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.
AP’s Today in History for May 7th
The Lusitania sunk in World War I; Nazi Germany signs surrender in World War II; Vietnam’s Battle of Dien Bien Phu; Composer Peter Illych Tchaikovsky born; Glenn Miller records ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo.’
Breakfast Tune WINELAND BANJO BAND plays “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”
Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below
Pelosi Refuses to Back Single Payer, Despite GOP Deathmongering Suddenly Taking Center Stage
Sam Knight, The District Sentinel
Democrats are endeavoring to point out that tens of thousands of Americans face a death sentence if House Republicans’ current healthcare plan is signed into law.
“With the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, it is estimated that 43,956 people will die,” Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) said Thursday morning, on the House floor. “Long live the Republican Party.”
But while Dems have shown an interest in saving lives, their leader is wasting an opportunity to advocate for the 27 million Americans left completely uninsured by Obamacare.
“No, I don’t,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) promptly said, when asked by a reporter if she thinks single payer should be in Democrats’ 2018 party platform. …
Sanders defends Trump’s praise of Australian healthcare system
David Morgan, Reuters
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said on Saturday that President Donald Trump was right to call Australia’s universal healthcare system better than the U.S. system.
Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, also said the Senate should use the Australian system as a model while crafting an alternative to Republican healthcare legislation that Trump endorses.
“President Trump is right. The Australian healthcare system provides healthcare to all of its people at a fraction of the cost than we do,” Sanders commented on Twitter.
The tweet was accompanied by a short video that set out the virtues of Australia’s universal healthcare system, saying it guarantees better service to all Australians at about half the cost of U.S. healthcare. The video also noted that Australians can expect to live longer than Americans, on average. Australian healthcare has clearly come in leaps and bounds, from hospitals and doctors surgeries to medical centers like glebe medical centre, Australians are benefiting from the healthcare system.
Trump immigration policy spurs ire at Kentucky Derby: ‘We can’t find workers’
Mike Elk, The Guardian
A dark cloud has been hanging over the Kentucky Derby this weekend as horse trainers have made public their anger at Trump’s immigration policies, which they say are hurting the Kentucky Derby, the US’s most glamorous horse racing event.
“We can’t find workers this year – it’s been tough,” says Julio Rubio of the Kentucky Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. “Most of the workers we have at the track won’t even leave to go out at night to buy groceries because they are so scared of being deported.”
The horse racing industry is big business in Kentucky. It brings more than $4bn a year to the state. The owners of horses at Churchill Downs racetrack are among the country’s economic elite; derby winners can bring in purses that easily exceed $1m. …
Kushner Family Tells Wealthy Chinese: Invest With Us and You Can Immigrate
Common Dreams staff
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s family business encouraged wealthy Chinese citizens to “invest $500,000” in their real estate empire and then be allowed to immigrate to the United States.
That was the message for an event held Saturday in a ballroom full of wealthy Chinese investors at the Ritz-Carlton in Beijing, The Washington Post reported.
Kushner’s sister, Nicole Meyer, encouraged those in the ballroom to invest in her family’s New Jersey real estate project and get an investor visa in return.
The visa, known as the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, gives foreign investors the opportunity to invest in projects in the U.S and then lets them apply to immigrate to the U.S. The program has been used by both the Trump and Kushner family businesses.
The investor visa program is extremely popular among very rich Chinese eager to get their families – and their wealth – out of China. …
Poland: Anti-government rally draws tens of thousands
Aljazeera
Tens of thousands of Poles have demonstrated in the capital, Warsaw, against the country’s populist ruling party, calling for the protection of the rule of law from a series of government steps they deem anti-democratic.
Speakers at Saturday’s “Freedom March” alleged that the government under Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s right-wing, nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party has eroded the independence of courts and other institutions to such an extent that Poland would not be accepted into the European Union or NATO today if it did not already belong.
…
The event was organised by the liberal opposition Civic Platform (PO) party, but other opposition parties and the Committee for the Defence of Democracy, a civic organisation, also took part. …
- Maybe the Humble Hyphen Could Stop the Democrats’ Death Spiral
BARBARA G. ELLIS
Something to think about over coffee prozac
Man Allegedly Shoots Squirrel With Bow And Arrow For ‘Giving Him A Look’
A man from Staten Island, New York City, is facing animal cruelty charges after prosecutors say he killed a squirrel with a bow and arrow for a patently absurd reason.
Jonathan Mangia told investigators that he shot and killed the animal on Tuesday because it “gave him a look,” according to a criminal complaint that DNAInfo obtained. He reportedly said he had thrown rocks at the squirrel to scare it away from his home.
“Then the squirrel gave me a look and I took it personal,” Mangia said, according to the complaint.
Mangia also allegedly told police that after being shot, the squirrel was able to flee and remove the arrow from its own body, according to the New York Daily News. …
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