The Breakfast Club (Out on the Sea Alone)

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

Breakfast News

Obama admits CIA ‘tortured some folks’ but stands by Brennan over spying

President Barack Obama on Friday starkly criticised the CIA’s past treatment of terror suspects, saying he could understand why the agency rushed to use controversial interrogation techniques in the aftermath of 9/11 but conceding: “We tortured some folks.”

In some of the most expansive and blunt remarks on the CIA’s programme of rendition and detention he has made since coming to office, Obama said the country “crossed a line” as it struggled to react to the threat of further attacks by al-Qaida. However, he also said it was important “not to feel too sanctimonious”, adding that he believed intelligence officials responsible for torturing detainees were working during a period of extraordinary stress and fear.

Obama’s comments come on the eve of the release of a widely-anticipated Senate report that will criticise the CIA for brutally abusing terrorist suspects in its custody in a covert programme that, the report is expected to conclude, did not yield any life-saving intelligence.

MH17: Australian and Dutch police recover human remains at crash site

A large team of international investigators, including Australian police, have recovered human remains and passenger belongings from the MH17 crash site during their first visit to the area.

An 80-strong Australian and Dutch team spent five hours combing farmland, paddocks and villages in eastern Ukraine in an operation that could last up to 10 days.

While deadly clashes between Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian rebels continued nearby, the recovery mission was not under threat, Australian Federal Police national security specialist Andrew Colvin said. The officers were not armed.

Ebola outbreak ‘moving faster than efforts to control it’, says WHO chief

“This outbreak is moving faster than our efforts to control it,” Margaret Chan, head of the global health body, said on Friday following a crisis meeting in Guinea’s capital of Conakry.

“If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socioeconomic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries.”

Chan added that the longer the virus circulated, the more it became a public risk: “Constant mutation and adaptation are the survival mechanisms of viruses and other microbes. We must not give this virus opportunities to deliver more surprises.”

WHO said the summit “must mark a turning point”. A $100m fund will be used to back an emergency plan by all three countries.

Eric Holder ‘greatly troubled’ by spate of botched executions

Speaking out for the first time since a botched execution in Oklahoma led to a Justice Department investigation, the US attorney general, Eric Holder, said on Thursday that death-row inmates should have the right to know what drugs the state is using to put them to death.

Holder told Gwen Ifill on PBS NewsHour that he is “greatly troubled” by the series of prolonged executions carried out in the US states of Ohio, Oklahoma and most recently Arizona.

  For the state to exercise that greatest of all powers, to end a human life, it seems to me, just on a personal level, that transparency would be a good thing, and to share the information about what chemicals are being used, what drugs are being used,” Holder said during the interview.

Faced with boycotts from drug providers, state prison officials have been scrambling to find new drugs, leading to the use of untried and untested drug cocktails to administer the death penalty.

Eric Garner NYPD chokehold death ruled homicide

The medical examiner has ruled that the chokehold of a police officer on a New York City man last month caused his death.

Medical examiner spokeswoman Julie Bolcer said Friday that Eric Garner’s 17 July death has been ruled a homicide.

Mysterious lake in Tunisian desert turns from turquoise to green sludge

The lake appeared in the Tunisian desert like a mirage; one minute there was nothing but scorching sand, the next a large expanse of turquoise water.

For locals, roasting in the 40C heat, the temptation to cool off in the inviting water quickly overcame any fears about the mysterious pool.

Hundreds flocked to what quickly became known as the Lac de Gafsa or Gafsa beach to splash, paddle, dive, and fling themselves from rocks into the lake, ignoring warnings that the water could be contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals, riddled with disease or possibly radioactive. Even after the water turned a murky green, they arrived in droves, undeterred.

Florida general election in doubt after judge orders districts redrawn

The runup to Florida’s November general election was thrown into chaos on Friday by the latest ruling in a long-running dispute over the legality of the state’s voting districts.

Leon County circuit judge Terry Lewis ordered politicians in Tallahassee to hold a special session to draw up new congressional boundaries, three weeks after he threw out the existing map amid accusations of subversion and secrecy.

Under the new ruling, which is subject to appeal, legislators have two weeks to present their proposals to revise the areas, and then follow the redraw with special elections. If the order stands, it could lead to the postponement or cancellation of the November election in many, if not all of Florida’s 27 congressional districts.

Must Read Blog Posts

White House Finishes Review Of CIA Terror Report: Feinstein Wants To Know Why It’s Basically All Blacked Out by Mike Masnick, Techdirt

Humanity May Face Choice By 2040: Conventional Energy or Drinking Water by Andy Tully of OilPrice, naked capitalism

Is CIA’s Admission of Spying an Effort to Undercut Whistleblowers? by Marcy Wheeler, emptywheel

Why Gaza Is Really Important To Israel by Vegasjessie, Crooks and Liars

When I told you Research had left NJ, I wasn’t making it up by riverdaughter, The Confluence

Hillary Clinton and Trade Deals: That “Giant Sucking Sound” by Lambert Strether of Corrente, naked capitalism

It’s About the Lying by Dan Frommkin, The Intercept

Campbell Brown Won’t Say Who Is Funding Her School Privatizing Group by DSWright, FDL News Desk

NSA Spying Costs U.S. Companies Up To $180 Billion in Lost Overseas Business by Peter van Buren, FDL The Dissenter

The Daily Wiki

Reboot (computing)

In computing, rebooting is the process by which a running computer system is restarted, either intentionally or unintentionally. Reboots can be either cold (alternatively known as hard) whereby the power to the system is physically turned off and back on again, causing an initial boot of the machine, or warm (alternatively known as soft) where the system restarts without the need to interrupt the power. The term restart is used to refer to a reboot when the operating system closes all programs and finalizes all pending input and output operations before initiating a soft reboot.

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

Samuel Johnson

Stupid Shit by LaEscapee

Anomaly

Cross posted at Docudharma and Voices on the Square