A lot of folks get their info from Fox News, whose talking heads play down the Jan. 6 insurrection as something like a day at the state fair sans the corn dogs. But they’re just getting started.

This week a three-part series, “Patriot Purge,” hosted by Tucker Carlson, portrays the deadly attack on the Capitol as one organized by government insiders, the dreaded Deep State—not Trump and his minions or the Proud Boys or the Three Percenters. If you think Trump won the election, this could be right up your alley: The FBI dressed up like slovenly Trump supporters, got some Confederate flags and bear spray and started beating cops and breaking into the halls of democracy.

Oops—some facts were left out, like the 700 instigators arrested on charges of breaching the Capitol. Dozens already have pleaded guilty. Millions of Americans watched the melee play out of TV. But maybe they were hallucinating and didn’t realize they were hoodwinked by our dastardly government.

According to the series trailer: “The domestic war on terror has come here and is coming after half the country. The left is hunting the right.” Even Fox’s Geraldo Rivera called it, “Bullshit.” But if you piss all over the truth long enough, Trumpers will believe it. And that’s no lie.

Not a Republican in Utah? Tough Cookies
In Utah, we already have a pretty good notion of how things will work when Donald J. Trump takes absolute power in 2024. How do we know? Well, because Utah already exists in an authoritarian state run by a party that doesn’t give a rip about the public.

Exhibit No. 1: In 2018 voters passed an initiative, Proposition 2, which legalized medical marijuana, only to have Republican lawmakers strip it down to the point where it’s easier to get bud on the street. Voters also passed a referendum for the expansion of Medicaid in 2018, only to see Republican lawmakers cut in half the number of people it would cover.

The third initiative passed that year created an independent redistricting commission to redraw voting districts so one party (Republican) isn’t favored over another. Unfortunately, according to the Utah Constitution, the Legislature will get the final say. Well, it doesn’t take Psychic Olga to read these tea leaves.

If you’re not a Republican in Utah, well, let’s face it, you’re toast. The Salt Lake Valley will again be cut up like apple pie so that no Democrat ever darkens the doors of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. The Party of Trump is going to take Congress back one way or another. And if you don’t like it—tough cookies!

Glasgow, Boiling Frogs and Big Lies
Remember the story of the frog in the boiling water—well earthlings, that’s us. This week, countries met at the U.N. Climate Summit in Scotland, seeking to cut greenhouse emissions to keep global warming below 2.7 degrees fahrenheit by the end of the century—when frogs and humans would boil.

The journal Nature Climate Change reports that 85% of the world’s population has already seen crop failures, floods, heat waves and fires made worse by climate change. Since 1977, Big Oil has known it contributes significantly to global warming but has spent millions on misinformation and politicians who deny climate change. “For far too long Big Oil has escaped accountability for its central role in bringing our planet to the brink of a climate catastrophe,” said Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney at a hearing last week. But execs of Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and Shell shrugged, “You talkin’ to us?”

President Biden proposed $555 billion to fight climate change. But West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin said no, unless the legislation is stripped of mechanisms to reduce fossil fuel usage and cuts in subsidies to oil, coal and gas companies … ribbit, Ribbit, RIBBIT!

Postscript—That’s a wrap for another colorful fall week here at Smart Bomb, where we keep track of the sale of guns, so you don’t have to. In 2020, Americans purchased some 23 million firearms. Add to that the estimated 400 million already floating around this country and you have tons of guns.

But don’t tell that to gun-rights activists, because many of them will say, “They are coming for our guns.” And when they take our guns—all 423 million of them—our freedom will simply evaporate. This, of course, is independent of the mask and vaccine conspiracies to—you guessed it—take away our freedom.

Majorie Taylor Greene may be the new face of gun rights as the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre has fallen out of favor for buying $10,000 suits and chartering jets to Paris and Capri. Nonetheless, if gun ownership and the Republican Party had already become synonymous, the new “No Compromise” gun movement now appears to be at the storm’s eye of the extreme right that has swallowed the Republican Party whole. And yes, one of the major tools helping to propel it is—wait for it—Facebook. But like Wilson and the band, the staff here at Smart Bomb doesn’t think shooting each other makes for the Founders’ idea of democracy or freedom. Call us old fashioned.

Alright Wilson, times are tough and looks like the band has already gone for the ganja, so why not roll out some Bob Marley and we’ll take a load off:

Rise up this mornin’
Smile with the risin’ sun
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin’ sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true
Sayin’, (“This is my message to you-ou-ou”)

Singin’: “Don’t worry ’bout a thing
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right”
Singin’: “Don’t worry (don’t worry) ’bout a thing
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right!”

Rise up this mornin’
Smiled with the risin’ sun
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin’ sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true
Sayin’, “This is my message to you-ou-ou:”

Singin’: “Don’t worry about a thing, worry about a thing, oh!
Every little thing gonna be all right. Don’t worry!”
Singin’: “Don’t worry about a thing” – I won’t worry!
“‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right”
“Three Little Birds”—Bob Marley and The Wailers)