Truth, Lies and an Assassination Attempt

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist

29 Apr 2026

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The impetus to question official narratives is quite logical, given the U.S. history of promoting war propaganda and other lies.

The United States fits the very definition of a low trust society, one in which there is pervasive interpersonal hostility, violence and fear of violence, social dislocation caused by austerity policies, political and economic corruption, and a media that colludes with the ruling class and the state in bringing these conditions about. The end result is a lack of belief and trust in humanity and in institutions because the entire system itself lacks legitimacy.

We see this dynamic play out in the days after an armed man fired shots at the White House Correspondents Dinner with Donald Trump in attendance. No sooner had the incident been reported than there were the familiar claims of a staged event/false flag committed by a patsy acting under mind control.

There is no way to know the motive of the shooting suspect, who is identified as Cole Allen, aside from what is being called a manifesto written by him. The bigger issue is why an assassination attempt against a president elicits little more than jokes, shoulder shrugging, and guesswork about alternate narratives.

Donald Trump himself provides a partial explanation for these reactions. In 2016 he was not expected to be the Republican Party’s nominee for president. He entered the race as a way to promote his plan to start a television network and he did not expect to win. Yet the media gave him more coverage than it did other candidates and he struck a chord with the masses of republican voters, surprising even himself with his victory. Likewise he was not expected to win the general election against Hillary Clinton who raised more money and had buy-in from the political establishment and corporate media. Yet Trump was still elected the 45th president and in so doing proved that millions of people wanted a charlatan failed businessman with no political experience to hold the highest office in the country.

He was defeated in the 2020 election and left office seemingly in disgrace after his followers’ January 6 riot at the capitol. Two years of scandal and legal troubles followed and included being found liable in civil court after a rape accusation, a federal indictment for taking documents that didn’t belong to him, and a felony conviction for falsifying business records. Trump was elected president again in 2024, increasing the air of unreality surrounding an office which had been given a modicum of respect by most people in this country, regardless of whether or not they supported the white house occupant.

While it is not prudent to follow every theory which questions the official story, it is important to understand why there is such a large degree of skepticism. Naysayers cannot be entirely dismissed when the CIA’s ten year long mind control experiments, Operation MKultra, are well documented. The idea that the shooter was a patsy participating in a fake assassination attempt cannot be regulated to the realm of what is often called “conspiracy theory.”

The term itself is problematic because it is generally used in a dismissive way. But many so-called conspiracy theories have turned out to be true and are playing out right now. The U.S. and Israeli war of aggression against Iran rests on an assumption that the targeted nation presents a threat when it has only ever acted militarily in self-defense. Nor is it irresponsible to say that the war is being fought because Israel wanted it. Benjamin Netanyahu visited the U.S. seven times in the past year and quite publicly spoke of the desire for regime change, as did Donald Trump. While most of the corporate media have dutifully repeated the administration’s claim of decisive victory the facade has cracked a bit. NBC news reported, “Iran caused more extensive damage to U.S. military bases than publicly known.” While Trump and his team lie about Iran, the Democratic Party attacks from the right, criticizing Trump for not “finishing the job” and not being more brutal even as the military attack has killed thousands of Iranians and done great damage to their country. Most Democratic Party voters never wanted this war and would stop it if they could. But their elected representatives provide no opposition because they do not in fact oppose Trump’s actions.

Trump has exposed himself in his public meltdowns when he uses his social media platform to threaten Iran’s destruction, to end its civilization altogether, and to portray himself as Jesus Christ. After the shooting at the Correspondents Dinner Trump began renewing his call for building a $400 million project to construct a white house ballroom with a military bunker underneath.

The war against Iran is just the latest in a long line of actions backed up by misrepresentations and lies that are meant to get support for what the people don’t want. The 2003 invasion of Iraq had high levels of support but that would not have been true if the claims of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) were known to have been made up out of whole cloth. At the 2004 Correspondents Dinner Bush joked about his WMD lies, and included a video of himself looking for WMD under furniture. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere. Nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?" While journalists and politicians laughed at the sick joke, the people of Iraq suffered terribly and 1 million of them died.

Trust died too when Bush and other war criminals went unpunished. Every presidential administration provides fodder for cynicism, apathy, and disbelief. Now

More than 60 years after John F. Kennedy’s assassination most people are at the very least unconvinced of the lone gunman narrative. In 1979 the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination was likely the result of a conspiracy and thereby confirmed that other assasination conspiracies are possible.

There is a pervasive air of unreality in the United States as the president of Venezuela and his wife are kidnapped and now languish in a New York City jail awaiting trial in what amounts to a kangaroo court. Meanwhile Trump has similar plans for Cuba and bragged, “I can do anything I want with it.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shoot U.S. citizens to death and plan to build massive warehouses across the country to hold undocumented and documented immigrants alike. Data centers to support A.I. are springing up around the country, raising electric bills and polluting the environment to support a technology that most people don’t see a need for at all.

Democrats expect to emerge victorious in the November mid-term elections and the tag team of fake condemnation is used to get the suckers back to the polls and to believe that there will be major differences between the two parties when there are not. Any opposition expressed is token and flimsy and is meant to fool the public into thinking they have choices when they do not.

The court case against Cole Allen will proceed and we will see the quality of the evidence against him. Regardless of the outcome the only certainty we have in U.S. politics is that we are being lied to about very important matters. The people who quickly pronounce their disbelief should not be disregarded.

Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley@blackagendareport.com.