ew. the politics of drinking and smoking is very different in russia, where the finance minister is encouraging people to indulge. boo booze and cigarettes are highly taxed in russia. so his rational is drink and smoke. and paradise is up for sale. the island is changing hands. the granddaughter of the late icon is selling it to jorg jorgio armani. and columbia, home to the world s shortest man. he s 24 years old. 2 feet and 23 inches tal. that brings us down to the wire. the dylan ratigan show is up next. now that chicago major richardday lee announced he won t run for re-election, could this be rahm emanuel s exit strategy from the white house.
a possible exit strategy for rahm emanuel and a pastor defying the u.s. military plans to burn the koran on 9/11. indulging in his emotions is more important than anything, i suppose. our first topic, developing news out of chicago. the mayor of chicago, richard daley says he will not be running against. he says it feels like the right time. i wonder what the feeling is. if it s a feeling of multiple phone calls from rahm emanuel. now the president s right hand man may take a play for the seat. take a listen to mr. a emanuel in tril saying a stint at chicago mayor is a jop he s always wanted. first of all, let me say it this way, i hope mayor daley seeks re-election. i will work to support him if he does not seek re-election. but if he doesn t, one day i would like to run for mayor of the city of chicago.
that s always been an aspiration of mine. e annual said he was surprised by daley s decision. ari melburn and correspondent for the nation magazine. ari, is this a rahm built exit strategy we re looking at? well, no one knows, and i don t think anyone the the position to know is going to admit that publicly. obviously, rahm emanuel has a tough job that he, many people feel, has made tougher in the way that he s run it and the way he s chosen to be very bombastic. not only with opponents, but really with a lot of people close to obama who supported obama. he s not super popular in washington. but maybe he doesn t want to be in washington forever. does this matter? i don t know. one of those things. i look at it.
emanuel maybe stepping down. do you think we would see any major changes like that before we actually get to the midterms? reporter: highly unlikely before the midterms. after the midterm elections i think you may see a big shift in some people moving out of the white house. it had basketball rumored for many, many months that it had been rumored for many months that rahm emanuel was looking for an exit strategy. he may leave after the elections. it s been talked about that david axelrod will eventually leave the white house to go run the operation for the reelect in kpheu. so i think you will see a shift. we ll see how big, depending on the midterm elections. jenna: politico had even interesting report on their website today. when it comes to the president strategy moving into the back half of this year. they said obama has been the most activist president in
there s some kind of equality here, in the case of the democrats, people want to know what are the democrats going to do for me? and in the case of the republicans, they say they re afraid of what the republicans might do to them. everything you have said, congressman, to allow me to play the devil s advocate here for a minute, there is another response to that, you can talk about how much money the republicans spent, but the deficit is at record level under democratic control. you can talk about endless wars and yet a lot of even democrats are disappointed by what this house has done. there seems to be some real questions about whether or not there s going to be an exit strategy from afghanistan next summer. we could go on and on. and there is no doubt that there is this anti-incumbent senator, does that worry you? the democrats now have inacted what they want to do to make sure that everybody can go to a doctor when they get sick. the republicans don t even have a plan for that.