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 October 17th
Arab oil embargo fuels energy crisis; Americans clinch revolutionary victory at Saratoga; Deadly quake hits northern California; Mobster Al Capone convicted of tax evasion; Playwright Arthur Miller born.
Breakfast Tune Saratoga-Reel
Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below
The Washington Post, as It Shames Others, Continues to Pay and Publish Undisclosed Saudi Lobbyists and Other Regime Propagandists
Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
IN THE WAKE of the disappearance and likely murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, some of the most fervent and righteous voices demanding that others sever their ties with the Saudi regime have, understandably, come from his colleagues at that paper. “Why do you work for a murderer?,” asked the Post’s long-time Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt, addressing unnamed hypothetical Washington luminaries who continue to take money to do work for the despots in Riyadh, particularly Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, or “MbS” as he has been affectionately known in the western press.
Hiatt urged these hypothetical figures to engage in serious self-reflection: “Can I possibly work for such a regime, and still look at myself in the mirror each morning?” That, said Hiatt, “is the question that we, as a nation, must ask ourselves now.”
But to find those for whom this question is directly relevant, Hiatt need not invoke his imagination or resort to hypotheticals. He can instead look to a place far more concrete and proximate: his own staff. Because it is there – on the roster of the Washington Post’s own columnists and Contributing Writers – that one can find, still, those who maintain among the closest links to the Saudi regime and have the longest and most shameful history of propagandizing on their behalf.
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- Britain fell for a neoliberal con trick – even the IMF says so
Aditya Chakrabortty
- The Federal Reserve is Not a Church
DEAN BAKER
- Humanitarian Bombs
DAVID SWANSON
Something to think about over coffee prozac
As US Secretary of State Meets With Saudis Over Khashoggi Murder, People Asking Pompeo: ‘What Are You Smiling About?’
Jon Queally, Common Dreams
With unconfirmed reports swirling that the Saudis are going to finally admit what the world has a surmised for over a week and what Turkish authorities have alleged from the outset—that journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by a ‘hit team’ inside the Saudi consulate building in Istanbul two weeks ago—many people are asking this question on Tuesday morning: What is US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo so happy about in images and video footage that showed him meeting with high-level members of the Royal Family, including King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS).
As the disappearance and likely murder of Khashoggi has forced the U.S. government into the uncomfortable position of having to face critics about its cozy relationship with the Saudis, President Donald Trump has been working the refs on behalf of the King Salman while dispatching Pompeo to Riyadh for face to face meetings and to perform his duties as a public relations specialist for the U.S. empire.
As journalist Aaron Rupar for ThinkProgress noted Tuesday morning, “Pompeo is there to ‘investigate’ a brutal murder, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him.”
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