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.
AP’s Today in History for May 16th
President Andrew Johnson survives a key vote at his Senate trial after his impeachment; First Oscars are presented; Actor Henry Fonda born; Singer Sammy Davis, Jr. and Muppets creator Jim Henson die.
Breakfast Tune Star Wars: “The Banjo Awakens”
Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below
NSA Tools, Built Despite Warnings, Used in Global Cyber Attack
Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams
Apparent National Security Agency (NSA) malware has been used in a global cyber-attack, including on British hospitals, in what whistleblower Edward Snowden described as the repercussion of the NSA’s reckless decision to build the tools.
“Despite warnings, @NSAGov built dangerous attack tools that could target Western software. Today we see the cost,” Snowden tweeted Friday.
At least two hospitals in London were forced to shut down and stop admitting patients after being attacked by the malware, which operates by locking out the user, encrypting data, and demanding a ransom to release it. The attacks hit dozens of other hospitals, ambulance operators, and doctors’ offices as well. …
Census Director Resigns Amid Budget Crunch That Could Harm Communities of Color
Mike Ludwig, Truthout
The director of the US Census Bureau announced Tuesday that he would resign. The announcement comes amid widespread concerns over the agency’s budget for its decennial 2020 population-counting mission, raising fears among civil rights leaders, who say census data is a crucial tool for ensuring people of color and other marginalized groups receive their fair share of electoral representation and government resources.
Census Bureau Director John H. Thompson will retire on June 30, according to the Commerce Department. Thompson has served as director since 2013, and he spent 27 years at the agency before that.
Thompson’s announcement comes just one week after he faced criticisms from Republicans about the size of his agency’s budget during a congressional committee hearing, and less than a month after Congress allocated a budget for the Census Bureau that advocates say is far below what the agency needs to prepare its 2020 count, one of the government’s largest civilian undertakings. …
Archaeologists uncover 17 mummies in central Egypt
News agencies
Egypt has unearthed an ancient burial site replete with at least 17 mostly intact mummies.
It is the latest in a string of discoveries that the country’s antiquities minister described as a helping hand for its struggling tourism sector.
The necropolis, uncovered eight metres below ground in Minya, a province about 250km south of Cairo, contained limestone and clay sarcophagi, animal coffins and papyrus inscribed with Demotic script. …
West Virginia police officer sues after being fired for not shooting black man
Jamiles Lartey, The Guardian
In the aftermath of the May 2016 police shooting that left 23-year-old RJ Williams dead in Weirton, West Virginia, police officer Stephen Mader was shocked, nervous and scared.
“I was at a loss for what to do,” he told the Guardian.
Mader’s reaction was not to the shooting itself, which he feels he handled with poise and calm. In fact, he did not fire his weapon. It was a fellow officer’s gun that ended Williams’ life.
Mader was dumbstruck to have been handed a notice of termination, which indicated that his failure to shoot Williams, a young black father who was mentally ill, represented grounds for dismissal. …
North Korea test-fires what could be new kind of longer-range missile
Justin McCurry in Tokyo and agencies, The Guardian
North Korea has fired what Japan said could be a new type of missile, in an early diplomatic test for South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-in.
Japan did not specify what type of missile was involved in Sunday’s launch, which came after Pyongyang indicated it was open to talks with the South on its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes.
Moon called the launch a “reckless provocation” after holding an emergency meeting with his national security advisers, adding that it was a “clear violation” of UN security council resolutions banning North Korean missile tests. …
- OBAMA’S DEPORTATION POLICY WAS EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT
Leighton Akio Woodhouse
- Bernie Sanders: Loyal Democrat, Stalwart for Empire
Danny Haiphong
- Someone Made A Sean Spicer Lawn Ornament To Hide ‘Among’ Your Bushes
Cavan Sieczkowski
Something to think about over coffee prozac
Venezuelans prepare fecal cocktails to throw at security forces
Girish Gupta and Christian Veron, Yahoo
CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition protests on Wednesday may be the messiest in a six-week wave of unrest as demonstrators prepare to throw feces at security forces, adding to the customary rocks, petrol bombs and tear gas.
The new tactic has been dubbed the “Poopootov” in a play on the Molotov cocktails often seen at streets protests in Venezuela.
“They have gas; we have excrement,” reads an image floating around social media to advertise Wednesday’s “Shit March.” …
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