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
Breakfast News
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Washington in Libya: A Case Study in How Not to End Violence in a War-Torn Land
Is the U.S. secretly training Libyan militiamen in the Canary Islands? And if not, are they planning to?
That’s what I asked a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). “I am surprised by your mentioning the Canary Islands,” he responded by email. “I have not heard this before, and wonder where you heard this.”
As it happens, mention of this shadowy mission on the Spanish archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa was revealed in an official briefing prepared for AFRICOM chief General David Rodriguez in the fall of 2013. In the months since, the plan may have been permanently shelved in favor of a training mission carried out entirely in Bulgaria. The document nonetheless highlights the U.S. military’s penchant for simple solutions to complex problems — with a well-documented potential for blowback in Africa and beyond. It also raises serious questions about the recurring methods employed by the U.S. to stop the violence its actions helped spark in the first place.
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FBI Plans to Have 52 Million Photos in its NGI Face Recognition Database by Next Year
New documents released by the FBI show that the Bureau is well on its way toward its goal of a fully operational face recognition database by this summer.
EFF received these records in response to our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for information on Next Generation Identification (NGI)-the FBI’s massive biometric database that may hold records on as much as one third of the U.S. population. The facial recognition component of this database poses real threats to privacy for all Americans.
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America’s Coup Machine: Destroying Democracy Since 1953
The disquieting reality of the world we live in is that American efforts to destroy democracy, even as it pretends to champion it, have left the world less peaceful, less just and less hopeful. When Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, at the height of the genocidal American war on Iraq, he devoted much of his acceptance speech to an analysis of this dichotomy. He said of the U.S., “It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis… Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be, but it is also very clever.”
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If You Can ‘Speak’ with Your Money, Then Why Is It Illegal to Ask For It?
Money may be protected speech but apparently, speech that asks for money is not.
Two recent legal cases about money and free speech unveil a contradiction in our application of the First Amendment. One deals with the right of the rich to influence politics with a lot of money, the other deals with the right of the poor to ask for a little to buy a meal or bus ticket.
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Violent Crime Drops Where People Have Access to Marijuana, Study Suggests
Opponents of marijuana legalization, particularly members of law enforcement, frequently claim that liberalizing cannabis laws will lead to an increase in incidences of criminal activity, such as burglary, robbery, and driving under the influence. But two recent scientific papers report that just the opposite is true.
In the most recent paper, published online in March in the scientific journal PLoS ONE, researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas reported that the enactment of laws legalizing people’s access to medical marijuana is not associated with any rise in statewide criminal activity, and that it may even be related to reductions in incidences of violent crime.
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Must Read Blog Posts
Hellraisers Journal: Colorado Military Puzzles Status of Mother Jones As Troops Are Withdrawn
Malta becomes first European country to recognize gender identity in Constitution
El oh el: Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson warn conservatives about Bundy ranch dispute
University Of Texas Student Recreates Chick-Fil-A Chicken Sandwich, Eats It On Sundays
5 Amazing Things Scientists Have Discovered About Psychedelics
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The Daily Wiki
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Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ~John Ruskin
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Breakfast Tunes
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