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
American Revolution: Gen George Washington defeated at the Battle of Brandywine; FDR dedicated the Hoover Dam; The Beatles recorded their first singles.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Breakfast News
Republican-led attempt to block Iran deal fails in Senate
Republican efforts to scuttle Barack Obama’s nuclear accord with Iran were blocked by Democrats in the United States Senate on Thursday, paving the way for the president to implement the deal struck between Tehran and six world powers in July.
Senate Democrats filibustered a procedural vote on a measure that would have registered formal disapproval of the Iran deal, in effect stopping it in its tracks. The Senate voted 58-42, short of a required 60-vote threshold, on whether to end debate on the Iran deal, thus failing to even reach an up-or-down vote on the disapproval resolution itself.
Refugees heading west and north convulse Europe
Braving cancelled trains, police truncheons and torrential rain, record numbers of refugees continued to struggle through Europe as the continent remained bitterly divided over how to respond to its biggest migration crisis since the second world war.
Rushing to cross the border before harsh new anti-refugee laws and the completion next month of a four-metre high razorwire fence, 3,221 people entered Hungary over land from Serbia in just 24 hours, police said – the highest number yet.
US spy chief’s ‘highly unusual’ reported contact with military official raises concerns
Barack Obama’s intelligence chief is said to be in frequent and unusual contact with a military intelligence officer at the center of a growing scandal over rosy portrayals of the war against the Islamic State, the Guardian has learned.
James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, is said to talk nearly every day with the head of US Central Command’s intelligence wing, Army Brigadier General Steven Grove – “which is highly, highly unusual”, according to a former intelligence official.
Grove is said to be implicated in a Pentagon inquiry into manipulated war intelligence.
Palestine flag to fly at UN headquarters after majority vote
Palestine’s flag will fly at UN headquarters after the general assembly overwhelmingly approved a Palestinian resolution, infuriating Israel with a move that Palestinians described as a step toward UN membership.
There were 119 votes in favor out of 193 UN members.
The US and Israel were among eight countries that voted against the Palestinian-drafted resolution, which says the flags of non-member observer states such as Palestine shall be raised at the New York headquarters.
Homo naledi: new species of ancient human discovered, claim scientists
A huge haul of bones found in a small, dark chamber at the back of a cave in South Africa may be the remnants of a new species of ancient human relative.
Explorers discovered the bones after squeezing through a fissure high in the rear wall of the Rising Star cave, 50km from Johannesburg, before descending a long, narrow chute to the chamber floor 40 metres beneath the surface.
The entrance chute into the Dinaledi chamber is so tight – a mere eight inches wide – that six lightly built female researchers were brought in to excavate the bones. Footage from their cameras was beamed along 3.5km of optic cable to a command centre above ground as they worked inside the cramped enclosure.
Cereal banned from Zimbabwe schools after pupils use it to brew beer
Breakfast cereal has been banned from some boarding schools in Zimbabwe because pupils were using it to brew beer, it was reported this week.
The country’s Chronicle newspaper said at least three schools in the south of the country had warned parents that oats and cereal made of sorghum would be confiscated when term began on Tuesday.
“Pupils reportedly mix the cereals with brown sugar and yeast and leave the mixture to ferment in the sun, creating a potent alcoholic mixture which the pupils drink right under the noses of school authorities,” noted the paper.
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Must Read Blog Posts
The Clinton Email Scandal, Day Infinity + 1 Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics
Transcribing James Clapper emptywheel aka Marcy Wheeler, emptywheel
FBI Director Claims Tor and the “Dark Web” Won’t Let Criminals Hide From His Agents Dan Froomkin, The Intercept
DOJ Claims Corporate Executives Will No Longer Be Above Law Dan Wright, The Bullpen @ ShadowProof
Casting ‘Clown Car ’16, the Movie’ Matt Taibi, RollingStone
US Counterterrorism Official Says US Is ‘The Angel Of Death’ And Should Be Target Killing ISIS Tweeters Mike Masnick, Techdirt
Uruguay Withdraws From TISA, Strikes A Symbolic Blow Against The Trade Deal Ratchet Glynn Moody, Techdirt
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Your Moment of Zen
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