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 April 24th
An aborted mission to free American hostages in Iran ends in disaster; Ireland’s ‘Easter Rising’ begins; Armenians face mass deportation during World War I; Singer Barbra Streisand born.
Breakfast Tune The Foggy Dew, Irish Rebel Song, Sung by Andy Alexis with Banjo
Something to Think about, Breakfast News & Blogs Below
As Obama Pushes Corporate Trade Deal, 90,000 March Against TTIP in Germany
Jon Queally
On the eve of a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Germany on Saturday to voice emphatic opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement (TTIP), a deal they argue benefits global capitalism and corporate elites at the expense of the public good and local democracy.
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On Thursday, a YouGov poll showed only 17 percent of Germans support passage of the deal, down from 55 percent just two years ago.
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With a focus on Obama’s arrival, one group dropped a large banner in the city reading “Yes We Can — Stop TTIP!” – utilizing the president’s famous 2008 campaign slogan. …
Dutch journalist arrested in Turkey for criticising Erdoğan
Agence France-Presse in Ankara
A Dutch journalist was arrested early on Sunday at her home in Turkey for tweets deemed critical of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, according to her Twitter account.
“Police at the door. No joke,” wrote Ebru Umar, a well-known atheist and feminist journalist of Turkish origin.
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Umar recently wrote a piece critical of Erdoğan for the Dutch daily Metro, extracts of which she then tweeted, leading to her arrest.“I’m not free, we’re going to the hospital” for a medical examination before being taken to face prosecutors, she said in a second tweet as she left her home in Kușadası, a resort town in western Turkey. …
Britain says can’t rule out sending troops to Libya
William James
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Sunday that he could not rule out sending troops to Libya if requested to do so by the Libyan government, but that any deployment would need to be approved by parliament.
Western powers are backing a new Libyan unity government, hoping it will seek foreign support to confront Islamic State militants, deal with migrant flows from Libya to Europe and restore oil production to shore up Libya’s economy.
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Last week Hammond told parliament there were no plans to send combat troops to Libya, responding to media reports that British special forces were already operating in the country. …
- How Facebook plans to take over the world
Olivia Solon
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Fox uses stuffed armadillo to persuade viewers ‘there’s nothing to worry about with global warming’
David Edwards
Fox News on Sunday invited self-styled climate expert Marc Morano to explain how a stuffed armadillo could prove that climate change was a hoax.
“This is significant,” Morano said after revealing a stuffed armadillo in a cage. “The armadillo was the only animal that was used a mascot for global cooling in the 1970s… It’s not a mascot for global warming. They’re claiming the armadillo is migrating north to get out of the heat.”
“With global warming, they have a learning curve,” he insisted. “They’re trying to go much further in the future when the people making the predictions will be dead.”
According to Fox News host Steve Doocy, climate activists like Prince Charles sounded “like Jack Bauer, we’re running out of time.”
“As it turns out, we didn’t run out of time,” he quipped.
“There’s nothing to worry about with global warming,” Morano agreed. “So say the top scientists around the world.”