Progress on Donald Trump’s Bucket List

√ War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity:

Ordered a February 28, 2026 airstrike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, Iran, killing at least 156 people. The victims included 120 children, 26 female teachers, and several parents who had come to the school. The fatalities also included a pregnant teacher and a six-month-old fetus.

Ordered aerial attacks on a number of unnamed Venezuelan fishing boats, killing their crews. Pilots of attacking aircraft were reportedly ordered by the Secretary of Defense to fire on any survivors of the initial bombing runs on their vessels as they struggled to stay afloat in the water, insuring that no one survived the US assault.

√ Murder:

Alex Pretti, Renee Nicole Good, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Silverio Villegas González, Keith Porter Jr., Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Joan Sebastian Guerrero, Mario Bass—all murdered at the hands of ICE, or while they were being held in its custody.

√ Sexual Assault/Rape:

E. Jean Carroll. (Also, whatever is in the Epstein files, if the Republican Party ever allows them to be seen in their entirety by ordinary mortals.)

√ Kidnapping and False Imprisonment:

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Andry José Hernández Romero, Leonardo José Colmenares Solórzano, Jefferson José Laya Freites, Arturo Suárez Trejo, Anyelo José Sarabia González, Jerce Reyes Barrios, Frengel Reyes Mota, José Manuel Ramos Bastidas, Albert Jesús Rodríguez Parra, Maikol Gabriel López Lizano. All were placed in restraints without due process and transported by air to El Salvador, where they were handed over to the tender mercies of the wardens of CECOT (El Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo).

√ Theft:

SSSI and Derco Settlement. Gen Digital Inc. False Claims Settlement. AECOM Hurricane Katrina Relief Settlement. Magnolia Diagnostics False Claims Act Settlement. Broadway Electric Inc. Settlement.

√Fraud:

Judged culpable, civil case of falsifying business records (34 counts) May, 2024. Judged culpable, civil business fraud, New York, February, 2024.

√ Bribery, Extortion, and Violations of the Emoluments Clause:

Smirking misappropriation of María Corina Machado’s Nobel Peace prize medal after he’d ordered a US armed invasion of her country to kidnap its head of state.

A Boeing 747 passenger aircraft given by Dubai, for unspecified reasons, not to the United States, but to Donald Trump personally.

Promising a $5,000 Trump Dividend to every adult American provided the Republicans preserved their congressional majorities in the 2026 midterm elections.

Demanding that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy investigate Hunter Biden while withholding nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine. Shortly after Ukraine announced publicly that an investigation would take place, the US government released the $400 million that was being withheld. A post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, or genuine extortion? We report, you decide.

√ Perjury:

In December 2020, he filed a federal lawsuit in Georgia to overturn the presidential election results, personally signing a verification swearing under oath that the voter fraud figures in the complaint were true and correct to the best of his knowledge. A federal judge later concluded that the records demonstrated an effort to press false claims in court, and emails from Trump’s lawyers acknowledged that some of the allegations were inaccurate. Legal analysts have argued that this sworn verification meets the elements of perjury because Trump had been briefed by Department of Justice officials that the claims were false.

√ Vandalism:

White House demolitions, uprootings, tacky remodeling jobs, and fake gold embellishments,

A fatally incompetent renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool,

The defacing, defunding, and closing of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

A gaudy and hideously expensive gold leafing of the Arts of War and Peace equestrian statues.

The impending construction of an obscenely large and gaudy marble eyesore, to be named the United States Triumphal Arch.

Mortal Doubting

The Atlantic has published a new interview today by David Brooks, entitled Do Human Beings Have Souls? He isn’t asking me (he’s asking Shelly Kagan), but if he were, I’d say some do, some don’t, and with some it’s hard to tell. There’s no doubt in my mind that James Baldwin did, and that Donald Trump doesn’t. Further tests will probably have to be run on David Brooks.

Tears in Rain

Show me an arrogant prick, and I’ll show you an ignorant prick, a stupid prick. And when I’m shown the MAGA menagerie in all its pulsating, glittering entirety, I can’t help but notice that they’re all arrogant, ignorant, stupid pricks, even the seemingly endless succession of press Barbies and personal assistants who don’t actually have pricks. Sadly, sackcloth and ashes aren’t working for me anymore, nor rage, nor intricately murderous fantasies, nor appeals to the divinity who, one is told, watches over every sparrow that falls. So tell me, now that we’re ass-deep in dead sparrows, who, if not us, is going to do anything about this pitiful state of affairs…?

More Accurate Trump Administration Job Titles

MaxiMe: Donald Trump

Toadies-in-Chief: JD Vance, Marco Rubio (NB: In the end, there can be only one)

Secretary of Manly Prancing: Pete Hegseth

Director of National Stupidity: Bill Pulte

Éminence Grise: Stephen Miller

Patient Zero: RFK Jr.

Barely Useful Idiot: Kash Patel

Press Here: Katherine Leavitt

Chief Heddahopperin: Laura Loomer

Not the Wartime Consigliere: Ivanka Trump

Ambassador to the Courts of Lost Causes: Jared Kushner

Cryptonomicanoe and Bagman Too: Elon Musk (ret.)

Vanilla Ice: Markwayne Mullin

The Emperor of Filth

No, Donald Trump won’t succeed in pulling the temple down on his head when he goes, as Samson supposedly did, but with any luck he will terminally embarrass the priests of American Exceptionalism, who’ve attempted since our founding to ban all history not in service to their myth. If the United States of America has been remarkable for anything, it’s been for its aspirations rather than its achievements, and no one has made that truth more inescapable than Donald Trump, the emperor of all the filth our apologists have tried, since our Constitutional Convention, to sweep under the rug of their self-righteousness.

Days Of Infamy

The only thing that’s saving Trump’s attack on Tehran from more apt comparisons to Pearl Harbor is the observation that the Khamenei regime was an order of magnitude more odious than his own. The fact remains that Trump likes taking things that don’t belong to him or to the United States, including the lives of innocents. He needs to go.