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.
Breakfast Tune: Carolina Chocolate Drops “Goin Down The Road” On Canvas Preview – Oct. 24, 2013 Episode
Today in History
The Spanish Civil War begins; Sen. Ted Kennedy’s passenger dies when he drives his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island; South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and musician Ricky Skaggs born.
Breakfast News & Blogs Below
Protesters demand answers in Sandra Bland’s death in Texas jail
Renee Lewis, Al Jazeera
More than 100 people staged a protest Friday outside the county jail in Hempstead, Texas, where a black woman was found dead one week ago after being arrested following an altercation with police.
Officials have called the death a suicide. But protestors led by Quanell X – leader of the Houston New Black Panther Party – disputed that, shouting “No justice, no peace!” and “We demand answers!”
Twenty-eight-year-old Sandra Bland was arrested during a July 10 traffic stop in the Texas town of Prairie Ville after allegedly kicking the officer who pulled her over. A witness said the policeman dragged Bland from her car and then roughly detained her. In a video showing the arrest, Bland can be heard saying the officer had slammed her head into the ground. …
‘We push harder’: anniversary of Eric Garner’s death marked by protests
Jana Kasperkevic and Kayla Epstein, The Guardian
…”Real reform comes with accountability and an end to abusive, discriminatory broken windows policing that targets our communities.”
The New York City Liberties Union joined the calls for a “culture shift” within the NYPD and accountability. The organization is leading the legal effort to release the records from the Staten Island grand jury that failed to indict the officer who put Garner in chokehold.
Donna Lieberman, NYCLU’s executive director, said: “We need real transparency and accountability so police officers no longer believe they can act without consequences.”
Pipeline breach leads to massive oil spill in Alberta
Al Jazeera and Reuters
Nexen Energy apologized Friday for an oil sands pipeline leak in the Canadian province of Alberta that is one of North America’s largest-ever oil-related spills on land, and said its cleanup crews were working around the clock. The pipeline leaked 31,500 barrels of emulsion – a mixture of bitumen, water and sand, the equivalent of 5 million liters of tar sands oil, or 1.3 million gallons.
Nexen, a subsidiary of China’s CNOOC Ltd., said it is still trying to find the root cause of the leak in the new pipeline, which was installed last year. The company has found a visible breach about the size of a hand.
The incident is another blow for the environmental record of the oil sands industry, already under fire from activists for its carbon-intensive production process. …
Big Money Stalls Key Dodd-Frank Anti-Corruption Rule for 5 Years and Counting
Jon Schwarz, The Intercept
When Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill five years ago, on July 21, 2010, he looked extremely pleased with himself. It had been a tough fight, he said: “We had to overcome the furious lobbying of an array of powerful interest groups and a partisan minority determined to block change.” But now, Obama proclaimed, the bill’s reforms “will become the law of the land.”
HA HA PSYCH.
The reality of U.S. politics is that good ideas don’t win and take effect just because they’ve “become the law.” Yes, to get even that far, they have to have somehow threaded their way through a campaign system ruled by money instead of people; passed a House of Representatives overflowing with members from bizarrely gerrymandered districts; and made it past a filibuster in the anti-democratic Senate. But that is often just the start of the truly bloody trench warfare. …
- Why Bill Clinton’s Apology and Barack Obama’s Prison Drive-By, Token Clemencies Are Cynical Election Year Posturing
Bruce A. Dixon - US and Philippines Face People’s Tribunal for Torture, Disappearances, Murder
Sarah Lazare - Susan Rice Won’t Tell the Truth About Why Americans Can’t Inspect Iran
Jon Schwarz
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac:
When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.
Nelson Mandela
Extra Video: Ricky Skaggs – BanjoBQue 2010, Old Timey Mountain Stank. fiddle tune
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