Neocon – Page 32 – BilgeBucket Gazette

Holy Wiretapping!

With all the latest news about surveillance, we thought we’d dust off a little article from our June 19, 2003 issue, almost ten years ago. Remember those halcyon days when super christian John Ashcroft was Attorney General, the Patriot Act had just been enacted and Ari Fleischer, doing his impersonation of a Stasi agent, warned us we had to watch what we said. Yes, Big Brother had just started to trample on our civil liberties and it hasn’t gotten any better. Guantanamo Bay is still open, too. Feeling safer yet? We didn’t think so. Thanks Dubya!

Ashcroft To Wiretap Prayers

In his latest attempt to halt terrorism in its tracks, Attorney General John Ashcroft has announced a plan to wiretap prayers to determine possible plots against the United States.

“Our scientists have made a breakthrough in prayer technology that will enable us to intercept evil prayers from evil doers and bring them to justice,” said Ashcroft. “We’ve built a device that will allow us to monitor all prayers from all American people no matter what religion they may be. We can determine to which God they are praying and for what they are praying.”

Ashcroft then gave an example. “Let’s say Mohammed Muslim starts praying to Allah and asks him to destroy the United States. Our agents can intercept the evil prayer, trace it back to its sender and have him locked up in Guantanamo Bay before you can say Jesus Christ.”

Ashcroft then added, “But don’t say Jesus Christ. It’s a sin to take the Lord’s name in vain.”

When asked if this was an invasion of personal privacy and freedom of religion, Ashcroft retorted angrily, “Look! George Bush and I are tight with God. We are doing his work! He wants us to win and the only way to win is by monitoring the minds of every single American and make sure they have no evil thoughts against the Bush Administration.”

When asked what he thought about the wiretapping of prayers, Jesus Christ said from his palatial mansion in heaven, “Hey it’s what I’d do. I’m tight with these guys okay. They know my mind. Excuse me now but I’ve got to watch the Reds-Dodgers game. Fred McGriff didn’t pray yesterday so I think he’ll be striking out a lot today. Who says I don’t care about sports.”

Big Brother Is In Your House…Literally

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.

Top Republican Suggestions For Better Conservation

The St. Ronald Reagan Institute For Real Science has recently released a new and improved guide to conservation, Republican style, called “Neoconservation”. The BilgeBucket Gazette presents to you some of the suggestions and fascinating findings stated in the report.

Go out and buy a Hummer. NOW!
Support your local utility company. Leave the lights on.
Smog is good for you. Trees cause pollution. Go cut down a tree.
Extinction is perfectly natural. The polar bear’s gonna die out eventually anyway.
Crude oil is a necessary part of a caribou’s diet.
Global warming is good for the planet and the economy. Just think of all the land in Antarctica that can be developed if the ice caps melt.
Less ozone means better suntans.
It’s our God given right as Americans to drill for and use every drop of oil on the planet.
America has plenty of mountains. We can spare two, three or fifty for mining.
Acid rain scrubs your body clean.
Factories are our friends. Go hug a smokestack.

The Party of New Ideas

Former Republican Governor of Florida and brother of the bestest President ever, George W. Bush, laid the ground work this past week for a possible run at the White House in 2016 when he said on Fox News, a.k.a. The Republican Propaganda Network, that he believes that there isn’t any Bush baggage at all. Wow! We want to know what color the sky is in Jeb Bush’s wonderful wacky world.

jebbushdubya — Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush comes up with a fresh proposition for America, because the Republicans are the party of new ideas.

A Nation Armed To The Teeth

The debate about gun control continues in America with NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre leading the charge for arming this nation to the teeth. Yessiree, nothing spells ‘civilized society’ like having every man, woman and child carrying an AR-15 wherever they go.

lapierreliberalgunlaws — NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre absolutely hates everything liberal except when it involves the availability of weaponry to a gun loving public.

Armed Police In Schools: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

In the wake of the shootings last month in Newtown, the big debate now is whether or not to allow armed police in schools. Of course, the NRA and their bought and paid for Republican lackeys are all for this. In their view, the only way to truly be safe is if every single person in this country has at least one gun on their person at all times. Hell, even teach the younguns how to shoot as soon as they can walk. In other words, convert our civilization into a banana republic.

Yes there is nothing more comforting and exciting for a child than seeing an armored police man holding an assault weapon while they play with their games and toys. Nothing bad could possibly come from that, right? The phrase ‘Violence begets violence’ keeps coming to mind.

policeschoolroom — With the addition of armed police in schools, America’s rich tradition of gun lust is guaranteed to be handed down to future generations.

Taxing the Rich? I Can’t Watch!

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.

mcconnellturtle — The always cautious but zany Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, plays the waiting game with the looming ‘fiscal cliff’.

An Oompa Loompa Christmas

Well, Congress has adjourned for the holidays and surprise surprise, no progress on the looming ‘fiscal cliff’. Speaker of the House, John Boehner (pronounced bo-ner), who seems to be under the illusion that the Republicans won the election, has stubbornly insisted that he gets his way. That means keeping his precious tax cuts for his rich handlers and cutting funds for the social safety net programs like Social Security and Medicare, which benefits most elderly Americans. Of course, most people seem to think this ‘fiscal cliff’ is baloney anyway (note how it’s always referenced in quotations) and to President Obama’s credit, he’s playing hardball with the Republicans (finally!). It’s not the first time that the great Oompa Loompa of negativity, John Boehner, has bungled up negotiations. It’s business as usual for the Republicans.

boehneroompaloompafiscalcliff — Republican Speaker of the House and Chief Oompa Loompa, John Boehner, offers Americans his prescription for avoiding the ‘fiscal cliff’.

Are You Threatening Me?

With the recent mass shootings and the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman incident, the United States Mint has decided to re-issue the Florida state quarter to honor of the state’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law which states that a person may use necessary force to defend themselves if they ever feel threatened. And who better to represent this wacky law than lovable, cartoon legend Beavis (with apologies to Mike Judge), who is depicted as his paranoid alter ego, the Great Cornholio. NRA spokesmen claim this is a fitting tribute to a nation that truly loves its guns and hopefully will put us one step closer to the apocalyptic world of The Road Warrior. Yessirree! Arizona and Florida: leading the country in crazy!

floridacoinagebeavis — The United States mint has reissued a new state quarter for Florida to honor it’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law with a fitting portrait of lovable, cartoon legend Beavis as his no-nonsense, paranoid alter ego, the Great Cornholio, uttering his famous catchphrase, which has coincidentally become the motto for the law’s supporters.

Santa, All I Want For Christmas Is An AK-47

In the wake of yet another mass shooting, this time at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, more of the same predictable, reprehensible rhetoric has been spewing forth from ‘compassionate’ conservative right wingers who seem to love their guns more than life itself. From Republican congressman Louie Gohmert’s (from Texas of course) call for more guns to former Republican governor Mike Huckabee’s assertion that the massacre occurred because God had been systematically removed from school, the response is typical from the right wing. There have been 31 mass shootings since the Columbine incident in 1999 and 62 in the last 30 years. The response is always the same: the public expresses shock that something like this could happen in America; sane people say that something should be done to prevent this; the NRA and right wing neocon gun nuts scream about the right of every American to own a gun and that ‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people’; politicians say they’ll explore solutions to the problem without implementing the horrors of ‘gun control’ on assault weapons; the NRA and right wing neocon gun nuts cry that they need assault weapons to hunt; time lapses; people forget; finally nothing ever gets done…until the next mass shooting. Rinse and repeat.

Seriously folks, nobody needs an assault weapon to go quail hunting or deer hunting for that matter. It’s utter BULLSHIT!!! They should be BANNED!!!

Here’s a photo-toon from our May 12, 2007 issue right after after the Virginia Tech shootings which echoes Gohmert’s statement that somehow, if everyone had a gun, there would be no more violence and we could all join hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’.