Syria: Shock And Awe Redux

We were all ready to do a post on Vice President and modern day Puritan, Mike Pence, when BOOM…American CEO/Dictator decided to create a distraction to the investigations into Russians meddling on his behalf during the 2016 elections and bomb Syria. Officially, Trump proclaimed that he saw the images of children who were gassed by Syrian leader, Bashar Al-Assad, and at the urging of ‘heartbroken’ daughter Ivanka, had to do something. But of course, that sympathy doesn’t extend to letting Syrian women and children enter the United States as refugees. What’s more, he contacted the Russians before hand to tell them of his plans. The Syrian military knew about the attacks as well. By most accounts, the attacks did little damage to Syria and raises more questions that it answers. What’s interesting is that some Democrats, like Chuck Schumer, supported Trump’s move and Hillary Clinton suggested taking action a few hours before Trump did. But this certainly seems like a classic ‘wagging the dog’ moment.

But the most appalling development of this affair was the nauseating obsequiousness of the main stream corporate media as they fawned and practically had orgasms in praising Trump’s action. It reminded us of the ‘shock and awe’ bombing of Baghdad at the beginning of that clusterf*ck known as the Iraq War. We expected moderate GOP hawks such as John McCain and Lindsay Graham to be giddy about the bombings. But media pundits like Fareed Zakaria said Trump “Donald Trump became the President of the United States”. Brian Williams took the prize for the biggest ass kisser. We lost all respect for Williams way back in 2005 when he suggested that the government could pay journalists to promote a certain viewpoint. (Can you say unethical, boys and girls.) Then there was his admission that he made up some stories about the Iraq War back in 2015. Williams repugnantly called the bombings in Syria “beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments”. Good grief guys…get a room already. Why is Williams even on the air any more? He should be putting his talents to work where they belong: selling used cars.

But it worked, like it always does for Republicans. They create distractions and their buddies in the corporate media compliantly shift their focus and forget about previous criminal activities. Talk about short term attention spans. We’re having serious doubts now that anything will come of these investigations into Trump’s connection with Russia.

So basically, for future reference, in the coming years of the Trump administration; if things are going badly, just expect a bombing in a country in the Middle East and the media will lighten up and all will conveniently be forgotten.

Corporate media 'journalists' Brian Williams and Fareed Zakaria dutifully kiss the ass of American CEO/Dictator over his beautifully presidential bombings in Syria.
Corporate media ‘journalists’ Brian Williams and Fareed Zakaria dutifully kiss the ass of American CEO/Dictator over his beautifully presidential bombings in Syria.

Trump’s Lapdog In The Dog House

In a stunning reversal of fortune, California Republican representative Devin ‘Fido’ Nunes, recused himself as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the Trump administration’s ties with Russia during the 2016 election.

Nunes has received much criticism from Democrats and moderate Republicans for appearing to be CEO/Dictator Donald Trump’s lapdog. In the past couple of weeks, Fido has gone out of his way to make sure Donald Trump knew what was going on during the proceedings, which is a huge violation of House rules, federal law and ethics. But hey…when has that stopped the Republicans before. He is now under investigation for possibly disclosing classified information. Fido’s colleague, Rep. Ted Yoho, even said in defense of his friend, “Nunes is a man of high integrity and character”. Then he went on to say “You gotta keep in mind who he works for. He works for the president. He answers to the president.” No. No he doesn’t. Devin ‘Fido’ Nunes works for the constituents of the 22nd congressional district in California, not the President. He should put the people’s interest first since this is…you know…A DEMOCRACY.

Yep, Fido Nunes has been a good boy for his authoritarian master. We have no doubt he’ll be rewarded for his service like the good little lapdog he is.

American CEO/Dictator Donald Trump, lavishes praise upon his lapdog, Devin 'Fido' Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for breaking federal and ethical laws to keep him informed of anything bad the FBI is saying about him.
American CEO/Dictator Donald Trump, lavishes praise upon his lapdog, Devin ‘Fido’ Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for breaking federal and ethical laws to keep him informed of anything bad the FBI is saying about him.

Republican Crimes Against Nature

While the Republican Health Care Plan failure, Trump’s Russia connections and a multitude of other daily flak from Trump’s bumbling acolytes like Devin Nunes, Sean Spicer and Jared Kushner have taken center stage, the Republican’s war on the environment has commenced in the background and it doesn’t look good for nature, science and the general well being of every living thing on this planet.

Trump approved going ahead with the Keystone XL pipeline despite protests from native Americans and environmentalists citing that it will only exacerbate climate change. But of course, new EPA administrator and lawyer (non-scientist), Scott Pruitt, despite overwhelming scientific consensus by climate scientists and experts, says that climate change isn’t real. Basically, Pruitt is just a lackey for the fossil fuel industry and will anything to deceive the public about climate change. Therefore, the Keystone XL pipeline can commence and oil barons like Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, can reap the benefits.

Unfortunately, the environment and humans will suffer the horrible consequences. It turns out that the December oil spill of 530,000 gallons in North Dakota (the biggest in that state’s history) was three times larger than previously reported. This brings to light a couple of things. One, the oil spill barely got coverage from the corporate media because that would put the oil industry in a bad light and might hurt business. And two, the oil industry lied about the size of the spill because reporting the real size would put the oil industry in a bad light and might hurt business. Get the picture. The only thing that matters is business and profit. If there’s an oil leak, learn to love the taste of oil in your drinking water.

To illustrate how inept and corrupt the corporate media is about reporting anything bad about the oil industry, take a look at this website which reports oil and gas pipeline incidents from 2010 to the present. 3,300 incidents! That’s a hell of a lot of incidents! So why haven’t we the citizens heard about them in the news media?

The Republican’s war on science is nothing new. Read the books Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney and Crimes Against Nature by Robert Kennedy Jr., both released during the Bush Administration, and you’ll see that the GOP has repeatedly put short term profit of the coal, gas and oil industries (major contributors to the GOP coffers) above long term consequences for the environment. To illustrate this, CEO/Dictator Trump signed an executive order last week which rolls back more of Clean Power Plan Obama’s regulations and enabling the oil, gas and coal industries to pollute to their hearts content. According to the GOP’s spiel, they’re getting rid of job killing regulations. Big deal, so we can have jobs that kill people in the long run? Besides that the promise of jobs coming back is another con. According the article linked above, “rolling back the Clean Power Plan and other environmental regulations won’t restore jobs”. So Trump and his Republican cohorts are once again conning the American public. But this con will have nasty repercussions for all of us, in the form of more pollution, risk of exposure to hazardous chemicals and gases and creating an unhealthy environment for humans and other species.

EPA director Scott Pruitt and Secretary of State and oil baron, Rex Tillerson, announce that the Keystone Pipeline will be constructed and that climate change and oil leaks don't exist despite obvious evidence that they do.
EPA director Scott Pruitt and Secretary of State/Oil Baron, Rex Tillerson, perform their patented gaslighting trick on the citizens of planet Earth by denying the existence of climate change, oil leaks and anything else which may disrupt their agenda of profiting off the environment at any and all cost.

Trump: Modern Day Golden Calf

It’s April Fools Day, so what better way to celebrate it then by poking fun at the biggest fool in America and all the fools who support and enable him.

The more the Trump administration falters, the more his enablers come to the forefront and not only lie their asses to the public, but also to themselves. We’ve mentioned again and again in our posts, it’s absolutely astounding that anybody bought Trump’s shit during the campaign season, but here it is April 2017 and he’s president of the most powerful country on Earth. This isn’t an elaborate April Fools Day prank; this is, extremely unfortunately,…REALITY.

But the biggest joke is on the christians who voted for this selfish, greedy, egotistical, materialistic bigoted megalomaniac, who isn’t like Jesus at all. As a matter of fact, he’s the polar opposite. How can christians justify and enable this man, who claims to be for the common person, but yet pursues policies which will leave them impoverished, sick and broken while making his rich, plutocrat brethren even richer? Like we said a couple posts ago, if you make under 100k a year and you vote Republican, you are voting against your own self interests and you are a sucker and a fool. Or to put it in biblical terms, you are worshiping a modern day golden calf and that calf’s name is Donald Trump.

Donald Trump - Modern Day Golden Calf
The biblical story of the golden calf has resurrected itself in the form of American CEO/Dictator Donald Trump.

 

What A Bunch Of Suckers

With the recent failure of the Republican Healthcare Plan or the American Health Care Act or Ryancare or Trumpcare, you would think that more of the people who voted for Trump would be realizing that he isn’t what he claimed to be. Although Trump’s approval numbers are abysmal, he’s still popular with most of his base. We’ve noted before that he is the master bait and switcher and that a few Trumpeters have come to the conclusion, albeit way too slowly, that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), while certainly not perfect or ideal, is actually a good thing and a good first step to what this country really needs: single payer health care.

So it brings us back to our continual bewilderment which we’ve talked about ad infinitum before: how the hell such an obvious con artist like Trump won the election. Why would anyone who made under 100k a year vote for a man who obviously supports the rich and wealthy and has proven it so far in his administration? He has loaded his cabinet with billionaire plutocrats and people whose only interest is in the well being of corporations, their stockholders and their own investment portfolios. His failed healthcare plan gave tax relief to the richest Americans. He’s admitted that his proposed tax plan would favor the wealthy. He’s also just signed a bill which repeals protection for workers from wage theft from unscrupulous employers, proving that in any given conflict, he will side with the rich executives and not the middle class and poor workers. But this isn’t just characteristic of Trump, the whole Republican party has been relentlessly cruel to the poor.  But yet the workers of this country continue deluding themselves that they’re temporarily embarrassed millionaires and worship the selfish, egotistical, greedy, ultra- materialistic, ultra-competitive assholes who populate the GOP.

So what do you call people who make less than 100k a year and yet vote for Republicans: Suckers!

What do you call people who make less than 100k a year and vote Republican: Suckers!
Many Trump and Republican supporters must face the ugly truth: they’re a bunch of suckers.

Präsident Peinlichkeit

Another day, another embarrassment from the Donald Trump administration. This time it’s Donald Trump’s meeting with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel. Germany has been one of America’s staunchest allies since the end of World War II and certainly since reunification of West Germany and East Germany in 1990. Germany is not only one of the strongest economies in the world, it has emerged as one of the strongest democracies. They’ve really gotten their act together in the 21st century so we’re fans of the die Deutscher here at the Bucket. Which is why, to us, Trump’s actions macht kein Sinn.

First of all Trump reiterated awkwardly his baseless claim that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower to a bewildered Merkel. Then he refuses to shake hands with her, although he claims to not have heard her request. Even if he didn’t hear her, his body language during the meeting was one of a petulant child refusing to eat his broccoli. He clearly wanted to be at his Mar-a-lago resort golfing rather than meeting with a powerful democratic world leader who is far more intelligent than he is. Every day, Trump produces one imbecilic act after another. His administration has fast become an embarrassment of embarrassments. Is it any wonder that his approval ratings are historically abysmal. It kind of makes us want to move to Deutschland.

American CEO/Dictator and petulant child Donald Trump throws a temper tantrum because he has to meet with a world leader who is not only smarter than he is, but is also a woman: Germany's Angela Merkel.
American CEO/Dictator and petulant child Donald Trump throws a temper tantrum because he has to meet with a world leader who is not only smarter than he is, but is also a woman: Germany’s Angela Merkel.

Rewind: Journalism’s Manly Man

Here’s the last entry in our brief retrospective of journalism’s clown prince and go-to Donald Trump interviewer and ass kisser, Tucker Carlson. His latest hard hitting question of Donald Trump: “What do you do at the end of the day? What do you read? What do you watch?” Wow! What gutsy journalism! The funny thing is that Trump answered that he loves to read but doesn’t read much any more. And the books Trump recommends everybody reads? Why they’re about Donald Trump, of course.

But we’d like to remind everyone of one of Carlson’s more stunningly stupid comments way back in 2007. On his MSNBC show, Carlson stated that then presidential candidate Barack Obama, “seemed like kind of a wuss.” This coming from a man who regularly wore a bow tie and dressed like Steve Urkel until about 2006. Yes America; Tucker Carlson is not only journalism’s clown prince, but he’s also journalism’s manly man. For a partial list of Obama’s accomplishment’s see this post. One noteworthy item on the list: he eliminated the world’s #1 terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Not bad for a ‘wuss’, eh Carlson.

This photo-toon is from our July 19, 2007 issue.

MSNBC talk show host and manly man, Tucker Carlson, recently stated that Barack Obama "seems like kind of a wuss." This from the man, who until recently dressed like Steve Urkel.
MSNBC talk show host and manly man tough guy, Tucker Carlson, recently stated that Barack Obama “seems like kind of a wuss.” This from the man, who until recently dressed like Steve Urkel.

Rewind: Journalism’s Clown Prince

One unfortunate consequence of Donald Trump becoming CEO/Dictator of America, is that the conservative ‘journalists’ are scurrying out from the sewer drains to fill up slots in the corporate news media in the Republican’s divide and conquer strategy of establishing dominance in all aspects of the media spectrum. So who does Fox News, a.k.a. the Republican Propaganda Network call on to take Megyn Kelly’s slot (she’s spreading conservative ideology over at NBC now)? Why none other than that former bow tie wearing, smart ass, frat boy, Tucker Carlson.

We thought that Carlson was going to be banished to the Daily Caller hinterlands thanks to the Obama administration. But noooooooo. He’s been drinking the Trump kool-aid and lo and behold, he’s suddenly back at Fox News as the chief ball tickler for Donald Trump. When they need a ‘tough looking’ interview that’s really just a firm kiss to Trump’s ass, they call on journalism’s clown prince. Jack Shafer has a decent analysis of this so called journalist and how to make sure he fails again. And who can forget Jon Stewart’s epic slam of Carlson on Crossfire back in 2004.

This photo-toon is from our May 16, 2006 issue.

Conservative talk show host and clown prince of journalism, Tucker Carlson, ditched his nerdy looking bow tie and started wearing attire that more closely reflects his journalistic skills.
Conservative talk show host, Tucker Carlson, ditched his nerdy looking bow tie and started wearing attire that more closely reflects his journalistic skills.

GOP’s Compassionate Christian Healthcare Plan

The Republicans have released their healthcare plan that will replace the Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare) and surprise, surprise, it sucks. There’s plenty to hate about this plan called the American Health Care Act(AHCA or Trumpcare); so much so that the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association, American Nurses Association and AARP (among numerous others) have all come out against it. John Oliver did a brilliant and humorous analysis on the plan Sunday night.

So where millions obtained affordable healthcare under Obamacare, it is estimated by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that 24 million will lose access under Trumpcare and would have devastating consequences for the old and poor. Not only that, the wealthiest Americans would get enormous tax benefits from the plan. We’re wondering what Jesus would say about the Republican’s compassionate christian effort to deny basic healthcare services to the poor, sick and elderly.

Capitalist Jesus, who is also very Republican, applauds the new Republican healthcare plan, which will compassionately make getting basic medical services more difficult for the poor and elderly while giving enormous tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.
Capitalist Jesus, who is also very Republican, applauds the new Republican healthcare plan, which will compassionately make getting basic medical services more difficult for the poor and elderly while giving enormous tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.

Ben Carson’s Slavery Alternative Facts

We knew from Con-a-thon 2016 that Ben Carson was pretty inept, but Wow! Despite warning everyone that he wasn’t qualified to hold a cabinet position, Carson accepted CEO/Dictator Donald Trump’s appointment to be secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) even though Carson had no qualifications.

Well in his first official address, Carson brought out some big time alternative facts by stating that African Americans came to America as immigrants ‘to a land of dreams and opportunity’. Yeah that’s right everyone. In the warped minds of conservatives, slaves were coming voluntarily to America to work their dream jobs of working sun up to sun down every day for no pay and maybe some food and water if they worked hard enough (thirty lashes if they didn’t). Remember when Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly tried to push that crap that slavery wasn’t all that bad on the public last year. Well, Ben Carson is now drinking the Kool-Aid and blathering this crap to the masses, thus proving how truly unqualified he is. Seriously, how was this man a brain surgeon. We wouldn’t even allow him to cut our steaks let alone cut into our brains.

Actor Samuel L. Jackson had the best retort to Carson’s inanity. He responded on Twitter ““OK!! Ben Carson …. I can’t! Immigrants ? In the bottom of SLAVE SHIPS??!!” Later he doubled down by stating “It strikes me as misguided, and, more than anything, for a person that is supposed to be as smart as he is, it smacks of ignorance. If you cannot proofread something and see for yourself that there is something wrong with this, then you really don’t need to be where you are, and you should probably do us all a favor and resign and go off into obscurity.” Bravo Samuel L. Jackson!!! We’d really like to see his character from Pulp Fiction, hitman Jules Winnfield, take up the issue with sleepy purveyor of alternative facts, Ben Carson.

Samuel L. Jackson's character from Pulp Fiction, Jules Winnfield, takes issue with Ben Carson's alternative fact that African Americans came to America as immigrants in the bottom of slave ships.
Samuel L. Jackson’s character from Pulp Fiction, Jules Winnfield, takes issue with Ben Carson’s alternative fact that African Americans came to America as immigrants in the bottom of slave ships.