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
A pivotal battle in the American Revolution; President James Garfield dies; Bruno Hauptmann arrested in the Lindbergh baby case; Unabomber’s manifesto published; ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’ premieres.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
Breakfast News
Japan set to pass security bills despite widespread protests
Japan is expected to pass controversial security bills on Friday that critics say could herald the biggest shift in its defence policy for half a century, despite public anger that has seen tens of thousands protest.
The bills are expected to be passed in the upper house controlled by prime minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition after days of fraught debates that at times descended into scuffles, tears and tantrums.
Opposition lawmakers tried every delaying tactic at their disposal, even resorting to physically blocking a vote in a special committee, but it now looks like all of their options have been exhausted.
The controversial laws have seen tens of thousands take to the streets in almost daily rallies for the past few weeks, in a show of public anger on a scale rarely seen in Japan.
Report: Mexican police capture suspect in disappearance and deaths of students
Mexican police have reportedly captured a drug trafficker who the government has said ordered the disappearance and incineration of 43 student teachers after he mistook their presence in his territory for an incursion by a rival drug gang.
The arrest – widely reported in local media and expected to be officially confirmed at a press conference scheduled for Thursday evening – comes at a time when the government is struggling to establish the credibility of its investigation into what happened to the students.
Local media said Gildardo Lopez, nicknamed El Gil, was arrested in the tourist town of Taxco, about 20 miles from the city of Iguala from where the teachers went missing on 26 September 2014, after being first attacked and then arrested by municipal police.
Stop protecting peacekeepers who rape, Ban Ki-moon tells UN member states
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, has called on countries whose soldiers are responsible for rape and sexual exploitation on peacekeeping missions to stop covering for their crimes and put them on trial.
Ban said sexual violence by peacekeepers was “a number one priority” after a series of severely embarrassing revelations of rape and exploitation, often involving children.
UN officials acknowledge that the organisation has failed sufficiently to address the issue, in part because of the threat by some countries to pull their peacekeepers out of UN operations if they are publicly named and shamed.
Markets unsettled by Federal Reserve decision to hold interest rates
Stock markets fell sharply on both sides of the Atlantic on Friday after the US Federal Reserve backed away from raising interest rates, and blamed the weaker global economic outlook.
The German and French indices both shed over 3%, while the FTSE 100 fell by 105 points or 1.7% by mid afternoon.
Wall Street then joined the sell-off, with the Dow Jones industrial average dropping by 1.5% or 255 points to 16,418 at the open.
Investors were disconcerted by unexpectedly dovish comments by Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen on Thursday night.
Skeletons of 200 Napoleonic troops found in Germany
The skeletons of 200 French soldiers who were fighting for Napoléon Bonaparte in 1813 have been found during construction work in Frankfurt, Germany, according to local officials.
“We estimate that about 200 people were buried here,” Olaf Cunitz, the city’s head of town planning, said on Thursday, talking at the site in Frankfurt’s western Rödelheim district. He said they were probably soldiers from the Grande Armée returning from Russia in 1813.
The French troops had fought battles that claimed 15,000 lives around Frankfurt in October of that year, Cunitz said.
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Must Read Blog Posts
Maine’s Governor Worries About Snowmobile-Riding Welfare Queens
DOJ Threatens to Invoke State Secrets Over Something Released in FOIA
When Is Assassination Not Assassination? When the Government Says So Nick Turse, The Intercept
U.S. Wrongly Argues Verizon Wireless’ Participation In NSA Program Is Classified Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter @ ShadowProof
Not The Nukes: What Israel Fears Most About Iran Mnar Muhawesh, Community @ ShadowProof
FCC: Sorry, No — Net Neutrality Does Not Violate ISPs’ First Amendment Rights Karl Bode, Techdirt
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