The Breakfast Club (Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key)

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.

Breakfast Tune: Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key – Billy Bragg & Wilco (Banjo Cover)

Today in History

President Franklin Roosevelt dies; The American Civil War begins with the attack on Ft. Sumter; Yuri Gagarin is the first man to fly in space; Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off on its first mission; Late night TV host David Letterman born. (April 12)

Breakfast News & Blogs Below

Hundreds attend funeral of black South Carolina man shot by police

Reuters

The killing reignited debate over disproportionate police violence against minorities

…

Hundreds of mourners, including prominent South Carolina politicians, attended the funeral Saturday of Walter Scott, an black father of four who was shot in the back while running from a white patrolman.

The body of the slain Coast Guard veteran, whose death was caught on a bystander’s video, was carried in a flag-draped casket past the crowd assembled outside the W.O.R.D. Ministries Christian Center in Summerville, north of North Charleston, where the shooting took place on April 4. …

California deputies placed on leave after video of violent arrest

Wire services

A California sheriff has placed 10 deputies on paid administrative leave after an area TV station recorded a violent arrest that he says appeared to be excessive force.

San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon announced the action Friday in the aftermath of the arrest of Francis Pusok, who fled by car and then on a stolen horse when deputies tried to serve a search warrant in an identity-theft investigation Thursday.

McMahon says an internal investigation into the incident has begun. In addition, two criminal investigations have begun – one into Pusok’s actions and the other into the deputies’ actions. …

New Mexico Ends ‘Policing for Profit’

Phillip Smith / AlterNet

In a historic move, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) today signed into law a bill that will end civil asset forfeiture by law enforcement in the state, a practice widely known as “policing for profit.” The measure is House Bill 560.

Under civil asset forfeiture, police and prosecutors can seize someone’s property without ever charging them with a crime, let alone convicting them. Police can then funnel many of those assets, including cash seizures, back to their own departments, creating a vicious cycle of more profit-driven law enforcement providing more resources to law enforcement for more profit-driven law enforcement.

“This is a good day for the Bill of Rights,” said ACLU-NM Executive Director Peter Simonson. “For years police could seize people’s cash, cars, and houses without even accusing anyone of a crime. Today, we have ended this unfair practice in New Mexico and replaced it with a model that is just and constitutional.” …

Georgia prison officials change transgender policy, seek dismissal of lawsuit

Michael Doyle, McClatchy

Georgia Department of Corrections officials on Friday sought to dismiss a transgender inmate’s lawsuit, citing new changes in the state’s policies regarding hormone treatments for prisoners.

Pressured by the Justice Department’s intervention last week in the case brought by inmate Ashley Diamond, Georgia officials earlier this week announced they would no longer automatically deny new hormone treatments. Officials also revealed they had begun providing treatments to Diamond.

“The challenged policy has been rescinded and is no longer in force,” Georgia’s Assistant Attorney General Deborah Nolan Gore stated in a legal brief filed Friday. …

• Keep it in the ground campaign, The Guardian
  
  Alan Rusbridger
• Your Annual Reminder that if America Does It, It’s Not as Bad as if Russia Does It
  
  Ian Welsh
• John Oliver Takes on Surveillance Reform
  
  TMC
• Iranians Are Much Talked About on Sunday Morning TV, But Never Heard From
  
  Glenn Greenwald

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac:

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

Franklin D. Roosevelt