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.
John Ashcroft’s greatest accomplishment during his tenure as Attorney General was his spending $8,000 dollars to cover up the disgraceful nudity of the Spirit of Justice statue in the Hall of Justice.
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.
The election season is driving us crazy so this post deals with something remarkable thanks to the scientists at NASA. Recently, NASA’s spacecraft Lucy sent back stunning photos of the Earth and the Moon from about a million miles and half a million miles away that reminds us how insignificant we are in the universe. It’s not the first to show the Earth and moon together but it’s probably one of the best.
We’re reposting a pic from July 26, 2013 when the Cassini spacecraft was still operational. That probe sent back an astonishing photo of the pale blue dot through Saturn’s rings. We thought it appropriate to add a little notation as a reality check to the denizens of planet Earth that God and all the other mythical gods were created on that insignificant speck by the species of animal known as homo sapiens. That’s right, folks: God didn’t create man; man created God.
The Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn sends a reality check to all religious people on the pale blue dot called Earth.
Shockingly, the Georgia Senate race like all others featuring looney tunes MAGA Moron Republicans is tight. Warnock, who is a reverend for Pete’s sake, is clearly the best choice but Republicans, who are supposedly the party of moral superiority, are completely backing Walker. We’re pretty sure the FBI badge he has is probably a Federal Boob Inspector prop job which he probably uses to pick up all the women he gets.
Georgia Senate candidate and christian pillar of morality Herschel Walker whips out his FBI (Federal Boob Inspector) badge to try and impress another unsuspecting female.
We’ve noted with alarm over the last twenty years the Republican party’s slide to authoritarian fascism and yes it started during the Bush administration. Remember after 9/11, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer spewed forth these chilling words that all Americans need to “watch what they say, watch what they do”, forgetting about free speech and stepping toward a big brother-esque society. The the Patriot Act was passed as if to provide an exclamation point. Of course, the crowning point of the Dubya and Dick Cheney’s presidency was the clusterf*ck quagmire in Iraq which was shoved down American’s throat with gusto by the corporate media costing us trillions of dollars over the long haul. So yeah — the Republicans have been at this kind of iron-fisted power grab for some time now.
This coming election is startling and the most dangerous of the 21st century. There are 299 out of 569 Republicans running for office who are fully on board with the Big Lie pushed by the twice impeached, classified document stealer TFG. Many of these people are guaranteed to win because of the districts, counties and states where they live. If this happens, then democracy is doomed in these places because these fascists will never allow a non-conservative, non-Republican to ever win an election again. Period. This is why we’ve highlighted the important races of Senator, Governor and Secretary of State here in Arizona, our home state. These QAnon loving loons are drunk with the Trump Kool-Aid and will no doubt push their agenda with an iron fist backed by TFG and his MAGA Moron militias, not to mention his enablers in Congress.
Republicans don’t want to govern, they want to rule with an iron fist.
It’s time to get back to our final review of Arizona GOP whack-a-doodle candidates. We’ve already mentioned fluff-brained gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and plutocrat butt kisser senatorial candidate Blake Masters. We focus in this post on perhaps the most insidious and dangerous of the Trumphumpers, Mark Finchem, who is running for Secretary of State. In Arizona, the Secretary of State is second in command since there is no Lieutenant Governor. The Secretary of State is also in charge of certifying election results and keeping records of campaign finances. This is why Finchem is dangerous – he is an election denier and has openly stated that he would have overturned the 2020 election in favor of TFG despite there being absolutely no evidence of voter fraud. He’s also stated that if he loses the upcoming election he will not concede, just like Trump.
But first, who is Mark Finchem? The way he dresses and acts, you’d think he’s a native Arizonan. But he was born and Michigan and moved to AZ and adopted the garb and persona of a rough and ready, independent Arizonan. Basically, he’s a poser. But the conservative rubes eat it up which is why he was elected as a state representative for Legislative District 11 which represents about 225,000 Arizonans in Pinal and Pima counties which covers the northwestern parts of the Tucson metropolitan area up to Casa Grande and Maricopa. Finchem’s been married four times, so he’s got TFG beat there. Other Arizona Republicans have called Finchem a “political gadfly” and “one of the dumbest” members of the state legislature.
The bottom line is this, folks: Mark Finchem is a bat shit insane, QAnon, Oath Keeper, fascist nutcase and is an absolute danger to Democracy. If he is elected Secretary of State, he will guarantee that only Republicans will win key offices in upcoming elections which is not only undemocratic but out and out fascism. We Arizonans need to make sure to vote him out this November 8th or we will never have fair elections in this state again and it might start an unfortunate trend that goes nationwide.
Update 9/26/22: Here are a couple more links to stories about Finchem.
Oath Keeper, QAnon whackadoodle and supporter of Trumps Big Lie, Mark Finchem, guarantees that if elected he will ensure fair and balanced elections where no Democrats will ever hold elective office again but is in no way fascist.
We’re taking another brief detour from our review of insane, Arizona GOP, Trumphumper candidates to talk about President Biden’s recent speech on the MAGA Republicans embracing ‘semi-fascism’. We thought it was mostly correct but ‘semi-fascism’? Really? Because the Republicans have been embracing full on fascism for some time now. And now they’ve been openly proving it every day since TFG took office in 2017 and then incited an insurrection on Jan. 6th 2021 because they didn’t win. In their typical whiny, cry-baby manner, Republicans wailed that Biden was being divisive while forgetting about how Trump vilified anyone who disagreed with him during his excruciating tenure as CEO/Dictator.
As a courtesy we’re reposting a photo-toon from December 15, 2015 post which depicts a checklist comparing the fascists of the NSDAP(Nazis) party of 1930’s Germany and the 21st century Republican party (or more appropriately, crime syndicate!). As you can see, there’s not much difference and hey, looky there . . . both had a well funded propaganda machine. So if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . . We repeat folks; the Republicans are full on fascists and every TFG enabler running for office needs to be voted out of office or we will lose our democracy just like Germany lost theirs in the 1930s!
The Republican Party has some eerie similarities to a certain right wing conservative fascist party from 20th century Germany.
A few posts ago we commented on the newsreader who wants to be guvnah in Arizona, the woefully unqualified Trump acolyte Kari Lake. In this post, we’ll discuss the AZ GOP’s candidate for Senator, another Trump Humper named Blake Masters.
We’ve mentioned before about America becoming a corporate theocracy; a Holy Corporate Empire, if you will – and Blake Masters is one hundred percent on board with this kind of transformation. Corporations are authoritarian environments. Corporations are like little dictatorships. The corporation has a CEO and small board of advisers who make all the decisions for the company. If you don’t like the decision, you’re fired. Churches are authoritarian environments. The church has its leader who claims infallibility because he or she talks to God. If you don’t like what the leader has proclaimed, you are evil and one with the devil. Both institutions have very fascist tendencies – do what the leaders say or else. It’s no surprise that the Republican party is filled with these corporatist and religious zealots. They’ve been pushing since the Reagan administration to try and make the government like a corporation. The evangelicals have pretty much taken over the Republican party with their embrace of TFG and planting right wing zealots on the Supreme Court to overturn abortion. We have no doubt if given the chance, Masters would do everything possible to join church and state and corporate America together into a modern day feudal society because . . . you know . . . the Middle Ages were so enlightening and full of freedom for everyone. That’s right, you work during the day, go to church on Sunday and don’t ask questions like good little sheeple until the day you drop dead. Maybe, just maybe, our autocrat overlords will throw a pittance your way as a reward for allowing them to buy yet another car, boat or luxury property. Ahhhh! Unregulated capitalism!
Fortunately, at least for Arizona, he’s running against centrist Democrat Mark Kelly who’s about as likable as they come. Independents love him and moderate Republicans do, too. And what’s not to like; he’s an ex-Navy pilot, an engineer and he’s an ex-astronaut. Not only that, he’s done an impressive job in his two years as Senator helping get many legislative packages through Congress. And he’s voted with Republicans enough so that he’s not viewed as completely partisan.
Masters is behind in the polls and he’s desperately trying to backtrack on his abortion , election fraud and social security comments. With the DOJ’s case against TFG becoming more evident, it looks like his attraction to the crooked and traitorous Trump could sink him like a stone. Of course, there are a lot of MAGA morons here in Arizona which could make the race closer than it should be. Hopefully, there are enough competent election officials with ethics and morals who will make sure that radical right wing Republicans don’t try some kind of Trumpf*ckery to get MAGA candidates elected.
Arizona GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters states America should be a corporate theocracy, a.k.a. a Holy Corporate Empire, so that we can all make money for our capitalist masters until the day we drop dead.
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.
We’ve already seen how repressive islamic theocracies are. Take the Taliban in Afghanistan. Women are treated like they were in ancient times; like second class citizens. Basic human rights are pretty much limited to straight islamic men. The clerics run the country with an iron fist. Do we really want to turn our nation into a christian version of Afghanistan? Do we really want the American Taliban on the Supreme Court to dictate every aspect of our private lives? We thought the right wing wanted government out of our lives?Recent polls have indicated that Americans have little confidence in the current Supreme Court after their latest decisions.
The Supreme Court should not be political, but if these christian nationalists persist then the constitution much be changed so that the justices should be elected by popular vote. Therefore they should not have life time appointments – maybe just a six year term like Senators. The Democrats need to step up to the plate and check these zealot’s power while they still have some power. Maybe they need to channel their inner FDR and stack the court. The freedom loving American people will not accept an American version of the Taliban ruling over every aspect of their personal lives. We don’t want America to be a Holy Corporate Empire. This is the 21st century. Like we’ve said before many times, Americans need to connect to a 21st century database, not a 1st century database.
With their recent repressive and regressive decisions concerning abortion, guns, prayer and the environment, the justices of the Roberts court have established themselves as the American Taliban and a complete joke.
