Here’s John McCain — who we hope never gets cancer again, BRIDGET — explaining his little operation this morning: “I, as I do every three months, visited my dermatologist this morning. She said that I was doing fine. (She) took a small little nick from my cheek as she does regularly and that will be … biopsied just to make sure that everything is fine.” She takes pieces of his cheek regularly? Then how is there SO MUCH CHEEK remaining? [Washington Post]

Bridget: big $ale on truck nutz. [Rocky Mountain News]

• A PIMPLE?: Regular cancer-getter John McCain “had a spot removed from his face on Monday during a routine checkup by a doctor in Phoenix, an aide said.” McCain’s team has called it a “precautionary removal.” And was the “precaution” that he would die of vicious cancer if they didn’t remove it? [Reuters]

Edward Kennedy is reportedly still alive after more than three hours of brain surgery today at Duke University. The 76-year-old senator will still need all kinds of chemo and radiation and god knows what else, but it is pretty much impossible to kill Ted Kennedy. MORE »

Well dagnabbit, this Ted Kennedy-cancer news is a whole lot of No Fun. Looks like they can’t take the tumor out because it’s too close to “sensitive” parts of the brain, and 14 to 15 months seems to be the average survival period. The tumor is worse — more aggressive — for old folks, too. Even old racist Robert Byrd cried on the Senate floor today. Bummer on all levels, for everyone. But we have searched YouTube for the latest Ted Kennedy tribute videos, and here’s a new one that shows Teddy “through the years.” The background tunage is mighty catchy. And we can say this because it’s unrelated to his cancer: Ted Kennedy looked like such a preppy douchebag for most of his life. But he did shit for poor people so it all balances out. [YouTube]

Doctors have determined that Ted Kennedy, who was hospitalized after a seizure over the weekend, has a malignant brain tumor. They’re going to do some more tests to determine a course of action, but average survival appears to be anywhere between less than a year to five years. Too sad. Get well soon, Teddy! We will honor you by linking to your massive, awe-inspiring legislative accomplishments section on Wikipedia, as you watch the Red Sox in the hospital. [AP/MSNBC]

Senator Mitch McConnell is ruining the reputations of three University of Louisville physicians by providing video evidence that they said nice things about him, once. The victims of McConnell’s smear campaign were taped saying things like “I think Senator McConnell is very interested in the health and welfare of the people in the state of Kentucky.” And, for a few brief weeks in December and January, McConnell was showing this garbage on the teevee. MORE »

Grampa Fred Thompson might look like a harmless geriatric with under-eye bags you could smuggle a goat in, but it turns out he’s just another sinister millionaire creep who hates AIDS babies in Africa. “With people dying of cancer, and heart disease, and children dying of leukemia still, I got to tell you — we’ve got a lot of problems here,” he told a reporter who asked him if he supported Bush’s global AIDS initiative. Then he chortled loudly as he picked his teeth with the bones of orphans who died of an easily preventable disease instead of something respectable, like lymphoma. [Washington Post]

California Congressman Tom Lantos announced today his decision not to seek re-election in 2008 due to a recent diagnosis of esophageal cancer. Lantos is the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the only Holocaust survivor in Congress and kind of actually really nice. Oh, whatever. Esophageal cancer is really nasty people, I can’t snark about it. The likeliest Democratic candidate for the seat is former Congressional staffer and current California State Senator Jackie Speier, who has been trying to snag a Congressional seat since she was wounded accompanying her former boss to Guyana on the fact-finding mission that precipitated the Jonestown massacre. [SFGate]

That is the headline at foodconsumer.org (finally, a website for us!), who understand that you may be concerned about the president’s upcoming procedure. We’ve summarized their guidance, after the jump.

MORE »

12-year-old Sterling Watson of Mesquite, Texas recently declared himself President, appointing family members to his cabinet and making triumphant speeches before various government agencies. The U.S. Army appeared to be behind the bloodless coup, as they greeted the young lymphoma patient with “Hail To the Chief” and accepted his gift of ceremonial pencils. MORE »