1.) More frightened rats abandon the S.S. Obama — The White House will soon be full of strangers if Pres. Obama’s advisors continue to abandon ship at the current rate. “White House National Economic Committee Deputy Director Diana Farrell and Treasury Department Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Michael Barr are both planning to leave within weeks,” reports the Wall Street Journal. Barr is leaving at the perfect time, as the House Republicans will soon get to work disassembling his financial regulatory bill, and the fauxclosure crisis (which Barr has run point on in order to protect malfeasant banks) is damn-near ready to boil over. Meanwhile, David Axelrod and his mustache will be evacuating the grounds earlier than anticipated–January or February as opposed to March–in order to work on Obama’s re-election bid. David Plouffe, the rhetorical wunderkind who ran Organizing for America into the ground, will take the mustache’s place as a key source of Obama’s bad ideas.
2.) Hugo Chavez accepts Obama’s offer to get together and talk rampant statism — Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez “praised Obama for his charisma and invited the American leader to come to Venezuela,” after word got out that Obama jokingly suggested diverting an Air Force One flight to Caracas before returning to the U.S. “I hope you’d land in Maiquetía [Venezuela’s main airport] one day,” The Daily Caller’s Antonio Sosa reports Chávez as saying on live television. “We would embrace you, you know.” Chavez, who has destroyed his country’s economy by nationalizing industry, over-regulation, and currency inflation, said that he and Obama could “sit down to talk, to eat socialist arepas.”
3.) Tom Daschle’s wife schilling for TSA x-ray machines — “Linda Hall Daschle, a former administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration and wife of ex-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), is one of L-3’s best-connected lobbyists,” reports The Hill. L-3, being one of several x-ray imaging firms that won more than $160 million in contracts from the TSA, and Daschle, being a Washington Elite, will not let America’s growing contempt for the machines change their position on taking money in exchange for needlessly violating privacy. Said Daschle, “Lobbyists are not the problem. Terrorists are the ones who can do harm to innocent victims.” Perhaps the wife of tax evader Tom Daschle should submit herself to the same reassuring display of self-humiliation as Peter Kant, executive vice president at x-ray machine maker Rapiscan, who stepped into one of his own machines and allowed a reporter to view the monitor.
4.) Made-for-TV SWAT raid that ended in child’s death wasn’t by the book — During a filming of a reality TV series for A&E, a Detroit SWAT team in search of a shooting suspect tossed a live grenade into the wrong apartment unit, burst through the door, and shot 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones in the head. In the days afterward, Detroit police lied to the press about the death of Aiyana, writes Mother Jones. “Police first floated the story that Aiyana’s grandmother had grabbed [the officer’s] gun. Then, realizing that sounded implausible, they said she’d brushed the gun as she ran past the door. But the grandmother says she was lying on the far side of the couch, away from the door.” And there was still the issue that police raided the wrong house. Since then, reports MoJo, members of Detroit’s police force have argued that the raid was conducted the way it was for the sake of the cameras present. “I’m worried they went Hollywood,” said one high-ranking Detroit cop. “It is not protocol. And I’ve got to say in all my years in the department, I’ve never used a flash-bang in a case like this.” Reality: 1, Reality TV: 0.
5.) Michelle Obama: Fat kids can’t be leaders — First Lady Michelle Obama visited an elementary school in Miami earlier this week, where she told all the kids there that they are too fat and need to eat more salads. “The reason why we’re doing this is that these folks here and we consider you guys a part of a bigger effort that we call ‘Let’s Move!'” FLOTUS said. “That’s something that we started out of the First Lady’s office in the White House. And our goal for this campaign is to eliminate childhood obesity, to make sure that kids are eating healthy and getting the kind of exercise they need to be healthy and fit, and to be the leaders that we need you all to be in the years to come.” That’s right: the White House is trying to preempt a Chris Christie bid.
6.) BBC freaks out over North Korean bombing this a.m. — Actually, we should all be freaking out. This is what happens, Pres. Obama, when you put North Korea on the back burner: It turns into a gremlin. In other incredibly important international news, a descendant of British tyrants is getting married in April.
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