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 February 18th
‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ is first published; Jefferson Davis is sworn in as President of the Confederate States of America; ‘Chicago Seven’ defendants in court; Dale Earnhardt, Senior dies.
Breakfast Tune The Banjo Lounge 4 – Jump Around / Rapper’s Delight / Baby Got Back
Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below
Russia Isn’t the Only One Meddling in Elections. We Do It, Too.
Scott Shane, New York Times
Bags of cash delivered to a Rome hotel for favored Italian candidates. Scandalous stories leaked to foreign newspapers to swing an election in Nicaragua. Millions of pamphlets, posters and stickers printed to defeat an incumbent in Serbia.
The long arm of Vladimir Putin? No, just a small sample of the United States’ history of intervention in foreign elections.
On Tuesday, American intelligence chiefs warned the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russia appears to be preparing to repeat in the 2018 midterm elections the same full-on chicanery it unleashed in 2016: hacking, leaking, social media manipulation and possibly more. Then on Friday, Robert Mueller, the special counsel, announced the indictments of 13 Russians and three companies, run by a businessman with close Kremlin ties, laying out in astonishing detail a three-year scheme to use social media to attack Hillary Clinton, boost Donald Trump and sow discord. …
Candidate Thrown Out of West Virginia Legislature for Reading Off Fossil Fuel Donors Raises Historic Sum of Campaign Money
Zaid Jilani, The Intercept
Lissa Lucas, a first-time Democratic candidate for the statehouse in West Virginia’s District 7, was outraged that the legislature was considering expanding the rights of gas drillers at the expense of property owners.
So she drove 100 miles to the state capitol and read off the list of fossil fuel donors to lawmakers at a public hearing. The presiding official, Republican Delegate John Shott, equated this recitation of public information as a personal attack and promptly expelled her from the chamber.
In an interview with The Intercept two days after being thrown out of the legislature, Lucas wondered if Shott had overplayed his hand by having her expelled. “He brought so much more attention to it by having me thrown out,” she noted.
It has certainly helped her fundraising. …
- Obama Energy Secretary Named to Board of Utility Giant
Gaius Publius
- Arkansas banned a weedkiller. Now, Monsanto is suing.
Nathanael Johnson
- Behind the Explosion in Socialism Among American Teens
Rebecca Stoner
Something to think about over coffee prozac
California’s ‘Butt Lady’ picks up millionth cigarette butt
Feb. 16 (UPI) — An anti-littering activist in California is celebrating an unusual milestone — picking up her one millionth discarded cigarette butt.
Sally Dawly, who branded herself “the Butt Lady of Auburn” after beginning her quest to clean the streets in October 2014, was accompanied by an entourage of friends, family and fans Wednesday when she swept up her one millionth cigarette butt in the parking lot of Mel’s Diner in Auburn.
“I got tired of going on my walks and seeing cigarette butts everywhere,” Dawly told KTXL-TV.
Dawly said she uses a clicker to keep track of the butts she’s cleaned up around Auburn.
“I’m just overwhelmed and shocked that I had to pick up this many,” she told KOVR-TV. “I keep track on a daily basis of how many I pick up and I just keep going.”
Dawly said she wants to inspire people to be more responsible.
“I’ve had days where I’ve picked up 3,000 butts, in one day, and it’s like, come on people,” she said.
The Butt Lady offered some advice to local smokers.
“Don’t throw your butts,” she said. “Better yet, stop smoking.”