Tag Archive for Confederate

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

The John Lewis Bridge

Congressman and Civil Rights icon John Lewis of Georgia recently passed away at the age of 80. Congressman Lewis was an exemplary citizen who selflessly served not only his district but the entire country. Lewis was part of the infamous Bloody Sunday protest back in 1965, when peaceful protesters, led by Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr. attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama but were brutally beaten by law enforcement officials and racist provocateurs.

There is now a movement to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge to the John Lewis Bridge. This seems like a no-brainer to us here at the Bucket. Edmund Pettus was a former Confederate Army officer who also was a grand dragon in the Ku Klux Klan. The people of Alabama can continue to embrace their racist, Confederate, KKK past or march into the 21st century and rename the bridge to honor John Lewis, who wanted peace and opportunity for all humans, no matter their race, creed or color.

The citizens of Alabama should build a bridge to the 21st century by renaming the Edmund Pettus Bridge to the John Lewis Bridge in honor of the late congressman and Civil Rights icon.
The citizens of Alabama should build a bridge to the 21st century by renaming the Edmund Pettus Bridge to the John Lewis Bridge in honor of the late congressman and Civil Rights icon.

The Tone-Deaf Dictator

The protests over police brutality are continuing throughout the United States and the world. Despite the repugnant circumstances surrounding George Floyd’s death, there are already indications that maybe, just maybe, justice might prevail this time for non-white people in this nation. All four police officers involved in Mr. Floyd’s death have been charged. The Minneapolis police force has fired it’s officers and will start rebuilding the force in an effort to reform its culture. On television, the show Cops, which has glorified police chases and aggressive tactics for years, has finally been cancelled. There are also many other race-related events that have happened in the past week from Confederate statues being torn down to companies changing racist corporate cultures, that signal a positive change to our society. The topic of police reform is being brought to the nation’s forefront as people from all corners of the nation and the world are stepping forward and saying there is a deep rooted problem that needs to be fixed. Meaningful reform is needed on a federal, state and local level.

But in true Trumpian fashion, America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator, master at race relations, and most empathetic human being alive, Donald Trump, turned the police brutality protests into a praise fest of . . . surprise, surprise . . . Donald Trump. If you’re shocked by this, then you haven’t been conscious in the last three years . . . or decades for that matter. Last week, he actually held a press conference and bragged about the latest unemployment figures, calling them ‘the greatest thing that could happen for race relations”. He then crowed that George Floyd would have approved of the stats, speaking as if he and Mr. Floyd had beers all the time pool side at Mar-a-Lago talking about the economy. Really???!!!! How friggin’ tone-deaf can you get! Once again, our egotistical megalomaniac-in-chief has interjected himself as the one who will cure our deep rooted societal racism with a good unemployment report and that the recently brutally murdered Floyd would approve and maybe, in a warped way, even endorse Trump for re-election. Delusion rules in Trumpland!

But the good report wasn’t all that good. According to reports, there’s a glaring error and the unemployment numbers may be as high as 20%. Wait. . . you mean Trump lied? Of course, he did! The Labor Department has fudged the numbers the last couple months so that unemployed people were actually classified as employed. This fits in perfectly with the authoritarian nature of the fascist Trump regime: all reports must reflect well on our dear Leader or be stifled. Last week, Trump even cried about a CNN poll that showed him losing badly to Biden. November can’t come soon enough so we can vote Trump and his sycophantic flying monkeys out of office! Then, maybe the healing can begin.

America's Impeached CEO/Dictator and stable genius at race relations, Donald Trump, proclaims that his good friend George Floyd, who was brutally murdered by racist cops, would be thrilled the recent unemployment reports.
America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator and stable genius at race relations, Donald Trump, proclaims that his good friend George Floyd, who was brutally murdered by racist cops, would be thrilled the recent unemployment reports.

Day Of The Long Knives

The results from the 2018 midterm elections are still trickling in and they look very favorably for the Democrats, a lot better than main stream media outlets are proclaiming them to be. Here in Arizona, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema has been declared the winner of the Senate seat vacated by Republican Jeff Flake. If the Dems can win the Senate election in Florida (the chance of them winning the run-off election in Mississippi are slim to none), then the net Republican pickup is only one seat. Not only that, Democrats had gains in almost every Rust Belt state that went to Trump in 2016 and it’s looking like they could end up with over 230 seats in the House.

As we pointed out in our last post, Trump is rattled. He knows that with the Democrats gaining control of the House, investigations of his shadowy election maneuverings and his secretive finances will be brought to the forefront. So, in an authoritarian move reminiscent of Germany’s ‘Night of the Long Knives’ (without the bloodshed) or more recently, Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre, he fired Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.  John Dean, a veteran of those heady Watergate days, even stated that Trump’s move seems like a planned murder. Trump has replaced Sessions with a shady, sycophantic automaton, Matthew Whitaker, who has openly admitted that Robert Mueller’s investigation should be shut down. Most people inside and outside of the Justice Department proclaim Whitaker to be a ‘f*cking fool’. Trump is acting like a cornered rat, so he’s sicking his fascist meat robot to do his dirty work and eliminate Mueller before any incriminating information is released to the public.

But it looks like Mueller is close to wrapping up his investigation. Donald Trump Jr. has already indicated that he thinks he’ll probably be indicted. As the Atlantic pointed out, it’s probably too late to stop Mueller. Could this be the beginning of the end for Trumpty Dumpty? Excuse our skepticism, but we’ve been hearing that for a year and a half now. Trump is unhinged and his acolytes have shown repeatedly that they prefer party power over democracy and justice. We don’t doubt that the GOP will do anything and everything to obstruct, obfuscate and deceive the American public like they’ve been doing for the last two years…hell…the last fifty years. Buckle up, folks! Things are going to get very interesting.

America's CEO/Dictator, Donald Trump has decided to eliminate his Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and replace him with his lackey meat robot, Fascismo, a.k.a. Matthew Whitaker.

America’s CEO/Dictator, Donald Trump has decided to eliminate his Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and replace him with his lackey meat robot, Fascismo, a.k.a. Matthew Whitaker.

Bible Babble

The crap keeps coming at a fast and furious pace from the Trump administration, so it’s tough to keep up, folks. Among the myriad of events that occurred this past week is one where Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, boldly stepped to the microphone, thumped his bible and used a bible quote to justify separating children from their parents at the border and detaining them indefinitely, just like his Confederate ancestors did with the slaves and the Nazis did with Jews and other aliens they viewed as inferior. This is not new for right wing authoritarian fascists, who are obsessed with immigrants. We did a photo-toon back in 2014 where Capitalist Jesus said ‘Let the Children Suffer’ which covers the hypocrisy of the christian right wing. Electoral-vote.com provided an excellent analysis of the whole disgusting affair that covers all the bases very well, so we won’t rehash it here.

What we’ll focus on is why a United States lawmaker is using bible quotes for justifying law in 21st century America. Like the electoral-vote post says, when people quote the bible for justifying something, inevitably it devolves into just another game of dueling scripture. Why do we still give credence to text written by early Iron Age or even late Bronze Age ‘wisemen’ who, compared with today’s knowledge base, knew absolutely nothing about the world or the universe as it really is. We’ve mentioned before about how a person who accepts science is much more knowledgeable about everything because the science enthusiast accesses a much bigger database of knowledge than a religious person, who is obsessed with connecting to an antiquated and relatively small database. This latest example just shows that if the bible says that we should separate children from their parents for an indefinite period, then maybe the bible isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe we should probably be using some updated source of wisdom to help us make decisions in the 21st century and beyond.

Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III justifies separating children from parents by thumping his bible.

Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, lamely explains why separating children from parents for an indefinite period is right in line with the bible, which for some reason is now being used as the law of the United States.

The Ol’ “I Don’t Recall” Ploy

Once again, Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has broken out the ol’ tried and true “I don’t recall” ploy. We’ve commented before about his stonewalling. But recently, Sessions doubled down the tactic showing selective memory concerning meetings with the Russians. He stated that he had no recollection of the March 2016 meeting with George Papadopolous until he saw the news reports and then he suddenly remembered. So in short: Sessions said he could not remember much about Russian influence on the Trump campaign, except when he could block such influence.

One thing’s for sure: Sessions is sure doing conservative Republican icon, St. Ronald Reagan, proud. Whether it’s perjury or using the Department of Justice for political investigations or just out and out racism, Sessions is proving himself worthy of the greatest obstructionists in Republican history and considering the last seventy years: Allen Dulles’ CIA, Watergate, Iran Contra, the Iraq War, the Great Recession, etc… that’s saying something.

The ghost of conservative icon, St Ronald Reagan, approves of Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, using the ol' "I don't recall" ploy, which he used effectively to avoid telling the truth during his presidency.

The ghost of conservative icon, St Ronald Reagan, approves of Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, using the ol’ “I don’t recall” ploy, which he used effectively to avoid telling the truth during his presidency.

General Disappointment

When American CEO/Dictator Donald Trump appointed former general John Kelly as Chief of Staff, many breathed a sigh of relief in hoping that maybe the stoic ex-Marine could keep Trump in line. Ahhh! What naivete! John Kelly has proven in recent weeks that he’s not really not that different from Trump and that he’s only another enabler to the orange haired man-child who is our current President.

Take Kelly defending Trump’s recent call to a military widow where he told a grieving widow “he knew what he signed up for”. Kelly not only defended Trump but criticized Representative Frederica Wilson’s criticism of Trump’s wording. Trump’s press secretary,a.k.a. secretary of deception, Sarah Huckabee Sanders even went as far as to say it was inappropriate of Wilson to question Kelly because he was “a four star general”. Well how authoritarian of you Ms. Huckabee Sanders!  Mr. Kelly isn’t in the military anymore. This is a democracy and there is such a thing as freedom of speech and freedom of the press, which is guaranteed by the U.S. constitution. When John Kelly says and does things which are undemocratic and wrong, it is our right as Americans to question him.

Speaking of which…last week, Kelly showed his ignorance on history when he claimed that the Civil War could have been avoided if only the South and North would have been willing to compromise. Like Professor Stephanie McCurry says, “That statement could have been given by [former Confederate general] Jubal Early in 1880”. Well, the North and South did compromise before in 1820 (Missouri Compromise) and the Compromise of 1850 and those compromises only postponed the inevitable. It took a war to rid this nation of the disgusting institution of slavery. But unfortunately, thanks to the botched Reconstruction and Jim Crow laws, racism persists today. Unbelievably, we have Confederate revisionists in power in this country who want to return to those glory days of white supremacists, KKK marches and frightened minorities. Mr. Kelly: your authoritarianism and racism are showing and it’s pretty ugly.

American CEO/Dictator Donald Trump's authoritarian Chief of Staff, John Kelly, sez if only the slaves would have compromised and agreed to a pay cut, the Civil War could have been avoided, which delights Confederate Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and an old, hooded, Confederate white knight.

American CEO/Dictator Donald Trump’s authoritarian Chief of Staff, John Kelly, revises history by claiming failure to compromise caused the Civil War which delights Confederate Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and an old, hooded, Confederate white knight.

Stonewall Sessions

One of the more annoying characters in Donald Trump’s cavalcade of sycophants is Attorney Confederate General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. We’ve commented before about his racism and lying under oath. Well there was more deceit on display last week as our top justice did his best to obstruct justice.

During testimony last week in the investigation into the GOP’s ties with Russia during the 2016 election, Sessions stonewalled and did his best St. Ronald Reagan “I don’t recall” spiel. How did it go? Well, the Republicans, like always smirked their way through it, slapping themselves on the back at how cleverly they can deceive the American public, just like they’re doing with their healthcare plan.

But what’s bothersome is that our attorney general, who is supposed to be our top administrator of justice is obstructing justice at every turn. If he and Donald Trump did obstruct justice by firing James Comey, then that is grounds for impeachment. But Newt Gingrich already has a defense lined up. He stated this week that the President cannot possibly obstruct justice, even though he pursued Bill Clinton for two years because he lied about having sex. In a nutshell, it’s okay when Republicans obstruct justice and commit perjury and commit treason…ad infinitum.

Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, displays his gnat like memory while performing some Jackson-esque stonewalling.

Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, displays his gnat like memory while performing some truly Jackson-esque stonewalling.

Perjurious Sessions

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is certainly living up to his low expectations that we set for him. It has just been revealed that the new Attorney General lied under oath about communications with the Russians during the 2016 election. Sessions said that he didn’t but new reports confirm that he did talk with Russian the ambassador. Of course, in true Republican fashion, he blamed the people who asked the questions not his own impeccable self. But he did recuse himself from any inquiry into any interference from Russia during the 2016 election.

Of course, America’s new CEO/Dictator, Donald Trump defended his attorney general saying he did nothing wrong. Trump has also started practicing another typical GOP canard; blaming the previous Democratic president. The incompetent Bush Administration took delight in blaming all their mistakes on Bill Clinton. Now, Trump is doing the same to Obama. He’s even gone as far as accusing Obama of wiretapping him during the election, without proof of course. We almost wish Obama did wiretap Trump and an investigation would commence. Then at least we’d hear about the conversations Trump and his lackeys may have had with the Russians.

Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, receives instructions from his boss, CEO/Dictator Donald Trump, that his perjury about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 election at his confirmation hearings was actually all Barack Obama's fault.

Attorney Confederate General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, receives instructions from his boss, CEO/Dictator Donald Trump, that his perjury about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 election at his confirmation hearings was actually all Barack Obama’s fault.