Today on his show, Glenn Beck offered up another one of his great history lessons, this time on the fall of Rome and its similarities to our country’s current struggles. Of course, this isn’t a comparison that’s new. Any time a world power, state power, or, you know, high school student council starts to falter, someone’s going to compare them to Rome. So, how’s Beck going to shake things up? By starting off with clips from The Matrix of course.

Before Tuesday’s midterm elections, 95 House and Senate candidates took a pledge called the Net Neutrality Protector’s Pledge [website], which consisted of a promise to stand “against any attempt by big corporations to control the Internet and eliminate the Internet’s level playing field … to protect Net Neutrality for the entire Internet – wired and wireless — and make sure big corporations aren’t allowed to take control of free speech online.”

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Sen. Al Franken has been quick to use time in the Senate to define himself as an outspoken advocate of independent programming and media. This past Saturday Franken used his closing spot at the Netroots Nation conference to advocate for Net Neutrality. In his rousing remarks Franken told that crowd that Net Neutrality was “the First Amendment issue of our time.” Also, beware of Fox.

While the media has spent most of Elena Kagan‘s Supreme Court hearings fishing for the most entertaining tidbits (not an easy feat), parts of the substantive discussion that weren’t about Twilight were fascinating, too. Today, Minnesota Senator Al Franken posed to Kagan challenging questions about the state of the media, and gauged her comfort level with major media mergers like the proposed one between Comcast and NBC Universal.

Despite plenty of speculation that he might, Glenn Beck did not start tonight’s show by launching into a conspiracy theory about SCOTUS nominee Elena Kagan and her Princeton thesis on socialism (though he did talk about it on his radio show today). Instead he was up in arms about President Obama and his dismissal of the iPod and iPad and XBox and blogs. Why does the President hate information?

Fox News has come under fire for its vicious demonization of the Tea Party movement lately, so keeping in line with their “fair and balanced” slogan, Sean Hannity had Michele Bachmann, on the show last night to defend their cause. She replied to criticism that the right was inciting violence, attacked the Democratic financial regulation bill, and took on Net Neutrality.

Glenn Beck returned to the airwaves last night after a week-long vacation, during which he picked up a puppet dressed in Chinese military garb Mao puppet at Disney Land. Beck’s latest grumble after a week away — other than the fact the country apparently went nuts while he was off the air — is Net Neutrality and the FCC hearing that is taking place this week regarding the latest Net Neutrality bill. He’s against it.

Rachel Maddow took time on her MSNBC hour last night to take a closer look at some of Senator John McCain‘s latest legislative activity: his net neutrality bill. Maddow broke it down like so: “The government says the internet should be free — big companies should not be able to rig the Internet for their own purposes. John McCain’s bill says they should.”