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 September 3rd
Britain and France declare war on Nazi Germany; The Treaty of Paris ends the American Revolution; Bloody end to the Beslan hostage crisis in Russia; Viking 2 lands on Mars; NFL coach Vince Lombardi dies. (Sept. 3)
Breakfast Tune Life On Mars (David Bowie) Covered by Taylor Pfeiffer The Banjo Girl
Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below
North Korea says conducts ‘perfect’ hydrogen bomb test
Jack Kim, Soyoung Kim, Reuters
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sunday, which it said was an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile, marking a dramatic escalation of the regime’s stand-off with the United States and its allies.
The announcement from Pyongyang came a few hours after international seismic agencies detected a manmade earthquake near the North’s test site, which Japanese and South Korean officials said was around 10 times more powerful than the tremor picked up after its last nuclear test a year ago.
There was no independent confirmation that the detonation, which drew swift international condemnation, was a hydrogen bomb rather than a less powerful atomic device. …
Thousands of Rohingya flee Myanmar amid tales of ethnic cleansing
Jacob Judah, The Guardian
Gunfire and explosions crackle in the hills. Plumes of smoke from burning villages streak the monsoon-grey sky. Refugees fleeing for their lives are pouring into Bangladesh over the Myanmar border as the conflict between Myanmar security forces and Rohingya militias escalates and risks spiralling into a humanitarian disaster.
The refugees say their villages are being raided and burned. They tell stories of the indiscriminate killing of civilians at the hands of security forces and Buddhist nationalists. Since 25 August, more than 18,500 Rohingya, a largely Muslim ethnic group, have fled into Bangladesh from Rakhine state. However, UN sources say they believe the true figure is closer to 28,000. And Bangladeshi aid workers claimed on Saturday that 70,000 – almost 10% of the Rohingya population – had crossed in less than 24 hours. “This is a new dimension,” said Adil Sakhawat, a journalist with the Dhaka Tribune.
Dozens of rickety shelters dot the fields surrounding the town of Gundum, where Rohingya refugees first started arriving last week. Goats and chickens that were brought across by the refugees dart between the muddy feet of old women and small children soaked by the monsoon rains. …
‘Your eyes start itching’: pollution soars in Houston after chemical industry leaks
Oliver MilmanThe Guardian
Hurricane Harvey has resulted in Houston’s petrochemical industry leaking thousands of tons of pollutants, with communities living near plants damaged by the storm exposed to soaring levels of toxic fumes and potential water contamination.
Refineries and chemical plants have reported more than 2,700 tons, or 5.4m pounds, of extra air pollution due to direct damage from the hurricane as well as the preventive shutting down of facilities, which causes a spike in released toxins.
On Friday, ozone levels in south-west Houston were nearly three times higher than the national standard, triggering one of Texas’s worst recent smogs. Scientists warned that people outside cleaning up in the aftermath of Harvey were vulnerable to the poor air, particularly the elderly, children and those with asthma. …
Kamala Harris joins with Bernie Sanders to back ‘Medicare-for-all’ health care bill
Angela Hart
OAKLAND U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris on Wednesday told a crowd of mostly liberal activists that she plans to co-sponsor a “Medicare-for-all” bill pushed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders that would create a national health insurance system.
Hundreds of people who packed the Beebe Memorial Cathedral church roared and cheered in applause when Harris said she’d “break some news” about her plans. Harris posted on Twitter shortly after that she intends to “co-sponsor the Medicare for All bill because it’s just the right thing to do.”
The term is synonymous with single-payer health care, a system in which the government organizes health care financing, ending the need for insurance companies. …
- 6 Examples of Fake News About Antifa
Kali Holloway
- Data Manipulators: Team Clinton Still Blaming Sanders for Trump
MICHAEL J. SAINATO
Something to think about over coffee prozac
Giant puppet takes on worries stuffed into “gloom box”
Morgan Lee,Associated Press
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — High anxiety about White House politics, hurricane flooding and even the threat of nuclear war with North Korea is adding an extra spark to the annual burning of a giant, ghostly marionette that serves as an effigy to gloom and doom.
The ritual burning of Zozobra was attracting tens of thousands of revelers Friday to a Santa Fe city park for a mixture of wholesome and ghoulish fun.
Inside the six-story puppet are reams of crumpled, handwritten notes about recent troubles and travails that people hope to leave behind. Worries this year included a combustible mix of disenchantment with politics and preoccupation over natural and manmade disasters.
In preparation for the burning, Holly Garcia, a 39-year-old homemaker stuffed several notes into a slotted “gloom box” at a shopping center.
The first was about a hospitalized sister and a brother recovering from brain surgery. Then came a note about the U.S. president, and a hand-scrawled prayer for friends and former neighbors besieged by floods in League City, Texas — a community sandwiched between Houston and the Gulf of Mexico.
“I put down, ‘Get rid of Donald Trump!'” said Garcia, while still counting her blessings. “I’m very blessed personally, my immediate family.”
Yinka Adeniji, a 40-year-old technology consultant, said he wanted to join others in washing away all internal feelings of bad will — and also perhaps get rid of an inept U.S. political system and start from scratch.
“I think it’s going to take a lot more than Zozobra,” he said. “We’re a country that doesn’t want to care for its people.”
The invention of Will Shuster — a painter from Philadelphia who migrated to the Southwest — Zozobra was first built and ignited in 1924, adding a madcap celebration to a Santa Fe’s weeklong community “fiestas” that include historic and religious processions. The festival’s name was derived from a Spanish word for anguish.
Modern pyrotechnics have transformed the nighttime burning, now preceded by hours of live music and performances on an adjacent stage. A team of a dozen puppeteers heaves on cords to flex the groaning marionette’s arms, head and jaw.
The spectacle appeals to people’s “better angels” in a year marked by disaster and political upheaval, said Ray Sandoval, who organizes Zozobra for the local Kiwanis Club to raise money for youth charities.
He spied credit card bills and a paid-off mortgage papers among the messages in the Zozobra stuffing this year — along with worries about nuclear war.
“We’re getting a lot of political messages to be quite honest,” Sandoval said. “People are really worried about the path of the country and their leadership. There are a lot of them that are more hopeful for the country.”
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