Bring us the head of SLC Police Chief Mike Brown 

The best government is the government closest to the people—except when it isn't. The Republican supermajority on Capitol Hill likes to mess with Salt Lake City. It's like a hobby or avocation—or an itch they just have to scratch, like when they drive past a 7-11 and just have to go in for a 32 oz. Diet Coke.

This time it's not zoning, increment financing or when fast food drive-up windows must operate. Now, the righteous white guys on the Hill have thrown down the gauntlet to Mayor Erin Mendenhall: Fix homelessness and drug trafficking, or we'll do it for you.

And they are sooo good at fixing things: remember how they boondoggled the Inland Port, or the way they fixed homelessness last time, when they chased the less fortunate from Rio Grande Street into residential neighborhoods? Well, it's that time again and they want results, now!

Someone's head had to roll. You see, homelessness detracts from the landscape and the GOP's sense of well-being. It's been nice knowing you, Police Chief Mike Brown. You've done a damn, fine job but lawmakers must have a head.

There are more than 800,000 homeless people in this country, so solving the problem in Salt Lake City shouldn't be much of a challenge. Of course, affordable housing and livable-wage jobs would help, but you can't have everything. So fix it, damnit.

Mike Lee: Screw the U.N. and the Rest of the World
Hey Wilson, remember last week, when Smart Bomb reported that Utah's Sen. Mike Lee wants to defund NPR and PBS because they are commie pinkos who brainwash the public, including children who watch the marxist Sesame Street? Well, looks like MAGA Mikey is on a roll, or else is hard-up for something to do.

Now, he wants the U.S. out of the U.N., he says, to restore “national sovereignty and fiscal accountability.” Of course, this is something right-wing wackos have wanted since the U.N.'s inception in 1945, with its charter that says, “to maintain international peace and security.” That was then, this is now: Welcome to the Republican Party of 2025.

MAGA Mikey has introduced legislation called the “Disengaging Entirely from the United Nations Debacle” act, aka the DEFUND act. Cute isn't it, Wilson? John Birchers are going to love it. “The ultimate goal for the United Nations is to create a unified one-world government,” says the organization's website.

MAGA Mikey and a cadre of his fellow GOP senators are looking a lot like Birchers—they can't leave everything up to Elon Musk. Trump has already removed the U.S. from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Paris (Climate) Agreement, U.N. Human Rights Council, UNESCO and the global tax agreement. Next week, we'll look at how the Earth got flat.

Eggs $1; Gas $2—Happy Days are Here Again, or Not
Remember the last election campaign, Wilson, when people would post on social media things like this: “I don't care about Trump's 34 felonies, I just want eggs to go back to $1 and gas to $2. Biden is destroying America.”

No doubt, inflation helped sink Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as Donald Trump promised on his mother's grave to bring prices down. Oops, scratch that. Now Trump says it's “very hard” to do that. In fact, consumer prices continue to rise and several estimates are that eggs could go up another 20% this year. Too bad Elon Musk can't take his chainsaw to that.

The billionaire, who heads up the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), says he can cut something like a bazillion dollars out of the federal budget, and he aims to cut 10% of the 2.3 million federal employees. So far, he has axed 75,000 and counting—from Veteran's Affairs, Department of Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, IRS, National Park Service, Agriculture, Inspectors General, Justice Department and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

When Musk took over Twitter, now called X, he axed 80% of the staff. In his first full year of ownership, revenue was down 45%, according to Forbes. No wonder Trump put him in charge—like Trump, he's a winner.

Postscript—Another historic week is in the books here at Smart Bomb, where we keep track of the bromance between Trump and Putin so you don't have to. Republicans have always hated communism, especially the Russian kind—until last week. Trump had apparently gotten out of the left side of the bed and proclaimed that Ukraine started the three-year-old war with Russia and that Ukraine's duly elected President Volodymyr Zelensky is a dictator. That's a 9.0 quake on the political Richter scale.

What's weird, if not unusual, is that when asked by reporters about Trump's comments—that went viral—almost every Republican in Congress said they hadn't heard the news and couldn't comment. Meanwhile, Trump is negotiating with Zelensky for Ukraine's rich deposits of rare-Earth minerals as compensation for U.S. aid during the war. Trump is demanding a full 50% of Ukraine's minerals, to which Zelensky said, nyet, sending the self-proclaimed deal maker into a tizzy.

Critics wondered aloud if Trump isn't taking a transactional approach to foreign affairs by seeking commercial benefits. It appears as an attempt to take advantage of a nation in its darkest hour. See, that New York real estate experience is paying dividends, as outlined in Trump's 1987 book, The Art of the Rip Off— oops, make that The Art of the Deal.

Well Wilson, now we know why Zelensky looks a little more pale than usual these days. In fact, most people in Ukraine are looking quite pale. It's not as if they can zip down to Crimea and hang out on the beaches of the Black Sea. So wake up the guys in the band and take us on outa here with a little something for our pale-faced friends in Ukraine:

We skipped the light fandango Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor I was feeling kind of seasick But the crowd called out for more The room was humming harder As the ceiling flew away When we called out for another drink The waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later As the miller told his tale That her face, at first just ghostly Turned a whiter shade of pale

She said, "There is no reason And the truth is plain to see" But I wandered through my playing cards And would not let her be One of sixteen vestal virgins Who were leaving for the coast And although my eyes were open They might just as well have been closed

And so it was that later As the miller told his tale That her face, at first just ghostly Turned a whiter shade of pale
“A Whiter Shade of Pale”—Procol Harum