The Breakfast Club 5/22/2014

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.

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You’re doing it right, if you making some people angry. Thanks, Frank

Pope Seeks Balance on Mideast Trip, and His Plans Anger Many

by Jodi Rudoren and Isabel Kershner, The New Yok Times

BETHLEHEM, West Bank – Pope Francis plans to give a strong show of support for a sovereign Palestinian state when he makes his first visit to the Holy Land this weekend, becoming the first pontiff to travel directly into the occupied West Bank rather than passing through Israel.

The pope’s decision to fly straight to Bethlehem from Jordan would be a symbolic lift to the Palestinians at any time. But its resonance is even greater given his tremendous popularity, his focus on the downtrodden, and his timing amid the recent collapse of peace talks and the Palestine Liberation Organization’s unity pact with the militant group Hamas.

Next up, Alberto Gonzalez for Justice of the Supreme Court.

US Senate clears way for drone memo author’s judicial nomination

David Barron, Harvard law professor who drafted key memo authorizing controversial targeted killing program, poised to become federal judge after 52-43 vote

The man who wrote a White House legal memo endorsing the execution of Americans by drone strike is poised to become a federal judge after Senate Democrats used new anti-filibuster rules to quash opposition from civil liberties critics.

David Barron, a Harvard law professor who drafted a key memo authorising Barack Obama’s controversial targeted killing programme while at the Department of Justice, on Tuesday saw his lifetime appointment to the appeals court in Boston clear the main procedural hurdle in the Senate. The 52-43 vote was split along party lines.

The US does not torture

US forced to acknowledge secret tapes of Guantánamo force-feedings

By Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian

A federal court has forced the US government to reveal that it has secretly recorded dozens of force-feedings of just one Guantánamo Bay detainee, raising the prospect that the military possesses a vast video library of a practice criticised as abusive.

On Wednesday, a federal judge decreed that lawyers for that detainee can view hours of his videotaped force feedings, the first time a non-government official will be permitted to view the secret recordings.

Before last week, the Defense Department did not even acknowledge that videotapes of its enteral feedings of hunger striking detainees – conducted by inserting a tube into the stomach through the nose – even existed.

But now the US government has conceded that there are 34 videos showing the forcible feeding of one detainee, a Syrian cleared for release named Abu Wa’el Dhiab. The analogue video cassettes are part of a broader set of 136 videos showing Dhiab being forcibly removed from his cell by Guantánamo Bay guards bringing the hunger striker to be fed enterally.

It is well past time that the US ended this barbaric practice.

Missouri death row case in US supreme court’s hands after execution stay

By Ed Pilkington, The Guardian

The nine justices of the US supreme court must decide on Wednesday whether or not uphold a stay of execution for a death-row inmate in Missouri whose lawyers argue faces a prolonged and agonizing death as a result of a rare medical condition that could complicate the lethal injection process.

The fate of Russell Bucklew, 46, a convicted murderer and rapist, is in the hands of the highest judicial panel in the nation after a night of dramatic legal maneuvers that saw the execution postponed, then reinstated, then postponed again. With moments to go before the midnight deadline, supreme court justice Samuel Alito stayed the execution pending consideration by the full court.

The state has until midnight on Wednesday to carry out the execution, otherwise it must seek a new date.

100 arrested near McDonald’s headquarters in protest over low pay

By Dominic Rushe, The Guardian

Groups calling for wages to be increased to at least $15 per hour say company closed headquarters fearing ‘PR minefield’

McDonald’s protesters in Chicago last week. McDonald’s protesters in Chicago last week. Workers were opposed to CEO Donald Thomson’s $9.5m pay package. Photograph: UPI/Landov/Barcroft Media

McDonald’s closed part of its corporate headquarters on Wednesday in response to a mass protest by workers and activists that campaigners say ended in over 100 arrests.

Over 2,000 people calling for a hike in the minimum wage and the right to form a union without retaliation descended on the fast food giant’s suburban Chicago headquarters in what is believed to be the largest demonstration McDonald’s has ever faced.

Chanting, “Hey McDonald’s You Can’t Hide, We Can See Your Greedy Side,” and “No Big Macs, No Fries, Make our Wage Supersize,” protesters blocked the entrance to McDonald’s campus in Oakbrook, some 20 miles outside Chicago.

BP mounts last ditch effort to limit Gulf of Mexio oil spill settlement

By Terry McAllister, The Guardian

Oil group lodges appeal to the US supreme court after finding financial awards vastly exceed its expectations

BP last night mounted a last ditch attempt to limit the costs of its settlement for the victims of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill by lodging an appeal to the US supreme court to make a final ruling.

Earlier this week the British oil group lost an argument at the fifth circuit appeal court of New Orleans that compensation money was being spent on businesses not directly affected by the environmental damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon.

BP originally anticipated that it would have to pay $7.8bn (£4.6bn) under a court settlement only to find the financial awards vastly exceeding this figure, partly as a result of what it believes are inappropriate claims.

EBay asks 145 million users to change passwords after cyber attack

By By Jim Finkle, Soham Chatterjee and Lehar Maan, Reuters

EBay Inc said on Wednesday that a cyber attack carried out three months ago has compromised customer data, and the company urged 145 million users of its online commerce platform to change their passwords.

The company said unknown hackers stole email addresses, encrypted passwords, birth dates, mailing addresses and other information in an attack carried out between late February and early March. The files did not contain financial information.

An eBay spokeswoman said a large number of accounts may have been compromised, but declined to say how many. EBay said it found no evidence of unauthorized access to financial or credit card information at its PayPal payments subsidiary, which encrypts and stores its data separately.

Cleveland’s Favorite Beer?

Browns fan creates Johnny Manziel beer, calls it ‘Johnny Man’z Ale’

By John Breech, CBSSports.com

Johnny Manziel doesn’t have an official beer yet, but he might soon. A Browns fan in Ohio decided to pay homage to the team’s newest quarterback by making a beer and naming it after Johnny Football.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you ‘Johnny Man’z Ale.’ (Is Blake Beertles next?)

@darrenrovell We all have Johnny Cleveland mania (The Brew Kettle in Strongsville, Ohio) pic.twitter.com/sx8usrg6Xa

– Dave Robison (@Dave_Robison) May 20, 2014

Apparently, the guy brewed his own beer at a brewery that allows you to create your own labels for your newly brewed beer.