As announced last month, we have a special offer for new paid subscribers: a bound, author-signed edition of The Big Truth: Dissecting and Debunking the 9 Most Destructive Lies of the Political Right. You’ll not only receive the book, you’ll be supporting the work of Bully Pulpit. Our needs are modest; our voice is loud.
Gift subscriptions? Yes! Do that, too. And after you subscribe, please send an email with your postal address to booksmartstudios@gmail.com. Then we’ll have a place to send both the book and the signed bookplate. And do please, please alert your world to our stubborn, irate existence. Facebook. Insta. Twitter. Mastodon. Threads. Office bulletin board. It matters.
With respect and gratitude,
Bob
Now on to this week’s column!

Oh, no.
The first thing you do when you see a Tweet like that is think, “Dang, I hate Marburg Virus,” which causes hemorrhagic fever. It’s definitely a call-in-sick sort of bug, with all the usual symptoms of fever, chills, headache, sore throat, muscle ache and rash.
And nausea, abdominal pain, diarrhea, weight loss, delirium, vomiting and chest pain.
And jaundice, pancreatic inflammation, liver failure and — per the whole hemorrhagic fever thing — massive hemorrhaging. Look, I like a little staycation as well as the next fellow, and who can’t stand to lose a few pounds? But Marburg is one of those bugs that sort of lingers, until your body bursts in a rancid pool of your own exploded organs and infected blood.
Plus zombie. I don’t wish to be among the walking dead. To be honest, I’m seldom among the walking alive. So if you add it all up, maybe you want to think twice about participating in the test of the Emergency Broadcast System scheduled for 2:20 pm EDT. Anyway, I’ll be at a doctor’s appointment, so …
But, you know what? No. Not gonna fall for this nonsense, which is based on the premise that the FCC and FEMA are in cahoots with Dr. Anthony Fauci and Big Tech, who conspired to contaminate the Covid vaccines with nanoparticles that release the Marburg Virus when signaled by Deep State forces via 5G transmissions.
Which is impossible. I ask you this: Have you ever seen FEMA in action? They can’t even get blue tarps and bottled water sorted out. Also, it’s never been clear to me what motives these supposedly sinister institutions would have. Neither the walking dead nor the exploded non-walking dead vote or spend money. The only thing I can think of is for Fauci and his gang to get all the seasonal pumpkin-spice treats for themselves. Which would be evil, yes, but offers no benefit after November. So I’m inclined to think this 5G thing is just one of those nutty conspiracy theories, like PizzaGate and evolution. That hypothesis, naturally, led me to doing my own research.
Turns out all of these so-called conspiracies have the same structure — so reliably that I’ve been able to construct a Conspiracy Engine. Take one item from each of five categories, and you can build an apocalyptic scenario of your very own. Here they are:
Mortal Fear:
Pedophilia
Communism/Marxism
Gun control
Wokeism
Transexuality
Zombies
Congress
Science & Technology:
AI
5G
Nanotechnology
DNA
MRNA
Airplane contrails (“chemtrails”)
TikTok
Jewish space lasers
Crest Whitening Strips
Bogeymen:
Bill Gates
Obama
Fauci
George Soros
Hillary
Institutions:
Dominion Voting Systems
FBI/CIA
The Media
Big Tech
Big Pharma
Deep State
UN/WHO
Antifa
Rotary
News Events:
2020 Election
Pandemic
Wildfires
War in Ukraine
Trump prosecutions
School shootings
Toyotathon
See what I mean? It’s so simple. [Full disclosure: Some of the items reflect my own personal triggers. Maybe you don’t think Rotary is hell on earth. Whatever.] And therefore I offer a challenge. Use these selections in the Conspiracy Engine to construct a theory of your own. Put it in the comments, or on Xwitter or wherever. #bullyapocalypse
Best one will get a signed copy of The Big Truth. Honestly, I don’t see what can possibly go wrong.