Once Bitten . . .

Twice shy, right?

Not if you're a special brand of God-botherer known as a Snake Handler.

You usually find Snake Handlers up in the wilds of Appalachia, in small rural churches were they take their religion so seriously that they've latched onto a minor verse in the Bible (Mark XVI: 18, for those of you playing along at home) and parade around with venomous cottonmouths, copperheads and rattlesnakes in their hands.  All while invoking God to protect them from the effect of the venom when these snakes inevitably bite them.

And people think Islam's a bit odd.

The reason I bring this idiocy up is that yet another Snake Handler bit the big one recently - or, I should say, the snake bit the big one, as it sank its fangs into the guy.

The preacher in question was named Jamie Coots, of the Church of the Final Thunder in Hot Town, Mississippi - oops, sorry, that would be the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name church in Middlesboro, Kentucky.  Sorry about that, Mississippi.  He'd been bitten eight times before, and lost a finger after one such bite.

He'd also been arrested for having poisonous snakes in his possession, and for transporting them across state lines.  But I imagine he'd explain all that away as following "God's Law, not Man's." 

Dumbass.

The National Geographic Channel even had a reality show about him, called Snake Salvation.  I guess they wanted to capitalize on the success of Duck Dynasty by highlighting just how insane some backwoods people can get, and let's face it, folks - doing something that can kill you makes for great television.

As I said, Coots had been bitten eight times.  Ninth time was the charm, apparently, as he got bitten, finished up his sermon, went home and succumbed to the poison. 

Which brings this to mind:

The Sweet Milk of Their Tears

Boehner Sells Out . . . Benghazi: A Tempest in a Chamber Pot . . . Chris Cristie Goes to Lakehurst . . . 

Savor it.  It's smooth and tasty, like dark chocolate, but with a tiniest kick of cayenne pepper.  You know, for that little kick at the end.

Yes, dear readers, the fine bottled Tears of Impotent Rage will continue to be made available.  One must savor it while it lasts, before the Democrats manage to buckle again.

First, the debt limit.  We were on our way to yet another looming default crisis, as laughable ratfuckers like Senators Rafael Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-TN) egged on the foaming-at-the-mouth Tea Party Caucus in the House to insist upon further cuts to social spending to 'offset' any increase in the debt limit.  The Democrats, however, insisted on a 'clean' bill, one devoid of any offsets.

(Oh, and never mind the fact that the House gave Bush the Dumber nineteen clean debt limit increases.  A foolish consistency is, after all, the hobgoblin of little minds.)

Boehner caved in earlier this week, and took a clean debt limit bill to the House.  He did this largely because of the crippling fallout of the last financial kerfuffle, where the GOP (led by the aforementioned Rafael Cruz, likely a paid agent of the Nefarious Canadian Government - he was born there, after all, and who knows what all that maple syrup can do?  I mean, just look at Rob Ford in Toronto) managed to make themselves look like feckless churls and saw their popularity sink lower than terminal brain syphilis.

Boehner did admit that his own caucus was rebelling against him, by saying aloud that he'd need Democratic votes to get the bill passed.  Votes, of course, that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was happy to provide. 

The final vote was 221-201, with 10 brave souls deciding not to vote.  199 Republicans stuck to their stupidity like gum to a shoe and voted to destroy the national and world economies, along with two Democrats (and I'm sure Pelosi is having words with them as we speak).

The biggest beneficiary of this is the American people, who won't have to be subjected to another GOP tantrum that fucks over soldiers, veterans, children and the poor.  After them, the Democrats and the President win a nod for sticking to their guns.

The biggest loser?  John Boehner.  He lost credibility with his caucus, primarily with the knuckle-draggers, and if the GOP manages to retain control of the House after the 2014 by-elections I do not rate his chances of holding onto the Speaker's gavel very highly.

***

The House Armed Services Committee unveiled their long-awaited final report on the attack on our embassy in Benghazi, Libya back in 2011. 

A collective series of yawns erupted from all but the most tinfoil-coated conspiracy theorists and complete fruitcakes.

The final verdict was that a military presence, even if it had gotten there on time, could have done little to avert the destruction of the complex or the death of the Ambassador, and it faulted the State Department for not making sure there was adequate security.

Another series of yawns, please.  Thank you.

Whenever this happens, the usual complaint is that there wasn't enough security.  That's perfectly true, there wasn't - but the GOP-controlled house had trimmed back Embassy security funding.  And in the wake of all the screeching about Benghazi and embassy security, the House did it again in the recently-passed budget.  The cut was $240 million, for the record.

So if blame is to be cast, it should be dispersed a tad wider.  Hint, hint.

***

Christ Christie is the Governor of New Jersey, and is a Republican.  Now, New Jersey is usually considered to have immense amounts of corruption in its state and local governments, such as Operation Bid Rig in 2009, but by and large things get done.

Back in 2013, Christie was running for re-election as Governor, and was running virtually unopposed.  His Democratic challenger was going to lose, and lose badly.  Everyone seemed to think so.

Back in 1972, Nixon felt the same way about McGovern, which made the entire Watergate Scandal that much more inexplicable.

The Democratic Mayor of Fort Lee decided to not endorse the Republican Christie for re-election.  Ordinarily, no biggie, but apparently it was felt that the Mayor had to be taught a lesson and a message sent to anyone who'd dare stand in the way of the Christie juggernaut.  Remember, Christie also has ambitions to become the GOP Presidential nominee in 2016.

Fort Lee is the Jersey terminus of the George Washington Bridge, one of the busiest bridges in the world.  Gee, that's nice - it'd be a pity if anything were to happen to it . . . .

So on September 11, 2013, that's what happened, with a traffic jam on the Fort Lee side that snarled things up for days and may have cost one elderly woman her life.

Emails surfaced, and the scandal has caused Christie's chances for victory in the 2016 campaign to evaporate like snow on a hot griddle.  Hilary Clinton's margin of victory, in a hypothetical matchup against Christie, has her beating him like a red-headed stepchild.

The latest thing to surface is an allegation that Christie flew over the traffic jam on the bridge, while on the way back from New York for some function or other.  As portly as Christie is, allusions to the Hindenburg immediately leap to mind.

Just remember as you get closer to Lakehurst, Chris - stay clear of the mooring mast, or . . .

Oh!  The Humanity!

On a Mission from God to Destroy the GOP

All alone in his unquiet grave on the banks of the River Styx (he was too cheap to pay Charon for the ride), Lee Atwater looks up, his flesh crawling with maggots, and says, "Oh, not again . . . "

Atwater, the guitar-playing, blues-singing racist motherfucker who established Reagan's "state's rights" strategy that once and for all lured the Dixiecrats and unreconstructed Confederates into the Party of Lincoln and Eisenhower, shakes his moldering fist at the TV screen.  Yes, dear readers, there is TV in Hell - but all it shows is Fox News Opposite.

Because Satan has to be that way.  Hush now.

Fox News Opposite is what it says it is - the opposite of the Fox 'News' we all know and loathe.  Programming is chosen by the Dark Lord of Evil himself, and can be pretty eclectic - gluttons are shown cooking shows, etc. - so it's no surprise that Lee Atwater is shown yet another example of the Republican Party marginalizing itself for the common good.

Despite taking a massive demographic drubbing in the 2008 and 2012 elections, the GOP hasn't really managed to woo any significant percentages of women, minorities or young people away from the Independents or the Democrats.  Oh, they talked big, of course, but every time they said they were making the tent bigger, they managed to say or do something to further alienate the groups that the Republicans must have in order to prevent themselves from becoming a Lunatic Fringe Regional Party.

One faction within the Party is the Log Cabin Republicans, made up of homosexuals.  If I may be pardoned the indelicacy, these must be the most self-hating bunch of idiots on the soiled face of the Earth.  When you consider the anti-gay agenda the Republican Party has clung to for the past decades, you have to wonder just what the blazes these men and women are doing there.  Maybe they have cookies.

Anyway.

A candidate for vice-chair of the Michigan GOP, one Ms. Mary Helen Sears, posted a blog entry last April calling for the Party to "purge" The Gay from their ranks.  She went on to say that "Satan uses homosexuality to attack the living space of the Holy Spirit," which strikes me as rather amusing.  I mean, the Holy Spirit's supposed to be an emanation, a disembodied power - it doesn't need living space.  And Satan has other tools in his cabinet that are far more subtle, like self-righteousness.

Interestingly, this stance, which is held by quite a few Party apparatchiks on the local and state levels, has the "Establishment" wing of the Party reaching for the Pepto-Bismol and the antidepressants.  They're working to sabotage Sears' candidacy by backing their own safe candidates, even to the point of asking one to quit so they won't split the ticket and get Sears into the Party hierarchy (Party rules in Michigan require that it be a woman, which will beg another question).

So Lee Atwater actually sighs in relief as the channel changes itself to an endless loop of gay porn, because it means it's time for his daily massage.  To a douchebag like Atwater, being beaten with flaming steel rods for eternity seems like a gentle hot oil rub compared to watching the Party he sold his soul for self-destruct.