Illinois political legend and pyramid builder Roland Burris will not run for re-election in 2010, according to various Chicago street organizers. And, because he wasn’t elected in the first place, he will also not do that, run for election. This will be announced tomorrow at Michael Jackson’s Friday News-Dump Memorial Service, to be held deep within the bowels of Roland Burris’ Tomb. But how will the Democrats maintain their fragile, broken and actually worthless 60-vote super-majority in the Senate, without Hero Roland? [Chicago Sun-Times/AP-Yahoo]

Wonkette’s “Gay, In Chicago” Operative “ManofSteel” attended his city’s fancy Gay Pride Parade this weekend, for fun, and who did he see there but U.S. “Senator for Life” Roland Burris! Here’s our leader in some fancy rich man’s car. Didn’t he know that you can get sick at these things?

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]

• FITZGERALD GOING NUTS AGAIN: Breaking news from Chicago! According to the Chicago Breaking News Center, “The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago said it will hold a press conference at 2 p.m. today to announce public corruption charges. Sources say it is expected to be an indictment of an elected official.” Is it Roland Burris, after Chris Matthews was racist to him for a while? But he was never elected! In that case, “meh.” [Chicago Breaking News]

A wise man once said, “Do not watch television. It will only make you sad and empty.” And here is proof: 20 agonizing minutes of Chris Matthews shouting at Roland Burris, who tries to explain why that stuff he said on that FBI wiretap doesn’t prove that he was involved in any tomfoolery with Rod Blagojevich to snag his Senate appointment. It just kind of goes on and on in that fashion and just when you think it will end Matthews says, “OK Senator I like you, I think you’re a good guy, I’m going to give you one more chance to explain yourself” and that’s when you know you’re in for another eternity of torture. Why couldn’t Roland Burris have gotten involved in something fun and interesting, like a hooker scandal? [MSNBC]

Lauri Apple! She’s that artist who did the wonderful picture of Rod Blagojevich parachuting himself there! Now she has produced a little drawing of Roland Burris, which is great, because we were getting sick of using the old video capture and the mausoleum shot all the time. [Chicagoist]

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 »

By the Comics Curmudgeon
Remember back in the good old days, when our leaders were generally believed to walk on two legs, to not be covered with viscous mucus, and to have been born from human women in the normal way? Now, of course, we are less naive, and know that our entire political class is composed entirely of the worst kind of soul-dead devils from below Hell. The shock of this revelation has long worn off, though, and now the most awful sort of flesh-eating monster completely fails to faze your average American, so long as it’s in elected office. Let’s go on a tour of the boring bestiary, shall we? 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]

VITTER TELLS SENATOR TO RESIGN: Ha ha, why did David Vitter have to embarrass America and himself today by telling Roland Burris — another United States Senator — to resign, for ethics? Trash, both of them. Thank you to The Hill, though, for asking Vitter about the hilarious hypocrisy involved here and eliciting this response: “I honestly don’t know anybody who would compare these situations. They are dramatically different.” [The Hill]