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
An armistice ends the fighting in World War I; Pilgrims sign Mayflower Compact; Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat dies; Author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and actor Leonardo DiCaprio born.
Breakfast Tunes
Breakfast News
Obama calls on FCC to make ‘strongest possible rules’ to protect net neutrality
President says ‘open internet is essential to way of life’ and comes out against so-called ‘fast lanes’ for higher-paying web users
Barack Obama called for “the strongest possible rules to protect” the open internet on Monday and came out against proposals championed by cable and telecoms companies to create fast lanes for the web.
The president’s statement comes as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prepares to publish new rules to regulate the internet after a series of legal defeats at the hands of telecoms and cable companies. [..]
The president came out firmly against a proposal that would allow cable companies to create “fast lanes” for higher paying customers. Cable and telecoms companies have lobbied for fast lanes, arguing that companies like Netflix should pay more for the large amount of bandwidth they use.
Cable companies ‘stunned’ by Obama’s ‘extreme’ net neutrality proposals
Major telecoms, lobbyist groups and politicians sharply respond to president’s call for greater regulation of internet as utility
America’s major telecoms and cable companies and business groups came out fighting on Monday after Barack Obama called for tough new regulations for broadband that would protect net neutrality, saying they were “stunned” by the president’s proposals. [..]
The cable and telcoms giants are particularly concerned by Obama’s call for FCC to reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. Such a move would reclassify consumer internet as a “common carrier” service – like the telephone – and give the regulator greater power to control prices and services.
Supreme Court Weighs Case Over Cuts to Retirees’ Health Benefits
The Supreme Court seemed puzzled on Monday about why it was being asked to decide whether a chemical company could cut the health benefits of its retired workers. [..]
The case, M&G Polymers USA v. Tackett, No. 13-1010, concerned a union contract at a chemical plant in Apple Grove, W.Va. Like many other collective bargaining agreements, it did not directly say whether health benefits for retirees would vest.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled for the retirees, relying on its own 1983 decision, one that put a thumb on the scale in favor of vesting. The 1983 decision, known as Yard-Man, was disavowed by lawyers on both sides of Monday’s argument, and it did not seem popular with the justices, either.
That left the justices with the question of whether to return the case to the Sixth Circuit for reconsideration in light of ordinary contract principles or for the justices themselves to decide what the collective bargaining agreement meant.
NYPD will stop arresting people for minor marijuana offenses
In policy shift, NYPD officers will soon have option to issue court summonses rather than arrest those caught with less than 25 grams of cannabis in open view
The New York police department, the largest in the US, will stop arresting people in possession of small amounts of marijuana, in a marked policy change that mayor Bill de Blasio said reflects his campaign promise to repair frayed relations between officers and the city’s minority communities.
Starting next week, NYPD officers will have the option to issue court summonses rather than arrest those caught with less than 25 grams of pot, the mayor and the NYPD police commissioner William Bratton announced during a joint press conference on Monday afternoon.
Catalan leader to step up independence push as 80% vote to split from Spain
Artur Mas says symbolic poll is a ‘lesson in democracy’ and calls for a binding referendum on independence
Catalan leader Artur Mas vowed to step up the push for independence after early results from Sunday’s symbolic vote showed that four out of five voters in the region backed breaking away from Spain.
With more than 2m votes cast, Mas called the symbolic referendum a “lesson in democracy, spelled out in capital letters”. He said he would send a letter on Monday to Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, urging him to confront “the Catalan question” with a formal, binding referendum on independence.
Syrian rebel leader: US-led attacks on Isis are undermining anti-Assad forces
Hadi al-Bahra claims Syrians see US-led coalition turning a blind eye to Assad’s forces while failing to liaise with Free Syrian Army
US-led attacks on the jihadis of the Islamic State (Isis) are the product of a confused policy that is “turning a blind eye” to the crimes of President Bashar al-Assad, according to the leader of Syria’s main western-backed opposition group
Hadi al-Bahra, president of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), warned in an interview on Monday that air strikes against Isis by the international coalition assembled by Barack Obama were weakening support inside Syria for already embattled non-extremist anti-Assad forces. [..]
Assad’s office said on Monday that a UN proposal for a freeze on fighting in Aleppo, which is divided into rebel- and government-held areas, was “worth studying”.
However, Bahra said local ceasefires would only benefit the regime unless they were part of a comprehensive, negotiated political solution to a conflict that has cost 200,000 Syrian lives and displaced half the population since March 2011.
Alaskans warned that bears are wide awake and looking for food
Residents are told not to leave out bird feeders and unsecured trash as mild weather means bears in south-central Alaska have not taken to winter dens
Mild temperatures and little snow have led to bears hanging around, said Dave Battle, an assistant area wildlife biologist with the department of fish and game.
Bears want to load up on calories before denning, and bird seed and trash are a strong temptation, Battle said. “It’s most likely to stay out a bit longer, packing in the last calories that it can,” Battle added.
Bird feeders should remain inside for a few more weeks, he said.
Batten retired from the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1998 and knows bear habits.
Craig Spencer, New York Doctor With Ebola, Will Leave Bellevue Hospital
Craig Spencer, the New York City doctor who became the first person in the city to test positive for Ebola, is free of the virus and is set to be released from Bellevue Hospital Center on Tuesday, hospital officials said on Monday. [..]
Dr. Spencer’s recovery adds to the evidence that when treated in advanced American hospitals, Ebola has a far lower fatality rate than in West African field hospitals starved of doctors, nurses and equipment. While 70 percent of Ebola patients in Africa are dying, eight of the nine patients treated in the United States have survived. The only one who died was Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian, whose treatment was delayed when a Dallas hospital initially misdiagnosed his illness.
Alexander the Great claimed by both sides in battle over name of Macedonia
Alexander waxwork given pride of place in Macedonian museum in latest example of symbolic point-scoring by Skopje
Nikola Gruevski’s love affair with statues began with Alexander the Great. In 2011, much to the consternation of Greece, the Macedonian prime minister had the world’s largest sculpture of the warrior king installed in Skopje’s central square. Now, after peppering the capital with grandiose bridges, a gargantuan triumphal arch, concert halls, theatres, new government buildings and artworks great and small, the premier has gone a step further.
Upping the ante in what has become one of the west’s more unlikely disputes, Gruevski instructed that waxworks of Alexander, his father, Philip II of Macedon, and his mother, Olympias, be given pride of place in a new archaeological museum. “All these exhibits … are of priceless value for our country and represent a part of our cultural heritage,” Gruevski pronounced as he opened the museum last month. [..]
But officials do not deny that the building project has another purpose: to score points in the long-running battle over the name of Macedonia. The Greeks have long argued that their neighbour’s desire to lay claim to the nomenclature – and use of symbols associated with it – implies territorial ambitions over their own adjacent province of Macedonia. True to Balkan form, the row has its roots in ancient history.
Must Read Blog Posts
Loretta Lynch’s Wall Street friends: What you should know about AG nominee’s finance past Davis Dayen, Salon
President Obama Failed Jon Walker, FDL Action
Democrats Suddenly Realize Koch Bros. Machine Is Actually Dangerous Anonymous, Crooks & Liars
Mark Udall’s perfect farewell: How he can go out in a blaze of glory Heather “Digby” Parton, Salon
SEC Commissioners Kara Stein, Luis Aguilar Hit Bank of America Where it Hurts, in a Revenue Stream Yves Smith, naked capitalism
White Georgetown Student Sentenced to One Year, Tutoring Underprivileged Kids for Ricin Offense Marcy Wheeler, emptywheel
County Prosecutor Looking To Arrest Housing Official After Agency Demands $16,000 To Fulfill FOIA Request Tim Cushing, Techdirt
A Letter from the Norwegian Nobel Committee to Barack Obama Juan Thompson. The Intercept
Death of English Gardener Linked To Wolfsbane Plant Jonathan Turley
Hester Stanhope: The Desert Queen (1776 – 1839) Rejected Princesses
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Did The Grifters Go Too Far
The testing is there to make testing companies get rich and to provide an excuse to turn schools in to for profit charters.