Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., won't run for a full term in 2010, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The paper says he'll officially announce his decision on Friday.

Burris was appointed to his seat by former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich; he was filling a vacancy created by Barack Obama's election to the presidency. Blagojevich made the announcement that he was appointing Burris after he was arrested by federal authorities who charged he'd tried to sell the seat -- that led to a battle between Burris and Senate Democrats, who didn't want to seat him.

In another situation, it might be surprising that Burris is now going to give up the seat he fought so hard to get. But the taint of the former governor has remained on him, and it's been clear for some time he would not be able to win in 2010, or even muster any real support for a campaign.

Reuters/Jason Reed

U.S. President Barack Obama (C) and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy (R) take their places with junior G8 delegates for a family photo at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, July 9, 2009.

Drudge is leading with this picture right now, with a banner headline that reads "Mr. President!" Gotta give it to him, though he's probably just trying to drum up some controversy, that's a pretty funny headline. The look on French President Nicolas Sarkozy's face may be even funnier.

I've been waiting for some conservatives to work themselves up into a lather over this photo, but so far, except for the occasional comparison to President Clinton, everyone just appears to be laughing, and giving President Obama a little well-deserved ribbing. Which is good -- because hey, let's face it, we all have that occasional impulse to stop and appreciate certain features of our fellow men. And women. Obama just has the misfortune of being on camera for the better part of his day. Let's just hope, for his sake, that the first lady is willing to buy that excuse.

Plus, Obama has clearly gotten in that European spirit. Turns out this is only one of at least three photos from the G-8 summit currently underway in which he, Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi apparently got caught in flagrante gluteus. (The other two are here and here.)

And yes, you're allowed to laugh at this: I checked with Broadsheet.

For some time now, it's seemed that Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., was able to successfully weather the disclosure of his affair with a staffer and could continue his political career, albeit with his reputation tarnished and any hopes for higher office dashed for now. But this week, attention was back on the senator, and people are raising new questions about payments made to his mistress and her husband, a longtime friend. Now, a new revelation from Ensign's lawyer is likely to open the floodgates.

In a statement released Thursday, Ensign attorney Paul Coggins said that the senator's parents had given $96,000 to their son's former staffer, Cindy Hampton, and her family. The full statement:

In April 2008, Senator John Ensign’s parents each made gifts to Doug Hampton, Cindy Hampton, and two of their children in the form of a check totaling $96,000. Each gift was limited to $12,000. The payments were made as gifts, accepted as gifts and complied with tax rules governing gifts.

After the Senator told his parents about the affair, his parents decided to make the gifts out of concern for the well-being of long-time family friends during a difficult time. The gifts are consistent with a pattern of generosity by the Ensign family to the Hamptons and others.

None of the gifts came from campaign or official funds nor were they related to any campaign or official duties. Senator Ensign has complied with all applicable laws and Senate ethics rules.

Even before this news broke, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, announced that it had asked the Justice Department to investigate an allegation that Ensign had paid $25,000 in severance to Cindy Hampton without reporting it.

That allegation came from an interview Doug Hampton gave to a Las Vegas reporter. In that interview, Hampton also said a group that includes Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., encouraged Ensign to pay millions of dollars to help the Hampton family pay off their mortgage and move to a new home away from him.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin might not have military or foreign policy experience, but according to a new Rasmussen poll, GOP voters who rank national security as the issue most important to them would break for her in a hypothetical 2012 primary. (Hey, she can see Russia from her house, after all.)  

Overall, according to the poll, if the GOP primaries were held today, Palin would finish second to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The two tied for first place among Republican voters who consider economic issues as their highest concern. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee finished third out of a field of six possible candidates, which also included big names like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

The Rasumussen results come in the wake of a USA Today-Gallup poll showing Palin had increased her popularity among Republican voters by her unexpected resignation announcement. However, that's not to say that all Republicans are gung-ho for a possible Palin presidential candidacy. The Rasmussen poll also shows that 40 percent of GOP voters said Palin's resignation has hindered her chances of claiming the White House, and she's one of the two candidates conservative voters least want to win the nomination.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has just released the witness list for hearings on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, which will begin Monday. It provides a pretty strong insight into the Republicans' plans for opposing Sotomayor: Hit her hard, and often, on race and guns.

Two names, especially, stick out in the Republicans' witness list: Frank Ricci, the director of Fire Services with the Connecticut Council on Occupational Safety and Health, and Lieutenant Ben Vargas of the New Haven Fire Department. Ricci was the named plaintiff from one of the most controversial rulings in which Sotomayor has taken part, Ricci v. DeStefano.

The case centered around a test given to firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who were seeking promotion; the results of the test would have meant 13 out of 15 available promotions would go to whites, two to Hispanics and none to African Americans. Because of the lack of racial balance, the city elected to throw out the test and try to come up with some more equitable system. Sotomayor voted in favor of the city and against the group of firefighters who sued; the Supreme Court recently reversed that decision.

As my colleague Glenn Greenwald quipped when the news broke, the two firefighters are unlikely to be asked to comment on the complex legal issues involved in their case. Instead, ironically, their testimony is going to be about the dreaded "empathy," making Sotomayor out to be a racist victimizing innocent white firefighters.

Other big names on the list, like Sandy Froman, the former president of the NRA, suggest that Sotomayor's rulings on the Second Amendment will also be a big issue. And, of course, there's at least one witness there to talk about social issues: Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life.

The Democrats' list seems to hint mostly that they'll want to emphasize Sotomayor's long resume and her performance in her various jobs. But they're not above a bit of showmanship, either: They'll be calling former New York Mets pitcher David Cone, presumably to talk about Sotomayor's ruling that ended the 1995 Major League Baseball strike.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid prefers practicing gentle persuasion to hardball politics when it comes to prompting his fellow Democratic Senators to get behind healthcare reform. But even he has his limits.

On Tuesday, Reid told Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., who is heading an effort to create a bipartisan solution on healthcare, that reform legislation needs to include a public, government-supported option to compete with private insurers. Reid reportedly indicated to Baucus that a bill without a public option might gain a few GOP votes, but would lose a lot more Democratic ones -- and so Baucus should stop trying to win over Republicans.

But on Wednesday, Baucus ignored Reid's admonitions. He continued his push to create a bipartisan solution with Republicans, even if that means sacrificing the public option that Democrats and a large majority of Americans support. Baucus seemed to suggest yet again that bipartisanship is as important, it not more so, than the merits of any proposed healthcare plan. “Everything’s on the table," Baucus said. "By far the better approach is a bipartisan approach to get this moving.”

Some Democrats are worried that Baucus is trying to force them into a corner by creating a healthcare proposal that might have Republican support but would be inferior policy-wise. Democratic sources told Roll Call that "Baucus’ calculation ... is that Democratic leaders and President Barack Obama would be hard-pressed to ignore any measure that attracts bipartisan support if the Finance chairman is actually able to get it done."

Throughout his career, Baucus has had a tendency to play for the middle ground in politics. In 1993, he opposed an employer mandate that helped to derail Bill Clinton's healthcare reform push.

Baucus had advocated taxing some employer-provided health benefits as a way to offset the cost of any healthcare plan, but that idea has faced sharp criticism from Democrats who think the senator is trying way too hard to win the support of Republicans like Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who seem more determined to oppose a public option than to come up with a solution of their own.

Baucus' continued focus on bipartisanship comes as at least one centrist Democratic senator is beginning to soften her opposition to a public plan. In a piece in Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark. wrote, "Health care reform must build upon what works and improve inefficiencies. Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans. Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals as those of a public plan." Lincoln had not come as close to supporting a public option in the past but has been under pressure from liberal advocacy groups to change her position on the issue recently.

Wednesday, Reid also seemed to backtrack on his earlier prodding of Baucus. Reid sought to assuage Republicans worried that healthcare legislation would be rushed through the Senate and assured them that Democrats still want to work with them to come up with a solution.

When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced her resignation, one of the reasons she gave was the cost of all the ethics complaints that have been filed against her. "Every one -- all 15 of the ethics complaints have been dismissed. We've won! But it hasn't been cheap -- the State has wasted THOUSANDS of hours of YOUR time and shelled out some two million of YOUR dollars to respond to 'opposition research' -- that's money NOT going to fund teachers or troopers -- or safer roads," she said. (Emphasis in the text sent out by her office.)

But as Joan Walsh writes in her blog, that total appears to have been inflated, and most of the complaints were not actually about opposition research.

Plus, the Anchorage Daily News reports, the money that went to investigating the ethics complaints wasn't really diverted from "teachers or troopers -- or safer roads." It was money that would have gone to state lawyers anyway.

Now, that doesn't mean the investigations were without cost, or that they didn't divert resources from places they might have been more valuable. The Palin administration's defense of the governor's statements is that lawyers and other employees had to be pulled off other work, leaving it to less-qualified replacements or being forced to put less time into their normal priorities. That does appear to be true, and it certainly didn't help Alaskan taxpayers much. But they didn't see money earmarked for schools, police or roads go elsewhere, either.

If there's one thing federal prosecutors are good at -- and really, they're good at many things -- it's getting the little fish in an investigation to plead guilty and flip. In this manner, way up the ladder until they've got enough to go after the big target. It seems like they might have just done that in two separate corruption cases, one the prosecution of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the other an investigation of defense contracting that may end up being related to Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.

Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney prosecuting Blagojevich, seems to have quite a bit on the former governor already. But he added substantially to his case when Blagojevich's old chief of staff, John Harris, agreed to plead guilty to a wire fraud charge. The plea agreement makes clear that Harris will be testifying against his former boss, and will likely play a big role in Blagojevich's trial.

Separately, prosecutors in Pennsylvania got a plea agreement from Richard Ianeri, the former president of a defense contractor with close ties to Murtha. Federal prosecutors are already looking into a lobbying firm that was run by a former top aide of the congressman's, and investigating the possibility that the company directed bogus contributions to him.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama had a full day of meetings with G-8 leaders scheduled today in L'Aquila, Italy. But if he'd stayed home, he might have had a good chance to attempt a little bit of soccer diplomacy.

The United States plays Honduras tonight at Washington's RFK Stadium, an easy 4-mile motorcade away from the White House, in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, a tournament to decide the North and Central American soccer champion. Honduras, of course, has been on the minds of U.S. diplomats and national security aides since the military there forced President Manuel Zelaya out of office -- and into temporary exile in the D.C. area -- a couple of weeks ago. U.S. officials have condemned the coup, even though Zelaya has been cozying up to Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and was apparently in the process of trying to subvert the Honduran constitution to extend his term in power. Republicans, meanwhile, have been flocking to the side of the military coup -- ironically, in the name of restoring democracy -- on the theory that any pal of Chavez's can't possibly be democratic.

With all that as the backdrop, the soccer game could take on more importance than an early matchup in a regional competition might otherwise have had. Honduras, after all, fought a war with El Salvador that began with riots during World Cup qualifying games between the two nations almost exactly 40 years ago. So if any country might be open to diplomacy on the fútbol field, it might be Honduras. It's been tried before, with limited success; the U.S. Soccer Federation recently requested a match with Iran, though since Iranian authorities recently banned players who wore green wristbands in support of protests there, that may not happen. FIFA officials awarded Turkey and Armenia their "Fair Play" prize last year, since the two countries -- which don't have diplomatic relations -- got their leaders to agree to attend a World Cup qualifying match in Yerevan, Armenia, in September. Former Liberian star player George Weah ran for president there in 2005, losing in the second round, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi -- who Obama met with today -- was already well known to voters there as the media mogul who owns soccer power AC Milan. CONCACAF officials told Salon they weren't sure whether Zelaya -- who was in Washington this week to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- would attend tonight's matchup. Regardless, if Obama had been in town, dropping by the stadium might have been a good way to show Hondurans that he's thinking of them.

»Continued

City officials usually don't generate national headlines, but even if you don't live in the nation's capital or its suburbs, you know the name Marion Barry. The former mayor, who's currently on D.C.'s city council, has been a household name and running joke since he was arrested for crack cocaine possession in 1990. Barry famously blamed a woman -- though that's not the word he used -- he was involved with for setting him up in the FBI sting that led to his arrest and subsequent prison time.

Now the man who went on Sally Jessy Raphael's talk show and said that he was a sex addict is in trouble again because of his relationship with another woman. Barry was arrested Saturday on charges that he was stalking an on-again, off-again girlfriend named Donna Watts-Brighthaupt.

While that may seem a relatively mundane accusation compared to those of Barry's past and the recent escapades of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Nevada Sen. John Ensign, the Washington City Paper has a story, including voice-mails left by Barry, that outline his obsession with Watts-Brighthaupt. Relying on recordings made by Watts-Brighthaupt's ex-husband, the article recounts in graphic detail an exchange Barry had with Donna Watts-Brighthaupt in mid-June in which she said, “You put me out in Denver ’cause I wouldn’t suck your dick." (The paper used that quote in order to produce a very memorable cover for its latest issue.)

Watts-Brighthaupt worked for Barry's reelection campaign  -- the incident she was referring to occurred when she traveled with him to Denver for the Democratic National Convention last summer. According to the Washington City Paper, after Barry kicked her out of their hotel room, Watts-Brighthaupt ended up sleeping in his rental car. It was one of several trips the two took together, though they often fought in public.

Barry has denied the charge that he stalked Watts-Brighthaupt, but he did hire her to work for him while the two dated and paid her at least $10,000. In a press conference Tuesday night, a spokeswoman for Barry repeatedly described Watts-Brighthaupt as "unstable." But according to Watts-Brighthaupt, she still sees Barry frequently.

Tuesday, the Washington Post laid out Barry's long, sordid history of personal relationships. Explaining Barry's appeal to women, Kim Dickens, one of the women in his life who donated a kidney to Barry last year said, "He was raised by three women, and so he truly understands women and he speaks to your need ... And if there is no need, he will create the need for you to be with him. He knows how to get into your life."

It's unclear whether Barry will eventually face any serious repercussions for the July 4th stalking charges, but Glenn McNatt of the Baltimore Sun speculates that Barry will be forgiven once again. He writes:

Still, one can readily predict how this latest episode will play out. Mr. Barry will claim police are harassing him, as he did in 2002 when park police claimed to have found traces of marijuana and crack cocaine in his car, and in 2006, when he was pulled over and cited for driving on a suspended license ... All of which suggests the people of Washington, or at least Mr. Barry's legions of ardent supporters, are willing to forgive him almost anything. He's currently on probation for failing to file income taxes, and technically his arrest last weekend constitutes a violation that could return him to prison. But virtually nobody believes that's likely. As has happened so often in the past, the charges will be dropped, Mr. Barry will claim vindication and his career as a once esteemed leader now sadly reduced to cartoonish bufoonery will continue apace toward its predictably calamitous end.