While some are calling yesterday’s change of policy with regard to contraception coverage a win-win for both the Catholic church and the Obama administration, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops does not see this as a win. Instead, they see it as one small little step, and they are pressing for much, much more.

The first amendment’s protection of religious liberty is not a license for religious organizations or individuals to disregard any law or regulation they don’t like. If the White House wants to end this fight, that’s the argument they’re going to have to make to the public. Instead, they have allowed the USCCB to set the terms of the debate, and the USCCB is quite happy to continue doing so.

This isn’t over, folks. Not by a long shot.

Health care policy expert Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, makes the bold prediction in the New York Times that in just eight years the health insurance industry will be extinct in America. He claims it will be replaced by accountable care organizations, or ACOs. Emanuel’s description of how these future new ACOs will work sounds incredibly similar to how Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) are supposed to work.

Some days as I travel the by-ways and highways of the Intertoobz, I come across articles, blog posts, or other pieces of information that just make me shake my head at the absurdity of things I’m reading. I discovered today’s Theater of the Absurd at emptywheel this morning where Marcy had a post titled “Torturing the Truth Vigilantes.”

Thrill to the exploits of New York Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane, aka Truth Vigilante! Watch him wonder if it’s worth it to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Witness him ask around to see if he should run fast than a locomotive!

The New York Times sued the Justice Department over their reticence to turn over a memo from the Office of Legal Counsel detailing the argument for how the US government can legally assassinate an American citizen.

There are now two more polls, in addition to the two polls released last weekend, showing that Newt Gingrich has the lead in the Iowa Caucus. A third poll shows Iowa voters now believe Gingrich is slightly more electable than Mitt Romney.

Are we a democracy or are we some poorly written Saturday Night Live sketch parody of a democracy? It is getting harder and harder to tell.

Given the absence of perspectives from America’s elites, NBC is taking extraordinary steps to rectify this problem by hiring Chelsea Clinton to be a corespondent, despite the fact that she has no professional experience as a journalist or TV producer.

The New York Times used an article on Rhode Island’s pension system to denounce “the nation’s profligate ways,” which it warns will catch up with us. Newspapers are supposed to leave such editorializing to the opinion pages.

David Brooks delved deep into his storage locker of misinformation to tell readers that the idea of blaming the richest 1 Percent for the country’s problems is just silly. He told us that the really big ideas aren’t about reversing the upward redistribution of income from the top, they are from centrists who want to do things like cut our Social Security and make us pay more for health care.