A DDoS attack is one of the oldest, simplest, and lamest ways to "hack" anything, but lost in the news of recent attacks on Gawker and Twitter has been this even lamer "hack" of Congressional websites.

Sonia Sotomayor has just become our first Latina Justice of the Supreme Court. Senator Al Franken called for a voice vote, and, as predicted, Sotomayor was easily confirmed by the Senate.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a life-long piece of work, is going to spend the August congressional recess surfing with Barney Frank. We're guessing it'll be weird?

Four years after FBI agents raided his home and discovered $90,000 in his freezer, former nine term New Orleans-area congressman William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson has been found guilty of corruption. He faces up to 115 years in prison. [Times-Picayune]

Barack Obama invited the entire Democratic Senate Caucus to his house for his birthday lunch, yesterday, in order to charm them into getting some fucking work done. And they had a wonderful time!

Congress' "Cash for Clunkers" auto-industry revitalization program has exhausted its $1 billion budget in a week.

A Senate panel has issued subpoenas to Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and others, to investigate whether or not company executives knew in advance that the economy-destroying mortgage-related securities they created were complete crap.

The New York Times counts four different legislators trying to attack the epidemic of 'Viva Viagra!' ads from different angles: they violate decency standards, they promote dangerous overuse of risky drugs, they're a poor use of the tax code. Which is fucking true, come on:

Delay tactics and procedural shenanigans by the minority party are generally harmless and often entertaining traditions in the House of Representatives, but guess which party is way better at them?

The Obama administration was supposed to release a plan to close Guantanamo this week, but the report was delayed, because Congress refused to pay to send prisoners to the US. Now Congress is furious, that the report was delayed.

See, this lady says Barack Obama is "a citizen of Kenya," and wants to know what her Representative plans to do about the fact that a Kenyan has become the president. So Castle says: "Well I don't know what comment that invites. If you're referring to the president, then he is a citizen of the United States."

"The Family," a fundamentalist Christian sect founded by 1930s right-wingers, owns a townhouse for congressmen in DC. Lots of those Congressmen have been cheating on their wives. So now people keep paying too much attention to this secretive, Mafia-inspired group.

Ted Kennedy is going to die. Before that happens, the Senate would like to pass a health care reform bill, because that is what Kennedy would like his legacy to be. But the process is difficult without him.

The C Street townhouse of "The Family," the secretive cult of Christian congressmembers, is a den of sin. John Ensign lived there. Mark Sanford sought counsel there. Now we learn a former congressman carried on an affair while living there!

This is Al Franken's first week on the job, so he didn't have time to prepare actual questions for Sonia Sotomayor. Instead he talked about Perry Mason, and how that show made Sotomayor want to be a prosecutor.

You know what? The House Democrats' Health Care reform bill is... pretty ok! We have no serious problems with it, besides its not just being goddamn single-payer. But there are so many ways for things to still go seriously wrong!

Back in 2005, John Roberts said his job as a justice was "to call balls and strikes," like in baseball. This was the most insidious statement ever uttered by a SCOTUS nominee, as today's Sotomayor hearing showed.

Senator Al Franken(!!!) is giving his opening remarks in the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings. If he says anything intentionally or unintentionally funny we will let you know. Oh, a protester just got kicked out. (Coleman?) [Photo: AP]

"Call it empathy, call it sympathy, or call it prejudice, but whatever it is, it is not law." Senator Jeff Sessions, who must not own a dictionary or thesaurus, in his Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings opening statement.

Ron Paul gets shit for being the sole "no" vote on most popular, entirely symbolic bills, so when we read that there was one vote against a plaque honoring slaves at the Capitol, we thought we knew who was responsible.