Apparently not at all concerned about the financial bust, the ongoing erosion of sovereignty, and the continuing no-end-in-sight war, some U.S. Senators want to make sure that sports fanatics get NFL football game coverage for free.

The men and women of the U.S. Senate are surely some of the most powerful and influential people in the world. Certainly, their days, if not their nights, are filled with contemplations and meetings and briefings on only the most important of subjects, all of which, naturally, center on the demands of keeping America free and operating under the constraints of the Constitution.

Well, all right, that would be in a perfect world. But still, one would like to think that, at the very least, our Senators have some important business with which to occupy themselves.

Perhaps some do, though evidence of that is increasingly rare. Unfortunately, evidence that our Senators are completely out of touch with the real world is disturbingly available in the form of a letter sent recently by several members of that august body to Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL.

In the letter, 13 Senators, or nearly one-fifth of the entire Senate, asked Goodell to expand the free broadcasts the NFL provides in the home cities of competing teams to a larger audience, by expanding the broadcasts over larger geographic regions adjacent to the home cities. The Senators with nothing better to do than ask for this change are Arlen Specter, Jack Reed, Sheldon Whitehouse, Pete Domenici, Mike Enzi, John Barrasso, Joe Lieberman, Dick Durbin, Patrick Leahy, Ken Salazar, Bernie Sanders, Wayne Allard, and John Thune.

Moreover, they want quick action according to the AP report, presumably because, according to the Senators' letter, "The policy leaves behind NFL fans across the country simply because they live outside cities to which the NFL has granted franchises."

Oh dear! The horror. The NFL must be nationalized. Or, at the very least, there ought to be a bailout. Maybe the Treasury Dept. can conjure another massive number out of thin air with which to overawe and impress the provincials. Think of the children!

The action taken by these Senators in making this request is not surprising, really, in our welfare state where, just like in ancient Rome, contentment for the masses was furnished by the state and politicians for the express purpose of distracting and numbing the minds and bodies of the people.

There will be many who, greedy for this type of entertainment, will actually applaud the action of the Senators. But this is so far out of the realm of what a Senator should be involved with that it’s quite tragic.

Remember the dignity, honor, and intellectual prowess of our Founding Fathers as they worked so valiantly and diligently to give us the liberties and freedoms we experienced for over 200 years, now lost through the antics, lack of vigilance, and outright disregard of these modern-day patricians.

Juvenal, a Roman satirist from the second century hit the nail on the head, for both the people of his time and ours when he said, “... Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."

To which I say: Amen.

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