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. Everyone’s welcome here, no special handshake required. Just check your meta at the door.
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.
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This Day in History
Breakfast News
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AT&T and DirecTV Enter $48 Billion Merger
Telecoms company AT&T announced a deal to take over DirecTV, the US’s largest satellite broadcaster yesterday in the latest in a series of media and telecoms deals that have rattled consumer groups and attracted regulatory scrutiny.
AT&T, the second-largest wireless provider, confirmed that it is paying $49bn to takeover DirecTV in a deal that will makes it a major player in the pay-TV business.
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NSA data-gathering may run into California roadblock
The federal government would need a warrant from a judge if it wants the cooperation of California officials in searching residents’ cellphone and computer records, under a bill making its way through the state legislature.
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So much for the best and brightest…
States are fighting new science curriculum teaching climate change and evolution
A set of revamped science education standards that would teach US students about evolution, global warming, and clean energy are being held up and rejected in a number of states that have taken issue with what they teach. Wyoming became the first state to reject the new standards, which were devised by a coalition of experts and are completely voluntary, in early May, taking issue with their teaching of evolution and man-made global warming, according to the Associated Press.
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Militarized Humanitarianism: America’s Oil-Grabbing Trojan Horse In Africa
As the world remains transfixed by the kidnapping of almost 300 Nigerian girls, there have been increasing calls for international intervention in the effort to rescue them. But what many Americans don’t know is that the U.S. military has been active in the region for years. With the Iraq War over and the war in Afghanistan slowly ending, it is becoming increasingly apparent-from interviews with generals, recommendations from influential think tanks, and private conversations with military personnel-that Africa is the U.S. military’s next frontier.
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the newest of the U.S. military’s six regional commands, has rapidly expanded its presence on the African continent since its establishment at the end of the Bush administration. Emphasizing a “3D” approach of “defense, diplomacy, and development,” the White House describes AFRICOM’s charge as coordinating “low-cost, small-footprint operations” throughout the African continent. Yet despite efforts to market AFRICOM as a small operation, recent reports have revealed that the command is “averaging more than a mission a day” on the continent, and has anywhere from “5,000 to 8,000 U.S. military personnel on the ground” at any given point.
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For filing under W.T.F…
Funny But Outrageous: The U.S. Government Actually Created a Plan to Combat a Zombie Apocalypse
It has taken the U.S. government decades to even acknowledge the real and present threat presented by scientifically-proven, devastating climate change. But it’s not as if it hasn’t been doing anything about the dangers that face us.
In April of 2011, the government actually came up with a hypothetical plan for what to do in the event of a zombie invasion. It was called “CONPLAN 8888,” and yes, it really exists, as Ned Zeman of Esquire.com reports, and yes, real tax dollars were spent on creating it.
We wish this were a joke.
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Must Read Blog Posts
Daily Kos’s Blind Spot on Reality
by psychodrew
Hellraisers Journal: “Was it fair of Rockefeller to burn up my babes so he could enslave those men?”
by JayRaye
Ted Rall joins Pando. This is going to be good.
by Sarah Lacy and Paul Carr
5 Ways the Poor Are More Ethical Than the Rich
by Paul Buchheit
“It’s Total Moral Surrender”: Matt Taibbi Unloads on Wall Street, Inequality and Our Broken Justice System
by Elias Isquith
Was American Democracy Always Doomed?
by Andrew O’Hehir
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The Daily Wiki
A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term, a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock, originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an Internet community who spoke to, or about, themselves while pretending to be another person.[1] The term now includes other misleading uses of online identities, such as those created to praise, defend or support a person or organization,[2] or to circumvent a suspension or ban from a website. A significant difference between the use of a pseudonym[3] and the creation of a sockpuppet is that the sockpuppet poses as an independent third-party unaffiliated with the puppeteer. Many online communities attempt to block sockpuppets.
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Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ~George Orwell
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Breakfast Tunes
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Stupid Shit by LaEscapee
Mosquitoes, Raccoons, Caterpillars OH MY!
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