BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
THE DAY WAS PICKED. THE ANNOUNCEMENTS HAD BEEN SENT OUT.
AND THEN?
CALL IT A CASE OF WEDDING JITTERS,
SUDDENLY THE NAVY ANNOUNCED SAME SEX WEDDINGS ON NAVY BASES WERE OFF.
HERE'S HOPING TWO CRAZY KIDS CAN SIT DOWN, TALK TO EACH OTHER AND GET THINGS BACK ON TRACK BEFORE THE SPRING SEASON PASSES.
IN OTHER NEWS,
JUAN GONZALEZ CALLS OUT CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O'S LET-ME-MAKE-A-SPEECH-GRAND-STAND-AND-THEN-DECLARE-IT'S-A-MATTER-FOR-CONGRESS ON IMMIGRATION.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:Starting with veterans issues. Tomorrow morning there will be a major press conference. Senator Patty Murray's office issued the following today:
(Washington, D.C.) -- On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, will hold a press conference with co-sponsors of the bill, veterans struggling to find work, and veterans service organizations to discuss aggressive new legislation to address rising unemployment among our nation's veterans. Senator Murray's bill, the Hiring Heroes Act of 2011, is the first of its kind to require broad job skills training for all service members returning home and comes at a time when more than one in four veterans aged 18-24 are unemployed. In addition to providing new job skills training to all service members, the bill will also create new direct federal hiring authority so that more service members have jobs waiting for them the day they leave the military, and will improve veteran mentorship programs in the working world. For more information on the bill visit HERE.
WHO: Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Patty Murray
U.S. Senator Jon Tester
U.S. Senator Mark Begich
U.S. Senator Chris Coons
Eric Smith, Unemployed Iraq War Veteran, Baltimore, MD
Also represented at the event:
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)
Military Officers Association of America (MOAA)
Disabled American Veterans (DAV)
Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW)
WHAT: Press Conference Introducing the Hiring Heroes Act of 2011
WHEN: Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
11:00 AM EST
WHERE: Senate Swamp -- Outdoor press area located on the Senate side of the Capitol Complex across from the East stairs -- SEE MAP - HERE
Note for press -- there is power access at this site and the Capitol will be the backdrop.
Matt McAlvanah
Communications Director
U.S. Senator Patty Murray
202-224-2834 - press office
202--224-0228 - direct
matt_mcalvanah@murray.senate.gov
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Hundreds of workers walked off the job in protest, which rocked the headquarters of Southern Oil Company in Bab al-Zubayr in the southern city of Basra.
The workers have come from oil fields in Basra; from North and South Rumaila, Albirjisya, West of Qurna and Majnoon and were led by the General Federation of Workers Councils and Unions.
The workers raised slogans condemning corruption, while trying to bring all corrupt officers to justice. Among the corrupt officers includes the deputy director-general's of Southern Oil Company and director of trade.
To confront the demonstrators, the management of the company called security forces. Sami Hassan (one of the organizers of the demonstration) was also imprisoned for two hours.
The demonstration was part of a series of protests sweeping the Iraqi and foreign companies operating in the southern region.
Ali Abu Iraq (Iraq Oil Report) reports, "Hundreds of workers from Iraq's southern oil hub of Basra protested outside numerous facilities Monday, claiming Oil Ministry officials have ignored repeated concerns about the use of funds, the allocation of housing, and equal pay."
Reuters adds, "The demonstrators were engineers, technicians and workers at the state-run South Oil Co., which has some 18,000 employees developing some of Iraq's big oil fields. They protested for three hours at the company's headquarters in Basra and at another location near an oil field west of the city."
The company's homepage notes:
South oil company one of the major fundamental formations of Iraqi national oil company (INOC), it's the first nucleus and the basic of national direct investment projects in the seventies, where the SOC was subsidiary to national company. Events and activisites have escalated steadily and rapidly rising since the beginning of the seventies where investment and development stages of the north Rumaila field were completed, in three stages lead to rate production (42) million tons per year, conincided with the expansion of works in all fields, the expansion began with drilling works, building and expanding production facilities and implementing investment projects associated with natural gas field in north and south Rumaila [. . .]
Iraq Oil Report Tweets:
Meanwhile
Brendan Barber (Guardian) reports on efforts of the Iraqi government to destroy Iraq's unions ("Ministers appoined a government committee, packed with officials from the Sadrist movement, to take over the structures and assets of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIQ) -- the Iraqi equivalent of the TUC -- and run its upcoming elections"):
We have reports of government officials, flanked by police, attempting to take over union offices. And it is painfully sectarian. In Basra last week, the seven officials that demanded the keys to the local union office were all from the Sadrist party. These followers of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are a small, but important, minority in the Iraqi coalition government, and won control of the labour ministry in the recent carve-up of government portfolios. In preparation for union elections, these Sadrist officials have been issuing their own union membership cards, effectively giving them the right to decide who can vote. In a similar incident last year – and a worrying sign of things to come – the polling booth for a union election was inside the Sadrist party offices. These are tactics that Hosni Mubarak would be proud of.
Back to protests,
The Great Iraqi Revolution notes that the Ramadi sit-in continued yesterday and that "The Young Rebels and the Tribal Shaikhs have setup a site for a SIT-IN very close by! Haliki [Nouri al-Maliki] and his goons really can't stop the Iraqi People protesting -- this is our land and this is our country." Yesterday was day 16 of the continued sit-in. And a woman in Baghdad, Eaman, says "
that they have no men left in their district because all the men have been detained by the government security forces as a result fo the 'Secret Informer' system -- she is appealing for help" and states that "
the 'Secret Informer' in Fadhil District in Baghdad is called Khalid Mihsin Awwad". Protesters are being targeted in Iraq.
The Great Iraqi Revolution notes, "
The night before last Shaikh Khalil Al Sabba'awi's home was raided in the Geyara District of Mosul but could not find him. The next morning, yesterday, they saw his son in the family car and arrested the son and hijacked the car! Shaikh Khalil was live on air and said that he will not give up the protests and that soon they will be starting Civil Disobedience in Mosul. He is the Shaikh who refused Maliki's invitation to go down to Baghdad and negotiate the demands of the Ahrar Protestors - these demands are the same as of Tahrir, Baghdad and Tahrir, Ramadi." And in Falluja, "
We've just heard that Haliki has setup a checkpoint just at Fallujah's gates and is arresting young men just because they are young men! I wonder, is he so frightened???? And if he is so frightened why does he remain???? What is he going to do in a few days' time????? The citizens in Anbar now are also speaking about a Civil Disobedience Campaign...... well, let's wait and see....."
Meanwhile
Aswat al-Iraq reports guests and the wedding party turned a Mosul social event into a protest as the approximately 500 began shouting for reform, an end to corruption, the release of detainees and the departure of US forces. Sticking with departure,
The Great Iraqi Revolution passes on, "
Dhafir Al Ani has stated that they (meaning the Iraqiya Block, I suppose) have heard from the Americans that Haliki has in principle agreed to the extension of the SOFA Agreement!!!!!!! Poor .... Poor... thing - He needs them for his protection....."
Aaron C. Davis (Washington Post) quotes Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi stating, "There is no certain time or certain date to decide on the U.S. military, and we will not be in a hurry to take a decision." Davis notes, "If Iraqi leaders decide late in the year to request that some U.S. troops or equipment stay, military officials say, it would entail significantly altering or even reversing the course and could compound security concerns and costs."
Ayub Nuri (Rudaw) maintains there is anxiety over a potential withdrawal throughout Iraq but especially in the oil-rich Kirkuk. Kirkuk police department has issued a statement calling for US forces to remain on the ground in Kirkuk past 2011; however,
The Great Iraqi Revolution explains, "
The Political Arab Council in Kirkuk has just denied the statement issued yesterday by the Kirkuk Police Department. They categorically stated that they refuse the further stay of the Occupation troops in Kirkuk. The spokesman said that this refusal is the opinion of all the parties living in Kirkuk with the exception of the 2 Kurdish Parties. He also said that the occupation troops did not deal evenhandedly with the citizens in Kirkuk. He said that they wanted Kirkuk to be the first city from which occupation troops depart from Iraq."
