“Former New Life Church pastor and self-described ‘bisexual’ Ted Haggard swapped wives with actor and self-described ‘church’ Gary Busey for the ABC reality show Celebrity Wife Swap.” [TPM]

Our Caucus-night media diet consisted primarily of Keefless MSNBC — as opposed to Keefless Current, which isn’t on our cable system anyway — with an occasional foray into Fox, where we learned that HD ages Sarah Palin about twenty years, or she just retuned home from auditioning for the next season of American Horror Story.

We didn’t even consider CNN, mainly because David Gergen ages us about twenty years. But making the rounds Wednesday was this example of how Hilarious! things got on the set during the wee hours, especially when—

Wait. You mean the Twitter tracker wasn’t a gag? We’re supposed to take trends on The World’s Neverending Thread seriously?

Well, sure, okay, fine, that’s just CNN painfully trying to be hip with the kids. At least it’s not holograms.

Except they’re not alone:

Read more »

Watching the Iowa speeches last night, it was a bit unsettling — if not quite Shocking! — to see Ron Paul introduce Jesse Thorsen, an active-duty Army corporal, to share a few words. In uniform. Can he do that?

Answer: No.

Guidelines laid out in the federal Hatch Act specifically prohibit uniformed members of the military from making political speeches or taking official roles on political campaigns. Members of the military are permitted to attend political rallies, but must not be wearing their uniform while in attendance. On stage with Paul, Thorsen was wearing green Army fatigues.

Opinions are like assholes, and we’re all entitled to one. But in Our Exceptional Nation, we exercise our rights as citizens — not soldiers.

Not yet, anyway.

Army soldier rallying for Paul violated military ban on political activity [CNN]

Jakadrien Turner ran away from her Dallas home two years ago. She was 14. She turned up last spring. Somewhere else.

News 8 learned that Jakadrien somehow ended up in Houston, where she was arrested by Houston police for theft. She gave Houston police a fake name. When police in Houston ran that name, it belonged to a 22-year-old illegal immigrant from Columbia, who had warrants for her arrest.

So ICE officials stepped in.

News 8 has learned ICE took the girl’s fingerprints, but somehow didn’t confirm her identity and deported her to Colombia, where the Colombian government gave her a work card and released her.

ICE — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — deported an American citizen to Colombia. A young girl. Who doesn’t speak Spanish. And who isn’t even Latino.

Oh, and Colombia’s not giving her back. She’s in detention.

The Obama Administration deported a record 400,000 folks in 2011. Gotta hit those quotas.

Dallas teen missing since 2010 was mistakenly deported [WFAA]

Twitter Hipsters complain that the joke’s getting old. On the contrary: It’s just getting started.

[Spreading Santorum]

Hey, did you know that Dennis Rodman is going to coach a topless women’s basketball team in NYC? “I don’t know too many men that don’t like a good-looking woman running up and down around the court,” he says. Which has nothing to do with our Iowa Caucus Open Thread/Deep Throat, but then, Iowa Republicans have nothing to do with the rest of America.

[via Nabisco]

[NYT]