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
Former U.S. President Richard Nixon is born; Howard Hughes identifies fake biography; Unmanned probe lands on moon; the Phantom of the Opera becomes the longest running Broadway show.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
Breakfast News
US stocks suffer their worst first week of the year since records began
Happy new year, investors. US stocks have suffered their worst first week of the year since records began.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 6% and 6.2%, respectively, in the biggest ever fall for the first five days of January and the worst for any week since September 2011.
US markets, which have been suffering big falls since Wednesday, continued to decline on Friday despite the release of data showing better than expected US jobs growth in December.
The losses amounted to “more than the estimated US student loan debt and 12% of the US debt”, noted Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones indices.
The US stock declines follow drops in markets across most of the world sparked by renewed concerns about the health of the Chinese economy, the world’s second-largest. This week’s declines wiped more than $2.3tn off the value of global stock markets, according to the S&P Global Broad Market index (BMI).
Guantánamo inmates down to 104 after Kuwaiti’s release – with more to come
The detainee population at Guantánamo Bay has fallen to 104 as a Kuwaiti man held at the infamous wartime prison since May 2002 has returned home.
Faiz Mohammed Ahmed al-Kandari, 38, is the third detainee to leave Guantánamo Bay this week, part of an initiative by Barack Obama expected to get the remaining population in detention significantly below 100.
It is expected that 17 people will be released in January. Two Yemenis, Mahmud Umar Muhammad bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih al-Dhuby, arrived in Ghana on Wednesday.
The new push is intended to help Obama fulfill his long-thwarted pledge to close Guantánamo, which on Monday enters its 14th year of operation.
Former El Salvador official deported from US for human rights abuses
A former El Salvador defense minister has been deported from the US for his role in human rights abuses several decades ago.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Nestor Yglesias said Friday that former general José Guillermo García-Merino was flown on a chartered plane from the US to San Salvador, El Salvador. García-Merino was arrested last month in Florida.
ProPublica launches world’s first major news site for dark web
The US investigative outlet ProPublica has launched the world’s first major news site designed for the dark web in a bid to provide absolute privacy for its readers.
The non-profit organisation has set up a version of its site optimised for use over the Tor network, which provides security all the way between the user and Pro Publica’s servers. Users could already hide their identity using the Tor browser, but the “hidden site” optimised for the network makes it even less likely they will be exposed.
Though some people use the anonymity Tor provides to carry out illegal activity such as buying and selling drugs, it was designed to help activists living under repressive regimes to communicate free of government surveillance.
California surfers take advantage of big El Niño waves
Dozens of big-wave surfers rode 50-foot swells at Mavericks, a famous surf spot in Northern California, as El Niño-driven storms pounded the California coast on Friday.
Mavericks, along the San Mateo County coast, is known to form some of the biggest and most dangerous waves in the world, and is home to the Titans of Mavericks big wave competition.
“These are some of the biggest waves I’ve seen at Mavericks in three years, and yesterday I caught what was probably a 25-foot wave,” said Travis Payne, 31, a professional big-wave surfer from nearby Pacifica.
Breakfast Blogs
At This Point, Rahm Emanuel Is Basically a David Simon Character Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics
Millennials Increasingly Using Payday Lenders And Pawnshops Dan Wright, ShadowProof
A little Friday night picker upper digby, Hullabaloo
Still No Honor Among Thieves driftglass, driftglass
Hellraisers Journal: Mine Owners Seek to Oust Governor Hunt of Arizona Who Stands with the Miners JayRaye, caucus99percent
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