The Mittster Rocks 

Brother Mitt: Black Lives Matter. Oh My Heck
Holy heck. Brotha Mitt Romney rocks! The Mittster joined the Washington, D.C., protests last weekend, marching shoulder to shoulder with Americans demanding change. We shit you not. "We need to stand up and say, 'Black lives matter,'" Mitt declared. It just blew away the staff here at Smart Bomb. Even Wilson and the band sat up and rubbed their eyes. Yes, it really happened. We like this dude more and more all the time. As you will recall, because it's burned into your gray matter, Romney was the sole Republican senator who voted in favor of removing Tyrannical Trump from office after the House impeached him on Dec. 18, 2019—a day that shall live in infamy. Of course, since then, our man Mitt has been relegated to the GOP doghouse. But hey, which would you rather get, fleas or mental illness and herpes from fanny kissing? Character doesn't fall too far from the old oak. Mitt's papa, George Romney, governor of Michigan, marched in Civil Rights protests in Detroit in the late 1960s. "Force alone will not eliminate riots," old George said. "We must eliminate the problems from which they stem." Amen and pass the spray paint.

Bill Barr Heads for the Tall Grass
Looks like the U.S. attorney general is a little too clever for his own good. Bill Barr, the Rasputin of the Trump White House, had a pretty cool idea—he'd send shock troops into Lafayette Square across from the White House without uniforms, badges or name tags. So cool!—who you gonna blame if some peaceful protesters get smashed and burned and hit with rubber bullets? Who needs secret police when you've got ... well, secret police? But, then, oops, protesters, pundits and even some Republicans (say it ain't so) began comparing Bill Barr's Blue Shirts to the Nazi SA Brownshirts. And while the president was getting his back slapped by drooling sycophants in the Oval Office after his heroic photo-op with the Holy Bible in front of St. John's Episcopal Church, the more adroit Barr was slinking behind the drapes, all too willing to let Trump take the credit. Later, Barr took on the personage of Sergeant Schultz from the '60s TV comedy Hogan's Heroes: "I know nothing, nothing!" Or as he told the Associated Press: "[M]y attitude was 'Get it done,' but I didn't say, 'Go do it.'" Call it Catch 2020.

Lee and Stewart and Theater of the Absurd
The horse is out of the barn, and the cat is totally out of the bag, and everyone knows by now that Donald Trump is a disaster. But congressional Republicans, like Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Chris Stewart, pretend to know better. They aren't the tools of tragedy just because they won't call Trump out for his insidious lies and deeds. Oh, no. And just because Lee and Stewart stand by while Trump politicizes the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, the EPA and other American institutions doesn't mean they're useless apparatchiks acting out their oath to the Constitution as some kind of pious lip service. Oh, no. When Lee and Stewart and their Republican colleagues eschew their role as a check on the executive, it doesn't mean they've sold their souls to Beelzebub. No, they're just playing the roles they've been assigned in Trump's Theater of the Absurd, where up is down and down is up, and George Floyd is smiling down from heaven on Trump's wonderful leadership. And when they look in the mirror each morning, do Lee and Stewart see Shakespearean fools staring back at them? Oh, no. "The fool doth think he is wise." (And you won't catch these "wise" men marching for Black Lives Matter. That isn't in the script.)

Postscript—Well, hipsters and hipsterettes, we've survived another week of history. If you've been feeling the ground move, don't worry, it's not an earthquake, it's just reality shifting faster than usual. Even Wilson and the band know this is not a good time to drop acid—altering reality when it's like silly putty to begin with could send you off to a galaxy far, far away where no one has gone before. And like a manned mission to Mars, there may be no coming back—not that you'd want to. But listen, Trump won't be president forever. At some point —hopefully sooner, rather than later—he'll be back as a TV host. Some pundits believe he'll create his own network where he'll be live every morning from his king-size bed at Mar-A-Lago wearing red silk jammies, chomping on a Big Mac and going apeshit about Obama, Hillary, Mitt Romney, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, our allies, Meryl Streep, Colin Powell, Joe Scarborough ... well, you get the picture. But here's the good news: His rants will be without consequence, and you can reach over and turn the sonofabitch off knowing you are missing absolutely nothing.

OK, Wilson, tell the guys it's safe to come out of the bunker and play a little something that will get us through the next week of June in This Year of Our Lord 2020.

As I walk through this wicked world
Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity.
I ask myself, is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?

And each time I feel like this inside, there's one thing I wanna know:
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding?
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding?

("(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding"—Elvis Costello)