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
Charles Lindbergh begins his trans-Atlantic flight; Amelia Earhart starts her trek across the Atlantic; Freedom Riders attacked in the South; Explorer Christopher Columbus, comedienne Gilda Radner die.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.
Breakfast News
Oil spills off California coast after pipeline ruptures
An oil spill in California on Tuesday created a slick in the ocean that stretched for miles near a popular beach.
Santa Barbara County Fire Department spokesman Capt. Dave Zaniboni said the spill began west of Santa Barbara after a pipeline ruptured and has now moved toward Refugio State Beach. The pipeline responsible has been shut off, he said.
A slick stretched for about four miles near Refugio Beach, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Twitter.
LA becomes largest US city to increase minimum wage to $15 an hour
Los Angeles became the largest US city to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour on Tuesday, as a wage increase bill passed the city council by a vote of 14-1.
It is now up to city attorney Mike Feuer to draft an ordinance to implement the new minimum wage requirements. The ordinance will then return to the council for a final vote before becoming law. Under the proposed legislation, the city’s minimum wage would increase to $10.50 in July 2016, and would increase incrementally every year until it reaches $15 in July 2020. For small businesses with 25 or fewer employees, the wage hike would come on a modified schedule with the incremental increases starting in July 2017 and the minimum wage reaching $15 by July 2021.
USA Freedom Act: Senate set to vote on first surveillance restrictions in decades
The Senate majority leader agreed on Tuesday to hold a vote that could deliver the first rollback of US government surveillance on its own citizens in at least a generation, avoiding what appeared to be a looming war in the conservative congressional leadership over landmark – if still limited – reform as a result of the Edward Snowden disclosures.
The Senate will vote this week on the USA Freedom Act, which passed the House of Representatives last week with a vote of 338-88, majority leader Mitch McConnell announced on Tuesday.
The decision represented a rare congressional defeat for US security agencies and a pitched retreat by McConnell and his Senate Republican colleagues, who had preferred to extend existing surveillance law. McConnell faced a 1 June deadline for the expiration of key provisions of the Patriot Act, which the government has used since the George W Bush administration to justify the dragnet collection of domestic phone records.
Tech giants don’t want Obama to give police access to encrypted phone data
Tech behemoths including Apple and Google and leading cryptologists are urging President Obama to reject any government proposal that alters the security of smartphones and other communications devices so that law enforcement can view decrypted data.
In a letter to be sent Tuesday and obtained by The Washington Post, a coalition of tech firms, security experts and others appeal to the White House to protect privacy rights as it considers how to address law enforcement’s need to access data that is increasingly encrypted.
“Strong encryption is the cornerstone of the modern information economy’s security,” said the letter, signed by more than 140 tech companies, prominent technologists and civil society groups.
Lawmakers Back Broader Access to Contraceptives for Women in the Military
Both houses of Congress are moving to guarantee greater access to contraceptives for women in the military, actions that lawmakers say are prompted in part by concern about unplanned pregnancies in the armed forces.
The annual defense policy bill, passed on Friday by the House, says military clinics and hospitals must be able to dispense any method of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Women have complained that they are sometimes unable to obtain contraceptives prescribed by their doctors, especially when they are deployed overseas.
House Approves Short-Term Financing for Highways
The House on Tuesday approved a two-month extension of funding for transportation projects, setting up what could be a defining fight over money for highways and other infrastructure this summer after years of stopgap measures.
The extension, which passed in a 387-to-35 vote with one member voting present, would maintain funding for the Highway Trust Fund through July 31. The bill now goes to the Senate, which has just two legislative days left before a scheduled weeklong Memorial Day recess. The transportation program’s spending authority is set to expire during that break, on May 31.
Air bag defect to trigger largest auto recall in US history
Japanese air bag manufacturer Takata Corp is expected to declare about 33.8m vehicles defective on Tuesday, a move that is expected to lead to the largest auto recall in US history, the Detroit News reported, citing three officials briefed on the announcement.
The company is expected to announce that it has filed a series of four defect information reports with the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), declaring both driver and passenger air bag inflators defective in the vehicles, the report said.
The US Department of Transportation and the NHTSA said earlier that they would make a “major” announcement related to the air bag recall.
Takata had no immediate comment on the report.
Iran Sets Trial Date for Washington Post Reporter Jason Rezaian
Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post correspondent who has been detained in Iran for almost 10 months and accused of spying for the United States, will go on trial on May 26, the judicial authorities told the state news media on Tuesday.
Mr. Rezaian; his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, who is also a journalist; and a third defendant will appear before the Revolutionary Court in what is expected to be a closed proceeding.
Mr. Rezaian is accused of “espionage for the hostile government of the United States of America and propaganda activities against the system,” Mahmoud Razavian, a spokesman for the office of the judiciary, said in an interview with the state-run news agency IRNA.
The remarks are consistent with recent reports in the Iranian news media calling Mr. Rezaian a spy with links to Iranian expatriates in the United States and Europe.
Must Read Blog Posts
Government Seeks ‘Emergency Stay’ of Decision Ordering Release of Thousands of Torture Photos Kevin Gosztola, FDL
Over Easy: WordPress, Disqus and FDLCMaukonen, FDL
A Typology of Corruption for Campaign 2016 and Beyond Lambert Strether, naked capitalism
Our Approaching Tet Moment gjohnsit, caucus99percent
Money, Wealth and Human Existence Big Al, caucus99percent
Congress plots to pay for trade deal by raiding Medicare Gaius Publius, Hullabaloo
NYTimes Exposes Giant Fake Diploma Mill Operating Out Of Pakistan; Company Threatens Everyone With Defamation Mike Masnick, Techdirt
These Are Not The Questions Or Answers They Want Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics
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