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
Radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi born; ‘America’ first used on a world map; U.S. and Soviet troops meet in World War II; The Hubble Space Telescope deployed into orbit; Jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.
Breakfast News
Obama to announce plans to grow U.S. Special Operations force in Syria
President Obama will announce the addition of 250 Special Operations troops to the American advisory force in Syria, U.S. officials said Sunday, the administration’s latest move seeking to intensify pressure on the Islamic State.
A senior administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss measures that have not yet been announced, said that Obama will make his decision public on Monday, during remarks at a technology fair in Germany.
Austria’s Far-Right Party Leads The Vote In Presidential Election
Austria’s far right won more than a third of the vote in the presidential election on Sunday and will face an independent in next month’s run-off, dumping out the country’s two main parties from the post for the first time.
It was the Freedom Party’s best result in a national election after a campaign that focused on the impact of the migrant crisis, which has seen around 100,000 asylum seekers arrive in Austria since last summer.
Norbert Hofer, who ran on an anti-immigrant and anti-Europe platform, won 36.4 percent of the vote to become head of state. He will face Alexander van der Bellen, a former Green Party figurehead, who won 20.4 percent, according to official preliminary results.
The co-chair of a joint congressional investigation that penned a report at the center of the unfolding controversy over Saudi Arabia’s suspected connection to the 9/11 attacks revealed Sunday he felt that “all the evidence points to” the shadowy kingdom having aided the terrorists responsible for the devastating act that killed nearly 3,000 people.
“To me, the most important unanswered question of 9/11 is did these 19 (hijackers) conduct this very sophisticated plot alone, or were they supported? I think it’s implausible to think that people who couldn’t speak English, had never been in the United States before, as a group were not well-educated could have done that,” former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who helped author the 2002 report based on a joint House and Senate Intelligence Committee probe into the attacks, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Fabulous Win for Anti-Fracking Movement as Another Major Pipeline Bites the Dust
For the second time in less than a week, climate activists and fracking opponents in the northeast find themselves celebrating.
The latest applause comes after a state regulatory agency on Friday—which happened to be Earth Day—announced it was denying a permit for a major fracked-gas pipeline in the state. Just days earlier, another similar project was halted in New England.
Calling it “amazing news” and a “huge victory” for New York residents and the planet as a whole, the decision by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to reject the controversial Constitution Pipeline project was welcomed as a timely gift by Frack Action, a state coalition opposed to hydraulic drilling and further expansion of fossil fuel projects in the state.
Senator Schumer pushes Congress for emergency funding to fight Zika
Sen. Chuck Schumer urged Congress to approve $1.9 billion in emergency funding to combat the spread of the Zika virus, which has already infected at least 60 people in New York State.
“Simply put, anyone repellent to this emergency funding plan isn’t serious about beating Zika,” said Schumer, adding that time is of the essence because mosquito season is fast approaching.
Breakfast Blogs
The Truth About Donald Trump’s New Campaign Strategy Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics
To See the Real Story in Brazil, Look at Who Is Being Installed as President — and Finance Chiefs Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
DOJ’s Awesome New Trick to Break into Apple Phones emptywheel aka Marcy Wheeler, empywheel
The Desolation of Smug drigtglass at his blog
Court Says National Security Letters Are Now Constitutional Under USA Freedom Act Mike Masnick, Techdirt