Once upon a time, late-night comedy used to be funny. But some of those late-night comedians like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert have long since traded being funny for being Democratic political operatives.

But last night, you could see how far the “anti-fascist, pro-norm” folks like Stephen Colbert were willing to go to impose the Democrats’ will on you.

On Monday night’s show, Colbert took on the filibuster. Now, there are doubtless things that you could say that would be funny, even if you wanted to approach it from a liberal point of view. But the humor was largely lacking when it came to what Colbert said. He decided to attack Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) for what she was wearing and mock her love of the filibuster.

CBS’s Stephen Colbert laments “Mrs. Hamburglar” aka Kyrsten Sinema has decided that “while she values voting, the filibuster is her first love” even though it’s “an anti-Democratic tool, which is a pretty good description of Kyrsten Sinema.”

Again, this is supposedly comedy. pic.twitter.com/qX9QtkjixK

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 18, 2022

The funny thing about this is Sinema is making sense, talking about how legislation should pass when it has a lot of support, that you shouldn’t be able to push things through without the broad support of Americans, which makes a lot of sense. But they don’t want that. Colbert then also claims the “50 senators who are filibustering ‘voting rights’” don’t represent the majority. No one is actually filibustering “voting rights” but that number is obviously more than 50 since it includes both Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and likely some other Democrats, so Colbert’s argument doesn’t even make sense. Plus, the Senate represents the states, the House is accorded according to population. Keep up with Constitution 101, Stephen. Keeping the filibuster has the majority of the senators and that’s why it’s still there.

But beyond that, what’s hilarious about all this mania about the filibuster is how Democrats have supported it and used it in the past. Indeed in 2020, they used it 327 times. In fact, they even took advantage of the filibuster rule last week to require 60 votes for passage, to block the bill from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for sanctions on Russia for its Nord Stream 2 pipeline. But then they turned right back around to attack the filibuster.

Colbert continued on the subject with Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

It’s quite rich to hear Elizabeth Warren decry gerrymandering by Republicans as some national crisis when, in her own Commonwealth of Massachusetts, there’s zero elected House members even though they have nine districts to go around and Trump won 32% in 2020. pic.twitter.com/mrETBkW365

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 18, 2022

I’m not sure why this isn’t an “attack on democracy.” Isn’t she trying to cast doubt on our electoral process? This is because they know that they are going to get pounded in November, that Americans are going to hand them a severe rejection, so they’re already trying to set the table to explain the loss to the base and jack them up.

Warren continues the lie about giving people water in Georgia.

Warren falsely claims Georgia Republicans have made it “illegal” for voters to be “give[n]…a drink of water” while waiting to vote even if they’re “waiting tow hours in the hot sun.” (https://t.co/UY1U6dKvgM).

She also claims “not one…Republican” wants “to protect the vote” pic.twitter.com/2Y60HuG1MI

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 18, 2022

The law has to do with folks connected with parties trying to electioneer people in line with food and water. Not any random person giving someone water.

Now, this next one is truly manic lying to rile up the base.

Keep telling liberals that Republicans don’t want anyone to vote and they will steal elections at any cost, it’s going to lead to violence. It’s a radicalization and Senator Elizabeth Warren knows exactly what she’s doing here with CBS’s Stephen Colbert, but none of them care. pic.twitter.com/Fqj50Nvib2

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 18, 2022

This is the kind of demonizing they did with health care and that led to a lot of Republicans being harassed and attacked, including the GOP baseball practice shooting. There are going to be more people hurt on the head of this.

Warren says she would get rid of the filibuster altogether — that she believes in “majority rule” (but doesn’t seem to understand the majority of the Senate is against doing away with the filibuster).

To a roaring crowd’s approval, Elizabeth Warren tells CBS’s Stephen Colbert that we need to eliminate the filibuster “all together” so we can operate with “majority rule,” which she claims would be living up to what the Founders intended for both the Senate and the country. pic.twitter.com/PKiYmGLVQZ

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 18, 2022

Saying that the Founders were about “majority rule” and using the government to impose your will is a complete misunderstanding of the Constitution and a horrible misinterpretation from someone who was supposed to be a law professor. The whole point of the Constitution is about avoiding the failings of the “pure democracy” and simple majority rule, stopping the rule of the mob, while limiting government power and control over Americans.

So what’s Colbert’s norm-preserving response and he’s not joking when he says it? Doing away with the Senate because it is “anti-democratic.”

Colbert doubling down a few moments later: “It’s an anti-democratic institution. That’s just it. 41 million Americans are represented — more are by — by your side than the Republicans and, yet, they could get one more vote.” pic.twitter.com/HBrWWR4nlJ

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 18, 2022

These folks are stark raving loons at this point with their craven desire for power and crushing the opposition. They would throw any norm (or any person) under the bus to get what they want.

So here’s a big question for them.

What will they do when they lose the Senate in November? Sinema and Manchin have more sense than any of them because they know the importance of the filibuster to the minority. Watch Democrats then turn on a dime after they lose the Senate to say how important it is to have the filibuster when they need it because they are pure. Bank on it.

Ben Roethlisberger is lucky that football legacies are not decided by finales. If Sunday night was indeed Big Ben’s last ever NFL game, as he has strongly hinted, it wasn’t exactly a mic drop. In the 42-21 beatdown by the Chiefs, Roethlisberger struggled with rollouts, and lacked the creativity and finesse of his opposing number, Patrick Mahomes.

Just as no one places too much weight on Dan Marino’s 62-7 playoff loss to the Jaguars in his career finale, Roethlisberger’s clunker of an ending won’t be a significant part of his story. But in comparison to Marino – or most other quarterbacks – Roethlisberger’s legacy is complicated.

His on-field success over an 18-season NFL career speaks for itself. Roethlisberger is a two-time Super Bowl winner and will one day be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The Steelers haven’t suffered a single losing season with him under center. In turn, they’ve been a playoff staple – during Sunday’s loss Roethlisberger passed Joe Montana and Brett Favre for the third-most career passing yards in the playoffs.

Injuries and age have taken their toll, and in recent years the team often won in spite of their quarterback rather than because of him. Roethlisberger in his prime, though, was an absolute marvel. With his signature pump fakes and ability to escape pressure, he had a habit of extending plays and converting first downs that didn’t seem possible … until they were. He wasn’t flashy like younger quarterbacks such as Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen. Nor was he a quarterback like Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers, who often seem five steps ahead of opposing defensive coordinators. He was just Ben. Gritty. Strong. Tough.

Related: The Cowboys are the world’s most valuable team. So why are they so bad at winning?

While Roethlisberger’s farewell tour has come with incessant gushing from teammates, broadcasters and Steelers fans, the NFL world at large doesn’t have the same fuzzy feelings. Some of that is Roethlisberger’s personality. He’s surly and can be difficult with the media. He also has a history of publicly calling out teammates.

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But most of the hostility stems from Roethlisberger’s history with women.

ESPN’s Brian Griese spent the majority of Week 18’s Monday Night Football broadcast talking up Roethlisberger as if were the Messiah. At one point, Griese paused his lovefest to channel his inner journalist and vaguely mention that Roethlisberger has “made some mistakes.”

The first “mistake” occurred in 2008 when Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault by Andrea McNulty, then an employee of a Lake Tahoe hotel and casino. McNulty said she was lured to his hotel room under the guise of fixing a broken television. Her complaint alleges that Roethlisberger blocked the door when she tried to leave. According to the lawsuit the quarterback grabbed her and then tried to kiss her. Roethlisberger denied the allegations and never faced any criminal charges. He reached an out of court settlement with McNulty in 2011.

The NFL did not punish Roethlisberger. McNulty, on the other hand, was the recipient of backlash from those who did not like to think of their favorite quarterback as an alleged sexual assaulter. McNulty later suffered from depression.

In 2010, another accusation surfaced when a 20-year-old college student in Georgia claimed that Roethlisberger assaulted her in the bathroom stall of a nightclub. Her complaint alleged that Roethlisberger’s bodyguard grabbed the woman’s arm and escorted her to a hallway where the quarterback was waiting with “his penis out of his pants.” She says he went on to rape her and a subsequent medical examination of the woman found “superficial laceration and bruising and slight bleeding in the genital area” although no semen was detected. The case was dropped after authorities cited insufficient evidence. Roethlisberger was questioned by just one police officer who coincidentally had asked Roethlisberger to pose for a photo earlier that night and allegedly later described the accuser as a “drunken bitch”.

The NFL finally swooped in with a six-game suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy but later reduced it to four games for “good behavior.” Yes, an accused rapist received the same punishment from the league as Tom Brady for releasing air from footballs.

Roethlisberger already had a history of reckless behavior, most notably when he crashed his motorcycle in 2006, suffering serious facial injuries. He was not wearing a helmet and it was reported that he did not have a valid license at the time of the crash.

By the time of his suspension, many in the Steelers organization had tired of Roethlisberger’s behavior. One of the team’s other star players, receiver Hines Ward, said the NFL suspension was “justified”, adding: “When you’re in the quarterback position, everybody looks to you and there are certain situations you can’t put yourself in.”

Since then Roethlisberger has stayed out of trouble. He married in 2011 and is a father of three. And he went on to win a lot more football games, an achievement that was more than enough for many fans to forget about his past.

Roethlisberger is, of course, not the only alleged rapist to be embraced by his team’s fanbase. But there’s something especially difficult to swallow as we consider him as a player and person. When we consider that the quarterback is supposed to be the ultimate leader. From a talent standpoint, the Steelers have been lucky to have a future Hall of Famer under center for so many years. But the future Hall of Famer is far luckier that the actions he’s accused of didn’t ruin him.

Roethlisberger was accused before Ray Rice punched his wife on camera and the league was forced to pretend it cares about its players’ behavior off the field. What if these accusations had come out during the more recent #MeToo movement? There are a variety of sliding doors scenarios that could have led to us bidding adieu to Big Ben years ago. But instead we’ve had 18 years of Roethlisberger – glorious for some, uncomfortable and infuriating for many.