06/22/2014 archive

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 Tunes

In case no one has noticed, I am still not ready to make nice.

The recent death of retired San Diego Padres baseball player Tony Gwynn from salivary gland cancer has sparked a conversation about the use of chewing tobacco. Gwynn attributed his cancer to dipping tobacco, a habit that he picked up in 1981. Although, there are no studies linking tobacco to salivary gland cancer, as with smoking tobacco, it is considered a risk factor. ESPN sportscaster Keith Olbermann thinks that it’s past time that chewing tobacco use is banned from baseball.

Banning the habit would be a good idea, not just as a way of remembering Tony Gwynn but protecting players health and as an example for the fans of the game.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on images to enlarge.

June 22 is the 173rd day of the year (174th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 192 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill.

The G.I. Bill was an omnibus bill that provided college or vocational education for returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s) as well as one year of unemployment compensation. It also provided many different types of loans for returning veterans to buy homes and start businesses. Since the original act, the term has come to include other veteran benefit programs created to assist veterans of subsequent wars as well as peacetime service.

By the time the original G.I. Bill ended in July 1956, 7.8 million World War II veterans had participated in an education or training program and 2.4 million veterans had home loans backed by the Veterans’ Administration (VA). Today, the legacy of the original G.I. Bill lives on in the Montgomery G.I. Bill.

Harry W. Colmery, a World War I veteran and the former Republican National Committee chairman, wrote the first draft of the G.I. Bill. He reportedly jotted down his ideas on stationery and a napkin at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC.[2] U.S. Senator Ernest McFarland was actively involved in the bill’s passage and is known, with Warren Atherton, as one of the “fathers of the G.I. Bill.” One might then term Edith Nourse Rogers, R-Mass., who helped write and who co-sponsored the legislation, as the “mother of the G.I. Bill”.[citation needed] Like Colmery, her contribution to writing and passing this legislation has been obscured by time.

The bill was introduced in the House on January 10, 1944, and in the Senate the following day. Both chambers approved their own versions of the bill.

The bill that President Roosevelt initially proposed was not as far reaching. The G.I. Bill was created to prevent a repetition of the Bonus March of 1932 and a relapse into the Great Depression after World War II ended.

An important provision of the G.I. Bill was low interest, zero down payment home loans for servicemen. This enabled millions of American families to move out of urban apartments and into suburban homes. Prior to the war the suburbs tended to be the homes of the wealthy and upper class.

Another provision was known as the 52-20 clause. This enabled all former servicemen to receive $20 once a week for 52 weeks a year while they were looking for work. Less than 20 percent of the money set aside for the 52-20 Club was distributed. Rather, most returning servicemen quickly found jobs or pursued higher education.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

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The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests on Sunday’s “This Week” are: war criminal and former Vice President Dick Cheney; and  Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

At the roundtable are  Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MI); Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL); ABC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Terry Moran; and Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests are Sen. Marco Rubio (R.-FL); Rep. Mike Rogers (R.-MI) and former deputy director of the CIA and CBS News’ Senior Security Correspondent Michael Morell.

His panel guests are Tavis Smiley of PBS; Robin Wright of the Wilson Center; David Ignatius of The Washington Post; and CBS News Political Director John Dickerson.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: This Sunday’s MTP guests are : Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY); Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee; Michele Flournoy, former Undersecretary of Defense;  NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel; NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell; and NBC News Correspondent Kevin Tibbles.

At the roundtable are: E.J. Dionne, Columnist, The Washington Post; David Brooks Columnist, The New York Times; Katty Kay Anchor, BBC World News America; and Erika Harold . former Congressional Candidate (R-IL).

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY); Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Her panel guests are Donna Brazile, Kristin Soltis Anderson, Penny Lee, and SE Cupp.

Iraq ‘struggling’ against Isis militants, say diplomats

 22 June 2014 Last updated at 03:50

 BBC

Iraq’s government is struggling in its battle against militants, diplomats and politicians have told the BBC.

Fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) said they seized a border crossing to Syria and two towns in north-west Iraq on Saturday.

Correspondents say Isis appears to be better trained, better equipped and more experienced than the army.

The Sunni extremists attacked the city of Mosul in June and have since seized large swathes of territory across Iraq.