Not enough evidence, apparently: “Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Schmidt said that while some of Burris’ statements were vague, they wouldn’t support a perjury charge.” Illinois Senator Roland Burris, who at first appeared to be just another grandstanding egomaniacal doofus with a mausoleum fetish, has navigated the halls of the Senate — to say nothing of the vagaries of the Law — with catlike grace, and has made everyone from Harry Reid to Chris Matthews look like an asshole (maybe not so hard?). Anyway, three cheers for Roland Burris. [Washington Post]

Who says nobody needs yesterday’s news and a bunch of old wire stories and couch ads thrown in your neighbor’s bird bath at 4:15 a.m. every day? The Chicago Tribune, one of our nation’s leading bankrupt newspapers, today offers this Roland “Pinocchio” Burris paper doll, so your poor kids can have something to play with — it’s kind of like a Star Wars action figure, but it’s free! And it teaches kids an important lesson about black senators from Illinois. [Chicago Tribune PDF]

OMG IT IS NEWS, TODAY, BUT NOT ABOUT TEA OR BAGS.

The disgraced Illinois fucktard Rod Blagojevich would like to appear on a reality show, provided a judge will loosen his travel restrictions. The show is called I Am a Repulsive Human Merkin, Get Me Out of Costa Rica! Should he actually get permission to leave the country and should the producers actually want him, he will be “parachuted in” to the Central American nation for the taping of this dumb show, which is based on a dumb British show with roughly the same name. As the first “survival challenge,” Rod Blagojevich will be duct-taped to the Octomom and dipped in pork rinds, then dangled before a half-dozen hungry Paultards. Hilarity ensues. [Chicago Tribune]

“obfuscator” sends word from the Baggers Convention in beautiful Springfield, Illinois, “on the very steps of the same capitol building which served as the the launchpad for Barry Hussein Nobama’s political career or was that William Ayers’ terrorfag breakfast nook? Lolwut. Enjoy. (There was also a guy wearing a sandwich board that simply said ‘BUY GUNS’. He was handing out dvds that ‘explain how the government is trying to kill us’. I was scared to photograph him oh well.)” Thank you obfuscator for nearly getting murdered by a gun nut!

EXCITING NEW PROFILE OF THAT CONGRESSMAN MEGHAN McCAIN WANTED TO BONE: “Schock is ardently opposed to abortion and gay marriage—and he’s got the requisite scorn for Big Government. … Once you get past the likes and mans and you knows, the future of the GOP doesn’t sound all that different from the past.” Sexy! [Details]

It was a nail-biter, folks! Illinois’ 5th District held a special election after Rahm Emanuel left his post to go whisper evil imprecations in the ear of our malleable and naive young king, Barack Obama. Two contenders emerged: Cook County Commissioner and known Democrat Mike Quigley, and the deranged Freeper Rosanna Pulido. Ms. Pulido put up a valiant fight, but without national Republican support could not prevail over the Democratic Machine, which decided to put Quigley over the top with oh like 70 percent of the vote. What is this, Russia? [Chicago Tribune]

Early this morning, in Wonkette’s Daily Briefing, we had this to say about Blago’s replacement: “There’s a new Illinois governor, right? And he is ’squeaky clean.’ So god only knows what kind of kinky stuff will bring this guy down.” Now we know: New Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is one of the original practitioners of the political sex-creep stunt of “tea-bagging.” MORE »

• OH AND HERE’S SOME ACTUAL NEWS: “Blagojevich, 52, was indicted on 16 felony counts, including racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud, extortion conspiracy, attempted extortion and making false statements to federal agents. He allegedly abused his office in numerous matters to seek money, campaign contributions, and employment for himself and others, in exchange for official actions, including trying to leverage his authority to appoint a United States senator, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in a statement.” Patrick Fitzgerald is the fucking angel of death (but also racist for doing this to important Civil Rights leader Gandhi Blagojevich). [CBS 2 Chicago]

Rod Blagojevich, you are a hero — you are still giving to us, in the form of comic material, months after you’ve been removed from the Illinois governor’s office. (Not that you ever actually went to the Illinois governor’s office, but you know what we mean, you fuckin’ guy.) And today, a new scheme, or at least new details on an old scheme: the bankrupt media operation Tribune Co. was riding Blago hard to get Illinois to buy Wrigley Field from Tribune. And when current Tribune owner-weirdo Sam Zell and Blago discussed the scam, they referred to it as “Project Elwood.” MORE »

Ha! We get a tip that says “oh, good grief” with a link to some page called “Support Burris,” and we figured it was just some dumb petition to try to keep Roland Burris in office even though his 15 minutes as Senate Clown from Illinois are up. But no, Roland Burris’s ambitions appear to extend far beyond maintaining the most tenuous of grips on his two-year Senate appointment. MORE »

“SCANDAL MUSHROOMS,” reports the Chicago Sun-Times, and indeed, this scandal is off the hook, mushroom-wise. Latest revelation: “The son of embattled Sen. Roland Burris is a federal tax deadbeat who landed a $75,000-a-year state job under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich five months ago.” Well that just shows how very generous the former governor was, giving out jobs to anyone named Burris and never asking anything in return. [Chicago Sun-Times]