Well, it's happened. M&Ms candies has done makeovers on some of its iconic characters, raising the hackles of Fox News personality and social critic, Tucker Carlson. For example, Ms. Brown M&M is ditching her stilettos and will sport "kitten heels," and Ms. Green M&M is chucking her go-go boots for sneakers.

Mars, Inc. is making M&Ms so "deeply unappealing that you wouldn't want to have a drink with any one of them," Carlson said (We couldn't possibly make this up). And, of course, it has deeper social meaning, he noted, because leftists are always trumpeting equality.

"M&M's will not be satisfied until every last cartoon candy character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous," he went on. "That's the goal."

It all sounds rather harsh, but nothing like the takedown Carlson put on Dr. Seuss Enterprises when it decided to halt publishing six of his many books due to insensitivity to minority groups. "Canceling Dr. Seuss isn't stupid. It's intentional," Carlson ranted. "It's demented and incomprehensible that they're banning Dr. Seuss not because he was a racist, but precisely because he wasn't."

There is no racism in this country, and messing with M&Ms and Dr. Seuss is just un-American, damn it! What's next, dumping on Little Black Sambo?

New "Contract With America" Same as the Old One
In the run-up to the 1994 congressional election, Newt Gingrich organized Republicans around a campaign push called "The Contract With America," which would right all wrongs and sweep the GOP into taking the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years, while stopping slick Bill Clinton in his tracks.

Well, as Wilson and the band like to say, if it's worth doin', it's worth overdoin'—get ready for Contract With America 2.0. The '94 Gingrich Revolution, as it were, used words as its weapons. Republicans were synonymous with liberty, freedom, truth and opportunity. In contrast, Democrats were associated with decay, corrupt, permissive and pathetic.

Majorie Taylor Greene, Louie Gohmert, Jim Jordan and Rand Paul surely will expand the vocabulary arsenal of modern conservatism. Nonetheless, other than filling seats in Congress, The Contract With America didn't accomplish much, including the GOP's pledge to cut the size of government. They did reduce taxes but not spending, leading to higher deficits requiring more taxes.

The Brand New Contract With America has all the elements to make it just as successful as the last one. And there would be a bonus: Impeach Joe Biden—just because. And possibly his wife, too. They're so corrupt.

Litter Boxes for High School Student Furries
Michigan state legislator Meshawn Maddock was outraged to learn that litter boxes were made available to furries—people who dress up like animals. She got it from a video posted by a parent, Lisa Hansen, who said she was informed that litter boxes had been stationed in high school unisex restrooms for students who identify as cats. "I am stunned and a little bit upset—well, not a little bit... Furious—I would even use that word," she said, (apparently unaware of her pun).

Maddock, the Republican leader, said the litter boxes should be banned. "Parent heroes will TAKE BACK our schools," she screeched on Facebook. And you thought the trans-restroom-controversy was bad.

Things got so hot that superintendent Michael Sharrow put out a statement debunking it. "Let me be clear in this communication," he wrote. "There is no truth whatsoever to this false accusation! There have never been litter boxes in our schools." We needn't fear furries, according to Women's Health magazine: Furries are not dysfunctional; they are not sexual deviants; they don't think they're really animals; and many have been bullied. But be prepared should Utah Republicans get word of furries—they'll be furious. No pun intended. (Well, maybe it was but they won't get it, anyway.)

Postscript—Alright sports fans, we survived another cold, dark January week here at Smart Bomb, where we keep track of Russian troop movements so you don't have to. Chess players might have some idea of what Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is up to on the Ukrainian border, but the staff here at Smart Bomb can't tell if it's brinkmanship or just a fun game to get Putin through another winter without his BFF Donald Trump.

Wilson and the band aren't sweating the Ukrainian thing on account of COVID-19 having claimed almost 900,000 Americans. Still, Republicans are busy undoing mask and vaccine mandates.

Here, the Utah Legislature no sooner convened than Republican lawmakers cancelled mask mandates in Salt Lake and Summit counties. This as IHC and the University of Utah announced a rationing of health care due to record hospitalizations of COVID.

And get this, after testing positive twice in one day for the Omicron variant, Republican Senate President Stuart Adams took to the podium to give a refresher on liberty—because how can you have liberty if you have to wear a mask and get vaccinated? The band is right, the Ukrainian standoff, as serious as it is, shrinks next to the dual pandemic of killer Covid and rampant Republicanism.

OK Wilson, we're up to our eyeballs in alligators and white nationalists. Maybe we ought to load up the van with beer and knockwurst and take a sojourn to the unknown and forget all about this B.S. for as long as we can. So wake up the band and take us on outa here:

I'm going up the country, babe, don't you wanna go?
I'm going up the country, babe, don't you wanna go?
I'm going to some place where I've never been before.

I'm going, I'm going where the water tastes like wine.
Well, I'm going where the water tastes like wine.
We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time.

I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away.
I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away.
All this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure can't stay.

Now baby, pack your leaving trunk, you know we've got to leave today,
Just exactly where we're going I cannot say, but
We might even leave the USA,
'Cause there's a brand new game that I want to play.
"Goin' Up The Country"—Canned Heat