Republicans = Fascists

Several former Trump generals have made headlines recently speaking out against their former boss. Former TFG officials and former Trump Chief of Staff General John Kelly have come out and called Trump a fascist – which he is. Retired general and former Joint Chiefs chairman Mark Milley stated that Trump is “fascist to the core”. Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has called Trump the “most dangerous person ever”. Yes, that’s right, folks. Donald Trump is an absolute fascist. He openly admires Hitler and his generals and has used fascist talk when referring to immigrants, his political opponents and anyone who disagrees with him. TFG recently talked of taking retribution against the “enemies within” and yet the corporate media just yawns. Of course, we’ve been saying this since forever. Just peruse our posts from the past nine years. The fact that the Republican party is still defending Trump and have put forth Project 2025 is proof that they are fully on board the fascism train as well.

We’ve posted the following photo-toon meme a couple of times, on September 12, 2022 and originally on December 16,2015. We’re reposting it now because the situation hasn’t changed with the GOP since 2016 or the days of Dubya for that matter. They are still pursuing a christian nationalist corporatist authoritarian agenda – a Holy Corporate Empire or Corporate States of America if you will. The only difference is that the GOP are unabashedly out in the open supporting fascism now. Take a look at our handy dandy checklist and you can plainly see – Republicans are fascist to the core!

The Republican Party has some eerie similarities to a certain right wing conservative fascist party from 20th century Germany.

AI Trump Grifts The Homeless

Artificial Intelligence or AI has become a huge buzzword in the past ten years and rightfully so. We’re old enough here at the Bucket to remember back in the ’80s when AI first came into the national consciousness and the media overreacted as they usually do and predicted the end of civilization. Stephen Hawking even warned about it, but then again he’s predicted a race of superhumans and possibly aliens taking over earth. Well, AI has finally arrived and it may very well be as dangerous as everyone predicted it would.

AI deepfake videos have become prevalent in the last five years and the results are astounding. Not only are they of good quality, they can actually fool people into believing what they are seeing is real and not fake. Jimmy Kimmel is well known for having deepfake videos on his show, especially featuring TFG, but he promotes them as such. There are other shows and websites that announce that the videos or images are faked and not to be taken seriously. Jabari Jones YouTube site is a good example. But it becomes incredibly dangerous especially when you consider all the malicious agents around the world, like Vladimir Putin, who would like nothing more than a video surfacing where Joe Biden, Barack Obama or other prominent Democrats say disparaging remarks about certain Americans or other countries.

There are also AI image generator sites like img2go where you can create realistic looking images for free. We tried it out and made our photo-toon for today with the prompt ‘homeless Donald Trump begging for money’. The result was surprisingly good. We’ve obviously photo-shopped some items, but the look on the homeless man’s face is authentic (authentic for a fake image, that is ). We couldn’t have come up with a better reaction to Trump’s grifting. We people who despise the orange, megalomaniac man child have had that ‘just shoot me’ look for the past nine years. We just may use AI more in our photo-toons in the future.

AI Donald Trump, who is also a twice impeached megalomaniac man child, runs his latest grift; hawking bibles and sob stories to the homeless because, you know, they're not suffering enough.
AI Donald Trump, who is also a twice impeached megalomaniac man child, runs his latest grift; hawking bibles and sob stories to the homeless because, you know, they’re not suffering enough.

Pepe Trump Still Croaking Fake News

Way back on July 7, 2017, during TFG’s first term, we posted a photo-toon highlighting the twice impeached former American CEO/Dictator’s war on truth. Trump openly called everything the press reported as ‘fake news’ unless of course it was complimentary. Back then, the QAnon weirdos and MAGA Morons were just coming out of the woodwork and these specimens mostly watched Fox News, a.k.a. the Republican Propaganda Network. Now the number of conservative media outlets have multiplied and more and more of the sheeple in the MAGA movement ignore any information unless it comes from the mouth of the orange skinned megalomaniac man child.

Like we said back in 2017, Trump’s war on the media is insidious and incredibly dangerous for a free society. Freedom of the press is one of the cornerstones of our democracy. But Trump has made no secret that he wants to be a dictator like his man crush Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. And with that desire comes the flak generator of conservative media outlets and unregulated social media sites like Twitter and Facebook spreading lies, misinformation and propaganda so successfully, it’s become a full time job for an average citizen just to determine the truth. So what is the truth? According to Trump, it’s anything he says it is.

Here’s a repost of our photo-toon from July 7, 2017. We think the flabby green ‘Pepe’ (instead of orange) skin on his saggy ass jowls are pretty appropriate for this croaking bag of goo.

When you want fake news, who you gonna call? PEPE TRUMP!!!
When you want fake news, who you gonna call? PEPE TRUMP!!!

Trump Is A Fraud!

Well the verdict is in and America’s twice impeached CEO/Dictator Donald Trump, a.k.a TFG, has been found guilty of fraud in New York and fined $354 million dollars. The pre-judgement interest number boosts the amount to almost $450 million dollars or $450,000,000. That’s a lotta dough, folks! Then there’s the $83 million he has to cough up for the E. Jean Carroll defamation suit. Could it be that the orange skinned megalomaniac man child is finally facing some accountability? It sure looks like it. All we have to say is thank you E. Jean Carroll, Letitia James and the state of New York. You’ve taken Trump’s BS for many years and now you’ve finally got him. We can safely and accurately call Trump for what he is and always has been: a FRAUD! All the Republicans who still support this man are colossally stupid fools and we have no sympathy for you.

For our photo-toon today we went over to the Obama poster generator and made an image befitting of America’s biggest con man and crook. Choke on it, MAGA Morons!

Donald Trump is a fraud!
Donald Trump is a fraud!

Karipatra: Queen Of Denial

If you’re a fan of democracy then the results for the 2022 midterm elections are encouraging. We’ve waited until after the Georgia runoff election, which was fortunately won by Rafael Warnock, to comment because mostly it’s given us time to relax from the non-stop electioneering and also to see how the Republicans would react to the results. But the Democrats managed to not only keep control of the Senate but expand its influence with a 51-49 majority. The Republicans control the House but by only a few seats. The red wave that the main stream corporate media bloviated about before the election never materialized much to the embarrassment of the propagandists at Fox News, a.k.a. the Republican Propaganda Network. It looks like Kevin McCarthy will have his hands full trying to control the House and most pundits are doubting the GOP will do anything except investigate the nothing burger that is Hunter Biden’s laptop.

More importantly, many Trump humping, election denier candidates across the country got beat including the Big Three here in Arizona, Blake Masters, Mark Finchem and Kari Lake. Generally speaking, Democrats performed pretty well here in AZ. One notable exception is the U.S. House of Representatives. Arizona had five democratic Congressional representatives in the 2020 election but thanks to redrawn districts from the census favoring Republicans, the GOP now has six seats compared to three for Democrats. There were some very tight races which have gone into recount, but overall, the Dems held the line. Democracy has been saved . . . for now.

Of course, Ms. Lake, in true Trumpian fashion, has refused to concede and has commenced to whining, promising law suits of election fraud. We’re so sick of this former newsreader. She should just move into Mar-a-lago so she can be with her crush 24/7. We’re sure Melania won’t mind. We saw a funny meme online about the loony Ms. Lake and decided to duplicate it using our own graphics. From now on, Kari Lake will be known as Karipatra, the Queen of Denial.

In true Trumpian fashion, Arizona's failed governor candidate Kari Lake has claimed election fraud and has transformed herself into Karipatra - the Queen of Denial.
In true Trumpian fashion, Arizona’s failed governor candidate Kari Lake has claimed election fraud and has transformed herself into Karipatra – the Queen of Denial.

Finchem’s Fascist Farce

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.

Why is Finchem so dangerous? Wow, where do we start? First of all, Finchem is a QAnon true believer and a 9/11 truther. He attended the Capitol riots on January 6th which should disqualify him completely from running for office. But he stated that he didn’t go inside and was just a witness which apparently makes everything square in his fevered mind. He is an Oath Keeper, which is a far right wing, anti-government, extremist militia group and has kept ‘treason watchlists’. He’s a supporter of TFG’s Big Lie and said fraud was rampant in Arizona despite several audits saying there was no voter fraud. We repeat: NO VOTER FRAUD!!! His opponent in the Sec. of State race Democrat and native Arizonan Adrian Fontes is a former Maricopa County Recorder and lost his re-election race in 2020. We would think if there was fraud Fontes would arranged for his own re-election but that didn’t happen. Even his Republican opponent in the Recorder race Stephen Richer said there was no fraud. But does that matter to these MAGA Morons? Not one bit. They’ve drank the Trump kool-aid and plan to use every one of his vile obstruction tactics including not conceding and contesting any results they don’t like.

Finchem debated Fontes this past week and according to most reviews, Fontes owned the Republican screwball. Finchem acted unhinged for most the thirty minutes doubling down on his debunked conspiracy theories while Fontes remained calm, cool and collected answering in even measured responses. Among his most egregious assertions, Finchem cited the discredited “2000 Mules” movie, which made unproven claims about widespread ballot harvesting in the 2020 election. The two sparred on many issues including mail-in ballots which Finchem wants to eliminate. Finchem is also in favor of letting the state legislature select the Senator instead of letting the people. Apparently, Finchem has conveniently forgotten the Seventeenth Amendment which guarantees the citizens the direct vote of Senators. Like with the mail-in ballots, Fontes pressed Finchem to admit he favors taking away the vote from the people, but the loony wingnut kept hemming and hawing and dodging the question because he knows that his position is colossally undemocratic and would expose him for the fascist he is.

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.

Finchem Falsely Claims That Then-Vice President Mike Pence “seized power” from President Donald Trump and undertook “a coup” when he called on federal agencies to stop the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Finchem Embraces QAnon and 9/11 Truthers.

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.
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.

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 Ignominious MTHead

The up and coming Republicans in the House of Representative are notorious for one reason – they’re all colossally stupid. Take Matt Gaetz … please. Much like his mentor TFG, Gaetz makes ten inane comments each day before breakfast. Then there is Colorado’s answer to Sarah Palin, Lauren Boobert (misspelling intended). She thinks she’s actually in the same class as AOC, but her comments and actions say otherwise. But the biggest ass on the GOP’s team has to Marjorie Taylor Greene, a.k.a. MTG or as she should be called MTHead. This living relic of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons mating has collected an astonishing collection of insipid statements in just less than two years of serving as a representative for Georgia’s 14th district which covers the northwest corner of the state.

Just how dumb is this woman? Here’s just a partial summary of her stupidity. MTHead stated that the 2018 California wildfires was started by Jewish space lasers. MTHead stated that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi uses her gazpacho (instead of Gestapo) police in order to spy on House members. MTHead was stripped of committee assignments because she spread QAnon conspiracy theories and incited violence against Democrats. MTHead has repeatedly called coronavirus a hoax and proudly spread anti-vaccine disinformation which won her a ban from Twitter. MTHead has been at the forefront of supporting TFG’s big lie about non-existent election fraud. MTHead has openly supported Russia’s dictator Vlad Putin in his illegal war against Ukraine. MTHead is famously pro-gun and anti-abortion. Her latest of countless gaffes is her conspiracy about Bill Gates forcing us to eat burgers made in peach tree dishes (instead of petri dishes). Holy Freaking Zeus, folks!!! This woman is a complete train wreck!!! What a MORON!!!

Unfortunately, the problem is that the district MTHead represents is heavily right wing conservative Republican. She just handily won her primary and looks to be a shoo-in for another two years despite being possibly the stupidest Congressperson in history. We know one thing: we will never visit that section of Georgia. The people who would elect this imbecile are not worth knowing.

The dull, ovine stare, Neanderthal head shape and insipid commentary on Jewish space lasers, gazpacho police and peach tree dishes indicate that Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia's 14th district may be the stupidest member of the U.S. House of Representatives ever.
The dull, ovine stare, Neanderthal head shape and insipid commentary on Jewish space lasers, gazpacho police and peach tree dishes indicate that Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia’s 14th district may be the stupidest member of the U.S. House of Representatives ever.

Coward Of The Country

Ted Cruz. Just saying the name brings a mixture of laughter and revulsion that is hard to describe. Over the past decade, he has cemented his status as the most hated American politician and yet . . . he’s still in Congress, just like other contemptible Republicans Lindsay Graham, Mitch McConnell, Thom Tillis, Susan Collins, etc…. But Ted Cruz, who started out as a Teabagger darling, is especially slimy. We’ve made many photo-toons about Cruz’s reprehensibility over the years but his recent actions have only reinforced his status.

Take his part in the Capitol riots on January 6th. He purposefully lent legitimacy to unfounded claims of voter fraud with fellow GOP corporate lackeys Josh Hawley and Tommy Tuberville (sounds like a kid’s show clown) opposing the legal election of Joe Biden. Then during Trump’s second impeachment trial, these seditionists voted that the petulant man child was innocent despite a 57-43 verdict and Mitch McConnell stating that the orange-haired megalomaniac was certainly responsible for inciting the riot. But Cruz is culpable. He could have promoted unity but instead insisted with his election fraud shenanigans thus egging on the easily triggered Trump troglodytes.

Cruz’s cowardice isn’t surprising considering that he opening ridiculed Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign, performed a 180 and smooched his gargantuan ass when he got the nomination despite Trump calling his wife ugly and saying his dad helped kill JFK.

But Cruz took his vileness to new levels in the past week. Texas suffered one of its worst winter storms on record with temperatures in the normally balmy state dipping down into single digits and snow accumulating across the entire state. Not only that, the power went out because the gas and coal plants weren’t weatherized properly, so people had to deal with rolling blackouts. Some even had to burn furniture or live in their cars. But Ted Cruz had a great solution . . . at least for him. Instead of showing leadership to his constituents, he did the very Republican thing of saying let them eat cake and flew off with his family to Cancun. Wow! The stupidity of this action is enormously stunning! What makes it even more damning for Cruz is that Alexandrea Ocasio-Cortez, who isn’t even from Texas, managed to not only raise millions of dollars for victims but also flew down and helped out. Way to go AOC!

Yes, Ted Cruz has proven himself to be many things; Senator, sycophant, seditionist, traitor and coward. Which begs the question – how and why the hell is he still in Congress?

Ted Cruz: Senator, sycophant, seditionist, traitor, coward.
Ted Cruz: Senator, sycophant, seditionist, traitor, coward.

Louis DeASS

With the revelations by the Republican led Senate Intelligence Committee this last week, it’s been made crystal clear that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in tampering with the 2016 election. It’s out in the open that America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump cheated his way into the White House. And now four years later, Trump is pulling out all the strings again to cheat his way back for another four years.

This time, Trump’s sabotaging one of the United States’ most venerable institutions, the Post Office. Our megalomaniac-in-chief nominated a full-fledged, flying monkey lackey in big time Republican donor Louis DeJoy to be his new Postmaster General or in Republicanspeak, the hatchet man to destroy the Post Office from the inside. DeJoy has conflicts of interest here; basically he’s invested in competitors to the USPS. So Trump putting DeJoy in charge of the Post Office is like putting an arsonist in charge of the Fire Department. In testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee, DeJoy’s even proclaimed how little he knows about the Post Office. But that hasn’t stopped this obsequious Trump lackey. DeJoy has removed sorting machines and mailboxes in an effort to disrupt mail-in balloting. The Democrats have passed a bill for emergency funding for the USPS and because of the pressure, DeJoy has stated that he won’t continue any more reductions. But he also proclaimed that he won’t restore the removed equipment. Fortunately, some post office workers are getting into ‘good trouble’, as the late John Lewis would call it. Workers in Washington state have defied orders and put sorting machines back into service. We also know that we can’t trust Trump’s new Postmaster General because the Democrats in the House Oversight Committee have uncovered how much the mail has slowed down because of DeJoy’s ineptitude.

Considering the actions taken this summer, a more appropriate moniker for Louis DeJoy would be Louis DeASS. He’s just like every other crook in the Trump crime syndicate; the list of Trump’s criminal associates just keep growing – Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, Steve Bannon, etc… Just one look at that cheezy-ass smile on DeJoy’s face and you realize that this corrupt man is one of those ‘biznuss’ assholes who tells you he’s going to screw you over and that you’ll like it, too. DeJoy and Trump are clearly obstructing the mail, which is clearly against the law. They should be dealt with like the criminals they are.

Considering his actions this summer, a more appropriate moniker for Trump's new Postmaster General would by Louis DeASS.
Considering his actions this summer, a more appropriate moniker for Trump’s new Postmaster General would by Louis DeASS.