The Breakfast Club (One More Day)

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 enacts the Stamp Act on its American colonies; The ‘Garbage Barge’; Skater Tara Lipinski reaches the record books; The Beatles release ‘Please Please Me’; Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber born.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.

Noam Chomsky

Breakfast News

Russia, with an eye on U.S., threatens to bomb Syrian cease-fire violators

Russia warned on Monday that it was prepared to act unilaterally in Syria against groups that it said were breaking the cease-fire there, injecting a volatile new element into a conflict that has been calmer in recent weeks.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the country’s military was ready to strike as early as Tuesday against groups that it said were violating the cease-fire unless U.S. leaders agree to discuss a Russian proposal for how to maintain the peace. So far, Russian warplanes have been observing the cease-fire, U.S. officials say.

Castro demands return of Guantánamo Bay during historic Obama visit

President Raúl Castro of Cuba demanded that Barack Obama hand back Guantánamo Bay and fully end the US trade embargo as their historic first summit in Havana witnessed an unexpectedly spirited clash of political values.

Despite emotional scenes of reconciliation that earlier saw the Star Spangled Banner played to spine-tingling effect by a Cuban band in Revolution Square, the two leaders made clear that rapprochement had only come so far.

“There are profound differences between our countries that will not go away,” said Castro as he turned the tables on the question of human rights and criticised the US for its failures to ensure universal healthcare and equal pay for women.

FBI may have found way to unlock San Bernardino iPhone without Apple

A court hearing designed to force Apple into compromising its security systems for the iPhone was cancelled Monday at the request of federal authorities, who said they potentially had another way into the San Bernardino shooter’s phone.

The astonishing reversal kicks the can down the road in what had become the climax of a two year battle over digital privacy between the US government and Silicon Valley. At the same time, the standoff between Apple and the Justice Department drew so much attention that policymakers or another court may weigh in soon regardless.

Amid Water Crisis, Suspicious Flint City Hall Break-in Declared ‘Inside Job’

An unsolved December break-in to the Flint City Hall office where files on the water crisis were being stored was “definitely an inside job,” the city’s police chief has told local media.

That statement raised more than a few eyebrows as Flint officials are currently being investigated for their role in the ongoing lead poisoning crisis. Three months after the burglary, there are still no suspects, and officials have only confirmed that a television has gone missing, though documents were reportedly strewn throughout the office.

The city’s new police chief Tim Johnson told the Flint Journal on Friday that the circumstances are too suspicious for the break-in to have been random.

‘Excellent News’ for Legal Pot as Supreme Court Rejects Colorado Lawsuit

By declining to hear a case brought by Nebraska and Oklahoma against Colorado over its pot legalization law, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected what one advocacy group described as “misguided effort to undo cautious and effective state-level regulation of marijuana.”

The lawsuit, filed in 2014 by the attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma, where marijuana is still outlawed, charged that Colorado—where a state-regulated recreational pot program has been up and running for more than two years—has “created a dangerous gap in the federal drug control system.”

Forty millionaires ask New York to raise taxes on wealthy in ‘1% plan for fairness’

More than 40 millionaires on Monday asked New York state to raise taxes on the wealthy, under what they called a “1% plan for tax fairness”.

“As New Yorkers who have contributed to and benefited from the economic vibrancy of our state, we have both the ability and the responsibility to pay our fair share,” the millionaires said in an open letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers.

Saying they were “deeply concerned that too many New Yorkers are struggling economically, and the state’s ailing infrastructure is in desperate need of attention”, the millionaires urged “the governor and the legislature” to pass “the 1% Plan for New York Tax Fairness”.