White On Rice to Bugs On Stink 

When Mister Nice Guy—a.k.a Utah Gov. Spencer Cox—goes off, you know it's gotta be bad. Check this out: "Cable media is evil. CNN, Fox News, MSNBC ... They are all evil. They have psychologists that help them program stuff to keep you addicted to what [Harvard professor] Arthur Brooks calls 'contempt'," Cox recently said, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

You're right, Wilson, he's not all wrong. Watching any TV news is ... well, pretty sucky. But watching hour upon hour of bad news, often reported without proper context, will drive most people criminally insane.

Still, comparing CNN and MSNBC to the Murdoch B.S. Machine—Fox News—is like equating "white on rice" to "bugs on stink." For example, Dominion Voting systems is suing Fox for $1.6 billion for broadcasting, over and over without evidence, that its voting machines discarded Trump's votes or transferred them to Biden in the 2020 election. It's hard to un-ring that bell once millions of viewers have heard it time and again.

After tracking Fox broadcasts, Media Matters For America reported this: "Fox News viewers are subjected to a constant torrent of lies, misleading statements and half-truths as the network's hosts, guests and on-air personalities weave a comprehensive web of misinformation."

Actually, Wilson, bugs on stink would be an improvement.

Lock Their Butts Up!
In our quest to do-away with homeless people, our brothers and sisters at the Pioneer Park Coalition have hit on a "compassionate" solution: They can get off the streets or find their butts in jail.

The Salt Lake Tribune calls the Pioneer Park Coalition a "consortium of businesses and advocates," which sounds very warm and fuzzy. And they are freakin' sick and tired of homeless people screwing up the ambience, jaywalking and not adhering to standard grooming and dress codes—it's bad for business.

Last week, in what has been called a new approach, the coalition outlined a three-point plan that would fix just about everything—reducing serious crime and public urination. The plan calls for providing more housing and services (why didn't we think of that?); making the miscreants "accountable" (somehow); and strictly enforcing laws and arresting those losers if they don't get it together. In essence, homelessness itself would be illegal.

Letting them sleep on the streets isn't charitable, said Brother Scott Howell. They should be where they can get medical and mental healthcare. "Put them in jail, that's the solution."

Of course, there's no room at the jail and medical and mental healthcare are woefully lacking, but at least the coalition isn't offering empty promises like those real homeless care providers.

Deniers, Deniers, Pants on Fires
So, what exactly is an "election denier?" No,Wilson, only some of them wear tin-foil hats and believe the earth is flat. The easy explanation is they believe the "Big Lie" that Donald Trump won the last presidential election because he said so. "We won big!"

Why they believe him remains mysterious—it's as weird as Mormons insisting that Harry Potter isn't really into wizardry and witchcraft. Some believe Trump's victory was thwarted by a conspiracy involving disappearing ink and Italian satellites. But no less than 60 courts tossed Trumpist claims that the election was fixed because there is no evidence—none.

Still, some two-thirds of Republicans say Biden won by fraud. It's magical thinking, of course, kinda like believing Mike Lee is a Constitutional expert and the United States is not a democracy. As Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels said: "A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."

The 300 or so Republican election deniers running for Congress and important statewide offices know the Big Lie is Big B.S. It's a Trump litmus test, pure and simple: You can kiss the emperor's ring or suffer the consequences. But not everyone believes the emperor has new clothes and they desperately wish he would get some—bright orange jumpsuits.

Postscript—That's a wrap for another awesome autumn week here at Smart Bomb, where we keep track of Republican racism so you don't have to. At a recent Trump rally, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville described all African-Americans as criminals.

Democrats want reparations for descendants of slavery, he said, "because they think the people who do crime are owed that." Yep, Wilson, he actually said that.

In a poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, where a score of 1.0 is extremely racist and 0 is not racist at all, the Republican median score was 0.67, compared to 0.45 for independents and 0.27 for Democrats. "Put differently, Republicans are much more likely to buy into the notion that Whites are victims," said the study's authors.

By the way, Mormons' median score was 0.55—just a little racist. White evangelical Christians scored 0.64—no, Wilson, don't ask, what would Jesus do?

White Republican men who dominate the Utah Legislature insist that racism no longer exists, so they quickly passed a resolution against the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools even though they didn't have a clue what it is. After all, we don't want kids learning about slavery and institutional racism—they could turn out to be Democrats.

On second thought, Wilson, maybe we should ask what Jesus would do. What would he think if he showed up today and saw these so-called Christians who are wrapped up in fear and loathing? We know the band isn't religious, but we're betting you and the guys have just the right thing to steady our nerves, if not save our souls:

Jesus was a Capricorn
He ate organic food
He believed in love and peace
And never wore no shoes

Long hair, beard and sandals
And a funky bunch of friends
Reckon we'd just nail him up
If he came down again

'Cause everybody's gotta have somebody to look down on
Prove they can be better than at any time they choose
Someone doin' somethin' dirty decent folks can frown on
If you can't find nobody else, then help yourself to me

Eggheads fussin' rednecks cussin'
Hippies for their hair
Others laugh at straights who laugh at
Freaks who laugh at squares

Some folks hate the Whites
Who hate the Blacks who hate the Klan
Most of us hate anything that
We don't understand
"Jesus Was a Capricorn (Owed to John Prine)"—Kris Kristofferson