The Breakfast Club (Big Bad John)

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

Britain’s King Edward steps down; Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declare war on the United States; UNICEF organization launches; ‘Magnum PI’ makes television debut.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

I think people are entitled to march without a permit. When you have a few hundred thousand people on the street you have permission.

Tom Hayden

Breakfast News

Connecticut to Ban Gun Sales to Those on Federal Terrorism Lists

With the mass shooting in California last week focusing attention on terrorism and guns, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut announced on Thursday that he intended to sign an executive order barring people on federal terrorism watch lists from buying firearms in the state.

“Like all Americans, I have been horrified by the recent terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Paris,” Mr. Malloy, a Democrat, told reporters. “This should be a wake-up call to all of us. This is a moment to seize in America, and today I’m here to say that we in Connecticut are seizing it.”

With his decision, Mr. Malloy has stepped into a fiery debate that has stretched from the Oval Office to the contest to become its next occupant: Should being a terrorism suspect prohibit a person from buying firearms? At the moment, it does not.

Paris climate deal ‘extremely close’ but talks set to overrun

Governments trying to reach a climate change agreement in Paris have drawn “extremely close to the finish line”, Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, said late on Thursday.

With an agreement in sight to keep temperature rises in check and avoid dangerous global warming, Fabius called for a second all-night session of negotiations to try to bring 20 years of rollercoaster diplomacy to a successful close.

Despite positive signs that a deal is there to be done, many negotiators were predicting that the talks would not finish on time on Friday evening but would drag on into the weekend.

Syrian Rebels Form Bloc for New Round of Peace Talks

An array of Syrian opposition groups agreed here on Thursday to form a new and more inclusive body to guide the diverse and divided opponents of President Bashar al-Assad in a new round of planned talks aimed at ending the Syrian civil war.

The formation of such a body has been seen by the United States and the opposition’s other international supporters as a prerequisite for new talks, and the new body appeared to fit the bill by pulling together political dissidents who have long distrusted one another as well as rebel groups fighting the Syrian Army.

“This is the widest participation for the opposition, inside and outside of Syria, and we have the participation of the armed groups,” said Hadi al-Bahra, a member of the exiled Syrian National Coalition who attended the two-day conference that produced the new body.

French MPs vote to force supermarkets to give away unsold food

French MPs have voted unanimously to force supermarkets to give away unsold food that has reached its sell-by date. Shops will also be banned from destroying food products, as they have in the past – sometimes by soaking them in bleach – to prevent them being distributed.

The proposal was passed as part of another law in May but was subsequently annulled by France’s constitutional court because of procedural faults.

It was reintroduced on Wednesday and passed by members of the Assemblée Nationale with support from across the political spectrum. The legislation was described in the house as a “crucial measure for the planet”, at a time when world leaders are thrashing out an agreement at the COP21 climate change summit.

The law will come into effect after it has been rubber-stamped by the Sénat, the upper house of the French parliament, on 13 January.

Climate change could leave Chesapeake Bay island uninhabitable in 50 years

You don’t have to travel to a balmy Pacific island to hear the anguish of people whose land and culture is under threat from climate change. In Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay, the idiosyncratic, and historic, community of Tangier Island is facing an uncertain future as the sea gnaws away at the land beneath them.

A bird’s eye view of the island, just three miles long and one mile wide, would once have taken in a hook-shaped piece of land jutting out from the middle of the bay. The shape is more a teardrop these days, with erosion occurring at a bewildering rate.

A new report by the US army corps of engineers, published in Scientific Reports, shows that just 33% of Tangier Island’s landmass in 1850 now remains. The main town of Tangier will be uninhabitable within 50 years if the current rate of sea level rise continues.