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.
This Day in History
Breakfast News
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John Kerry Warns Israel Could Become Apartheid State if Peace Talks Fail
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, has warned in a closed-door meeting that Israel risks becoming an “apartheid state” if US-sponsored efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement fail.
In an apparent sign of Kerry’s deep frustration over the almost certain collapse of the current nine-month round of peace talks – due to conclude on Tuesday – he blamed both sides for the lack of progress and said failure could lead to a resumption of Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens.
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How the Creation of Social Justice Caucuses in Unions Is Revitalizing an Aging Labor Movement
Earlier this month at the Labor Notes Conference, rank and file labor leaders announced for the first time the creation of the Network for Social Justice Unionism (NSJU), a new infrastructure that unionists concerned with advancing social justice beyond the workplace hope to use to organize for a shift in the way the labor movement operates.
The NSJU seeks to encourage the creation of social justice caucuses in union locals across the nation and to establish working relationships between those caucuses to be able to support each other’s struggles. Together, these caucuses hope to create an movement inside of organized labor that pushes union leaders across the country to do more to see that union power benefits not just workers themselves, but also the communities that unions are embedded in and rely upon.
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Wall Street’s Outrageous Pension Swindle
In the national debate over what to do about public pension shortfalls, here’s something you may not know: The texts of the agreements signed between those pension funds and financial firms are almost always secret. Yes, that’s right. Although they are public pensions that taxpayers contribute to and that public officials oversee, the exact terms of the financial deals being engineered in the public’s name and with public money are typically not available to you, the taxpayer.
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The NRA Has Declared War on America
LaPierre’s bleak vision is exaggerated dystopianism in service of sedition, a wide-ranging survey of targets that put justice against the intrusions of the IRS on a continuum with (as an advertisement he ran during his speech put it) workplace “bullies and liars”.
Talk about mission creep. At its convention in 1977, the NRA rejected its history as a club for hunters and marksmen and embraced activism on behalf Second Amendment absolutism. Rejecting background checks and allowing “convicted violent felons, mentally deranged people, violently addicted to narcotics” easier access to guns was, said the executive vice president that year, “a price we pay for freedom.” In 2014, 500 days after Newtown and after a year of repeated legislative and judicial victories, the NRA has explicitly expanded its scope to the culture at large.
The NRA is no longer concerned with merely protecting the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms – the gun lobby wants to use those arms on its fellow citizens. Or, as the NRA thinks of them: “the bad guys”.
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This is the solar eclipse today! There’s a “ring of fire” in the sky! 5 things you should know about tomorrow’s epic solar eclipse
Earlier this month, stargazers all over the world witnessed a relatively uncommon astronomical phenomenon called the “blood moon,” in which the sun’s light was blocked by the Earth in an atypical way, causing the moon to appear a creepy shade of crimson. Tomorrow morning, portions of the Southern Hemisphere will be able to see something even weirder.
The first solar eclipse of 2014 is upon us, and this one will be a doozy. When people residing in Australia or (somewhat less likely) in Antarctica look up at the sky early Tuesday, what they’ll see is a “ring of fire.”
Here’s what you need to know:
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Must Read Blog Posts
Guardian, Wheeler Revisit “Hemisphere”: Massive, Secret U.S. Phone Dragnet Co-Funded by WH
Now That Solar Capacity Is Soaring-Koch Brothers Demand Tax on the Sun
Cashiers and Customers Shouldn’t Judge Me When I Grocery Shop With Food Stamps
Rand Paul Risks Wrath of Conservatives by Exposing the Truth About Their God, Ronald Reagan
The Democrats Love to Campaign against the “Ryan Budget” But Leave Ryan Safe in His Purple Seat
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The Daily Wiki
Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, describes a set of spiritual folkways which originated from the traditions of the African diaspora. It is a cultural form of the Afro-American religions which developed within the French, Spanish, and Creole speaking African American population of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Voodoo is one of many incarnations of African-based spiritual folkways rooted in West African Dahomeyan Vodun.
Voodoo became syncretized with the Catholicism and Francophone culture of south Louisiana as a result of the slave trade. Louisiana Voodoo is often confused with-but is not completely separable from-Haitian Vodou and southern Hoodoo. It differs from Vodou in its emphasis upon Gris-gris, voodoo queens, use of Hoodoo occult paraphernalia, and Li Grand Zombi (snake deity). It was through Louisiana Voodoo that such terms as gris-gris (a Wolof term) and voodoo dolls were introduced into the American lexicon.
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Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. ~Mahatma Gandhi
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Breakfast Tunes
On a personal note, today marks the anniversary of the acquittals in the Rodney King beating and the subsequent riots in Los Angeles. I was there working in radio at the time, and it was one of the most indelible moments of my life. This song was popular at the time and it will always remind me of that period – acquittals, riots, and the aftermath.
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