2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the BilgeBucket Gazette. Our first issue was on May 19, 2003 and we’ve been shoveling it to the public, just like the corporate media, ever since. We changed our format to a WordPress blog in 2011 so all of our earlier material was archived. We’ve been reposting many of those archived articles, headlines, photo-toons, BilgeBucket Lists and other content over the past twelve years. In honor of our 20th, and because we’re sick of the current state of affairs in the world, we’ll be reposting more items from 2003 through 2009 throughout this year.
From 2003 to 2009, we featured many great headlines in our webzine. We’ve already posted many in our Headlines category. Here are a few more we’ve dug up from the year 2003.
Self Absorbed Actress Smitten By Self Absorbed Actor
Dr. Phil Loses It: Advises Couple To Kill Each Other
2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the BilgeBucket Gazette. Our first issue was on May 19, 2003 and we’ve been shoveling it to the public, just like the corporate media, ever since. We changed our format to a WordPress blog in 2011 so all of our earlier material was archived. We’ve been reposting many of those archived articles, headlines, photo-toons, BilgeBucket Lists and other content over the past twelve years. In honor of our 20th, and because we’re sick of the current state of affairs in the world, we’ll be reposting more items from 2003 through 2009 throughout this year.
Our first post in our retrospective features our first two photo-toons from 2003. If you remember, we had just invaded and taken over Iraq. Saddam Hussein had eluded American forces and was on the run. On the legal front, the Patriot Act had been passed after 9/11 and was threatening all sorts of freedoms in the name of national security. The first toon from our June 19, 2003 issue features former Attorney General from the Bush era, authoritarian bible-thumper and Patriot Act cheerleader John Ashcroft showing off a proud purchase he made on that new website called E-bay. The second from our July 3, 2003 issue features former President and super sleuth George W. Bush boldly stating that he’ll leave no stone unturned in pursuit of Saddam Hussein, at least as long as Iraq’s leader isn’t in the same room. As you can see, our first photo-toons were simple photoshop jobbies with no word bubbles and basic, mildly humorous jabs. We’ve come a long ways since then.
Attorney General and bible thumper extraordinaire John Ashcroft shows off the Vintage 1973 Playboy he won on eBay.
President Bush vows to leave no stone unturned in his quest to find Saddam Hussein.
The new year has started and already the Republicans have restored dysfunction to the House of Representatives. We’re actually getting sick of pointing out the stupidity of the GOP because we’ve been doing it for the past twenty years. That’s right, folks. The Bilge Bucket Gazette, the site that shovels it to the public just like the regular corporate media, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Of course, back when we started on May 19, 2003 (or aught 3 as old codger staff member Chester Einstein puts it) it was Dubya, Uncle Dick, Rummy and their cast of greedy, neoconservative corporate lackeys who were causing the chaos on the world stage by setting America up for the quagmire in Afghanistan and the clusterf*ck known as the Iraq War while simultaneously helping bring about the Great Recession with little to no opposition from the Democrats. Since then, Republicans have lurched so far to the right that they brag about being fascist, are open in their admiration of Nazis and have openly tried to overturn legitimate democratic elections. We’ve made many a satirical photo-toon over the years blasting them about their greed, corporatism, racism, fascism, white christian nationalism and now they’re exposed, openly proud of the fact they want to rid America of democracy. They have truly broken satire.
When we first started out we wanted to be a poor man’s Onion. We wanted to be a web site that offered a wide spectrum of irreverent social, corporate, political, sports, religion and celebrity satire and humor that would be, as editor Dex Rexter put it, “1/20th as funny as the Onion”. But the Republicans were so bad that we morphed into being mostly an anti-Republican, anti-conservative, anti-religion, anti-racist and anti-fascist web site.
Since we’re sick of the current asshole Republicans, the Democrats seem to be letting the GOP getting away with overturning democracy and it’s our 20th anniversary, we’ve decided that in the coming months we’d retrospectively look at the spectacular debacle that was the Dubya years – the disastrous administration that started the Republican’s slide into insanity. We’re also going to honor our original humble intentions and repost some our non- political articles, photo-toons, polls, lists and other scchhttufffff. Back in aught 3, we had a basic html site as you can see by our posted screenshot below (there’s elegance in simplicity). The first two issues were only articles and headlines – our first photo-toon didn’t appear until our third issue. We also released more regularly, mostly on an every other week basis. We changed the look-and-feel in late 2005. After Obama won in 2008, we took a two year hiatus starting in June 2009. Then in July 2011 we converted everything to a much more convenient WordPress blog format that we still have today. But our original material was archived and we’ve only reposted selected articles, headlines, photo-toons and other material from the early years since then. We’ve also had staff come and go and we’ll repost some of their articles and contributions as well.
So, let’s enjoy the trip down memory lane as we look back at the Dubya years (2003-2009) on the 20th anniversary of the Bilge Bucket Gazette.
Behold! A screenshot of the very first issue of the BilgeBucket Gazette on May 19, 2003 – a day that will live in infamy.
We’re in the last week of 2022 and there were several huge stories throughout the year: COVID-19 continued its assault on the human race, NASA sent another rocket to the Moon after fifty years and the Democrats preserved democracy for a little while longer and managed to pass major legislation in the process. But probably the biggest story on the world stage was the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the emergence of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a symbol of democracy for the world.
Last week President Zelenskyy made a surprise visit to Washington and he gave a impassioned speech to Congress. Zelenskyy is very media savvy and made a convincing argument for the United States’ continued support of Ukraine in their battle against Russia. The Russians thought they’d roll over their neighbors, but the Ukrainians have resisted admirably. How much longer will this war continue? Despite rumors of a cease fire coming soon, it appears that the war will more than likely drag on for most of 2023. Zelenskyy has said that the Ukrainians will never give up and we believe him. At least the United States has committed to helping Ukraine obtain freedom and democracy for its people.
Slava Ukraini!!!Support Ukraine!!! Support Democracy!!!
Slava Ukraini!!! Support Ukraine!!! Support Democracy!!!
We’ll its that time of year where we trot out the Festivus Pole and air our grievances. But since we always air our grievances, we’ll keep it short. Democracy is still alive but barely. The Democrats managed to maintain control of the Senate but the House is now the hands of Republicans, several of whom helped plan the Jan. 6th riots (MTG, Gosar, Biggs, etc…) but amazingly enough are still in Congress. We’re coming up on two years now since the attempted coup and all we’ve got is referrals for criminal charges against TFG. We’ll refer to our synopsis from two years ago when the pandemic was raging : American democracy is still alive, but it’s on a ventilator.
We’d like to wish everyone a Happy Festivus. And to all those Republican, MAGA Morons, TFG acolytes, QAnon nutbags and everyone who voted to end democracy and promote a fascist takeover by christian nationalists . . .we think you know where you can stick the Festivus pole.
We’re environmentalists and science enthusiasts here at the Bucket and we’ve harped time and time again about how we need to the put Earth’s health first in economical decisions because there is no other planet we know of that supports life. Capitalist economies have protected the destructive fossil fuel and mining industries and now with climate change wreaking havoc on our planet’s ecosystems the lives of every living creature in is peril.
There’s an excellent video posted recently on YouTube by BigThink featuring astronaut Ron Garan that states this case beautifully. “We need to move from thinking economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy. That’s when we’re going to continue our evolutionary process,” Garan concludes.
In this season of peace on Earth, watch the video and reflect on how fragile our planet is and how important it is that we protect it.
There is no planet B – We must put Earth’s health first.
More importantly, many Trump humping, election denier candidates across the country got beat including the Big Three here in Arizona, Blake Masters, Mark Finchem and Kari Lake. Generally speaking, Democrats performed pretty well here in AZ. One notable exception is the U.S. House of Representatives. Arizona had five democratic Congressional representatives in the 2020 election but thanks to redrawn districts from the census favoring Republicans, the GOP now has six seats compared to three for Democrats. There were some very tight races which have gone into recount, but overall, the Dems held the line. Democracy has been saved . . . for now.
Of course, Ms. Lake, in true Trumpian fashion, has refused to concede and has commenced to whining, promising law suits of election fraud. We’re so sick of this former newsreader. She should just move into Mar-a-lago so she can be with her crush 24/7. We’re sure Melania won’t mind. We saw a funny meme online about the loony Ms. Lake and decided to duplicate it using our own graphics. From now on, Kari Lake will be known as Karipatra, the Queen of Denial.
In true Trumpian fashion, Arizona’s failed governor candidate Kari Lake has claimed election fraud and has transformed herself into Karipatra – the Queen of Denial.
The 2022 elections are on Tuesday, November 8th and the choice couldn’t be clearer in our opinion. Of course, we’ve been thinking that for the last twenty years and somehow the Republicans are still not the permanent minority party which they should be.
The Republicans are openly embracing white christian nationalism and authoritarian corporate fascism. They are attacking the fundamental principles and laws of our constitution. Under the TFG regime, the GOP dismantled our government giving enormous tax cuts to the plutocrats in our society, which basically gave complete and absolute power to a handful of corporations and the richest of the rich while saddling future generations with debilitating debt. Those greedy CEOs and corporate elite are now the leading cause of inflation in the U.S., grabbing record profits while the American people struggle to just buy food. They have used deceitful shenanigans to stack the Supreme Court with regressive, religious ideologues who have already taking away a woman’s right to make her own reproduction decisions despite saying under oath during their confirmation hearings that they wouldn’t. The extremist Court is setting its sights on voter rights and basic rights for the LGBTQ community. Many Republicans want to end Social Security and Medicare which they call ‘entitlement programs’ but have no problem with entitlement programs for the corporate fat cats who purchase legislation through slimy lobbyists with corrupt donations and other monetary influences. The Republicans have openly suggested civil war and locking up opponents if they don’t get their way. TFG even instigated his rabid MAGA moron followers to mount an insurrection attempt at a coup at the Capitol on January 6th, 2020 because TFG claimed the 2020 election was rigged and stolen despite no evidence of fraud. Now, insane MAGA and QAnon election deniers are poised to win seats in many states including our state of Arizona which would effectively guarantee that Republicans will win all future elections and the will of the people will be ignored thus ending democracy as we know it. As we have said before, under TFG, the Republicans are no longer a party; they are a crime syndicate.
If you truly believe in a representative democracy, by the people, for the people, and where every vote counts, there is only one way to vote: vote ‘D’ for Democracy.
Since the Republicans have completely embraced white christian nationalism and authoritarian corporate fascism, the choice in the 2022 elections is clear: vote ‘D’ for Democracy.
The election season is driving us crazy so this post deals with something remarkable thanks to the scientists at NASA. Recently, NASA’s spacecraft Lucy sent back stunning photos of the Earth and the Moon from about a million miles and half a million miles away that reminds us how insignificant we are in the universe. It’s not the first to show the Earth and moon together but it’s probably one of the best.
We’re reposting a pic from July 26, 2013 when the Cassini spacecraft was still operational. That probe sent back an astonishing photo of the pale blue dot through Saturn’s rings. We thought it appropriate to add a little notation as a reality check to the denizens of planet Earth that God and all the other mythical gods were created on that insignificant speck by the species of animal known as homo sapiens. That’s right, folks: God didn’t create man; man created God.
The Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn sends a reality check to all religious people on the pale blue dot called Earth.
Shockingly, the Georgia Senate race like all others featuring looney tunes MAGA Moron Republicans is tight. Warnock, who is a reverend for Pete’s sake, is clearly the best choice but Republicans, who are supposedly the party of moral superiority, are completely backing Walker. We’re pretty sure the FBI badge he has is probably a Federal Boob Inspector prop job which he probably uses to pick up all the women he gets.
Georgia Senate candidate and christian pillar of morality Herschel Walker whips out his FBI (Federal Boob Inspector) badge to try and impress another unsuspecting female.
