Last night was last night, and it's all there was, and it's all there is. There isn't going to be anything more between us.

Life is pretty good (though busy.) There are only three things making me bang my head on my desk today: politics, religion and sports. Other than those small things I haven't a care in the world.

With regards to politics the Lieberman vote yesterday by Senate Democrats has me seeing red. There are tons of theories as to the thinking of Reid and company to why they let Lieberman keep his chair. Many are willing to write it off simply to Senate collegiality. Others point to Ted Stevens' loss and the growing probability of hitting the magic 60 senators number (although the idea that Lieberman, not to mention Blue Dog Democratic senators, will vote the right way when is counts is beyond absurd.)

Personally, I subscribe to Jane Hamsher's opinion that the Democratic Senate just gave the base of the party the middle finger. Putting the base in our place after we all worked so tirelessly and donated so much to seeing Democrats increase numbers in the Senate and House and win the White House was the entire point of the Lieberman exercise. We can't let the moonbat rabble thing we're beholding to them or anything. They're sending us the message to not expect ANYTHING out of them even with Obama in the White House.

Yeah, well fuck you too Senator Reid.

While I'm on the subject of messages; many Catholic bishops are sending their flock the same message in light of the election results. 54% of Catholic voters went for Obama and these bishops are not happy.

Chicago Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is preparing a statement during the bishops' fall meeting that will press Obama on abortion.

The bishops suggested that the final document include the message that "aggressively pro-abortion policies" would be viewed "as an attack on the church."

Between the direct involvement of the church of LDS in the passage of Proposition 8 in California and the growing direct involvement of big churches in endorsing similar measures and candidates around the country I'm starting to feel a little victimized here myself.

We subsidize these churches through their tax-exempt status. I don't have a problem with that and consider it wholly constitutional. But when churches are engaging in the types of political advocacy we've seen lately, they're crossing a church-state line. Essentially they're taking my money and using it for something that, as in the case of Proposition 8, I violently disagree with.

Church leaders- take your tax-exempt status and shove it up your ass.

College football sent president-elect Obama and fans of the sport a message yesterday when the BCS signed a deal to move the broadcast of the bowl games from Fox to ESPN for the years 2011-2014. Besides the fact that this is a giant rasberry aimed at fans who don't subscribe to cable the real news here is this effectively locks in the stupid BCS system until that contract expires six years from now.

The end of the ESPN deal coincides with the date — 2014 — through which the B.C.S. commissioners have agreed to keep their current championship system in place. The commissioners met last April and considered a playoff proposal by Mike Slive, the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, but voted against it and put off considering any changes until the end of the next television deal.

I can't think of any other sport where fans consistently root for the thing to go FUBAR so we can get rid of it as they do in college football with the BCS.

Dear BCS- message recieved. Now kiss my ass.

I think that's enough outrage for today.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

I've had all these little bits of video rattling around in my head the last couple of weeks and apologize if it all seems a bit... jumbled. It's almost straight out of my subconcious so it's bound to be a little disorganized.

I also realize it's quite a bit of stuff to watch but most of it you've probably seen before. The stuff from "V" are a couple of the best bits from the film, IMHO. Hendrix playing a song that tears me up in pretty much ANY form (except Jessica Simpson's version - ick) Eminem's "Mosh" which got me so stoked that the youth of America would save us. They tried. They were just overwhelmed by the "afraid of their own shadow" security voters.

Most of all it's a combination of both glum assesment of the current state of affairs and call to arms. Here's a silly, fun video to bring hope which I stole directly from Jane Hamsher at firedoglake.

I will not be threatened by a walking meat loaf!

Somewhere in a comment section in one of the numerous blogs I read I came across a comment in reaction to the blow-up over the Michael J. Fox commercial that went along the lines of "this reminds me of the dust-up over the Wellstone memorial." As I continue to see more and more about the ad and Limbaugh's comments I'm inclined to agree. The GOP and their agents in the media are able to create a false controversy by poo-pooing(*) perfectly legitimate behavior by Democrats that hasn't crossed any traditional lines of common sense.

Don snabalus highlights the value of these sorts of fake controversy- they keep us from talking about legitimate issues such as the value of stem cell research in finding a cure for Parkinsons as in the case of Fox. Let's not forget they provide the additional perks of firing up the GOP base and dehumanizing their opposition by making them, us, out to be heartless political automatons.

It's the sort of stuff that leaves most sane people who follow politics throwing up their hands and asking "why in the hell are we talking about this again?"

Along those lines: Tristero seems to be channelling don snabalus this morning. He links Jane Hamsher who does a great analysis of the greater context to Rush "moving the goalposts" on all sorts of issues.

(* as opposed to the act of "pooh-poohing" which involves plotting to steal honey from bees, asking Christopher Robin all sorts of silly questions, and being dragged down the stairs by your foot while hitting your head on each step.)

There's too much. I sum up.

Some good stuff...

Over at Steve Gilliard's News Blog Steve quotes Marc Shields as saying Republicans now see a 30 seat loss in the House. Steve takes a great jab at Democrats for not taking advantage of the current situation to deliver the killing blow:

What the DC Dems don't get is how alienated Americans have become with Bush and the GOP. They are begging for aggressive leadership, and people are still worried about NASCAR dads.

Folks, you need to worry about Walter Reed dads. They want the war to end, they want a resolution to the War on Terror and not the ham handed methods Bush is using.

...

Jane Hamsher started a mini-brouhaha over at her site over a post she did citing that CNN poll that shows most Americans would prefer Bill Clinton was still running the country rather than the Chimp. Jane referred to Bill as "the finest Republican President of my lifetime" and got the predictable round of ire from progressives.

Personally I think Bill Clinton was far from a perfect President but when I consider our current position in the world and what it was to have a President surrounded by grown-ups who looked at the facts and made grown-up decisions I feel pretty nostalgic. Not all of our foreign policy was correct, in my estimation, but at least in was based on a rational approach rather than the President's "gut."

...

Digby takes on the same CNN poll comparing Bush and Clinton with the goal of deconstructing the roots of voter's disenchantment with Bush:

Bush by contrast has had a free hand. He had an historical moment that could have brought the country and the entire world together --- which he decided instead to use as an opportunity to aggressively assert arrogant partisan and American power. Rather than being a "uniter not a divider" as he promised in the campaign, he roared into office with his one vote majority and treated the Democrats like lackeys, behaving as if he had a mandate to enact the most extreme items on the GOP agenda. He used patriotism as a bludgeon to intimidate all dissent against his inexplicable war with Iraq. At every turn he behaved with insolence and hubris and his failure has been manifest. Now he lives in a bubble, wandering around dazed and confused about what is happening to him --- which is not the result of Democratic partisanship, I might add, but rather the assessment of the American people. (The Democrats were paralyzed during most of his term.) Perhaps that's why his fall has been so steady --- the slow realization among the people that being a leader takes more than a manly swagger and a down home accent.

Bill Clinton may have been an imperfect human being but he was a president. This guy is, and always was, just a brand name in a suit.

...

The inevitable attack on Iran moves a step closer. Of course the moving of these two carrier groups could be just bluster on the part of the administration.

Right.

...

A little over a hundred posts with adjoining pop culture quotes and now three of them have been from the same character in the Princess Bride. I can't help it. I just love Inigo.

Yeah, that's the ticket...

Because I refuse to register with the New York Times I'm just going to lift this quote directly from a terrific piece trashing Fred Hiatt by Jane at fireddoglake.

But a week earlier, in an interview in his State Department office, Mr. Powell told three other reporters for The Times that intelligence agencies had essentially rejected that contention, and were "no longer carrying it as a credible item" by early 2003, when he was preparing to make the case against Iraq at the United Nations.

Mr. Powell’s queasiness with some of the intelligence has been well known, but the new revelations suggest that long after he had concluded the intelligence was faulty, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were still promoting it. (emphasis mine)

This leapt out at me and frankly it pissed me off.

I realize we've been buried under an avalanche of examples of this administration lying over these past few years but for some reason this case, which is not even really new, really sticks in my craw.

I get that the chickenhawks like Bush and Cheney think that winning a late night game of Risk with their buddies when they were twelve equates to them being master strategists but Powell actually served in uniform and saw combat for chrissakes. If he was queasy about the intelligence then why the hell wasn't he yelling about it? He was in a position to do something about this stupid war. Being a grown-up in a room full of children mean you just might have to say "no."

Of course you realize this means war.

The wonderful Jane Hamsher from firedoglake posted an excellent piece at Huffington summarizing all that's taken place on the abortion front this week and highlighting what action she thinks we that support choice should take politically. Her call to drop an anvil on the collective heads of the "Gang of 14" is spot on. Those Senators that are part of that "extrodinary circumstances" coalition that call themselves pro-choice yet voted for cloture are not worth a tinker's damn. Lieberman, Chafee and Snowe have shown they can't be trusted to follow-through with action when it comes to protect reproductive rights.

I was struck by this response from the comments section to Jane's post:

Bush won the election. Republicans won 55 seats in the Senate. They EARNED the right to appoint justices to the Supreme Court. Even ones that don't pass the NARAL/NOW/PP litmus test .

It's not called "bullying", it's called "democracy". Look it up sometime, you obviously have no clue what the word means.

Posted by: tarajunky

I pay a lot of attention to politics. I follow national elections outside of my local and state races. I love watching C-Span. I get as nervous meeting my congressional representative as some people do meeting their favorite rockstar or actor and I can't for life of me remember abortion being a major issue in the last national election. I don't recall it being much discussed at all and certainly not by most Republican candidates for office.

In point of fact there were moderate, pro-choice Republicans paraded across the stage at the Republican convention as the face of the party. Their were no James Dobsons or Pat Robertsons speaking in prime-time and leading a charge against abortion. Instead there were Schwarzeneggers and Guliannis talking about security, September the 11th and immigration and sold to the American people as the authentic face of the party. And Bush? Bush refused to say what kind of judges he would nominate, only that he wouldn't apply a "litmus" test.

The Republican Party didn't win the last election running ON the issue of abortion but rather running FROM issue of abortion.

But perhaps no other thing gives lie to tarajunky's babbling than to point out the obvious: the Republicans DO control both houses of congress and the presidency. Why don't they just pass legislation banning abortion?

It's because they haven't EARNED a damn thing.

As for the "democracy," South Dakota is a perfect microcosm of what's wrong with that argument. In a state with only 750,000 residents the average voter already has more say more say on this issue than the average New Yorker via the advice and consent of their two Senators. Their efforts this week at leading the charge for judicial review by passing a law banning all abortions just add insult to injury. I wouldn't call that democracy. Tyranny of the minority maybe.

No, I think Jane described it best when she termed it "bullying." Sure, it's like being bullied by an Ewok but it's still bullying. Nobody likes a bully.

Least of which a short, fat, cute, furry and really annoying bully.