Republican – Page 4 – BilgeBucket Gazette

Rewind: SEGUMUCA Nation Redux

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.

The big news this past week is all the nineteen defendants in Georgia’s RICO case have turned themselves in and had their thugshots taken including the head thug TFG, who predictably is trying to profit off of it by offering merchandise to grift his followers. It’s been a horrible eight years since TFG first came down the escalators to announce his candidacy and the American people’s sanity has gone down the drain because of him. The petulant, megalomaniacal man-child has dominated the corporate media because the corporate media loves him. Even liberal sites cover him because he boosts their ratings. If there’s one thing that has become self-evident during the Trump era is that greed, avarice, materialism, ratings, followers and likes are the most important things in the world now, which is probably why democracy is on the brink of destruction.

We’re reposting a photo-toon from our May 17, 2016 post where we lamented our predicament with candidate Trump and unfortunately things have worsened since then. Our analysis then still rings true today. Most Americans who have been raised on the belief that capitalism is the only sensible economy for this planet, look to the self-aggrandizing, megalomaniac billionaire, who has had three trophy wives and scores of material possessions like houses, cars, planes, etc… and say “Hey! I want to be like him.” That’s the American way. Add to the fact that conservative evangelicals now view Trump as a better role model than Jesus and we’ve got a hell of a problem on our hands. So what do we do? We’ll just repeat our final paragraph from that post for simplicity’s sake.

We think it’s time that all Americans do a bit of self-introspection, especially conservatives. Conservatives generally don’t do this because in the conservative mindset, they are always right, hence no need to look at oneself in the mirror. Questioning your actions is bad and a sign of weakness. One must do what has been traditionally done forever and ever. And don’t even think of apologizing; that is absolute weakness and worthy of death. But is Donald Trump really who were are as a nation? Are we really like Trump? Are we a SEGUMUCA nation: a nation of Selfish, Egotistical, Greedy, Ultra-Materialistic, Ultra-Competitive Assholes? (Catchy eh?…[sound of crickets chirping]…hellllooooo) Isn’t it time we put the people’s health and welfare, the public good and the environment above profits and selfish, greedy materialistic desires? Maybe if we do that, we won’t look in the mirror, see Donald Trump snarling back and say to ourselves, “Holy Shit! How did we get so fugly!”

Uncle Sam recoils in horror as he looks in the mirror and sees that he has become a Selfish, Egotistical, Greedy, Ultra-Materialistic, Ultra-Competitive Asshole.

Rewind: Slavery Was A Laugh Riot!

Big news recently out of Ron DeSantis’ fascist Florida is that the education standards in the state are being warped to such a degree that teachers are now required to teach that slavery wasn’t such a bad thing for blacks. This reminds us of a post from August 2, 2016 where we highlighted former Fox News (a.k.a. Republican Propaganda Network) blowhard Bill O’Reilly’s book about how slavery wasn’t just fun, it was a laugh riot. But Republicans have been trying to change the narrative on slavery ever since racist bigots from the South took began seizing control of the party in the 1960s. In 2015, Texas began whitewashing slavery and racism in their schools. Even Ben Carson, who is an African-American, made an ass of himself in March 2017 when he suggested that slaves were just immigrants and not coerced laborers forcibly brought against their will from Africa to work for nothing on American plantations. Florida and Texas have seemingly embraced white nationalism and institutionalized it in their educational systems.

Anyway, here’s a re-post of our photo-toon of Bill O’Reilly’s latest killing-history tome which may become required reading from now on in Florida.

Fox News talk show host Bill O'Reilly, whose only goal in life is to look out for you, has released a new book that explains that slavery wasn't just fun, it was a laugh riot. — Fox News talk show host Bill O’Reilly, whose only goal in life is to look out for you, has released a new book that explains that slavery wasn’t just fun, it was a laugh riot.

Rewind: Supreme Corruption

In our last post we recycled a photo-toon showing how corrupt the Supreme Court had become since the 2010 Citizens United decision which gave the rich unfettered power to influence politicians. We had a link to an old post with another photo-toon about the Supreme Court’s corruption which we’ve decided to repost as well.

We’ve already talked about Clarence Thomas’ luxury trips courtesy of conservative billionaire Harlan Crow. It’s come out now that Justice Thomas has been influenced even more by an elite circle of plutocrats. Surprise, surprise! Lawrence O’Donnell gave an excellent commentary about Thomas the other night which is pretty much right on the money, pardon the pun. Is it any wonder that so many Americans have no faith in the Supreme Court. Like we’ve said before, the current Supreme Court is supremely corrupt and the justices who have accepted gifts from wealthy benefactors should resign if they are truly interested in maintaining a judicial system based on ethics and morality.

Poor Plutocrats everywhere are rejoicing now that their corporate lackeys on the Supreme Court have given them control of America. — Plutocrats everywhere are rejoicing now that their corporate lackeys on the Supreme Court have finally given them a voice in the running of America.

Rewind: Judge(s) For Sale

Over the last three years, especially since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, information has been revealed showing that our supposedly ethical, apolitical and morally superior Supreme Court judges may not be so noble. Apparently, all six conservative judges have ethics scandals where they have been influenced by wealthy conservative benefactors thus jeopardizing the impartiality of the justices or compromised by conflicts of interest with business deals. It was just reported that Judge Samuel Alito took luxury fishing trips with a billionaire conservative donor. Judge Clarence Thomas took luxury vacations and received tuition payments for a relative from conservative plutocrat Harlan Crow. Judge Neil Gorsuch had a suspicious property sale to a prominent law firm head nine days before his confirmation hearing. The FBI revealed that its pre-confirmation investigation into Judge Brett Kavanaugh was a complete sham. Judge Amy Coney Barret had a shady real estate deal with a religious group that filed numerous briefs before the court. Judge John Robert’s wife made over ten million dollars as a legal consultant. Even liberal leaning Sonia Sotomayor refused to recuse herself in a case with a book publisher who paid her three million dollars for a book deal.

The die was cast for what’s happening now with the Supreme Court back in 2010 when the Citizens United case was decided which basically stated that corporations are people and that these rich entities may give unlimited amounts of money to politicians and government officials in the pursuit of political power. We’ve had a few posts and photo-toons over the years indicating that the Court was now for sale to plutocrats (here and here). Our first one was a photo-toon on August 13, 2011 which basically portrayed the Supreme Court as being for sale to the highest bidding corporation that we decided to repost because it is very appropriate considering recent revelations. As we’ve noted before, the Roberts court a.k.a. the American Taliban, is a complete joke.

Supreme Court Justice John Roberts wears the new NASCAR inspired logo robes which will now be worn by all conservative justices.

Rewind: Pickles – RAW

There weren’t many good things about the Bush administration. Let’s face it, folks: they screwed up the economy, the United States’ standing in the world and crippled us with two unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. About the best thing about Dubya and his gang of corrupt buffoons was Laura Bush. As First Lady, she wasn’t awful. Sure she was a kowtowing christian wife who meekly demurred to her christian husband. Remember in 2006 when she said it was okay to sing the national anthem in Spanish and when she heard Dubya’s opinion differed she changed her mind to match her husband. Man do thinking – women make food, have babies. Ugggh!

But Laura Bush did have a sense of humor as evidence in 2005 at the White House correspondent’s dinner. She gave a bawdy little stand up routine that was well received by everyone across the political spectrum. Some of the jokes were even at the expense of lil’ Georgie who sat red faced while she mocked him roundly. One particular anecdote dealt with Dubya’s early attempts at ranching that thoroughly humiliated him. “George didn’t know much about ranches when we bought the place. Andover and Yale don’t have a real strong ranching program. But I’m proud of George. He’s learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What’s worse, it was a male horse. “ Yes, the imagery of ol’ Dubya whacking off a stallion is pretty damn funny. Not even Jon Stewart could have done better.

Here’s a photo-toon from our June 6, 2005 issue featuring the cover of Laura ‘Pickles’ Bush bawdy new comedy album RAW featuring horse masturbation jokes.

Emboldened by her recent success at the White House correspondents' dinner, First Lady Laura 'Pickles' Bush released her bawdy new comedy album last week. — Emboldened by her recent success at the White House correspondents’ dinner, First Lady Laura ‘Pickles’ Bush released her bawdy new comedy album last week.

Finally . . . Justice

We interrupt our 20th anniversary retrospective for some great news. It seems that the Grand Jury in New York has chosen justice and indicted the twice-impeached, former CEO/Dictator of the United States Donald J. Trump on his illicit payments to cover up his affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. While we’d prefer he get indicted for trying to overthrow a legitimate election and inciting an attempted coup, we’ll gladly take this. Will TFG actually have to serve time in prison. Probably not, but we can always hope and dream can’t we. We’ll have to wait and see but then again we’ve become accustomed to waiting haven’t we.

We’ve altered a photo-toon from our July 21, 2017 post to show that Trump may actually have to pay the piper for once in his overprivileged, corrupt life.

For once in his overprivileged, corrupt life, twice-impeached former CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump will actually have to pay the piper.

Rewind: Lil’ DubToons

Starting in December 2005, we reformatted our look and feel trying to make our webzine look more like a newspaper. So we introduced a three column layout under our banner with headlines, photo-toon links and other material in the left column, articles in the main center column and external links, ads and little cartoons highlighting the hypocrisy of the Bush Administration and Republicans in the right column. We called these tiny photo-toons Lil’ DubToons and we enjoyed the hell out of ’em. We’ll be reposting several of them in celebration of our 20th anniversary.

Here’s a pic of our April 10, 2006 issue featuring our changed format and the corresponding DubToon displayed in the upper right hand corner right below a corresponding quote relating the Republican hypocrisy of the week. At that time, it was reported that disgraced aide Scooter Libby said Bush and Dick Cheney were responsible for disclosing classified intelligence information as part of a counterattack against critics of the Bush Administration’s disastrous Iraq War policy. Of course, ol’ Dubya channels Alfred E. Neuman attitude in response knowing that in 2003 he was acting all tough on finding out and punishing the leakers. Well, Bush said he’d take of the leakers and he’s taking really good care of himself ever since.

A screenshot of the April 10, 2006 featuring a new format and the awesome Lil' DubToon in the upper right hand corner. — A screenshot of the April 10, 2006 featuring a new format and the awesome Lil’ DubToon in the upper right hand corner.

“And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.”

George W. Bush
9-30-2003

Dubya does his best Alfred E. Neuman impersonation deflecting criticism about leaks in his administration. — “What? Me Worry?”

Rewind: WMDs In North Dakota?

Here’s our very first article from our May 19, 2003 issue. Back then the Republicans had just invaded Iraq on the false claim that they had Weapons of Mass Destruction. This gave rise to the imperialistic Bush Doctrine which states that the United States has the right to invade a country if they are suspected of having WMDs or being a threat in any way, which opens up a host of possibilities for abuse of power and violation of civil liberties. But that doesn’t matter to the authoritarian Republicans as Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer proved by repeatedly doing his impersonation of a Stasi agent telling people they should watch what they say. So basically, the Republicans haven’t changed since 2003, they’re just exposed thanks to Trump and the attempted Jan. 6th insurrection to overthrow the government.

Bush Says North Dakota Has Weapons of Mass Destruction

President George Bush said today in an emergency press conference that he suspects North Dakota may have weapons of mass destruction and that he will push for complete disarmament or he will invade.

“Our intelligence has detected missile silos in North Dakota,” said Bush. “They have become a menace to the world. Their leader is worst than Hitler! I’ve seen footage of people being fed into wood chippers. If we do not stop them, a nuculyar castastr…catatat…boom-boom could happen. If they do not disarm, we will invade in twenty four hours.”

Jarrod Dayson, an alert reporter from Newsblog then reminded the president that North Dakota was in the United States and that the missile silos housed American nuclear weapons. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, then interrupted the president, whispered into his ear and rushed him from the stage. He then commandeered the press conference explaining, “I apologize for the president’s latest statements. He awoke early from his nap and was having nightmares after watching the movie Fargo last night. North Dakota is a wonderful state and Governor Hoeven is not worse than Hitler. He was just repeating statements that he heard Bill Clinton say when he was president. Thank you.”

Fleischer then barred Dayson from any further press conferences stating in an irritated tone, “How dare he question the president of the United States! He must be for terrorism!” Forces from Homeland Security appeared and ushered Dayson on a plane to Guantanamo Bay.

Festivus Pole, Festivus Pole, Festivus Pole Rock

We’ll its that time of year where we trot out the Festivus Pole and air our grievances. But since we always air our grievances, we’ll keep it short. Democracy is still alive but barely. The Democrats managed to maintain control of the Senate but the House is now the hands of Republicans, several of whom helped plan the Jan. 6th riots (MTG, Gosar, Biggs, etc…) but amazingly enough are still in Congress. We’re coming up on two years now since the attempted coup and all we’ve got is referrals for criminal charges against TFG. We’ll refer to our synopsis from two years ago when the pandemic was raging : American democracy is still alive, but it’s on a ventilator.

We’d like to wish everyone a Happy Festivus. And to all those Republican, MAGA Morons, TFG acolytes, QAnon nutbags and everyone who voted to end democracy and promote a fascist takeover by christian nationalists . . .we think you know where you can stick the Festivus pole.

Karipatra: Queen Of Denial

If you’re a fan of democracy then the results for the 2022 midterm elections are encouraging. We’ve waited until after the Georgia runoff election, which was fortunately won by Rafael Warnock, to comment because mostly it’s given us time to relax from the non-stop electioneering and also to see how the Republicans would react to the results. But the Democrats managed to not only keep control of the Senate but expand its influence with a 51-49 majority. The Republicans control the House but by only a few seats. The red wave that the main stream corporate media bloviated about before the election never materialized much to the embarrassment of the propagandists at Fox News, a.k.a. the Republican Propaganda Network. It looks like Kevin McCarthy will have his hands full trying to control the House and most pundits are doubting the GOP will do anything except investigate the nothing burger that is Hunter Biden’s laptop.

More importantly, many Trump humping, election denier candidates across the country got beat including the Big Three here in Arizona, Blake Masters, Mark Finchem and Kari Lake. Generally speaking, Democrats performed pretty well here in AZ. One notable exception is the U.S. House of Representatives. Arizona had five democratic Congressional representatives in the 2020 election but thanks to redrawn districts from the census favoring Republicans, the GOP now has six seats compared to three for Democrats. There were some very tight races which have gone into recount, but overall, the Dems held the line. Democracy has been saved . . . for now.

Of course, Ms. Lake, in true Trumpian fashion, has refused to concede and has commenced to whining, promising law suits of election fraud. We’re so sick of this former newsreader. She should just move into Mar-a-lago so she can be with her crush 24/7. We’re sure Melania won’t mind. We saw a funny meme online about the loony Ms. Lake and decided to duplicate it using our own graphics. From now on, Kari Lake will be known as Karipatra, the Queen of Denial.

In true Trumpian fashion, Arizona's failed governor candidate Kari Lake has claimed election fraud and has transformed herself into Karipatra - the Queen of Denial. — In true Trumpian fashion, Arizona’s failed governor candidate Kari Lake has claimed election fraud and has transformed herself into Karipatra – the Queen of Denial.