Twitter This Commentary In The News: The News & Commentary this morning has been supplied by, and is courtesy of, my MP3 Angel ChrisM It is the 31st anniversary celebration of the Iranian revolution that swept the US installed Shah from power and the Iranian government (a parliamentary government) has announced that it's achieved it's goal of making enriched Uranium (20%+-) for it's nuclear power reactor's fuel rods. In case you were wondering, for weapons grade Uranium, it must be enriched to at least 80%, and it's a much more involved process than 20%. 31 years X 2 - His nickname... "Good Time Charlie" and his girlfriends had cutesy streetcorner names like "Snowflake, Tornado and Firecracker". Charles Wilson, Democratic Texas congressman, passes... Approximately 31 years have passed since Charles Wilson, immortalized in the movie 'Charlie Wilson's War' subverted cajoled, coerced and just plain strong armed congress into supporting the Mujahideen elements in Afghanistan against the Russians from his seat on the House Appropriations Committee. That was aside from his penchants for hookers, cocaine, drunk driving, and graft. But hey! Americans love that stuff! President Obama plans to make a number of recess appointments to various positions in the US government soon, bypassing Senator Shelby's stonewalling of 69 of 72 presidential nominations because he wants an air tanker refueling facility located in his district of Alabama. Iraq has ordered 250 Blackwater (now Xe) personnel out of the county. Xe says they have no people in country. If there are any, they're no longer on payroll and just decided to stay-behind (snicker... They DO work in conjunction with the CIA now) More Blackwater (Washington Post):

2 ex-employees say Blackwater billed government for prostitute Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide have accused the private security contractor of defrauding the government for years with phony billing, including charging for a prostitute, alcohol and spa trips. Sure is a good thing that the military budget has an exemption from the spending freeze. For the past nine years, the terror pimps have demagogued any opposition to outrageous increases in defense spending as “hating America.” Meanwhile, the Bush administration resisted any investigation into no-bid contracts handed out to big campaign donors without any experience by claiming it would compromise national security. If the priority was truly “fiscal responsibility” and not manipulating approval numbers, one would think the black hole they’ve been stuffing all the graft into would be a good place to start. And then there’s this: In one instance, the Davises claimed the company was paying inflated prices to a vendor whose work was billed to the Department of Homeland Security for services related to post-Hurricane Katrina security. They said the overpayments allowed the vendor to provide a barbecue pit grill for Blackwater staff parties. [In Full]

In OTHER News: Speaking of "rogue operations", Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, from her speech in Munich Germany: "My country has been hijacked by a criminal cabal intent on using the hard-earned dollars of the American people for war, occupation, and empire." [In Full] The South Rises! The South Carolina AFL-CIO Endorses a Washington DC March for Jobs Peace and Justice!

Dear Sisters and Brothers: Rank-and-file unions from various parts of the country, as well as Central Labor Councils, have been passing resolutions calling on the AFL-CIO and Change to Win to organize a massive Solidarity Day III demonstration in Washington to demand job-creation programs as well as other programs vital to working people. [See initial list of endorsers of this call below.] This campaign just took a qualitative leap forward when the statewide South Carolina AFL-CIO passed a similar resolution, which you will find below. [In Full]

In Iraq, the false imprisonment of a news photographer ends as the US frees an Iraqi photographer (Thomson Reuters) held for 17 months with no charges

(Ibrahim Jassam) Mohammed, a freelance photographer and video cameraman for Reuters, was arrested after US and Iraqi forces broke into his home in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in September 2008. A US army statement said at the time that Mohammed had been "assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces." But no charges were ever brought against him. "I am very pleased his long incarceration without charge is finally over," Reuters quoted its editor-in-chief, David Schlesinger, as saying. "I wish the process to release a man who had no specific accusations against him had been swifter," Schlesinger added. Reporters Without Borders welcomed Mohammed's release but criticised the US military's handling of the case. [In Full]

Enquiring minds want to know... "So who are the terrorists now?" A 'memo' from Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's Captain Paul Watson to the Japanese Whalers:

Hey Japanese Whaler Dudes, Stop Your Pathetic Whining It’s time to give this “eco-terrorism” spiel a rest. No one’s buying it, whaler dudes. Your public relations firms keep pumping it out, but the message is falling on deaf ears. Stand back and look at yourself. This is the 21st Century, and you bozos are still killing whales. Talk about old school. Get with it. Killing whales is medieval, and well if I were Japanese, I would be downright embarrassed... . . . ...So it’s all very well to be mouthing off about us being criminals and “eco-terrorists” but it’s all just talk now, isn’t it? Let’s see, what have we done to you poor little defenseless whaler dudes? We tossed some stink bombs on your deck. We shone some bright lights at you. We played Black Samurai to you on the VHF radio. Pretty heavy stuff I guess. But you responded with concussion grenades, bullets, Long Range Acoustical Weapons, you rammed our ships, and you destroyed one of our vessels when you deliberately rammed and sank our vessel Ady Gil. You accuse us of throwing acid at you, when in fact we toss stink bombs made of rotten butter, and yes technically it’s butyric acid like orange juice is citric acid and milk is lactic acid, but the stuff has a PH less than beer. Stop trying to convince the world we’re throwing sulfuric acid in your faces. We’re not. It’s actually biodegradable, non-toxic, non corrosive, and organic. Now, let’s look at what you blokes are doing. Aside from destroying one ship and damaging the other two and being violent towards us, you’re killing endangered Fin whales in an established international whale sanctuary in violation of a global moratorium on whaling. You’re also in violation of the Antarctic Treaty. You may call us terrorists, yet we are not banned from flying on commercial flights, we have valid passports, and we are allowed to travel freely. I can even travel to Japan, if I so desired. Now, you guys on the other hand are not allowed into Australian or New Zealand ports. You are not allowed into the French territories. Why? Because you’re in violation of international conservation law, and you have been issued a contempt order by the Australian Federal Court for refusing to cease your illegal whaling activities in the Australian Antarctic Territories. You asked Australia to ban Sea Shepherd from Australian ports but they refused. Yeah, I know it was a little humiliating but you see, crime does not pay guys. Even the Indonesians kicked you out of their country last year. Now Australia is looking at making it a law for anyone in Australia to assist in your illegal whaling activities. It’s not illegal for Australians to assist Sea Shepherd activities. So who are the terrorists now? [In Full]

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Creative Commons Copyright Courtesy of Cabale News Service, KPIG Radio, and KVMR Radio. Listen to KPIG, Listen to KVMR Recorded & transcribed by The Buffalo Amongst Wolves @ Razed By Wolves In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 and The Berne Convention on Literary and Artistic Works, Article 10, the news clippings and images used in this posting are made available without profit for research and educational purposes.

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