Got a trio of slices of succulent schadenfreude for you, my lovely readers, today. I just happen to have come across three different news story about things that are sure to get the conservatives of the world good and angry, and thus, also bright sunshine and joy into my bitter little heart.

Here they are, from the small to the tall :

First off, we have a brand new book that challenges the heck out of the accepted wisdom about what the Bible has to say about sex.

The book has the ever so adorable title “Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire” and is written by a religious studies professor from Boston University named Jennifer Wright Knust. It talks about how it is impossible to determine what the Bible’s attitude about sex is because the text so clearly contradicts itself on the matter in many places.

So in other words, she’s not really saying anything particularly new. The Bible contradicts itself on every subject and in every possible way. Just trying to reconcile the petty and petulant patriarchal God of the Old Testament with the kind, expansive, and forgiving Son of God in the New Testament is cognitive dissonance migraine enough. It’s good to hear from a religious scholar who takes a more broad and understanding view of things, but honestly, the people she is targeting, the people who use the Bible as a justification for intolerance, bigotry, and hate, are far beyond her reach, or the reach of any reasoned argument, whether based on the Bible, science, or just common decency.

It’s not like they are going to listen to anything from some university professor from the North, anyhow.

Next up, we have this charming tale of Barack Obama, unplugged and uncensored, saying what he really thinks about the Republicans and their cold hearted budgets.

As the story goes, Obama thought the reporters had all left the room when he unloaded some cold hard truth about the Republicans, including such gems as this :

“I said (to Republicans), ‘You want to repeal health care? Go at it,’ ” Obama told backers in a private meeting with an open microphone.

” ‘We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget.’ ”

He said he added: “You think we’re stupid?”

No, President Obama, they don’t think you are stupid. They just think you are no smarter than they are.

It amounts to the same thing.

He also reportedly said :

When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he’s just being America’s accountant … This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill — but wasn’t paid for … So it’s not on the level.”

That was different. When their guy is in power, anything goes.

Personally, I think this was no accident whatsoever. I think it was a carefully planned event made to look, superficially, like an “accident” so that it would have more impact. I think it was about as accidental and unplanned as the Super Bowl half time show.

Normally, I would not credit the Democrats in Washington with anything near the level of intelligence, cunning, and killer instinct to do something so deft and effective, but then I read about this marvelous maneuver they pulled recently in the House, and suddenly, I have faith in their perspicacity.

It’s a little complicated, but I will try to explain.

Basically, you have the Republican Party, and a still more insanely libertarian anarchist woowoo group within it called the Republican Study Committee. This clutch of boobs hatched an even more brutally evil version of the main GOP budget, and this Extra Evil version came up to a vote in the house recently.

Now, you might ask : if the main GOP has their own budget, authored by their official Budget guy Paul Ryan, why would they let this Extra Evil version come up for a vote at all? After all, if it passed, it would be a huge slap in the face to Ryan and all his supporters, and be utterly toxic to all Republicans as they would have to own its complete and total evilness as a group.

The answer is that the main GOP was just doing what it always does, jacking off the base by convincing them that the whole GOP is one big tent and that they all want what the Tea Party jackals want, and it’s only those evil demon Democrats that keep them from bringing in the Great Glorious Red (State) Revolution.

In the standard script, most of the GOP would support this notion by voting for the Extra Evil budget from the RSC, counting on every Democrat to vote against it and therefore ensuring that only a small number of moderate Republicans need to vote against it for it to go down in flames and leave the vast majority of Republicans with clean Tea Party credentials. Hey, you know, I really wanted your budget to pass, but darn those Democrats, they are so pesky…

But the Democrats, showing a rare degree of sentience, flipped that script. Instead of voting “no” on the Extra Evil and Insane version of the budget from the RSC, they simply voted “present”. In other words, they, as one, abstained from the vote.

And glory be, suddenly the Republicans had an almighty hurricane blowing out of their collective ani, and a magnificent shitstorm did occur. Because now it was entirely up to the Republicans whether this completely insane and evil and politically poisonous budget passed, and a whole bunch of Republicans who had been all for this horrible RSC budget when it had absolutely no chance of passing suddenly had to show their true (sane) colors and switch their votes, right there in front of everybody, from “yes” to “no”.

Otherwise, that sucked would have passed.

As is, the thing only failed by 18 votes, and all those people who genuinely supported the Extra Evil budget got to turn to their supposed compatriots and say “What the hell? You just told me you supported this budget and now you are voting against it?”

Absolutely. Fucking. GENIUS.

Nothing they could have done could possibly have been more effective at baring the huge rift between the main GOP and the Tea Party saps that honestly want to do things and change stuff. They put the GOP machine in a position where they had to completely flipflop on an issue right there in the House and show the Tea Party just how little the main GOP cares about them right to their faces.

Nothing could be finer than seeing evil people turning upon one another. That’s vintage, that is.

I am hoping that this breaks things wide open, and a massive schismatic bloodbath ensues. I have been predicting a breakup of the GOP into Tea Part and Still Sort Of Sane factions for quite some time now, and this would be a simply marvelous way for it to get started.

Hey Tea Party, are you going to just take that from them? Don’t you realize that the real enemy is the Republican establishment that has been lying to you and keeping real conservatives from having a voice in government all this time?

After all this time, the truth is revealed! The People’s Front of Judea the Republican establishment is worse than the Democrats! They betrayed and humiliated you in front of the whole world!

It’s time to MAKE THEM PAY, and take the Republican party back for REAL conservatives, in REAL America!

Let the games begin.