WELCOME TO DAYBOOK, our daily collection of media and politics hits/misses from a wide variety of sources plus fun videos and (and at the bottom) musical picks. Return for updates all day. Keep up with fresh items via tweets. E-mail: epic1934@aol.com. To increase type size hit the middle "A" above right.

AFTERNOON UPDATES

Possibly explosive NYT Mag  cover story coming Sunday, just up online, on the "new abortion providers" — regular doctors who have "learned to terminate."

Hillary Clinton should run for president in 2012,  you read it here first:  at WSJ op-ed page, naturally, from Pete DuPont, longtime Republican, of course. … That almost tops Karl Rove’s piece in same paper claiming his biggest mistake was not fighting the "lie" that his boss lied the country into war in Iraq. 

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi still "nuclear mad"  at the White House for lack of help for Dems runnning this November.

Disheartening to see owner of fan-fave New Orleans Saints donating to Glenn Beck’s August 28 rally (especially given Glenn’s mockery of Katrina victims) but it’s possible he was duped by the roundabout funding.

TPM asks:   Is Sen. Scott Brown good or bad for Dems?

But Fox still talking about winter snow storms?  The federal climate service confirms that the first half of 2010 was the warmest on record. January to June temps averaged 57.5 degrees F, "1.22 degrees F above the 20th Century average."

Good corrective from The Guardian, of all places,  on the Steinbrenner worship from former Yanks beat writer: 

— THURSDAY ON THE LINKS

NOW & THEN   8 U.S. dead in Afghanistan in multiple attacks.  … U.S. Senate committee, sparked by John Kerry, releases records from 1964 and 1968 showing  members expressing haunting doubts about overhyped Gulf of Tonkin episode and other actions that led us into Vietnam war. “In a democracy you cannot expect the people, whose sons are being killed and who will be killed, to exercise their judgment if the truth is concealed from them,” Senator Frank Church, of Idaho, said in executive session in February 1968.

PAUL ON OBAMA   Obama travels to Michigan today to push stimulus program–a state which has gotten tons of cash but jobless rate still high, so expect GOP and media pushback.  Paul Krugman in blog post:  "We’ll never know how differently the politics would have played if Obama, instead of systematically echoing and giving credibility to all the arguments of the people who want to destroy him, had actually stood up for a different economic philosophy."

STILL A MAD, MAD WORLD    Tim Egan questions continuing U.S. adherence to MAD (Mutually Assured  Destruction) nuclear theory  after the Cold War — amid its "budget busting" costs ……  See my new piece here on 65th anniversary of the birth of the Nuclear Age with the Trinity test — and the cover-ups that followed.

HORNING IN ON BP  Yes, worst punishment possible:  protestors in London attack BP with vuvuzelas:

QUOTE  OF THE DAY   Sen. Jim Bunning, the ex-baseball star,  hails George Steinbrenner "because he was smart enough to die in 2010, there is zero liability on the estate tax." 

LEVI STUBS   Gail Collins has some fun with Levi, Bristol and Sarah.  Meanwnile, main NYT headline on marriage: "Rewrap the Fondue Pot for Bristol Palin."

GOP SMACKED  The Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee is trying to back Senate Republican candidates into a well-planned, political corner by pushing them to state whether or not they would repeal the proposed financial regulatory reform law, which the Senate is set to pass this week…. 

FLOTILLA AFTERMATH   A group of journalists on board the flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip in May plan to sue Israel for violating international law, never returning their equipment, using their credit cards, among other things.

TEA PARTY NOT THAT HEARTY  New Think Progress video on racism and TeaParty — but far too brief to be effective. … Politico now publishing fact-challenged Tea Party op-eds, including latest claiming 49 million "active" members.  Yet they couldn’t get that annual convention together.

PAINT IT BLACK   Dave Weigel who has been doing great stuff on "clownish" Fox obsession with Black Panthers–who have appeared primarily on Fox News, as it happens — w/ more here on Beck’s "analysis" and Megyn Kelly’s  "minstrel" show.   God help us if someone (Fox?) forms the New SDS, New Weather Underground or New Yippies. Plus they need Tom Hayden to run for president.  

MUNN, BUT IT’s NOT THE SAME    The Daily Show, on hiatus this week, releases video featuring new cast member Olivia Munn. Unfortunately, she’s STILL not funny. 

BITS & PIECES:   Mike Isikoff, the former Newsweek prober, starts this week with NBC’s investigative unit….   U.S. paid a cool $5 million to that Iranian scientist for info on nuke program…. An art collective called Culture Beyond Oil decided to pour molasses around a statue at the British Museum in London to protest its involvement with BP.

TODAY’s LAFF

Greenpeace parody advocates using "ScamWow!" to clean-up Gulf leak — and/or your corporate image.  And if you call NOW they will throw in a free legal expert.  

TODAY’s MUSIC

We’ve learned the comments Paul McCartney made about President Bush during his White House concert last month (including, "After the last eight years, it’s great to have a president who knows what a library is") will not be aired in the PBS special July 28., but you can enjoy now when he got the president to sing along with "Hey, Jude."    Could have re-titled it, "Hey, First Dude."