* Perhaps taking a cue from her most rogueish guest, Oprah Winfrey has decided she will no longer be shackled behind her talk show.

* The Senate takes up its version of the health care bill tomorrow morning. Harry Reid needs 60 votes just to proceed with debate, because the Republicans do not want to deal with this thing at all. If they filibuster, let us hope they forgo the phonebooks and pledge allegiance to the flag for twelve hours straight. (Eat your heart out, Todd Akin!)

* Said health care bill is 2,074 pages long. Tony Perkins and his fightin' evangelicals have released something called "The Manhattan Declaration," which manages to cover "the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty" in just 4,700 words.

* President Obama will make a decision about Afghanistan troop levels after Thanksgiving, assuming he's not in a food coma.

The Colbert Report airs Monday through Thursday at 11:30pm / 10:30c.

But, did you know that she is also an asshole?

Carrie Prejean has been a hot topic this week after it was revealed that she made multiple sex tapes for her ex-boyfriend. Now we are hearing from the ex-boyfriend and the plot thickens. He says she was 20-years-old when she recorded the sexually graphic cellphone videos and sent them to him for his reaction…

After the sex tape scandal broke, it didn't take Prejean long to call the ex-boyfriend. He said that she was furious and asked him to lie and say that she was 17-years-old at the time they were created.

Ugh! What is wrong with this stopwatch? It's been stuck at 14 minutes for too long now. Get to 15! Get to 15 already!

Pretty much the only thing that could make this video any more distasteful is if she were wearing a Yankees cap…

Here's a much more acceptable version…

(via Andrew Sullivan)

^{* "Hathos" definition here.}

On a completely unrelated note…

"We went up against tremendous odds," Marc Mutty, public affairs director for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland who has been on loan to the campaign, said from Portland.

"We all know we were the little guy going up against the big guy, but we prevailed. We prevailed because the people of Maine — the silent majority — the folks back home spoke with their votes."

Those plucky underdogs on loan from the Catholic Church really pulled it off, didn't they? Yay, Catholics! I can't believe they somehow managed to do it with only the worldwide multi-billion dollar religious organization behind them. It's always nice when the little guy wins, isn't it? Real Revenge of the Nerds situation going on there.

And this time, Big Gay didn't know what hit it! Haha! Those stuffed shirt homosexuals wanting to protect their families and keep their basic human rights really took one on the chin for the first time ever.

(via Dan Savage)

And this morning, good news. The fair-minded folks up north stayed true to the state's "live and let live" ethos by a strong margin…

A referendum to expand Maine's medical marijuana law won handily on Election Day. With 86 percent of the precincts reporting, the measure was ahead 58 percent to 41 percent, the Bangor Daily News reported Wednesday.

The measure eases access to marijuana for individuals with certain medical conditions by expanding the list of qualifying conditions, creates a state-regulated registry of qualified users and allows for a statewide system of storefront distribution centers.

"This confirms what our polling has told us all along," said Jonathan Leavitt, campaign manager of Maine Citizens for Patient Rights. "The credibility of this issue is so strong, we didn't need to convince anyone that this was the right thing to do."

Exactly! Can you imagine how ridiculous it would be if the pro-marijuana campaign in Maine had to raise millions of dollars, develop TV ads, hire professional polling companies, organize armies of volunteers, knock on thousands of doors and log thousands of hours in phone banks just to convince other Mainers that it's okay for the state to get patients baked on the good stuff if it maybe takes the edge off their pain?

I mean, can you even imagine?

People in Maine want to #VoteNoon1. Why would you want noon to start an hour later? You're already in the eastern time zone!

It's just not natural.

Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap told me just now that turnout there is far exceeding his projections — news that would be good news for backers of same-sex marriage.

"We're seeing heavy and very steady turnout," he said, attributing the surprise to the contested vote on a "people's veto" of a same-sex marriage law driving Mainers to the polls…

"I think we could be over 50%" for the state," Dunlap said. "We originally projected 35%."

Hopefully, Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap is correct in his analysis of the high voter turnout.  It would be really depressing if this turned out to be  a case of a bunch of a huge chunk of the state making it a point to take the time out of their day to steal a bunch of strangers' rights away from them just because.

I mean, can you imagine something that depressing? In this country?!

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God, please let that not be what's happening.

Right…

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New Jersey Gubernatorial Race – Jon Corzine (D) vs. Chris Christie (R)

Why should you pretend to care?

Like a lot of elections this year, this will probably have less to do with whether New Jersians want to give Corzine another shot in office and more to do with Barack Obama is a Satanist Muslim from Kenya NO MORE TAXES FOR JESUS!! So, you know, I guess we'll see.

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Virginia Gubernatorial Race – Bob McDonnell (R) vs. Creigh Deeds (D)

Who gives a shit?

As it turns out, Sarah Palin gives a shit. She, it would seem, gives a huge shit. The 2012 presidential hopeful has been expending some political cash and releasing her robot doppelganger to go robo-calling Virginites and asking them to "vote for Sarah's principles." Also, if they'd buy her new book, that'd probably be pretty okay, too.

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New York's 23rd Congressional District Race – Bill Owens (D) vs. Doug Hoffman (C)

Can you just sleep through this?

You can, but you'll be missing one of the finest examples of conservative implosions in weeks. This was supposed to be a race between Owens and Republican Dede Scozzafava. But then conservatives decided Scozzafava was — and I quote — "a radical leftist," because they're pretty much cartoon characters pretending to be real people. So, in turn, Scozzafava responded by dropping out and supporting the Democrat. Hi-Larry-ous! This one should actually be entertaining for real.

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New York City Mayoral Race – Incumbent Michael Bloomberg vs. William Thompson

So what?

So, this all boils down to the single most important political question since the beginning of time: Why not just buy this election? The answer: Sure, why not.

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Maine's Proposition 1 and Washington's Referendum 71

What it to you?

Well, it's not really anything to you. Unless you're gay. Or have a gay family member. Or know somebody who's gay. Or just support equality in civil rights and the ideals set forth in the Constitution of the United States.

If not, though, I guess you can just ignore this one.

Oddly enough, it just got repealed…

President Obama called the 22-year ban on travel and immigration by HIV-positive individuals a decision "rooted in fear rather than fact" and announced the end of the rule-making process lifting the ban.

The president signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009 at the White House Friday and also spoke of the new rules, which have been under development more more than a year. "We are finishing the job," the president said…

The Senate finally voted to overturn the ban as part of approving legislation reauthorizing funding for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, in 2008, and President Bush signed it into law on July 30 of that year. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and then-Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.) led the process in the Senate.

Way to go, America! You got one right. I know that even a stopped clock is non-bigoted twice a day, but I don't want to dismiss this thing. This is a really good thing, and we probably all deserve milkshakes today.

But let's be clear here. The repealing of this nonsensical law was a bipartisan effort. But it's Obama's signature at the bottom of the document, and he'll probably get an undue amount of the credit/blame for this. Credit/blame that he doesn't really deserve. Right alongside the undue credit/blame he's gonna get for the gay-friendly hate crime legislation that just passed.

But, you know what Barack Obama can do for real for supporters of no-brainer civil rights, like, this afternoon? He can suspend Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the military with, essentially, a phone call. He can leverage some of his popularity in Maine and Washington to tip the scales in favor of the gay marriage referendums by issuing a simple statement. He can mention that he stands behind Arlen Specter in support of repealing the Orwellianly-titled Defense of Marriage Act.

Or not. He could also not do any of that.

I wonder which option he'll choose. I can't wait to find out!