Passing The Political Football

Once again my senator Mitch McConnell continues to show America that Republicans are focused like a laser on the most important issue facing the country right now: jobs the economy abortion national security screwing with college football conferences.

Earlier this week, the Big 12 conference appeared ready to admit West Virginia into the league—a move so certain that university officials began tipping off members of their current conference, the Big East. But on Tuesday, the Big 12 abruptly backed off its overtures to the Mountaineers, leaving school officials in limbo and wondering what had happened.

On Wednesday, West Virginia received a key clue. The New York Times' Pete Thamel reported that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had lobbied officials at two Big 12 schools on behalf of his alma mater, the University of Louisville, which also is vying for a spot in the conference.

Everything Republicans do is about personal gain.  That's the point of political power, one leads to another in a cycle.

Not surprisingly, McConnell's alleged lobbying prompted anger among the two senators from West Virginia, Jay Rockefeller and Joe Manchin, who are both Democrats. They have called on the Senate to investigate whether McConnell inappropriately interfered in the football drama.

"The Big 12 picked WVU on the strength of its program--period. Now the media reports that political games may upend that," Rockefeller, who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and has jurisdiction over college athletics, told reporters. "That's just flat wrong. I am doing and will do whatever it takes to get us back to the merits."

Manchin, a West Virginia alum, went further, questioning McConnell's ethics.

"If a United States senator has done anything inappropriate or unethical to interfere with a decision that the Big 12 had already made—then I believe that there should be an investigation in the U.S. Senate, and I will fight to get to the truth," Manchin said in a statement. "West Virginians and the American people deserve to know exactly what is going on and whether politics is interfering with our college sports."

So yes, it seems now that while the country is busy having a gut check over the direction of the country, over social equality, economic fairness, over the role of government in America and the true power of the wealthy, the most august deliberative body in the world is out back behind the outhouse fighting over the size of each others' "conferences" and Republicans are abusing their power because they can.  Meanwhile, the one thing that gets Joe Manchin pissed off enough to fight back isn't the economy or Republican intransigence on jobs but the fact that Mitch is messing with the Mountaineers.

Can we just Occupy Congress already?