Years from now, all of us will be able to answer the heartrending question "where were you when you heard Keith Olbermann was quitting?"
It came so suddenly, and so unexpectedly. One moment he's calling the Tea Party racist, or declaring Sarah Palin to be "The Worst Person In The World," and the next moment he's gone. Keith, we hardly knew ye.
Currently, there is no solid information about why Olbermann and MSNBC parted ways. There is absolutely no indication that Olbermann had a longstanding homosexual affair with mass-murderer Jared Loughner, nor is there anyone willing to go on record that MSNBC believed Olbermann to be a necrophiliac pedophile who hated minorities.
Although rumors abound, there is no confirmation that Olbermann was terminated for "enjoying himself" while looking at pictures of the First Lady's yams, nor should anyone believe - absent verifiable proof - that MSNBC forced him to leave because of drug, alcohol, and orphan abuse.
All we can say for sure at this point is that Keith Olbermann's journalistic voice has, for the time being, been stilled.
Having apparently missed the president's memo saying "we should use words that heal instead of wound, especially when talking about people we owe a lot of money to," Senator Harry Reid declared China's President Hu Jintao to be a "dictator."
He described Hu in this way because he "can do a lot of things through the form of government they have," and added that saying China's government is different from ours is "an understatement."
Or, perhaps, an overstatement.
After all, the House bill to repeal Obamacare - voted on by the peoples' elected representatives - just passed by a larger margin than the original Obamacare bill itself, and with more bipartisan support. Which means that the Senate should now debate the bill and vote on it too, right?
But Harry Reid, acting unilaterally, won't let it happen. Won't even let the issue be heard in the Senate. Not because it would be a waste of time, but because now that the original bill has been passed, people can (as Nancy Pelosi suggested) "see what's in it." And they don't like it.
Which is why Harry is now following China's lead when it comes to exercising power, and insisting that the peasants shut up.
Although much attention was given to yesterday's Republican vote in the House to repeal Obamacare, another recent vote should be getting Americans' attention... and raising real concerns.
According to a Reuters poll, nearly two-thirds of U.S. doctors believe that Obamacare will cause patient care to deteriorate significantly within the next few years.
Of course, besides the majority of House Republicans and doctors, Obamacare is also opposed by a majority of Americans, and a majority of states - with some 26 states fighting court battles against the unsupportable costs of Obamacare as well as Washington's unconstitutional "individual mandate" power grab.
So let's see...that means that a majority of Representatives, doctors, citizens and states are against a plan that raises healthcare costs while lowering the standard of care.
And oddly enough, we're told that if all the above makes us (heaven forbid) angry... then we're the ones who must be sick. -
To prove that the post-shellacking "Barack Obama 2.0" is now friendly to business, the president has announced his plan to review government regulations which discourage hiring, inhibit business growth, and make American companies less competitive.
"Review" being the word that politicians use when they want to give the illusion of taking action, with no intention whatsoever of following through and actually doing anything.
In the same way that only reading a diet book won't cause weight loss, or forming a Debt Reduction Commission won't actually reduce debt, the president's "review" won't actually make the business climate better... and won't produce many surprises, either.
For instance, we can already tell Mr. Obama that any government regulations which increase the cost of hiring - whether an increase in minimum wage or higher premiums for Obamacare - kill jobs and encourage layoffs. The president's threat of a government increase in taxes on business and investment in two years hurts both right now.
Proposed energy taxes which make it prohibitively expensive to actually build things in the United States reduce our ability to compete internationally. Shutting down segments of our domestic oil exploration and production while oil prices skyrocket hurts all businesses. And regulations which exist solely to shore up the power of Democrat-friendly unions force domestic employers to find affordable employees overseas.
In other words, Mr. Obama, the reviews on your business policies are already in... and your "Hope and Change" show is a flop. - -
In the greatest blow to the Swiss since foreign powers stole their Army's plans for overly-complicated pocket knives, Julian Assange has announced that Wikileaks' newest stunt will be to reveal the secret Swiss bank accounts of the high and mighty.
In a televised ceremony slightly more elaborate than the Golden Globes, former Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer handed Assange two CDs which are believed to contain the closely-guarded bank records of 2000 people. Unless the disks accidentally got switched and are, in fact, the Lady Gaga recordings which Elmer was listening to while stealing the data files.
Frankly, we're looking forward to finding out who's been stashing away money and avoiding taxes (humanity's coldest crime). Politicians? Celebrities? Newscasters...?
Meanwhile the Swiss banking industry is in a state of panic not seen since the early 40's, when Nazis opened billions of dollars' worth of new, secret bank accounts...then demanded over 300,000 toasters before they'd leave the lobby.
For now, all we can do is wait for Mr. Assange to start revealing the information on Wikileaks. And warn him to watch out for pocketknives. -
Our nation has set aside this day to celebrate the life and great works of Martin Luther King Jr. And here at Hope n' Change, we think it's a particularly fitting occasion to consider the place of rhetoric and nonviolent protest in American life.
Many of Dr. King's pronouncements targeted a government and laws which were intended to silence a huge number of people. His speeches were powerful, passionate, and unashamedly filled with words like "morality" and "right"... and he did not hesitate to say that these were issues of life and death importance.
He drew crowds which were, to a large degree, not racially diverse. He rallied thousands on the National Mall in Washington DC. And in the end, he changed our nation for the better - not by violence, but by fomenting a revolution at the ballot box.
The parallels to today's Tea Party Movement are striking, including the use of non-violence as a fundamental principle. But the same tools and methods used by Dr. King are now being threatened from those on the Left (and sadly, the spineless on the Right). Laws are being proposed to restrict political speech, and a willing conspiracy between the press and the politicians exists to suppress the voices of those calling for a return to sanity and integrity in governance.
But would such suppression of language and peaceful protest result in a kinder, gentler America? Not according to Dr. King, who said "A riot is the language of the unheard."
Free speech is not the cause of violence. It is the cure. -
In the most striking example of our new, more civil, post-partisan style of government, a Democrat has suggested rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic...oops...we meant on the floor of the House Chamber, for Barack Obama's upcoming State of the Union address.
By longstanding tradition, Democrats would sit on one side of the chamber, Republicans would sit on the other side, and no one would sit with Arlen Specter.
In the past, this has at least made for reasonably amusing television. The entire body of Democrats tends to catapult out of their seats, whooping and applauding, every time the president says something like "the urgency of today demands the thrivance of togetherness tomorrow." Meanwhile, the Republicans glare stolidly as if sizing up a dimwitted waiter who doesn't know his thumb is in the soup.
But not this year. Momentum is building for the Republicans and Democrats to sit together, side by side, to show that despite petty partisan politics and nearly insurmountable national crises, our elected representatives are united in their opposition to lunatics in red G-strings.
And, oh yeah, it will look much better for the president than having a majority of the House scowl bleakly, anchored to their seats, when he insists that the best way to protect ourselves from an approaching economic asteroid is to increase our debt. -
