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.
Here’s our DubToon from our September 17, 2006 issue featuring Master Dubya convincingly denying the use of torture.
“We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.”
George W. Bush 06-22-2004
“America does not torture…except for waterboarding, attack dogs, electrodes to genitals…”
We’re in the last week of 2022 and there were several huge stories throughout the year: COVID-19 continued its assault on the human race, NASA sent another rocket to the Moon after fifty years and the Democrats preserved democracy for a little while longer and managed to pass major legislation in the process. But probably the biggest story on the world stage was the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the emergence of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a symbol of democracy for the world.
Last week President Zelenskyy made a surprise visit to Washington and he gave a impassioned speech to Congress. Zelenskyy is very media savvy and made a convincing argument for the United States’ continued support of Ukraine in their battle against Russia. The Russians thought they’d roll over their neighbors, but the Ukrainians have resisted admirably. How much longer will this war continue? Despite rumors of a cease fire coming soon, it appears that the war will more than likely drag on for most of 2023. Zelenskyy has said that the Ukrainians will never give up and we believe him. At least the United States has committed to helping Ukraine obtain freedom and democracy for its people.
Slava Ukraini!!!Support Ukraine!!! Support Democracy!!!
Slava Ukraini!!! Support Ukraine!!! Support Democracy!!!
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.
There’s tons of important events occurring right now in the world: the continuing war in Ukraine, the Jan. 6th hearings, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the record heat waves covering most of the northern hemisphere that are clearly related to climate change. Segue to DINO West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin who has singlehandedly held up Democrat legislation and the Build Back Better program numerous times now during Joe Biden’s presidency. His latest monkey wrench is his opposition to a bill that would help create regulations that might alleviate the drastic effects of climate change that we’re currently seeing. At least federal environmental agency staffers and members of Congress have had enough and urged Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Shumer to strip Manchin of his chairmanship of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Executives in the coal, gas and oil industries are relieved that they’ve got such a solid lackey like Joe Manchin in Congress who puts profits before the health of the planet and its inhabitants.
We’ve been enjoying the wonderfully mild weather here in Arizona (hence, fewer posts), doing things outdoors to try and boost our morale a bit with all the insanity going on right now, not just in this country, but in the world. We thought we were getting better but then Russia’s dicktator (misspelling intended) Vladimir Putin had to go and invade Ukraine. We would have thought that Russia had enough land but apparently not. The rest of Europe learned its lessons well from World War II and the Cold War, but apparently Russia wants to relive those glory days of old. Fortunately, most of the world has condemned Putin’s brazen attack, even his allies in Czech Republic and Hungary. But the Ukrainians are fighting hard because they absolutely want democracy, not to be a puppet state of Putin.
We’re reposting a photo-toon from December 21, 2016 because T**** and Putin are still TPing the world; Putin in Europe and Asia and TFG with his insipid rallies and stupid speeches here in America. Sorry, folks — the planet is still royally screwed until we figure out a way to rid ourselves of these authoritarian, right wing, fascist assholes. Maybe we can interest T & P to take a ship to Mars with other greedy, corporatist jackasses Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson. Then each of these manly men could all praise each other with their hot air until they run out of oxygen.
Support Ukraine!!! Support Democracy!!!
With the new Trump-Putin new world order, the denizens of planet Earth look to be royally screwed.
There have been a multitude of failures over the past twenty years in Afghanistan. After killing Osama Bin Laden, Obama had the opportunity to exit the country where empires go to die but failed to do so. The number of snafus committed by the Bush administration are legion. We never should have gotten involved in the first place. We didn’t learn our lessons from Vietnam and thanks to ol’ clueless Dubya, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the war mongering, conservative Republicans, we ended up repeating the very same mistakes, all to make money for the military industrial complex. Considering that TFG always bitched about Bush, why didn’t he withdraw from Afghanistan during his administration? Because the Republican’s modus operandi is to boldly go nation building in impossible countries half way around the globe knowing full well that it will be impossible to leave and when Democrats get elected to clean things up, they will receive the blame, just like Biden did.
Like we said in the previous post, the corporate main stream media will throw anybody under the bus if it means money and ratings and right now they are pushing right wing talking points which are false and misleading. Biden made some mistakes, but the blame for the Afghanistan quagmire, just like the Iraq clusterf*ck falls firmly on the George W. Bush administration. Thanks Dubya! At least you’re painting pictures now instead of making more forever wars.
Much to the delight of former President George W. Bush, his buddies in the corporate main stream media have blamed current President Joe Biden for Dubya’s failures in the Afghanistan quagmire.
That’s because the Republican party has clearly become the party for white nationalists and lovers of authoritarianism and fascism, . . . you know . . . Putin-style ‘democracy’. We remember a photo back when Obama was President and he was giving Putin the evil eye, like he was saying, “Cut the bullshit, Vlad!” Pretty badass, right? Of course, the Republicans were rooting for the white guy in the photo because:
They’re the ones who are un-American
They’re racist as hell
They’re THE PROBLEM
Solve the problem on November 3rd and vote out every Republican sycophant from federal level all the way down to state level. When you let a foreign power like Russia have influence over our country, that’s unacceptable, untenable and un-American.
With their strange attraction to Russian President Vladimir Putin, modern day Republicans and supporters of Donald Trump seem to have misplaced their priorities, their common sense and their loyalty to America.
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 a plan that will enable him to be President for life and beyond, just like his hero and man crush Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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.
The Trump impeachment inquiry grinds onward but last week, the 2nd worst president of our lifetime, George W. Bush, a.k.a. Dubya, reappeared in the national arena when a football broadcast showed talk show host Ellen DeGeneres palling around with ol’ Dub Dub, who supported at one time a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, at a Dallas Cowboy’s game in luxury seats. This has sparked much controversy, some celebrities being supportive of Ellen’s new buddy and others, like Mark Ruffalo, not so supportive. Given how much we’ve griped about Dubya since 2003, we tend to agree with Ruffalo’s statements. In fact. we say Bravo!
We’ve noted before about the recent normalization of Dubya’s clusterf*cked administration now that Trump is in office. Make no mistake, Bush was awful!His administration tried to undermine rule the law just like Trump is doing now because. . . you know . . . that’s what Republicans do.Dubya lied repeatedly to the public and his Attorney General Alberto Gonzales did for Bush what Bill Barr is doing for the orange haired, megalomaniac man child in the White House. Remember, Gonzales tried to fire federal prosecutors back in 2007 for political purposes. He also had a litany of other controversies, which eventually led to his resignation. That’s just part of the Republican’s eternal blue print to destroy government regulations (or laws!) and privatize everything for the good of the plutocrats of corporate America.
We recommend that everybody review the history of these conservative Republican con artists from the Bush era. They should be held accountable but instead people choose to forget. We like Ellen. But it’s too bad that she is so willing to look past Dubya’s war crimes, because he should be held accountable for them. But, in true conservative fashion, Bush has not apologized and will never apologize for his transgressions, because in his mind, conservatives never make mistakes and to admit a wrongdoing is a sign of weakness. Sound like anybody currently occupying the White House?
Well, in America, we guess when you’re a rich celebrity, money trumps everything else. Who cares if you tortured people and started a war on false pretenses that screwed up the entire Middle East. Let’s enjoy a football game together in luxury seats because we’re famous and wealthy. What Ellen should have done was to offer up her seat to one of the many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who lost limbs or who are suffering from PTSD. Better yet, why don’t Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and all those other millionaires and plutocrats who profited from those wars pay all the medical costs for those veterans who are now suffering. Nope; like everything else, we the people end up paying for everything while the wealthy skate away with their money without a care in the world and without accountability.
Here’s photo-toon featuring Dubya and Fredo ‘Pinocchio’ Gonzales from our June 26, 2007 issue.
President Bush continues to support his embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, despite calls for his resignation from both Democrats and Republicans, following his dubious testimony during the Senate’s investigation into the possible politically motivated dismissals of eight federal prosecutors last year.
