• New stimulus money is maybe on the way! This time they are calling it “an extension of the first stimulus package” and it does not care for nicknames. [New York Times]
• The U.S. gave Pakistan $1.5 billion/year, for the next five years, simply to stop doing a thing: namely, supporting terrorism. [New York Times]
• Obama’s headed to the counter-terrorism part of downtown McLean to hand out new offensive and defensive plays. [Washington Post]
• David Letter apologized to his wife, on television! How could she not trust something produced by the staff of the David Letterman Show? [CNN]
• How did our gal Sotomayor do yesterday, on Supreme Court opening day? She WON with 36 questions asked, and Scalia only batting 30. [LA Times]
• The International Energy Agency asked for a suggested donation of $10 trillion dollars over the next ten years. This is adorable. [WSJ]

Gritty, and disturbing. And yet Fox News labels this dance “the Beltway Boogie.” Can we please stop it with the obvious racism? Anyway, this devilry took place the other night at some trashy mick bar filled with Irish micks. [Matt Yglesias]

What with all the youth indoctrination and the video death panels and the actual Hitler plot to provide basic health care for working Americans, we almost forgot it was also Sonia Sotomayor’s fake first day on the nation’s highest court! No real work today, just a photo op, and here’s the touching photo! The only real question is WHAT THE HELL IS SCALIA UP TO? HE IS CREEPING US OUT. Maybe he’s just happy for real, because there’s finally another Italian on the Supreme Court? Anyway, remember all the bogus outrage about Sotomayor, a million years few weeks ago? All forgotten. Let the SCOTUS-controlled redistribution of wealth commence! [White House Flickr]

Oh right, “¡felicidades!” to Sonia Sotomayor, who made it official with the Supreme Court today. Chief Justice John Roberts performed the two ceremonies—let’s just say incorrectly—at the Supreme Court building this morning. Sotomayor wore a tasteful suit in a beige hue, and Roberts, as is his wont, wore a black robe. Some of her family members, other Sotomayors, were there too, also in clothes… uh… and that is… pretty much it. Yup. [New York Times]

Everybody knew Senator Mel Martinez, the Florida guy who took advantage of what’s known as “the Cuban Exemption” in order to become both a Republican and a Hispanic at the same time, would not run for re-election in 2010. But who knew he’d be resigning his seat a year early? MORE »

The Senate voted YES PLZ for Sonia Sotomayor today, 68 to 31, and now abortion is legal all over again! Congratulations Miss Lady, “give ‘em hell” out there, as a judge, of the Law. Meanwhile, nine Republicans voted for her, so they will be in trouble with Rush Limbaugh for some time. [NYT]

Hey B’araq, Here’s another rotten egg for your breakfast poop salad: John McCain, the elderly gentleman born and raised in Arlington, Virginia, simply will not vote for the Mexican Supreme Court lady. Everyone values John McCain’s opinions and that is why he informed America of this decision on no less a stage than the floor of the United States Senate, in a Speech. MORE »

America’s favorite orange-skinned reformed bachelor, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, is a pretty OK guy stuck with the unenviable task of governing a drooping land-phallus stuffed with meth fiends, unemployed real estate agents, and pythons. But now Crist has chosen to act like something of a dick to nice Sonia Sotomayor, for whom he would not vote if he were a senator due to her maybe being wishy-washy on the Second Amendment — which is Governor Crists’s favorite amendment of all. MORE »

Hmm, it seems like Lindsey Graham is pretty gay for Sonia Sotomayor, but he just doesn’t know how to say it! So strange, this questioning of Bush’s own failed Affirmative Action hire, Linda Chavez. She tries to run with the standard argument that okay, maybe SOMETIMES the Republicans may look at race as a factor in appointments, like with Alberto Gonzales or… Linda Chavez… but IT IS THE DEMOCRATS WHO PICK SOLELY ON RACE while ignoring such glaring red flags as stupidity and casual Nazism. But then Lindsey lays it all out and just says, okay, shut up time for Linda Chavez, we are all affirmative action whores with these appointments, enough with this. Thanks a lot, “Grahamnesty.” [YouTube, Washington Independent]

Everyone has been wondering when Al Franken, the comedian who therefore is not smart but gets to be a Senator anyway, would stop pretending to care about “political issues” already — his 20-year campaign is over! — and just go nuts shouting insane Playboy rape jokes, constantly, in Judiciary Committee meetings. And at yesterday’s Sotomayor hearing he did, technically, tell his First Joke in the Senate, a snoozy little ice-breaker for the nation’s grandmothers about how teevee lawyer Perry Mason was hardly the best lawyer of his time, oh ho ho. Then he asked some serious questions… but it was too late! The world’s “most important governing body” is NO PLACE FOR VERBAL HUMOR, some nut writes in The Hill. MORE »

Well, for all their tuff talk on this racist Puerto Rican separatist who wasn’t even very smart, the Republicans have just rolled over and shown the tyrannical Sonia Sotomayor their little white bellies. After spending two months complaining about nothing but the occasions when she said the two most forbidden words in the English language — “wise Latina” — they have basically admitted that they won’t filibuster her nomination. MORE »