The whole “Sonia Sotomayor is the reanimated corpse of Michael Jackson come to kill all yr babies” approach does not seem to be working so well for opponents of the Supreme Court candidate, so they’ve basically got two options: they can cite that Ricci case and talk about how she’s a racist (although not a judicial activist!), or they can talk about how much money she spends and how that makes her a bad capitalist. MORE »

What is wrong with this Sonia Sotomayor, that she is not sitting on a fat pile of cash like most upstanding citizens? Her financial disclosure forms suggest she’s got in the neighborhood of $100,000 socked away, which is not terribly impressive for a fancy judge who has had her fancy judging job for a while. MORE »

Youngsters know Sam Donaldson as one of the geezers on This Week who’s always yelling at George Will. But those of you over the age 15 might also recall that Sam Donaldson has been in the news business for several centuries and is prone to marvelous, sweeping and generally wrong predictions, like how Bill Clinton would leave office in like minus two seconds if the Monica Lewinsky rumors were true. He also enjoyed shouting at Ronald Reagan a lot. Here is a loving tribute from Cokie Roberts: on an overnight flight to France, Sam Donaldson once “had the flight attendants literally on their knees at his seat.” This American Hero will retire next week at the age of 74. [Washington Post]

Today, Jim McCrery of Louisiana became the 17th Republican in the House to announce that he’s not running for re-election. McCrery is the head Republican on the Ways and Means Committee and is reportedly depressed that he can’t make its Chair, Charlie Rangel, see his point of view. In a completely unrelated note, McCrery has been dogged with rumors of bisexuality at least since 1992, when The Advocate published its exposé about his rumored bisexuality. Of course, he also says wants to spend more time with his family. [CQ Politics, The Advocate via BlogActive]

Nebraska Senator and cranky old anti-war Republican Chuck Hagel has finally made that big announcement he promised us months ago. Turns out that instead of running for President he’s going to make good on his term limit promise and retire from electoral politics forever or until he gets bored and decides to run for something again in a couple years. This leaves the Senate in utter disarray with only Senators Grassley and Schumer representing the all-important “Chuck” constituency. MORE »

We hear that it’s basically a done deal that Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) is announcing his retirement today. So we’d like to recommend a replacement. This gentleman here is currently running an unwinnable primary race against Count Rep. Chocola. We highly recommend pulling him out and sending him to defend Mr. Boehlert’s district. Why? Because he’s got an unbeatable platform: MORE »

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