It doesn’t feel like a Sunday… because it isn’t.
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.
Today in History
President Johnson names commission to investigate JFK’s assassination; U.N. passes resolution calling for the British Mandate of Palestine to be partitioned; First flight over the South Pole; Natalie Wood, Cary Grant and George Harrison die. (Nov. 29)
Breakfast Tune: Otis Taylor – Ran So Hard The Sun Went Down
Breakfast News & Blogs Below
News
Black Friday protests seek to highlight police violence as well as poor wages
The Guardian, Rory Carroll, Lauren Gambino and Rose Hackman
Protests against police violence merged with protests against poor wages, racism and other grievances in retail outlets across the US on Friday, causing sporadic disruption on what is traditionally the year’s busiest shopping day.
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Some activists lay on the floor in a “die-in” in solidarity with Brown, whose body was left in the street for more than four hours after the shooting last August.“I am here today because I am sick and tired of the systemic racism that keeps on happening here in St Louis County,” said Elizabeth English, a 23-year-old student.
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Some shoppers supported the protest, others complained and stepped over the “die-in” to enter stores. As the mall was shut down, tempers frayed. “You guys are pathetic,” a middle-aged white woman shouted at activists. “Are you happy? Are you happy now? You all have ruined our entire experience!”…
Boo f’in hoo lady.
D.C. police plan for future seizure proceeds years in advance in city budget documents
Sixth installment in “Stop and Seize” investigative series. WaPo, Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Steven Rich
D.C. police have made plans for millions of dollars in anticipated proceeds from future civil seizures of cash and property, even though federal guidelines say “agencies may not commit” to such spending in advance, documents show.
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In response to questions about seizures, the police department directed The Post to a general order signed by Lanier called “Handling and Accounting for Seized and Forfeited Property.” The document, which spelled out procedures police should follow, was released two days before a council hearing in July 2013 about civil asset forfeiture.“We know this has been getting a lot of attention nationally, and we agree that there have been troubling practices around the country,” Lanier said in her statement…
really Lanier? no kidding.
UN torture report condemns sleep deprivation among US detainees
The Guardian, Ed Pilkington
…In a review of the human rights record of the US, the first of its kind since 2006, the world body’s committee against torture has slammed the country for its ongoing violations of international treaties. The review’s many complaints address indefinite detention without trial; force-feeding of Guantanamo prisoners; the holding of asylum seekers in prison-like facilities; widespread use of solitary confinement; excessive use of force and brutality by police; shootings of unarmed black individuals; and cruel and inhumane executions.
The committee’s conclusions, released in Geneva on Friday, praise President Barack Obama for having banned excessive interrogation techniques such as waterboarding that were widely used under the previous Bush administration in the wake of 9/11. But it cautions that one important method that was central to Bush’s so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” – sleep deprivation – continues to be approved for use.
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Jamil Dakwar of the American Civil Liberties Union commended the UN panel for its insistence that the Obama administration matches its rhetoric with action by supporting full accountability for torture. …
US launches 15 air strikes as Syria minister says Isis campaign will not work
Reuters
The US military and its allies hit Islamic State (Isis) forces with 15 air strikes in Iraq and Syria during a three-day period, US Central Command said on Friday.
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Syria’s foreign minister, meanwhile, said US-led air strikes had failed to weaken Isis in Syria. Walid al-Moualem added that the jihadist group would not be tackled unless Turkey was forced to tighten border controls.
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Turkey, which has a 560-mile frontier with Syria, has strongly denied accusations it has supported militant Islamists, inadvertently or otherwise, in its enthusiasm to help Syrian rebels topple Assad. …
Angela Merkel forces David Cameron to retreat from EU migrant cap
The Guardian, Patrick Wintour and Ian Traynor
David Cameron has stepped back from a radical plan to cap directly the number of EU migrants entering Britain after an intervention from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who warned him she would not tolerate such an incursion into the principle of the free movement of workers.
The decision to row back from the harder rhetoric in a long-awaited speech on immigration on Friday disappointed the prime minister’s more Eurosceptic backbenchers, but delighted business leaders. However he still faces the task of persuading 27 other governments to change EU treaties to enshrine discrimination against European citizens working in Britain.
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Cameron stepped back from a bolder plan for an annual quota or an emergency brake apparently only in the last week following Merkel’s intervention. She said on Friday after Cameron’s speech: “The German government has in the past again and again underlined the significance of the principle of the free movement as it is anchored in the EU treaties. It is important that Cameron commits himself to this central pillar of the EU and the single market.”
Fight fundamentalism by tackling poverty, urges Pope Francis
The Guardian, Constanze Letsch in Istanbul and agencies
Pope Francis has called for more religious tolerance and for fundamentalism to be tackled by relieving hunger, poverty and marginalisation, rather than by military interventions alone.
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“What is required is a concerted commitment on the part of all, based on mutual trust, which can pave the way to lasting peace, and enable resources to be directed, not to weaponry, but to the other noble battles worthy of man: the fight against hunger and sickness, the promotion of sustainable development and the protection of creation, and the relief of the many forms of poverty and marginalisation, of which there is no shortage in the world today,” the pope said.
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Ray Rice Wins Appeal, Suspension Vacated Immediately
Associated Press, HufPo
NEW YORK (AP) – Ray Rice has won the appeal of his indefinite suspension by the NFL.
An arbitrator ruled Friday that his suspension for punching his fiancee, now his wife, should be vacated immediately. The NFL said Rice, a free agent, is “eligible to play upon signing a new contract.”
Former U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones said Commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision in September to change Rice’s original suspension from two games to indefinite was “arbitrary” and an “abuse of discretion.”
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‘Fabulous’: Court Throws Out 100+ Arrests at Tar Sands Protest on Burnaby Mountain
Common Dreams, Jon Queally
Injunction boundaries around construction site are re-established with proper GPS coordinates, but court win comes as boon to campaigners committed to fighting pipeline.
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More than one hundred people who have been arrested over the last week during dramatic protests against a tar sands pipeline on Burnaby Mountain in British Columbia had their civil contempt charges thrown out by a Canadian court on Thursday, giving a legal boost to the movement that says it will continue to fight the dirty energy project by the Kinder Morgan corporation.
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“If [Kinder Morgan] can’t even get GPS coordinates right, how are we going to trust them to ship oil through our port without an accident?” -Lynne Quarmby, Burnaby Mountain protester and arrestee. …
Blogs
Black Friday Walmart Strikes Target 1600 Stores, Joined By Black Lives Matter Protesters
DSWright, FDL News Desk
Does Anyone Want To Be The Secretary Of Defense?
DSWright, FSL News Desk
UN Review Cites Torture & “Ill Treatment” in U.S. Army Field Manual’s Appendix M
Jeff Kaye, FDL The Dissenter
UN Committee Against Torture Calls Out Chicago Police for Brutality, ‘Excessive Use of Force’
Kevin Gosztola, FDL The Dissenter
UN Lists Four Ways US Has Impeded Justice for Victims of Torture
Marcy Wheeler, emptywheel
Oil Tanks After OPEC Fails to Cut Production; US Shale Gas Targeted?
Yves Smith, naked capitalism
DC Police Department Budgets Its Asset Forfeiture Proceeds Years In Advance
Tim Cushing, Techdirt
Amid Shrinking Abortion Rights Nationwide, an Effort to Fund Access from the Grassroots
Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
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