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
Highlights of this day in history: the funeral of Jordan’s King Hussein; Premiere of ‘The Birth of a Nation’; a South Carolina civil rights protest turns deadly; the Boy Scouts of America is incorporated; actor James Dean born.
Breakfast Tunes
Happy Birthday, John Williams
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.
Breakfast News
Laws written by men to protect women deserve scrutiny, Supreme Court told
History holds a lesson for the Supreme Court, the brief warns: Be skeptical of laws protecting women that are written by men.
The nation’s past is littered with such statutes, say the historians who filed the friend-of-the-court brief, and the motives were suspect.
Some protected women from “the embarrassment of hearing filthy evidence” as members of a jury, a sheltering instinct that resulted in female defendants being judged by panels composed only of men.
North Korea rocket launch: UN security council condemns latest violation
The United Nations security council has condemned North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket, after an emergency meeting in New York and calls by the US, South Korea and Japan for talks on how to respond to the isolated country’s latest action.
The 15 council members unanimously approved a statement that stressed how any launch of ballistic missile technology, “even if characterised as a satellite launch or space launch vehicle”, contributes to North Korea’s development of systems to deliver nuclear weapons.
World leaders have warned of serious consequences after North Korea launched the rocket on Sunday morning in defiance of international sanctions banning it from using ballistic missile technology.
Haiti’s President steps down, leaving no successor
Haitian President Michel Martelly has stepped down from office, leaving the nation with no successor after elections marred by allegations of fraud were postponed twice.
Martelly, who leaves the post after five years in office, delivered a farewell address to Haiti’s National Assembly on Sunday.
Two presidential runoffs in October and December were postponed amid security concerns and “because such large swatches of Haitian society had rejected the election,” explains Jake Johnston, research associate for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, who is currently in Port-au-Prince.
Brazil in full carnival swing despite spread of Zika virus
One of the most significant health scares in recent history is not keeping Brazilians from their annual carnival revelry, with millions taking to the streets despite the spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus.
Street processions, block parties and the televised, big-budget parades that are the hallmark of the festival moved into their second day on Sunday, even as Brazilian health officials continued to grapple with an outbreak that may have infected as many as 1.5 million people and could be linked to serious health conditions in more than 4,000 infants and unborn children.
Pet Food Pantries Offer Relief to Animal Owners Struggling With Bills
Cookie, a snow-white pit bull with light gray spots, knows the hand that feeds her. She has become a regular visitor at a new pet food pantry in the Bronx that sends free Costco-size bags of kibble home with owners who may not have enough money to feed themselves, let alone their animals.
Animal Care Centers of NYC, a nonprofit that runs the city’s animal shelters, opened this pet food pantry in December, and in the first month alone, the pantry gave out more than 2,000 pounds of food for 71 dogs and 50 cats.
Across the country, the pet food pantry is the latest addition to the food banks, soup kitchens and homeless shelters that serve as a lifeline for people living paycheck to paycheck, if they are employed at all. A small but growing number of dedicated pantries have sprung up, often in response to pleas from people who see their pets as family and spend their last dollar on a can of Purina, even if it means going hungry themselves.
Net Neutrality Again Puts F.C.C. General Counsel at Center Stage
Every day for one month last fall, Jonathan Sallet, the general counsel at the Federal Communications Commission, sneaked into a small, windowless office at the agency, its location undisclosed except to senior staff.
From 6 a.m. until early evening, with Bach streaming in the background, he worked mostly alone, marking up stacks of law books and standing in front of a lectern. His job: Defend in court the F.C.C.’s most contentious policy — rules to classify broadband Internet providers as utilities, widely called net neutrality.
“I did nothing for one month but prepare,” Mr. Sallet said in an interview. “I talked a lot to the wall.”
His arguments, though — like nearly all of his actions for the agency — have had far-reaching reverberations.
Breakfast Blogs
The One Word Hillary Needs to Reckon with Before She Can Be President Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics
Hillary’s Flint Gambit emtywheel aka Marcy Wheeler, emptywheel
In paper of Record, Hagiography Begins Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog
The Democratic Primary miracle: Why Sanders vs. Clinton is just the beginning David Dayen, Salon
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