News 2/14

One-day national strike paralyzes Belgium
Large parts of Belgium were brought to a standstill yesterday, as tens of thousands of workers joined a national 24-hour strike to demand wage increases, and oppose government attacks on pensions and other social entitlements, and growing social inequality.
wsws.org/en/articles/2019/02/14/belg-f14.html

US sabotage may be behind Iran's embarrassing rocket launch failure
The US has been secretly sabotaging Iranian missiles and rockets for years, the New York Times reported Wednesday, citing half a dozen current and former officials. Since the program began a little over a decade ago, 67 percent of Iran's orbital launches have failed. The global failure rate for similar launches is only 5 percent.
businessinsider.com/us-sabotage-may-be-behind-irans-embarrassing-rocket-launch-failures-2019-2

Poland buying $414mn of US rocket artillery to ‘guarantee its security’
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s calls to “strengthen resistance” against Russia has resonated with Poland’s leadership, as the country signed a $414-million deal to purchase an American weapons system.A product of Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems, the M142 HIMARS is capable of launching both rocket artillery and tactical ballistic missiles with an estimated operational range of 480km.
rt.com/news/451423-poland-usa-himras-deal/

Brexit: Theresa May suffers fresh Commons defeat
Prime Minister Theresa May has suffered another Commons defeat after MPs voted down her approach to Brexit talks.MPs voted by 303 to 258 - a majority of 45 - against a motion endorsing the government's negotiating strategy.The defeat has no legal force and Downing Street said it would not change the PM's approach to talks with the EU.
bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47245992

With Constitution Changes, Egypt's President Could Stay In Power Until 2034
Egypt's parliament has overwhelmingly approved proposed constitutional changes that would allow Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to potentially stay in office until 2034.The changes, which must be approved by a referendum to enter into force, would also further enshrine the authority of the Armed Forces in "maintaining the foundations of the civil state."
npr.org/2019/02/14/694675332/with-constitution-changes-egypts-president-could-stay-in-power-until-2034

Dozens of Indian paramilitaries killed in Kashmir car bombing
Dozens of Indian paramilitaries have been killed in the first suicide car bombing in the disputed region of Kashmir in nearly two decades.A lone militant is believed to have driven a vehicle laden with explosives close to a central reserve police force (CRPF) convoy and detonated it just after 3pm on Thursday on a busy highway outside the state capital of Srinagar.
theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/14/indian-paramilitaries-killed-in-suicide-car-bombing-in-kashmir

Venezuela prosecutor to investigate Guaido appointments
Venezuela’s chief prosecutor said Thursday he has launched an investigation into opposition leader Juan Guaido’s appointment of a transitional board of directors for the state oil company.Attorney General Tarek William Saab said the appointments by Guaido and his National Assembly are part of an illegal power grab backed by foreign governments.
apnews.com/4c241827c6be440cb52781d0b5bd744b

EU POLITICIANS FINALISE NEW COPYRIGHT RULES THAT COULD TRANSFORM THE INTERNET
The final wording of dramatic and wide-ranging copyright rules that campaigners say could fundamentally alter the way the internet works has been decided, the EU has announced.The new regime has been accused of forcing companies to “ban memes” as it transforms the way people are able to share information online. Companies such as Google have intensely criticised the rules – with YouTube suggesting it could even have to ban Europeans from uplodaing videos entirely.
independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/eu-copyright-rules-new-article-11-13-youtube-google-meme-ban-a8779101.html

30 years on, Russia views Afghan war with pride
As Russia prepares to mark Friday’s anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal, many see the 10-year Soviet war in Afghanistan as a necessary and largely successful endeavor. Just like the ongoing Russian campaign in Syria, the Afghan war is widely perceived as a legitimate action against U.S.-backed militants.
apnews.com/e130cfcb747d43ecae2a496e6cb9e764

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Other urls found in this thread:

rt.com/usa/451492-trump-declares-national-emergency/
archive.is/2lutU
rt.com/news/451487-netflix-bandersnatch-stored-data/
apnews.com/b79a51d2445c46a9af201cb342c7ec67
wsws.org/en/articles/2019/02/14/denv-f14.html
nypost.com/2019/02/14/amazon-paid-no-federal-taxes-again/
businessinsider.com/car-auto-sales-recession-2019-2
in.reuters.com/article/us-sprint-corp-m-a-t-mobile-us/t-mobile-sprint-executives-face-skeptical-house-panel-idINKCN1Q2184
wsws.org/en/articles/2019/02/14/gram-f14.html
counterpunch.org/2019/02/14/doomsday-redux-the-most-dangerous-weapon-ever-rolls-off-the-nuclear-assembly-line/
jakkkobinmag.com/2019/02/intimacy-social-reproduction-love-asmr-pornhub
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/14/neoliberalism-is-killing-our-love-lives
rule34.xxx/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=3074578
chan.sankakucomplex.com/post/show/7334818
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Trump will declare national emergency as he signs watered-down wall funding bill
President Donald Trump will sign a spending bill that denies him funding for a border wall, but averts another government shutdown. Trump will also declare a national emergency, allowing him to bypass Congress and build the wall.White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Thursday that Trump will sign the bill, but “will also take other executive action - including a national emergency - to stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border.”
rt.com/usa/451492-trump-declares-national-emergency/

Ocasio-Cortez praises Omar's questioning of Elliot Abrams: 'Feels like justice'
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is praising Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for questioning Elliott Abrams about the Iran-Contra affair and Central American killings during the Reagan administration, saying that watching her question him "feels like justice."
archive.is/2lutU

Yes, Netflix recorded and saved all the choices you made watching the ‘Bandersnatch’ movie
When Netflix released its choose-your-own-adventure ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ movie in December, viewers joked that the streaming service might be using it as an experiment to harvest data. Well, it turns out they were right.The ‘Bandersnatch’ movie offered viewers the ability to make choices for the characters by allowing them to pick between options presented on the screen at crucial and not-so-crucial moments.
rt.com/news/451487-netflix-bandersnatch-stored-data/

Trump-dominated board to close coal plant, despite his plea
A federal utility board voted Thursday to close a coal-fired power plant in Kentucky, rejecting pleas from President Donald Trump and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and handing the coal industry a defeat in its backyard.
apnews.com/b79a51d2445c46a9af201cb342c7ec67

Union rushing to end Denver teachers strike
Denver teachers were on the picket lines Wednesday for the third day, but the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) and the school district are moving quickly to reach a deal to end the strike. A joint statement released Wednesday night by DCTA President Henry Roman and Denver Public Schools Superintendent Susana Cordova said, “We exchanged proposals that are moving us closer and are hopeful that we will get to an agreement soon.
wsws.org/en/articles/2019/02/14/denv-f14.html

Amazon paid no federal taxes again
Jeff Bezos’ sprawling e-commerce empire, Amazon, almost doubled its profits in 2018, but for the second year in a row paid zero dollars in federal income tax.The world’s largest online retailer, which is worth $795 billion, earned a record $11.2 billion in US profits, according to the company’s US Securities and Exchange Commission filing earlier this month, yet did not pay the 21 percent US corporate tax.
nypost.com/2019/02/14/amazon-paid-no-federal-taxes-again/

Cars are driving us into recession
More than 7 million Americans have gone into "serious delinquency" on their car loans, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and that is one of the reasons the US Fed has become more cautious about raising interest rates.
businessinsider.com/car-auto-sales-recession-2019-2

T-Mobile, Sprint executives face skeptical House panel
Executives from T-Mobile US Inc and Sprint Corp faced tough questions from lawmakers on Wednesday about how the companies’ planned merger would affect prices and jobs, especially in rural America.
in.reuters.com/article/us-sprint-corp-m-a-t-mobile-us/t-mobile-sprint-executives-face-skeptical-house-panel-idINKCN1Q2184

WEW

I'm so happy that the Belgian one day national strike has finally overthrown the bourgeoisie and implemented based syndicalism. It was about time too.

At least they're doing something.

OP/ED

The 2019 Grammy Awards: The music industry’s love affair with itself
The Grammys were mostly remarkable, however, for the fact that so little about the world—or even the situation facing the artists themselves—was reflected in any of the awards, speeches and musical performances of the ceremony.Instead the event was dripping with conformity, self-congratulations and banality. One could sense that a lot of money was on the line if an artist “stepped out of line,” said or performed a sentiment that conflicted with the program’s tightly controlled “storylines,” or protested the complacency of it all.The now ubiquitous and mandatory theme of every awards show—identity politics—was on heavy display Sunday. Nowhere was this more self-evident than in the silence regarding the major development preceding the event where one of the nominees, Atlanta rapper 21 Savage, was detained in a “targeted operation” by the semi-fascistic Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.The British-born rapper, who has been living in the US since he was 7 years old, had recently performed a new song “A Lot” on national TV, which in part denounced the attack on immigrants and the poisoning of Flint (“Went through some things, but couldn’t imagine my kids stuck at the border/Flint still need water …”), and was detained by ICE shortly after the performance.
wsws.org/en/articles/2019/02/14/gram-f14.html

Doomsday Redux: the Most Dangerous Weapon Ever Rolls Off the Nuclear Assembly Line
Last month, the National Nuclear Security Administration (formerly the Atomic Energy Commission) announced that the first of a new generation of strategic nuclear weapons had rolled off the assembly line at its Pantex nuclear weapons plant in the panhandle of Texas. That warhead, the W76-2, is designed to be fitted to a submarine-launched Trident missile, a weapon with a range of more than 7,500 miles. By September, an undisclosed number of warheads will be delivered to the Navy for deployment.What makes this particular nuke new is the fact that it carries a far smallerdestructive payload than the thermonuclear monsters the Trident has been hosting for decades — not the equivalent of about 100 kilotons of TNT as previously, but of five kilotons. According to Stephen Young of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the W76-2 will yield “only” about one-third of the devastating power of the weapon that the Enola Gay, an American B-29 bomber, dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Yet that very shrinkage of the power to devastate is precisely what makes this nuclear weapon potentially the most dangerous ever manufactured. Fulfilling the Trump administration’s quest for nuclear-war-fighting “flexibility,” it isn’t designed as a deterrent against another country launching its nukes; it’s designed to be used.
counterpunch.org/2019/02/14/doomsday-redux-the-most-dangerous-weapon-ever-rolls-off-the-nuclear-assembly-line/

Capitalism Killed Intimacy and Replaced It With PornHub
With our communities destroyed and our growing distance from each other, we humans of late capitalism are left with a deficit of intimacy and affection.
jakkkobinmag.com/2019/02/intimacy-social-reproduction-love-asmr-pornhub

Neoliberalism is killing our love lives
For many of us, Valentine’s Day is a reminder that our love life sucks. Maybe we just had an unhappy end to a relationship, maybe we’re struggling to keep alive an existing one. For those of us, the conventional advice we receive is drab and unconvincing. Sure, having a regular date night to “keep the love alive” is just fine, I suppose. But if you really want to get the sparkle back, why not engage in a militant class struggle this Valentine’s Day instead?You see, countries with powerful working-class movements tend to have more social rights and guarantees. And those protections can make your love life a lot less stressful.Most Americans feel overwhelmed by their financial obligations, and it’s the leading cause of friction in relationships. That’s no surprise in a country where life is so precarious – where a trip to the hospital, a layoff, or shifts in the housing market can change everything. We’re overworked at our jobs and underpaid. Powerless to bargain for a better deal from our bosses, we zero-in on our partners’ spending habits or priorities instead.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/14/neoliberalism-is-killing-our-love-lives

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?

yup, it should be noted though that the change in US nuclear policy goes back quite a while now, the new warhead is just the culmination of that change.
The US will probably use a tactical nuclear weapon in the next conflict they're involved in

When we finally get to socialism, one of the great cultural legacies of the capitalist era will be the porn. The workers will not deem sex work to be an ethically valid task to expect as productive labor, and thus new pornographic material could only be made by amateurs in their free time, without any material compensation. This means that the porn that is presently produced forms a treasure trove that will be cherished by many generations. Think about that next time you jack off.

(me)
Though I guess there will be amazing CGI porn instead. Scrap all that.

my brain cannot comprehend how anyone would find that arousing