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.
Back in our September 6, 2018 post, we addressed the perplexing phenomenon of christians supporting Donald Trump, a man who is basically different from Jesus in every way, shape and form. We think it’s one of our better posts (click on the link above and read it) and perfectly summarizes why christians seem to follow authoritarians. Since then, Trump has only gotten worse and the MAGA Morons have officially obtained cult status with many loony tunes preachers actually stating they think TFG is the chosen one. Of course, ever the bombastic, narcissistic con man, Trump encourages them. He’s even hawking bibles for $60 a pop.
We’re going to just repeat most of that post with some changed links here because nothing has changed. Why are MAGA Morons worshipping Trump as their new Lord and Savior? Well, you can thank their teachers, pastors, priests and leaders for brainwashing them from day one to believe everything they say and that anybody who says otherwise is an agent of Satan. We’re atheists here at the Bucket, but we do abide by the golden rule, which pre-dates christianity. We were brought up in an religious environment, so we know from whence we speak. The organized christian religions are very authoritarian in nature; just look at the catholic church. The pope is considered to be infallible. That means he is never wrong and if you even suggest that he could be wrong, then you will face the consequences of excommunication or damnation in that mythical place of pain and suffering, hell. Dex Rexter, BilgeBucket editor, remembers very well the nuns searing into his young, malleable catholic brain to never, never, NEVER be a doubting Thomas or Jesus will be very upset with you and cast you into the pit of hell for all eternity. Fear is used as a weapon from day one on people in organized religious environments and used quite effectively. Just look at the art work of Hieronymous Bosch from the fifteenth century. Do what the preacher says and you’ll get to go to heaven; disobey and go to hell and get poked by demons with pitchforks. Of course, in reality, heaven and hell don’t exist. But this use of fear by religious authoritarians is the same methodology employers in corporate America get their employees to do whatever they want. They dangle that golden carrot telling their subordinates that if they work extra hard they’ll be rewarded with riches beyond their dreams, knowing full well that when the employee inevitably burns out or outlives their usefulness, they’ll be fired. Just ask the employees of Enron, Carrier or any of the other shit load of companies who’ve screwed their employees and consumers to augment the coffers of the top executives.
Another thing that is astonishingly aggravating is that many christians are anti-science and actually call critical thinking, logical and rational people who accept the truth of such things as climate change or evolution, sheeple. Really!? How ironic! Christians are the original sheeple! It’s even built into the dogma. Every christian is forced to pray the mantra “The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…” or think for that matter. The metaphor of Jesus as the shepherd and everyone else as the sheep is everywhere in the christian faith. That is why the congregation must do what the pastor, priest or minister tells them to do, like vote for Trump, because the self acclaimed holy men are tighter with God than the average commoner. That’s how theseprosperity gospel charlatans get away with their crap and the people’s money for materialistic wealth that Jesus taught against.
Make no mistake; the Republicans have exactly who they want in the Oval Office, that is why they are sitting on their keisters why all chaos descends on the this country. Trump is the ultimate CEO; the exemplary authoritarian who barks out orders and condemns those who dissent. We ask the christian sheeple to wake up and realize that this wolf in sheep’s clothing, this golden calf, is nothing like Jesus, who preached the golden rule, to have tolerance and respect for others even if they were different and to eschew greed and materialistic wealth and to take care each other.
From Jesus to Donald Trump, christians unquestionably follow their authoritarian leaders like the good sheeple they are.
It’s not surprising that Biden nailed it. He’s still a strong, capable leader with fifty years of vital, important, EXPERIENCE in all phases of government. This week, special counsel Robert Hur’s damning statement in his investigation of Biden’s secret documentation case about the President having a poor memory was found to the be contradicted by his own testimony saying Biden had “photographic understanding and recall of the house”, a tidbit the Republican left out of his final statement. It just shows that Republicans are coordinated in their efforts to bring any kind of damage they can to Biden, despite the fact that he has done a great job in his first term as President. We’ll take Biden’s 81 years of EXPERIENCE to TFG’s 91 felony counts any day!
Dispelling notions of being too old, President Joe Biden slipped into Dark Brandon mode and delivered a forceful State of the Union address much to the chagrin of his many detractors in the GOP and corporate media.
One of our features here is Capitalist Jesus where we present Jesus dressed in his best suit and tie ensemble commenting how wonderful capitalism and right wing conservative christianity is. Because nothing is more christian than the unregulated greed and selfishness brought on by unregulated capitalism. Like we’ve said before, unregulated capitalism is just indirect cannibalism. We’re killing each other for fun and profit.
Which reminds us of TFG, a.k.a. former twice impeached American CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump. We posted a photo-toon of Capitalist Jesus back in 2016 when TFG started running for President which pretty much sums up how hypocritical modern evangelical christians in the GOP are when it comes to supporting this pathological liar. Since Con-a-thon 2024 is basically a repeat of Con-a-thon 2020 and Trump ran during the Con-a-thon 2016, our job here is pretty easy. Since the Republican Party is rinsing and repeating with the stupidity of Donald Trump, we can rinse and repeat with our photo-toons because one thing hasn’t changes since 2016: Donald Trump is still a greedy, egomaniacal, petty, self-aggrandizing misogynistic, bombastic, materialistic, deceitful, callous, bigoted and oppressive asshole.
Capitalist Jesus, who is also very Republican, is stoked that his ideological twin, Donald Trump, looks to be the GOP nominee for president.
January 6th marks the three year anniversary of the Capitol riots, Treason Day, Insurrection Day or Traitor’s Day – all names are fitting. It’s been three years since that infamous day and not one of the instigators like Paul Gosar, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene have been held accountable and are still roaming free. And the biggest offender, TFG, is the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President, which will undoubtedly turn into the office of President-for-Life, if he somehow gets re-elected this year. Sure, many of the rioters have been sentenced, but many have been given light sentences given the gravity of their offense – trying to overthrow the government!
We’re reposting our Insurrection photo-toon from our previous posts because it pretty much says it all. 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’ve noted with alarm over the last twenty years the Republican party’s slide to authoritarian fascism and yes it started during the Bush administration. Remember after 9/11, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer spewed forth these chilling words that all Americans need to “watch what they say, watch what they do”, forgetting about free speech and stepping toward a big brother-esque society. The the Patriot Act was passed as if to provide an exclamation point. Of course, the crowning point of the Dubya and Dick Cheney’s presidency was the clusterf*ck quagmire in Iraq which was shoved down American’s throat with gusto by the corporate media costing us trillions of dollars over the long haul. So yeah — the Republicans have been at this kind of iron-fisted power grab for some time now.
This coming election is startling and the most dangerous of the 21st century. There are 299 out of 569 Republicans running for office who are fully on board with the Big Lie pushed by the twice impeached, classified document stealer TFG. Many of these people are guaranteed to win because of the districts, counties and states where they live. If this happens, then democracy is doomed in these places because these fascists will never allow a non-conservative, non-Republican to ever win an election again. Period. This is why we’ve highlighted the important races of Senator, Governor and Secretary of State here in Arizona, our home state. These QAnon loving loons are drunk with the Trump Kool-Aid and will no doubt push their agenda with an iron fist backed by TFG and his MAGA Moron militias, not to mention his enablers in Congress.
Republicans don’t want to govern, they want to rule with an iron fist.
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.
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.
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.
We’re taking another brief interlude from our coverage of whack job Arizona GOP candidates to post about the absolutely unscrupulous and feckless U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who was confirmed in the waning days of the Trump administration and nominated by the twice impeached megalomaniac man child himself and is also a member of the right wing conservative Federalist Society.
Corrupt Trump appointee Judge Aileen Cannon has decided that twice impeached former President Donald Trump’s feelings are more important than the national security of 332 million Americans.
A few posts ago we commented on the newsreader who wants to be guvnah in Arizona, the woefully unqualified Trump acolyte Kari Lake. In this post, we’ll discuss the AZ GOP’s candidate for Senator, another Trump Humper named Blake Masters.
We’ve mentioned before about America becoming a corporate theocracy; a Holy Corporate Empire, if you will – and Blake Masters is one hundred percent on board with this kind of transformation. Corporations are authoritarian environments. Corporations are like little dictatorships. The corporation has a CEO and small board of advisers who make all the decisions for the company. If you don’t like the decision, you’re fired. Churches are authoritarian environments. The church has its leader who claims infallibility because he or she talks to God. If you don’t like what the leader has proclaimed, you are evil and one with the devil. Both institutions have very fascist tendencies – do what the leaders say or else. It’s no surprise that the Republican party is filled with these corporatist and religious zealots. They’ve been pushing since the Reagan administration to try and make the government like a corporation. The evangelicals have pretty much taken over the Republican party with their embrace of TFG and planting right wing zealots on the Supreme Court to overturn abortion. We have no doubt if given the chance, Masters would do everything possible to join church and state and corporate America together into a modern day feudal society because . . . you know . . . the Middle Ages were so enlightening and full of freedom for everyone. That’s right, you work during the day, go to church on Sunday and don’t ask questions like good little sheeple until the day you drop dead. Maybe, just maybe, our autocrat overlords will throw a pittance your way as a reward for allowing them to buy yet another car, boat or luxury property. Ahhhh! Unregulated capitalism!
Fortunately, at least for Arizona, he’s running against centrist Democrat Mark Kelly who’s about as likable as they come. Independents love him and moderate Republicans do, too. And what’s not to like; he’s an ex-Navy pilot, an engineer and he’s an ex-astronaut. Not only that, he’s done an impressive job in his two years as Senator helping get many legislative packages through Congress. And he’s voted with Republicans enough so that he’s not viewed as completely partisan.
Masters is behind in the polls and he’s desperately trying to backtrack on his abortion , election fraud and social security comments. With the DOJ’s case against TFG becoming more evident, it looks like his attraction to the crooked and traitorous Trump could sink him like a stone. Of course, there are a lot of MAGA morons here in Arizona which could make the race closer than it should be. Hopefully, there are enough competent election officials with ethics and morals who will make sure that radical right wing Republicans don’t try some kind of Trumpf*ckery to get MAGA candidates elected.
Arizona GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters states America should be a corporate theocracy, a.k.a. a Holy Corporate Empire, so that we can all make money for our capitalist masters until the day we drop dead.
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.
