We should be grateful.
Despite our modest size, as the Nation’s Oldest Newspaper™ we feel obligated to record, to the best of our ability, the essence of each fortnight as it passes. As everyone knows who has not yet retreated, for mental health purposes, to the wilderness or a bunker, current events have been, for the past decade or so, a constant barrage from every direction of the simply unbelievable. We are not complaining. As Hyman Roth said to Michael Corleone, “this is the business we’ve chosen.”
We merely wish to establish how challenging it can be to winnow out, from this bizarre maelstrom of the criminal and the ridiculous, those outrages which are most salient and thus worthy of inclusion in our pages.
Which is why, from the catbird seat of a newspaper founded twenty years before the Declaration of Independence, we must acknowledge that our alleged President did us a huge favor by establishing a $1,776,666,666 slush fund for traitors.
Even for this guy, that’s bold.
To fully appreciate the audacity of this stickup, we need to recall its origin. In 2020, after four years of Trump, voters kicked the bum out. Once again he lost the popular vote, this time by twice the margin. Despite the Electoral College’s inherent bias, he lost there, too.
What’s a sore loser to do? Put out a call for armed troglodytes: “Come listen to a harangue from the world’s most powerful liar!” Instigate the only insurrection in our nation’s history ever to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Then watch on television as your pet goons assault police, invade the Capitol, smear shit on the walls, and threaten to hang your former running mate. Call them off only after hours of pleading from your staff.
And—one would have thought, finally, but one would be proven wrong—on your first day back in office, give them all pardons.
The irony of the top dog in the law and order party pardoning fifteen hundred cop-beaters under such circumstances approaches infinity. Yet, judging from an article in The New Yorker headlined, “Pardon Me,” it’s just business as usual in Trump-world. Ruth Marcus’ May 4th piece, subtitled “Under Trump, clemency is big business,” makes it clear that mere laws do not apply to him, or to those who are willing to sufficiently abase themselves before him.
All in all, Trump’s abuse of the pardon power, bestowed upon him by our saintly, be-wigged, slavery-enabled Founding Fathers lo those many years ago, has been mightily impressive. Before it we stood, dumbfounded in nauseated awe. “He’ll never top this,” we said.
What a puny imagination we have! As we plodded along, nit-picking various petty violations of the law and mundane transgressions of common decency, the man who has earned the right to call out Napoleon as a low-ambition punk was thinking big—thinking HUGE, in fact.
Since space is limited, here’s the Escalator Pitch: All those schlubs who are dumb enough to pay taxes will collectively pony up $1.766 billion, to be disbursed at the sole discretion of the Sage of Mar-a-Lardo.
Naturally our first thought was that Trump would tell the Secretary of the Treasury, “Make that check out to me.” However, the administration has piously stated that we need not worry about any of this federal moolah going directly to him. Besides, you might say he got paid at the IRS office: this arrangement wipes away a $100 million penalty for tax shenanigans that’s been hanging over his head.
As for those poor kids… seriously. Put yourself in their place. Imagine being condemned for life to live in their father’s orbit. But don’t waste too much empathy on these lesser members of the Trump Crime Family. According to reliable sources their individual net worths have become positively engorged of late.
Somehow the Young Ogres, Donald Jr. and Eric, bumped their net worths by $100 million and $50 million respectively during their daddy’s first term. This time, they had the range: each somehow clearing $250 million in the sixteen months since January, 2025. Befitting their innate idiocy, they are far outshone by the apple of daddy’s eye, sweet Ivanka. In that same span of time, she and her Ken-doll hubby have somehow raked in $1.4 billion between them. His inner circle doesn’t need the money, and Trump doesn’t need them for what’s ahead.
What he does need is to motivate those few, those rancorous few, that band of traitors who were there January 6th. He’s got enough now to pay each one $1,184,444.
Thinking strategically, though, why divvy it up evenly? Does someone who just busted a cop in the chops deserve as much as, say, Daniel “D.J.” Rodriguez. He took the initiative to zap Michael Fanone with a Taser and nearly kill him. Now, that’s committing to the bit! Give that man a promotion!
Brownshirts will sign up because they love to hate, but money is what it takes to keep them out on the streets, terrorizing the populace at large and scaring citizens away from the polls.