We’re in the last week of 2022 and there were several huge stories throughout the year: COVID-19 continued its assault on the human race, NASA sent another rocket to the Moon after fifty years and the Democrats preserved democracy for a little while longer and managed to pass major legislation in the process. But probably the biggest story on the world stage was the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the emergence of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a symbol of democracy for the world.
Last week President Zelenskyy made a surprise visit to Washington and he gave a impassioned speech to Congress. Zelenskyy is very media savvy and made a convincing argument for the United States’ continued support of Ukraine in their battle against Russia. The Russians thought they’d roll over their neighbors, but the Ukrainians have resisted admirably. How much longer will this war continue? Despite rumors of a cease fire coming soon, it appears that the war will more than likely drag on for most of 2023. Zelenskyy has said that the Ukrainians will never give up and we believe him. At least the United States has committed to helping Ukraine obtain freedom and democracy for its people.
Slava Ukraini!!!Support Ukraine!!! Support Democracy!!!
Slava Ukraini!!! Support Ukraine!!! Support Democracy!!!
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 2022 elections are on Tuesday, November 8th and the choice couldn’t be clearer in our opinion. Of course, we’ve been thinking that for the last twenty years and somehow the Republicans are still not the permanent minority party which they should be.
The Republicans are openly embracing white christian nationalism and authoritarian corporate fascism. They are attacking the fundamental principles and laws of our constitution. Under the TFG regime, the GOP dismantled our government giving enormous tax cuts to the plutocrats in our society, which basically gave complete and absolute power to a handful of corporations and the richest of the rich while saddling future generations with debilitating debt. Those greedy CEOs and corporate elite are now the leading cause of inflation in the U.S., grabbing record profits while the American people struggle to just buy food. They have used deceitful shenanigans to stack the Supreme Court with regressive, religious ideologues who have already taking away a woman’s right to make her own reproduction decisions despite saying under oath during their confirmation hearings that they wouldn’t. The extremist Court is setting its sights on voter rights and basic rights for the LGBTQ community. Many Republicans want to end Social Security and Medicare which they call ‘entitlement programs’ but have no problem with entitlement programs for the corporate fat cats who purchase legislation through slimy lobbyists with corrupt donations and other monetary influences. The Republicans have openly suggested civil war and locking up opponents if they don’t get their way. TFG even instigated his rabid MAGA moron followers to mount an insurrection attempt at a coup at the Capitol on January 6th, 2020 because TFG claimed the 2020 election was rigged and stolen despite no evidence of fraud. Now, insane MAGA and QAnon election deniers are poised to win seats in many states including our state of Arizona which would effectively guarantee that Republicans will win all future elections and the will of the people will be ignored thus ending democracy as we know it. As we have said before, under TFG, the Republicans are no longer a party; they are a crime syndicate.
If you truly believe in a representative democracy, by the people, for the people, and where every vote counts, there is only one way to vote: vote ‘D’ for Democracy.
Since the Republicans have completely embraced white christian nationalism and authoritarian corporate fascism, the choice in the 2020 elections is clear: vote ‘D’ for 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.
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.
There’s been a lot of disturbing events happening in the world lately; the relentless pandemic, the brutal atrocities committed by Russians against the Ukrainians, the lack of progress on prosecuting the Capitol rioters and TFG, and the ongoing stupidity of the radical right-wing Republicans across the land. But one good thing happened this past week. Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed as the first African American woman Supreme Court Justice despite obvious racist ratf*ckery from GOP Senators during the confirmation hearings. Probably the most representative of the colossal inanity of the Republican efforts was retiring Senator Roy Blunt’s comments: “I think she’s certainly going to be confirmed. I think it’ll be a high point for the country to see her go on the court and take her unique perspective to the court.” So basically ol’ Roy Boy said she’s a great, qualified, historical candidate but he won’t vote for her. What an asshole! At least three GOPers – Romney, Murkowski and Collins – buried partisanship and voted for her. But then only Romney remained to applaud the new justice. Haters gonna hate!
Congratulations to Justice Jackson! We have no doubt you’ll be a successful jurist. Now we just need to get Asian American and Native American justices on the court.
Congratulations to new Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson!
We’ve been enjoying the wonderfully mild weather here in Arizona (hence, fewer posts), doing things outdoors to try and boost our morale a bit with all the insanity going on right now, not just in this country, but in the world. We thought we were getting better but then Russia’s dicktator (misspelling intended) Vladimir Putin had to go and invade Ukraine. We would have thought that Russia had enough land but apparently not. The rest of Europe learned its lessons well from World War II and the Cold War, but apparently Russia wants to relive those glory days of old. Fortunately, most of the world has condemned Putin’s brazen attack, even his allies in Czech Republic and Hungary. But the Ukrainians are fighting hard because they absolutely want democracy, not to be a puppet state of Putin.
We’re reposting a photo-toon from December 21, 2016 because T**** and Putin are still TPing the world; Putin in Europe and Asia and TFG with his insipid rallies and stupid speeches here in America. Sorry, folks — the planet is still royally screwed until we figure out a way to rid ourselves of these authoritarian, right wing, fascist assholes. Maybe we can interest T & P to take a ship to Mars with other greedy, corporatist jackasses Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson. Then each of these manly men could all praise each other with their hot air until they run out of oxygen.
Support Ukraine!!! Support Democracy!!!
With the new Trump-Putin new world order, the denizens of planet Earth look to be royally screwed.
January 6th marks the one year anniversary of the Capitol riots, or Treason Day as we’re calling it here at the Bucket, and like we mentioned in a previous post, many of the instigators like Paul Gosar, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene are still roaming free and haven’t been brought to justice or even expelled from Congress. And the biggest culprit, TFG, is still blabbing and squawking about non-existent election fraud on his cross country tour including an upcoming appearance here in Arizona. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who sure seems to be taking his sweet time, assured America that his office will continue to pursue those responsible and that “the actions we have taken thus far will not be our last.” We certainly hope so because up to now, we haven’t been particularly impressed with Mr. Garland or his Department of Justice.
We’re reposting our photo-toon from our November post because it pretty much says it all. The facts surrounding Treason Day are undisputable. The investigation’s federal prosecutors have charged more than 700 people related to the attack, with new criminal cases introduced every week. Many of the accused have military backgrounds and are relatively young. About a quarter of those charged are accused of physical violence. But like we’ve said before, this was an attempted coup to overthrow a legitimate election with almost zero voter fraud, no matter how much the Republicans claim there was!This was a dress rehearsal. If we don’t punish those responsible, the next time . . . and there will be next time, the rioters will be successful and America will cease to be a democracy!
Despite overwhelming evidence that the Jan. 6th riot was an attempted coup, the Republicans continue to gaslight the American people by saying that it was just a nice, friendly tourist visit.
We’re baaaaacccckkkk . . . well, kinda . . . sorta. It’s been seven months since our last post here at the Bucket and no, we don’t have COVID. We’re fully vaccinated and we still wear masks when we go to stores or enclosed spaces. So, where have we been? Like we mentioned in our last post, we’ve had the blahs – a feeling of languishing that was primarily caused by four years of non-stop chaos courtesy of TFG – (like many, we can’t say #45’s name anymore – we hate the man that much) – and the morally bankrupt fascist Republicans. But mostly we’ve been chillaxing; observing and trying to fathom some of the insanity that is happening, not only in this country, but in the world. For instance, we can’t figure out why people won’t get vaccinated against a deadly disease like COVID-19 which has killed over 5 million people worldwide and over 700,000 in the US. And governments like the US are trying to stop the spread by issuing mask mandates and offering the vaccine free of charge. But people are rioting against the life-saving measure and sometimes killing others in the process – madness; complete madness. Prominent conservative right wing anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers have even died from COVID complications which could have been prevented if they had just gotten the vaccine. And somehow athletes and former reality show hosts know more than doctors do about microbiology. Sheer insanity.
There has been an avalanche of worrisome events that have occurred over the summer and we can’t comment on all that has happened in just one post. Joe Biden and most of the Democrats have delivered on their promises for making the vaccine widely available and trying to control the pandemic. They’re restored ties and relations with our allies and improved our standing on the world stage again. They’ve also delivered on the infrastructure bill despite sabotage from a couple DINOs: West Virginia’s Coal Lovin’ Joe Manchin and Arizona’s own Miss Cutesy-Pie Bait and Switcher Krysten Sinema (we’ll comment more on these specimens later). All in all, the Democrats have accomplished a lot in the last eight months, not that the media has given them much credit. Despite the Democrats performing well, we’ve seen disturbing developments from the corporate main stream media that reminds us of when Obama got elected. The Democrats swept into power but yet the ‘liberal’ media focused on the Republicans, which allowed for the rise of the Teabagger movement, which morphed into the MAGA cult. For instance, Biden correctly withdrew from Afghanistan but the Taliban took back the country. The corporate media portrayed this as Biden’s fault completely forgetting the last twenty years of our disastrous involvement in this country where empires go to die. Well, we don’t have short memories here at the Bucket. The fault lies with George W. Bush for getting tangled up in the quagmire to begin with. We’ve got much more commentary on this subject matter later, too.
But what really has us worried is that few people have been reprimanded for the Jan. 6th capitol riots. Honestly, folks – we’re students of history here and this smells just like other fascist attacks in history like in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s and Chile in the 1980s. Using terminology from Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine, the Republicans are implementing shock and awe on their own country. And to make matters worse, it seems to be working. The top story in the supposedly liberal media every night should be about reprimanding all the assailants of the Capitol and all their enablers in Congress. Why haven’t we seen Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley expelled yet? Why are Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert still serving? They openly aided and abetted the insurrection. The media should be grilling them over this. But instead they just repeat the Republican’s weak, disturbing attempt at gaslighting saying the the riot was nothing more than an friendly tour of the Capitol. We’ve seen the pictures, morons! This was an attempted coup to overthrow a legitimate election with almost zero voter fraud, no matter how much the Republicans claim there was!Fortunately, more evidence that TFG and other congressional Republicans instigated and were behind the coup. Democrats are advising democracy loving Americans to be patient, but time is running out, folks. According to some sources, the Republicans incredulously are primed to take back the House and the Senate in 2022. If that happens, democracy will be dead because the Republican absolutely will resume tearing apart this government and forcing their fascist, corporatist and religious agendas down every American’s throat.
Despite overwhelming evidence that the Jan. 6th riot was an attempted coup, the Republicans continue to gaslight the American people by saying that it was just a nice, friendly tourist visit.
Twice Impeached former American CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is starting and the Republicans are in full political theater mode trying to present themselves fighting a ‘civil war’ whether or not to fully back Trump or do a re-brand and distance themselves from the the worst President in the United States history; a President who openly on tape incited a riot on the United States Capitol on January 6th to overthrow the results of a democratic election. You’d think this would be a no-brainer to any sane party. But we’re talking about the modern day, 21st century Republican party, folks.
We’ve noted that the GOP has changed their logo when they embraced Trump in 2016. But this is 2021. They are no longer the Republicans. They are now the RepubliQAnons. They represent not only the greedy 1% corporate plutocrats in the upper echelon of the party, but they also count as members of their constituency Nazis, the KKK, Neo-Confederates, white supremacists, racists, loony rapture-loving evangelicals, gun nuts, and now lunatic fringe QAnon acolytes. Yes, this new logo pretty much summarizes all bat shit insane ideologies the modern Republican party represents.
With their defense of Donald Trump’s inciting an insurrection and the embrace of QAnon nutcase Marjorie Taylor Greene, the 2021 Republican party has rebranded its logo to more truly reflect the conspiracies for which they stand.
