USA - Corporate tax chiefs are trying to assess the potential implications of a proposal for a new global tax system for consumer-facing businesses, an effort that is being complicated by what some companies describe as a lack of critical details. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is running the initiative, was scheduled to meet Thursday and Friday in Paris to discuss a proposal that would set a standard tax rate for a company’s global operations and allow individual governments to tax profits above that based on sales accounted for by each country. The new rules would represent a departure from current regulations that look at where companies are based and where they hold patents and brands.

USA - Teachers across America are striving to have their students “unlearn” what progressive activists say is nothing more than a “feel-good” Thanksgiving “myth.” “Thanksgiving became a national holiday during the administration of President Abraham Lincoln, and the myth of familial relations between colonial settlers and Native Americans has persisted in American culture ever since,” says Education Week. The education media outlet interviewed Jacob Tsotigh, tribal education specialist for the National Indian Education Association, who said, “There’s less and less” of K-12 teachers having students participate in the narrative of the early American settlers sharing a meal with Native Americans. He added that more public school teachers are reaching out to tribal communities to “connect to authentic teaching sources.”

USA - The biggest shopping day of the year is almost here, and marketeers are working hard trying to extract as much money from US consumers as possible.  Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get consumers to open up their wallets, because many of them are already drowning in debt.  As a society, we have been trained to think of this as “the happiest time of the year”, and for many Americans the most important part of the holiday season is opening presents on Christmas morning.  So there is a tremendous amount of pressure to spend a lot of money on presents, but this often leads to high levels of credit card debt.  In fact, a survey that was just released discovered that 48 million Americans “are still paying off credit card debt from last holiday season”… It has become exceedingly clear that very hard times are coming, and quite a few experts believe that the crisis that is ahead will be even worse than what we experienced in 2008.

UK - Just one in 20 Black Friday deals are genuine, according to damning research by Which? that concluded the annual shopping event was “all hype”. The consumer group price checked 83 items on sale on Black Friday last year and found that nearly all were cheaper or available for the same price at other times of the year. A Samsung soundbar was a Currys PC World Black Friday deal last year at £299. But the researchers found that the price dropped by a further £49 during the month after Black Friday and was priced at £279.97 at least 13 times in the following six months. At John Lewis, a De’Longhi coffee machine was offered at £399 on Black Friday, but it was then discounted to £368 on at least 35 occasions in the following six months. Meanwhile, Amazon put its Echo (2nd Gen) on offer as 39% cheaper on Black Friday, when it had been cheaper on at least 13 occasions before that date, Which? said. It advises consumers not to impulse buy or panic that the deal might never be available again.

UK - This is a seismic British election. So why doesn’t it feel like that? Despite the momentous choice facing the country, the mood is one of weariness. As this weirdest of general elections grinds on through the increasing dark and cold, you can pick up a striking sound: partisans and activists loyal to either Labour or the remain cause becoming exasperated with the public.

UK - “We’re a mess,” Blair said at a Reuters Newsmaker event. “The buoyancy of the world economy has kept us going up to now, but should that falter, we will be in deep trouble.” Blair, the only Labour leader to win three elections, said his party was now controlled by its “Marxist-Leninist wing” and that its leader Jeremy Corbyn was promising a revolution. “The problem with revolutions is never how they begin but how they end,” said Blair. “The problem with revolutions is that they always end badly.” “The truth is: the public aren’t convinced either main party deserves to win this election outright.” The December 12 vote presents a stark choice between a socialist-run state under Labour, which is offering a second referendum on leaving the EU, and the free-market Conservatives, who want to “get Brexit done” by the end of January.

USA - Consider a new letter by more than 500 scientists, which the mainstream media completely ignored. It urges the United Nations to have an open debate between scientists from both sides of the argument and states there’s “no climate emergency.” The report goes on to say, among other things: “The world has warmed at less than half the originally-predicted rate; Climate policy relies on inadequate models; More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth; There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent; There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050.” In short, everything you’re being told is wrong or flawed, and you’re a chump who is being taken for a ride.

USA - House Democrats have slipped an unqualified renewal of the draconian PATRIOT Act into an emergency funding bill – voting near-unanimously for sweeping surveillance carte blanche that was the basis for the notorious NSA program. A three-month reauthorization of the notorious PATRIOT Act was shoehorned into a last-minute continuing resolution (CR) funding the US government, bundling measures needed to avert yet another government shutdown with a continuation of the wildly-intrusive surveillance powers passed after the 9/11 terror attacks. Democrats voted almost unanimously for it, granting the far-reaching surveillance capabilities to the very same president they’re trying to impeach. Not only did Democrats unanimously stand for the bill, they backed the waiver of a rule that would have at least allowed members of Congress to read it.

USA - The fake, far-left fact check site Snopes accidentally confirmed that Democrats have sought to impeach every elected Republican president since Dwight D Eisenhower. Naturally, while confirming this, the garbage fire of fake news that is Snopes rated what is “mostly true” as “mostly false.” The claim is: “Have Democrats Tried to Impeach Every GOP President Since Ike?” Snopes decided to fact check this claim based on a popular meme that shows a black and white photo of General Eisenhower above a caption that reads “Interesting Fact!!! Did you know Democrats have tried to impeach every Republican President since Eisenhower???” Looking to debunk this mostly true claim, Snopes accidentally confirms that Democrats have indeed tried to impeach every elected Republican president since Eisenhower (the sole exception being Gerald Ford, who was not elected).

USA - This week, three major winter storms will batter most of the country with ice, snow and bitterly cold temperatures just in time for Thanksgiving. It is being projected that 55 million Americans will be traveling this week, and so this bizarre weather comes at a very bad time. But of course we have already seen a series of blizzards roar across the nation in recent weeks and hundreds of record cold temperatures have already been shattered and we are still about a month away from the official start of winter. Normally, it isn’t supposed to be this cold or this snowy yet, but we don’t live in “normal” times. Scientists tell us that solar activity becomes very quiet during a “solar minimum”, and when solar activity becomes very quiet we tend to have very cold winters. And in recent months solar activity has been very, very low. In fact, we haven’t seen any sunspots at all “since November 2”…

UK - The UK failed to meet a UN deadline Friday to hand over their last African colony back to its people. The Chagos Islands are far removed from mainland Africa and lie in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Over 2,000 residents of Diego Garcia, the largest island of the Chagos, were forced to move to Mauritius to make way for a US military base. Since the expulsion, the people of Chagos have been fighting to return to their homeland. In defense of their colonial rule, the British government released a statement, “The UK has no doubt as to our sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory, which has been under continuous British sovereignty since 1814.” Ultimately, the UN resolution is not binding, and the UK will likely hold onto the colony while the US still has a lease on Diego Garcia, which they extended in 2016 to last until 2036.

CHILE - Looting and demonstrations took place in cities across the South American nation, and an agreement on a political roadmap that will see Chile draft a new constitution has halted neither the anger, nor the bloodshed. Furious Chileans have since October 18 been protesting social and economic inequality, and against an entrenched political elite that comes from a small number of the wealthiest families in the country, among other issues. The crisis is the worst in three decades of Chilean democracy and has led to around 2,000 injuries, including some 280 people who suffered eye damage from shotgun pellets.

PERSIAN GULF - The deployment of 14,000 additional American troops to the Persian Gulf region since the spring has probably not dissuaded Iran from planning a major attack on the scale of the recent missile and drone assault on Saudi Arabia’s oil fields, the commander of American forces in the Middle East says. The officer, General Kenneth F McKenzie, the head of the military’s Central Command, said the additional troops, fighter jets and air defenses that the Pentagon has dispatched might have deterred Iran from attacking American targets — like Iran’s downing of an unmanned surveillance drone in June. But he said strikes against Gulf nations were another matter. “My judgment is that it is very possible they will attack again,” General McKenzie said in an interview this past week ahead of an international security conference on Saturday.

GERMANY - Local, state and federal government leaders, both military and civilian, from around Germany gathered in Wiesbaden November 7-8 for the German-US Forces in Europe Consultation Meeting hosted by US Army Europe. Held under various names with a variety of formats since 2006, the consultation meeting has evolved into a combination of presentations and briefings, exploring a variety of topics that intersect German-American interests. “The consultation's aim is to thank our German hosts, inform them, reassure and ask for their continued support and understanding,” said Master of Ceremonies Mike Anderson, director of government relations for US Army Europe. “There is not another country in the world that has a relationship with the US Army like Germany does,” said Cavoli. “This relationship is fundamental to our collective security. It has been a relationship on which we have based Western security for 75 years.”

USA - “The United States is home to some of the most reliable water and wastewater systems on earth, and many Americans believe access is universal,” the authors wrote. “But in fact, millions of the most vulnerable people in the country — low-income people in rural areas, people of color, tribal communities, immigrants — have fallen through the cracks.” Lacking access to safe water and sanitation “makes it difficult to stay healthy, earn a living, go to school, and care for a family,” they added.