Bob: Man, that takeover of the Capitol on Jan. 6 was sure nasty.
Mike Lee: What takeover?
Bob: You know, the one where a cop got killed and a woman was shot to death.
Mike Lee: I really didn't notice.
Bob: Remember Trump told all his groupies to come to D.C. and then he told thousands of them to march to the Capitol and take back the country from evil Democrats.
Mike Lee: Well, I don't think Trump had anything to do with that. It just kinda happened.
Bob: No, no, no. For two months Trump said the election was stolen, and Fox said it was stolen, and Trump said come to D.C. on Jan. 6—it will be wild.
Mike Lee: I think that was Antifa and Black Lives Matter. White people wouldn't do that. White people are patriots—at least the Republicans are.
Bob: Didn't you see all the video of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and the Shaman with horns? They were beating on cops and tearing the Capitol to bits. They wanted to hang Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi.
Mike Lee: Video? What Video?
Bob: Come on, Trump was trying to overthrow our democracy. He called the election rigged and got his groupies frothing at the mouth.
Mike Lee: President Trump is like Abe Lincoln. Maybe he should just take a mulligan.
Bob: Hey Mike, your unborn grandchildren will disown you. And you deserve it.
"Tasteless"Housewives of SLCHits the Big Time
Salt Lake Tribune ace Scott Pierce must be doing backflips now that The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City reality TV show is featured in the recent issue of the high-brow New Yorker magazine. Scott likes to keep his readers up to date on everything those "housewives" are up to. They hang around their McMansions in low-cut cocktail dresses, pearls and spike heels. And when they get together—look out. In one segment Jen Shaw retorts to a slight from Mary Crosby, saying, "Well, you f—ked your grandfather." And it's true: Mary got her family's empire of Pentecostal churches, and she's loaded. But to do it she had to marry her dead grandmother's second husband—her own step-grandfather. (You can't make this stuff up.) The foil for a lot of their real lives, of course, is the Mormon church. As Doreen St. Felix writes, SLC Real Housewives incorporates "cultural politics into the sketchy morality of a guilty pleasure." No wonder Scott's readers love it. The staff here at Smart Bomb is just guessing, but Scott's columns on Housewives probably get more web hits than say a bill pending in the Legislature to relax requirements for cosmetologists. But don't expect anyone at church to bear testimony relating to Housewives, 'cause nobody in the ward has ever seen it. Hey Wilson, no laughing.
Those Damned Homeless People and Their Poop
Why don't they do something about all the homeless people? They say it's all Reagan's fault because he closed mental facilities and slashed the budget for affordable housing. But that was 40 years ago, and there're still people with mental illness on the street and no affordable housing. So why doesn't the mayor wave a magic wand and make it go away? Some people say the minimum wage of $7.35 and rents that start at $900 a month make it impossible for low wage earners to make it. But why don't those single moms with little kids just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, like Burgess Owens? There are well over a million homeless Americans, and they don't have toilets or trash cans. That's why there's garbage and poop where they camp—even downtown. Some people think they like being homeless so they can live out in the rain and drink warm beer and poop behind dumpsters. Police hassle them 'cause camping is illegal. Former Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams and Gov. Gary Herbert tried to fix it, but after all that talk, they couldn't. Maybe the problem is bigger than we'd like to admit. Homeless people don't have any pull in Washington, so the next time you step in poop, you might want to wrap it up and send it to Reps. Burgess Owens and Chris Stewart. It probably won't help, but you'll feel better.
Postscript—Holy history. People are going to be writing about this past week for decades to come, and it won't be pretty. The president, who had just lost an election, fomented an insurrection in order to stay in office. Of course, Republicans refused to convict him after he was impeached. But like Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, Trump was absolutely responsible for the rebellion. But, he had also just voted to acquit. So, in keeping with the season, the staff here at Smart Bomb is giving it's Marie Antoinette Smartie Award to McConnell for "Eating His Cake and Having It, Too."
For Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley's part in the insurrection, in which he was the first senator who would not certify Joe Biden's election, he wins the Jefferson Davis Smartie for stirring insurgency and then retreating to the rear with a smirk of self-righteousness. His sleazy compatriot, Sen. Ted Cruz, just couldn't stay out of the limelight, either. He gets the Aaron Burr Award for his insidious patriotic subterfuge. The staff here at Smart Bomb saved the biggest Smartie of all, the Benedict Arnold Award, for Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and his ability to kiss Trump's ass even while complimenting the emperor on his new clothes. Now that's multitasking.
Well, Wilson, that was one hell of a week. We know the guys in the band had to seek sedation to stay sane, but tell me they're thinking clearly enough to make some sense of ... whatever this is and play something to help us through these trying times:
Well, did you ever wake up,
With them bullfrogs on your mind?
Well, did you ever wake up,
With them bullfrogs on your mind?
You had to sit there laughin',
Laughin' just to keep from crying.
My mother got 'em,
My father got 'em,
My sister got 'em,
My brother got 'em.
I woke up this morning,
Grandma, Grandpa had them, too,
Well, don't you know about that,
I got the bullfrog blues.
Bullfrog
Well, did you ever wake up,
With them bullfrogs on your mind?
Well, did you ever wake up,
With them bullfrogs on your mind?
You had to sit there laughin',
Laughin' just to keep from crying.
"Bullfrog Blues"—Canned Heat
