anti-gun control – BilgeBucket Gazette

Rewind: GOP – The Party Of Moral Values?

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 whole purpose of our 20th anniversary retrospective is to show that the Republicans haven’t just shifted to the right with TFG. They’ve been trying to make America a christian theocracy ruled by corporate America since the Bush administration. The leaders of the GOP want people to be mindless sheeple who blindly obey their leaders, work without complaint no matter what the hours, and consume corporate America’s products like automatons until they drop dead, broke and drowning in debt. So bible thumper creationist Mike Johnson coming to the fore should not be a surprise. It’s business as usual for the Republican syndicate. But it’s business as usual for Democrats as well as they’re doing now what they did in 2006; standing by and watching the Republicans self-destruct and hoping that the electorate will notice.

This article is from our July 7, 2006 edition.

House GOP Ready To Shove Values Agenda Down America’s Throat

Republican members of the House of Representatives recently released a series of bills it is calling ‘The American Values Agenda’ in hopes of energizing it’s conservative base for the fall 2006 elections. Already the first item, protecting the word ‘under God’ in the pledge of allegiance, has already gone down to defeat.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert commented on the initiative. “We feel that this is a necessity as a signal to our conservative base that we’re ready to ram the ideology of a minority of wealthy, religious individuals down the throats of the rest of America. And since this minority has a lot of bucks, we’re going to basically push these items through and character assassinate anyone who stands in our way.”

Among the gritty, pressing issues tackled by House Republicans; a vital flag-burning amendment, a crucial anti-gay marriage amendment, and an urgent cracking down on Internet gambling. Other serious topics to be considered include: protecting insurance companies from frivolous claims from greedy hurricane victims; protecting frozen embryos from evil stem cell researchers; abolishing the completely unfair estate tax which affects a whopping one percent of the population; making sure that every citizen can own and properly use an AK-47; making sure the Arctic Wildlife Refuge is drilled for that precious nine month supply of oil; and making sure that the United States of America becomes a full fledged Christian theocracy.

Democratic congresswoman from California Nancy Pelosi said that this is nothing but pandering by House Republicans. “They are taking radical right wing values and touting them as America’s values. This is nothing more than their age old tactic of distract, distort and divide. Meanwhile, the Democrats have a clear message to the American people and that is . . .we’re just going to stand by and watch Republicans self destruct.”

Vice President Dick Cheney said, “All have to say is that if you don’t support these issues, then you’re not much of an American. I mean if you voted to take the words ‘under God’ out of the pledge of allegiance, you probably watch Al-Jezeera and root for Al-Qaeda. You probably even cried when Al-Zarqawi died.” When it was pointed out that the words ‘under God’ were added to the pledge in 1954, Cheney shook his head vigorously and responded, “See! This is just another example of the biased liberal media spreading misinformation to the good sheeple . . . I mean, people of America. Where’s my shotgun?”

People expressed mixed views about the series of bills. Joe Nelson of Brighton, Massachusetts, said, “I don’t think these bills really help anyone. We’ve got huge problems in Iraq, our deficit is skyrocketing, affordable healthcare is a joke and people in New Orleans still need assistance. I think we need to solve these problems first, although I agree that we should stop Internet gambling. You should only be able to blow your money at a regular casino like normal people.”

Gladys Clary of Dennison, Iowa said, “We need to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and the only way to do that is to drill the hell out of all the available land and coastlines that we have. I don’t care about the Earth’s future. I’m old and my hummer needs gas now!”

Tom Miles of Fetid Gulch, Texas, said, “If we don’t pass these bills now, illegal immigrants will pour over our borders, burn our flags, marry farm animals and use stem cells to cure Alzheimers.”

The Newsreader Who Would Be Guvnah

The Arizona primary elections are over and unfortunately all of TFG’s lackeys have made the cut which is a scary proposition not only for Arizona but America and democracy itself. Governor candidate Kari Lake, Secretary of State wannabee Mark Finchem and Senator aspirant Blake Masters are all worshippers at the altar of the twice impeached orange haired megalomaniac and completely support the election fraud lies being spread by the MAGA morons. We live in Arizona and we’re progressive Independents so we feel it’s our duty to focus some light on these idiots who are colossal dangers to American democracy.

We’ll start with Kari Lake, Arizona’s answer to Sarah Palin; movie starlet looks and a cotton candy brain. Ms. Lake has been a newsreader at the local Fox (of course) affiliate in Phoenix for the last umpty-nine years. She has absolutely no experience in government or running for office. We wouldn’t even want her to run our local HOA. She’s nothing but fluff. But apparently she’s seen that brains don’t matter in today’s Republican party so she’s got a clear path to power. What’s funny is that Lake supported Obama in his presidential runs and before that supported Bush. How does one go from Bush to Obama to Trump? They’re not even close politically; one extreme to the other What exactly is her game? She’s bouncing around like a ping pong ball between the political parties. Her reasoning isn’t convincing and despite her Republican opponents hammering on that issue, the MAGA morons decided that if Trump likes her then she’s the chosen one.

But for Lake to win the governorship, she’s going to need the Independent voters (like us) in Arizona and despite what the local media says, the Indys are leaning these days to the left. Speaking for many of Arizona’s Independents, we abhor what the current Republican party stands for. They are filled with Neo-Nazis, Neo-Confederates, QAnon conspiracy theorists, racist KKK members, anti-immigrant, anti-science, anti-women, bible thumping christo-fascists hypocrites who want to shove their religion down everyone’s throats with their guns fully loaded – (see the abortion issue). That’s why most Indys voted for Mark Kelly and Biden in 2020. But the Arizona GOP, led by the bat shit insane Kelli Ward, cannot admit they made a mistake with Trump and instead are doubling down on Trumpty Dumpty’s election fraud nonsense. They’ve done repeated audits (or fraudits) and checks on the 2020 election. There was no election fraud! Even sane, responsible Republicans say so. We repeat – THERE WAS NO ELECTION FRAUD! Repeating lies doesn’t make them true and Kari Lake is beating the drum loudly on the non-existent election fraud. And not surprisingly, Lake has repeated crazy GOP talking points after the FBI search warrant of TFG stating that the FBI should be defunded. Her Democratic opponent, current Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, outclasses her in every way, shape and form. But we’ve seen that before many times here in Arizona. For example, the intelligent Terry Goddard has run repeatedly for Governor here, the latest in 2010 against Jan Brewer, a.k.a. Skeletor and should have been elected hands down. But the Republicans chose the incompetent Brewer and she got to wave her bony finger at Obama.

The scary thing about Lake is that conservatives in Arizona, especially white, right wing, christian men, will be suckered in by her charm and her spiel. She’s playing right from the Trump playbook. On primary night, she declared victory before all the results were in. The funny thing is that she claims election fraud is all over the place. How do we know, her winning the primary wasn’t fraudulent? Because in Trumpland, there’s only fraud if the Trump candidate doesn’t win.

Former newsreader and Arizona GOP candidate for Governor Kari Lake has shown proficient Trumpian skills for distributing deception about election fraud in Arizona.

They’ll Be Dancing…Dancing On His Grave

In addition to America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator Donald Trump’s vendetta rampage following his ‘acquittal’ by the spineless Republicans sans Spiff Romney, Trump also found it fitting to give a presidential Medal of Freedom to none other than Rush Limbaugh, a.k.a. Boss Limhogg, who recently announced he had advanced lung cancer, most probably due to his lifelong love of smoking cigars. The Medal of Freedom is normally bestowed upon “individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” What the hell was El Rushblo’s contribution to American society, you may ask? Yes, he did do charitable work for cancer and veterans. That’s commendable. But basically, he’s provided forty years of hate-filled diatribe that has contributed much to the political chasm that divides this country today and the reason we’ve got an orange-haired, authoritarian, man child asshole in the White House.

Limbaugh’s transgressions are legion. We used to have a regular feature here from ’03-05 called Rush Watch where we highlighted some of his vileness in photo-toon form, but even we grew sick of his never ending bullshit. Staff member Chester Einstein used to listen to his radio broadcasts and watch his tv show in the early 90s, but stopped when El Rushblo continuously and ruthlessly mocked the Clintons, even Chelsea who was only a teenager at the time. He also picked on Amy Carter, too(see third link in our list below). But then mocking and bullying teenagers is par for the course for today’s manly man conservative Republicans.

Here are some links that illustrate how badly Limbaugh has helped tear America apart.

We have no doubt that lines are already forming to dance on his grave. If you think that’s in poor taste, well then you haven’t been paying attention to the drivel that Limbaugh has spewed forth from his gaping maw since the ’80s. We’re not alone in wishing El Rushblo a glorious trip to hell! We hope you choke on your massive, stinky stogies for all eternity, you racist, sexist, ignorant fat tub of goo!

Lines are already forming for people who want to dance on the grave of obnoxious, racist, conservative asshole and fat tub of goo Rush Limbaugh (a.k.a. Boss Limhogg).