sheeple – BilgeBucket Gazette

The Sheeple Still Bleat

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 these prosperity 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.

Rewind: GOP – The Party Of Moral Values?

2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the BilgeBucket Gazette. Our first issue was on May 19, 2003 and we’ve been shoveling it to the public, just like the corporate media, ever since. We changed our format to a WordPress blog in 2011 so all of our earlier material was archived. We’ve been reposting many of those archived articles, headlines, photo-toons, BilgeBucket Lists and other content over the past twelve years. In honor of our 20th, and because we’re sick of the current state of affairs in the world, we’ll be reposting more items from 2003 through 2009 throughout this year.

The whole purpose of our 20th anniversary retrospective is to show that the Republicans haven’t just shifted to the right with TFG. They’ve been trying to make America a christian theocracy ruled by corporate America since the Bush administration. The leaders of the GOP want people to be mindless sheeple who blindly obey their leaders, work without complaint no matter what the hours, and consume corporate America’s products like automatons until they drop dead, broke and drowning in debt. So bible thumper creationist Mike Johnson coming to the fore should not be a surprise. It’s business as usual for the Republican syndicate. But it’s business as usual for Democrats as well as they’re doing now what they did in 2006; standing by and watching the Republicans self-destruct and hoping that the electorate will notice.

This article is from our July 7, 2006 edition.

House GOP Ready To Shove Values Agenda Down America’s Throat

Republican members of the House of Representatives recently released a series of bills it is calling ‘The American Values Agenda’ in hopes of energizing it’s conservative base for the fall 2006 elections. Already the first item, protecting the word ‘under God’ in the pledge of allegiance, has already gone down to defeat.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert commented on the initiative. “We feel that this is a necessity as a signal to our conservative base that we’re ready to ram the ideology of a minority of wealthy, religious individuals down the throats of the rest of America. And since this minority has a lot of bucks, we’re going to basically push these items through and character assassinate anyone who stands in our way.”

Among the gritty, pressing issues tackled by House Republicans; a vital flag-burning amendment, a crucial anti-gay marriage amendment, and an urgent cracking down on Internet gambling. Other serious topics to be considered include: protecting insurance companies from frivolous claims from greedy hurricane victims; protecting frozen embryos from evil stem cell researchers; abolishing the completely unfair estate tax which affects a whopping one percent of the population; making sure that every citizen can own and properly use an AK-47; making sure the Arctic Wildlife Refuge is drilled for that precious nine month supply of oil; and making sure that the United States of America becomes a full fledged Christian theocracy.

Democratic congresswoman from California Nancy Pelosi said that this is nothing but pandering by House Republicans. “They are taking radical right wing values and touting them as America’s values. This is nothing more than their age old tactic of distract, distort and divide. Meanwhile, the Democrats have a clear message to the American people and that is . . .we’re just going to stand by and watch Republicans self destruct.”

Vice President Dick Cheney said, “All have to say is that if you don’t support these issues, then you’re not much of an American. I mean if you voted to take the words ‘under God’ out of the pledge of allegiance, you probably watch Al-Jezeera and root for Al-Qaeda. You probably even cried when Al-Zarqawi died.” When it was pointed out that the words ‘under God’ were added to the pledge in 1954, Cheney shook his head vigorously and responded, “See! This is just another example of the biased liberal media spreading misinformation to the good sheeple . . . I mean, people of America. Where’s my shotgun?”

People expressed mixed views about the series of bills. Joe Nelson of Brighton, Massachusetts, said, “I don’t think these bills really help anyone. We’ve got huge problems in Iraq, our deficit is skyrocketing, affordable healthcare is a joke and people in New Orleans still need assistance. I think we need to solve these problems first, although I agree that we should stop Internet gambling. You should only be able to blow your money at a regular casino like normal people.”

Gladys Clary of Dennison, Iowa said, “We need to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and the only way to do that is to drill the hell out of all the available land and coastlines that we have. I don’t care about the Earth’s future. I’m old and my hummer needs gas now!”

Tom Miles of Fetid Gulch, Texas, said, “If we don’t pass these bills now, illegal immigrants will pour over our borders, burn our flags, marry farm animals and use stem cells to cure Alzheimers.”

Trump In The Toidy

Words can’t express the glee we’ve had this week with the news of the FBI issuing a search warrant at TFG’s palatial residence Mar-a-lago in Florida. With unsealing of the warrant today, we’ve learned that the twice impeached orange haired megalomaniac man child is under investigation for possible violating of the Espionage Act. We’ve been critical of Merrick Garland and the DOJ for seemingly doing nothing to bring the former CEO/Dictator to justice but we stand corrected. Garland has handled everything masterfully this week and we’ve got a huge case of schadenfreude, just like at least 81 million other Americans.

In celebration of TFG finally appearing to face some justice, we’ve decided to repost a photo-toon from December 8, 2019. It depicts what a possible Trump Memorial might look like showing TFG sitting on his favorite throne dictating to his followers on Twitter, explaining COVFEFE and stating that we should all get over the fact that he’s a crook. At least we know now why he was obsessed with toilets flushing – that’s where he tried to put his torn up documents. Let this be the crime that puts him in a jail cell with a guy named Bubba who’s fond of spoonin’.

Plans are being made for the Trump Memorial which will feature America's CEO/Dictator Donald Trump sitting on his throne tweeting words of wisdom (like Covfefe) on his phone with his massive hands. The monument will be located in Washington D.C. in an alley behind a KFC next to a dumpster that frequently catches fire. — Plans are being made for the Trump Memorial which will feature America’s CEO/Dictator Donald Trump sitting on his throne tweeting words of wisdom (like Covfefe) on his phone with his massive hands. The monument will be located in Washington D.C. in an alley behind a KFC next to a dumpster that frequently catches fire.

The Rise Of The Sanctimonious Assholes

With the impending Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, thus ending a woman’s autonomy over her own body, the radical, right wing, authoritarian conservative christians are finally making their move. It’s been fifty years in the making and it shouldn’t be surprising to anybody who has been paying attention. The Republican Party has been taken over by the evangelical christians and it’s never been more evident than during the disastrous presidencies of George W. Bush and TFG here in the twenty-first century.

John Dean’s excellent book Conservatives Without Conscience mentions the rise of the religious extremists and how former Arizona Senator and conservative icon Barry Goldwater lamented their influence over the Republican party. It was Goldwater who suggested the book to Dean as a warning to what would happen if these zealots took over the party. Amazingly, Goldwater would probably be booted out of the party he once headed because his stances would be considered too moderate for today’s GOP. For instance, Goldwater was pro-choice, supported medical marijuana and advocated for gay rights. The former Senator stated about conservative christians:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

Unfortunately, his prescient words have come to pass. The Supreme Court is loaded with regressive thinking religious conservatives who believe that Americans should be connecting to a first century database instead of a twenty-first century one. Furthermore, as we have found out in the past twenty years, compromise is a four letter word to them as they think that going to church every Sunday and saying prayers by rote like the sheeple they are somehow makes them superior to everyone else. Like we’ve mentioned before, they want to make America into the Holy Corporate Empire by any authoritarian means possible.

The late Senator and conservative icon Barry Goldwater of Arizona knew all too well how impossible the holy roller evangelical christians are to deal with and now these sanctimonious assholes control the Republican party and are hell bent on imposing their will on all Americans.

GOP Baby Factories – a.k.a. Women

The right-wing dominated Supreme Court has shown their true intentions about abortion rights by recently letting stand severe abortion bans in Texas and Mississippi. We’ve been screaming about their intentions for years here at the Bucket. States with Republican leadership ranging from bible thumping states like South Dakota and Alabama to our home state of Arizona have been slowly chipping away at abortion rights over the last twenty years. Religious zealots have seized control of state and federal government and forced their horribly archaic, first century viewpoints upon the citizenry of the country because these holy huckster bible thumpers still view the woman as nothing more than a baby factory. If these people were truly pro-life, they’d realize that the woman’s life should come first. But then hypocrisy does seem to be commonplace with these sheeple. They claim to be pro-life but then fervently support gun rights. They claim to be pro-life but then violently protest getting a life saving vaccine against a disease that has claimed over 800,000 people in the US and over 5 million word wide.

We’re re-posting a photo-toon from January 11, 2006 when ol’ Dubya nominated Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. This was the beginning of the end because since then, Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett (the Handmaiden’s Justice) have formed a staunch conservative religious bloc on the court that not only wants to force women through unwanted pregnancies but also to knock down the wall between church and state, thus forcing all of us to adhere to outdated, biblical philosophy whether we like it or not. Like we’ve stated before, we’re regressing rapidly toward America becoming the Holy Corporate Empire.

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito displays the only tool (a wire hanger)which will enable a woman to terminate a pregnancy once he's on the bench. — Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito displays the only tool which will enable a woman to terminate a pregnancy once he’s on the bench.

Portrait Of Failure: The Trump Revolution

Inauguration Day has finally come and once again America has a President again instead of an orange-haired, megalomaniac, ranting, raving, man child CEO/Dictator. Donald Trump has flown off to his lair in Florida and competency has returned to the White House. Sane, intelligent, democracy loving Americans are breathing freely again as well as people in countries around the world, as Joe Biden prepares to , once again, clean up another fricking mess made by Republicans.

We don’t usually toot our own horn here at the Bucket, but we predicted what the coming conservative revolution led by Trump might look like back in our post of November 17, 2012. After the 2012 election, Donald Trump started whining about how Mitt Romney was robbed, thus laying the groundwork for Republican claims of election fraud in the future. Trump, who was a Tea Party/Teabagger darling at that time, also threatened to run for President which prompted our photo-toon (which we’ve reposted below) showing the complete ridiculousness of the prospect of a Trump presidency as he incites his Teabagger/future MAGA warriors onward to a glorious conservative revolution while he sits in his luxurious CEO chair stroking his hair and his massive . . . ego.

Unfortunately for the world, Trump unbelievably became President in 2016 and his presidency turned out to be every bit as catastrophic as people thought it would be, culminating in a despicable, treasonous assault on the Capitol on January 6th. In true Trump fashion (and like we predicted), he egged his sycophantic supporters on to commit treason while he took a cushy seat in the White House watching the mayhem. It should be noted that no pardons were issued for any of the people who stormed the Capitol at Trump’s request. But Steve Bannon, the man who ran a scam collecting money from the sheeple for the non-existent border wall, was pardoned. The MÆGAMoron, QAnon, evangelical rubes finally found out the hard way that Trump was nothing but a con artist who conned them nine million ways to Sunday.

In photo-toon summary, this is how Trump’s ‘revolution’ turned out.

Here’s our photo-toon from November 17. 2012 – the Inception

Megalomaniac Donald Trump vows to do his part in the coming conservative revolution.

Here’s our latest photo-toon – the Insurrection. It sucks to be a Trump supporter.

A couple of ardent, redneck Trump supporters find out the hard way that they were duped nine million ways to Sunday by megalomaniac man child Donald Trump.

Coronavirusing The Election

The coronavirus pandemic has brought out the strangeness of humanity. On one hand you have the Italian people singing from balconies in a touching effort to stay connected with each other. On the other hand, for some strange reason, people are hoarding toilet paper and acting like this is the apocalypse, which has now caused problems with the sewers in California with people using alternatives. The stock market has lost just about all its gains from the Trump era. Not only that, Republicans are somehow embracing socialism, proposing sending every American one thousand dollars to deal with the crisis.

While Covid-19 has wreaked havoc on the world, Vladimir Putin has pulled strings in Russia so that he will remain President until 2036. Hell, let’s just call this what it is: President-for-life(a.k.a.dictator) . . . and quite possibly even after his death (we’re sure he’ll find a way). This is hardly the actions of a healthy democracy now is it. Speaking of healthy, Russia seems to avoiding coronavirus surprisingly well. Hmmmmmm….

Yet we have no doubt that America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump is green with envy about his man crush Putin. Trumpty Dumpty has hinted on more than one occasion about how being ‘president for life’ would be a wonderful thing for America. The Republicans have been working feverishly to enact voter suppression laws across America. Last week we saw that fear of coronavirus kept some people away from primaries and many states are even postponing their presidential primary elections. Reports have indicated that Covid-19 may come in waves so that we will have to be on guard until next year. Could it be that Trump, in an effort to keep power, cancels the 2020 election due to a serious coronavirus wave outbreak? If it sounds evil and vile, then you can bet Republicans are probably going to do it. The Republican-led Senate just gave Trump a free pass on impeachment despite him being guilty as hell, thus suspending rule of law, checks and balances and democracy. So, Trump can do whatever he wants. Republicans under Bush tried to create a perpetual war with its war on terrorism after 9/11. Now with many waves of coronavirus possible and the American public panicking like never before, Republicans will absolutely politicize the hell of it because if there’s one thing the GOP knows how to do, it’s fearmonger.

Keep the sheeple scared and keep ’em away from the polls! Yep, Trump’s definitely angling to join the President for Life club with his pal Vlad and his Republican sycophants are no doubt going to do their damnedest to try and make it happen.

Upon seeing how scared the American sheeple have become due to the coronavirus, America's Impeached CEO/Dictator Donald Trump reveals that he'll just cancel the 2020 election so that he will be President for life and beyond, just like his hero and man crush Russian President Vladimir Putin. — Upon seeing how scared the American sheeple have become due to the coronavirus, America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator Donald Trump reveals a plan that will enable him to be President for life and beyond, just like his hero and man crush Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Foolproof Gun Control Solution

The coronavirus has gained the attention of the world recently with more than 65,000 cases reported globally and almost 1,5000 deaths. America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator Donald Trump even took an aggressive stand by issuing travel restrictions with China where the virus originated. But many feel that the travel ban could backfire. While we applaud this act of preparedness, health officials and the CDC say that the flu is much more dangerous and has already claimed 10,000 lives in the U.S. since October.

But there is one deathly scourge that continues to be ignored by the corporate media and the corrupt, conservative Republican corporate lackeys in Congress who continue to look the other way and do nothing. That menace is none other than gun violence. In America, gun violence kills far more people than coronavirus every year (36,000 gun deaths each year with more than 100,000 shot and injured) but yet the corporate media chooses to gaslight us and continue to scare the sheeple with the occasional and over-hyped biological threats. Over-hyped is a strong word but look at the numbers. According to the CDC, 445 people are under investigation in the U.S. for coronavirus. There are about 325 million people in America, so that means that 0.00013692307 percent of Americans have the virus. In China, which has almost 1.4 billion people, there are 60,000 confirmed cases. So, that means that 0.00428571428 percent of the Chinese population have the virus. There are already questions concerning the numbers being reported from Chinese officials.

This is par for the course for the Republicans and their cohorts in the corporate media. Would Trump ever consider signing an executive order banning assault weapons? Are you kidding???!!! The Republicans love using viruses as way to scare the sheeple. Look at the 2014 election, when the GOP announced to everybody that Ebola was coming to get them. Ebola can only be transmitted if you’re in direct contact with bodily fluids of an infected person, but that didn’t bother the Republicans from lying their asses off to get their permanently scared constituents to vote for them to ‘save the day’. We’ve seen how much more corrupt they’ve become since then with their whitewashing of Trump during his impeachment trial and the complete collapse of the now corrupted Department of Justice.

Since Republicans refuse to do anything about our biggest crisis, we here at the Bucket have a foolproof method of gun control. Sure it’s a bit crude but you know what, so are today’s right wing conservative gun nuts. So, just in time for Valentine’s Day, if you love guns more than life itself:

go home
give your favorite firearm a blow job
bring that gun to orgasm

Or in simpler terms: Go F*ck Your Gun! We guarantee it will be a mind-blowing experience and we might finally be able to pass some decent legislation making America safe and sane again before the next round of mass shootings.

Here's a handy dandy gun control solution for all those gun enthusiasts out there who love their guns more than life itself. Guaranteed to be a mind-blowing experience! — Here’s a handy dandy gun control solution for all those gun enthusiasts out there who love their guns more than life itself. Guaranteed to be a mind-blowing experience!

Look…Over There…War!

Gee . . . we couldn’t have seen this coming. America’s CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump has decided to start a war with Iran because he needs a distraction from being the third president in U.S. history to be impeached. This week, on the orders of our megalomaniac-in-chief, Qassem Soleimani, the highest ranking General in the Iranian military was killed by U.S. bombing in Baghdad. Iran, not surprisingly, has vowed vengeance which pretty much means that another war in the Middle East is inevitable.

We’ve observed quite a few wars in the past sixty years and we already recognize the corporate media falling in line with the warmongering Republican’s position and the military industrial complex’s ‘war is good business’ mantra. The media is touting the ‘elite’ Iranian military groups like Soleimani’s Quds Force, a part of their Revolutionary Guard, much in the same way they touted the ‘elite’ Republican guards in Iraq during the lead up to the Gulf War and the Iraq War; fearsome dangerous forces akin to the Nazi stormtroopers. However, in both wars, American troops had little trouble dispatching the ‘elite’ forces in short term armed conflict. It was the long protracted stays in Iraq and Afghanistan, the quagmires, which created problems. But at the same time, it also made many defense and military contractors very wealthy.

What’s especially frustrating is that with the U.S. at war, it’s pretty much guaranteed that impeaching Trump will be a difficult proposition. Many presidents, (including Bill Clinton during his impeachment in 1998), have pulled this kind of shenanigan as a distraction to impending domestic political crisis. This might also help Trump in the 2020 election since the general rule of thumb is that you never change presidents in the middle of a war, which is why Dubya won a second term, despite being a disastrous president. Bush’s repetitive screed of ‘9/11, terror, war, re-elect me’ certainly scared his conservative Republican sheeple to vote for him again in 2004, which is the only time since 1988 a Republican has won the popular vote for president.

Maybe this will be the event that finally breaks the enigmatic bond between Trump and his sheeple followers. After all, he did promise no more wars and to reduce American troops in the Middle East. However, we have no doubt that the evangelicals will view this action as joyous because it puts them one step closer to their precious rapture. Of course, sane, reasonable, intelligent people worldwide will view it quite differently; yet another reprehensible action by a deranged sociopath and his delusional followers who shouldn’t be anywhere close to the corridors of power.

Facing an ignominious impeachment, America's CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump decided he needed a distraction, so he started another war in the Middle East, this time with Iran, much to the delight of his sycophantic followers in the Senate, Lindsey 'The Hypocrite' Graham and Moscow Mitch McConnell, a.k.a. Turtle Boy. — Facing an ignominious impeachment, America’s CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump decided he needed a distraction, so he started another war in the Middle East, this time with Iran, much to the delight of his sycophantic followers in the Senate, Lindsey ‘The Hypocrite’ Graham and Moscow Mitch McConnell, a.k.a. Turtle Boy.

Nobody Knows The Trouble Trump’s Seen

America’s CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump has been impeached by the Democratic controlled House of Representatives and the Republicans are in full, whiny, crybaby persecution mode. They’ve done everything from having a moment of silence for the 63 million people who voted for Trump in 2016 (what about the 66 million who voted for Clinton or the 8 million who voted for third party candidates!) to one GOP congressman from Georgia actually comparing Trump’s impeachment to the trials and tribulations of Jesus. Jesus Christ!!! What a load of malarkey!!!!

We’ve droned on forever about how hypocritical the evangelical, conservative christian sheeple are for supporting Trump but this takes the cake. At least one christian magazine has come forward and openly supports impeaching the orange-haired megalomaniac. Maybe, just maybe, this will start a backlash that will start christians waking up and realizing that Trump is nothing more than a golden calf. Yeah right!!! But hey, it’s the supposedly ‘magical’ holiday season – we can dream can’t we!

Capitalist Jesus, who is also very Republican, admits that American CEO/Dictator Donald Trump's impeachment is much worse than his crucifixion and offers him some affluent advice for healing his pain and suffering. — Capitalist Jesus, who is also very Republican, admits that American CEO/Dictator Donald Trump’s impeachment is much worse than his crucifixion and offers him some affluent advice for healing his pain and suffering.