The Art of Smoke & Mirrors
Who Are You Gonna Believe? Trump, Or Your Lyin' Eyes?
It was a made-for-reality-TV lie: Trump the brilliant master dealmaker.
Don’t take it from me. Take it from NBC’s former chief marketer. Or, better yet, the ghostwriter of Trump’s The Art of the Deal. Or, even better, don’t take it from either of them. Take it from what you can see with your own eyes: the JFK Assassination Records.
Let me explain. You may have heard about the release of these documents, totaling more than 60,000 pages. In fact, you may have even known that the National Archives ended up posting all of them a day after Trump promised their release.
A masterclass in government transparency, am I right?
Wrong. And, I repeat, don’t take it from me. Take it from Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer “who has fought for decades” to make those same records public. As he put it, “your Administration doxxed former public servants who staffed 1977-79 congressional investigation by revealing their SSNs. Many are still alive. Completely unnecessary & contributed nothing to JFK assassination understanding.”
Yup. In their rush to release the records according to Trump’s impossible timelines, the Trump administration “has made public the Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal information of potentially hundreds of former congressional staffers and other people.” More than 400, to be exact. Like Mr. Zaid, I am sure the Trump Administration “will provide them [all] with free credit monitoring.”
Assuming, of course, DOGE doesn’t consider those services to be “waste, fraud & abuse.”
But that’s maybe beside the point. Who is among the victims of this leak of personal information from the highest reaches of the U.S. federal government? No less than one of Trump’s own former campaign lawyers, Joseph diGenova. Yes, the same man who cried 2020 election fraud with Rudi Giuliani, and represented Trump in his bogus attempt to overturn the 2020 election results.
“I intend to sue the National Archives,” a clearly frustrated diGenova told members of the press, “They violated the Privacy Act.”
Again, in their rush to release the records according to Trump’s impossible schedule, the Trump administration ended up leaking the Social Security number of one of his own most loyal lawyers. Remember, this is the same Administration that is allowing Musk and his army of computer nerds to access all of your personal data.
So I ask you: is this brilliance or idiocy? Tell me. Do you believe Trump, or your common sense? Trump, or your lyin’ eyes?
Let me cut straight to the chase: there is no man behind the curtain; there is just the curtain. There is no method behind the madness; there is just the madness.
That is why we are in a South Park-like trade war with Canada. That is why we just a few days ago negotiated a partial ceasefire between Ukraine & Russia that Russia probably violated just about 24 hours ago or less. That is why the ceasefire and hostage release plan between Israel & Gaza has gone up in the smoke of Netanyahu’s bombs.
Trump is no master strategist. He is a man with the attention span of a 5-year-old. He is a man who really wants to annex Canada, take over Greenland, seize the Panama Canal, and turn Gaza into a U.S.-owned playground for rich men.
We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking otherwise. Or we may be in for a very unwelcome surprise.