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
FDR plans to ‘pack’ the Supreme Court; Byron de la Beckwith convicted of killing civil rights leader Medgar Evers; The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour premieres; William S. Burroughs and Hank Aaron born.
Breakfast Tunes
Remembering Maurce White (December 19, 1941 – February 3, 2016}
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
I will make a bargain with the Republicans. If they will stop telling lies about Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
Breakfast News
WHO warns against blood donations from people returning from Zika regions
The World Health Organisation has advised countries against accepting blood donations from people who have travelled to regions affected by the Zika virus, as Spain announced Europe’s first known case of the disease in a pregnant woman.
The announcement came as authorities in Brazil disclosed two cases of transmission tied to blood transfusions, adding a new dimension to efforts to limit Zika’s impact.
With dozens of cases emerging in Europeans and North Americans returning from Zika-affected areas, the WHO stressed the potential link between Zika and microcephaly – which causes children to be born with abnormally small heads – and urged health authorities to take precautions.
Number of FGM victims found to be 70 million higher than thought
The huge global scale of female genital mutilation has been revealed in disturbing new statistics, which show at least 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone ritual cutting, half of them living in just three countries.
The latest worldwide figures, compiled by Unicef, include nearly 70 million more girls and women than estimated in 2014 because of a raft of new data collected in Indonesia, one of the countries where FGM is most prevalent despite the practice being banned since 2006.
In the analysis of 30 countries, published to mark the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM, statistics showed women in Indonesia, Egypt and Ethiopia account for half of all FGM victims worldwide. Somalia has the highest prevalence of women and girls who have been cut – 98% of the female population between the ages of 15 and 49.
French law forbids food waste by supermarkets
France has become the first country in the world to ban supermarkets from throwing away or destroying unsold food, forcing them instead to donate it to charities and food banks.
Under a law passed unanimously by the French senate, as of Wednesday large shops will no longer bin good quality food approaching its best-before date. Charities will be able to give out millions more free meals each year to people struggling to afford to eat.
The law follows a grassroots campaign in France by shoppers, anti-poverty campaigners and those opposed to food waste. The campaign, which led to a petition, was started by the councillor Arash Derambarsh. In December a bill on the issue passed through the national assembly, having been introduced by the former food industry minister Guillaume Garot.
Governor urged to quit after release of emails on Flint legionnaires’ outbreak
High-ranking officials in Governor Rick Snyder’s administration were aware of a surge in legionnaires’ disease potentially linked to Flint’s water long before the Michigan governor reported the increase to the public last month, internal emails show.
After the release of the emails, the Michigan Democratic party called for Snyder to step down on Thursday.
When Snyder disclosed the spike in legionnaires’ cases on 13 January, he said he had learned about it just a couple of days earlier. But emails obtained by the liberal group Progress Michigan through public-records requests show Snyder’s own office was aware of the outbreak since last March. At the time, others in the administration were scrambling to respond to suggestions that bacteria in the city’s new water source, the Flint river, could be the culprit.
The outbreak was also well known within state agencies, according to emails obtained separately by the AP and other news organizations. Together, the emails offer more evidence that some state officials were dismissive of county health authorities who raised concerns about the safety of the community’s drinking water.
Oregon militia faces conspiracy charges over ‘force, intimidation and threats’
Ammon Bundy and 15 other people tied to the armed standoff in eastern Oregon are now facing federal conspiracy charges over their alleged use of “force, intimidation, and threats” against government officials, according to a new indictment.
A federal grand jury has accused Bundy and the other militia members of preventing US Fish and Wildlife Service officers from discharging their official duties at the Malheur national wildlife refuge, which an armed group of anti-government protesters has occupied since 2 January.
The three-page indictment, which was issued on Wednesday and unsealed Thursday morning, outlines the original planning of the “conspirators” last fall to travel to rural Harney County and threaten “extreme civil unrest” if local officials did not comply with certain demands.
Starving sea lion rescued after being found in San Diego restaurant
A starving sea lion has been rescued after finding its way into the booth of a fancy San Diego restaurant.
Experts at SeaWorld were called Thursday morning to The Marine Room, an oceanfront restaurant in La Jolla.
Rescuers found an 8-month-old female pup asleep in a dining booth. The pup was severely underweight and dehydrated.
The pup was taken to SeaWorld’s animal rescue center, and experts are cautiously optimistic about her recovery.
Breakfast Blogs
There’s Only One Question We Need to Ask About a Hillary (or Bernie) Presidency Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics
Eric Holder Makes Ads for Hillary Clinton While Making Deals for Corporate Clients David Dayen, The intercept
DEQ Employees Seem Unwilling to Take the Fall for Flint emptywheel aka Marcy Wheeler, empywheel
Flint goes to Washington Tom Sullivan, Hullabaloo
Ridiculous Copyright Fight Still Keeping The Only Video Of The First Super Bowl Locked Up Mike Masnick, Techdirt