I got another email slur a few days ago which I'll post.  What is the best way of stopping these things as even the campaigns are struggling with it? Then I had an idea. First lets look at the smear on the other side:

Also before you judge, perhaps reading this may help.

While browsing for some commentary on the Bear Stearn's collapse, I caught this headline from Newsweek.

He can sit back while the Dems tear each other to shreds.

No kidding. Not only that the GOP may get bailed out in some tight congressional races too. I participate on another board that has a high mix of GOPers and Dems. No echo chambers there. The GOPers Can't believe their good fortune. Not only do they have a chance of winning they may not have to spend a bloody fortune to do it. How great is that. They don't have to give up any of their winnings from the last 8 years to maybe get another 4-8 years.

I'm not one to piss on parades...well yeah I guess I am. I am one of the delusional Obama supporters. I read his health Care plan. I was Ok with it because I know he has to deal with congress. Then I picked up Fortune magazine and saw McCain's plan and got hit with a dose of reality.

If there is anyone in the room, shut the door unless you can scream silently.

I hit the net version of MTP and I heard this
( From The Transcript)

Russert: Senator Schumer, if Barack Obama was ahead at the end of this primary season in elected delegates, states won and popular vote, should he be the nominee?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, you know, again, to predict what will happen after June 7, when there are going to be so many twists and turns, you need to know lots of details. Did he win the other states 60-40 or did he win them 50.1 to 49.9? Is the popular vote overwhelming or is it not?

We all went into reasons today in a great diary on site traffic trends. There was another one that researched how many times a candidate diaries occupied the rec list by percentage. It dovetailed nicely with the readership loss.

Rather than slam the candidate diaries one more time here is a few suggestions that would make them readable instead of posting You Tubes, talking points, speeches etc.

Here's the kind of candidate diary I would click into.

This is a short one. A friend  sent me an email from a trusted source that obviously makes it hard to authenticate. But, as a basic Geek, when I saw it , I froze. I, too, was concerned about the warrentless wiretapping, but I comforted myself by saying that the massive influx of data would be hard for them to sort out.

This is a whole different animal. This is one step away from sneaking into your house and looking at all your personal things when your gone- without a warrant.

I'm not sure how to verify this, but as most developers know, most software has a back door in it. Many of you are using this software right now. If this letter is correct, then there should be shouting from the rooftops. If true, it makes wiretapping look almost "quaint" when it comes down to the violation of the basic constitutional right of privacy.

I don't read candidate diaries unless I'm in a car wreck watching mood. I have read Bob Johnson's Diary Anatomy of a smear with a great deal of interest. I Picked Edwards along time ago. My personal thoughts on these candidate diaries are they are mostly BS. It doesn't take much imagination to see that cover the rec list because 100s of rabid supporters  recommend them. I think they should be off as it's distracting from the issues of the day and the sniping takes much away from the site.

That's where I'm coming from. Nevertheless, I feel like it's important to show what a smear does to any candidate as it goes to the right wing. Enclosed with no further comment is a email I received today which had 100+ names on in at least, too many to count.

Without further comment.

I got this while reading a few articles at Soldiers for The Truth (Sftt) who were behind getting Dragonskin on NBC. This is the non-profit that Colonel Hackworth founded before he passed away in 2006. For those of you who are not Familiar with Col. Hackworth, he was/is one of the most decorated soldiers in America's history. His paper work for the Medal of Honor was going through Channels when, in 1971, while still in uniform , he spoke out against the Vietnam war.

Consider the brass ones this took. He was considered and Up and comer. A sure thing for a top slot and he did the unthinkable, he spoke out publicly against the war. This is just so you can get an idea of what the site is about and why this article is probably something that Democrats should use as battering RAM when considering the 200 Billion more for wars.

As we all know now from the frequent Diaries of Health Care Experts here, and a recent diary on Stem Cell Research, Big Pharma is not interested in a curing chronic disease. Containment is where the money. Containment until it gets out of control and you die.

Containment means charging $100,000 a year  for a Cancer treatment that may add a few years of life under some pretty miserable conditions as it sucks the life out of the family's finances who try with low a degree of success to pay for the portions that Insurance companies won't cover.

This has been covered in many diaries and I've read most of them. I'm no expert in the field, but since I am in tech, I did take an interest in the Newsweek article today about Andrew Grove , former CEO of Intel . Say what you want about Intel, most of you are using computers with Intel chips. One has to wonder how far along we would be without the drive that Intel had to put mainframe processing power on the desktop. Then one has to consider, what if Big Pharma had the same drive to find cures.

Or how to get to the number one list on Amazon without really trying. It looks like NewsMax and the RNC is running a little desperate here. But the $5.95 in shipping and handling kinda threw off the temptation to order the book to deplete the RNC's coffers.

It's bound to come back with a $5.00 price tag as the RNC loads up on them to drive her up the list. They are probably hoping that NewsMax will offset some costs for them. But I doubt it will work out the way they think

That means it will go over ten trillion when the D's take office. In fact at the burn rate we have now, the treasury secretary's first act in office will be to ask for a raise from congress to 10-11 trillion in debt.

By the time the R's leave office the national debt will have increased an estimated 85%. But once it passes that 10 Trillion mark, that would appear to be a psychological break through that the R's will hammer the D's on.

This Request to raise it to 9.8 trillion has that strategy written all over it. Especially when we see  fiscal hawk Republicans voting for it. It's getting dangerously close to being on par with our GDP which means higher interest rates as bond buyers will demand high rates for increased risk.  

That was the Headline from an  article on MSNBC  here This was for 2006 and 2007. Some of the people had health insurance part of the time and of course since 07 isn't up they are projecting the balance. But this seems to be why there is such a keen interest in Health Care right now.

Here's how it was calculated:

The nonprofit Families USA group used data from last month's U.S. Census Bureau report that found 47 million Americans went without health insurance for all of 2006.

Families USA broke down that figure and calculated that 89.6 million people under age 65 — 34.7 percent — went without health insurance at some point during 2006-2007. It used a projection for the remaining months of this year.

The Decider decided that invading a country just wasn't enough . No, not nearly enough. We now have to stay forever. What does staying in Iraq forever mean especially when people who continue to deny vehemently that 216 Billion BBLs of oil is not the reason for us being there right before they said we have to "protect American interests"?

What if they came clean and said: it takes f--king forever to drill out 216 Billion BBLs of oil when people are shooting at you, so we need your tax dollars to pay for protection while trillions are lavished on a few companies that will conveniently locate offshore to avoid paying taxes unless we need more bonus money for enlistments and we've borrowed to the hilt and China gets pissed about us telling them no more lead in toys?  

I was surprised when I didn't see the new Gallop poll up. I guess they aren't a favorite. But regardless of the leanings of the owners of Gallop, the numbers for the Democrats were startling.

I wonder if this will be enough to get them off their duffs. I know they saw that huge lead in the last poll and the consultants probably said " don't worry". Uh Huh.

Here's a few passages from the Poll Results

I was pointed to this editorial today.

Kos And Effect For Democrats

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, July 31, 2007 4:30 PM PT

Politics: They won't debate on Fox News. They won't appear at the meeting of the Democratic Leadership Council. But they will grovel at the convention of a hate-filled Web site. This should tell voters all they need to know.

Now for the interesting part:

Yesterday there was a recommended diary written attacking  Corporate persona.  Thom Hartmann has written a extensively about it with a summary here. I felt that Dairy was off base because it attacked aspects that really weren't as relevant as his definition of it here:

Corporations claimed the human right of free speech, expanded that to mean the unlimited right to put corporate money into politics, and have thus taken control of our major political parties and politicians

or here

Military contractors grew to enormous size as a result of WWII and a permanent arms industry came into being, what Dwight Eisenhower called "the military/industrial complex."  It now lobbies government to buy its products and use them in wars around the world.

Just a  short one. Just saw on countdown that the AP reported that the Army stopped doctors from investigating if Tillman had been murdered. Shots were fired at close range and in his head.

Wesley Clark was on and believes that the orders came from the very top as Tillman was a political symbol. It was well known he was against the war in  Iraq. No indication if orders were to murder him, but at the least to cover it up ( Burned clothes- lost evidence etc)

I'm not speculating at this point. But I saw in another diary where they claimed executive Privilege in the Tillman case. It's starting to look beyond bad.

Update:  Thanks to many in the comments; Here is the relevant link.  There is much discussion about what actually happened so please read the comments as there are vets on here.

That may stop a few of you cold. I hope so. This is a short call out diary to the main diarists who have been spending much of their time and effort trying to get enough Democrats in the House to start impeachment hearings.

The actual date of this meeting was December 7th, 2006 ( how could they possibly picked a more appropriate day?)

With out any real analysis, I believe we have a third party and they are hiding behind a "D" designator. I hesitate to call them DINO's because there may be a few in there that are worth saving. But if I were looking for reasons why the Democrats have been virtually motionless in defending the constitution in the face of what I consider clear and convincing evidence, I would start here instead of the Judiciary committee. How many of these 44 would vote  impeachment?. I think we need 30 of them give or take.