The Breakfast Club (Don’t Fear the Fall)

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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This Day in History

Iran releases American hostages; Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy innaugurated as President.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Responsible Gun Owners

Hint: If you can’t remember if you have one in your bag, you aren’t.

Atrios

Breakfast News

Richest 1% Percent To Have More Than Rest of Humanity Combined

New Oxfam report shows the scale of global inequality is ‘simply staggering’

In less than two years, if current trends continued unchecked, the richest 1% percent of people on the planet will own at least half of the world’s wealth.

That’s the conclusion of a new report from Oxfam International, released Monday, which states that the rate of global inequality is not only morally obscene, but an existential threat to the economies of the world and the very survival of the planet. Alongside climate change, Oxfam says that spiraling disparity between the super-rich and everyone else, is brewing disaster for humanity as a whole.

Surveillance Is Just First Phase as NSA Plans ‘Guerilla’ Tactics for Global Cyberwar

‘The US government is currently undertaking a massive effort to digitally arm itself for network warfare.’

New revelations eminating from the documents leaked to journalists by Edward Snowden reveal that the NSA has a far more developed and sinister approach to cyberwarfare than previously known.

Based on new and separate reporting from the New York Times and Germany’s Der Spiegel, the National Security Agency is engaged in what amounts to “guerilla warfare” in which its clandestine hacking operations are designed to be undetectable, untraceable, and therefore, totally unaccountable.

As the team of journalists reporting for Der Spiegel describe it, “the US government is currently undertaking a massive effort to digitally arm itself for network warfare.” And, they report, the NSA-along with its intelligence partners around the world-“have adopted ‘plausible deniability’ as their guiding principle for Internet operations.”

GCHQ captured emails of journalists from top international media

GCHQ’s bulk surveillance of electronic communications has scooped up emails to and from journalists working for some of the US and UK’s largest media organisations, analysis of documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.

Emails from the BBC, Reuters, the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, the Sun, NBC and the Washington Post were saved by GCHQ and shared on the agency’s intranet as part of a test exercise by the signals intelligence agency.

The disclosure comes as the British government faces intense pressure to protect the confidential communications of reporters, MPs and lawyers from snooping.

The journalists’ communications were among 70,000 emails harvested in the space of less than 10 minutes on one day in November 2008 by one of GCHQ’s numerous taps on the fibre-optic cables that make up the backbone of the internet.

‘Brutality Beyond Words’: Kenyan Police Fire Tear Gas at Protesting Children

Fighting to keep school playground, Kenyan children and activists assaulted by police

Kenyan police fired tear gas at a crowd of children protesting the seizure of their school playground by a property developer on Monday.

About 100 children between eight and 13 years old from Langata Road primary school in Nairobi, along with a smaller group of parents and activists, converged in front of a newly built wall that separated their school building from a playing field, which had been built over a holiday.

As the children tried to access the playground, roughly 40 police officers who responded to the scene fired tear gas canisters at the crowd, forcing them to disperse. Officers also reportedly brought police dogs to help them break up the crowds.

Just in Time For GOP-Controlled Congress, Obama Announces Tax on One-Percenter s

Just days ahead of President Obama’s State of the Union on Tuesday, the White House has announced plans for a major tax overhaul which would raise rates on the nation’s wealthiest individuals and increase fees for financial firms while offering an assortment of tax breaks designed to help the nation’s struggling middle class.

In a media call with reporters on Saturday, an unidentified Obama administration official offered the broad strokes of the proposal. [..]

Not surprisingly, the plan spurred immediate condemnation from the Republican Party, but Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, assessed the plan by saying it would likely boost economic growth and provide the intended benefits to both lower- and middle-income families.

A Nation in Decline’: Majority of US Public School Students Live in Poverty

Devastating report reveals downward trajectory for today’s generation of learners

As it turns out, there’s no high-stakes test that can account for this.

A new study released on Friday shows that more than half of students enrolled in U.S. public schools live in poverty, a measurement that the report’s authors say places the U.S. on the road to overall social decline.

Released by the Southern Education Foundation, the new analysis (pdf) used the most recent national census figures available to confirm that 51 percent of the students across the nation’s public schools were low income in 2013.

NYC Settles Lawsuit For $75,000 Over 2013 Police Chokehold

The city of New York has agreed to pay a Brooklyn man $75,000 to settle a lawsuit claiming he was choked and unable to breathe during a 2013 encounter with police.

A federal judge approved the settlement last week, and New York City Law Department spokesman Nick Paolucci said that “based on an evaluation of the case, it was determined that the settlement was in the best interests of the city.”

Attorney Jeffrey Rothman said Monday that the settlement for Kevin Dennis-Palmer Sr. was “another example of a black man choked and beaten down into the ground.”

Paolucci did not immediately respond Monday evening to an email seeking comment on Rothman’s characterization of the case.

The lawsuit was filed in May before the death of Eric Garner last summer, whose treatment by police and a grand jury decision not to indict any officers prompted nationwide protests.

Ruptured Pipeline Pumps Tens of Thousands of Gallons of Shale Oil Along Yellowstone River

Residents in eastern Montana worry about contamination after “unknown amount” of Bakken crude enters water supply

A pipeline rupture in Eastern Montana on Saturday, which spilled up to 50,000 gallons of Bakken shale crude oil into the Yellowstone River, has local residents worried that their water supplies may now be contaminated.

According to a statement (pdf) released by Bridger Pipeline Co., which operates the Poplar Pipeline, the breach occurred approximately nine miles upstream from Glendive, Montana. The company claims that no more than 1,200 barrels, or 50,000 gallons, of crude oil were released and stated that an “unknown amount of that total has spilled into the Yellowstone River.” It was not immediately clear whether their estimates have been independently verified.

Montana officials claimed on Sunday that they were not immediately aware of any health or environmental harm from the spill, according to media reports. However, officials with Dawson County Disaster and Emergency Services released a statement Monday which says that “on Sunday, January 18th, Dawson County began receiving some complaints of odor in drinking water from people who use the municipal water supply.”

Following those reports, the local officials ordered the collection of samples from the municipal drinking water supply and announced teams were being dispatched to “monitor taps along Glendive’s water distribution system.”

GOP Lawmakers Plan Their Attack Against NY Fracking Ban

One month after landmark ban, Congress is likely to pursue ‘property rights’ argument to deflate regulatory action

Just one month after New York’s landmark fracking ban was announced, amid ongoing celebrations and calls for other states to follow suit, Republican lawmakers are already scheming on how best to override the decision.

The Poughkeepsie Journal reported Sunday that at least one Republican congressman is considering ways to make it easier for landowners to sue the state.

Fracking advocate and U.S. Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), who was recently named to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told the Journal that he has “engaged in a series of discussions on the next steps needed to help restore the individual property rights of New Yorkers.”

Landowners already have a recourse, known as a “takings claim,” through which they can argue that they have “no reasonable use for their property as a result of the government’s action” and that the government is obliged to compensate for their losses. At issue is whether the fracking ban would apply in this context.

As Residents Enter Second Day Without Water, Future Uncertain for Canadian City After Diesel Spill

Longueuil may face legal action as 230,000 people wait for drinking water

Residents of Longueuil, Canada entered their second day of a no-drinking order on Friday, leaving 230,000 people without tap water as the slow cleanup of a diesel fuel spill earlier this week continued.

At a press conference Friday morning, officials said they were waiting for the results of a fourth round of water quality testing.

The advisory was put into place Wednesday after the Centre d’épuration Rive-Sud, a waste water treatment plant, leaked 7,400 gallons of diesel fuel into the sewers, where it eventually found its way into the St. Lawrence River, which supplies drinking water for the city. Officials lifted the ban Wednesday afternoon, but that decision proved to be hasty as residents continued to report the smell of gas in their water; the order was then reinstated and has remained in place since then.

Mass Die-Offs of Birds and Fish Increasing In Frequency and Magnitude: Study

‘One additional mass mortality event per year over 70 years translates into a considerable increase in the number of these events being reported each year’

Mass die-offs of birds, fish, and marine invertebrates have grown increasingly frequent and severe, hiking at a rate of approximately one major mortality event per year over the past seven decades, according to a new study published by Yale, UC Berkeley, and University of San Diego researchers.

“While this might not seem like much, one additional mass mortality event per year over 70 years translates into a considerable increase in the number of these events being reported each year,” said study co-lead author Adam Siepielski, an assistant professor of biology at the University of San Diego, in a statement about the study, which was published earlier this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Going from one event to 70 each year is a substantial increase, especially given the increased magnitudes of mass mortality events for some of these organisms, Siepielski added.