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 31st
Martin Luther leads start of Protestant Reformation; President Lyndon B. Johnson halts U.S. bombing of North Vietnam; India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi assassinated; Magician Harry Houdini dies.
Breakfast Tune Spawn of Possession – Church of Deviance (Banjo cover w/ solo)
Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below
THE DIALYSIS INDUSTRY IS SPENDING $111 MILLION TO ARGUE THAT REGULATING IT WOULD PUT IT OUT OF BUSINESS
David Dayen, The Intercept
THERE’S A NEW winner for the coveted title of most expensive ballot initiative campaign in American history. And it’s a race that’s been waged completely under the national radar.
In California, the dialysis industry has spent a record $111.4 million to oppose Proposition 8, which would cap what outpatient clinics can charge patients. Of that sum, $101 million comes from just two for-profit companies, Fresenius and DaVita, which serve around three-quarters of all dialysis patients in California and roughly the same portion nationwide.
The industry’s aggressive spending undercuts its core message in the campaign, that capping profits would lead to mass closures of dialysis clinics, threatening access to treatment. It’s easier to pull off such a plea of poverty when you don’t have $111 million available for television ads, mailers, and other campaign spending.
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- A BILLIONAIRE-BACKED DEMOCRAT IS FACING OFF AGAINST A DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST IN BERKELEY. AND IT’S GETTING ROUGH.
Lee Fang, Leighton Akio Woodhouse
- It’s No Surprise Some Young Folks Won’t Vote
RACHELLE HAMPTON
- Neoliberalism is dead. Now let’s repair our democratic institutionsAustralian politics
Richard Denniss
Something to think about over coffee prozac
Indian couple fell to deaths from Yosemite cliff while taking selfie, brother says
Associated Press
An Indian husband and wife who fell to their deaths from a popular overlook at Yosemite national park in California were apparently taking a selfie, the man’s brother said on Tuesday.
Park rangers recovered the bodies of Vishnu Viswanath, 29, and Meenakshi Moorthy, 30, on Thursday about 800ft (245 meters) below Taft Point, where visitors can walk to the edge of a vertigo-inducing granite ledge that doesn’t have a railing.
Viswanath – who Cisco India said was a software engineer at the company’s headquarters in San Jose, California – and Moorthy had set up their tripod near the ledge on Tuesday evening, Viswanath’s brother, Jishnu Viswanath, told the Associated Press.
Park visitors the next morning saw the camera and alerted rangers, who “used high-powered binoculars to find them and used helicopters to airlift the bodies”, he said.
In an eerie coincidence, a man who had hiked to the same spot with his girlfriend captured pictures of Moorthy before her fall, saying she accidentally appeared in the background of two of their selfie photos.
Sean Matteson said Moorthy stood out from the crowd enjoying the sunset atop Taft Point last week because her hair was dyed bright pink and that she made him a little nervous because he felt she was standing too close to the edge.
“She was very close to the edge, but it looked like she was enjoying herself,” said Matteson, who lives in Oakland, California. “She gave me the willies. There aren’t any railings. I was not about to get that close to the edge. But she seemed comfortable. She didn’t seem like she was in distress or anything.”
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Bonus Tune Halloween Theme on Banjo
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