1.) American success in global marketplace depends on Obama, says Obama — Pres. Obama is expected to make a case for health care, tighter business regulations, and more government involvement in the economy during a speech today to the Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs from the country’s largest corporations. In classic limousine style, the president dined privately last night with some of those executives (“AT&T, Boeing, GE, JPMorgan, State Farm, and Wal-Mart” according to CBS correspondent Mark Knoller), and perhaps reassured America’s coddled titans that corporate welfare is alive and well under the Chicago crew. Ironically, the president’s speech is likely to bring proponents of regular-person welfare to the brink of rolling-eyed ecstasy, what with its earnest references to “growing prosperity shared widely” and all that.
2.) U.S. goes all out on pretty new embassy in London — Plans for a new U.S. embassy in London don’t include a wall or fences. Instead, the design submitted by architecture firm Kieran Timberlake calls for a gleaming all-glass exterior, a truly darling pond, and a landscaping plan that is both pleasing to the eye and terror-proof; all for the paltry sum of $1 billion. According to the Telegraph, the current U.S. embassy is overcrowded and showing “signs of wear and tear.” According to Adam Namm, who manages U.S. embassy projects, “the budget for the project was among the most expensive taken on to build a new embassy, alongside recent developments in Baghdad and Islamabad”; a reminder that security in the world’s most dangerous cities–and let’s not forget style and eco-political correctness–ain’t cheap.
3.) Regular Americans, not just Massholes, contributed to Scott Brown campaign — “In the last 19 days of the race, nearly 70 percent of the 12,773 contributors who gave more than $200 to the Brown campaign were from outside Massachusetts,” reports the Boston Globe. Among the ranks of outsiders who couldn’t wait to start Ted Kennedy’s body a-spinning in its grave was Mary Watkins, a Georgia resident who sent Brown $500 because she is terrified of the Democrats’ health care plan and possibly allergic to cat food.
4.) Did Rick Perry turn Texas into a big ole’ welfare queen? — According to the Dallas Morning News’ Michael Landauer, Rick Perry is not just beating the gubernatorial boots off Sen. Kay Bailout Hutchison and that weird 9/11 Truther woman, he’s also living a fiscally conservative lie. “Federal income has grown 108.53 percent since 2000, more than double the revenue growth of taxes (50 percent). That means the Texas miracle is producing half as much revenue growth as reliance on federal dollars,” Landauer writes, casting doubt on Perry’s desire to detach the Lonestar State from the federal feeder and start anew with the Republic of Rick.
5.) Cuban miscreant starves self to death — While the writers at Playboy were praising the absence of fast-food joints and fanny packs on the streets of Havana–and by extension, the money to build or buy such bourgeois amenities–Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a wannabe capitalist pig, was starving himself to death in a Cuban jail. An ingrate to the very end, Tamayo died yesterday of his hunger strike after having been imprisoned in 2003 for foolishly disagreeing with Castro’s vision for a life free of consumer choices. Capitalist sympathizers in Florida spoke up in support of the traitor Tamayo, including Sen. Bill Nelson, who said, “His reported death today is a sad reminder of the tragic cost of oppression and a dictatorship that devalues human life.” Tamayo’s death is a reminder that eventually Cuba will one day be tainted by freedom, and that true cultural aficionados should all go now, while Cubans still don’t know what year it is.
6.) LaHood driven mad by technology, soda; possibly lead paint — A feverish Ray LaHood told US News & World Report on Monday, “It makes me crazy when I see people [driving] in Washington with a phone up to their ear and a can of soda on their lap thinking that they can do these things. They just simply can’t.” To prove just how serious he is about controlling Americans in the privacy of their own Priuses, LaHood plans to disabuse drivers of the notion of personal freedom to the point that there are “no distractions whatsoever in cars,” even if it requires “developing a device to shut down phones and BlackBerrys when the engine is started.” Without citing exactly how many people die every year as a result of recklessly texting and/or gulping big from their Big Gulps, LaHood said, “We just have to prevent people from using them, and once we do, we save a lot of lives,” while also helping local municipalities make bank on fines.
VIDEO: MoveOn: Public option still at least as relevant as Heather Graham