The Pardon Bazaar and the Pepper-Spray Patrol

ICE eyes Newport, Congress reopens for business, and the authoritarian clearance sale continues.

Good morning from the damp, nervously caffeinated Oregon Coast, where DHS apparently thinks a seaside ICE detention center would really tie the landscape together. Nothing says “welcome to the coast” quite like razor wire next to a clam shack. City officials in Newport confirmed that the Trump administration is scouting the municipal airport as a potential ICE facility, because evidently there aren’t enough ghosts of dead industries haunting the coastline. Mayor Jan Kaplan and City Manager Nina Vetter are scrambling to find out who in Washington thought this was a good idea. Senator Ron Wyden called the plan “alarming and asinine,” which in Senate-speak is roughly the equivalent of flipping the table over and shouting are you kidding me? A public meeting is set for Wednesday evening at City Hall, and I suspect half the coast will show up, pitchforks in one hand and public comment cards in the other.

In Washington, the government that has been shut down for forty-two days may finally flicker back to life. House members are literally driving cross-country because air travel collapsed under Trump’s shutdown, a sort of Mad Max-meets-Amtrak tableau of civic duty. The Senate passed a stopgap funding bill, the House is expected to follow, and Trump has pronounced the deal “very good,” which usually translates to he hasn’t read it and someone richer benefits. Federal workers might actually get paid again, airports might stop resembling refugee camps, and SNAP recipients will be able to buy food through 2026, because apparently feeding people now requires an act of Congress. Democrats, naturally, are busy fighting one another over the healthcare subsidy extension that got punted to December, a classic example of Democrats bringing a PowerPoint to a gunfight. The liberal base is furious that the party surrendered leverage it actually had, while Trump unilaterally slashed payrolls, canceled spending, and played fiscal emperor. The bill puts no real limits on his ability to do it again, only a polite note suggesting he wait until January 30 to resume the purge.

Speaking of unrestrained executive vandalism, former DOJ pardon attorney Liz Oyer resurfaced this week to remind America what happens when you give a corrupt narcissist absolute clemency powers. Oyer told Sam Stein that Trump’s latest round of seventy-seven pardons, including John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, and Jenna Ellis, wasn’t just shameless, it was unconstitutional performance art. For the first time in history, a president tried to pardon people for state crimes, because, as Oyer put it, Trump is “testing the limits of the pardon power” like a toddler tests the limits of gravity. His new pardon attorney, the ever-bumbling Ed Martin, argues that crimes tied to federal elections magically count as federal offenses even when prosecuted by states. It’s a legal theory so flimsy you could use it to strain pasta.

But Trump’s not just pardoning coup plotters; he’s running a pardon bazaar. Pay enough and salvation is yours. A dinner at Mar-a-Lago can now wipe away your sins faster than baptism. Binance’s CEO got a pardon after a $2 billion crypto investment in Trump’s personal bank-slash-Ponzi project, Trevor Milton got one after a campaign donation, and a Virginia sheriff convicted of selling badges for cash found grace at the altar of graft. Oyer calls it “pay-for-play mercy.” Or simply call it indulgences for idiots.

If all that weren’t dystopian enough, ICE agents have gone full Gestapo in Chicago, standing in front of cars, pepper-spraying drivers, and then claiming self-defense. The MeidasTouch team has the footage, and it’s exactly as stomach-turning as it sounds. These are the tactics of an authoritarian state, the sort that stops people, hurts them, and calls it patriotism. The same segment reported that Trump is exporting his model abroad: $40 billion for Argentina’s libertarian strongman Javier Milei, and now Hungary’s Viktor Orbán is asking for his own MAGA makeover. America once exported democracy; under Trump, we export fascism and debt.

The economy is circling the drain while the regime insists it’s doing cartwheels. Cargo traffic is down double digits, trucking and tourism are sliding into recession, and Trump’s brilliant solution is a fifty-year mortgage, a plan so grotesque one CEO called it “economic genocide” against Gen Z. Private-equity landlords continue to scoop up homes faster than families can make offers, and Trump’s officials keep pretending it’s fine because eggs are allegedly cheaper. Grocery store owners are stuck with freezers full of unsold turkeys while the administration insists the economy is “the greatest ever.” At this point, even the turkeys are voting for early release.

The gilded elite continue to prosper behind prison walls. Ghislaine Maxwell is reportedly living the good life in her minimum-security resort, complete with a puppy, private meetings, and legal assistance from staff “helping with commutation papers.” One imagines her sharing canapés with guards while Trump practices his signature on her release form. The Epstein files remain sealed, of course, because transparency would be terribly inconvenient for the ruling class.

And in Arizona, democracy is still trying to show up for work. Adelita Grijalva, who won her special election to succeed her late father in Congress back in September, has spent weeks in political purgatory because Speaker Mike Johnson refused to swear her in during the shutdown. With the government reopening, she may finally take the oath, giving Arizona’s 7th District a voice again, and giving House leadership one more vote they’ve been desperate to delay. Grijalva’s case is a perfect illustration of how procedural power has become the new voter suppression: if you can’t stop people from electing someone, just refuse to seat them.

It’s Veterans Day, November 11, 2025: the government staggering back to its feet, the justice system auctioned to the highest bidder, the economy gasping through tariffs, and the Oregon Coast bracing for an ICE compound by the sea. As Liz Oyer warned, the danger isn’t just corruption, it’s normalization. When the absurd becomes daily business, democracy stops being a system and turns into a sideshow.

Some mornings it feels like the Republic’s hanging by a paperclip. But at least the coffee’s still legal, the coast still beautiful, and the resistance still breathing. And if DHS thinks Newport’s going to host its new gulag, they might want to remember: Oregonians have a long history of saying no, loudly, legally, and with spectacularly bad weather.