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
Beating of Rodney King; Alexander Graham Bell born; Star Spangled banner becomes National Anthem.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
Alexander Graham Bell
Breakfast News
Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1m people
Iraqi engineers involved in building the Mosul dam 30 years ago have warned that the risk of its imminent collapse and the consequent death toll could be even worse than reported.
They pointed out that pressure on the dam’s compromised structure was building up rapidly as winter snows melted and more water flowed into the reservoir, bringing it up to its maximum capacity, while the sluice gates normally used to relieve that pressure were jammed shut.
The Iraqi engineers also said the failure to replace machinery or assemble a full workforce more than a year after Islamic State temporarily held the dam means that the chasms in the porous rock under the dam were getting bigger and more dangerous every day.
Spanish Socialists fail to form a government
An attempt by Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s Socialist party leader, to become the country’s prime minister has stalled after he failed to secure enough votes in parliament to form a government.
After the rightwing Popular party and the anti-austerity Podemos said they would not support him, Sánchez secured 130 votes, a long way short of the 176 needed for an overall majority.
Sánchez has no option now but to return to the house on Friday and ask to form a minority government. He will only succeed in this if either PP or Podemos votes for him or abstains, neither of which is a likely scenario.
US supreme court justices spar over strictest abortion law in the nation
In the most closely watched abortion rights case to come before the supreme court in nearly two decades, the eight high court justices on Wednesday spent an intense hour sparring over the fate of what many consider the strictest abortion law in the nation.
The case concerns House Bill 2, an abortion restriction passed in Texas in 2013 that many regard as the toughest in the nation. The legislature justified the law as a necessary health measure, although major medical groups such as the American Medical Association have questioned whether it actually makes abortion any safer.
Looming over the proceedings was the absence of Justice Antonin Scalia, who would have almost certainly voted to uphold the law. After his death, it is likely that the justices will, at most, reach a tie on the outcome, which would limit but not blunt the dramatic impact of a ruling that upholds the Texas law.
US defense chief tells Silicon Valley: ‘encryption is essential’
The escalating encryption fight between Apple and the FBI has a prominent dissenter inside the government: US defense secretary Ashton Carter.
The powerful Pentagon chief has not publicly undercut the FBI’s demands for Apple to write software undermining security features on its iPhone, which the bureau says is necessary to investigate the San Bernardino terrorist attack.
Yet Carter, according to people familiar with his thinking, has grown concerned that the increasingly bitter showdown between Apple and the bureau is jeopardizing his own efforts to forge closer ties with Silicon Valley – a major priority of his tenure at the Pentagon. As Comey fights encryption, Carter is bear-hugging it.
New York City mayor ends boycott of St Patrick’s Day parade as gay ban dropped
Mayor Bill de Blasio is ending a two-year boycott of the nation’s largest St Patrick’s Day parade now that it has fully dropped its longstanding ban on allowing gay and lesbian groups to march under their own banners.
De Blasio, a first-term Democrat, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that for the first time he will take part in the parade along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue on 17 March. He skipped the parade in 2014, when no gay groups were allowed to openly march, and he skipped again last year, when only one small lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender group was permitted.
Thrills and suspense as LA gets glass slide hung from 70th floor of building
It’s one thing to look out over Los Angeles from the tallest building in the western United States. Soon the view will take on new intensity as risk takers careen down a clear glass slide a thousand feet above ground.
Beginning in June visitors can take their fear of heights to a new level, shooting from the 70th to the 69th floor of the US Bank Tower.
Breakfast Blogs
If You Need to Understand the Stakes of This Election, Look to Today’s Supreme Court Case Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics
Larry Fink and His BlackRock Team Poised to Take Over Hillary Clinton’s Treasury Department David Dayen, The intercept
Revenge of the Simple: How George W. Bush Gave Rise to Trump Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
Bernie Sanders’ Black Voter Problem Is Really A Democratic Party Problem Kevin Gosztola, ShadowProof
And Meanwhile, Big Pharma Is Still Evil Steve M., No More Nice Guy Blog