Woke up this morning to this headline......

 DONALD J TRUMP, 47th PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, HAS RESIGNED!

Some of the People Trump Pardoned Are on a Crime Spree

Regarding presidential pardon power

A NYT Editorial Board opinion (not paywalled), focuses on the topic of Trump’s criminal pardons. Probably more clearly than anything else, the pardons show his callousness, cruelty and utter contempt for the rule of law. Under the Constitution presidential pardon powers are essentially unlimited. Before Trump, public opinion and presidential “decency” were the only meaningful checks on that power. Trump blew the old system of presidential restraint and decency to smithereens.

Trump’s pardon business

There are so many self-serving Trump pardons that the public cannot keep up. The high volume of pardons is just one small part of the MAGA strategy that Steve Bannon described years ago as “flooding the zone with shit”. People cannot easily follow the wreckage Trump’s pardons caused. He released so many criminals that no one can easily keep up with either (1) the consequences to crime victims, or (2) criminal activities once the pardoned thugs are turned loose on us.

Asdiscussed here before, Trump runs a pardon industry. Part of the wreckage is ~$1.3 billion that crime victims will be screwed out of. The pardons included nullifying court-ordered payments to the crime victims. Trump callously screws innocent crime victims, even though some of the criminals are very wealthy and can easily afford restitution. Oh well, that’s just Trump being Trump.

Trump’s racket works like this. Convicted thug-criminals pay people with White House connections in return for a pardon. It’s simple pay-to-play politics. The pardons include wealthy tax cheats, murderers, drug dealers, and dozens of fraudsters, i.e., crooks just like himself. Trump really likes fraud. Fraud is why he’s a convicted felon.

Among the drug dealers, Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras bought a pardon. That drug lord helped traffic hundreds of tons of cocaine into the US.

On the first day of his second term, Trump pardoned all the rioters and traitors who stormed the Capitol in his Jan. 6, 2021 coup attempt. He did not distinguish between rioters who were relatively peaceful and traitors who attacked police officers. All ~1,500 got a clean slate. That’s serious contempt for the rule of law.

What they’ve been up to

So, what has the happy band for criminals and thugs been doing since they were given or bought their pardons? Not surprisingly, some have been busy doing more crime. At least 12 have been charged with other major crimes, including child molestation, assault, harassment, murder plots and a vicious dog attack. That outcome was predictable. Trump’s pardons signaled that crime has no consequences. Some people who commit crimes but are absolved will become repeat offenders.

One of the pardoned “fine people” at Trump’s 1/6 coup attempt, Andrew Paul Johnson, is especially disgusting. On 1/6, Johnson entered the Capitol through a broken window and attacked police officers. In March 2026, a Florida court sentenced him to life in prison for molesting a 12-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. His pedophilia began some months after he received his pardon. He used online gaming platforms to make his initial contact with the children. Johnson kept his pedophilia victims quiet by promising to pay to them from a federal Jan. 6 restitution fund that he falsely claimed he would receive.

Andrew Paul Johnson - pedophile &

pardoned Trump supporter

The NYT opinion mentions other examples of pardoned crooks getting caught in post-pardon crimes, e.g., one 1/6 traitor who attacked capitol police with a baseball bat and a riot shield, committed felony vandalism in Minnesota and organized an illegal anti-Muslim rally in New York City that turned violent. What no one knows is what new crimes the more intelligent criminals have committed. Presumably, most of the white-collar criminals that Trump pardoned now know better how to commit crimes like fraud without getting caught again.

For the most part MAGA politicians in congress openly support most of Trump’s pardons, especially for the rioters and traitors in the 1/6 coup attempt. One congressional MAGA elite refuses to answer questions about about Trump’s pay-to-play pardons, offering the ludicrous deflection that it is “looking backward” to comment on them.

Oh Canada, time to build up some defenses, pronto!

 Donald Trump’s national security strategy proposes a "Greater North America" concept, aiming to establish U.S. dominance over the entire Western Hemisphere as a, "secured zone". This strategy focuses on controlling the region, from the Arctic to the Panama Canal, and minimizing influence from foreign powers like China. It represents a "three bully world" approach, focusing on securing the homeland from immigration and foreign interference, with an emphasis on acquiring control over natural resources and strategic locations.

Actually the idea was being presented by Peter Hegseth, but you gotta know he was just mouthing what Trump is thinking.

How should Canada respond?

With typical laid-back, don't take it all so seriously, Canadian approach? 

Hell, no.

My ideas:

Form an partnership with other nations being bullied (Mexico, hell, even China, Australia, Brazil) that includes an mutual defense agreement. Can it be done? Maybe not, but try. 

Ask the UK, since Canada is still part of the Commonwealth, to station a few warships and airforce assets in Canada. 

Canada should quickly take some of it's nuclear material and build an arsenal of dirty bombs - since actually building a real nuke would take too much time.

Enhance the military and place them in locations likely to be struck by the US. 

Canada can in no way withstand aggression from the US but we could make any attempt miserable for them.

I would even consider turning off the power that Canada supplies to some of the northern states on a short term basis to let them feel what it would feel like to lose Canadian power.

Or are my ideas too extreme and Canadians should just sit back and take laid-back, don't take it all so seriously approach? 

Regarding authoritarianism inherent in free markets

Context

The reality of American politics and government is very bad and getting worse fast. We are operating under a highly energized, corrupt, structurally authoritarian/oligarchic, demagogue‑friendly system. There is an ongoing war between that and what is left of the old status quo, i.e., a frozen, obsolete Constitution and system of law. The big picture is complex. Far bigger and more complex than a single ~400 word blog post can convey.

This post links a trait of unregulated free markets in capitalism with what that means for America’s bitter war of authoritarianism (concentrated wealth & power) vs democracy (less concentrated wealth & power).

Two relevant research data points: First, most experts now believe that the US is sliding toward authoritarianism, which is tightly linked to Trump’s mendacious demagoguery and bad behaviors. Second, research consistently shows (and this, and this) that that economic inequality is one of the strongest predictors of democratic erosion and failure. Concentrated wealth and power push democracies toward authoritarianism.

How unregulated free markets behave

A 2019 SciAm article, Is Inequality Inevitable?, asks a key question about free markets. It turns out that inequality is the norm in unregulated markets, but not in reasonably regulated markets. This trait of capitalist markets is simply inherent. Absent regulation, wealth usually trickles up to a few. For better or worse, wealth naturally concentrates and tends toward oligarchy unless there is wealth redistribution by law or other wealth-distributing factors, e.g., taxes.

 
Later research continues to reinforce this data point. Given current forms of capitalism, weak labor power, and porous tax/ownership laws, rising inequality is structurally likely. If Trump and MAGA maintain (1) their current tax cuts (already tilted to favor the rich), (2) gutted regulations, and (3) open legalized influence‑buying (corruption), the probability that US inequality will rise further is extremely high. Current evidence shows that is happening right now. Link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4

A plausible (likely?) end game for American democracy

With increasing wealth inequality comes increased inequality in power. Power goes with the wealth. The wealthy elites buy policy and law that protects and expands their wealth and power. The US Supreme Court protects and expands the scope of legalized corruption (and this). In the end, we probably wind up with some form of kleptocratic (and this) authoritarianism, most likely a combination of Trump/MAGA elite dictatorship (and this), oligarchy (and this), and bigoted Christian nationalist theocracy. In the end, the American experiment in democracy and self-government will have failed.