I know tonight is all about the convention here (and I'm watching/listening as I compose this diary), but I came across an excellent column about one of the many sticks we're poking the Russian bear with -- the notional anti-ballistic missile battery that we will be wasting many billions to put in Poland.

And it's well worth a diary, even tonight.

Gwynne Dyer, a Canadian Ph.D. journalist based in England who has concentrated on military issues throughout his career, writes that the Polish ABM thing is a shameless sham.

On every level possible.

Here's a taste:

It would make about as much sense militarily if this mini-crisis were about the basing of a crack American team of kung fu dancers in Poland.

More such laying waste of corporate media conventional wisdom below.    

I listened to Tammy Bruce tonight, for about 20 minutes on the way home from a friend's house.

Bruce is Los Angeles-based, and not on our local (Albany, NY) wingnut radio stations during the week, but she does a live Saturday show picked up by one of them.

Though Bruce is an out lesbian and pro-choice, allegedly, she is wingnut all the way on her radio show -- going off on Biden and lying about him in two ways, in 20 minutes anyway.

First-day wingnut lies about Biden, below.

For decades now, the War on Drugs has been a largely Republican propaganda campaign -- devoted to criminalizing possession of even small, personal amounts of illegal drugs; imprisoning millions of mostly poor, black or brown people who were unfortunate enough to become addicted to such drugs; and demonizing Democratic politicians who support a more humane approach to the problem.

So, when a somewhat prominent Republican has an illegal drug issue, it's one of those GOP hypocrisy moments that deserves a DKos diary.

The GOP pol is Bill Postmus, the assessor of San Bernadino County, Calif., who was "once a political juggernaut who showered money on his Republican allies."

Now, not so much. Postmus evidently has rehab and legal bills that take precedence these days.

Details, below.

Nyceve has devoted herself, here and elsewhere, to the campaign for single-payer health insurance.

One of her main arguments (besides the basic fairness, efficiency, life-saving and Constitutional "general welfare" aspects inherent in single-payer) is that many of us have junk insurance, and won't know it until something happens that makes us very sick and at the not-tender-at-all mercies of Murder by Spreadsheet types.

Something like a mosquito bite.

The Albany Times Union had a story yesterday about a guy who survived near-death from severe encephalitis.

Steve Taite had insurance, but he also now has a $50,000 bill for whatever his insurance company decided not to cover.

Details, below.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has been all over wingnut websites and TV/radio shows lately gloating that his "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" campaign has the Democrats on the defensive.

He has a column at the Human Events website, titled "The Left is on the run," that is full of GOP triumphalism you rarely see these days.

Here's a taste of his mendacity:

We are winning and the Left is losing the argument over our country's energy future because Americans know that thirty years of their policies has led to the current mess.

(Gingrich has some kind of Southern Ph.D., and Human Events presumably employs copy editors, but none of them caught a basic grammatical error in that sentence.)

As if "the Left" has controlled national energy policy for the past 30 years!?

More Gingrich lies and propaganda below.

This is, thankfully, a relatively rare story about a top Homeland Security official injecting himself into a Congressional race.

By dissing the Democratic incumbent, naturally

Jim Pendergraph is a former Mecklenburg County, N.C., sheriff who got a newly created job as executive director of state and local coordination for Immigration and Customs Enforcement late last year.

Pendergraph is a self-described "ultra-conservative Democrat" who is evidently proud to have voted for Republicans like the late, unlamented Jesse Helms and Sue Myrick, the wingnut who represents the Ninth Congressional District in North Carolina (Charlotte and environs).

Pendergraph is also ultra-conservative on immigration (why else would the Bushites create a job for him), and has taken a related, remarkable shot at Congressman David Price, a Democrat who represents the Triangle of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.

Details, below.

Bill O'Reilly hates us because we are "haters."

He spent an hour on his radio show Monday, and part of his TV show that night, reviving his schtick that DKos is a hate site, the worst of the worst, the same as the Klan and the Nazis, yadda, yadda, yadda.

It's almost like one of his "producers" was at Maggie May's Friday night, and saw Billo flipping out on the big screens.

Details, below.

Lulu and I got in Wednesday night, thankfully in time to hook up with the C&J get-together at Threadgill's.

Thursday's agenda, unfortunately, had little attraction -- we had done DFA campaign training and none of the caucuses seemed a good fit.

So we decided to see some of Austin, and as residents of New York's Capital District (i.e., we live near Albany), the Texas Capitol had plenty of attraction.

So that's what we did Thursday morning; and it was great.

Details, below.

Well, not precisely Daily Kos, but liberals/progressives who are unhappy with the Obama flip-flop on FISA, which are probably a majority of Kossacks.

The headline tosses the slur out there, though the story has a mere one person who is arguably "far left" and who is really calling foul.

Did copy editors even read the story?

Or did they just allow their anti-liberal bias to affect the absurd headline?

More below.

and the vitally important netroots with the $600 check from the federal government that I just received, and deposited today.

Most Americans who receive these checks will use them to catch up on bills, stock up on necessities, pay at the pump or in utility bills for the highest energy prices ever, etc.

I'm doing all of that, like all Americans, but the extra $600 pays a Netroots Nation bill on the nose.

So that's what I will be doing with it.

More below.

As much as McCain's Rovian advisers want to make the campaign this year all about the notional imperfections of Obama's character, it will be, again, about the economy, stupid.

The Associated Press has come under well-deserved criticism for serial stenography, a thoughtful doughnut gift, and its chairman doing the Osama-Obama thing in public.

But this story, which will presumably appear in hundreds of newspapers tomorrow, tells about how the Bushite recession has nationwide impacts, and makes up somewhat for the AP's shameful McCain-promoting in other stories.

Especially since this story starts in a not-so-optimistic Optimists Club in Arizona.

But it does not end there.

More below.

Obey traffic laws.

The latest Bush recession has put a lot of financial pressure on municipalities, here in NY and presumably in every other state.

Counties, cities and towns will be receiving less revenue from state aid, real estate transactions, and property taxes from those in or near foreclosure.

At the same time that their expenses are going up -- for employees and their health insurance, for gasoline and other energy expenses, for construction materials for roads and buildings, etc.

One way municipalities can, and will, make up for that is by having their police forces issue more traffic tickets.

As I heard secondhand recently from a town judge, and saw myself firsthand during a morning in traffic court of my city.

Forewarning details below.  

Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, aka Boss Bruno, announced today that he is scurrying off the sinking ship of the last Republican power base in New York state, the slimly held (32-30) Senate.

Boss Bruno has held the Senate majority, barely, by clever redistricting, buying off a few DINOs, and channeling millions in pork to otherwise undistinguished Republican senators.

But, facing an FBI investigation into his corruption and the probability that the Republicans will lose several Senate seats this year, he's decided to retire.

The local alternative paper was prescient, in this Metroland story last Thursday.

Here's a taste:

For months, speculation about the senator’s future has made the rounds in the Capital Region’s political class. Many of these rumors have focused on stories of federal subpoenas and indictments tied to an FBI investigation into the embattled politician’s outside business deals. Other rumors weigh the senator’s options in the face of a historic loss by the Republican party of the Senate majority.

More below.

Bush's grand tour of Europe seems that it will, despite the diligent work of the usual corporate media stenographers, emphasize yet again how much he is deservedly disliked by the people of our most important allies.

There may not be large demonstrations against him, but there will certainly not be large crowds, or even McCain-event dozens, cheering him in Ljubljana, Berlin, Paris, Rome, London and Belfast

In fact, he will probably have to hide from the European people who, if possible, dislike him even more than the American people.

This is so much, and again deservedly, different from the way Europe welcomed President Dwight Eisenhower in 1959.

Details, below.

My latest e-mail from McCain's campaign includes an invitation to join Citizens for McCain -- turncoat Joe LIEberman's latest fund-raising scheme to help elect Bush 3.0.

LIEberman's short intro does not repeat the Democrat-as-adjective slur that was in another promotional e-mail for this weird group, and was deservedly dissed here and elsewhere.

Though it does tell a basic lie -- describing LIEberman as a "Democrat (sic) from Connecticut."

And it features the kind of happy warrior photo of McCain and LIEberman that McCain has been avoiding with the Worst President Ever lately.

But makes our blood boil.

More McCain campaign BS, below.  

Also at The Albany Project and Democracy in Albany

In New York, as in too many other states, legislative districts are drawn to be safe seats forever for politicians of one party or the other.

And, as a result, many incumbents get a free ride -- that is, no challenger at all.

Whether it's Dr. Dean's doing, or netroots types being more active than ever, or ambitious challengers with their fingers to the strong Democratic wind this year, the national 50-state, 435-seat strategy has inspired lots of people at the state legislative level.

Here in New York, too.

The most powerful Republican in the state, State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, has a challenger this year -- Brian Premo.

Premo is a well-known attorney who's running on a basic "change" platform that should resonate with voters in Rensselaer and Saratoga counties (east and north of Albany).

Premo would, in every way but pork, be a better, more honest representative of the Senate district.

Why, below.

Want a high-paying, anti-public-school job around Albany, NY -- there it is, on the top of the job-ads part of any story on the Albany Times Union site today.

A $60k or so job recruiting Albany city parents to send their kids to the Brighter Choice charter school (essentially, a publicly funded private school, in NY anyway).

This particular one was set up by a Republican political hack who, after his special-purpose PAC helped get George Pataki elected in 1994, saw his opportunities as a charter school profiteer.

And took them.

Details below.      

Bob Novak is certainly no friend of Democrats, but he does have decades of experience in Washington.

And has a staff that can do the grunt work to find, review and pass the latest state poll results up to the Prince/Boss.  

Novak thinks McCain will beat Obama by the narrowest of margins in November -- 270-268.

His state-by-state analysis is mostly credible, as much as any five months out.

Below are his "Lean Republican" states, and his analyses.

We will only need one of those states in November.

I think we can get two or three.

Please feel free to tell us all in comments why Novak's missing what's happening on the ground in your states.

Me, I'm from New York, which Novak has, accurately, as "Solid Democratic."

Unlike Bush, Limbaugh, etc., at least Novak knows what the adjective is for the Democrats' party.