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
Associated Press Correspondent Terry Anderson is released from captivity; American troops head to Somalia; General George Washington says farewell to his officers in New York; Frank Zappa dies.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.
Breakfast News
Secret trade talks could weaken climate targets set in Paris, warn campaigners
Secret trade talks in Geneva could outlaw subsidies for renewable energy, undermining climate discussions in Paris that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions, anti-poverty campaigners have warned.
The Geneva summit involving 22 countries including the US, Mexico, Australia and the 28 EU member states, aim to create a “level playing field”, with the possible consequence that fracking companies could dispute subsidies for solar or wind power.
Unions and anti-poverty campaigners said the implications for developing world economies that want to promote investment in renewable energy would prove disastrous.
Janet Yellen hints of Fed rate hike during congressional hearing
Janet Yellen has strongly indicated to Congress that Federal Reserve policymakers are likely to vote to raise US interest rates in two weeks – barring any major shocks to the global economy.
The chair of the US central bank told Congress’s joint economic committee that unemployment had lowered to 5%, economic growth was continuing well and she was confident that inflation would return to the Fed’s 2% target. [..]
Yellen did not specifically address the probability of the Fed increasing interest rates at its next policy meeting on 15-16 December, but she said fresh data since the policymakers’ last meeting had been “consistent” with the Fed’s rate hike criteria.
Fifa in fresh turmoil after new arrests bring number indicted up to 27
A day that began with a fresh round of dawn raids on the Baur Au Lac hotel in Zurich ended with 16 football officials being indicted on corruption charges in the US, including five current or former members of Fifa’s executive committee.
They included the notorious former Brazilian federation chief Ricardo Teixeira and Marco Polo Del Nero, his successor who stepped down from the Fifa executive committee last week.
They were among 16 individuals accused of fraud and other offences by the US Department of Justice as it set out a series of kickback schemes in a new 240-page indictment that superseded the previous one in May. It takes to 27 the number of defendants charged by the US with a further 24 unnamed ‘co-conspirators’ including former Fifa ExCo members.
Elizabeth Taylor ‘ran Dallas Buyers Club-style HIV drugs network from her home’
Elizabeth Taylor’s status as a heroine of activism for HIV/Aids is already well-known – she chaired the first-ever US fundraiser for the disease, and famously persuaded President Ronald Reagan to take it seriously. But according to a close friend of the late actor, Taylor’s efforts went further still.
In a US TV interview to coincide with World Aids Day, Kathy Ireland has described how Taylor ran a Los Angeles equivalent of the famous Dallas Buyers Club, procuring experimental and still illegal Aids treatment drugs to distribute from her Bel Air home in the early 1990s. [..]
Taylor used her Bel Air home as “a safe house” during the early era of HIV infections, when the illness was little understood and much stigmatised, Ireland told Entertainment Tonight.
Sky lights up over Sicily as Mount Etna’s Voragine crater erupts
The night sky lights up over the east coast of Sicily as Mount Etna’s Voragine crater erupts for the first time in two years. The giant plume of smoke and ash thrown up by the blast creates a dazzling display of volcanic lightning, a mysterious phenomenon seen in many of the most powerful volcanic eruptions.
It is thought that ash particles rubbing together inside the cloud could lead to the buildup of an electric charge that triggers the lightning strikes, much as a weak charge builds up on a balloon rubbed on a jumper.
Breakfast Blogs
How Much More Blood Is Needed to Refresh the Tree of Liberty? Brendan Doris-Pierce, Esquire Politics
The evolution of the GOP’s approach to a crisis Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog
Thoughts and prayers and a latte Tom Sullivan, Hullabaloo
How to Think About the Paris Climate Talks Gaius Publius, naked capitalism
The FCC’s Issuing More Fines Than Ever, But Taking Heat For Not Collecting Them Karl Bode, Techdirt