Hatmandu@6:

“Since our somewhat popular host began to scare the bejesus out of us with this photo several weeks ago, I have had a strange feeling that I had seen this woman somewhere before.”

Callista’s face looks like it’s straight out of Michelle Bachman’s catalog of hospitable expressions. Is there enough in a facial expression to make an identification? Could Callista Gingrich be Michelle Bachman with a different ‘do?
Have the two ever been seen together? Has anyone checked the kerning on their signatures?
Clear as day, Gingrich’s a clever man: he runs his wife on one ticket and if/when her campaign tanks, he comes off of his book tour to pick up the voters she disenchanted.

Yo Man,
So I’m supposed to believe that Christ, the Redeemer of Mankind, is willing to set aside the appeals of all of the footless lepers, the noseless syphalatics and the erection-less victime of prostrate cancer to help[ an aspiring athlete achieve cover-girl fame on the front page of Playgirl (doubtless, a football helmet will hide his equipment) … Whatever my Christian bona fides may be, I’ve gotta say, “Gimme a break.” This sucker ain’t naiigating the eye of the needle. He’s an advert for a particular (and odious) branch of Reformed Christianity,
Were that I could get so much TV time for cutting the foreskins off of Philipino youth!
And, yo, mistah, if you wan’ me to, I’ll cite chapter and verse of the gospels (Boof of Matthewq) about how the hypocrites advertise their fealty to God by praying in public. It’s embarrassingly ,mundane.

From Charles Pierce at Esquire:
“In case you missed it, disgrace-to-boozy-bar-room-skanks everywhere Annie Coulter has a new book out. Apparently, she was plugging it on some San Francisco radio embarrassment yesterday.
I draw your attention to No. 6:
‘Remember the lesson from my book: It just took a few shootings at Kent State to shut that down for good.’”
November 18, 2011 at 5:51PM By Charles P. Pierce

Apparently, the administration at UCDavis thought well of Anne Coulter’s wise words and heeded them: the pepper-spraying of the students was simply a bald display of power with the intention of intimidating any future wanna-be protestors. When the expectation of a measured response to a demonstration is taken off the table, future protestors can rationally fear, that any response from the police is possible.
Given that it has a name that is seemingly no longer implausibly reminiscent of a ministry in an authoritarian regime, perhaps it is time for OWS to add the dismantling of the DHS to its list of demands.

Thanks for acknowledging it. Apology accepted.

Rather a cheap shot, given that you implicitly asked for a case of the administration’s bad faith. I don’t think that there’s any question then that this is one, and turning the point back on me doesn’t change that.
As far as it goes, I’m no more a victim of this policy than all of the other folks in this country who are suffering through this balance sheet recession and a lot less of one than someone who’s still paying a mortgage on an underwater property. I rent now and always have.

I have real reservations about the Obama presidency, although not so much that I won’t vote to reelect him, given the choices. This administration has pursued many policies which I dislike for diverse reasons, including that they were advanced in bad faith. As the premier example of this administration’s bad faith initiatives, I’ll cite its mortgage relief programs, HAMP and its successor, which succeeded in spending less than 3% of the monies allocated to them on assisting homeowners and, after some years, only recently began doing any kind of enforcement against the banks.

The history of post-World War Two American military intervention is extremely checkered. There is, however, no guilt by association on this issue. The verdict is still out on Libya, while a positive case can fairly readily be made for the intervention in the Balkans. Certainly, there need not be any rush to judgment.
I am old enough to remember that factions of the American left were opposed to Vietnam’s invasion of Pol Pot’s Cambodia.

This is an odd one: for all my life, my peeps on the left have complained about the failure of the US government to intervene in humanitarian crises in Africa. This has been an ongoing humanitarian crisis for over a decade, one recognized by NGOs that are usually respected on my wing of the political spectrum. Sure, there’s reason to doubt the rational for action offered by the US government, but that doesn’t mean putting an end to this outrage is unwarranted or something that should be opposed. Whatever might be motivating our government’s action, LRA is really brutalizing, terrorizing and murdering the people of the regions where it operates.
On the right, on the other hand, Iraq makes it impossible for me to see any kind of crisis of conscience. A crisis of convenience, perhaps, but no crisis of conscience.

While she’s about 35 years too late, it’s nice too see Roseanne Barr took that job speaking for the Khmer tourist bureau. I’ve heard it’s quite a lovely country, as long as you’re careful about the unexploded Nixon-era munitions, and, certainly, anyone who can’t be reeducated out of the notion that $100 million is enough can afford a holiday in Cambodia.

True enough — they love a well lubricated hand. Otherwise, all of the froth they create might not be Santorum.

Santorum wasn’t squeezed out of orifice, he was shot out prematurely. And, now, it’s just kind of dripping down along the inside of the Republican Party, trying to find a place where it can pool up and accumulate. Doubtless, it will be wiped up before the next election.

Does Justice Prosser use such moves on his gimps, or does he exercise more manly restraint when done up in leather? Perhaps a spanking for the hapless runaways before a round of ‘hide the salami?’ Inquiring minds want to know!

If we’re talking irresponsible he said – she said journalism, this move just about takes the cake:

McArdle: … But the fact is it’s not Goldman Sachs’ responsibility to make sure that Morgan Stanley makes money. More than it’s the Atlantic’s responsibility to make sure that Rolling Stone makes money.

VELSHI: It’s a good point, yes. I think I’ll just leave it right there.

It’s not a good point at all and it leaves the audience with the impression that there’s some kind of legitimate difference of opinion between Taibbi and McMegan.
If Velshi was doing his job, this is where he might have digressed on the subject of “fiduciary responsibility,” an assumption and legal obligation which makes Goldman Sacks’ business possible. Fiduciary responsibility is what gives the bank a good name: without it, no one’s going to give them hundreds, let alone billions, of dollars to play with.
McMegan’s willful disregard of an investment bank’s obligation to deal with its customers’ money honorably turns her words into a pile of shit and her into a shill. Not that that’s news.
I don’t know the statutes, but I can’t escape the thought that, if we were Romans, we’d undoubtedly sentence everyone involved in perpetrating and covering for this fraud (doubtless including McMegan) to some horrible death for it.
“Crucifixion?”

I’ve gotta give Obama credit: he had the good taste not to announce this in a codpiece.
Now, maybe we bring the troops home and charge the fighting of the “War on Terror” to the law enforcement and intelligence agents who should’ve been running it all along.
I’ve gotta think the Republicans would like that idea: it’ll save a shitload of money.