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
Space Shuttle Challenger Explodes; Sir Francis Drake dies off the coast of Panama; Vince Lombardi named head coach of the Green Bay Packers.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Be as smart as you can, but remember that it is always better to be wise than to be smart.
Breakfast News
Sweden to expel up to 80,000 rejected asylum seekers
Sweden intends to expel up to 80,000 asylum seekers who arrived in 2015 and whose applications had been rejected, interior minister Anders Ygeman said on Wednesday.
“We are talking about 60,000 people but the number could climb to 80,000,” the minister was quoted as saying by Swedish media, adding that the government had asked the police and authorities in charge of migrants to organise their expulsion.
Ygeman said the expulsions, normally carried out using commercial flights, would have to be done using specially chartered aircraft, given the large numbers, staggered over several years.
The proposed measure was announced as Europe struggles to deal with a crisis that has seen tens of thousands of refugees arrive on Greek beaches, with the passengers – mostly fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan – undeterred by cold, wintry conditions.
Australian coalmines are one of riskiest investments in the world – report
Australian thermal coalmines are some of the riskiest in the world for investors because of their exposure to environmental dangers, according to a report from Oxford University.
The report – which was supported by Norges Bank Investment Management, managers of Norway’s government pension fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund – also found that Australian, Chinese and US coal-fired power stations were the most vulnerable to environmental risks.
The researchers assessed the assets of the top 100 coal-fired utilities and top 20 thermal coalmining companies for their exposure to a range of environmental risks, including climate-change policies, water stress, air pollution and competition from renewables and gas.
France adopts sedated dying law as compromise on euthanasia
France’s parliament has approved a bill that will let doctors keep terminally ill patients sedated until death – but stops short of legalising euthanasia or assisted suicide.
After years of tense debate over the issue and a long journey through parliament, the bill was passed by the country’s lower and upper houses on Wednesday. The text is the result of a consensus of Socialist and conservative lawmakers.
The new law will allow patients to request “deep, continuous sedation altering consciousness until death” but only when their condition is likely to lead to a quick death. Doctors will be allowed to stop life-sustaining treatments, including artificial hydration and nutrition. Sedation and painkillers will be allowed “even if they may shorten the person’s life”.
Ferguson police barred from targeting residents with fines under DoJ deal
Police in Ferguson, Missouri, will be forced to record all their law enforcement actions with body cameras and will be barred from targeting residents with fines to generate revenue under a proposed deal with the US Justice Department.
Within six months, any stop, search or arrest by a police officer in the city – roiled by unrest in 2014 after the fatal shooting of unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown – must be captured on camera, according to the draft agreement with federal officials published on Wednesday.
Following revelations that the department was being used in effect as a collections agency to raise money for city coffers with fines on low-income residents, the deal will also prohibit any police actions deliberately intended to raise money for the public purse. “Any revenue generated by law enforcement actions will be incidental to the public safety purpose,” the agreement said.
Oregon Occupation: Ammon Bundy Asks Supporters to Abandon Refuge
Ammon Bundy asked his remaining followers occupying Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon to stand down Wednesday and leave the property.
The message was delivered by an attorney for Bundy, who was arrested late Tuesday afternoon along with his brother Ryan and six of their followers. [..]
In a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Portland, the FBI said Bundy intended for the refuge — which he and his followers occupied on Jan. 2 — to become a permanent headquarters for anti-government “patriots from all over the country.”
According to the FBI, Bundy says in a video: “We’re planning on staying here for several years.”
Local and federal authorities arrested the suspects late Tuesday afternoon, most of them as they were driving to the town of John Day to attend a community meeting.
Breakfast Blogs
Why Haven’t We Learned Any Economic Lessons from 2008? Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics
The U.S. Intervention in Libya Was Such a Smashing Success That a Sequel Is Coming Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
Wingnut Welfare steals from Wounded Warriors diby aka Heather Digby Parton, Hullabaloo
Donald Trump and Megyn Kelly: Two Snakes Eating Each Other’s Tail The Rude Pundit
FCC Takes Aim At The Pathetic Lack Of Cable Set Top Box Competition Karl Bode, Techdirt