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
US to launch strikes in Syria, expand Iraq campaign against Islamic State
President Obama says he will send nearly 500 more US troops to Iraq, aiming to ‘degrade and ultimately destroy’ IS
President Barack Obama in a major reversal ordered the United States into a broad military campaign Wednesday night to “degrade and ultimately destroy” Islamic State fighters in two volatile Middle East nations, authorizing airstrikes inside Syria for the first time as well as an expansion of strikes in Iraq.
In an address to the nation, Obama also announced he was dispatching nearly 500 more U.S. troops to Iraq to assist that country’s besieged security forces. And he called on Congress to authorize a program to train and arm rebels in Syria who are fighting both the Islamic State group and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Saudi Arabia, a crucial U.S. ally in the Middle East, offered to host the training missions, part of Obama’s effort to persuade other nations to join with the U.S. in confronting the Islamic State.
Explosion in Syria kills senior leadership of Ahrar al-Sham
he senior leadership of one of the most influential Syrian rebel organisations has been wiped out in a devastating blast that is likely to greatly diminish the group as a fighting force.
The blast killed at least 12 senior leaders of Ahrar al-Sham, including its leader, Hassan Abboud, when it hit a meeting where the group had gathered in Syria’s northern Idlib province, near the Turkish border.
The cause of the explosion remained unexplained almost a day later, with some Ahrar al-Sham members insisting a rival group had been responsible, while others claimed an explosion had mistakenly taken place in an adjoining ammunition base.he senior leadership of one of the most influential Syrian rebel organisations has been wiped out in a devastating blast that is likely to greatly diminish the group as a fighting force.
The blast killed at least 12 senior leaders of Ahrar al-Sham, including its leader, Hassan Abboud, when it hit a meeting where the group had gathered in Syria’s northern Idlib province, near the Turkish border.
The cause of the explosion remained unexplained almost a day later, with some Ahrar al-Sham members insisting a rival group had been responsible, while others claimed an explosion had mistakenly taken place in an adjoining ammunition base.
Highway shutdown averted at Ferguson protests
A planned highway shutdown fell through Wednesday as a wall of officers in riot gear kept Ferguson police shooting protesters from walking onto Interstate 70 in a nearby St. Louis suburb during the late afternoon commute.
State troopers and St. Louis city and county officers warned the roughly 150 demonstrators who gathered to stay out of the road as they protested last month’s shooting of Michael Brown, a black, unarmed 18-year-old, by a white officer. There were nearly as many officers as demonstrators.
Organizers said the protest in Berkeley was designed as an act of nonviolent civil disobedience similar to a 1999 demonstration in the same location. During that protest, hundreds of people shut down the interstate in a dispute over minority hiring for road construction projects.
‘Nipplegate’ dethroned by net neutrality at top of FCC’s comments list
Move over, Janet Jackson: America is officially more concerned with the future of the internet than with your nipple.
After a day of protest against Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposals for regulating the internet that was coordinated by some of the world’s largest tech companies, the agency announced on Wednesday it had received a record 1,477,301 public comments about the proposals since July.
The previous record of 1.4 million was set in 2004 when an alleged “wardrobe malfunction” during the halftime show at the Super Bowl led to Jackson’s breast (plus nipple shield) being flashed to an audience of 111 million. [..]
The number of submissions is likely to rise even higher before a Monday deadline for public comments on the FCC proposals, which are a result of chairman Tom Wheeler’s being forced to rewrite the rules on net neutrality after a federal court tossed the agency’s previous set.
Ray Rice video ‘was sent to NFL five months ago’
A video showing the former NFL star Ray Rice punching his then-fiancée was received by the league five months ago, according to the law enforcement officer who claims to have sent it, piling fresh pressure on beleaguered officials who claim they did not know of it before this week.
The unnamed law enforcer played to the Associated Press a 12-second voicemail from an NFL office number on 9 April confirming the video arrived. A female voice expressed thanks and said: “You’re right. It’s terrible.”
The report on Wednesday appeared to contradict NFL claims that its executives had not seen the footage – and thus did not suspend Rice – until the website TMZ posted the video this week, causing a nationwide furore.
High-tech imaging reveals hidden Stonehenge
There is more to Stonehenge than meets a visitor’s eye.
Researchers have produced digital maps of what’s beneath the World Heritage Site, using ground-penetrating radar, high-resolution magnetometers and other techniques to peer deep into the soil beneath the famous stone circle.
The project produced detailed maps of 17 previously unknown ritual monuments and a huge timber building, which is thought to have been used for burial ceremonies, Birmingham University said Wednesday.
“New monuments have been revealed, as well as new types of monument that have previously never been seen by archaeologists,” said Professor Vincent Gaffney, the project leader.
Scientists: ‘Extreme’ solar storm heading to Earth
An extreme solar flare is blasting its way to Earth and could mess up some power grids, satellites and radio transmissions, scientists say.
It’s been several years since Earth has had a solar storm of this size coming from sunspots smack in the middle of the sun, said Tom Berger, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.
Solar storms happen often, especially during peaks in the solar cycle, and don’t directly harm people. But what makes this one more worrisome is its location on the sun along with its strength, he said.
“There’s been a giant magnetic explosion on the sun,” Berger said. “Because it’s pointed right at us, we’ll at least catch some of the cloud” of highly energized and magnetized plasma that can disrupt Earth’s magnetic sphere, which sometimes leads to temporary power grid problems.
Forecasters don’t yet know when Wednesday’s solar storm will arrive here and which part of the planet will be facing the sun and bear the brunt of the effects. It could arrive as early as Thursday morning or may take a few days.
Bond villain actor Kiel dies aged 74
Actor Richard Kiel – who played steel-toothed villain Jaws in two James Bond films – has died in California aged 74.
The towering American star, who appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977 and Moonraker in 1979, died in hospital in Fresno on Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for Saint Agnes Medical Center confirmed Kiel’s death, but did not reveal the cause.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford diagnosed with tumor
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who gained global notoriety after a well-publicized battle with addiction, was admitted to hospital with a tumor in his abdomen on Wednesday, throwing his campaign for re-election into doubt.
Ford went to a Toronto hospital, complaining of abdominal pains that had lasted three months and worsened over the past day, a hospital official told reporters.
“Examination and investigation today revealed that he has a tumor,” Dr. Rueben Devlin, the hospital’s president said at a news conference in the north Toronto facility. “It’s not a small tumor (but) the size is not as relevant as what it is.
“It’s been going on for greater than three months, but today it became unbearable for him.”
Devlin said tests to determine the nature of the tumor will be done this week, including a biopsy to see if the tumor is malignant and whether it has spread.
Must Read Blog Posts
Americans Now Fear ISIS Sleeper Cells Are Living in the U.S., Overwhelmingly Support Military Action Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
The Almost-Nonexistent Congressional Restraint Caucus Dan Froomkin, The Intercept
The Twenty-Eight Pages Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker
Never Forget … Countries from Around the World Admit They Use False Flag Terror George Washington, Wshiangton’s Blog
Recognizing 9/11 as an evil US CRIME: an analogy Carl Herman, Washington’s Blog
Climate & Capitalism: Hung for a Sheep as for a Lamb Cassiodorus, My FDL
“Let’s Bomb Syria” Version 2 Is Working; Why Did Version 1 Fail? Jim White, emptywheel
USA Freedom Act’s So-Called “Transparency” Provisions Enable Illegal Domestic Surveillance Marcy Wheeler, emptywheel
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Something Atrios said
This time we’ll give all the weapons to the right people.
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