The Breakfast Club 7-16-2014

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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How Bizarre: America’s Empire Declining, But Nothing Is Replacing It

For America’s national security state, this is the age of impunity.  Nothing it does — torture, kidnapping, assassination, illegal surveillance, you name it — will ever be brought to court.  For none of its beyond-the-boundaries acts will anyone be held accountable.  The only crimes that can now be committed in official Washington are by those foolish enough to believe that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.  I’m speaking of the various whistleblowers and leakers who have had an urge to let Americans know what deeds and misdeeds their government is committing in their name but without their knowledge.  They continue to pay a price in accountability for their acts that should, by comparison, stun us all.

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It’s Time to Reform the Supreme Court – Here Are Five Ways to Do It

The just-completed Supreme Court term was filled with deeply disturbing decisions. In Plumhoff v. Rickard, the Court held that police can shoot at a car in a high speed chase to get it to stop – and continue to shoot until it stops – even when the basis for initially stopping the car was no more than a burnt out headlight. In McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Court struck down limits on the total amount that a person can contribute to candidates for federal office or political parties over a two-year period. In McCullen v. Coakley, the Court declared a Massachusetts law creating a 35-foot buffer zone around reproductive health care facilities unconstitutional, thus leaving women seeking care without adequate protection against harassment and putting in jeopardy laws creating buffer zones around military funerals, cemeteries, and places of worship. In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Court ruled that it is constitutional for a town board to have Christian clergy recite explicitly Christian prayers before its meetings. And in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Court held for the first time that for-profit companies have a right to the free exercise of religion and may use it to deny women insurance coverage for contraceptives.

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Study: Rich Republicans Are the Worst Climate Deniers

We’ve known for some time that as Republicans become more highly educated, or better at general science comprehension, they become stronger in their global warming denial. It’s a phenomenon I’ve called the “smart idiot” effect: Apparently being highly informed or capable interacts with preexisting political biases to make those on the right more likely to be wrong than they would be if they had less education or knowledge.

Now, a new study in the journal Climatic Change has identified a closely related phenomenon. Call it the “rich idiot” effect: The study finds that among Republicans, as levels of income increase, so does their likelihood of “dismissing the dangers associated with climate change.” But among Democrats and independents, there is little or no change in climate views as levels of income increase or decrease.

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For First Time, California Gets Ready For Mandatory Water Restrictions

On Tuesday the State Water Resources Control Board in California is expected to institute statewide mandatory water restrictions for the first time. All of California is in some type of drought and reservoirs are precariously low in many places. The nation’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead in Nevada, recently reached an all-time low. So now the impact of the enduring drought has extended beyond warning.

“Many urban Californians don’t realize how bad a drought the state is in,” board chair Felicia Marcus said last week. “It is a mistake to think that they are not at risk. What these regulations propose is not that everyone kill off their lawns, but that at a minimum, people don’t over-water.”

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Scientists Are Beginning to Figure Out Why Conservatives Are…Conservative

You could be forgiven for not having browsed yet through the latest issue of the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences. If you care about politics, though, you’ll find a punchline therein that is pretty extraordinary.

Behavioral and Brain Sciences employs a rather unique practice called “Open Peer Commentary”: An article of major significance is published, a large number of fellow scholars comment on it, and then the original author responds to all of them. The approach has many virtues, one of which being that it lets you see where a community of scholars and thinkers stand with respect to a controversial or provocative scientific idea. And in the latest issue of the journal, this process reveals the following conclusion: A large body of political scientists and political psychologists now concur that liberals and conservatives disagree about politics in part because they are different people at the level of personality, psychology, and even traits like physiology and genetics.

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Must Read Blog Posts

Hellraisers Journal: Shrunken children without light in their eyes and without song on their lips

by JayRaye

Debunking the Myers-Briggs personality test

by Anthony Zurcher

10 Scientific Ideas That Scientists Wish You Would Stop Misusing

by Annalee Newitz

The Daily Treat: Real Estate Attorney Leaves $800,000 to Shelter Cats

by Amy Jamieson

5 Atheist and Muslim Billboards That Really Pissed Off Right-Wing Christians

by Katie Halper

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The Daily Wiki

Yorkipoo

A yorkiepoo (also called a yorkapoo or yoodle) is a mutt or mixed breed dog hybrid dog, bred for the first time in the United States, by crossing a Yorkshire Terrier and a poodle (in most cases the miniature poodle or toy poodle), or by breeding yorkiepoo to yorkiepoo. It’s known for being one of a few varieties of hypoallergenic dogs. The yorkiepoo is not recognized by any major kennel clubs.

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Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. ~Oscar Wilde

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Breakfast Tunes

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Stupid Shit by LaEscapee

Convictions They Should Not Go as the Wind Blows

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