Wake Up America!

We’re still astonished that forty percent of Americans are still supporting America’s CEO/Dictator, Donald Trump, even after he’s admitted to collusion with Russia and practically knelt down and licked Vladimir Putin’s shoes during their summit in Helsinki. Of course, over the course of the last three years there have been many moments when Trump did or said something so incredibly insipid, stupid or ridiculous that any sane person would have thought surely people would abandon him. But not only are his base supporters applauding him, (Trump supporters are even wearing “I’d rather be a Russian than a Democrat” t-shirts) but the Republicans are doing nothing to reprimand him or reign him in thus indicating they are fine with Russia intervening in our elections, especially if it keeps Republicans in power.

Can you imagine the outrage if decent Republican presidents of the past like Eisenhower or Reagan had done what Trump has done? What if Eisenhower had said he didn’t trust the CIA and invited Krushchev to put missiles anywhere he wanted? What if Reagan (who called the Soviet Union the evil empire) fawned over Gorbachev, calling him ‘strong and powerful’? Can you imagine the outrage if Obama had asked Putin to help him win his elections? We’re living in a time where the supposedly ‘moral and righteous’ Republican party is anything but. The Republicans are nothing but feckless, mendacious hypocrites who revel at putting party above country, truth and justice. At least it seems with recent primary elections that some Americans are finally waking up to the GOP’s treachery.  Just this week, the Ohio congressional seat special election in district 12 is still too close to call and this district is about as red as you can get. We have one thing to say to Trump supporters or people on the fence about our orange haired, man child president: Wake Up!

Can you imagine the outrage if Eisenhower said he trusted the KGB more than the CIA or if Reagan fawned over a 'strong and powerful' Gorbachev or if Obama received help wining his elections from Putin.
Modern day Republicans conveniently look away from Trump’s outrageous actions that would have gotten previous presidents universal condemnation.

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.

The Trumputin Bromance

As the Democratic National Convention wound up this week and the Democrats, the only sane party left in the United States, united to support their nominee Hillary Clinton, news surfaced that the Russians may have been involved in hacking the DNC email server. If that wasn’t enough, authoritarian demagogue, GOP nominee and comedian extraordinaire,  Donald Trump, “jokingly” hoped his pal Vladimer Putin hacked into Hillary’s email server to find missing emails. Way to go Trump! Nothing says patriotic like conspiring with the Russians and committing treason on your fellow American.This shouldn’t surprise anyone though because Republicans have been pulling this shit for the last half century at least. Remember Nixon sabotaging the Paris peace talks in 1968. Or how about St. Ronald Reagan’s secretive deal with Iran, behind the Carter administration’s back, in 1980. Then there’s the whole Watergate affair with Nixon again. And who could forget the malfeasance of the 2000 election, when the conservative leaning Supreme Court and Dubya’s brother Jeb, handed the presidency to George W. Bush. If you’re looking for filthy politics, look no further than your nearest Republican.

Then, to top it off, Trump then tried to distance himself from his hot bromance with Putin, by saying they’ve never met despite evidence to the contrary. What’s amazing (and frightening) is that there are still people who want this orange haired pathological liar to have his finger on the nuclear button.

Donald Trump thanks his pal, Vladimir Putin for hacking into Hillary's email server and awkwardly flatters him with a comparison to his lovely wife Melanoma.
The budding bromance between Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and U.S. President-Wannabee, Donald Trump, seems to be taking all kinds of awkward turns and twists these days.

Pander Express

It’s the first week in July and the good news for most of America is that there is only four months left in the farce that is Con-a-thon 2016. Polls show that Hillary has opened up substantial leads in the battleground states, which has given most sane Americans a reason to breathe a sigh of relief.  But there is a reason for pessimism. Let’s face it folks; Hillary is far from perfect and has lots of baggage. We’ve felt that she’s moved to the right and is for all intents and purposes a moderate Republican and Noam Chomsky seems to agree. Her coziness to Wall Street is why so many left leaning Democrats and Independents (like us) ‘felt the Bern’ this past year.

Hillary and Bill Clinton also have a history of pulling stupid gaffes at inopportune times. Of course, Bill’s infamous affair with Monica Lewinsky during his presidency stands out as the biggest blunder.  Bill Clinton almost hurt his wife yet again recently. He reportedly met with current Attorney General Loretta Lynch in secret during a layover in Phoenix recently with the FBI’s investigation of Hillary’s private email server looming.  Fortunately, for Hillary, the FBI found her to be ‘extremely careless’ but should not be charged of any wrongdoing.

In addition to Bill pulling boners (pun intended), Hillary has had a huge problem of appearing disingenuous to the American public. Recently, she talked about income inequality while wearing a $12,000 pantsuit. Several months back, while blatantly pandering to moderate Republican, she credited the Reagans for bringing awareness to AIDS, which is the exact opposite of what they did.

Throughout the debates and the primaries, Hillary and Bernie Sanders clearly distinguished themselves as the only adults in the room. If Hillary is to win the election, (and we here at the Bucket sincerely hope that she does now that Bernie Sanders is out), she’s going to have to cut down on the gaffes and change her duplicitous persona. She needs to aggressively attack Trump and the Republicans every chance she gets. She needs to play to win and not play not to lose, like her predecessors Al Gore and John Kerry. Fortunately, she seems to be doing that so far and Trump seems to be doing a pretty good job of self-destruction as well.

No doubt the Republicans will continue their witch hunt and character assassinations of Hillary. They’re already throwing a tantrum about the FBI findings. But it seems that fortunately, for her and America, she’s inherited some of Bill’s Teflon coating.

Hillary Clinton blatantly panders for moderate Republican votes, while the ghost of conservative icon, St. Ronald Reagan, makes a funny about the fallacy of trickle down economics, much to the delight of doting ghost wife, Nancy.
Hillary Clinton blatantly panders for moderate Republican votes, while the ghost of conservative icon, St. Ronald Reagan, makes a funny about the fallacy of trickle down economics, much to the delight of doting ghost wife, Nancy.

Trump’s Wage Slave America

We used to think it was funny that Donald Trump was the frontrunner when this charade called Con-a-thon 2016 started last summer. We figured that all his gaffes, miscues and hateful comments would surely lead to his demise before the first primaries and one of the more seasoned ‘establishment’ GOP candidates, like Bush, Walker or Rubio, would take the lead. But Trump is clearly on track to becoming the Republican nominee and it’s becoming more scary than humorous. As a matter of fact the Economic Intelligence Unit(EIU) ranked the prospect of a Trump presidency as one of the biggest threats to global economic stability, right up there with radical jihadists.

The most perplexing thing: the supporters of Donald Trump. These are people who should be supporting the man who would really help them, socialist Bernie Sanders. But as we’ve commented here before, many lower and middle class Americans view themselves as ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’ , not the exploited backbone of the nation that they truly are. Americans are overworked and underpaid but yet somehow, some of them think that Donald Trump, who is a master at manipulating people and the media, will make their lives better because of the trickle down myth which the Republicans have successfully trumpeted ever since the days of St. Ronald Reagan; Donald Trump is rich, so his riches will trickle down and he’ll make us all rich. It didn’t work in the eighties under Reagan, the aughts under Dubya and it won’t work in the future under Trump.

We’ve been hoping that the people who support Trump would have woken up by now, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. In fact, with the outbreak of violence at anybody who speaks against Trump, they seem more adamant than ever to place America into the hands of an authoritarian megalomaniac with a lust for power and a hatred for dissent. The true future for Trump supporters will more likely be as low wage slaves at his resorts and casinos.

Supporters for Donald Trump like him because he bosses people around, makes up the truth and hates the same people they hate.
Supporters for Donald Trump express their obsequious desire to be future wage slaves for the authoritarian megalomaniac.

CEO Dan Price Gets It

It’s only April but we here at the Bucket already have a nominee for Person of the Year. CEO Dan Price of Seattle’s Gravity Payments, a credit card processing company, lowered his pay by a million dollars and raised the pay of his workers so that the minimum wage at his company is $70k a year. Finally, a CEO that gets it! Since the ’80s, when Reaganomics brought upon massive deregulation, CEO salaries have skyrocketed so that now the average difference between CEO and worker salary in America, is around 257:1. For comparison purposes, in other countries, gaps range from between 28 in Poland to 148 in Switzerland (this report also reports the American gap at 354:1). This move by Dan Price is a breath of fresh air. Now if only more CEOs would follow his lead, workers would finally be able to have a living wage. They would have more money to not only afford the basics but also buy other items, which will in turn help boost the economy. Kudos to Dan Price!!! We salute you!!!

Billionaire President and CEO of Juggermart, Lawrence T. Juggers, says Dan Price is wrong and that CEOs need to treat employees like the scum they are.
Billionaire President and CEO of Juggermart, Lawrence T. Juggers, demonstrates why most Americans view today's CEOs as being greedy assholes.

Imperial President? We think NOT!

We mentioned a few posts back that the Republicans have been whining that President Obama is acting like he’s a king or an imperial dictator. As usual, the GOP’s bluster is at odds with the facts. President Obama has had the lowest number of executive orders to date of any two term president in the last one hundred years. Here’s a handy dandy chart detailing the numbers and showing that Obama definitely is NOT an imperial president. He needs 97 just to catch ol’ Dubya and he needs 187 to catch St. Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of conservative Republicans everywhere. So the next time you hear a Republican whining about Obama being a king, just waive these numbers in their smug, little faces.

President Obama has had the lowest number of executive orders to date of any two term president in the last one hundred years.
'Imperial President' Barack Obama needs just 97 more executive orders to catch the 'bestest president ever' George W. Bush.

 

A Fine Red Whine With Your Immigration Reform

President Obama sure got the crybaby Republicans in a hissy fit with his executive order on immigration reform before the Thanksgiving holidays. You’d think he declared himself King of the World, but that’s exactly how many Republicans saw his action. They’ve been crying like the little crybabies they are ever since. Of course, they’ve been doing that ever since Obama became President. It’s really quite baffling considering that all Presidents going back to Eisenhower, have issued executive orders on immigration. Yes, even St. Ronald Reagan gave an executive order on immigration. But today’s GOP members conveniently forget those facts. They’d rather build their case that Obama’s a tyrant and needs to be impeached, despite Obama having the fewest number of executive orders of any two term President in the last one hundred years. It’s funny how one minute, Republicans say that Obama’s a pussy and needs to take off his mommy pants when dealing with Syria, Iran or Russia and then the next minute he’s a blood thirsty monarch forcing his will on the American people or  just giving away the country to any foreign nation. Yes, the Republican Fear and Noise Machine, powered by Fox News, is working just fine; spreading fear and misinformation to all Americans…a fine, red whine just in time for the holidays!

GOP crybaby Senators and Congressman call Obama an Emperor and threaten impeachment because he's doing his job.while Republicans sit around and say no.
GOP congressman are crying and whining over President Obama’s recent executive order on immigration, which was necessary because Republican led House completely failed to their job and pass legislation on an immigration reform this year.

Top Republican Suggestions For Better Conservation

The St. Ronald Reagan Institute For Real Science has recently released a new and improved guide to conservation, Republican style, called “Neoconservation”. The BilgeBucket Gazette presents to you some of the suggestions and fascinating findings stated in the report.

  • Go out and buy a Hummer. NOW!
  • Support your local utility company. Leave the lights on.
  • Smog is good for you. Trees cause pollution. Go cut down a tree.
  • Extinction is perfectly natural. The polar bear’s gonna die out eventually anyway.
  • Crude oil is a necessary part of a caribou’s diet.
  • Global warming is good for the planet and the economy. Just think of all the land in Antarctica that can be developed if the ice caps melt.
  • Less ozone means better suntans.
  • It’s our God given right as Americans to drill for and use every drop of oil on the planet.
  • America has plenty of mountains. We can spare two, three or fifty for mining.
  • Acid rain scrubs your body clean.
  • Factories are our friends. Go hug a smokestack.

Channeling Bad Presidents

We’re baaaack! We’ve been away for awhile. What did we miss?

Oh yeah. A hidden video which presents the true side of Spiff Romney (more on that in upcoming posts) and a lackluster debate featuring a lying used car salesman(Romney), who was channeling deceptive, former actor/president St. Ronald Reagan, and President Obama, who by using that tried and untrue Democratic strategy of taking the high road, ended up having that deer-in-the-headlight look that Dubya sported throughout the 2004 debates with John Kerry. But what was worse was watching the media cream their shorts about how great Romney’s style was (liberal media? we think not), even though he lied his ass off again. We’re hoping President Obama is just using a rope-a-dope strategy to lure Romney into a false sense of security. In the coming month, he needs to slam Romney on his dubious record with Bain, his refusal to release his tax returns and his ‘47%’ video EVERY chance he gets. If there is one thing we’ve learned in the past fifty years, you can’t trust the Republicans to play fairly at anything.

Here’s a photo-toon from our October 10, 2004 issue which depicts ol’ Dubya in all his presidential debate glory.

In the recent debate with John Kerry, George W. Bush shows his presidential side by smirking and performing that patented Bush maneuver, the sticking out of the tongue.