The Romans used bread and circuses to keep the masses entertained while their empire slowly slid into the dust of history. Nowadays, it isn't bread so much as a non-stop 3-ring circus of stupidity being thrown in our faces by a complicit media.

Religious zealot Kim Davis has created a maelstrom of hyperbole and hackery with her self-crucifixion this past week. People - who would recoil in horror if their churches were regulated by the state - exercised zero self-reflection in their demand for the church to regulate the state. They also didn't see the irony of how their demands mimic those of the Sharia Law of which they are so terrified.

To up the ante, two erstwhile Republican presidential candidates demonstrated their contempt for the U.S. Constitution they would swear to uphold if elected by showing up and supporting her battle against legal jurisprudence. That they would prostitute themselves to such an un-American cause in an effort to get some free publicity and support from the religious extremist minority shows their complete lack of fitness to hold the country's highest office.

We don't even have to provide examples of shuckster Donald Trump playing pimp for the anti-PC set, as if being loud, brash, and unapologetically boorish are presidential qualities we should admire. That he was interviewed by his female equivalent - Sarah Palin - only shows how absurd the entire Republican primary has become.

Today on the Capitol grounds, these same players are going to be protesting a nuclear deal that was years in the making. They have no viable alternative. They aren't smart enough to even understand it. But - the president supports it, so they're against it, and they will bloviate and spew hatred and fear, because that's the only thing their dimwitted supporters respond to.

Meanwhile, the Democratic candidates - all thoughtful, intelligent, and brimming with ideas to move the country forward - are getting the scraps of media attention which fall off the table. The only attention Clinton gets is when there is a drummed up "controversy" like Benghazi! or her email server. Once those have been proven to be non-stories, of course they don't get any media retraction.

Looking ahead, Congress is back in session, we are running out of money once again, and we're looking at another government shutdown (because THAT went so well last time). Maybe the presidential circus is what we need to distract us from the tent falling down on the Capitol.