First, everyone basically went batshit when we found out that Blammo Barack picked what was sure to be seen by assholes as an Equal Opportunity Ringer.

Crazies parsed her Socialist yearbook quote. Fox News went crazy! The New York Post went crazy and was like SOTOMAYOR GASOLINA! New Yorkers, trying to get dinner with her, went crazy! Possibly Rabid Goatmolester Michael Wolff suggested that she might be gay, when he wasn't busy possibly molesting goats! Because she's a woman, there were at-large implications that she was a bizznatch! Diablo Cody hated on exclamation points! Oh, and she hates bloggers! We like her!

We sent an intrepid reporter out into the field. He came back with wonderful results:

The hearings came and went and nobody paid attention because they were really, really boring. Jon Stewart got tired of it and Al Franken had to ask/tell jokes. And then, on Thursday, she got confirmed, despite the better intentions of a few assholes like John McCain. And the end was anti-climactic.

So now, we turn to victory celebrations! And who better to help us than the creeps of the world, extremist political commenters on interweb sites Daily Kos and Free Republic! Now I know we're not supposed to look at these freaks because unlike cockroaches, they really do kind of fade into the background and stop eating your crackers if you don't pay them any mind. But I couldn't help looking at what they have to say. First, Daily Kos: nothing that great. Someone got teary and someone else noted the differences between us and how wonderful they are, or something:

I thought it was funny — and probably not done by mistake — that it was Sen. Franken who got to announce to the world that Sonia Sotomayor had been voted in to the Supreme Court. Think about it: A liberal Jew announcing that the black man's Hispanic Supreme Court pick had been approved. Chew on that trifecta, you haters!

Sure? Meanwhile, the creepy crawlies at Free Republic are naturally freaking the fuck out. There's a board that's apparently being heavily moderated right now: four comments have been removed, already. Things like "Flags at half mast today," "It's over. God Save the Republic," and a Photoshop comparison of Sonia Sotomayor to Manny Noriega are up right now. Classy.

For my appropriate tribute, here's a strange Japanese site with KRS-One's "South Bronx" on it. As for the rest of you, hooray, America, we actually got something done and now the economy might be turning around because someone just got another job. Nice.

[Pic via PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images]

The number of Republicans expected to vote for her was nine as of yesterday (and those expectations were correct), but it was always 40 de facto votes for her, as the GOP never threatened to filibuster, making the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice one of the few matters the Senate is willing to settle with a straight majority voice vote (after she got out of the Judiciary committee, obviously.) No one is sure where Sotomayor actually is right now, but she's expected to be sworn in tomorrow morning.

John McCain, asshole, voted against her. Robert Byrd, who is very old and very ill, showed up to vote for Sotomayor. Ted Kennedy did not.

Barack Obama is expected to speak momentarily.

It was an anticlimactic end to the confirmation "battle." As the right-wing talk radio nightmare of Senator Al Franken presiding over the confirmation of a fiery anti-white racist Latina Supreme Court justice unfolded without incident, the loud and constant threats and lies of the right-wing message machine suddenly seemed a bit ineffective. The NRA waded into a judicial nominee for the first time ever, but it made no difference. Pat Buchanan took up the banner for aggrieved white male victims of discrimination, misinformation was relentlessly spread, and white firefighters were trotted out to call her names, but here we are. Maybe we will get health care?

[Photo: AP]

• Nicholas Cage is being chased by authorities for over $6-million in back taxes they say that he owes. This would seemingly explain why he's been selling off so many of his real estate holdings over the past year or so. Now seriously, how does a guy making at least $12-million per film get into this sort of situation? [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Oh dear. Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson appear to be making another run at it, which is probably good for humanity as it'll restrict the various strains of social disease carried within their loins from mutating into the general population. But still, enough already. [Sun]
  
  
• Rumors are swirling that there might be a Sopranos movie in the works. Lorraine Bracco hinted that the cast is just waiting for the right script, while Stevie Van Zandt said that his character is definitely still alive. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• George Clooney took his new "lapdance model" girlfriend out for a motorbike ride in the Italian countryside with Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Director Guy Ritchie is sort of turning his new Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law into a gay film. [Page Six]
  
  
• Jude Law supposedly met the mother of his new child on the street after a club they were both partying at closed for the night at 4am. He then took her to a diner and after they went back to his hotel room. How incredibly romantic! [Sun]
  
  
• Dina and Michael Lohan actually hung out together at a benefit over the weekend without killing each other. No sign of Jon Gosselin, unfortunately. [Page Six]
  
  
• Britney Spears is showing off a new look—platinum blonde hair! It's just nasty, but then again, so much better than the bald look she formerly sported. [Mirror]
  
  
• Sonia Sotomayor was spotted "out east" over the weekend shopping for fried chicken, naturally. [Page Six]
  
  
• Jack Nicholson is still out there doing his thing, partying it up with women young enough to be his granddaughter in exotic locales. The picture of him here dancing with the girl doing the limbo or whatever made me laugh out loud. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Mischa Barton had a "disastrous" dinner with friends in West Village the other night, where witnesses said she was chain-smoking and rambling on and on about a stalker. [Page Six]
  
  
• Here are photos of Jennifer Lopez's ample booty in a skimpy red bikini. [Daily Mail]

Asked by Maddow why it was that 108 out of the 110 United States Supreme Court justices have been white, Buchanan said the following:

I think white men were 100% of the people who wrote the constitution, 100% of the people who signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country basically built by white folks.

This whole clip is especially cringeworthy because we actually find Buchanan kind of endearing from time to time. He is not anything close to endearing here, and Maddow pretty much slices him up.

Which is weird! Because, see, the prosecutor on that show never won. It's funny! Then Al sort of rambles a bit about how Sonia watched Perry Mason in the Bronx, as a child, with her mom, and he watched in St. Louis Park, as a child, with the Coen brothers (j/k!), and now she is going to be on the Supreme Court, and that's "pretty cool."

This is obvious proof that he lacks the depth and gravitas necessary to be a US Senator. Unlike, say, Tom fucking Coburn.

Seriously though, remember when confirmation hearings were political knife fights where people got "Borked" and grilled for days over comments about pubic hairs on a coke cans? We yearn for those days to return. For now we get Chuck Schumer crying. Sigh.

Today was the day for statements to be made, Glenn. Nothing more. The questioning of Sonia Sotomayor will commence tomorrow. But we do actually agree with you on one thing—Lindsey Graham is a bit of a worm.

Video via Media Matters

Roberts meant that, you know, he is a blank slate completely dispassionate and free of biases. Like umpires! And, as we all know, umpires always accurately call balls and strikes, based on the official strike zone as described in the rule book.

The fact that Roberts made such a clear and easy to comprehend sports metaphor instead of saying something specific and useful about his "philosophy" meant that half the Senators blathering on at Sonia Sotomayor in today's hearings felt compelled to use the same crappy sports analogy, except John Cornyn, who called judges "quarterbacks."

This is all a very compelling reason to believe that a wise Latina woman would probably make a better Senator than another old white man.

Our own Mike Byhoff put together this compilation of great rhetoric from the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.

• Justin Timberlake isn't satisfied with singing and dancing and acting—He wants to write a book, about golf no less. We can't wait. The proposal's going out this week. Instant classic. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Where is Michael Jackson's brain? His body was placed in his golden coffin the other day but his brain wasn't inside? Does LaToya have Michael's brain? Is LaToya actually Michael after all? We demand answers! [Sun]
  
  
• Wass Stephens, the longtime doorman at Marquee and Avenue and an actor with recurring parts on Ugly Betty and Law and Order, was charged with assault after beating a club patron with the metal end of a velvet rope. [Page Six]
  
  
• Jason Bateman is opening up about his addictions to drugs and alcohol when he was younger. Who knew that Jason Bateman was an addict? [Daily News]
  
  
• Kate Hudson and Alex Rodriguez are not being shy about their unrelenting celebrity love for each other. They were recently spotted having dinner with Bob Costas and his wife, holding hands and whispering in each other's ears all the while. [Page Six]
  
  
• A new book on David Beckham devotes an entire chapter to the friendship between Becks and Tom Cruise, who Beckham says has influenced every major decision he's made since 2003. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Ali Wise, a flack for Dolce and Gabbana often linked romantically to hotelier Jason Pomeranc, has been arrested on felony computer hacking charges. [Page Six]
  
  
• Rosie Perez is set to play Obama Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in a movie to be made about her life. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Russell Brand recently took a vow of celibacy but now he's working in LA on a movie and he just can't resist those frisky Hollywood women. [Mirror]
  
  
• Debbie Rowe broke down into tears after she saw Paris Jackson, who she birthed or whatever, speak at Michael Jackson's funeral the other day (didn't everybody?) [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Jason Lee got into a fight with some random dude at Max Fish on the Lower East Side the other night and whipped out some of his martial arts skills to defend himself. [Page Six]

Actually, the documents were delivered yesterday, 13 days before Sotomayor's confirmation hearings are set to begin on Monday, July 13. Which comes to a whopping 27 additional pages per day that committee members will have to read in order to be fully prepared to publicly out Sotomayor as a Mexican in two weeks. But reading is very, very hard:

[GOP] senators have suggested the delay in uncovering them is grounds for delaying hearings on the nomination, now set to begin on July 13.

This wouldn't be the first time that Drudge has called out the Democrats for their insidious attempts to make Republicans read things:

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.
The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Yes, 1,200 pages of legislation is very difficult to read in a short period of time. If only there were a way to provide these poor men and women with staffers to help them sort through the paper avalanche. Perhaps in a more perfect world, if these staffers had to digest a particularly long amount of text very quickly, they could divide these many, many pages amongst themselves and then report back to their bosses a summary. Oh to dream!

Or maybe the Republican Party should appoint a speed-reading ringer as their chief legislative reader. Like George W. Bush, who claims to have read two books a week in 2006. Republicans can read, except when they can't.

[Photo by Radiospike via Flickr.]

Reports Yahoo:

Clinton was on her way to the White House when she fell and injured her elbow, chief of staff Cheryl Mills said in a statement released late Wednesday.

Clinton was treated at The George Washington University Hospital, just a few blocks from State Department headquarters, before going home. She will undergo surgery to repair her elbow in the coming week, Mills said.

Clinton was scheduled to make an appearance tomorrow with Angelina Jolie, an appearance that now must be canceled. The recent injuries to Sotomayor and Clinton point to one conclusion—Barack Obama hates women.

Hillary Clinton Fractures Elbow in Fall [Yahoo/AP]

Obama's first Supreme Court nominee tripped at LaGuardia, where she was boarding a plane to DC to meet with Senators. She made it all the way to the Old Executive Office Building in Washington before deciding she should maybe get that ankle looked at.

X-rays revealed a small fracture, and she was released after less than two hours. Now she is on crutches, so she will probably say that crippled Latinas are way wiser than dumb white men, any day now.

[Photo: Getty]

First, Daniel James "Cape Man" Murray told a bank teller that he was "on a mission to kill" Barack Obama. Yes, and now there's a warrant out for this gun nut.

Meanwhile, here at home, a crazy person called 911 to warn them that he was going to blow up noted Mexican Buddhist Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

"I'm going to kill Judge Sotomayor by blowing her up. I'm going to blow her up. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it because my girlfriend is not going to federal prison."

This guy, John Zaubler, was previously arrested for calling some guy 25 times to say other crazy stuff, like:

There is a New York City police unit called the intelligence department and I have used them before to break into people's apartments. I had Daniel Patrick Moynihan arrange that for me; a Syrian agent will kill you unless you have your friend Jasmine apologize for insulting my Muslim friend."

And this was in 2005, two years after Moynihan died. So we have reason to doubt his story!

Dear internet: to say something or someone is "racist" is not saying "it or he or she would like to round up every Hispanic person and shoot them" or "it or he or she is just as bad at Hitler." But it reliably enrages at least one dumb commenter every time we suggest that a white person did or said or drew something racist. So hey, we will just keep it up! All the weird resentments are just floating to the surface, these days! If everyone is so mad at the Political Correctness for not allowing them to mock a Puerto Rican woman with pinatas and sombreros then they will surely appreciate it if we just give up on the friendly polite euphemisms and say "oh hey that is racist."

But is this racist? Sure, probably. Who knows what the fuck is going on here, besides the magazine equivalent of a group of children acting out to get a rise out of grown-ups.