NB Extra

The Democrats think they have found their smoking gun. A little-known Republican congressman has resigned in a cloud of immorality, and the left and their media minions are sounding the midterm election victory bell.

Hurray for them.

Of course, they can only succeed with this strategy – one that conveniently doesn’t require them to offer an alternate platform or one single idea to the electorate – if enough conservatives buy into the clarion call, and stay home on November 7.

Cynically, this is what the Democrats are counting on, and intelligent voters across the country must not fall prey to this charade. Instead, people must recognize that Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House certainly doesn’t represent an improvement in morality on Capitol Hill and across the fruited plain.

Rep. Barney Frank gave an interview to Advocate.com yesterday where he compared gay Republicans in Congress to "secret Jews".

In what is billed as an Advocate.com exclusive Rep. Franks stated that the Foley scandal will result in a purge of gays from the Republican Party.

What do you think was the role of gay Republicans in all this?

Apparently, Kirk Fordham, Foley's ex–chief of staff and Rep. Thomas Reynolds's chief of staff, is a very active gay Republican [and] also had some role in the hush-up. [As of Wednesday, Fordham is no longer on Reynolds's staff.] There are others who were involved that I can't mention since they aren't out. They are all more like secret Jews.

How do the gay Republicans reconcile their consciences?

A lot of them chose between their gayness and their party. I'm sure the group of gay Republican staffers hid Foley's actions as best they could.

This is a real crisis, since before, gays in the Republican Party were willing to be tolerated, but Republicans will now be more nervous having gay people in positions of power. They have been critical of people who are out and gay—there could be a real purge of gays in the Republican Party now. It's probably just enough for people to be perceived to be gay.

Omar gives an Iraqis take on the latest poll numbers out of Iraq. One of the first things to strike me, is his characterization of how the media are misinforming the people about America's role in Iraq and as he notes:

"For over three years, the media kept focusing on the mistakes and shortcomings of the US military and US administration in what I can only describe as force-feeding hatred to the Iraqi people"

Sound familiar?  I'd venture their reporting mirrors the left wing media in the US and the Democrats talking points.  Omar states almost as much.

"What do you expect the attitude of the common Iraqi to be when he watches, hears or reads about the fairly wide anti-war movement in the west?

If you read the lawsuit, you won't get to the gist of what the State of California really wants from the six car companies it sued over their alleged contribution to the state's alleged global-warming problem.

(Aside: part of me would LOOOOOVE for this suit to go forward, so that global warming arguments can be shredded in open court.)

Here is the "relief" the lawsuit (15-page PDF) requests:

The People request that this Court:
1. Hold each defendant jointly and severally liable for creating, contributing to, and
maintaining a public nuisance;
2. Award monetary damages according to proof;
3. Enter a declaratory judgment for such future monetary expenses and damages as may
be incurred by California in connection with the nuisance of global warming;
4. Award attorneys fees;
5. Award costs and expenses; and
6. Award such other relief as this Court deems just and proper.

That's pretty vague. But this BBC article on the suit has this interesting unattributed sentence about what the state is actually after, something I have not seen mentioned in any other article I read on the topic:

In his rant against Chris Wallace of Fox News on Friday, former president Bill Clinton claimed that (bold is mine):

I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke.

You would wait forever for someone in The 527 Media to do what blogger Patterico did earlier today. In the course of a longer entry dispelling other myths and falsehoods in the Clinton-Wallace interview, Patterico busted the Clinton claim about the anti-terror transition from his administration to the incoming Bush Adminstration. He located this interview of Richard Clarke in early 2002 that was cleared for distribution by the White House in 2004 and published at Fox News' web site in March of that year.

The BBC's Story lead (HT Taranto at Best of the Web):

Israelis 'trains (sic) Kurdish forces'

The BBC has obtained evidence that Israelis have been giving military training to Kurds in northern Iraq.

A report on the BBC TV programme Newsnight showed Israeli experts in northern Iraq, drilling Kurdish militias in shooting techniques.

Kurdish officials have refused to comment on the report and Israel has denied it knows of any involvement.

From that point forward the story is literally riddled with assumptions about how other countries and the rest of Iraq will react, without a single quote or attribution from anyone who supposedly will object. Examples throughout the article's text (scare words in bold):

"I'm always being accused of being a Hollywood Republican," Willis is quoted as saying, " — but I'm not!"

According to the story, Willis is particularly interested in foster care, certainly a worthy concern. But he doesn't think free individuals can effectively address the matter: "This is not something for the private sector to solve. This is a problem for the federal government."

Today's Chicago Tribune carried a brief analysis of the new team on "Today." Wrote staffer Maureen Ryan:

"No need. The warm Vieira fit right in with 'Today's' mix of frothy celebrity updates, tabloid stories and bits and bites of actual news."

Such enthusiasm at the Tribune is usually reserved for Democratic Senator Barack Obama and other selected liberals.

Sept. 15: Rex Nutting, in the first BizzyBlog comment, noted that he e-mailed me support for how he calculated the item I contended needed correcting (which he believes does not, and therefore will not correct). I had to spend some time reverse engineering what he sent, because he did not provide a detailed calculation to support any of the figures he provided; those figures did check out, but doing so took time.

I will cover the dispute in detail Monday. I apologize for the delay, but will give away the ending in the interest of a peaceful weekend -- His calculation uses an averaging method that, while commonly used and therefore not "requiring" a correction, is nevertheless mathematically incorrect, as I will show in detail when I put the post up on Monday.
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