It’s easy to get distracted right now by the bread and circus politics that has dominated the news headlines lately, but don’t get distracted.

Don’t be fooled, even a little bit.

We are being subjected to the oldest con game in the books, the magician’s sleight of hand that keeps you focused on the trilemma game in front of you while your wallet is being cleaned out by hoodlums in your midst.

This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.

What characterizes the U.S. government today is not so much dysfunctional politics as ruthlessly contrived government conducted behind the entertaining, distracting and false curtain of political theater. And what political theater it is, diabolically Shakespearean at times, full of sound and fury, but in the end, meaningless.

We are being ruled by a government of scoundrels, spies, spies, thugs, thieves, mobsters, hoodlums, rapists, extortionists, bounty hunters, battle-ready warriors and cold-blooded…