The year that was, 2014, was a shitty one for almost everyone I know. It certainly saw a bunch of people worse off, myself included, and there’s not much on the horizon that looks promising. Maybe that means things are more likely to get better than worse. Today is also the last day of this extended holiday beggathon that saved my ass. Readers sent me almost 600 dollars over the past several weeks. And while that may not sound like a lot to some of you, when you are a poor progressive activist, it’s a fortune. If you can squeeze out five or ten bucks, or more, it matters to me. My Paypal address remains Darksydothemoon-at-aol and I’ll drop a snail mail address in comments for checks; yeah, I’m that fucking desperate. After midnight it’s over. Help me Obi-wan, you are my only hope.

Recall that a few days ago reports surfaced that Pope Francis will issue an encyclical on the environment and climate change, challenging a billion plus Catholics to take the matter seriously. Remember, gentle atheists, what you get when you mix religion and politics? Politics! And by politics we mean power and by power we mean money. The grifters of America are more than happy to use religion to dupe the faithful into giving them more money, but what happens when religion interferes with chalking up another billion for the richest zillionaire orc brothers on Earth?

PoliticsusUSA — One of the greatest things to happen over the past year is the remarkable revelation that there is finally, at long last, a major Christian leader, and member of the clergy, who espouses, embraces, and promotes the teachings of Jesus Christ. … The Pope already drew the wrath of both evangelical and Catholic Republicans in Congress for criticizing the greed and income inequality championed by the GOP, but now he has the undivided attention of the Koch brothers, Exxon, and their dirty energy cohorts.

The Pope’s announcement drew a harsh rebuke from the religious right’s Cornwall Alliance, whose spokesman, Calvin Beisner, said that regardless of his position as Pope, or intent to help mankind, “Francis will be opposed by the powerful US evangelical movement.” The Koch-funded “Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation” had previously issued a biblical declaration labeling the American environmental movement a dirty false religion and “unbiblical.”

This is not Cornwall’s first foray into the war to increase carbon emissions and oil industry profits. A couple of years ago one of the Kochs’ and oil industry’s greatest political and legislative arms, the Heritage Foundation, gave the evangelical Cornwall organization a forum to roll out its crusade against climate science called “Resisting the Green Dragon.” According to Cornwall’s pastors and Christian leaders, the Kochs’ oil industry campaign against efforts to combat climate change is the evangelical movement’s “biblical response to one of the greatest deceptions of our day” against what they have labeled “a false religion.” The group claims the entire climate change movement is a “nefarious conspiracy to empower eugenicists and create a global government” and portrays even the idea of climate change as the work of Satan the Devil.

In the very very dark, dank corner, coated in vile black slime raised from the fuming sulfurous pits of hell reeking of pure unadulterated evil, weighing in at 450 corrupt pounds … the Koch Brothers!

It was bad enough when Francis kept mentioning that Jesus scorned the rich in favor of the poor. But questioning the Koch’s God-given right to collect corporate welfare, steal from the poor and give to themselves, pollute the planet with greenhouse gases and toxic sludge, all so that they have a shot at racking up another useless billion or two before one of the Ancient Ones dies and the lucky survivor overtakes Bill Gates and, finally, drinks his essence, is going too far!

So we can look forward to the Pope being compared to the anti-Christ and accused of fostering a false religion and maybe wholly new, novel backhanded insults. Which might sound like a tight rope to balance on. But rest assured, this is familiar territory for evangelical social conservatives, they’ll pull it off with nary a hint of shame or hypocrisy, without a single dislocated vertebrae, many will enjoy it. It’ll be just like old times for a lot of them. Gimme that old time religion … it’s good enough for me …

But it could pose a problem for Catholic conservatives in the public light. Say for example someone were to ask Chris Christie, or Rick Santorum, or Ted Cruz, or Paul Ryan — and a whole bunch more — in the upcoming GOP presidential clown car debate and road show if they agree with their conservative peers that their inerrant Vicar of Christ on Earth is actually a Satanic lackey who might better off enjoying early retirement standing at the right hand of Beelzebub’s dark, thorny throne.

Just seeing Christie dropping jowls rappin, his feet tap dancing, his chubby ass flappin off across the debate stage on that one might be worth it.