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.
Believe it or not, we used to post non-political photo-toons on a regular basis between 2003 and 2009. Back in the early aughts the Waldo phenomenon was somehow still riding high, but people like us here at the Bucket had become annoyed by the bespectacled dork with a penchant for blending in. Here’s a photo-toon from our August 28, 2003 issue showing that good ol’ Waldo may be getting a little lonely.
These days Waldo wants to be seen . . . desperately!
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.
BilgeBucket Lists were a staple for our site between 2005 and 2009. They’re basically our version of Top Ten Lists which were made popular by David Letterman on his Late Show. We’ve already reposted many lists in our category BilgeBucket Lists. Since Super Bowl LVII is coming up this week right here in Arizona, we’ve decided to do our part in building excitement and repost a list from out January 11, 2006 issue which delved into the top rejected halftime shows for Super Bowl XL which took place in Detroit, Michigan between Pittsburgh and Seattle. The halftime show of that Super Bowl featured the Rolling Stones. Just two years prior, the infamous wardrobe malfunction took place. By perusing our list below, just think of the glorious entertainment we might have had.
Kevin Federline performs the soon to be smash hits from his upcoming CD while reclining in his La-Z-Boy
The Performance Art Group The Masturbators
Clem Haywood and his Farting Pigs
Howler monkeys reenact the entire first half of gridiron action
Kalamazoo resident Fanny Jean Jones crochets a stylish poncho…LIVE!…ONSTAGE!
Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay and Dennis Hastert do a snappy song and dance routine to Jailhouse Rock
Tom Cruise jumps up and down on a couch while demonstrating his many cocky poses
Laura Bush performs her bawdy stand up comedy routine
Hillary Clinton performs her bawdy stand up comedy routine
William Huong and Celine Dion sing a medley of Clay Aiken hits
Poetry Slam featuring Donald Rumsfeld reciting the poems of 50 Cent
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 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.
Once again, an Arizona politician is embarrassing the state on a national level and this time it’s not a Republican. In a valiant bipartisan effort to be just as bad as Arizona’s GOP, Democrat Krysten Sinema has pretty much ended the Voting Rights Bill which Joe Biden and the Democrats have been pushing that will preserve the right to vote for all Americans, not just rich white ones. But Ms. Sinema and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin have decided that defending the filibuster is more important than protecting democracy, much to the delight of the Republicans, most of whom still think the 2020 election was stolen by Joe Biden.
So, what’s the fricking deal with Ms. Sinema? We were psyched when she got elected in 2018. She had built herself up as a liberal and her credentials were solid. She had protested the Iraq War and had solidly supported Democratic causes. She’s even a member of the LGBTQ community. Basically, she checks all the boxes you want for a Democrat. To be fair, she has voted in favor of most of the bills Biden and the rest of the Democrats have pushed through. But she also supported several pieces of legislation during the TFG’s administration that the pro-Trump Republicans favored. So, again, what’s the deal?
Ms. Sinema seems to be under the delusion that she is some sort of master of bipartisanship. Somehow, only she has the grrrl power ability to reach across the aisle and sing Kumbaya with the likes of Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz. And predictably, the Republicans like Turtle Boy love her, but only because she is being such a tool. Did Ms. Sinema not see the Capitol riots? The Republicans attempted a coup to overthrow a legitimate election! The 21st century GOP cannot and should not be trusted on anything! The voting rights bill needs to pass urgently – NOW – or the Republicans will absolutely put an end to democracy if they ever get power back. This is obvious! They had no problem obstructing Obama’s Supreme Court nomination in 2016, claiming it was an election year, and then hypocritically pushing their right wing nomination through in 2020, which was an election year.
But Ms. Sinema has some kind of strange attraction to the filibuster which she sees as a means of bipartisanship but in actuality is a ugly method of obstructionism. During the Civil Rights Era, Martin Luther King said this about the filibuster: “I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting.” The filibuster has an awful history, especially in the last forty years, which is right about the time that gridlock seized Congress. Yes, if you want to blame the lack of progress on any meaningful legislation for the last forty years, you can blame the embrace of the filibuster or filibluster or Phil E. Buster or whatever you want to call this piece of rancid piece of obstructionism, by both parties (or corporate ass-kissing syndicates as we call them here at the Bucket). A common excuse by Democrats for not voting in elections is “what’s the point”. They claim that there’s no difference between the two parties and that both worship at the altar of capitalism, which is true. But the Democrats have pushed forth legislation in the past like Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act and Medicare which has truly helped millions of Americans. Biden’s Build Back Better program and the Voting Rights Act are important pieces of legislation that will help millions. The American people overwhelmingly support these bills, especially the ones for infrastructure. But for some strange reason, Ms. Sinema wants to preserve the vile, obstructionist wrench that is the filibuster. If we get rid of it and pass the bills, Sinema opines that when the next election comes around and Republicans take back the House and Senate, then they will pass all their right wing legislation and do whatever they want – just like they did to put Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court with a simple majority vote – with no consequences. But if the Democrats actually PASS THE BILLS AND DO SOMETHING, then maybe they won’t lose the elections. Maybe the electorate will realize the Democrats mean business and won’t roll over and play dead every time the GOP clear their throats like they’ve done for the past twenty years.
Yes folks, Ms. Sinema seems to have pulled the bait-and-switch with all us Arizonans who voted for her thinking she would pursue progressive values. But it appears she’s given in to pressure from corporate interests. Since we’re her constituents, we regularly receive email correspondence from her office proudly touting her work for Veteran’s Rights, which is good. But it’s also not controversial at all. We know of no one who is against giving Veterans aid or assistance. This is like saying that you support breathing. But yet on the vital issues like preserving the right to vote for every American, Ms. Sinema seems to be clueless or bought out by corporate interests or bought out by the GOP or all three. At least the Arizona Democratic Party has announced they are very upset with her support of the filibuster and are looking to other candidates like Ruben Gallego in 2024 when Sinema’s term expires. Her poll numbers are in the toilet and good luck getting the Republicans support if she switches parties. Sinema is just a sassy fool and useful tool right now for the GOP’s fascist agenda. One thing’s for sure: Ms. Cutesy Pie Bait-and-Switcher won’t be a Senator too much longer. Arizonans are already sick of her schtick . Citizens from across the nation are sick of her schtick . But at least she’ll have a job at Fox News, a.k.a. the Republican Propaganda Network, when she’s handed her walking papers in 2024. Then she can sip her sangria, buy more sassy grrrl clothes, count all her money and swoon at the thought of Phil E. Buster.
For some strange reason, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema seems to be enamored with the ugliest of Senate procedures, the filibuster (or Phil E. Buster) which prevents progress of any kind for the Democrat’s Build Back Better and Voting Rights Act legislation. But at least this cheeky grrrl has sangria, sassy clothes, lots of money from corporate donors and new friends in the GOP.
One of the more intriguing recent developments has been the whole GameStop story and how a bunch of neophyte traders on Reddit spanked the greedy hedge fund pirate plutocrats of Wall Street and beat them at their own game.
We won’t go into depth on explaining what happened. We’ll let this article explain the proceedings. Or you can let Tom Tomorrow at This Modern World explain it in cartoon format. But in a nutshell, a group of investors on Reddit, a group called WallStreetBets or WSB, decided they were going to teach the greedy hedge fund managers a lesson. One tactic hedge fund managers use is to short sell stocks. They look for stocks that are failing and basically bet that they’ll continue to die. So they borrow shares to sell and buy all the stock at a lower price before paying off their lender and usually make a fortune. GameStop is a brick-and-mortar video game retailer whose days are numbered because of online video gaming and the pandemic, so they were on the hedge funders lists of future profits. But WSB stepped in and bought stock so that the stock price rose precipitously, which means that the hedge fund managers, who were betting that the stock prices would fall, lost money, BIG TIME. We’re talking billions of dollars. The trend continued for other failing businesses like AMC, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Blockbuster, whose stock price rose 3,990% in a week.
If you say this sounds like rigging the system like that of a casino, you are absolutely right. The WSB people showed that the hedge fund managers have been using Wall Street as a casino for years to get filthy rich with absolutely no repercussions. Of course, now that WSB did the same thing, plutocrats are crying foul and proclaiming that there needs to be regulations in place. You see, only plutocrats are supposed to win money on the stock market, while the rest of us working stiffs just work our asses off making these avaricious assholes richer. So, the greedy corporatists are fine with no regulations until they’re beaten at their own game and then they cry like babies.
We’re looking forward to see what kind of regulations Senators like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have in store for the greedy fat cat capitalists in the next couple years. It could get interesting, folks.
A well heeled member of the plutocracy expresses his utter disdain that common peons are making money at the Wall Street casino.
One of the best things about twice Impeached former CEO/Dictator Donald Trump being out of office is not waking up every morning in a cold sweat fearing what asinine thing the petulant man child tweeted at three o’clock in the morning. Now that the social media giants have pulled their collective heads out of their asses and suspended the orange-haired doofus’ accounts, sanity can slowly return to America.
One of the things we used to do here, (back before Trump) was post photo-toons and other items which weren’t really political in nature. Now that some normalcy seems to be returning, at least on a temporary basis, we hope to return to those halcyon days when we could post funny items.
We’re big Bernie Sanders fans here at the Bucket and we loved the picture of Bernie at the inauguration that has become an Internet sensation. We’re kind of late to the party, but here’s our take on that meme as he aims to do battle with the new crazies of the alt-right like Marjorie Taylor Greene, a.k.a. MTG, a.k.a. MT Head. Yes, this new wing nut is strong with the Q but then Bernie is strong with the force and the space lasers.
The force is strong with Bernie Sanders as he prepares to do battle with new right wing nut jobs like Marjorie Taylor Greene, a.k.a. MTG, a.k.a. MT Head.
Fast forward to 2020 and look who’s trying to wear a tan suit; none other than Moscow Mitch “Turtle Boy” McConnell. As far as who wore it better, it’s not even close. Obama looks like a super suave, debonair CHAMP while McConnell looks like a salesman at a discount mattress warehouse trying to sell you a slightly used model . . . or in other words . . . a CHUMP.
Former President Barack Obama wore his tan suit like a Champ, while Moscow Mitch “Turtle Boy” McConnell wore his tan suit like a Chump, looking more like a salesman at a discount mattress warehouse trying to sell you a slightly used model.
Since we’re talking about the gawdawful stupidity of collegiate and professional sports, it’s time for another edition of Helmet Hilarity. We think the funniest thing about football and collegiate sports are some of the school and team mascots. For instance, the Banana Slugs of the University of California at Santa Cruz or the Artichokes of Scottsdale Community College evoke a hilarious image, especially if you saw a big banana slug or an artichoke depicted on a football player’s helmet. So, in this vein we present our feature, Helmet Hilarity, featuring the helmets of obscure collegiate teams (or future football teams) and their unconventional, zany mascots.
Today we present a possible new contender for the Redskins. We did a BilgeBucket List several years ago about the re-branding theme; the top new names for the Washington Redskins. While the most logical new moniker would be Warriors, (you could keep the current color scheme and even the classic spear helmet), we’d like to see one of the names we suggested from our Bucket List get chosen. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if the team name was changed to the D.C. Cherry Blossoms. We can just picture the pink helmet with a big cluster of cherry blossoms depicted on it, with pink, creme and cherry red uniforms. What manly man, testosterone crazed football fan in D.C. wouldn’t love it, amirite? Just imagine the excitement of the brand new Thanksgiving Day rivalry between the Cowboys and the Cherry Blossoms. Getting goosebumps yet? Or how about the ‘fierce mascot’ match-up between the Cardinals and the Cherry Blossoms? You could bring a picnic lunch and take a nap. ‘Cuz you know . . . there’s nothing more important in life for Americans than football and just like Family Guy needed Conway Twitty, Trump and the Republicans desperately need the distraction of professional and collegiate sports to obfuscate their gross incompetence and malfeasance to voters even if it means that the athletes could catch the coronavirus, which many baseball players have done already. But then again, sacrificing one’s health for the good of the economy is what living in Trumpland is all about. So, GO CHERRY BLOSSOMS!!!
The football helmet and jerseys of the renamed Redskins, now called the D.C. Cherry Blossoms, complete with pink, creme and cherry red color scheme which will surely please all the macho manly man football fans in the Washington D.C. area.
