Snake handling as a sign of faith

In general, the things that Jesus is reported to have said are fairly benign. (I do not want to get into the question of whether Jesus actually existed or said these things, which is something over which there is heated debate). But there is one thing that is highly problematic and that is found in the verses Mark 16:17-18 where, after his resurrection, he told his disciples the following:

“And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

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A closeup view of the last days of a deranged presidency

We can expect to see a slew of books coming out about the truly disastrous Trump presidency, trying to understand how such a manifestly weird and awful person managed to destroy his primary opponents, get elected president, and turn the Republican party into a cult that has some of the most fanatical and dangerous supporters in recent history. As his presidency went on, it became more and more chaotic as those with even a semblance of independence and competence got replaced if they were not totally subservient to him and replaced by even more sycophantic and incompetent people. The end result was predictable, that he would end up getting advice from the looniest of loonies.

Axios has put together a series of articles titled Off the rails, a description of the final days, starting with election night. Trump’s plan had been that when people went to bed on Tuesday night, they would see a sea of red states predicting a landslide victory for Trump based on just the election day votes, the so-called ‘red mirage’ that he had been warned about. Then when the mail-in vote counts were announced much later and if the tide turned against Trump, people would be more susceptible to his fraud narrative. But things went berserk after Fox News, of all networks, became the first news network to call Arizona for Biden as early as 11:20 pm. This shocked and infuriated the Trump camp, who saw it as a betrayal by the most loyal media network, because it blew apart that narrative.
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Do we really need to do this to get people to donate to charities?

I have long been an admirer of Eddie Izzard,. She is one of the few stand up comedians whose shows I can watch in their entirety without it getting a little tedious after some point. I think it is because of the way she goes off on wildly imaginative tangents with a lot of physicality involved. (Izzard has recently said that she prefers she/her pronouns.) In addition to comedy, she is progressive in her politics and raises money for charities by running marathons. But not just a marathon here or there but a series of marathons in a short period of time.

For example. look at this series of runs. (I wrote about that feat back in 2017.)
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The profile of the insurrectionists

I am fascinated by cults. What makes people join them and devote themselves so ardently to the cause or the leader that they will even forsake their families and friends?

The Trump cult is going to be studied for some time. A common image of the majority of Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol building on January 6th during the insurrection is that they are white men who are going through financial hardship and angry at feeling that they have been ignored and are also members of various armed militant groups. But it appears that a significant number do not fit that profile.
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Why did Giuliani, Powell, and Fox News pick on Smartmatic?

Smartmatic is a software company that works with election systems. They became the target of a systematic campaign by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell and Fox News personalities Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro, who accused the company of rigging the votes in order to enable Joe Biden to win. The puzzling thing is Smartmatic’s only involvement in the election was in Los Angeles county where there was never any need to to fraudulently aid Biden to win since California was assured. So why pick on this company? The answer may be that its founder Antonio Mujica is originally from Venezuela. Aha! There was the smoking gun!

On that flimsy basis this bunch of loonies spun their fantastic yarn of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, George Soros, and the international Communist movement working to steal the election from Trump. Smartmatic has had enough and, like the Dominion Voting Systems company that manufactures voting machines who were also accused by this crew of stealing the election, they have initiated a massive $2.7 billion lawsuit against these five people as well as Fox News and its parent Fox Corporation.
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Will Biden avoid the Obama trap?

Ryan Grim recalls how Obama, even though he came into office in 2009 in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis with much bigger Democratic majorities in both houses of congress than Joe Biden just obtained, got slow-walked by the Republicans who dangled the carrot of bipartisanship in front of him and managed to water down all his proposals. His weak response is blamed for the massive losses the party suffered in the 2010 and 2014 mid-term elections which resulted in Republicans winning the majorities in both chambers.
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Small but good start on Yemen

The war in Yemen is a horrendous catastrophe causing immense suffering for its people and the US has been complicit in it by providing the Saudi Arabian regime with weaponry to prosecute their attacks on Yemen. Joe Biden has now declared that the US will end its support for the Saudi offensives.

Joe Biden has announced an end to US support for Saudi-led offensive operations in Yemen, as part of a broad reshaping of American foreign policy.

In his first foreign policy speech as president, Biden signaled that the US would no longer be an unquestioning ally to the Gulf monarchies, announced a more than eightfold increase in the number of refugees the country would accept, and declared that the days of a US president “rolling over” for Vladimir Putin were over.
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Bernie Sanders outlines his budget plans

In his first Senate floor speech after becoming chair of the powerful budget committee, Sanders details what is in the covid relief plan that his budget committee is drafting and says that it contains the fulfillment of the promises that he and many other Democratic leaders made to voters during the last election about what they would do if they got the majority. He says that they are obligated to carry them through. As usual, he focuses on the things that are important and does not take his eye off the ball and does not get distracted.

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The sorry state of the Republican party and conservative media

The fact that the Republican party leadership put QAnon Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene on the House education committee tells you all you need to know about how craven they have become. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has issued a mealy-mouthed statement about their decision not to do anything. It appears that she received a standing ovation from the Republican caucus. The Republican party leadership was willing to strip former Iowa congressman Steve King from all his committee positions for his hateful statements but is not willing to do the same for Greene although she is even crazier than he is, as hard as that is to believe. It should be noted that she has not publicly recanted her statements, instead choosing to tout her support from Trump. Her and her party’s defense is that she made them before she was elected to Congress.
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