As more and more information comes to the forefront in the House’s impeachment investigation, it appears that instead of re-evaluating their support for America’s CEO/Dictator Donald Trump and seeing the light, Trump supporters, especially those of the evangelical variety, seem to be doubling down in their almost cult-like worship of a man who is the epitome of the golden calf mentioned in the old testament of the bible. Seriously, folks . . . Jesus’ preaching smacked of socialism and yet people choose the greedy capitalist who likes to grab women by the pussy as they’re new savior?
So why are these supposedly holy people supporting the polar opposite of their lord and savior Jesus Christ? Good question. Here at the Bucket, we’ve been completely baffled for the last four years. Could it just be that they love ‘owning the libs’? How can evangelicals support bashing skulls in the name of Jesus? This one article asserts that modern evangelicals reject the reality based world in the 21st century – you know, facts, logic, reasoning and the worst taboo of all, science – and whole-heartedly embrace the world presented to them by Fox News, a.k.a. the Republican Propaganda Network and Donald Trump. As we’ve noted here before, it’s a fusion of Nazism, corporatism and christian theocracy, a holy trinity of authoritarianism if you will, which is creating the Holy Corporate Empire in which we now live in. Thus, there is the cult-like following of the evangelicals, especially in the rural areas of the South and Midwest, who are wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.
Unfortunately, even if Trump gets impeached, it may be quite a dilemma to remove him from office. Trump supporters, like this one MLB umpire, are even crowing that they’ll actually take up arms. Thus, we have no doubt that Trumpies from all across the nation could very well take to the streets and use thuggery and the word of Trump to impose their will on the nation. Onward christian thugs: praise the lord and pass the ammunition!
Some red state Republican voters discuss how truly christlike Donald Trump is and ponder forcefully spreading his word to some unsuspecting immigrants.
But she’s not the first advocate for climate change. Jimmy Carter actually talked the talk and walked the walk back in the 1970s but thanks to conservative patron saint Ronald Reagan, the nascent green energy movement was ridiculed and quashed before it even got started. Of course, many other intelligent people have stepped to the forefront over the last forty years pushing for alternative energy, only to be ignored and vilified by the powerful oil, gas and coal industries and their Republican (and some Democrats) lackeys in Congress.
A few posts ago we noted how so many modern-day conservatives were against conservation, thus making themselves colossal hypocrites. But it’s much more complex than that, of course. It’s the collective, monstrous egos of our planet’s most intelligent (allegedly) species, homo sapiens, that have done the most damage. When you put it in that context, each and every human being on the planet is responsible for the demise of life on Earth. We are all to blame and if we’re to rectify the problem, we need to all get on the same page.We all need a giant philosophical paradigm shift and that starts with the realization that unregulated capitalism is killing the planet and all the life on it.
But Bolsonaro is only doing what other third world countries do when they want to play the capitalistic game. They see the wealth of the exploitative, industrialized first world countries and they want some of that action. Or, he who has the most money wins the game. Of course, once you place living, breathing ecosystems and wildlife as a commodity to be bought and sold for profit, human’s greed and hubris take over with devastating results. There are numerous examples throughout history. Most scientists believe it was humans who killed off megafauna like the mammoth, giant sloth and the saber-tooth tiger. We’ve killed off the Tasmanian tiger, the dodo and the carrier pigeon in the last five hundred years. We almost drove the American buffalo to extinction in the 19th century. We’ve killed off over 60% of species since the 1970s. Greenland is melting at an alarming rate which places its wildlife in peril. Climate change is killing the Great Barrier Reef as is human pollution. A new study has indicated that since 1970, bird populations have fallen 29% or 3 billion fewer birds. All because we ‘intelligent’ humans greedily lust for an abstract commodity; monetary wealth.
But how and why did having money become the most important thing in our world? Because we’re humans, goddamn it! We’re superior creatures! What are we humans supposed to do with our time? Go hiking in the wilderness, relax and enjoy life? Boring!!! We must grow, grow, grow! Bigger, bigger, bigger! We’re taught from day one that we must utilize our superior brains every second of the day or else we’re failures. We can’t just sit around doing nothing. Or can we? If you ask any sane person what their idea of paradise is, they’ll usually respond some idyllic tropical island like Tahiti or some mountain retreat with little to no development and lots of nature or some small remote village where people live simply. So, why are we constantly destroying nature and building ugly concrete and steel structures and athletic stadiums which only last for twenty years? Because we can; as a monument to human ingenuity and greed.
But just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should. Would it really be so bad to just not build a new multiplex shopping center? Would it be so bad to adopt a simpler lifestyle and enjoy nature and the great outdoors? Would it be so bad to tear down some of our ubiquitous, ugly strip malls and skyscrapers and plant urban forests and farms? Plant an urban garden where that stupid parking lot is. Have a nature reserve where that stupid golf course is. If we combine this with a global effort of birth control and contraception, we can get things under control again. We need fewer humans, not more humans on this planet. Humans, especially ones from industrial, consumptive nations are at the forefront of environmental devastation. We’ve created so much waste that we’re exporting it to third world countries with poor waste management systems. If third world countries become like first world countries, then our planet is truly doomed and we can all kiss our materialistic asses goodbye. We need to dial our greed back from 11. We need to curb our consumption and learn to be content with fewer material possessions and simpler lifestyles. This is the only planet we know of that supports life. We need to put the welfare of our planet before our own wealth, because without the planet, how can we enjoy the wealth?We need to stop worshipping the greedy, egotistical and avaricious and start respecting and caring for nature and our environment. Those paradises we yearn for are right under our feet; we just don’t recognize them because of all the concrete, asphalt and steel.
In an attempt to demonstrate how superior they are, humans are proving to be far more destructive to planet Earth than any asteroid.
If you’ve read any post or articles on this site, you know that we’re atheists. Our world view is solidly connected to a 21st century database of logic, reason and scientific knowledge obtained by thorough scientific methods and inquiry. Adherents to religion on the other hand, seem solidly connected to 1st century, 6th century or x century databases that may have made sense in those antiquated times, but given our advanced knowledge of the universe surrounding us, are now woefully obsolete.
Proponents of religion also claim that only they have the answers to life’s questions. Inevitably it boils to certain individuals in the upper echelons of the religious organizations who want to completely control their adherents or sheeple. History has many examples of bloody wars between adherents of one ‘faith’ disagreeing with followers of another leaving nothing but death and scorched earth behind. Many religions state that God made man in his image and that God created the Earth with man as ruler over all other animals. This directly conflicts with scientific evidence uncovered in the last three hundred years which concludes that man created God (or Odin or Zeus or Iron Man. . .pick you favorite fictitious deity) in his image and has used God and capitalism to commandeer and take control of the planet for fun and profit. Even the authoritarian dictator Napoleon commented that “Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.” That’s why there are so many wolves in sheep’s clothing out there making a killing off of the gullible sheeple. There’s also a link between religion and vaccine refusal. So people are dying unnecessarily because the religious leaders are telling their flock to trust prayer (basically thinking good thoughts) over science.
We would think that modern day humans would see religion for what it is: a bloody, soiled security blanket to give us a warm fuzzy about capitalistic, materialistic life on this planet. All you really need to live an ethical and moral life is adherence to the golden rule or the law of reciprocity, which predates christianity or any other modern religions. Treat other people the way you want to be treated. You don’t need to tithe or give money to evangelical preachers so they can buy private jets to spread the gospel or ‘talk to God’. Just be kind and respect your fellow human beings and like Jesus (who was a human being, not a god) taught, share with others and help them when you can. Most major religions have this in their dogma. We’ll even go a step further and say respect animals and nature. The fact that so many evangelical rapture enthusiasts are salivating for complete destruction of the Earth, should be proof that they are insane. Why would anyone who loved God want to ruin his ‘ultimate creation’? And how can conservatives be against conservation? Given the knowledge we’ve obtained about the universe in the last three hundred years, the most important thing a human can do is maintain and preserve life on Earth. There is no planet B, folks. Since we’ve taken over the planet, it is up to us to preserve the life on it.
We’ve talked before that the best spaceship is our own planet. We need to stop being greedy materialists and live within our means. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, “Simplify, Simplify”. We need to listen to modern day scientists. They know what they’re talking about. We need to attenuate our consumption and more importantly reduce the human population using the ethical means of birth control and contraception. By doing this, we can lessen our carbon footprint, decrease our pollution and in general, return the planet to a healthy equilibrium. Ridding ourselves of the antiquated dogmas of religion and embracing environmental science will also go a long way to preserving all life on planet Earth.
Denizens of Earth continue to wrap themselves in the bloody, soiled security blanket of religion putting the health and welfare of the planet in jeopardy.
As if we didn’t know their viewpoint already, the right wing, conservative, christian Republicans have officially declared war on women. Twenty five Republican males in that hot bed of compassionate christianity, Alabama, have decided to make abortion illegal, even in cases of rape and incest, thus placing it directly in conflict with the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade and almost guaranteeing a decision in the Supreme Court where ‘compassionate’ christians of all denominations are hoping über-Catholic Brett Kavanaugh will overturn the abortion law and relegate women officially to second class citizens who are nothing more than baby factories just like they were in the bible, two thousand years ago.
This isn’t the first time the right wing christian zealots have tried it and it won’t be the last. South Dakota tried it in 2006 (we even mocked up a re-issued state quarter for them). Other states like Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia and Missouri have also passed Draconian measures to give precedence to the potential life of a fetus over the life of the mother who is actually alive and breathing air in the current, real world. The fetus is a part of the woman’s body and a living woman should always have control over her own body.
We’ve got a suggestion to all sane logical humans who are sick of these so-called ‘right-to-life’ hypocrites who say life is sacred but turn their heads to gun violence which kills thousands every day. Ban these states (how convenient is it that the Alabama state flag is a big red X). Don’t travel to any of these states. Don’t buy merchandise from any store in these states.Women should leave these states in droves. Let these fine examples of compassionate christianity rot. Conservatives proclaimed that they voted for Trump because he was in your face supposedly ‘telling it like it is’. Well, we’re telling it like it is, too. It’s the 21st century, not the 1st century! It’s time to update your database connections you sanctimonious, knuckle dragging troglodytes! Personally, we’d rather have Puerto Rico as a state than Alabama.
Dear Alabama lawmakers: The rest of the United States would like to ban travel and trade to your state until you start living in the 21st century.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also seems to be supporting the idea of war with Iran but for a different reason. Pompeo is one of those looniest of loony evangelical christians called a rapturist. In the warped mind of these nutbags, the end times are a-coming which means that all good christians will be slurped up to heaven while the rest of us ‘heathens’ will be left to toil on Earth. One of the pre-cursors for the end times, according to ‘biblical scripture’, is that Jerusalem is recognized as the capital of Israel, which Donald Trump did last year. Now, according to the end times mythology, a great war will occur and Jesus Christ will come again which will facilitate the ‘rapture’. Many prominent Republicans are rapturists including Pompeo, VP Puritan Mike Pence, former Teabagger darling Sarah ‘Ubetcha’ Palin, former Attorney Confederate General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, housing secretary Ben ‘Mr. Sandman’ Carson and energy secretary and brain fart expert Rick Perry. So, with a normal, logical, reasonable Secretary of State, war is usually and wisely avoided. But with this evangelical loon, conditions are being forced that would result in a catastrophic conflict in the Middle East. This would mean that biblical prophecy would be ‘proven’ correct and all the ‘good people’ (christians) will get their just desserts in heaven and all the bad people (the rest of us) will suffer in lakes of fire here on Earth.
Of course, these wack jobs fail to consider that the people who wrote the bible lived two thousand years ago and didn’t know jack about the Earth or the universe. We’ve mentioned before that religious people connect to a tiny bronze age database while scientific people connect to a colossal, 21st century database chock full of knowledge. We’ve gained so much knowledge about everything in the last four hundred years. To ignore science, scientific inquiry and scientific methods is sheer lunacy and any person advocating radical ideology based on two thousand year old babble shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the corridors of power in this country. We guarantee to all those rapture loonies that unless you’re vaporized by a nuclear blast you’ll still be here left to toil on the Earth with the rest of us.
To distract from the possible testifying of Robet Mueller before Congress, American CEO/Dictator Donald Trump has decided to ‘wag the dog’ with multiple wars much to the delight of National Security Advisor and war monger extraordinaire John Bolton and Secretary of State and Rapture aficionado Mike Pompeo.
The redacted version of the Mueller report has been released and boy is it a doozy. While Attorney General and Republican obfuscator Bill Barr has erroneously touted that the report ‘clears’ American CEO/Dictator Donald Trump of collusion and obstruction, just reading the unredacted portions paints a decisively different picture of what happened. And if the redacted report paints a damning picture of Trump can you imagine what the complete report says?
According to this article at Vox, 7.25% of the report has been redacted. After downloading and scanning through the report, we’ve come up with a handy dandy redaction guide to try and translate what the most common redaction phrase ‘Harm to Ongoing Matter'(HOM) means to the average American. The acronym appears repeatedly throughout the document, especially in Volume I dealing with the Russian conspiracy to sway the 2016 election toward Donald Trump and from what we can gather it translates to ‘Donald Trump is guilty as hell.” Why else was his initial reaction to the appointment of the special consul, “This is the end of my presidency. I’m f*cked.” Would an innocent man say that?
In Volume II of the report, Robert Mueller cited ten cases where obstruction of justice could be applied to Trump. Why did he not just come out and say he obstructed justice? According to the Department of Justice, you can’t indict a sitting president. So basically, Mueller set up the pins on a narrow lane and gave the Democrats a bowling ball the size of a beach ball so they could mow down our corrupt, megalomaniac leader. But, in true Democratic fashion, Democrat leaders are already talking about not pursuing impeachment and concentrating on the 2020 election. You know the Republicans wouldn’t hesitate to impeach if the situation was reversed. They did so with Bill Clinton twenty years ago on much lesser charges.
So lets briefly review the low-lights of the Republican party in the last 50 years: Nixon knows about the Watergate break-ins and attempts to cover them up, Gerald Ford pardons him; the Reagan administration sold arms for hostages in the Iran-Contra affair, G.H.W. Bush and Bill Barr issue pardons for those involved; Dubya and Dick Cheney knowingly deceive America about false WMDs in Iraq prompting an invasion which cost millions of lives, trillions of dollars and destabilizes the whole region and Democrats do nothing. Donald Trump obstructs justice and continuously pisses on the rule of law and Democrats are seriously considering doing nothing…again. In short: Republicans repeatedly screw the country and repeatedly get away with it. Is it any wonder this country is so botched up and people have no faith in our democratic institutions any more.
Hopefully the Democrats will grow a spine, put justice first and impeach this lying, manipulative, con artist before he does further damage to the White House, the rule of law and the prestige of the United States. But then again, the Democrats have an uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
According to the handy dandy guide for reading the redactions of the Mueller report, the phrase ‘Harm to Ongoing Matter’ translates to ‘Proof that Donald Trump is Guilty as Hell’.
The heavily redacted Mueller report is coming out today, so we’ll have more on that in future posts. But we saw this YouTube clip and we couldn’t believe how it hit things right on the head. We’ve always known that Fox News was just a propaganda outlet for the right wing, conservative christian Republicans. It was blatantly obvious during the Bush years and now with Trump in office they’re not even trying to hide it, although they do throw some flak out there, i.e. Shepard Smith, to show that they can be critical of Republicans. But when push comes to shove, they will always support the conservative Republican agenda and their nauseating sycophancy to the Trump presidency is proof.
We don’t usually post YouTube videos but this one is so damning of the right wing hypocrisy of the so called ‘journalists’ employed there that we feel we must link to it. For eight years, the personnel at Fox News, just like their right wing cohorts in Congress, vilified Barack Obama and treated him and his family like dirt every chance they got – and it’s all on display in this video. For example, the whiners complain that Obama golfed too much, but Trump is on track to golf on the taxpayer’s dime much more that Obama. And neither is close to Woodrow Wilson. Not only that, Trump supposedly cheats like hell. Anyway, watch the clip and try not to punch out your monitor.
As usual, conservative Republicans have a very short memory. Did they forget already about the Benghazi hearings which lasted two years and produced zero indictments; the very definition of a witch hunt. And conservative Republicans never apologized once for their treatment of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for that matter. Like we said on our previous post, the Mueller investigation was hardly a ‘witch hunt’ as it produced 37 indictments. Because Barr has been so secretive about the report, of course the public is wondering what it really says, especially when even in Barr’s summary ‘fer idjits’ – “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” – , Trump clearly wasn’t exonerated on the charge of obstruction of justice, which was the most likely offense that would have resulted from the investigation anyway.
So, in a nutshell: Benghazi, 2 years – 0 indictments; Mueller investigation, 2 years – 37 indictments.
But in the mean time, let’s devote a little time to one of our favorite people here at the Bucket, Michelle Obama. The former First Lady has been making the rounds promoting her best selling book, Becoming. But she caused quite a sensation recently when she showed up to an event wearing a pair of $4000 designer boots. Now we adhere to the Henry David Thoreau mantra of “Simplify, Simplify” so we all think that’s a bit much to be paying for a pair of shoes. Staff member and living fossil Chester Einstein grumbles about paying $20 for a pair of loafers at Payless. But we’re also aware that conservative Republicans, who preach austerity to their sheeple, regularly go out and spend gobs of money on extravagant, expensive material possessions (see Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, The Bushes, etc…). For instance, take current First Lady Melania Trump…please. She regularly wears glitzy, lavish, ostentatious clothing: remember her ‘fashionable’ “I don’t really care, do u” jacket. But then Republicans bitch anytime Democrats spend even a little bit of money. Sean Hannity and the faux journalists at Fox News, a.k.a. the Republican Propaganda Network, threw a memorable hissy fit when Barack Obama ordered spicy mustard for his burger back in 2009. Oh the humanity!!!
So although we pinch pennies better than Jack Benny, we think Michelle Obama looked fantastic and we say “Go get ’em!” Who can forget her classy speech from the 2016 election when she said, “When they go low, we go high.” For normal, sane humans who believe in civilized society, these words are inspirational and right in line with the golden rule. But right wing, conservative, ‘christian’ Republicans only mocked and derided her. So, we’d like to suggest an minor update to our favorite First Lady for dealing with today’s Trumpian Republicans: “When they go low…put on some shiny pointy toe boots and kick their f***ing asses.”
Former First Lady Michelle Obama has updated her mantra from the 2016 election to include some ass kicking of modern day Trumpian Republicans.
As if on cue, senile evangelical preacher, Pat Robertson, entered the fray and decided to give his befuddled two cents worth. He said that the murder of a journalist just isn’t worth ruining the Saudi ties and all those sweet, sweet arms deals. Yes, Yes! That’s exactly what Jesus preached, isn’t it? Money, guns and oil come before everything else in life. We’re sure that Jesus, in retrospect, would solidly approve of Judas taking 30 pieces of silver for betraying him because… you know… money is more important than morality, justice or life itself. Cha-ching!
Capitalist Jesus, who is also very Republican, defends evangelical preacher, Pat Robertson, for defending American CEO/Dictator, Donald Trump, for defending the Saudi’s cover up of the murder of journalist, Jamal Khassogi, because of the significance of money, guns and oil, which are more important than life itself.
