It appears that our congress has reached a new level of ineptitude. According to recent polls, congressional approval is down to 10% in a Gallup poll and 11% in a recent Rasmussen poll. Of course, this is to be expected since our Congress is made up of jellyfish (Democrats) and crybabies (Republicans). This says a lot about Americans as well. It’s been this way for some time and yet we continually send these same clowns back to Washington instead of sending new faces with fresh ideas from other parties. It’s like a certain segment of our population is comfortable with this clearly dysfunctional representation. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Maybe for the next election, we should try electing new people and new parties in Washington.
At least our bought-off-and-paid-for-corporate-loving congress has agreed on a bipartisan message for all us Americans who aren’t a corporation.
The United States congress has finally come together for a special message to the non-corporate American electorate.
We’ve been on vacation kicking around in Europe. What did we miss? Uh-oh!
We knew Democrats were spineless and Republicans were shameless, but this is ridiculous. Apparently all our democratically elected representatives now think it’s a great idea to spy on each other. Right now, every resident of the former East Germany is laughing their ass off at us and rightfully so. We’ve become that country. What’s next, informal informants for our new Stasi-like surveillance state. Seriously folks, read up on the former country called East Germany and see if we’re now starting to resemble it(except of course we’re a corporatist surveillance state and not a socialist surveillance state). We had so much hope for President Obama and, like Clinton and all Democrats before him, is bending over backwards again to the right to appease the paranoid, right-wing crybabies that populate today’s Republican party (remember, the GOP is the party that started all this crap with the Patriot Act during Dubya’s administration). We’ve started looking for a new country to live in. We’re thinking the former East Germany is looking nice. At least they know enough that legalized spying is a bad idea.
President Obama has had a sudden change of heart concerning the surveillance policies of the Bush administration.
The talks to avoid the dreaded ‘fiscal cliff’ continue and yet one big Republican player has been sitting on the sidelines of the debate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a.k.a. ‘The Turtle’, has pretty much kept himself out of the discussions. But we have no doubt that in the coming days, the good senator, who famously wanted to make President Obama a one-term president, will show us the typical spirit of bi-partisanship that Republicans have exhibited the past four years and block anything the Democrats put in front of him.
The always cautious but zany Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, plays the waiting game with the looming ‘fiscal cliff’.
We’re going to wait a few days before we comment about the election (although, in general, we’re thrilled!!!). If there’s one thing everyone can agree on, its that Con-a-thon 2012 has finally and mercifully come to an end: no more robocalls; no more attack ads; no more mailers; no more inane news media pundits offering their insipid two cents worth. That’s a good thing!
What’s really sad though is that according to some reports, these elections could come close to costing $6 billion dollars. $6 Billion Dollars!!! Thanks Citizens United! Just think of all the good, positive things that could have been done with that money(rebuilding infrastructure, education, energy research), instead of spending it on negative, short term drivel, which benefits no one and exhausts all Americans. Unfortunately, electioneering has become a thriving, full time industry in America. Some news media pundits are already talking about the possible candidates for 2016. To borrow from Bill Maher’s well known catch phrase; New Rule: no talking about the 2016 election until 2016.
With the 2012 elections barely over, media pundits have already started talking about the 2016 elections, much to the chagrin of the American populace.
We’re baaaack! We’ve been away for awhile. What did we miss?
Oh yeah. A hidden video which presents the true side of Spiff Romney (more on that in upcoming posts) and a lackluster debate featuring a lying used car salesman(Romney), who was channeling deceptive, former actor/president St. Ronald Reagan, and President Obama, who by using that tried and untrue Democratic strategy of taking the high road, ended up having that deer-in-the-headlight look that Dubya sported throughout the 2004 debates with John Kerry. But what was worse was watching the media cream their shorts about how great Romney’s style was (liberal media? we think not), even though he lied his ass off again. We’re hoping President Obama is just using a rope-a-dope strategy to lure Romney into a false sense of security. In the coming month, he needs to slam Romney on his dubious record with Bain, his refusal to release his tax returns and his ‘47%’ video EVERY chance he gets. If there is one thing we’ve learned in the past fifty years, you can’t trust the Republicans to play fairly at anything.
Here’s a photo-toon from our October 10, 2004 issue which depicts ol’ Dubya in all his presidential debate glory.
In the recent debate with John Kerry, George W. Bush shows his presidential side by smirking and performing that patented Bush maneuver, the sticking out of the tongue.
Con-a-thon 2012 drags on and on and on…. Isn’t this election over yet? What’s really shocking about this election is the record amount of money spent on the elections. Thanks to the Citizens United decision by our supposedly enlightened Supreme Court, corporations can contribute the moon to buy the election for their favorite lackey, politician. Republican affiliated Super PACs alone are planning on spending one billion dollars on the election. Democrats are estimated to spend anywhere from 100-400 million dollars. Wow! What’s pathetic is that this money could be spent on something more constructive like building infrastructure, paying off America’s debt or … I don’t know…creating jobs and sorry, we don’t consider election jobs real jobs even though nowadays the election cycles seem perpetual. Is this country broken??? Nahhhhhh. Just donate to your nearest Super PAC and don’t worry your pretty little heads about it. The ‘job creators’ are taking care of everything.
MegaloCorpBank CEO J. Charles Harrington IV, explains the American election process to a clueless, middle class peon.
Here’s an article from June 2, 2007 issue which discusses the Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007 which died in the Senate and was never voted on. It was basically a compromise bill so obviously Republicans hated it, but Democrats also were not fond of it. The article also features that flip-flopper extraordinaire, Spiff Romney. Is Romney for or against illegal immigration reform? Who knows…
Illegal Immigration Bill Explained
Congress and the President are currently sponsoring a very complex bill aimed at fixing the current immigration problem in the United States and while it has supporters on both side of the aisle, it also has detractors from both parties as well. Among some of the criticisms is that the bill is too complex and that immigrants won’t be able to understand it.
Conservative Republicans like South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint have said that the bill amounts to nothing more than amnesty. “It’s amnesty, I tell you. It’s nothing but amnesty. I haven’t read this bill but it is just plain amnesty. Amnesty, amnesty, amnesty. It’s amnesty and I’m agin’ it.” He then turned and spit some tobaccy juice into a nearby spittoon.
Republican candidate for President, Mitt Romney, agreed. “I, too, have not read this bill but basically it’s amnesty plain and simple and if John McCain supports it then I don’t. Vote Romney!”
President Bush scolded his fellow Republicans. “Shame on all of you! Shame! Shame! Shame! Not for not reading the bill…hell I didn’t read it either. But for disagreeing with me; the President. I am the President! I am the President! I am the President! What are you? Democrats? Terrorists? Ooops same thing, heh-heh! But mark my words; this bill will work and it’s not amnesty… whatever that is. Now have I ever steered you wrong these past six and half years?”
One of the bill’s architects, Republican Senator John McCain, took time to try and explain the bill. “It’s really very, very simple. I mean that damn Democrat Ted Kennedy supports this crap, so it has to be easy. First of all, the illegal immigrant has to register to become a guest worker and pay us five thousand smackeroonies. Then he goes back home to El Craphola or wherever the hell he came from for a period ranging from seven to seventy years. Then after the waiting period has expired he has to show up on the border on his given day and time and is given fifteen minutes to make it across the border and sign up again or else his registration is null and void and he has to reapply and go through the whole process again. Once across, he has to take a series of tests to prove he can speak English and can indeed do important immigrant tasks like work a leaf blower, serve fast food and pick vegetables. Once a skill has been established, the immigrant can stay in the country and work for not more than minimum wage, start paying taxes and not get health care, just like a regular American. Unless of course he’s skilled at the following skills: firing a rifle, driving trucks, and marching. Then he can become an American citizen right away, get commissioned as a private in the U.S. Army and get deployed to beautiful, downtown Baghdad. See. Pure simplicity.”
On hearing the details on the bill, Mitt Romney exclaimed, “I know I said I was against the bill, but I’ve changed my mind and I think the bill is not amnesty and therefore I support it. Oops. Wait a second folks. I thought about it again and I think it’s amnesty pure and simple. No. Wait. It’s not amnesty. I support it. No. Wait. John McCain supports it. So I don’t support it. So there you have it. I’m not sure. Vote Romney!”
Illegal immigrant, Sven Jurgensen, said, “Ah, screw it! I’m going to Canada!”
More retrospective articles from those dark days of debacle called the Bush administration… This article is from our April 11, 2004 issue. The Iraq War had begun to look like a quagmire, but Dubya was staunchly defended his new tenet of American imperialism, the Bush Doctrine. Now, if you look at United States history, American has had imperialistic tendencies ever since the Spanish American War and under both Republican and Democratic administrations. But the Bush Doctrine, which essentially states the U.S. can pre-emptively invade a country if it thinks that country poses a threat, opened up a humongous can of worms, and all possible kinds of unpleasant possibilities of abuse of power and violation of civil liberties. By the way, in case you didn’t know, WMD’s were never found.
Local Man Invokes Bush Doctrine To Invade Neighbors Garage
Jared Dillman, who lives in the Cactus Vista Subdivision, invaded the garage of his neighbor, Tony Kurzbach last Saturday, claiming that he had weapons of mass destruction. Dillman cited the precedence set down by the Bush doctrine, which states that it’s okay to pre-emptively invade a place if there is a concern weapons of mass destruction might be present.
Dillman defended his actions. “Kurzbach came home last Saturday carrying this big box. I didn’t know what was in that box. It could have been a grenade launcher. It could have been anthrax. It could have been a dirty bomb. I didn’t know. But I’ve had my suspicions about Kurzbach. I mean he looks all swarthy and he’s got that unibrow thing going. He could very easily be one of…them.”
Dillman continued. “So he leaves for the night, probably to meet with some terrorists. That was my chance. I picked his lock and rummaged around his garage. I scoured the place, but unfortunately I didn’t find any WMDs. I did find some Heavy Metal CDs, though. That’s audio terrorism! So I took them. Kurzbach sometimes plays his music a little loud on the weekend and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the neighborhood be exposed to Yngwie Malmsteen.”
Kurzbach was livid at the invasion. “First of all, I’m part Italian, part Hungarian, so I’m sorry I’m a little dark and hairy. Second of all, I’m a third generation American who loves this country. I have no intention whatsoever of doing anybody any harm. That ‘box’ was a DVD player I was getting as a gift for my grandmother. That asshole busts into my garage and rips through everything. I think I’m missing my Rob Zombie CDs.”
The police say their hands are tied. “We’d really like to help,” said Officer Ted McGriff as he munched on a Krispy Kreme. “But we’re talking the Bush Doctrine. If it’s good enough for our president, who are we to argue. Besides, who really wants to listen to Whitesnake anymore? They’re so 80’s.”
Neighbors had mixed reactions. Gladys Stephans said, “I don’t think Jared was right, but then again Tony could have had a nuclear bomb. It all turned out for the best because he destroyed those damn CDs. I’ve heard just about enough of Motörhead. That’s definitely a weapon of mass destruction as far as I’m concerned.”
Mildred Dressler said, “I appreciate that I don’t have to put up with any more Ratt while I’m watching Dr. Phil, but Jared probably should apologize for trashing Tony’s garage.”
Dillman scoffed at the notion of apologizing for the intrusion and destruction. “Are you kidding me? We live in the Age of Dubya. I can be arrogant, belligerent, and do anything I want and not apologize for squat. You know. Come to think of it. I saw Mrs. Dressler carry some pretty suspicious grocery bags in from her car the other day. Time to do my patriotic duty!”
Remember Republican Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal? Well he just won re-election by a landslide. Which has us here at the Bucket wondering if he’ll be the next Republican candidate to join in the fun that is Con-a-thon 2012. He was very highly touted by the GOP in 2009 until he gave his rebuttal to President Obama’s state of the union address. Could he be the next flavor of the month for the Republicans? Here’s an article and photo-toon from our April 8, 2009 issue to refresh our memories.
Jindal Sez It’s Okay To Want Democrat Presidents To Fail
Republican Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal, who was widely panned by both parties for his less than stellar rebuttal to Obama’s State of the Union address, defended Rush Limbaugh and others who have openly wished President Obama to fail with his agenda at a recent press conference.
“Boys and girls of the United States of America,” said Jindal in a mild sing-song voice, wearing a casual red sweater, tie, slacks and sneakers. “We truly are living in exciting times aren’t we? We’ve got the very first African American President; we’ve got another thrilling season of American Idol; and our economy is on the verge of completely saying bye-bye. But you know what isn’t exciting? It’s when people say other people shouldn’t say things. And that’s what’s happening today boys and girls. Poor Republican party members like Boss Rush Limhogg are yelled at for saying innocent things like ‘I want President Obama to fail’. Poor Boss Limhogg. Poor Republicans. Why are we conservatives always the victim of mean attacks by the liberal media? That’s right boys and girls; like that sweet angel Ann Coulter says, the liberal media is bad and they’re out to get us.”
“Now I know what some of you liberals are thinking. You’re saying well didn’t Republicans say during the Bush presidency that we should always support the President no matter what? Didn’t the Republicans say things like ‘you’re either for us or against us’ or ‘people need to watch what they say’? Didn’t the Republicans say Democrats supported the terrorists? Well, yes but that was different. We had a great, brave, Republican President back then named George W. Bush. Yaaaaay! Now we have an evil, liberal, Democrat as President. Remember how bad President Clinton was? Booooooo! That means it’s perfectly okay for all good American boys and girls to say to the President, ‘You’re a liberal and you obviously hate America. Just look how much you made Glenn Beck cry. You’re a bad, bad man, so I hope you fail.’ It’s just that simple.”
“All us poor, persecuted Republicans are saying is that the only way to heal our nation’s boo-boos is with tax cuts. Yes boys and girls, tax cuts to the wealthiest of Americans are like medicine that will make all our owies better real soon. You see, rich people know best about spending and investing money, so they should have more of it. You shouldn’t have to worry your pretty little heads about something hard like investing. The smart, rich people will do that and the money will trickle down to you…in about 70 to 100 years. Giving money to dumb things like volcano monitoring and alternative transportation will only make us sad. And we want to be happy don’t we boys and girls? Besides who do you trust more: the big, bad, evil tax and spend liberal Democrat government…booooooo; or the nice, rich, corporate CEOs who only want a happy stock market…yaaaaaay! I think you all know the answer to that.”
Prominent Republicans voiced support for Jindal. Fox News personality Glenn Beck said, “This Jindal guy truly understands what it means to be a conservative Republican. I think St. Ronald Reagan would be proud. Oh God. Here I go again. I’m getting misty.” He then paused and wiped a small, small tear from his eye. “God Bless America. God Bless America.” Fellow Fox News personalities Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly rushed over and gave Beck a consoling hug. Then O’Reilly barked to the cameras, “Are you happy now, liberals?!”
Republican Party Boss, Rush Limhogg said, “I like this Jindal kid. He’s a good, useful little lackey. He knows his place. Hey! Steele! Get back here! You missed a spot on my boots. And take off your hat! I need an ashtray.”
Most conservative Republicans from all over the country responded favorably to Jindal’s statement. Todd Murphy of Rancid Holler, Georgia said, “Oh man I feel so…ummm…what’s the word I’m lookin’ fer…good. I mean I think that the Democrats are so …ummm…bad. But what Jindal done said, I think Republicans will do real….ummm…good.”
Pete Junkins of Curtisvilleton, Missouri said, “I like Jindal and all but I’m still gonna vote for Sarah Palin in 2012. I hear she hunts wolves in a bikini. Man that’s so hot!”
Jean Grayhill of Felderkarb, Tennessee said, “He talks to me like I’m an eight year old and you know what…I like it. The easier my leaders make it for me to understand, the better. I really don’t like thinking all that much. Oh look; a shiny nickel. I’m going to stare at it for a while.”
Reverend Fred Devlin of Dillweed, Virginia said, “I think with a Jindal-Palin ticket in 2012, we will most definitely see the Rapture. Come and get us Lord!”
Jeb Dean Bob Jones of Burnt Cesspool, Texas said, “All I know is I just got done watching Glenn Beck and I can’t stand to see a grown man fake cry like a little lady. I’m ready to join the revolution. President Chuck Norris of Texas forever! Where’s my AK-47? Yeeeeeee-haaaaaawwwww!”
Jindal closed his conference by saying, “Now everybody get to bed now and dream little dreams of fast cars, guns and Jesus. Sleep tight and don’t let the liberals bite.”
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal addresses the good little boys and girls of the United States on the Republican cure for all of our nation’s owies. Yay!
