The Breakfast Club: 6-23-2014

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. Everyone’s welcome here, no special handshake required. Just check your meta at the door.

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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Al Jazeera journalists jailed in Egypt, supporters stunned

Three Al Jazeera journalists were jailed for seven years in Egypt on Monday after a court convicted them of helping a “terrorist organisation” by spreading lies, in a case that has raised questions about the country’s respect for media freedom.

The three, who all deny the charge, include Australian Peter Greste, Al Jazeera’s Kenya-based correspondent, and Canadian-Egyptian national Mohamed Fahmy, Cairo bureau chief of Al Jazeera English.

The third defendant, Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed, received an additional three-year jail sentence on a separate charge involving possession of ammunition.

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Poland leak: Radek Sikorski scorns ‘worthless’ US ties

Poland’s Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski called his country’s ties with the US “worthless”, a Polish news magazine says, giving excerpts of a secretly recorded conversation.

The magazine Wprost is already at the centre of another scandal over leaked tapes involving the Polish government.

Mr Sikorski called Poland’s stance towards the US “downright harmful because it creates a false sense of security”, according to the new leak.

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‘Allah chose you:’ ISIS & other jihadist groups recruit children in Syria for suicide missions

Syrian rebel groups, including ISIS fighters, have been recruiting 10-17-year-old children for military operations sometimes under the guise of offering education, says HRW. The teens were taught how to use weapons and were even sent on suicide missions.

“Opposition armed groups used boys as young as 15 as fighters and children as young as 14 in support roles. Some children who participated were detained or killed in battle,” says the latest report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The report, “‘Maybe We Live and Maybe We Die’: Recruitment and Use of Children by Armed Groups in Syria,” deals with experiences of 25 boys who are current or former members of opposition armed groups.

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John Kerry arrives in Iraq as more cities fall to ISIS militants

As radical Sunni militants snatch city after city in their march to Baghdad, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Iraq on Monday during the country’s tensest time since the U.S. withdrawal of troops.

He’ll meet with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the man some say needs to step down.

With al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government losing more ground to militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Kerry has implored the leader to rise above “sectarian motivations” to become more inclusive and more representative of its population.

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Albuquerque activists hold ‘people’s trial’ of police chief over brutality

Activists in Albuquerque have held a march and a “people’s trial” of the city’s police chief, to protest dozens of fatal police shootings.

Hundreds rallied in the New Mexico city on Saturday, some carrying fake tombstones, to denounce what they called a culture of police brutality and official complicity.

It was the latest event in a vocal campaign demanding reform of a police department which has recorded 40 shootings, 26 of them fatal, since 2010.

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Doctor and his daughter chase fleeing burglars: ‘We’re not going to tolerate it’

This plastic surgeon in Houston, Texas, doesn’t mind getting his precious hands dirty when it comes to protecting his home and property against thieves. The doctor, who asked that his name not be used, and his daughter caught a trio of burglars leaving his home with some loot.

The pair were pulling into their driveway, just as the alleged burglars were pulling out with some of the family’s belongings.

But instead of calling the cops, the two gave chase to the fleeing thieves.

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Feds shelve plan to fly migrants to Calif.

Federal authorities announced they had canceled their plan to fly nearly 300 Central American immigrants to Southern California from Texas, but left the door the open to the possibility that the plan could be reinstated.

Border Patrol spokesman Ralph DeSio told the Associated Press Sunday that he didn’t know why the flights had been canceled, and described the planning as being “in a very fluid state.”

Even as the flights were put on hold, workers at a federal training site in New Mexico erected a fence around its grounds over the weekend in preparation for the expected arrival of hundreds more illegal border-crossers later this week.

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Hillary Clinton Wants Bill to Lift Her Up-but Obama Will Drag Her Down

Once again, Hillary Clinton has reminded us that she is not a natural born politician-unlike her husband, Bill. Questioned by Diane Sawyer about her role in what went wrong in Benghazi, Clinton slipped into monotonal legalism and disavowed her own responsibility for security breaches surrounding the murders by Islamic militants of J. Christopher Stevens, our ambassador to Libya, and Sean Smith, a foreign service officer.

Dodging and weaving, Clinton punted on her own nexus to disaster: “I am not. I’m not equipped to sit and look at blueprints. To determine where the blast walls need to be-where the reinforcements need to be. That’s why we hire people who have that expertise.” Got that? That’s called self-absolution.

Yet aside from re-awakening the issues of honesty and likeability that plagued her 2008 candidacy, there was also something retro about Clinton’s performance. Among those of us old enough to remember, Clinton’s technocratic answer brought back memories of Michael Dukakis’ 1988 presidential debate debacle, when he just couldn’t get excited when asked how he would react if his wife and had been raped and murdered.

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What’s up with the wild extremes of weather?

Recent bouts of extreme weather – including persistent warmth and drought in the western USA and cold outbreaks in the East – are linked to large fluctuations of wind patterns high above the Earth’s surface, says a study published Sunday in the British journal Nature.

These strange fluctuations in wind patterns, related to jet streams at upper levels of the atmosphere, and their connection to global warming have been the subject of extensive research within the climate science community.

“Over the past three decades, there is evidence that extreme weather events are linked to changes in atmospheric air flow patterns,” said study lead author James Screen of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.

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Your health loses if you fail to snooze, health experts say

Most people know when they don’t get enough sleep: They’re grumpier, have trouble concentrating and may even eat more. But too little shut-eye can also wreak havoc on your health, research shows.

Sleep deprivation is associated with an increased risk of many serious health problems, including obesity, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, depression, heart attacks and strokes, as well as premature death and reduced quality of life and productivity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Add to those an increased risk of automobile crashes, industrial disasters and medical and other occupational errors. A recent mouse study found that chronic sleep loss can lead to the irreversible damage and loss of brain cells.

CDC data show that 28 percent of U.S. adults report sleeping six hours or less each night, and that’s just not enough for most people, experts say.

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Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Abraham Lincoln

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Breakfast Tunes