Overnight - A roundup of news items that you might have missed

The Worst Isn't Over Yet: Foreclosure filings in the first three months of 2008 rose more than 112% over last year, according to a study released Tuesday. Real estate information firm RealtyTrac reported that nearly 650,000 foreclosure filings - which include notices of default, auction sales and bank repossessions - were issued in the first quarter. That represents 1 of every 194 households and marks a 23% increase from the last quarter of 2007. So far this year 156,463 families have lost their homes to repossessions.

Nevada GOP recesses convention to thwart rowdy Ron Paul Supporters and will have to resume later to finish the delegate process for the national convention. Paul supporters showed up in greater numbers than McSame supporters, intent on sending Paul delegates to the national convention. Of all the speakers Saturday, Paul was the one that made the crowd go nuts.

Wolfowitz admits his own cluelessness, but still insists Shinseki was wrong about troop levels, saying that a “sensible counterinsurgency strategy” would have involved more Iraqi forces, not Americans. Which begs a question: Where were these so-called Iraqi forces supposed to come from? Has he forgotten the decision by the CPA to disband the entire fucking Iraqi Army? Or does he just think we have?

Pure, unadulterated, detail-free crankery from McCain on the economic front. Using Children's Hospital in Miami as a backdrop, and with a "model family" propped up behind him, he touted more deregulated, free-market nonsense as a fix for our deplorable healthcare delivery system in this country. The kicker? A child in the model family who gets therapy for a cleft palate only because state law mandadtes the therapy be covered, and that kid would be SOL under the McCain silliness. When someone asked about the contradiction between the model family and the McCain wankery, McCain senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said that the marketplace will fill the void. "If there is a demand for this kind of coverage," he said, "some insurance company will offer it." (Yeah, Scarlett, think about it tomorrow when you get back to Tara.)

Cue the wingnut chorus...A Clinton appointee has slapped the aWol administration for violating the Endangered Species Act and ordered that the administration stop footdragging and issue a final listing decision for the polar bear by May 15, 2008. The polar bear is one of the world’s most imperiled animals due to climate change.

Ashcroft has a big steaming cup of "Shut the Fuck Up" After repeatedly blustering that waterboarding wasn't a big deal, hell, he would undergo it himself, after all he has been on The Daily Show, and that was torture...John Ashcroft was made the bitch of the blogosphere. Yesterday when he appeared at Denison University in Ohio, he backed off a mile from his former tough-guy rhetoric. He refused to discuss waterboarding, spoke only in vague generalities about torture and scaled back his usual vigorous support of the policies of this useless cur of a president. Johnny don't do criticism well, and someone so uptight over boobies on a statue is not likely to enjoy the lubeless reaming he took for talking like a feckless thug.

Would the lemmings of the press kindly find the nearest cliff and jump, please? Shut up about Jeremiah Wright already. I promise, if Wright gets the nomination, I won't vote for him. Deal? And one more thing - I could not possibly care less about Hannah Montana and her satin sheet. She can reenact the horseback scene from Like Water for Chocolate for all I care. How's about y'all start reporting on policy and things that matter? Either that, or take the first bit of advice I offered. Thanks in advance. Oh yeah...and what John Cole said...

Whistleblowers level damning charges against KBR "contractors" Stolen Weapons. Pilfered artworks. Gold melted down to make spurs. Former employees of KBR who worked in Iraq appeared before a Democrats-only panel investigating contractor abuses in Iraq and offered testimony about abuses that, if they bear out, should send people to jail.

Editor&Publisher calls out the AP for falsely accusing the DNC of "falsely" accusing McCain of saying something they had him on tape saying. Damned facts and their liberal bias...

Andrew Sullivan went to the Fox News website so I didn't have to and what he found was indeed beyond parody. Click over and look at last nights lineup - Greta and the shark is enough to make it worthwhile.

I meant to mention this a week ago Andrew Bacevich has a piece in the American Conservative this month that bears reading. Here is the first graph as a teaser: The United States today finds itself with too much war and too few warriors. We face a large and growing gap between our military commitments and our military capabilities. Something has to give. (You know you want to keep reading or you wouldn't be hanging out here, so go read it already.)

Kelley Vlahos opens a can of whoop-ass Since we are paying our respects to the only right-leaning political mag out there that doesn't suck since Buckley let go of the Standard...You have to go read her piece on the sexual exploitation of women in Iraq as a result of the war. It is heartbreaking...and she is absolutely scathing as she tears the M$M a new one for ignoring the plight of the women of Iraq while chattering about schools with fresh paintjobs. And Danielle Crittenden is still whimpering under her covers after the bitch-slapping she takes. She may never be the same. Go over there right now. This is an informative ass-whoopin' done right, and I bow to her superior serve.

We had our doubts about the Ft. Bragg barracks story...not that we thought it was phony, but that it wasn't that damned unusual. But maybe we should have been able to get past the keening narrative and looked a little closer, because it went all the way to a flag officer. “It is my responsibility for maintaining barracks throughout the Army,” Brig. Gen. Dennis E. Rogers, deputy director of operations and facilities for U.S. Army Installation Management Command, in Arlington, Va., said today during a roundtable discussion with Pentagon reporters.....“Folks, we let our soldiers down, and that’s not like us,” Rogers emphasized to reporters. “That’s not how we want America’s sons and daughters to live, and there’s no good excuse for what happened.” Well, get busy, 'cuz the way we understand it, there are a lot more barracks in that condition or comparable all over the world. And good god, - the NCO whose dad posted that video? You just know his top kick is up his ass every minute of every day for the rest of his hitch...

Another American cottage industry exported We aren't even manufacturing our own meth any more. What used to be the exclusive province of violent, west coast biker gangs is now the province of violent Mexican drug gangs. 80% of the meth consumed in the U.S. is imported by Mexican drug cartels like the ones who waged a gun battle in Tijuana a few days ago.

It's all the Democrats fault. Everything. That's what aWol says, anyway. Gas prices are high because we can't drill in ANWR. Food prices are high because we can't drill in ANWR. Homes are being foreclosed because we can't drill in ANWR. We are stuck in Iraq because we can't drill in ANWR. And whose fault is it his oil buddies can't rape the wilderness and start drilling? The Democrats. Why do we hate America? Why can't we see that the panacea to cure all our national economic woes, grow hair on bald pates, smooth wrinkles, firm flabby arms, do our laundry, send all our kinder to kollege, and make us all rich, thin and gorgeous is to drill in ANWR?

Another sign of our lousy American health system More and more babies are being born to diabetic mothers, which increases the chances that the children will develop diabetes at some point in their lives. Reuters couches it like the women are stupid, selfish and lazy, but really it is our health system that is more deserving of those appellations than the mothers. Four years of comprehensive health classes in our high schools - which includes comprehensive sex ed would be a good place to start. Restoring the school lunch program and kicking the fast-food vendors and vending machines our of schools would be another good move. And take processed foods off the items that can be purchased with food stamps. But don't bring out the lab rat in me here...I'll rant for days about the typical American diet and our crippled public health system. Lets just say that I'm not a fan of either, having experience battling both.

"You're not the boss of me!" Cheney's lawyer sent a letter to congress asserting that congress has no oversight authority over the vice president, so they can go suck eggs. So c'mon, Nan - show him what real oversight authority looks like and impeach his lame ass already.

Siegelman slapped with travel restrictions If he wants to travel (say, to testify before congress) the former Governor will have to get prior consent of both his PO and the district to which he will be visiting.

Senate Intelligence Panel moves to rein in interogators and codify waterboarding as expressly forbidden by any and all agents of the United States government and make the Army Field Manual the universal standard. This is the second try. Obstructionist republicans killed it the forst time.

Bigoted Tennessee high school principal takes it upon herself to out gay students, and one was denied participation in a school trip because, he was told, they were afraid he might "embarrass the school." If it's a prerequisite that you have to be gay to act like a jackass in public, I guess we're all queer.