Archive for April 27, 2018

If You’ve Got The Money, Mulvaney Has The Time

One of Donald Trump’s promises upon coming into office was draining the swamp. As we’ve commented many times before, America’s CEO/Dictator has not only not drained the swamp, he’s restocked it, mostly with corporate friendly hacks like Scott Pruitt who have no qualms on dismantling our government protections while spending millions of taxpayer’s dollars doing it. Which brings us to Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Mick Mulvaney.

As CNN reported, Mulvaney said the swampiest thing you could possibly say. Mulvaney proclaimed proudly that “What you do here matters. We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress. If you were a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you were a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you. If you came from back home and sat in my lobby, I talked to you without exception regardless of the financial contributions.” Or in other words, if you’ve got the money, I’ve got the time. Hardly the words you want to hear from a supposedly ‘honest’ government official who also claims to be catholic. But then again, the Trump administration hypocritically spews forth lies and deception every second of every day.

In addition, Mulvaney wants to eliminate public access to the consumer complaints database at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Therefore, they can give financial shysters even more power to wield over unsuspecting consumers because in America, profit is more important than people. You’ve got to screw the other guy before he screws you and if you don’t have money, you are shit out of luck, buddy. Still think capitalism is a christian economic system?

OMB director, carnival barker and corporate lackey, Mick Mulvaney, hustles plutocrats for funds and special privileges in the completely honest and not swampy at all Trump administration with his mantra of "If you've got the money, I've got the time".

OMB director, carnival barker and corporate lackey, Mick Mulvaney, hustles plutocrats for funds and special privileges in the completely honest and not swampy at all Trump administration.

Ryan The Rat Jumps Ship

Paul Ryan made big news recently by announcing that he will not be seeking re-election for his congressional seat, thus ending his reign of mediocrity as Speaker of the House. Of course, this is after he emphatically denied rumors he was going to resign. We’ve had nothing but contempt for this Ayn Rand acolyte ever since he was Spiff Romney’s vice-presidential choice back in 2012. Go ahead: check our archives. Now, claiming that he wants to ‘spend more time with his family’, it’s obvious that he wants to jump clear of the exploding clusterf*ck that is the Trump administration, which he supported despite weak and ineffectual statements to the contrary.

Ryan proudly claims that he’s achieved what he wanted to do so it’s time to go home. But his dubious achievement is a tax cut which will only benefit the wealthiest Americans, add 1.9 trillion dollars to the deficit and burden most Americans in the future with the bill that they really can’t afford. This from a supposed fiscal hawk who cried and whined that Obama was adding to the deficit with Obamacare and then when Republicans seized power, they immediately augment it. So between Bush’s idiotic war in Iraq and Trump’s tax cuts, we’re talking close to four trillion dollars added to the deficit by Republicans, who are supposed to be the masters at fiscal responsibility. What a bunch of hypocrites!

Paul Ryan has been nothing but a lackey for the plutocrats of corporate America. We here at the Bucket would just like to say good riddance and don’t let the door hit your greedy, feckless ass on the way out.

Speaker of the House and Ayn Rand acolyte, Paul Ryan, plans to jump off the GOP sinking ship now that he's achieved his dream of giving plutocrats a huge tax break while burdening America with debilitating debt for decades to come

Speaker of the House and Ayn Rand acolyte, Paul Ryan, plans to jump off the GOP sinking ship now that he’s achieved his dream of giving plutocrats a huge tax break while burdening America with debilitating debt for decades to come.

Trump’s Newspeak Lackeys

America’s CEO/Dictator, Donald Trump, continued his assault on democracy and the freedom of the press with his whining about all the ‘fake news’ media outlets who have the utter nerve to broadcast his ludicrous, insipid, asinine, daily statements. And then our mendacious, duplicitous liar-in-chief has the audacity to say the media makes him look bad.

But what is really Orwellian is the fact that Sinclair Broadcasting Group has recently sent out to its news affiliates scripted news that news anchors must read; if they don’t…they’re fired. Sinclair Broadcasting Group is a extremely conservative and extremely aggressive in pushing its agenda on America. John Oliver did an outstanding piece on them last July. It’s no surprise that they’re taking the Fox News (a.k.a. Republican Propaganda Network) route and blatantly calling any news which is critical of our orange haired man-child, as being fake news.

This latest stunt by Sinclair is frightening because it shows the right wing media outlets are moving us more and more in the direction of Nazi Germany’s propaganda machine (also very right wing) which so effectively and brutally killed any kind of free speech and free press, which are cornerstones of our democracy and separates us from authoritarian regimes like Russia and China. We find it ironic that for eight years, conservative Republican outlets like Fox News vilified, mocked and derided President Obama at every turn and yet Obama let them exercise their right to free speech. He didn’t threaten them or call them names. Now that Trump’s in charge, nobody can criticize him. Of course, Fox did the same thing when ol’ Dubya was the decider (if you’re not for Bush, you’re for the terrorists). The Republicans who allow this disgrace of a presidency to continue will hopefully be bitch slapped this fall by the voters. Then, maybe, just maybe, Trumpty-Dumpty will finally have his great fall.

A local Sinclair Action McNews team warns viewers of fake news while touting the totally not fake news awesomeness of American CEO/Dictator, Donald Trump

A local Sinclair Action McNews team warns viewers of fake news while touting the totally not fake news awesomeness of American CEO/Dictator, Donald Trump.

Spaceship Earth

The Trump administration’s assault on the environment continues to go unabated. We’ve commented several times on the Republican’s War on Science, so much so that we’ve created a category for it. But Scott Pruitt continues to dismantle our environmental protections, all to benefit the greed of oil, gas, coal, lumber, mining and other companies which have bought the loyalty of Republican ‘lawmakers’. Why this past week, Pruitt’s EPA announced it wants to lower gas efficiency standards for automobiles not only because that extra care and concern about the environment is cutting into the corporate executives profit too much but also because President Obama put them into place. And they’re auctioning off federal land for oil and gas development. Our capitalistic overlords are using up resources, killing species and fouling our environment like we’ve got a Planet B ready to travel to when we’ve completely trashed our own precious Earth. But guess what…there is no planet B!

One of the 20th century’s greatest scientific minds, Stephen Hawking recently passed away. We here at the Bucket liked Hawking, but editor Dex Rexter, who used to be a huge supporter of human space colonization (with memberships in the Planetary Society and the L5 society), after years of research on the subject, profoundly disagrees with many scientists, including Hawking and Bill Nye, who are calling for immediate human colonization of Mars and outer space. Yes, it would be fun to play Star Trek or Star Wars and zip around the universe in a spaceship. But to seriously consider extended space travel or colonization, we have to develop artificial gravity spaceships first. The best way to do this is the way the space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey did it: using a rotating wheel. The astronauts would experience centripetal acceleration, which would mimic the gravitational force humans need for normal activity. But we’re not even close to developing anything of that sort, which would be a colossal endeavor financially, not to mention logistically. And let’s say we actually get humans to Mars. We would have to completely terraform the surface and atmosphere to make it inhabitable: another gargantuan undertaking.

Like Buckminster Fuller stated a half century ago, we need to look at the big picture and see the Earth as what is it: a spaceship with all living things on the planet as inhabitants of the spaceship. Instead of continuing to befoul and pollute our planet like there’s no tomorrow, it is paramount that every human on Earth, to take action and conserve our planet. It’s necessary for people in the industrial, capitalistic countries to start eschewing materialism and living more simply, like the people in lesser industrialized countries, if we are to save our planet…and ourselves.

The bottom line is this: We will never find a better spaceship than planet Earth. It has everything we need to survive and live happy, peaceful, wonderful lives. The best, most efficient solution is not to put humanity out into the hostile environs of space or on a desolate planet like Mars, but for everyone to change our lifestyles and preserve the already spectacular life on our home planet: Earth.

Dear denizens of planet Earth: There is no Planet B. Let's start taking care of our own wonderful planet. The best spaceship possible is planet Earth.

Dear denizens of planet Earth: There is no Planet B. Let’s start taking care of our own spectacular planet.