the human being in front of you.

Give thanks by giving of yourself. I don’t even need the turkey and stuffing. Have a happy Thanksgiving. Peace.

Kelvin Wade, a writer and former Fairfield resident, lives in Sacramento. Reach him at kelvinjwade@outlook.com.

The immigrant is the sum of all MAGA fears

 December 3, 2025

Fairfield Daily Republic 

The Other Side 

The immigrant is the sum of all MAGA fears

By Kelvin Wade

“Caste” author Isabel Wilkinson was at a party years ago when a white conservative political consultant told her that the 2016 election was about 2040.

Census data has indicated that around 2040 the United States will become a majority minority country. And if you view MAGA in this context, everything we’re seeing makes sense.

MAGA is the confluence of a New York conman, white Christian Nationalists and a majority of white Americans upset at a changing country they no longer recognize. It’s been a backlash to the first black president, the marriage equality decision, trans rights and the feeling that nonwhite immigrants were devouring an even larger piece of an undeserved pie.

Millions of Americans felt they were losing their country, their culture and identity, and in came a New York grifter who exploited this division, surrounded himself with white Christian Nationalists and here we are.

Why else is immigration MAGA’s main animating feature? Why did ‘build the wall’ and the Muslim ban resonate so well?

Why did he call African and Central American countries “s***hole countries” and opine that we needed more people coming here from Norway? Why has President Donald Trump said immigrants are “vermin” who are “poisoning the blood of the country” if this isn’t the corrosive beating heart of MAGA?

Since 2016, more white Americans die every year than are born. More black and Hispanic Americans are born every year than die. Also, Asian and Hispanic immigration is helping drive our population growth. This is why there are “MAGA accounts” in Trump’s big ugly bill.

Every eligible child born between Jan. 1, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2028 will receive a one time $1,000 deposit from the government in an investment account to spur native born American birth rates.

This desire to combat the browning of America is why Trump signed Executive Order 14160 on Jan. 20, basically overturning the 14th Amendment saying children born here from undocumented mothers were not citizens. The Constitution disagrees.

Trump’s mass deportation was supposed to focus on getting bad people out, yet ICE’s own recently released numbers show that nearly 75% of detainees have no criminal record and only 5% have violent criminal convictions.

They’re not solely after violent offenders. but all undocumented brown people. 

He’s terminating temporary protected status for 600,000 Venezuelans, 330,000 Haitians, as well as other places black and brown people come from.

This is why Trump is exploiting the murder and attempted murder of National Guard members in Washington D.C. last week by an Afghan national who the Trump administration granted asylum to. Trump proclaimed he’s permanently pausing immigration from “Third World countries.”

But he goes a step further posting “Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation.”

Trump’s Department of Homeland Security recently tweeted, “Remigration now.” The term remigration is used by far right European groups who not only want to deport undocumented immigrants but legal immigrants, naturalized citizens and people born of foreign parents who are deemed insufficiently assimilated.

Trump has said he plans to strip citizenship away from naturalized citizens who “undermine domestic tranquility” and those determined to be “non-compatible with Western civilization.” Wait until he finds out federal law and the Supreme Court says he doesn’t have such power.

Last week, Trump announced he would be pardoning former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH) who was convicted of drug trafficking 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S., enough doses to get half the population of the planet high. JOH was sentenced to 45 years in prison by an American court. Why would Trump, who has been extra-judicially murdering people off the coast of Venezuela supposedly to save us from drugs, be pardoning a drug trafficker? When JOH was president of Honduras he was very helpful in stifling immigration to the U.S. To this administration the one thing worse than drugs coming into the U.S. are minorities.

It’s no accident that part of achieving the aims of making America white again is erasing nonwhite history, resurrecting Confederate monuments that have been torn down, extinguishing diversity, equity and inclusion, banning books by and about minority groups, pushing the LGBTQ+ community back into the closet, restricting reproductive rights and promoting traditional families and the manosphere.

The authoritarian playbook isn’t unique. The Nazis and other regimes have used it. Vladimir Putin of Russia and Viktor Orban of Hungary are using it. And it’s happening here right now in America.

Trump didn’t cook up this plan. Trump is motivated by greed and grievance, but his bigotry and xenophobia appears to have dovetailed nicely with plans dreamt up by the Heritage Foundation and people like political theorist Curtis Yarvin, Project 2025 author Russ Vought, tech billionaire Peter Thiel, Thiel’s disciple JD Vance, Steve Bannon, Christian Nationalist Paula White and of course, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

The goal is to replace democracy with a wealthy ruling technocratic elite class keeping minorities in their place. That elite class pits us against each other so we don’t notice that they’re picking our pockets and eroding our rights.

Judging by Trump’s 36% approval rating in the latest Gallup Poll, millions of Americans are waking up to the fact that they’ve been suckered by a conman. Instead of rubbing their faces in the fact that we were right about Project 2025, extend a hand. Join with us to help fight it.

2016 and everything since then has been about 2040. Isn't it obvious by now? Peace.

Kelvin Wade’s column has appeared in the Fairfield Daily Republic for more than three decades. Reach him at kelvinjwade@outlook.com.

Felon 47 won't uphold the Constitution

 “I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.” --- Donald Trump, when asked by Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker on whether everyone deserves due process

What the actual fuck, America? The alleged President of the United States, who swore an oath to
uphold the Constitution in January, now says he doesn’t know if he has to enforce it. He’s head of the Executive Branch and for those who slept through American government in high school, that branch’s job is to enforce laws. There we had Trump on national TV on “Meet the Press” on Sunday repeatedly saying he didn’t know if he had to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

When MTP moderator Kristen Welker pointed out the Fifth Amendment says everyone is entitled to due process, Trump responded, “I don’t know. It seems --- it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials. We have thousands of people that are -- some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth. I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it.”

How do you determine if someone is a murderer or drug dealer? Due process. Trump, of all people should know this. He received due process when he was arrested, finger printed, photographed, allowed to hire attorneys and vigorously defend himself in multiple criminal trials. He received due process when he was convicted of 34 felonies. (Isn’t it ironic that Trump probably has been convicted of more felonies than anyone he’s deported?)

That statement indicates that Trump knows what the law requires. He just doesn’t want to do it. Too bad. I was elected to get them out and the courts are holding me to the law, he’s crying. That’s the courts’ job. That’s the job of judges. It’s also Trump’s job. He thinks that just because his conspiracy theory guzzling, Constitutionally-illiterate voters want him to violate the law, that he can do it.

Wrong.

Suppose a Democratic presidential candidate ran for office telling voters she would get rid of guns if elected. And when she’s elected she signs an Executive Order repealing the 2nd Amendment because that’s what her voters want her to do. Do you know how much legal weight that would carry? The same amount as Donald Trump’s Executive Order earlier this year trying to repeal the 14th Amendment.

I make no apologies for our Constitution making life difficult for a would be authoritarian. You don’t get to ignore the parts of the Constitution you disagree with. And those judges are members of a coequal branch.

co·e·qual  [ˌkōˈēkw(ə)l]  adjective

equal with one another; having the same rank or importance:

That’s right. Those “radical liberal judges” (including ones that Donald Trump appointed and have ruled against him) are just as powerful as the president. And yes, they (not your lawyers, Drumpf) are there to say what’s Constitutional and what isn’t.

Trump outed himself as the ignoramus that most of us know he is. Judging by his comments and behavior, I don’t believe he’s ever read the United States Constitution and he certainly doesn’t care about what it says.

Trump’s stupidity when it comes to our founding documents was on full display last week when ABC’s Terry Moran asked him what the Declaration of Independence means to him. In what one X user called the “dumbest moment in American history” the supposed 47th President said, “Well, it means exactly what it says, it’s a declaration, it’s a declaration of unity and love and respect, and it means a lot and it’s something very special to our country.” It’s one of those boneheaded Trump sayings that sounds like a kid giving a book report on a book he obviously didn’t read.

The Declaration of Independence declares our independence from the British, including the powerful line “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It talks about how the government gets its power from the consent of the governed and that the public has the right to abolish a government that doesn’t protect their rights. It also lists many grievances against the king and explains why we’re now independent. It’s a treatise against tyranny.

Our intellectually incurious President is too stupid to know this, and too lazy to actually read the document he has on the wall in the Oval Office. Like Martin Sheen, he just plays a president on TV.

But just because Donald John Trump is one of the stupidest men to ever hold the office of President doesn’t mean he’s not an authoritarian. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what he’s doing. All he wants to do is whatever he wants. He’s under the delusion that he has unlimited power, that he’s a King. Anyone trying to uphold and defend the Constitution, you know…the thing Donald Trump swore to do and isn’t….is his enemy.

But here’s the thing…we didn’t vote for a King. We didn’t vote for an Emperor or a Fuhrer. We’re not beholden to Donald Trump. We don’t pledge allegiance to any President. Our allegiance is to the country and to the Constitution, even if Trump and his MAGA cult hasn’t read it and doesn’t believe in it. And one thing we’re good at is dissent. We’re excellent at saying fuck you. And we’re pretty good at kicking the fucking ass of kings and wannabe kings.

So be stupid or play stupid as much as you want. But you’re going to uphold that Constitution. Those coequal judges will insist on it. The majority of Americans who didn’t vote for you are going to insist on it no matter what delusions your sheep may have about due process.

That document on your office wall that you don’t understand and that you like to show off to guests says when the people are confronted with a long train of abuses leading to despotism, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Violate our rights, fail to uphold the Constitution and continue slouching towards autocracy and we will throw off this government. Try us.

Bill Maher drinks the MAGA Kool-Aid

Comedian Bill Maher recently dined with Donald Trump at the White House (along with the UFC’s Dana White and “singer” Kid Rock) and came away with his mind blown. He described Trump as gracious and “not fake.” He says he found that a crazy person doesn’t live in the White House but a guy who plays a crazy person on TV does. 

I’ve been a long time Bill Maher fan, ever since his old show, “Politically Incorrect” on ABC. I’ve watched “Real Time with Bill Maher” since it’s inception. I’ve seen Bill Maher live twice, the second time being just days after Trump won the 2016 election. That comedy show was like a wake with an audience of stunned and horrified liberals and Maher onstage going through the motions, admitting he’d been drinking a lot since the election. 

I considered Bill Maher the second best political comedian working behind the incredible Will Durst. 

But if you’ve been watching Maher in the last few years you’ve seen a shift in the comedian. He claims he hasn’t changed at all but that’s bullshit. Maher used to treat Trump like the dangerous narcissistic authoritarian con artist he is. 

In fact, Bill Maher was one of the early voices saying Trump was never going to leave office. Notice I said “one of.” To hear Maher tell it he was the lone voice out there saying this and he pats himself on the back regularly about it. Lots of us thought he wasn’t going to leave. He was talking about rigged elections before he won the first time, as a way to save face if he lost. 

But a funny thing happened between the first Trump term and the second. Bill started taking up Fox News talking points on “wokeness.” And soon after he started receiving praise on Fox and other right wing circles. They labeled him a truth teller. The same guy who used to roast Trump on his show mercilessly, mock the stupidity of his voters and blast MAGA politicians suddenly found himself being lauded by those right wing voices. And Maher liked it. Maher liked having his ego stroked by the other side.

And what helped push him along was an incident in 2017 when Maher had Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska on his show. When Sasse joked that Bill should come to Nebraska and work the fields, Maher joked, “Work in the fields? Senator, I'm a house nigger!" The backlash came fast and furious. Many called for Maher to be fired. 

The following week Maher had Michael Eric Dyson, Symone Sanders and rapper Ice Cube on his show. Maher apologized for the remark but what really got under his skin was when Cube said, “It's a lot of guys out there who cross the line because they're a little too familiar. Or, guys that, you know, might have a black girlfriend or two that made them Kool-Aid every now and then, and then they think they can cross the line. And they can’t." Maher had long been linked to black women at that point and you could see that Cube’s words left a mark.

Maher didn’t like being held accountable. I believe he felt betrayed by the liberals who watch his show. I think he felt that he’d been a loyal progressive and should’ve been given an easy pass. Ever since, Maher has raged against cancel culture, wokeism and on several shows took blacks to task for complaining about racism, especially in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, preaching that blacks should be more appreciative of how much progress they’ve made. 

This resentment, coupled with the ego stroking he’s been receiving from Fox News has him believing his loving press clippings from the right. He still criticized Trump but it’s been clear for a long time that his stock and trade now is whataboutism and both sides-ism. He likes to see himself as the lone centrist in the country, floating above us all. Can’t we all just get along? The man who spent years stoking the flames of the left, now suddenly wants to be hailed as some middle ground peacemaker. 

Are you fucking kidding me?

Bill Maher, along with the rest of us, have watched Donald Trump’s rhetoric and behavior for the last ten years. We’ve seen him mock a disabled reporter, admit to sexual assault on camera, be accused of sexual assault by two dozen women, try to ban Muslims from coming to America, call Mexicans rapists, call African and Central American countries “shithole countries,” separate children from their families,  ask his Justice Department to investigate his opponents, try to extort a favor from a foreign president, try to trash the postal service and use fake electors to rig an election, send a mob to stop the count of a lawful election that he spread lies about, pardoned said mob, be impeached twice, steal classified documents and obstruct justice, be held civilly liable for rape, be convicted of 34 felony counts and undermine our democracy and judiciary. Then Maher dines with Trump for two and a half hours and now claims to see the real Trump. Two and a half hours versus ten years.

You got played by a conman, Bill. And you got played because you’ve been seduced by MAGA for years. Trump got exactly what he wanted out of Maher, for Maher to go on his show and report that Trump isn’t crazy. Just misunderstood. And that not dining with him would be like mean girls not letting someone sit at their table. Yeah, he said that. 

It would be laughable that a formerly liberal comedian is prostituting himself on behalf of Donald Trump but it’s no laughing matter when Trump 2.0 disappears people off the street and sends them to a foreign prison, threatens to do the same to American citizens, shakes down universities and law firms, pardons his friends, orders investigations into his enemies, is destroying a good economy with moronic tariffs, has a group of hackers combing through Americans’ private information, defies court orders and muses about running for a third term. Fascism has come to America and it’s a shame that Maher, who used to stand for something, is greasing the wheels.

What I used to like about Maher was that in addition to being funny, I appreciated his intellect and judgement. I have to hand it to Trump. When people get into his orbit, he “trumps” them. They lose their judgement. He somehow charms them into bending to his will. We saw it happen with his White House doctor during his first term. We’ve seen people who used to be respected like Bill Barr, turn into Trump’s puppet once he became attorney general. One after another, we’ve seen formerly respected people get close to Trump and throw their self-respect out the window.  And now, we’ve seen that even Bill Maher isn’t immune to the flattery of a malignant narcissist. 

Finish drinking the Kool Aid, put on the red hat and rebrand your show, “MAGA Time with Bill Maher” you fucking sellout.

What is Trump’s chaos doing for you?

February 19, 2025

Fairfield Daily Republic 

The Other Side

What is Trump’s chaos doing for you?

By Kelvin Wade

“When I win I will immediately bring prices down starting on day one.” – Donald Trump, Aug. 15, 2024,

Bedminster, New Jersey

It seems like millions of American voters got played by this former New Yorker’s political three card monte game. Have you been to the grocery store? Bought eggs? Pumped gas? Paid your rent?

What’s he been focused on? Chaos and corruption. Last week, Trump embarrassingly posted on his X knockoff, “BIDEN INFLATION UP!” after receiving a negative inflation report. Apparently, he’s saying since he’s only been in office a month, unlike Harry Truman, the buck doesn’t stop with him.

I’m not going to blame Trump for egg prices, just like Biden wasn’t to blame for egg prices. But what we can blame Trump for is lying to the American public about bringing costs down. He hasn’t introduced any policy to bring costs down. He hasn’t even addressed the issue.

What he has brought is chaos. The man who preaches America first and staying out of foreign wars has threatened to use the military to take Greenland from Denmark, take the Panama Canal back from Panama, put troops in Ukraine to watch over their rare earth minerals and put troops in Gaza to build a Middle East riviera.

He has ranted repeatedly about unqualified DEI hires but handed us a WWE executive as head of education, a weekend TV host as defense secretary, a conspiracy theorist as head of the FBI, a vaccine skeptic as head of Health and Human Services, a former congresswoman with a sketchy past as Director of National Intelligence and barrister Barbie as his head of weaponization in the Justice Department. It’s like a Tom Clancy novel if Clancy wrote dark comedies.

He has Elon Musk tearing apart agencies that are regulating and investigating his businesses. In what universe should a man who receives NASA contracts be auditing NASA? They want to fire thousands from the IRS during tax season, fired hundreds of FAA employees in the wake of four deadly plane crashes in the past month, fired aid workers, fired thousands from the Department of Agriculture, VA workers, and frighteningly fired people whose job it is to safeguard our nuclear stockpile.

We’ve seen no actual evidence of corruption or waste from any of the departments Elon Musk’s DOGE has decimated. Have you seen records of mismanagement or are you relying on stories from a network that paid $787 million for lying to the American people? That would be Fox News for those prone to memory-holing inconvenient truths.

The Trump administration has banned the Associated Press from the White House and Air Force One because he wants to control the words they use. First Amendment, anyone? He’s tried to erase transgender people by purging government websites and documents of references to them.

He’s given us the most corrupt administration in American history and he’s only getting started. He’s been profiting nonstop hawking shoes, bibles, NFTs, crypto-currency and more. His wife got a $40 million dollar documentary deal from rear-kisser extraordinaire Jeff Bezos.

What’s he done to the rule of law in a month? He pardoned over 1,500 insurrectionist criminals, even those who assaulted police officers. He’s fired prosecutors and wants to gut the FBI.

According to former lead prosecutor at the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, his administration entered into a corrupt bargain with New York Mayor Eric Adams, to drop federal charges against him as long as Adams does their bidding on immigration. Sassoon and six other prosecutors resigned in protest, rather than be sucked into this blatant corruption.

You’re witnessing corruption on a grand scale. Don’t take my word for it. Conservative analyst and Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy just wrote a scathing article on Trump’s Justice Department for the National Review saying, “The weaponization directive is doing politics, not removing politics from law enforcement. Plainly, the ‘Weaponization Working Group’ exists to settle the president’s scores and rewrite dark chapters of his history -- while providing him with quarterly assurances of Attorney General Bondi’s progress on what is now the Justice Department’s core mission.”

Trump has always gaslighted and projected. He’s always accused others of doing what he himself is doing. He’s spread the lie of a “Deep State” while he works to fire our experienced federal workforce and instead of DEI hires, replace them IED hires, inexperienced loyalists whose job it is to blow up government. We’re seeing the implementation of Project 2025 and Trump’s Deep State.

What policies are designed to help the little people? Tariffs that will drive up prices? The $4.5 trillion dollar tax cuts for the wealthy the GOP introduced last week paid for in part by massive cuts to Medicaid?

What has all of this chaos and corruption done to improve the quality of you and your family’s lives? Have they brought the cost of living down? Even if you say it’s early, does it even look like they’re trying? No. All your vote bought is a front row seat to the Trump Revenge Show. Enjoy it. You’re in the find out phase. Peace.

Kelvin Wade, a writer and former Fairfield resident, lives in Sacramento. Reach him at kelvinjwade@outlook.com.

Donald Trump is raping our country

We’ve lost our democracy as we’ve known it. That’s not hyperbole. It’s not an overreaction. While Donald Trump attacks our country on a daily basis with co-president Elon Musk’s DOGE insurrectionists, our Republican-controlled Congress politically fellates our Felon-in-Chief. Trump keeps saying this is what he campaigned on. He campaigned on bringing prices down on day one. He campaigned on closing the border and mass deportations. No, it was Democrats who campaigned warning about Project 2025, which Trump pretended he knew nothing about. Now, he’s implementing it.

Courts, with judges appointed by Reagan, Obama and Trump himself have smacked down Trump’s assault on our democracy. And there are those in the MAGA cult including his faux hillbilly veep who wants Trump to defy the courts, to utterly break our democracy and appoint himself dictator. There are elected officials, like the incredible shrinking boot-licking, fake Christian Speaker of the House Mike Johnson completely abandoning his Article 1 role to kowtow to Trump.

I get that they’re afraid of the Criminal-in-Chief. After all, they watched him sic a mob on Congress and then pardon the people who beat and injured police and destroyed the peaceful transfer of power. They’re physically afraid of the MAGA minions. But so what? You ran for office. Do the job people sent you there to do or resign. 

This is a time where you can really see how the United States is paying the price for low information voters. I wrote long ago that the idiocracy we were living in would have long term consequences. There are people saying, “What’s wrong with what Elon is doing? He’s saving us billions in waste and fraud.”  One would have to be  a child, a cultist or a complete moron to believe that. Let’s start with the fact that nowhere in the Constitution or our laws does it say a civilian can go in and close down federal agencies that Congress created. The Executive Branch cannot shut down agencies it doesn’t like. Congress, through it’s Article l power, has the power to spend money in our government. It creates agencies. The President enforces the laws. If a president doesn’t like what Congress is spending money on, he can lobby Congress to change the laws and he can sign new laws. He doesn’t get to go in and cut off payments that Congress authorized. I’m sorry they didn’t cover this in Schoolhouse Rock, but the people who believe this is all legit probably wouldn’t have watched anyway.

What Elon Musk has done to USAID has and will kill people. Think about that. We’ve stopped medication for millions. Unwanted pregnancies will rise because they’ve stopped that aid. We’ve stopped distributing food for starving children. That aid, which only amounts to 1% of GDP saves lives around the globe and buys us enormous good will. That aid prevents conflicts. That aid helps encourage our allies to fight terrorism with us and for us.

Your representatives approved that money. Who is Elon Musk to stop it? Who is Donald Trump to halt payments that Congress authorized? 

If you voted for Trump, how would you feel if Kamala Harris had won in 2024 and she let billionaire George Soros hire a bunch of youngsters to go over the federal government and shut down things they don’t like? Would you have supported that? No, you’d see how wrong it was and you’d be screaming bloody murder. It’s amazing how easy it is to see the truth when you appeal to peoples’ partisanship. 

For those who cheered Trump signing an Executive Order repealing the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship, would you support a Democratic President assuming office and using an Executive Order to repeal the 2nd Amendment?

Joe Biden didn’t like Trump’s 2 trillion dollar 2017 tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the well to do. But what if he’d assumed office and sent a team to the IRS ordering them to put the tax rates back where they were. That would be illegal and unconstitutional. But Biden wouldn’t do that. No Democrat would do that because Democrats believe in government. Newsflash, the Republican Cult does not believe in government. It’s why they can stand by and hold Trump’s nuts…I mean, hat and coat, while he destroys it. 

Donald Trump and Elon Musk has shown us no evidence of any waste, fraud or abuse. What they say is not evidence.  They’re both known liars. And it wouldn’t matter if he found billions in fraud because it’s not legal to be doing what they’re doing. If I break into your home and find cocaine, you’re going to jail but I’m going to jail too.

Trump, like he did to E. Jean Carroll decades ago, is raping our country.  

The Constitution matters. The law matters because if we let them shred part of the Constitution, what’s next? What will he do to voting rights? What if he decides there shouldn't be marriage equality? How much damage is he prepared to do to the environment in the name of profit? What will he do to undermine choice? What means will he and Pee Wee German Steven Miller stoop to in order to accomplish his goal of making America White Again?

Donald Trump undermined our democracy before he even took office by cutting a deal with the CEO of Tiktok. In 2020, Trump signed an Executive Order attacking Tiktok and tried to ban it. Then, in 2024, billionaire Jeffrey Yass who owns a 15% stake in TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, reached out to support Donald Trump’s election. Suddenly, Trump flipflopped on his position on TikTok. Meanwhile, Congress passed a ban on TikTok that would go into effect January 19, 2025 if Bytedance didn’t sell the company to a U.S. entity. A huge bipartisan vote with the House voting 365-65 and the Senate passing it 79-18 enabled President Biden to sign it into law. We all saw what happened when TikTok paused operations and then came back online beaming a message of praise for “President” Donald Trump on 170 million Americans’ phones. Newsflash. It’s not legal for Donald Trump to halt a U.S. law via Executive Order. The law only allows a President to pause the law if there’s an imminent sale. There’s no imminent sale so Trump doesn’t have the authority to keep it active. I know people love TikTok but the fact that the program is running on millions of phones after a U.S. law has been passed to ban it is evidence that our democracy has already been undermined. 

And for us to cheer Trump on because we like TikTok plays into his hands. If you’re okay with Trump blocking one law via Executive Order, Trump will think why can’t I block more laws with Executive Orders? 

Congress passes bills and the President signs them into law. Even the poorly educated must’ve picked that part up from Schoolhouse Rock. If a new President comes into office and doesn’t like a law the previous President signed, he can go to Congress and tell them to repeal that law. What he can’t do it just seize the money and not enact the law. 

Remember that part about faithfully executing the laws during the inauguration? Well, Trump is not doing it. He’s not even a month into office and has already violated his oath. 

I wouldn’t be shocked if he defied the courts. After all, the courts have no real enforcement mechanism other than their legitimacy. If Trump and his Republican stooges in Congress conspire to undermine the judiciary, our democracy is dead. 

And a government where there is no accountability, no recourse and no justice only results in one thing: insurgency, coup and assassination. 

We’re not immune.

Trump isn’t immune. 

We’re in the maw of the beast. 

Pardoning Hunter was a good start to protecting against Trump's revenge

December 4, 2024

Fairfield Daily Republic 

The Other Side

Pardoning Hunter was a good start to protecting against Trump's revenge

By Kelvin Wade

Kudos to President Joe Biden for pardoning his son, Hunter. But I argue the president has far more to do to protect the country from an incoming autocrat.

We have a Supreme Court that has empowered an autocratic president-elect who has promised to use the executive branch to punish the “lunatic left," or as he likes to say “the enemy within.” Since he tried to install Matt Gaetz as attorney general and is planning on replacing the FBI director he appointed, Christopher Wray, with a lackey, we know he’s serious.

A seriously unusual threat requires a seriously unusual defense. Joe Biden must use the presidential pardon power to thwart the upcoming misuse of the FBI and Justice Department by issuing pre-emptive pardons. Biden must pardon every member of the Jan. 6. committee, including former representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

He must pardon Georgia prosecutor Fawni Willis, New York prosecutors Alvin Bragg and Letitia James and their entire teams. He should pardon judges Juan Merchan, Arthur Engoron, Tonya Chutkan, Scott McAfee and Lewis Kaplan and their staffs. He should pardon special prosecutor Jack Smith and his entire team.

Beyond that, President Biden should issue pardons to former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and First Ladies Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. He should pardon retired Gen. Mark Milley and others.

While this may seem absurd, since the president-elect has threatened so many with persecution, he makes such a response necessary. One could even see issuing pardons to media figures, newspapers and networks. The president-elect has repeatedly called the press the “enemy of the people” and no doubt, will go after them as despots do when they take power.

The pardon power is a plenary power. It is absolute for federal crimes. And the president can issue pardons for an individual for any and every federal crime they may have committed from their birth to the time of the pardon. That’s a blanket pardon and those types of pardons are rare. But this threat calls for blanket pardons.

Unfortunately, knowing the vindictive nature of the fascist in question, the president would have to go even further with the pardons. He will have to pardon family members of the people I’ve listed because the fascist’s partisan hatred will compel him to go after the most vulnerable. We’ve already seen it with him attacking the President’s son, Hunter and attacking family members of the judges in his cases. They will need pardons.

Of course, this wasn’t what the pardon power was intended for. But we saw the president-elect misuse the pardon power when he was in office, pardoning his co-conspirators and friends. We see him promising to pardon the insurrectionists he summoned to try to steal the 2020 election. The founders didn’t intend for presidents to be above the law and use the power of the office to go after their enemies but that’s where we are now.

Now none of these people I’m calling for President Biden to pardon are guilty of any crimes, but it won’t matter. The burden of hiring lawyers and defending themselves from the MAGA witch hunt could ruin their lives.

Some of these folks might refuse a pardon, which is their right. It’s a shame that so many public servants who’ve served with integrity would be in a position to have to accept a pardon having committed no crime but someone who doesn’t value our Constitution, laws and has no character whatsoever, empowered by a spineless GOP, is coming to power next Jan. 20. It is a way to shield people from his treachery.

President Joe Biden, as per our extreme Supreme Court, has presidential immunity. However, one last act would be to pardon his vice-president and then to resign, thus elevating Kamala Harris to the presidency. Then President Harris must issue a blanket pardon to Joe Biden and his entire family.

There would be the added bonus of making Kamala Harris the 47th president and forcing MAGA to burn their hats and merchandise.

As for MAGA and GOP outrage over the pardons, give us a break. You bend over backward (and forward) for your dear leader while he uses the Constitution as Charmin and now you’re (faux) outraged? Cry your MAGA tears elsewhere.

It’s sad that it’s come to this. But America has changed, and these are the steps needed to weather the fascist wave. Peace.

Reach Kelvin Wade at kelvinjwade@outlook.com.