The Nightowl Newswrap

I guess there was nothing pressing in the congress yesterday...the wars and health care and the economic collapse have apparently been sorted out, since there is time for silliness like this. Paul Broun, freshman wingnut from Georgia wants the comma removed from the passage of the pledge that reads "one nation, under God." He seems a wee bit obsessed with that phrase - last fall he lauded the "Ten Commandments Commission" for their efforts to further insert religion into the public discourse, saying at the time that he commended them "for their efforts to remind Americans that we are, in fact, 'one nation under God.'"

Home Foreclosure Filings Jump 57% in 12 months and repossessions are up 129% in the last year. - and according to RealtyTrac, the peak has not been reached. "What we're really looking at is ongoing fallout from people overextending themselves to buy homes they couldn't afford and using highly toxic loan products to get into the houses in the first place," said Rick Sharga, vice president of marketing at RealtyTrac, based in Irvine, California. "We're going to see quite possibly a record amount of foreclosure activity in the third or fourth quarter," he added. A record number of loans are going to reset in the next two or three months.

Gallup: Obama leads Clinton, both lead McSame 46%-44% Obama's exercise in blatant honesty doesn't seem to have the "bitter aftertaste" that a bunch of people who won't be voting for any Democrat ever anyway have tried to make out it should. Sounds like someone needs their Wurlitzer tuned.

No doubt about this kids paternity...During a Q&A at Villanova during Hardball's "College Tour" today, a smartass college republican, refering to Hillary having a beer and a bump in a Pennsylvania bar, asked McCain if Hillary was "hitting the sauce" because some bad polling was getting to her. Douchebag Jr. is none other than the son of Douchebag Sr., Steve Doocy. Proving once and for all that the douchebag doesn't fall far from the douchebag tree. Or something.

Speaking of the "College Tour" McCain came perilously close to addressing Iraq realistically when he said "In full disclosure and frankness and candor and straight talk, the Maliki movement to Basra had a very big downside to it. As you know, we saw a thousand police and military desert their posts. But the rest of the military did a pretty good job, did a pretty good job. We did secure the port of Basra. Maybe I’m digging for the pony here." Yes senator, we believe that you are...but I also have to ask, what are the odds of a jackass recognizing a pony if he manages to find one?

Probably not, if this is a portent of things to come.

The Village Voice manned up for all of us. They got their shots, dosed on vitamins, put on full-body-condoms and waded into the fever-swamp of the right blogosphere and examined the various purveyors of wingnuttery and have a rundown for us all. They even developed the "stupid-to-evil" ratio. (Glenn Reynolds pegged out the meter at 5/95, but that won't shock anyone familiar with his body of *ahem* "work.")

Is it September 2007? The Baghdad embassy is ready, the contract specified September 2007 as the completion date.

Obama Rains on Fox News' parade...Addressing a group of veterans today in Pennsylvania,a disabled veteran in the group assembled gave him an American flag lapel pin. He graciously thanked the veteran and then placed it on his lapel, deflating the fetid screeds that were already pouring from a thousand keyboards and the talking heads at Faux Noise.

Bloggers, you have a job to do! PZ Myers is on a mission to googlebomb Ben Stein's totally un-intelligent creationist circle-jerk, Expelled. If you have a blog, figure out a way to insert the following link: [a href="http://expelledexposed.com/"][i]Expelled[/i][/a]. (Of course you know to change [ ] to <> - but if I had written it that way, you know darn well that you would see a clickable link, not the code to use...)