Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Actress Marilyn Monroe sings a sultry ‘Happy Birthday’ to President John F. Kennedy; Black militant Malcolm X born; Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis dies; The Who’s Pete Townshend born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
A fool and his money are soon elected.
Breakfast News
Democrats clash over TPP fair trade deal
Barack Obama’s battle with obstructionist senators continued on Monday, only this time they were members of his own party.
The Democratic civil war on the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade deal continued when Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren issued a scathing report on past American free trade agreements. The report claims: “The United States does not enforce the labour protections in its trade agreements.”
While many liberals deride the deal as containing insufficient labour and environmental protections and promoting further offshoring of American jobs, the Obama administration has hailed it as “the most progressive trade deal in history” and considers it to be one of the key goals of Obama’s last two years in the White House.
Fracking: Texas governor stops cities and towns banning hydraulic gas mining
The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has signed a bill into law that prohibits cities and towns from banning a gas drilling practice known as hydraulic fracking, giving the state sole authority over oil and gas regulation.
Texas, a state that is home to the two of the most productive US shale oil fields, has been under pressure to halt an anti-fracking movement since November, when voters in the town of Denton voted to ban the gas extraction technique.
Shell’s Arctic oil exploration rig draws hundreds in protest at Seattle port
At least 200 Seattle environmental protesters blocked the entrance to a terminal in Seattle’s port on Monday where a massive Royal Dutch Shell drill rig is temporarily resting on its way to explore for oil in Alaska this summer.
The 400ft long, 355ft tall Shell rig, named Polar Pioneer, has witnessed at least three staged environmental protests since it arrived since it arrived in the port of Seattle on Thursday afternoon.
Most of the world’s workers have insecure jobs, ILO report reveals
A global shift to more insecure jobs since the financial crisis is fuelling growing inequality and higher rates of poverty, according to a new report that estimates only a quarter of the world’s workers are on permanent contracts.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) said the remaining three quarters are employed on temporary or short-term contracts, working informally often without any contract, are self-employed or are in unpaid family jobs.
Afghan police officers jailed over woman’s death in mob attack
An Afghan judge has sentenced 11 police officers to one year in prison for their role in the mob killing of a woman in Kabul. A judge found the men guilty of dereliction of duty. Another eight were released for lack of evidence.
A total of 19 officers were among 49 people charged over the death of 27-year-old Farkhunda, who was lynched by a mob in the centre of Kabul in March.
Philippines offers refuge to desperate migrants trapped on boats
The Philippines has signalled it is ready to take in thousands of migrants who are stranded on Asia’s seas, the first country to offer shelter after its south-east Asian neighbours blocked them from entering.
Manila, a signatory to the United Nation’s refugee convention, said it would help as it denied a local report claiming that the Philippines planned to push back boats carrying some 8,000 people fleeing persecution in Burma and poverty in Bangladesh.
Scientists watching Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano for new eruption
Scientists are closely watching a volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island for a possible eruption after volatile changes in the level of a lake of lava on its summit and a series of earthquakes, the US Geological Survey said on Monday.
Observers said there was a chance of an eruption in the south-west rift zone of the Kilauea volcano, one of the most active in the world, accompanied by more earthquakes, according to the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
Geologists use jelly, lasers and water to unravel mystery of volcanic eruption
Scientists have discovered a previously unrecognised potential trigger for volcanic eruptions during an experiment involving jelly, lasers and coloured water.
Sandy Cruden, a geologist at Monash University in Melbourne, said the scientists came to the finding by accident during a study of how magma moves through layers of rock in the earth’s crust.
Cruden said working out why magma ascends along vertical fractures, called dykes, before turning along horizontal ones called sills, is a “classic problem in geology”.
Researchers from Monash have teamed up with colleagues from Newcastle and Liverpool universities in the UK to study the plumbing systems of volcanoes with a scaled-down model version in a laboratory.
Must Read Blog Posts
US Officials Leak Info About ISIS Raid More Sensitive Than Anything Snowden Ever Leaked Trevor Timm, Techdirt
DOJ Redefines Separation Of Powers, Tells Court It Has No Power To Order Government To Hand Over Documents Tim Cushing, Techdirt
What Are The Gobshites Saying These Days? Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics
Krugman Is Half Right William K. Black, New Economic Perspectives
Satanists and pot smokers testing the integrity of religious freedom laws Jon Green, AMERICAblog
The Blue Wall exists for a reason: The GOP built it Max Mills, AMERICAblog
Over Easy: Fukushima Update Boxturtle, FDL