I LOVE SATIRE!

DANA MILBANK CONTRIBUTES A WONDERFUL BIT OF SATIRE to NOTUS “Perspectives,” June 23, 2026. I encourage you to read it in totality. Just for fun (and as I love satire!), I glean the following tidbits from his “Who Are the ‘SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE’ Vandalizing D.C.? I Think I Figured It Out!” Anything quoted is Dana Milbank’s; otherwise, mine.

Radical Left Lunatics: Dana begins with the National Reflecting Pool fiasco. “It all seemed to be a textbook case of incompetence: This is what happens when you give no-bid contracts to a political crony from Palm Beach and some guys who did work at your golf club in Virginia. But Trump saw a conspiracy at work. He alleged on his Truth Social platform that ‘Radical Left Lunatics, most likely Dumocats’ (meow!) had vandalized the Reflecting Pool by pouring ‘corrosive and destructive chemicals’ into it.”

Again, citing Trump: “ ‘What these terrible Vandals have done is a true affront to both Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln,’ he announced Saturday, speaking for both men. ‘WOW, who would do such a thing? SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE!’ he submitted on Sunday.”

Dana’s Investigative Quest: “But I could not rule out the possibility that SICK AND DERANGED Radical Left Lunatics are indeed responsible for a wave of vandalism across the nation’s capital. I went to investigate—and discovered that the D.C. vandalism problem is far worse than I thought.”

The Hains Point Toxic Dump: “I began my investigation at Hains Point in far southwest D.C., where I found that vandals had dumped a veritable mountain of toxic debris — right next to the sixth tee of the White Course at East Potomac Golf Course. ‘DO NOT ENTER RESTRICTED AREA’ announces the fence around it. The vandals put more than 30,000 cubic yards of the debris here, leaching lead, chromium, PCBs, pesticides and petroleum byproducts onto the course and, presumably, into the Potomac River.”

“What Radical Left Lunatics Did This? Acting on a tip, I drove downtown, parked on 15th Street NW and looked west toward the White House from Alexander Hamilton Plaza. Sure enough: Vandals had torn down the entire East Wing, leaving nothing but a gaping hole and four cranes. So that’s where the toxic debris at Hains Point came from.”

Not the Only Vandalism.  “There had been other reports of vandalism nearby, in the Rose Garden (lawn torn out) and in the Treasury Department (currency defaced with an unauthorized person’s likeness). But these were nothing compared to the destruction I viewed when looking north from Constitution Avenue toward the White House. Vandals intent on staging a cage-fighting match had killed much of the South Lawn and almost all of the lawn on the Ellipse. The heavy equipment cleaning up the mess was causing a dust storm.”

Other Examples. “From there I traveled to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where somebody had attempted to vandalize the building by putting his own name on it. When the culprit was ordered to remove his name, he hung a drape over the original name and left it there. Looking at it from a slight angle on Monday, I saw only the letters ‘THE JOHN F. K ING ARTS.’ ”

“Vandals had fanned out across the city to hang banners from government buildings. Somebody hung two from the Justice Department with Trump’s face and his campaign theme “Make America Safe Again.” The vandals also hung Trump’s face from the Labor Department. Some other wise guy hung a fake Teddy Roosevelt quote from the Theodore Roosevelt Building at 20th and E streets NW.”

Vandals Lower Themselves to a 250-Foot Arch. “I continued around to the back of the Lincoln Memorial and admired the iconic view across the Potomac to Robert E. Lee’s house in Arlington National Cemetery—a symbolic sightline created long ago to bind North to South. Vandals are now planning to destroy that sightline by erecting a garish arch in the middle festooned with eagles and lions.”

January 6, 2021. “I made one more stop on my tour: the Capitol, attacked by a mob five years ago in a rampage of vandalism and violence. I went inside to visit the plaque honoring the police ‘who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on January 6, 2021. Their heroism will never be forgotten.’ ”

“Yet the vandals who now run Congress did everything they could to make sure it was forgotten. They hung the plaque this year—three years later than required by law—in the basement, without illumination, next to an emergency-exit-only door that sees almost no foot traffic.”

Dana recounts, “What SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE would do such a thing?”

Indeed, I ask the same question. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026