The Breakfast Club (The Writing on the Walls)

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

Astronaut John Glenn becomes the first American in orbit; the Rhode Island nightclub fire; Actor Sydney Poitier born; Tara Lipinski becomes the youngest gold medalist in the Winter Olympics.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

The Utopia Of My Childhood

I just don’t get this belief that the everything was safe in the good old days but now everything is dangerous. Not actually true.

Atrios

Breakfast News

Google Joins Civil Liberties Groups To Oppose Expansion of FBI Spy Powers

‘Government is seeking a troubling expansion of its power to surreptitiously hack into computers.’

Internet giant Google and the American Civil Liberties Union are among the various groups who have objected to a rule change by the U.S. Department of Justice that would give the FBI and other agencies sweeping new powers to perform search and seize private data from online users across the nation and the globe.

According to a brief submitted by Richard Salgado, Google’s director for law enforcement, against a pending DOJ proposal, the changes to law enforcement’s ability to search remote servers could lead to “government hacking of any facility” in the world and raises “monumental and highly complex constitutional, legal and geopolitical concerns that should be left to Congress to decide.”

Koch brothers join up with liberals to tackle rising prison numbers

Some of America’s most bitterly divided political organizations, untangling from mortal combat over the role of government and the presidency, have agreed to set aside their disagreements and join forces in a drive to tackle the country’s addiction to mass incarceration.

On one side of the divide are the Koch brothers, the energy tycoons who have used their vast wealth to fund rightwing conservative policies and candidates. On the other is the Center for American Progress, the progressive thinktank founded by John Podesta, the outgoing White House adviser who left the administration last week to spearhead Hillary Clinton’s bid to succeed President Obama.

While the powerful groups will soon return to spending their billions against each other in the 2016 presidential race, they have agreed to bury the hatchet – and spend a few million – on criminal justice reform.

Guantánamo torturer led brutal Chicago regime of shackling and confession

A Chicago detective who led one of the most shocking acts of torture ever conducted at Guantánamo Bay was responsible for implementing a disturbingly similar, years-long regime of brutality to elicit murder confessions from minority Americans.

In a dark foreshadowing of the United States’ post-9/11 descent into torture, a Guardian investigation can reveal that Richard Zuley, a detective on Chicago’s north side from 1977 to 2007, repeatedly engaged in methods of interrogation resulting in at least one wrongful conviction and subsequent cases more recently thrown into doubt following allegations of abuse.

Zuley’s record suggests a continuum between police abuses in urban America and the wartime detention scandals that continue to do persistent damage to the reputation of the United States.

Accused of ‘Terrorism,’ Animal Rights Activists Head to Federal Court

‘Why must low-level criminal activity by animal rights activists be prosecuted in federal court?’

Two activists are scheduled to appear in a federal district court in Chicago on Thursday, marking the first time that the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) – which criminalizes protected speech and protest activities that cause an ‘animal enterprise’ to lose profits – will be legally challenged as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

“The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is a poorly disguised attempt to chill legitimate advocacy by an unpopular group of activists,” said Center for Constitutional Rights senior staff attorney Rachel Meeropol, who argued for the defendants in court. “Liberating animals is not terrorism.”

#FightFastTrack: Coalition Takes Aim at Lawmakers over Corporate-Friendly ‘Trade’ Agreement

Environmental, labor, and community groups are staging public forums and creative direct actions urging their representatives to say no to a rushed TPP deal

Environmental, labor, and community groups are organizing rallies, public forums, and creative direct actions this week urging their congressional representatives to say “no” to a renewed bid to rush through the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership “trade” deal by passing “fast track” legislation.

“Senate Finance Committe Chair Orrin Hatch (R-UT) is saying he wants to reintroduce Fast Track legislation for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) this month – right after Members of Congress return from the Presidents Day recess,” explains Citizens Trade Campaign, referring to legislation that would allow the Obama administration to avoid transparency and full congressional review of the deal. “Now’s the time to tell Congress: no Fast Track for the TPP!”

House Democrats accuse John Boehner of using Netanyahu as a ‘political tool’

Almost two dozen liberal Democrats on Thursday asked the Republican leader of the US House of Representatives to postpone Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint meeting of Congress next month.

“It appears that you are using a foreign leader as a political tool against the president,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to speaker John Boehner.

Netanyahu’s speech is controversial because it comes as the Obama administration is negotiating with Iran over that country’s nuclear program negotiations that Netanyahu says could put Israel at risk. The speech is also set just two weeks before Netanyahu faces voters at home for re-election.

Polar vortex to bring coldest weather in decades to the US

A polar vortex may deliver the coldest weather in 20 years to the United States on Friday, as the weather system yet again sends a high-pressured shot of arctic air into the the country, threatening dangerous conditions and record-breaking temperatures.

On Thursday, temperatures plummeted as cold air surged into states east of the Mississippi, from snowbound Boston all the way to Atlanta and New Orleans. Wind chills in Chicago dropped well below 0F (-18C) and the National Weather Service issued warnings for perilous weather on the east coast and winter storms in Kentucky and Tennessee. [..]

Musher said cities in the midwest and along the east coast should prepare for the possibility of record lows on Friday morning, as the freeze sets in. Storms of snow, ice and high winds could follow around the country this weekend, he said.

Superbug at LA hospital linked to two deaths and 179 potential infections

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria strikes at Ronald Reagan UCLA medical center following endoscopy procedure that used infected medical devices

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria could have infected at least 179 patients at the Ronald Reagan UCLA medical center in Los Angeles, and were a “contributing factor” in the deaths of two people, after patients underwent a complex endoscopy procedure with infected medical devices. [..]

Carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae, called “CRE” by medical professionals, is especially nasty. The two-part name refers first to the antibiotic such bacteria resist, carbapenem, and second to where they live, in the human gut.

Carbapenem is one of medicine’s strongest antibiotics, often called “an antibiotic of last resort” and given to patients who are “gravely ill or are suspected of harboring resistant bacteria”, according to research by the National Hospital Safety Network.

CRE usually infects patients who are already ill – for example, those in long-term or intensive care units. It is typically spread from person to person, in this case during an endoscopic procedure. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can cause everything from urinary tract to bloodstream infections and are deadly in as many as half of people infected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Federal panel’s urgent call to reduce sugar in diet could set off lobbying fight

Emphasis on sugar and recommendation to tax soda likely to rile up beverage industry as previous efforts have resulted in campaigns against proposals

Recommendations from an influential federal nutrition panel could set up the latest fight between snack lobbyists and food regulators, as government advisers say a “dramatic paradigm shift” is needed to curb obesity in the US.

The federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recommended reducing sugar in the American diet and taxing soda in their latest report issued on Thursday.

The committee also recommended a lower intake of red and processed meats, but reversed earlier guidance on limiting dietary cholesterol.

But it is the recommendation on sugar that is likely to pique the interest of soda and snack makers who have already undertaken significant public relations campaigns in response to research linking sugar consumption to poor health.