The Real Deep State (A Play in Six Acts)

ACT ONE:

From Paul McLeary, Connor O'Brien, and Joe Gould's 1-7-26 POLITICO article entitled "Trump Calls for Record $1.5 Trillion Defense Budget, a 50 Percent Jump" [published 52 days before the U.S. attacks Iran]:

President Donald Trump on Wednesday declared he would ask Congress for a $1.5 trillion defense budget in 2027, a massive $500 billion increase from this year’s Pentagon budget.

The huge boost likely reflects how expensive some of Trump’s military ambitions are, from the Golden Dome air defense effort to his call for a new battleship design. Neither of those programs could be fully funded under current spending levels.

The president provided few details in his post on Truth Social, other than to say the money would pay for his “Dream Military.”

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

ACT TWO:  

From a 2-26-26 Finance.Senate.gov article entitled "Wyden Questions DEA Over Mystery Epstein Investigation" [published two days before the U.S. attacks Iran]:

Following a recent report that Jeffrey Epstein was among several individuals targeted in a years-long investigation spearheaded by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) into drug trafficking and money laundering, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sought details today from DEA Administrator Terrance Cole about the investigation’s findings, whether it resulted in any federal criminal charges, and the manner and timing of its conclusion.

Senator Wyden also requested a complete, unredacted copy of the document that revealed the existence of the investigation, a 69-page memorandum prepared in 2015 by the then-director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces’ (OCDETF) Fusion Center. (The OCDETF, a specialized Department of Justice unit tasked with identifying and dismantling transnational organized crime and drug trafficking networks, was shut down by the Trump administration in 2025.) A heavily-redacted version of the memorandum was among the documents released following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

“The fact that Epstein was under investigation by [OCDETF] suggests that there was ample evidence indicating that Epstein was engaged in heavy drug trafficking and prostitution as part of cross-border criminal conspiracy. This is incredibly disturbing and raises serious questions as to how this investigation by the DEA was handled,” Senator Wyden wrote. “Since Epstein and his 14 co-conspirators were never charged by the DOJ for drug trafficking or financial crimes, I am concerned that the DEA and DOJ during the first Trump Administration moved to terminate this investigation in order to protect pedophiles. I am also concerned that the excessive redactions of this memorandum for operation ‘Chain Reaction’ go well beyond the intent of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which allows for redactions to protect the identity of victims, not members of a criminal sex trafficking organization.”

The complete text of Senator Wyden’s letter is available online here and below...

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

ACT THREE:

From Annabella Rosciglione's 2-17-26 DAILY BEAST article entitled "MAGA Podcaster Torches Trump for Broken Promise" [published 11 days before the U.S. attacks Iran]:

A prominent MAGA podcaster put the Trump administration on blast for its failure to “prosecute any pedophiles” after the DOJ’s release of the files related to disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a profanity-filled rant on X, Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL turned podcaster with more than 5.8 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, torched the DOJ and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

He took particular aim at Bondi’s combative testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last week. Ryan said, “nobody gives a f---,” that the Dow stock market index was “up 50,000” under Trump, a point which Bondi attempted to make during her hearing.

“What you should be talking about is how you are going to investigate and prosecute any pedophiles that are running around on Epstein Island that you’re affiliated with,” he said in the video. “But we didn’t talk about that, did we? Oh, and what’s the excuse? What was the excuse? Oh – ‘if we prosecute everybody the whole system would go down.’”

“Well, you know what that sounds like? That sounds like how Trump ran his campaign: ‘Let’s drain the swamp.’ Doesn’t that sound a lot like draining the swamp? It actually is drain the swamps served up to you on a f---ing silver platter, but you’re not gonna take it, are you?” His rant continued.

He then asserted that Bondi is “gonna protect pedophiles!”

“You’re going to protect pedophiles rather than go after them and hope that everybody’s happy that the Dow hit 50,000. Are you f---ing out of your mind?” he said.

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

ACT FOUR:

From Aram Roston's 3-1-26 GUARDIAN article entitled "Trump Appears to Link Iran Attack to His 2020 Election Loss" [published 1 day after the U.S. attacks Iran]:

Donald Trump on Saturday appeared to link the massive attack he ordered against Iran to his persistent claims about his 2020 election loss to former president Joe Biden, in a social media post about allegations that Tehran’s government interfered in the US president elections.

“Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump,” his Truth Social post said, “and now faces renewed war with United States”.

Those words, written in the first hours of the bombardment of Iran, repeated the headline of an article to which he linked from Just the News, a Trump-friendly news site. “Iranian intelligence sought to undermine Trump’s re-election bid in 2020 through a variety of election influence efforts,” the article said. It also said Iran worked against him in 2024, when he beat Kamala Harris at the polls.

This is the second military operation of the Trump administration where he has alluded to allegations concerning the 2020 election. He made similar comments on social media in January, days after Trump ordered the Delta Force “rendition” of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro. Trump reposted links that repeated discredited conspiracy allegations that Venezuela interfered in the 2020 election by controlling voting machines.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

ACT FIVE:

From Ewan Palmer's 3-5-26 DAILY BEAST article entitled "Rattled Trump Amps Up MAGA Civil War With Late-Night Threat" [published 5 days after the U.S. attacks Iran]:

Donald Trump blasted high-profile MAGA figures who have attacked the president over his war on Iran by claiming that Tuesday’s elections prove their influence is waning.

In a late-night Truth Social post, the 79-year-old shared an article from the Just the News website attacking former supporters who have turned on the “America First” president for launching the Middle East conflict despite his 2024 campaign pledge not to start any new wars.

The article notes that even as a MAGA civil war erupts, almost all of Trump’s endorsed candidates in Tuesday’s primaries went on to win their respective races. The majority of these Trump-backed candidates were incumbents widely expected to win their primaries anyway, or ran unopposed [...].

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson called the joint U.S.-Israel airstrikes “absolutely evil and disgusting.” He also suggested the war was “waged purely because Israel wanted it to be waged.”

MAGA podcaster Megyn Kelly spent the entirety of her Monday show speaking out against the war and the reasons behind it [...].

Trump had already lashed out at Carlson and Kelly for their criticism of the Iran war.

“I think that MAGA is Trump—MAGA’s not the other two,” Trump told reporter Rachel Bade earlier this week. “MAGA wants to see our country thrive and be safe. And MAGA loves what I’m doing—every aspect of it.”

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

ACT SIX: 

From my 3-6-26 EVERGREEN REVIEW article entitled "One Nation Under G: Celebrating 250 Years of the Revolutionary Spirit" [published 6 days after the U.S. attacks Iran]:

While the serpentine forces of authoritarianism and fanaticism rear their ugly heads in the United States of America more brazenly than ever before, it’s self-evident that the pro-democratic, anti-totalitarian spirit of our revolutionary past is needed as much now as it was in those bloody, tumultuous decades of the late eighteenth century. 

To read my entire article, click HERE. 

If you want to know exactly how we reached this nadir, consider reading my nonfiction book, OPERATION MINDFUCK: QANON & THE CULT OF DONALD TRUMP, which maps out the anatomy of a ten-year-long campaign of asymmetric warfare directed against the American people by Trump and the cabal of sadistic cabal of right-wing nutjobs who support him...

 

PRAISE FOR
OPERATION MINDFUCK: QANON & THE CULT OF DONALD TRUMP

 

"It's great."

--Marc Maron, WTF Podcast

"Voltaire suggested that those who can make us believe absurdities can make us commit atrocities, and QAnon provided the practical demonstration. Robert Guffey’s razor-sharp postings illuminate how a collage of Shaver mysteries, Discordian prankster politics and recreational conspiracy theory played out as dissociative American fugue. Jaw-dropping and essential."

—Alan Moore, author of V for Vendetta and Watchmen

"One of the most difficult aspects of confronting QAnon conspiracism is finding the time and resolve to delve into its ever-expanding network of self-reinforcing connections and concepts. Robert Guffey does that work for you in OPERATION MINDFUCK, a codex to madness and a critical examination of how a massive fraction of our culture has imbibed a counter-reality. Guffey also explores underground sources lost on many mainstream historians, bringing us into an (occasionally ingenious) netherworld of outsider thought forms. Guffey is the Ernest Shackleton of paranoia—and one hopes his journey will result in a happier ending."

—Mitch Horowitz, PEN Award-winning author of Occult America and Uncertain Places

"It's practically a guide to your character to discover whether you find this expose of possibly the stupidest political movement in human history funny, alarming, or infuriating.... Highly recommended."

—Richard Smoley, author of Supernatural: Writings on an Unknown History and How God Became God

"OPERATION MINDFUCK: QANON & THE CULT OF DONALD TRUMP by Robert Guffey tackles the conspiracy theories Q draws from, the history of the Q phenomenon, and the eventual attempts by mobs at least partially influenced by Q, and certainly influenced by Donald Trump, to overturn the 2020 Presidential election. The book is well-researched, with a full Bibliography of notes that reference and identify each quote from each source that Guffey cites. Guffey, additionally, has a long background studying conspiracy theories and their origins [...]. Guffey is not a lightweight."

—Steve Henn, author of And God Said Let There Be Evolution

"Whether QAnon is a religion, a cult, a joke, a political movement, or just an online game gone awry, Robert Guffey's OPERATION MINDFUCK: QANON & THE CULT OF DONALD TRUMP is his attempt to figure it all out. Guffey's pedigree in this area is unmatched [...]. Throughout OPERATION MINDFUCK, Guffey follows Theodore Sturgeon's advice he quoted in his book CHAMELEO: 'Always ask the next question.'"

—Roy Christopher, author of Dead Precedents: How Hip-Hop Defines the Future

 

 "[Guffey's] expertise shines through in every chapter of this book. Operation Mindfuck: QAnon and the Cult of Donald Trump is not only a well written and well researched look into the abyss of bullshit known as QAnon, but it is also very funny and quite sad at the same time—an interesting, entertaining, and sometimes frightening read."

 

--Razorcake 

"If you are still dazed from this [QAnon] business, then Robert Guffey has written a book just for you. In readable yet well researched fashion, he lays it all out: where it began, who, why, how. He can’t make it go away for you—or me, for that matter—but he can make the whole bizarre business a bit less confusing... [T]his book is what you need. Get your fire lit, your cup of coffee (or something far stronger), curl up (in fetal position, if necessary), and prepare to learn."

 

--Seattle Book Mama

Cinema Retro Reviews HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD!

From CINEMA RETRO'S 3-5-26 review of HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD:

"This is a fascinating, mind-expanding trip into some seriously dark corners, and one which particularly appeals to people like me who read Cinema Retro AND Fortean Times."

 

To read Adrian Smith's entire review, click HERE.

 

  

PRAISE FOR HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD: 

"In HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD, Robert Guffey takes his readers for a trip behind the magic curtain to reveal the true Wizards at work - those behind the lenses, making magic and moving the secret levers. To this end, Guffey plays the role of Toto, tearing the curtain aside to reveal these flesh and bone Wizards of the military-industrial-entertainment complex, and the occult role they play in influencing our inner dreams and everyday realities."

--Adam Gorightly,  

author of SAUCERS, SPOOKS, AND KOOKS
and THE SHADOW OVER SANTA SUSANA: BLACK MAGIC, MIND CONTROL, AND THE MANSON FAMILY MYTHOS

"Hollywood has truly haunted the world. So too should this book, one of the best ever written on American cinema."

--Gary D. Rhodes,

author of THE PERILS OF MOVIEGOING IN AMERICA and TOD BROWNING'S DRACULA, 

from his Foreword

 

"A heady, occult-driven exploration of cinema!"

--Larry Wade Carrell,

director of GIRL NEXT, THE QUANTUM DEVIL, and THE DARKSIDE OF SOCIETY

THE EVERGREEN REVIEW: "One Nation Under G"

THE EVERGREEN REVIEW just went live with my latest essay, "One Nation Under G: Celebrating 250 Years of the Revolutionary Spirit," which examines the Masonic roots of the American Experiment. I wrote this piece for the express purpose of commemorating the Semiquincentennial of the United States. If you want to read the article, then click HERE.

Note: Near the end of the article, I mention a Scottish Rite performance entitled THE LIVING CONSTITUTION that took place in Pasadena last October. If you want to see several photographs I took of that event, click HERE.

Recommended Reading: "John Shirley's Guide to Wrecking Your Career in Science Fiction"

John Shirley, who generously provided a laudatory blurb for my story collection, CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES, published a fascinating essay on BoingBoing on the 25th of February. The piece is a captivating (and sometimes even harrowing) memoir entitled "John Shirley's Guide to Wrecking Your Career in Science Fiction." Here's a brief excerpt: 

Pointless Hostility brought me numerous enemies. Strangely enough, this comeuppance surprised me.

But then — when you come with the damage I have…and when you are then caught up in the reflowering of anarchism alongside the proto-punk culture of NYC punk rock; when you're thrashing in the scene that applauded when Lou Reed was shooting up meth on stage and handing the syringe to the audience; when your first wife gets you into mainlining cocaine; when you're working under the (sublime) influence of Baudelaire, the great surrealists, and Celine; when you're fresh from prostitution and having to carrying a knife when you went out to score dope…when you're trying hard to give up drugs and sometimes failing …When your favorite album is Iggy's Raw Power with songs like "Death Trip" and "Your Pretty Face has Gone to Hell"…

…You just don't get how to relate to mainstream folks. You have neither the sensibility nor the sensitivity.

You don't understand people from outside the demimonde. You feel like your only salvation is to swagger onto a stage and snarl into a mic (figuratively and literally) and somehow intimidate the world into submission.

It was really about defensive aggression. I was hurt and scared — so I was anger. Sometimes I kept it inside, but through my darkest stories, and Pointless Hostility, I let it out. I didn't yet grasp that people can be critiqued with discretion and respect.

Anger is an energy, sang John Lydon. My later novel, Transmaniacon, was a Fellini-influenced, wildly plotted tale of a proto-cyberpunk hero in a surreal future. He's equipped with a device, implanted over his heart, that can project his own angry energy so it infects people around him. He can use this "exciter" to waken their suppressed anger, using their sudden rage as a weapon. The key to the concept was my notion that everyone is always secretly angry. Not quite true, in real life, but having to work on suppressing my own rage, I assumed it was there in everyone. And after all — riots aren't so hard to start. Nor are wars, really. Look at the angry savagery of history...

To read Shirley's entire article, click HERE.

I also recommend checking out Shirley's most recent short story, "The Corporate Soul," which you can find in the Summer 2025 issue of THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION... 

CRYPTONECROLOGY: Dan Simmons, R.I.P. (1948-2026)

On February 21, 2026, in Longmont, Colorado, Dan Simmons passed away. Simmons was the author of CARRION COMFORT (1989), HYPERION (1989), PRAYERS TO BROKEN STONES (1990), LOVEDEATH (1993), THE TERROR (2007), DROOD (2009), THE ABOMINABLE (2013), and the forthcoming OMEGA CANYON, among many other books. He also contributed the most memorable story ("The Final Pogrom") to Harlan Ellison's recently published anthology, THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS (2024). What follows is a brief excerpt from Sian Cain's 3-1-26 GUARDIAN obit entitled "Dan Simmons, Author of Hyperion and The Terror, Dies Aged 77":

The author was best known for Hyperion, his 1989 science fiction novel that won the prestigious Hugo award for best novel and a Locus award; Simmons later wrote three sequels.

Over his career he also won two World Fantasy awards, a dozen Locus awards, the Shirley Jackson award, and several Bram Stoker awards, while his 2007 novel The Terror, a fictionalised imagining of what happened on the doomed Franklin expedition, was adapted into an acclaimed television series in 2018.

Born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1948, Simmons grew up in Illinois and Indiana. He worked as an elementary school teacher for 18 years, in Missouri, New York and Colorado, where he was once finalist for Colorado Teacher of the Year.

“Every day after lunch, Dan told his students a daily installment of an epic tale that started on the first day of school,” his obituary reads. “As they listened, the students would color illustrations that he’d drawn for them. When the story finally came to an end on the last day of school, many recall being reduced to tears. This story would go on to become Dan’s Hyperion Cantos.”

To read Cain's entire article, click HERE. 

You can hear Dan Simmons being interviewed by his mentor, Harlan Ellison, during the 11-7-86 episode of MIKE HODEL'S HOUR 25 less than a week after he took home the World Fantasy Award for SONG OF KALI, the first debut novel to win the award. If you want to listen to the entire interview, click HERE.

THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE GUARDIAN on Trump's Iran Strike

1) From THE NEW YORK TIMES' 2-28-26 op-ed piece entitled "Trump’s Attack on Iran Is Reckless":

In his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised voters that he would end wars, not start them. Over the past year, he has instead ordered military strikes in seven nations. His appetite for military intervention grows with the eating.

Now he has ordered a new attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran, in cooperation with Israel, and Mr. Trump said it would be much more extensive than the targeted bombing of nuclear facilities in June. Yet he started this war without explaining to the American people and the world why he was doing so. Nor has he involved Congress, which the Constitution grants the sole power to declare war. He instead posted a video at 2:30 a.m. Eastern on Saturday, shortly after bombing began, in which he said that Iran presented “imminent threats” and called for the overthrow of its government. His rationale is dubious, and making his case by video in the middle of the night is unacceptable [...].

Mr. Trump’s approach to Iran is reckless. His goals are ill-defined. He has failed to line up the international and domestic support that would be necessary to maximize the chances of a successful outcome. He has disregarded both domestic and international law for warfare [...].

Mr. Trump is [...] telling the American people and the world that he expects their blind trust. He has not earned that trust.

He instead treats allies with disdain. He lies constantly, including about the results of the June attack on Iran. He has failed to live up to his own promises for solving other crises in Ukraine, Gaza and Venezuela. He has fired senior military leaders for failing to show fealty to his political whims. When his appointees make outrageous mistakes — such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sharing advanced details of a military attack on the Houthis, an Iranian-backed group, on an unsecured group chat — Mr. Trump shields them from accountability. His administration appears to have violated international law by, among other things, disguising a military plane as a civilian plane and shooting two defenseless sailors who survived an initial attack.

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

2) From Simon Tisdall's 2-28-26 GUARDIAN op-ed piece entitled "A World on Edge as Trump Bombs Iran and Triggers War in the Middle East. There Was No Need for This":

While there are certain differences, the similarities between Donald Trump’s siege of Iran and George W Bush’s disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq are striking. Both crises fit a wider pattern of ultimately unsuccessful, costly US interventionism dating back to Vietnam – and the 1953 CIA-led Iran coup. Trump promised to avoid foreign adventures. Surprise! He lied. Anyone who believes he has radically changed the way the US engages with the world should review this sordid saga of post-1945 imperial hubris. In this, he’s no different from his predecessors.

Trump is unusual in that his self interest is so evident. Though he said today that he wants “freedom” for the Iranian people, and for Iran to be a place that’s “safe”, he’s no Woodrow Wilson, who justified plunging the US into the first world war in 1917 by saying “the world must be made safe for democracy”. (It transpired Wilson meant democracy in Europe, not in the colonial empires of Africa, the Middle East and Asia.) After attacking Venezuela in January, Trump baldly admitted he just wanted the oil. Yet in other respects, what’s happening now feels very familiar.

Like Bush, Trump manufactured a crisis, founded on falsehood, and effectively cornered himself. He is hostage to self-imposed expectations, having confounded his own false claim to have “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities last year. Like Bush and his accomplice, Tony Blair, Trump deliberately inflates the threat. His unsubstantiated State of the Union claim that Tehran’s ballistic missiles could “soon” reach US territory recalls notoriously false US and UK claims about Saddam Hussein’s fabled weapons of mass destruction. Israel’s claim to have mounted “pre-emptive” strikes is misleading, too. There is zero clear evidence Iran was about to attack. On the contrary, it was desperately hoping to preserve the peace after last June’s damaging US-Israeli onslaught [...].

For the second time, Trump has offered negotiations to Iran while obviously planning an attack. It’s now evident this week’s negotiations in Geneva were a charade. Nor is there any sign Trump and Netanyahu, having set out their maximalist objectives, will break off the attacks soon. To do so would suggest failure. Trump wants to be the president who finally avenges US humiliations during the 1979 Iranian revolution, who brings Iran back into the western fold. He also wants a “win” to impress November’s midterm voters – one that revives his poor approval ratings. 

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

BALTIMORE SUN on ICE Facilities in Maryland

From Natalie Jones' 2-23-26 BALTIMORE SUN article entitled "Maryland Battles Over ICE Facilities Raise Constitutional Question":

As local governments in Maryland clash with the Trump administration’s plans for new federal immigration facilities, the issue is reviving a long-running constitutional question: When the federal government buys or uses property, does it have to obey state and local zoning and land use laws?

Legal scholars say the short answer is complicated — and multiple disputes now unfolding across Maryland could help determine it.

At the center is a lawsuit filed Monday by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown seeking to block the Trump administration’s plan to convert an 825,000-square-foot warehouse in Washington County into a 1,500-bed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center. The suit argues the Department of Homeland Security failed to complete required local environmental review before spending $102.4 million to purchase the Williamsport property.

Meanwhile, Baltimore County lawmakers may have passed emergency legislation banning private immigration detention facilities earlier this month, but it doesn’t stop ICE or its legal department from occupying office space in Hunt Valley.

Together, the disputes highlight a fundamental constitutional tension: the supremacy clause — which generally gives federal law priority over conflicting state law — versus traditional local authority over land use [...].

Cori Alonso-Yoder, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, said a federally owned detention center would generally be permissible so long as it does not violate constitutional rights. The Baltimore County law instead targets private actors who might host detention operations.

Federal immigration detention relies heavily on private facilities; a February 2025 analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse found roughly 90% of people held by ICE were housed in privately owned or operated centers.

To read the entire article, click HERE.