TONIGHT, D.C. SPARKLES! “Barack Obama loves our nation’s reporters in D.C. He made jokes about them, but at the end, he proved he cared about America’s Newspapers. This president may be a hero, after all.” [AOL Politics Daily]

Everybody thought Rahm Emanuel was going to be such a hard-ass mobster for Barack Obama, but the actual strategy seems to involve Rahm personally saving people all over Washington every day, until everybody in town literally owes their life to Rahm. The superhero chief of staff saved a congressman yesterday, and not just any congressman, either — Emanuel saved the Republican now representing Tom DeLay’s old district! MORE »

• Shameless anti-Roland Burris propaganda organs The Washington Post and The Chicago Tribune are demanding that America’s first black president Roland Burris retire from the Senate and give up his position of chairman of the Joint Committee on Inspiring Generations to Come. [TPMMuckraker]
• This guy, Mike Quigley, is the favorite to be crowned Replacement Rahm Emanuel, as dictated by Chicago’s newspapers. [Daily Kos]
• In an apparent attempt to, hmm, make this whole sinning-confession-forgiveness process more Taylorist (?), Arkansas has just passed a law allowing its citizens to bring guns into church. [Andrew Sullivan]
• O song of the Drudge Siren! BREAKING: Michelle Malkin-national socialism-manila envelope-digital-camera-scandal! [Crooks and Liars]
• John McCain refuses to go back to the View, the site of 5 1/2 years of dehumanizing psychological and physical torture. [CNN Political Ticker]

You might have heard something about America’s new President, Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger. He landed a plane on the Hudson, and was able to repeat the Oath of Office correctly, and now he is famous. Hooray! But how quickly America forgets its original Sully, a one Mr. Andrew “Sully” Sullivan, a Briton whom King George III put in charge of the colonies’ Internet in 1772. Where does one Sully begin and the other Sully end? See Wonkette’s official chart for your very own exciting answers! MORE »

Ha, so he’s impeached now. Bad move, state legislature of Illinois! Last time people tried to take away Blago’s powers because of obvious corruption, he made a national mockery of them! Blago will become King of Illinois and head of the Royal Cavalry, in a week. Let’s see how he plays the race card this time. (Thank you for the live feed, liberal MSNBC!) MORE »

Civil Rights hero Roland Burris is still in town, still hanging around Capitol Hill, and it appears his persistence just might pay off — if the racist Dixiecrats decide to let the old colored man become a senator, but only if he promises not to run again, which is called the “poll tax.” MORE »

Here’s the full video of today’s Blagojevich derring-do, which you really should watch from start to finish. MORE »

Here’s CNN’s coverage of the wacky Kipling-inspired Blago press conference, in which the governor of Illinois is on cocaine, lots and lots of cocaine. And for those of you who didn’t understand our constant exclamations about Rick Sanchez’s Twitter in the liveblog, well, pay attention. It is the best possible thing to happen on cable teevee, showing crazy Internet peoples’ comments during actual news events. One of the last ones sums up the hilarity: “sundaycosmetics: Are u taking story ideas fm Twitter?” [YouTube]

Indiana has this quaint law: Robot lie calls, or “robocalls,” are illegal. So campaigns hire whole telemarketing staffs to call people and read a bunch of incendiary bullshit to people dumb enough to answer the phone when they don’t recognize the Caller ID. There are few jobs as soul-killing as telemarketing, and people could be forgiven if they just went along with it — not like there’s any other work out there. MORE »

Here’s Joe the Plumber on the teevee this morning with, uh, who is that, Diane Sawyer. Good Morning America. It turns out that Joe does not make $250,000 a year, or anywhere close to that, but he really does hate the idea of a progressive tax system! Do you think he knows that it EXISTS ALREADY? He wouldn’t like that Socialism none too much, mmhmm. Guy just really hates the money taxes, and that’s why he never pays them. [YouTube]

We all hoped he would run for vice president, with Ron Paul, or maybe run against Al Franken or something, but famous independent wrestler Jesse Ventura will instead host a teevee show about conspiracy theories. Today is just one big disappointment. [Seattle Times]