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Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, this Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace” Could Still Be Published Today!
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and The Iron Heel.Always Remember That Obamba Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature, Started the United States Capitalist Austerity Program — The Race to the Botom or the Pauperization of the 99%!
Democracy?: As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%: Only the 1% Voted For Austerity — The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico. Socialism Means True Democracy — The 99% Will Rule! — Not the Few!Images of the Day:Quotes of the Day:
Images of the Day:
Quotes of the Day:
The Ongoing war for Oil:Pentagon officials asserted Thursday U.S. military authority over Syrian oil fields because U.S. forces are acting under the goal of “protecting Americans from terrorist activity” and would be within their rights to shoot a representative of the Syrian government who attempted to retake control over that country’s national resource. The comments came from Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman and Navy Rear Admiral William D. Byrne Jr. during a press briefing in which the two men were asked repeatedly about the legal basis the U.S. is claiming to control Syrian oil fields.The briefing came less than two weeks after Defense Secretary Mark Esper said, “That’s our mission, to secure the oil fields” in the Deir ez-Zor area of eastern Syria. President Donald Trump’s comments before and after that remark — “We’re going to be protecting [the oil], and we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future,” and “The oil… can help us, because we should be able to take some”— were seized on by critics who claimed Trump was suggesting violating international law by plundering another country’s resources and openly saying the U.S. was pursuing war for oil. — Pentagon Claims US Authority to Shoot Any Syrian Govt Official Who Tries to Take Control of Syrian Oil Donald Trump Buried A Climate Change Report Because ‘I Don’t Believe It’
The Decdent Rich: The legal fallout from Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest for sex trafficking and subsequent suicide in jail is likely to go on for years, ensuring that those caught up in the saga – like Prince Andrew – will face scrutiny and negative headlines for years to come. Federal authorities in the US have repeatedly said that the investigation into the sex trafficking case is ongoing, raising the prospect of a lengthy multi-pronged and international inquiry into the wealthy financier’s jet-set lifestyle. There is already one criminal prosecution in relation to Epstein’s death: two Manhattan correctional center guards were indicted for allegedly trying to hide their failure to check on him in his cell the night he killed himself. About one dozen accusers have also filed lawsuits against the convicted sex offender’s estate, and more litigation is likely, ensuring a multitude of legal cases wending their way through the courts. Finally the whereabouts of Epstein’s alleged procurer, Andrew’s friend and British media heiress Ghislaine Maxwell, remain unknown, sparking a global guessing game about one of the key figures in Epstein’s life. — Jeffrey Epstein Is Dead But Sex Criminal’s Legal Legacy May Have Years To Run
Videos Of the Day:
U.S.:
The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War! Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.
Thanksgiving Is Dedicated to Erasing the Ruthlessness of English SettlersThanksgiving is a colonial holiday meant to erase the ruthlessness of English settlers. In a way, Thanksgiving is the perfect American holiday: It is based on the erasure of Indigenous peoples, promotes a false vision of peaceful cooperation between nations, and has now become an excuse to indulge in the spectacles of hyper-consumption and football. By Joseph M. Pierce
Trump Thinks He Can Get Away With Murder Because Police Do All the Time When Donald Trump declared that he wanted not only Ukraine but also China to investigate Joe Biden on October 4, all hell broke loose. A political class jaded by daily White House provocations was roused by this brazenly authoritarian call for international assistance in bringing down the president’s top-polling opponent, and the impeachment drive suddenly kicked into high gear. That same night, Joshua Brown, an African American man who had recently helped win a rare murder conviction against a police officer, was murdered in the parking lot of his Dallas apartment building. Dallas police officials claimed that Brown’s death was unrelated to his witness testimony against their officer Amber Guyger, and that what actually happened was that Brown was selling marijuana in his parking lot — days after his name and face had been all over the news — and was killed by three other Black men in a drug deal gone wrong. By Danny Katch
Trump’s Latest Handout to His Rich Buddies Is Unbelievable Breaking news: Donald Trump inadvertently said something true! He recently exulted that his special tax incentives to spur investment in poverty projects have gone “beyond anything that anybody… even thought.”So true! His “Opportunity Zone” tax breaks are financing such “anti-poverty” projects as a “superyacht marina” on the toney waterfront of West Palm Beach, Florida. Who would’ve thought?Named Rybovich, this project is a “luxurious resort-style” marina that will accommodate the $100-million, football-field-sized yachts of the superrich. Not your typical poverty zone. By Jim Hightower
Environment:
Climate Tipping Points Could Hit Harder — and Sooner — Than We ThinkCiting an “existential threat to civilization,” a group of top climate scientists have put out a new paper warn-ing that the latest evidence related to climate tipping points—when natural systems reach their breaking point and cascading feedback loops accelerate collapse—could mean such dynamics are “more likely than was thought” and could come sooner as well. In the paper, published as a commentary in the journal Nature on Wednesday, the group of researchers summarize the latest findings related to the threat of tipping points as part of effort to “identify knowledge gaps” and suggest ways to fill them. “We explore the effects of such large-scale changes,” the scientists explain, “how quickly they might unfold and whether we still have any control over them.” By Jon Queally
Humans (Capitalists) Are Speeding Extinction And Altering The Natural World At An ‘Unprecedented’ Pace Humans are transforming Earth’s natural landscapes so dramatically that as many as one million plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, posing a dire threat to ecosystems that people all over the world depend on for their survival, a sweeping new United Nations assessment has concluded. The 1,500-page report, compiled by hundreds of international experts and based on thousands of scientific studies, is the most exhaustive look yet at the decline in biodiversity across the globe and the dangers that creates for human civilization. A summary of its findings, which was approved by representatives from the United States and 131 other countries, was released Monday in Paris. The full report is set to be published this year. Humans are transforming Earth’s natural landscapes so dramatically that as many as one million plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, posing a dire threat to ecosystems that people all over the world depend on for their survival, a sweeping new United Nations assessment has concluded.The 1,500-page report, compiled by hundreds of international experts and based on thousands of scientific studies, is the most exhaustive look yet at the decline in biodiversity across the globe and the dangers that creates for human civilization. A summary of its findings, which was approved by representatives from the United States and 131 other countries, was released Monday in Paris. The full report is set to be published this year. By Brad Plumer 
Hundreds Of Thousands Of Students Join Global Climate Strikes Large turnouts in Madrid before UN summit, and in Sydney after deadly wildfires Hundreds of thousands of young people have taken to the streets from Manila to Copenhagen as part of the latest student climate strikes to demand radical action on the unfolding ecological emergency. School and university students around the world walked out of lessons on Friday with large turnouts in Madrid, where world leaders will gather on Monday for the latest UN climate summit, and Sydney, where protesters demanded action after devastating wildfires. By Matthew Taylor, Helen Pidd and Jessica Murray
Climate Change Poses Threats to Children’s Health Worldwide The health effects of climate change will be unevenly distributed and children will be among those especially harmed, according to a new report from the medical journal The Lancet. By Kendra Pierre-Louis
‘Without Just Compensation’: Louisiana Gives Pipeline Owners Broad Authority To Seize Land In the patchwork of rice fields and pastures spreading across southwest Louisiana is a parcel Jay Lewis’ family has called their own for longer than anyone can remember. “It’s been with us since our great-great-grandfather, maybe longer,” said Lewis, 50, as he trudged through a soggy pasture on a cold day in Jefferson Davis Parish, about 10 miles from Lake Charles. “Every day, I’ve been here. I’m a piece of this.” By Tristan Baurick
Appalachia vs. the Carceral State After a mountaintop was flattened by coal mining, politicians pushed to build a prison there. Then the community got organized. . . . In a way, there was a consonance between the magical thinking that enabled the coal economy and the fantasy of an Appalachian renaissance fueled by mass incarceration. Both entailed a mixture of cynicism and naïveté, cruel optimism and myopia. The dream of coal’s never-ending reign required ignoring its very obvious ecological and human consequences. True believers envisioned a glorious future that simply could not come to fruition if extraction continued apace. But the fantasy of perpetual economic growth by carceral means was even darker: an ever-expanding penal colony in the southern mountains, where the rural casualties of deindustrialization are put to work imprisoning the urban poor. Coal and prisons, Sexton figured, were bargains with the same devil. He and his friends wanted another deal altogether. (The Proposed Site For The Prison (Above) Was On A Mountaintop Flattened By Mining.) By Sam Adler-Bell
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Labor:
Wall Street Banksters: Opinion: How The Teamsters Pension Disappeared More Quickly Under Wall Street Than The Mob The sad saga of the Central States pension fund Real estate investments in Las Vegas casinos and hotels once threatened the integrity of a Teamsters pension fund that the federal government wrested away from corrupt trustees and organized crime after five years of legal battles. A quarter-century later, the professionals who replaced them—Central States Pension Fund administrators; the Goldman Sachs & Co. and Northern Trust Global Advisors fiduciaries; and Department of Labor regulators—stood watch while the financial markets accomplished what the mob had failed to: which was to smash the fund’s long-term solvency with massive money-losing investments.By Elliot Blair Smith
Economy:
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Revised Third-Quarter GDP, October New Orders for Durable Goods
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An Unfolding, Deepening Recession
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Upside Revision to Third-Quarter Gross Domestic Product, from 1.9% to 2.1%, Reflected No More Than an Involuntary Build-Up in Unsold Inventories
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Net of Inventory Change, Third-Quarter Final Sales Declined Minimally
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Second-Quarter Gross Domestic Income, Theoretical GDP Equivalent, Revised Down to 0.9% from 1.8% Annualized Real Growth
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October 2019 Real New Orders for Durable Goods, Ex-Commercial Aircraft, Continued to Plunge, Despite Major Downside Revisions to Prior Months
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October CASS Freight Index Dropped Year-to-Year for the 11th Straight Month; Indicating a Deepening Downturn and Risks of a Fourth-Quarter GDP Contraction
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With the FOMC-Proclaimed Sustainable Moderate Expansion Evaporating, Expectations Should Shift in Favor of a More-Accommodative Fed
World:
Iran: The Movement Has Been Repressed, But The Struggle Is Just Beginning Two weeks have passed since the eruption of protests all over Iran after the regime introduced a surprise cut to fuel subsidies. Despite a heroic struggle by the people on the streets, the movement was crushed by the regime within five days. But this was far from a triumphant victory for a regime that is now weaker than ever before. By Hamid Alizadeh
Seven Days Of Protests In Colombia The situation in Colombia is advancing very rapidly after the national strike on 21 November. What was a one-day strike became a permanent and daily protest that is already a week old. The protest did not stop, despite the curfew and militarisation decreed in the capital Bogotá (and in Cali) by the reactionary Duque government. The death of the young Dilan Cruz, who was shot by a tear gas canister directly in the head by ESMAD (Mobile Anti-Riot Squadron) has shocked the country. In response, the National Strike Committee decided to call for a new national strike on 27 November and to include among its demands the dismantling of ESMAD. By Jorge Martin
Britain: Labour lifts the lid on rotten Trump-Tory trade talks In an explosive move, Corbyn and the Labour Party revealed over 400 pages of previously redacted documents lifting the lid on the UK–US trade talks. The content of these documents cuts right through Boris Johnson’s neverending web of lies.When the redacted documents were previously shown on ITV, Johnson asserted that the NHS would never be for sale. But now we can see, as plain as day, that the Tories’ aim is very much the opposite: to sell off our NHS. In reality, this process of privatisation and looting of Britain’s healthcare system began long ago. But it will accelerate if the Tories win this election. B Dan Langley
Hong Kong elections: masses reject Beijing – class struggle needed to advance! Last weekend, amidst a wave of protests that has raged on for over half a year following the Extradition Bill introduced by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, Hong Kong held its regularly scheduled district council election. This typically low-interest, low-turnout affair was turned into an effective referendum on the Hong Kong masses’ opinion towards Beijing in light of recent events. It concluded with a landslide victory for the anti-Beijing bloc of politicians, with the highest turnout since Hong Kong’s return to China. But what is needed is a clear way forward based on class struggle politics. By Parson Young
Education, Health, Science, and Welfare:
The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘govern’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People Vote on Healthcare
They Didn’t Deny Healthcare To Nazi War Criminals. They Are Denying Healthcare To Julian Assange. Julian Assange may soon die if the UK does not change course. In an open letter, doctors from around the world have petitioned the UK Home Secretary to allow him urgent expert medical care. Even Nazi war criminals were allowed medical treatment after WWII, before the Nuremberg Trials. It is truly despicable that the British government denies life saving medical treatment to an innocent man.
Shadow Government Statistics Flash Update No. 15