Troubling news about the newest member of the Supreme Court:

Before Barack Obama nominated her to be the court’s 112th justice, Kagan was having some pretty serious cash-flow issues. It’s not like she was homeless, but the former solicitor general wasn’t exactly living on Easy Street, either. The fact is, Elena Kagan’s degrees from Princeton, Oxford, and Harvard didn’t keep her from eating lentils and day-old muffins on a regular basis, but, hey, sometimes you have to do what you have to do—and now, for Kagan, that means interpreting the Constitution and starting to pay off some of those credit card bills.

Justice Kagan, never one to hold back what she is thinking, had to ask Chief Justice Roberts for a special favor.

While it was awkward having to ask Chief Justice Roberts immediately following the judicial oath if she could get her first paycheck in advance, Elena Kagan’s ship has, by all accounts, come in. Finally

Fortunately, the Chief was quite magnanimous and helped her out.