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
President Lyndon Johnson won’t seek re-election; France’s Eiffel Tower marks its completion; Brain-damaged Terri Schiavo dies; ‘Oklahoma’ premieres on Broadway; Tejano singer Selena shot to death.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Brutal men with unlimited power are the same all over the world.
Mary Boykin Chesnut
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maryboykin377589.html
Breakfast News
Laptop containing plans of Belgian PM’s home found near terrorists’ flat
Plans and photographs of the home and office of Belgium’s prime minister, Charles Michel, have been found on a computer abandoned near a terrorist hideout in Brussels, according to Belgian sources.
The laptop was found in a bin near a flat in the Schaerbeek district that had been a makeshift bomb factory for the terrorists who killed 32 people and injured at least 340 in last week’s suicide bombings at Brussels airport and the city metro.
The find was first reported by several Belgian newspapers, including De Tijd and L’Echo, and has been confirmed by the Guardian. A well-placed source said: “We don’t know if they [the terrorists] were planning anything, but we do know they were investigating.” The laptop contained information about the prime minister’s official residence and office at 16 rue de la Loi in central Brussels, as well as photographs of the building taken from the street.
Chief of Libya’s new UN-backed government arrives in Tripoli
The chief of Libya’s new UN-backed government has reached Tripoli, defying threats from city militias, to proclaim a new order for the conflict-ravaged country in a move that could eventually pave the way for international forces to provide troops and air support.
Since Libya’s airspace had been closed by the existing Tripoli-based authorities, the prime minister designate, Fayez Sarraj, and seven members of the presidential council travelled from Tunisia by sea to the city’s Abusita naval base.
Sarraj is expected to call for outside help to train a new Libyan army and launch airstrikes against Islamic State bases in the country.
Sarraj told Reuters the council members had travelled in a Libyan navy vessel from the Tunisian port of Sfax, 12 hours away.
US used tactic from Apple encryption fight in 60 other phone-unlocking cases
The US government has used the same legal tactic it deployed in its encryption fight with Apple in more than 60 other phone-unlocking cases, according to a tally by a privacy watchdog, including other iPhones and devices running Google’s Android operating system.
The American Civil Liberties Union scoured court records across the US for cases where the government relied on the All Writs Act to try to force Google or Apple to help them unlock a phone. The statute, which has its origins in a more than 200-year-old legal principle, gives judges broad authority to ensure their orders – such as search warrants – are fulfilled.
In the Apple case, the US Department of Justice cited All Writs in pushing a judge to order Apple to write software that would make it easier for federal investigators to guess the iPhone passcode of Syed Farook, the San Bernardino gunman. Lawyers for many technology companies – including Microsoft, Google and Facebook – argued this would create too broad of a precedent under All Writs.
Silicon Valley subcontracting makes income inequality worse, report finds
Subcontracted jobs have grown at three times the rate of all private sector jobs in Silicon Valley over the past 24 years, exacerbating the region’s gaping income inequality, according to a new report from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The tech firms whose campuses dominate Silicon Valley are known to employ armies of subcontracted employees as janitors, cafeteria workers, gardeners, security guards and shuttle drivers. Researchers found that growth in subcontracted industries has outpaced overall job growth since 1990 – 54% compared with 18%.
That rise is “contributing” to income inequality, the report says, because subcontractors earn less money, have less access to healthcare, and are more likely to be black or Latino than their directly employed counterparts.
Sea levels set to ‘rise far more rapidly than expected’
Sea levels could rise far more rapidly than expected in coming decades, according to new research that reveals Antarctica’s vast ice cap is less stable than previously thought.
The UN’s climate science body had predicted up to a metre of sea level rise this century – but it did not anticipate any significant contribution from Antarctica, where increasing snowfall was expected to keep the ice sheet in balance.
According a study, published in the journal Nature, collapsing Antarctic ice sheets are expected to double sea-level rise to two metres by 2100, if carbon emissions are not cut.
Previously, only the passive melting of Antarctic ice by warmer air and seawater was considered but the new work added active processes, such as the disintegration of huge ice cliffs.
Breakfast Blogs
All 3 Republicans Said Something That Should Disqualify Them Last Night Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics
A Conversation on Privacy With Edward Snowden, Noam Chomsky, and Glenn Greenwald Alex Emmons, The Intercept
NC’s HB2: Is it getting hot in here? Tom Sulllivan, HUllabaloo
Appeals Court: FBI Whistleblower Wrongfully Terminated for Revealing Sex Trips By Agents Kevin Gosztola
Chicago’s New Era Of Transparency Looks Pretty Much Identical To Its Old Era Of Opacity Tim Cushing, Techdirt