Jay Leno says goodbye to the Tonight Show after 17 years tonight. Here are some highlights from his monologue.

As you know, this is our last show after 17 years. I want to thank all the people that made it possible - Michael Jackson, Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton ...

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Sen. Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus have dueling health care reform proposals. Politico has more on Kennedy's plan.

I just got my renewal policy yesterday. My premium is going up a whopping $250.00 per month -- I have no diseases, haven't been sick and didn't change age groups. What gives?

According to Anthem (BCBS) it's because Colorado passed a law last year preventing employers from considering a group's health care risk or prior history. So, according to Anthem, healthy groups have to pay for the less healthy groups. [More...]

It's LA 9, Denver 7 at the commercial break. Update: Oh-Oh, LA up by 13 at half time. Update: Lakers crush the Nuggets. Oh well, there's always next year.

I only found out there was a game 10 minutes ago while I was barbecuing, which I've always been very afraid to do alone. Sure enough, the food was done, the flames were high, the grill was smoking and I turned it off, but the flame wouldn't go out.

After 5 minutes, I finally called the TL Kid (who usually does the grilling) to ask what to do, and he was at the Nuggets game. I'm sure he loved getting my distress call. He knew just what to do (turn the knob the other way to "off" -- I had it turned to "low".) An all grill dinner: Hamburger, vidalia onion, asparagus and mushroom caps. And I didn't have to call the Fire Department. (I bet they also are watching the game and would not have been thrilled to hear from me.)

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

My gawd, the chip on his shoulder is becoming a boulder. Stuart Taylor writes:

Princeton University was guilty of "an institutional pattern of discrimination" against Chicanos and Puerto Ricans, then-sophomore Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a letter published in the May 10, 1974 edition of the student newspaper, The Daily Princetonian. . . . Some may see the fact that Princeton awarded Sotomayor a summa cum laude degree and the prestigious Pyne Prize when she graduated in 1976 as evidence of her unparalleled brilliance in overcoming a "total absence of regard, concern, and respect" for people such as her.

And some may see Sotomayor's letter as evidence that she was predisposed to look for the worst, not the best, in the institution that had afforded her such opportunities. She now sits on Princeton's Board of Trustees.

Some may wonder if Stuart Taylor realizes what his writings say about him. Adam Serwer has more.

Speaking for me only

Phil Spector was sentenced to 19 years to life today for the death of Lana Clarkson.

His lawyer said he was wrongfully convicted:

Attorney Doron Weinberg maintained that Spector was convicted wrongly. “The evidence did not establish Mr. Spector’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the lawyer said.

The sentence included 15 years for second-degree murder, with a four year enhancement for gun possession. He showed no emotion during the sentencing.

Eric Boehlert takes apart an outrageous AP piece on Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Read Eric for the gory details of the racism and unfairness, but I want to focus on AP's new definition of "wealthy." From the article:

There are two sides to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor: a Latina from a blue-collar family and a wealthy member of America's power elite. . . . She now earns more than $200,000 a year . . .

200,000 a year now is "wealthy" for the AP? Let's hope so. It was not always this way. Funny that when the AP discusses President Obama plan to return the tax rates for person earning over $250,000 a year to Clinton era levels, that is not considered raising taxes on the "wealthy," but on "middle class" Americans. An example:

I've never liked to stay at motels with ground level rooms and big windows that you enter from the outside.

Here's another reason not to stay at one: In Colorado Springs early this morning a deer charged through the window of a motel room, and went wild inside. The hotel guest had the foresight (and courage) to get him into the bathroom and then lock the door.

The panicked deer destroyed the toilet and flooded the room. The man says he's a maintenance worker for the hotel, so he'll have to repair the damage himself.

The deer was tranquilized and removed.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Please allow me to introduce the argument for empathy - for white males - Glenn Greenwald on Charles Krauthammer (see also CAC's analysis of the Ricci case):

[T]his column today from Charles Krauthammer [presents] (a) the right-wing argument that empathy and political opinions have no place in judicial decision-making and (b) the right-wing argument that Sotomayor wrongly decided the Ricci "firefighters" case because what happened to Frank Ricci was terribly unfair and because affirmative action is a bad policy.

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How soon before Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn has to abjectly apologize to Rush for this:

One of the top Republicans in the Senate, John Cornyn, is repudiating recent comments by Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich which claimed that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is a racist. Cornyn, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told NPR's "All Things Considered":

"I think it's terrible... This is not the kind of tone any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advise and consent." Cornyn dismissed Limbaugh and Gingrich, adding: "Neither one of these men are elected Republican officials. I just don't think it's appropriate. I certainly don't endorse it. I think it's wrong."

I predict Cornyn will be forced to agree that Rush and Newt are right - Sotomayor IS a "racist." Rush and Newt know about such things. Listen to the interview here.

Speaking for me only

Ilya Somin and Erwin Chemerinsky discuss the role of "empathy" in judging. In a subsequent blog post, Somin describes the chasm between them:

I fear that to some extent Chemerinsky and I are talking past each other. I don't disagree with Chemerinsky's claims that conservative justices (like liberals) sometimes base decisions on empathy and on their political ideology, and that judicial reliance on empathy cannot be completely eliminated. . . . Rather, my view is that reliance on empathy is a negative rather than a positive - whether practiced by conservative judges or liberal ones. . . . Ultimately, I think the real issue is not whether conservative and liberal judges sometimes rely on empathy (they both obviously do), but whether we should strive to reduce such reliance or increase it.

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Tom Tancredo has officially lost his marbles. (Video here.)Today, in discussing the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, he said:

TANCREDO: If you belong to an organization called La Raza, in this case, which is, from my point of view anyway, nothing more than a Latino — it’s a counterpart — a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses. If you belong to something like that in a way that’s going to convince me and a lot of other people that it’s got nothing to do with race. Even though the logo of La Raza is “All for the race. Nothing for the rest.” What does that tell you?

SANCHEZ: Alright. We’re not talking about — we’re not talking about La Raza –

TANCREDO: She’s a member! She’s a member of La Raza!

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The New York Times runs an article claiming that conservatives will attack Judge Sonia Sotomayor for her harsh questioning in oral argument. From the gang that reveres Justice Scalia, this is just rich. But Sotomayor's colleague on the Second Circuit, Judge Guido Calabresi, cuts right through the BS:

Judge Guido Calabresi, a former dean of Yale Law School who taught Ms. Sotomayor there and now sits with her on the Second Circuit, said complaints that she had been unduly caustic have no basis. For a time, Judge Calabresi said, he kept track of the questions posed by Judge Sotomayor and other members of the court. “Her behavior was identical,” he concluded. “Some lawyers just don’t like to be questioned by a woman,” he added. “It was sexist, plain and simple.”

(Emphasis supplied.) Indeed.

Speaking for me only