cHumDuMp

Brexit: Theresa May's deal is voted down in historic Commons defeat
Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal has been rejected by 230 votes - the largest defeat for a sitting government in history.MPs voted by 432 votes to 202 to reject the deal, which sets out the terms of Britain's exit from the EU on 29 March.Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has now tabled a vote of no confidence in the government, which could trigger a general election.The confidence vote is expected to be held at about 1900 GMT on Wednesday.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-46885828

U.S.-bound Honduran migrant caravan grows as Trump argues for wall
 A new U.S.-bound caravan of Honduran migrants grew to nearly 1,000 people as it neared the Guatemalan border on Tuesday, a Honduran official said, while U.S. President Donald Trump seized on news of the group to try to drum up support for a border wall.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-caravan/us-bound-honduran-migrant-caravan-grows-as-trump-argues-for-wall-idUSKCN1P92KX

Trump considering recognizing opposition leader as Venezuela's president: report
The Trump administration is considering recognizing Venezuelan opposition party leader Juan Guaidó as the country's legitimate president, CNN reported Tuesday.Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro's began his second term last week. But the Trump administration slammed his inauguration as the "illegitimate result of a stolen election."
https://outline.com/5eCwkb

Brazil’s Bolsonaro increases drive for “pensions’ reform,” more state powers in second week of government
The second week of Brazil’s new government led by President Jair Bolsonaro, the fascistic former Army captain, has seen frenzied preparations to send a so-called “pensions reform” to the next session, which is to begin in February.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/01/15/braz-j15.html

Launching national debate, Macron makes another faux pas about the poor
France’s Emmanuel Macron began a national debate on Tuesday meant to calm protests against high living costs, but he may have started on the wrong foot by suggesting some poor people were “screwing” with the system.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-protests/launching-national-debate-macron-makes-another-faux-pas-about-the-poor-idUSKCN1P92B0

After years of speculation, IDF chief admits Israel supplied Syrian rebels with weapons
The outgoing IDF chief of staff has spilled the beans on a poorly guarded secret of the Israeli military, that it has supplied Syrian rebels fighting President Bashar Assad’s government with weapons “for self-defense.
https://www.rt.com/news/448818-israel-arming-rebels-admission/

As Japan Tries Out Immigration, Migrant Workers Complain Of Exploitation
He says he paid the equivalent of about $9,200 to a Vietnamese broker and signed a contract with a private construction company in Koriyama, Japan, to get on-the-job training as a rebar worker."I expected to come to a country more developed, clean and civilized than my own," he recalls. "In my mind, Japan had many good things, and I wanted to learn professional skills to take home."
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/15/683224099/as-japan-tries-out-immigration-migrant-workers-complain-of-exploitation

All the Ways East Jerusalem Palestinians Get Rejected in Bid to Become Israelis
Interior Ministry says the years-long delays are the result of the volume of requests, but lawyers are convinced the backlog is a deliberate policy to prevent the city’s Palestinians from becoming citizens
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-east-jerusalem-palestinians-face-uphill-battle-in-bid-for-israeli-citizenship-1.6844543

Italy Urges France to Extradite Left Guerrilla Fighters
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini urged French President Emmanuel Macron Tuesday to extradite leftist guerrillas who have been hiding out in France for decades to avoid being imprisoned by Italy.“I appeal to the French president to return to Italy the fugitives that should not be drinking champagne under the Eiffel tower, but should be rotting in jail in Italy,”
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Italy-Urges-France-to-Extradite-Left-Guerrilla-Fighters-20190115-0016.html

70,000 workers strike at US-Mexico border sweatshops
At least 70,000 workers from 45 factories—including tens of thousands of auto parts and assembly workers at companies that supply GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler—have launched a wildcat strike in the US-Mexico border town of Matamoros.The strike is a rebellion against both the “maquiladora” manufacturing corporations and the pro-company trade unions.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/01/15/mexi-j15.html

Shutdown bites economy, U.S. Coast Guard as Washington talks stall
The U.S. economy is taking a larger-than-expected hit from the partial government shutdown, White House estimates showed on Tuesday, as contractors and even the Coast Guard go without pay and talks to end the impasse seemed stalled.The shutdown dragged into its 25th day on Tuesday with neither Trump nor Democratic congressional leaders showing signs of bending on the topic that triggered it.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shutdown/shutdown-bites-economy-us-coast-guard-as-washington-talks-stall-idUSKCN1P91K0

The Democratic National Committee ended its sponsorship of the Women’s March after co-leader Tamika Mallory refuses to condemn Louis Farrakhan
The Democratic National Committee joined dozens of prominent progressive organizations who have quietly dropped their support for the Women's March after months of controversy over accusations of anti-Semitism among the organization's leadership.
https://www.businessinsider.com/dnc-ends-support-for-womens-march-after-reports-of-anti-semitism-2019-1

White House considering former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi to head World Bank: New York Times
Indra Nooyi, the former PepsiCo CEO, is reportedly being considered to become the next head of the World Bank.The New York Times, citing several people familiar with the matter, said Tuesday that Nooyi has been courted by Ivanka Trump as an ally to the Trump administration. However, the report said the process for picking the next World Bank chief remain fluid and is still in the early stages.
https://outline.com/YwGpKj

Apple's share price plunge points to a looming trade recession in China
Even with low expectations heading into its release, China's December trade report was a horror show.From a year earlier, the value of exports and imports tumbled by 7.6% and 4.4% respectively in US dollar terms, coming in well below market expectations that were actually centered around a modest increase
https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-share-price-points-to-looming-trade-recession-in-china-2019-1

OP/ED

One hundred years since the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
Today marks the centenary of one of the most horrific and consequential crimes in world history. In Berlin on 15 January, 1919, Freikorps soldiers of the Garde-Kavallerie-Schützen Division arrested Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the two leaders of the German Communist Party (KPD), which had been founded just two weeks earlier. Soldiers transported them to the Hotel Eden, where they were tortured before being taken away and murdered.The 48-year-old Rosa Luxemburg was among the most outstanding Marxist revolutionaries of her epoch. She gained notoriety for her sharp polemics against Eduard Bernstein’s revisionism and the Social Democrats’ pro-war policies in the First World War, and was the undisputed theoretical leader of the SPD’s revolutionary wing and later of the Spartacus League
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/01/15/pers-j15.html

Mainstream Media Bias on 2020 Democratic Race Already in High Gear
After having been a mainstream TV news pundit, I’m unfortunately addicted to cable news (mostly MSNBC and CNN) and all the blather and repetition – laughably overhyped as “breaking news.” Even when it’s the same news that’s been breaking . . . and breaking . . . for hours or days.But I’m more bothered by the repetition of pundits and the narrowness of discussion, resulting in a number of unexamined clichés. Although the Democratic race for president has barely launched, mainstream media bias is already in orbit.As everyone in politics knows – and mainstream pundits acknowledge – the Democratic Party is seriously divided in two. The conflict today may be as intense as during the 2016 primary battle: On one side is the party establishment, allied with corporate donors – preaching pragmatism, caution and incrementalism. On the other side is much of the party’s activist base, animated by issues and allied with elected officials like Bernie Sanders and a young crop of insurgent Congress members – calling for transformative change to protect the planet and people from corporatism and greed.Strange thing: only the corporate Democratic side is regularly represented on MSNBC and CNN, and in mainstream media at large.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/15/mainstream-media-bias-on-2020-democratic-race-already-in-high-gear/

These 2020 hopefuls are courting Wall Street. Don't be fooled by their progressive veneer
It’s a framing that’s been everywhere over the past two years: the Resistance v Donald Trump. By some definitions that “resistance” even includes people like Mitt Romney and George W Bush. By almost all definitions it encompasses mainstream Democrats, such as the likely presidential hopefuls Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand.In their rhetoric and policy advocacy, this trio has been steadily moving to the left to keep pace with a leftward-moving Democratic party. Booker, Harris and Gillibrand know that voters demand action and are more supportive than ever of Medicare for All and universal childcare. Gillibrand, long considered a moderate, has even gone as far as to endorse abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and, along with Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders’ single-payer healthcare bill. Harris has also backed universal healthcare and free college tuition for most Americans.But outward appearances aren’t everything. Booker, Harris and Gillibrand have been making a very different pitch of late – on Wall Street. According to CNBC, all three potential candidates have been reaching out to financial executives lately, including Blackstone’s Jonathan Gray, Robert Wolf from 32 Advisors and the Centerbridge Partners founder Mark Gallogly.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/15/democratic-2020-president-candidates-wall-street