“You’ve Been Punk’d!”

Punk’d was a hidden camera, practical joke reality show that aired on MTV in the early 2000’s. Created by Ashton Kutcher, it was similar to Candid Camera and TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes and featured pranks on celebrities. The Urban Dictionary definition of “Am I being punk’d?” is “An expression of surprise and disbelief that is uttered when one is in a situation that is perceived to be ridiculous or beyond belief.”

Have you asked, “Are we being punk’d?” at any time during the last four (or longer) years?  

If you are reading this, it’s safe to assume you have honed your critical thinking skills. You can probably see through the fog of war that we have been subjected to over the last several years. There are days when I am completely dumbfounded that we have yet to rise up and yell “Are you serious? You want us to believe this?”

There is no malicious intent in this paper nor is there any desire to belittle others who don’t see things the same. We all have family members who we care for and respect who still believe everything the television tells them. It’s hurtful knowing that they will listen to the proven liars on television before they listen to us. It’s astonishing, albeit disappointing. It’s unclear if we are at the part where we are still slowly being shaken awake, or if the good guys are so deeply enjoying laughing at us that they continue throwing out stupidity to see how far they can take it.

All of us have varying degrees of awakening. There are still so many who are still sleeping soundly, far from questioning anything outside of the mainstream narrative. It can be fun to tiptoe around current happenings with someone who is slowly beginning to wake up. They parrot a comment that they heard on television; we ask if they have considered an alternate view, and you see the rusty gears start up on the left side of their brain as they start to question their own perception of reality. We need to be gentle with these people. Read the room. Gauge your audience. Throwing a different version of “truth” at them can shut them down instantly if we are not careful.

Where “the beginning” starts is anyone’s guess. For some people, “the beginning” may be Vietnam, or 9/11. It’s probably safe to say that just about everything we have been told is a lie. Past and present.

Knowing exactly when it became obvious that we are being punk’d is difficult to pinpoint. As a starting point, this paper will begin with Covid. Who knows what Covid is or what it’s not; if it’s really a virus; if it was man-made or leaked from a lab; or if it was a bioweapon meant to kill us all. One thing we can agree on is that it was used to incite fear and compliance throughout the world. In many cases, it worked. Luckily a good portion of our fellow Americans remembered that we are guided by our Constitution and fought back against the tyranny that they were attempting to lord over us.

We tend to gloss over, simplify, and forget some of the things we experienced during that time. We all have differing stories of how we found out, how we felt, what we were thinking when the first Covid patient was reported. Most of us were scared which led us to being scared into submission.

That was the intent. Every news channel aired terrifyingly bright red maps of Covid cases throughout the country with a counter showing the growing number of cases.

According to Psychology.org:

Red is a primary color. It represents passion, warmth, and sexuality, but it is also known as a color that stands for danger, violence, and aggression. 

They know exactly what they are doing when they subject us to visions like this.

But they took it too far. News broadcasts aired videos of Chinese citizens falling over dead on the sidewalk. They told us that China was locking citizens in their homes. All the while, the television screen displayed the continual ticking up of the number of Covid deaths. During this time, they weren’t referred to as “covid-related” deaths or someone dying “with Covid.” We were to believe that people were dropping dead on the streets from Covid, like something out of Contagion.

It was shocking to hear someone repeat that thousands of people had died from Covid, according to “the news.” Yet they were completely dumbstruck if you interrupted to ask, “Do you personally know anyone who has died from Covid?” The stammering and stuttering was enough to cause you to lose faith in humanity. Where were the American citizens dropping dead on our streets? We were expected to believe that we were safe sitting at a table drinking a Coke, but as soon as we stood up to leave without a mask on our face, we were likely to die. It was a scary, difficult time. Our critical thinking skills were infected by Covid.

The fake Inauguration Day of January 20, 2021, was a long-drawn-out sitcom of silliness. This was the inauguration that should have included President Donald Trump, but didn’t. The images from that day are etched in our memory, and looking back on it should make us feel slightly foolish that we fell for such an obvious sleight of hand. The social distancing, lack of an audience, outdoor swearing-in, fencing around the capitol, armed National Guardsmen walking the streets. We took it in stride and chalked it up to the very deadly pandemic coupled with the very deadly insurrection of January 6th. Never mind the fact that two weeks prior hundreds of thousands of people were on the National Mall for the J6 rally, yet news broadcasts weren’t showing images of Covid infected patriots dropping dead of Covid on that day or the days following.

There are more instances of us being punk’d than can even be recalled, but some do stand out. We have been led to believe that the days of strong, healthy, testosterone-pumping Marines protecting our country are over. ‘Be All You Can Be’ has become ‘Be Anything You Want To Be.’ We are being told that our military is comprised of estrogen-heavy, woke officers in drag. Do you believe that?

Admiral Rachel Levine is the nation’s first transgender four-star general serving as the 17th Assistant Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, nominated by Joe Biden. He/She/They is pictured everywhere in uniform with high heels and makeup. In addition to Dr. Levine, the new deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Energy, Sam Brinton, is a nonbinary drag queen which, according to Yahoo News is, “’an asset to queer activists.”  

Below is a photo of Admiral Rachel Levine and Sam Brinton together:

Are we being punk’d?

While these people, positions, and circumstances may be real, in the past they would have been brushed under the rug, not shoved in our face to accentuate the absurdity of it all.

The classified documents case against President Trump was recently dropped following the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling. While the validity of this case may have been in question, there are other court cases concerning Trump that are either an education of our corrupt judicial system or a test of how gullible we are. 

Take for instance Fani Willis. The Georgia election subversion case began as a case against Trump for attempting to subvert Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. However, when the Real Housewives of the Fulton County Court began it was discovered that Ms. Willis was having an affair with the prosecutor. What followed was an absurd display of deceit, corruption, and flat-out nonsense.

Ms. Willis’s father took the stand to testify on her behalf, which was odd, but his testimony seemed scripted from a reality TV show. According to PBS.org, John Clifford Floyd III, Fani Willis’s father, testified that, “he always told his daughter to have six months of cash on hand.” That part makes sense. Good, fatherly advice. But he went on to say, “it’s a Black thing,” Floyd said. “Most Black folks, they hide cash, they keep cash.”

Fani herself took the stand and spoke to the Judge like a petulant child in need of serious discipline for her blatant disrespect. Other than an episode of Judge Judy, this was unlike any other televised trial I have ever seen. It was impossible to miss the ridiculousness of the whole situation. We are expected to believe that a woman with an advanced degree – a black woman – who has risen to the level of District Attorney for the State of Georgia conducted herself this way? She was humiliated, embarrassed, exposed to be a liar, a cheater, and an overall nasty woman. Not to mention unprofessional and suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Yet, we looked away and said, “yep, that was obviously real.”

In a June 2024 article, CNN reported that the election subversion conspiracy case will be indefinitely paused by the Georgia Appeals Court. The odds of this case continuing at all are probably very slim.

Green Lives Matter (@Ultrafrog17) posted a video compilation on X of clips of Congressman Adam Schiff, CNN’s Jake Tapper, Senator Chuck Schumer, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, and CNN’s John Berman discussing the very violent insurrection of January 6th. In each instance, rather than saying that Donald Trump “incited the insurrection,” they say Donald Trump “incited the erection.” It’s hilarious in a juvenile sense, but difficult to believe that every one of these instances was a mistake. Was their script or teleprompter written this way intentionally? This too is either a distraction, an awakening moment, or an opportunity to embarrass and shame these people. 

Well before the June debate between President Trump and Joe Biden, it was clear that Joe Biden was not in control. At any time in your life have you seen a President of the United States fall up the stairs? Not once, not twice, but over and over? How many times have you seen a President wander off stage unsure of where he was going? Does it alarm you?

We have been subjected to numerous videos of Biden wandering aimlessly, looking lost, squatting oddly on stage, babbling, conducting himself inappropriately with foreign leaders. If this is reality, then our military has allowed us to become vulnerable to attack from our enemies. We are clearly a nation in decline without a Commander in Chief. Unless, of course, we’re being punk’d.

We’ve all seen or heard the stories of Biden and his earlobes. Whether you think he is the same person he always has been, or you believe he is an actor in a mask, you have to admit that he looks much different than he has in the past. People argue that he’s aging, he’s had facelifts, on and on. However, President Trump doesn’t look much different than he did 10 or 15 years ago.

There are many cases where people appear much different than they did pre-2020. Some people seemed to change their appearance, and then change back again. Kamala Harris is a perfect example. She looked like Kamala, then supposedly had a facelift which drastically changed her appearance, and now she looks like Kamala again. Although there are many, the following are just a few examples: 

New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio:

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman:

Kamala Harris

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs:

Chief of Disguise

Jonna Mendez was Chief of Disguise at the CIA and, along with her husband Antonio Mendez wrote several books on their life in the CIA including Argo, “How the CIA and Hollywood pulled off the most audacious rescue in history,” and Spy Dust, “Two masters of disguise reveal the tools and operations that helped win the cold war.” In her book, In True Face: A Woman’s Life in the CIA Unmasked, Mrs. Mendez “shares numerous juicy details – from how she briefed President George H.W. Bush on the agency’s new mask technology while wearing one of the advanced pieces without him knowing…” Geoge H.W. Bush was president from 1989-1993. If the CIA had this technology back then, imagine what they have developed in the last 20 years.

There are links to several interviews with Mrs. Mendez on her website. In the interview, “How the CIA used Cutting-Edge Mask Technology to Blend in With Russian Babushkas on Secret Mission,” Mrs. Mendez says, “One day I ventured out to test an early prototype of a new mask. This one turned me into a Black female. To soften the color transition immediately around my eyes, I wore medium-tinted glasses, but otherwise my disguise went on easily. I also wore a pair of gloves that went up to my elbows matching the pigment of the mask.”

“Jonna Mendez has fabricated disguises around the world, in the most hostile cities in the world. She is able to take a well-known figure and quickly disguise them to the level that they basically disappear, and their colleagues would not be able to recognize them.” It’s safe to assume that masks can also be created to alter someone’s appearance so that they look like someone else entirely. How can we not believe that corrupt members of our government who look slightly different on television or social media may be actors utilizing this technology?

“From Sun Tzu to the present, warfare has been conducted by the use of deception and illusion.”

4^th Psyop Group

Deception is not a new idea in warfare. According to the 4^th Psyop Group’s official U.S. Army website

In Ghost Army: The Combat Con Artists of World War II the 23rd Headquarter Special Troops, known as the Ghost Army, was the first mobile, multimedia, tactical deception unit in US Army history. This top-secret unit used visual, sonic, and radio deception to fool German forces during World War II. The unit waged war with inflatable tanks and vehicles, fake radio traffic, sound effects, and other forms of illusion to trick the enemy. In Operation Fortitude, the military used deception during the buildup to the 1944 Normandy landings. Dummy tanks were used to confuse German intelligence by making it appear that the Allies had more tanks than they did, as well as to hide the location of the real tanks to make it seem that the invasion would occur somewhere other than Normandy. 

Following the war, the unit’s soldiers were sworn to secrecy, records were classified, and equipment packed away. Except for a newspaper article right after the war, no one spoke publicly about the deceivers until a 1985 Smithsonian article. Though knowledge of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops was then public, it was still officially classified until the mid-1990s.

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012

It is far from inconceivable that our government would mislead or propagandize us. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 plainly tells us that it will, and it does. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act amends the original Act of 1948 which authorized the Secretary of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to prepare and disseminate information intended for foreign audiences about the United States, including its people, history, and the federal government's policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the Internet, social media, information centers, and instructors.

The original Smith-Mundt Act was signed into law in 1948. “The principal purpose of the legislation was to engage in a global struggle for minds and wills.” The first and most well-known restriction was a prohibition on domestic dissemination of materials intended for foreign audiences by the State Department. In other words, for decades, it was considered an anti-propaganda law which prevented the U.S. government from delivering programming to American audiences. According to Foreign Policy, the result was an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs to U.S. citizens. The reform was initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts.

In simpler terms, in 1948 the government made it lawful to disseminate propaganda to other countries, but not within the United Sates. However, after the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 went into effect on July 2, 2013, (during Barack Obama’s presidency) propaganda within the United States was permitted.  

A 2013 Washington Post article states, “In the past, psychological operations usually meant dropping leaflets or broadcasting propaganda on the battlefield. Today, the military is more focused on manipulating news and commentary on the Internet, especially social media, by posting material and images without necessarily claiming ownership.”

If you have ever thought that “everything is a lie,” you’re probably right.

We have been subjected to years of disinformation. It has certainly been frustrating and tiresome, but unfortunately, we have no control over the situation. We have to find comfort in the belief that what we have experienced is for our own good, and that someday this will all make sense to us. We are living through a historical period and many of those around us have been protected from whatever clandestine operations have been undertaken. At the end of the day, we should be grateful that confusion is (hopefully) the worst thing many of us have experienced during this war.