Clay Bennett, one of the owners of the Seattle SuperSonics, is the ultimate example of the Culture of Corporate Welfare that dominates our nation at this time. His mindset is made clear by his testimony yesterday and today in court: The people of Seattle don't deserve an NBA team despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Key Arena because they won't vote to throw even more Corporate Welfare at a man who admits under oath that he can easily absorb $60 million in losses over the next two years. Which begs the question: if he can absorb it, why couldn't he have just used the money to make the renovations to Key Arena himself?

Fortunately, he seems to have perjured himself today. More below the fold.

Hello good friends, I thought today was a fine day to post something on my favorite website.  If anyone was wondering where I've been, I've been home battling health problems associated with taking the most dangerous drug in the history of that class of drugs.  I'm referring to Vioxx.  Well, I'm hanging in there folks, or more importantly, my kidneys and heart are hanging in there, but it's been a rough ride.

So why is today such a fine day to post something?  Cuz I'm being sarcastic, of course.  Today I heard the news about Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG being told by the FDA to put a sterner warning on it's flu medecine Tamiflu.  You see, it turns out that Tamiflu might be responsible for causing psychotic behavior in children.  It seems three children have jumped off balconies to their deaths and one ran into traffic killing himself.

When one of our Democratic congressmen starts carrying water for AIPAC, which has been involved in extensive espionage cases against the United States employing well known neocons for the past 40 years, it's time for said congressman to go.

Steny Hoyer whipped out the "anti-semite" card on Jim Moran when he conflated "the jewish community" with AIPAC's undue influence.  This is exactly what AIPAC does when anyone criticizes them.  It's obvious just exactly WHO is under the undue influence of AIPAC:  Steny Hoyer.

From time to time we see a lot of misinformation passed around by both sides of the American political machine pertaining to some foreign country or another.  So much of it passes for gospel in the United States, but, as has been the case over and over again in U.S. history, what the American public thinks it knows and what the reality is are two very different things.  

Hugo Chavez is a case in point.

Let's explore 4 myths about Hugo Chavez and see if we can bust them or not.

So much for "unelectability".

Dennis Kucinich, with a whopping 58%, beat out all other Democratic and Republican candidates combined in an independent survey you can take yourself of over 136,916 respondents.

This survey poses 25 issues and asks your stand on them.  Then it pairs your stands with the candidates who agree with you.  The candidate who agrees with you the most gets your "vote".

Kucinich has 79,044 votes.
The second runner up is Gravel at 9,601.

If you think you know what money is, you're probably wrong.  If you think the money you put into the bank is where they get their money to do business, you're certainly wrong.  If you think getting America out of debt is going to solve a lot of problems and really help the economy, then you REALLY need to watch Paul Grignon's animated movie below:

What is Money?

Very educational, raises some interesting questions and has an excellent solution to the madness we've created.

A few excerpts for those too time challenged after the fold.

The Italian police broke up an arms deal that would have sent 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into Iraq.  The deal involved Iraqi government officials in the Interior Ministry Dept.  In intercepted emails, these Iraqi officials claimed the deal had complete U.S. approval.  The U.S., of course, denied this. Dario Razzi, the lead Italian investigator in the case, points out that it is "strange" that the U.S. supported Iraqi government would seek out weapons via the black market when they have legitimate channels to get such weapons.

But then we get to the go-between in the deal, the Al-Handel General Trading Company in Dubai.  That's where things start to get interesting.

Maybe I'm being naive here, but I disagree that we can't find unity. As an activist faithfully described it in an email to me(see below the fold), each group only allies with others for the purpose of pushing their own agenda. That is normal and to be expected. What we need is a LEADER who can bring all these different agendas together to work for a common purpose. And to do that he needs to understand the basic fundamental rule of leading a coalition: getting each group to understand that the current goal they are united in attaining is in each of their own best interests.

There couldn't be a more perfect time for such an alliance to exist as right now.

All  you need to know about Ron Paul can be found in this excellent article by Seattle's own David Neiwert.  Ron Paul is being declared "the one" by the libertarians and is drawing to himself many disillusioned anti-war progressives.  It would be wise for anyone who might consider actually voting for Ron Paul to consider Davids words below:

YOU, Nancy Pelosi, are what is standing between George Bush and the will of the people to have him impeached.  YOU and YOU alone.  Many Americans are asking Why?  Why won't Nancy Pelosi put Impeachment on the table?  It is a fair question.  Some of us think we know the answer and it's not a pretty one.

As I've exposed elsewhere, there is a foreign lobby, the second largest lobby in the United States, that has thrown itself wholeheartedly behind the agenda of the neocons.  You can read more of their ties to The Usual Suspects here, and here.

Have you been drinking the neocon/AIPAC Koolaid too Nancy?

Just in from the Associated Pravda:  George Bush, in what some call a "liberated move" has just pushed the button releasing nuclear armageddon upon all the nations of the world except Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Israel and New Zealand.  According to the report, Paris will be the first to go, followed by Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and all the major capitals of the world.

Bush announced the following statement:  "It is time we got rid of the evil-doers.  God told me to do this.  I feel so liberated!  I can do anything!"

Cheney was unavailable for comment.

Nancy Pelosi remarked that "Impeachment is STILL off the table!"

Paul Craig Roberts details the complete corporate contempt for the American worker in his excellent article Goodbye To The City Upon A Hill And To Its Fabled Economy.  The former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and leading economist foresees the "across the board" destruction of the United States and gives us a graphic account of the rape of this once great nation.

Steve Camarota at the Center for Immigration Studies reported on June 20 that state employment data show that in the first six years of the 21st century 218,000 high school graduates in the state of Georgia have been employment- displaced by immigrants. [ Employment Down Among Natives In Georgia]Moreover, wages have stagnated, putting the lie to the claim that there is a shortage of workers. If there were a labor shortage, wages would be bid up and rising.

Good point.  If there are no Americans willing to do the work being taken by illegal immigrants, then why are wages stagnating?  Could it be because the Corporate Overlords have decreed that American workers are to be denied jobs at every opportunity?  Yes, says Roberts:

Meet Fred Malek.  Actually, pray you never have to.  It isn't that this is the guy who once worked for CREEP (the Campaign to Re-Elect the President) to get Nixon re-elected that makes him so evil, though that certainly won't speak well for him at the Pearly Gates.  It wasn't that he drew up a list of Jews working in the BLS, ordered FBI investigations of journalists, or was in charge of the illegal responsiveness program.  No, all those things might cause a strip search and detainment at said Pearly Gates.  Might even result in him being held as an enemy combatant in some undisclosed part of Limbo for an unknown amount of time.  No, those things are all part and parcel with just being Republican.  What is it that makes me think Fred Malek would get yanked right out of the line and tossed straight into the fiery pits of hell?

This is a guy who was arrested for his part in killing, skinning, gutting and barbecuing on a spit a DOG.

As we have all heard by now, the Iranians have released the British "hostages".  Though one could also say that today Iran deported the illegal British immigrants.  But then again, no, one couldn't say either because they neither released, nor deported them.  

They swapped them.

The story of how they came to swap them and who they swapped them for is interesting in and of itself, but when one considers that the U.S. is conducting wargames off Irans coast and that the word on the street is that the U.S. is mulling the nuclear option for Iran and one has to pause at the audacity of the Iranians to grab up British sailors in a move that could only be described as tit for tat.

The details of this little drama will unfold after the fold...

In todays Daily Kos, Kos himself helps spread a right wing lie:

I have no love for Chavez. Despite his populist record, he's also given himself dictatorial powers usurping his nation's courts and legislature.

Geez Kos, you'd think you'd buy a clue before you made such an unequivocably false assertion.

What we have gotten from the MSM the past 6 years is NOT what we will get from them once a Dem gets elected.  For the last six years the MSM has sat silent upon some of the biggest stories to ever hit this nation:

The Niger Yellowcake forgeries and the governments refusal to even interrogate the man who first submitted them.

The outing of Valerie Plame was a nonstory until Patrick Fitzgerald came on the scene.

Not one article in the MSM about the real reasons we went to war in Iraq.  

In light of the recent chilling revelations about Al Queda's intent to detonate a nuclear bomb in the U.S., I thought I should repost a diary I put up a few months back that exposed the fact that Bush, under pressure from the Republicans, actually posted up a guide on how to build a nuclear bomb.

In Arabic.

Just in case any of you have forgotten just how incompetent the Republicans really are at keeping America safe.

Five Generals threaten to resign if Bush attacks Iran. How is that different than what Watada did? Why can a General just resign but a Lt. cannot? Why can't the rest of our volunteer army just UN-volunteer but a General can?

Or how about this for a thought: Why, after ignoring intel that said Osama was going to strike on 9-11 and now ignoring possible signs of a nuclear terrorist attack, aren't we demanding George Bush's resignation, effective immediately?

If ever there was an argument for IMPEACHMENT NOW, this is it: Our country desperately needs LEADERSHIP before the next terrorist attack ends in a mushroom cloud.