The Breakfast Club (Easter Parade)

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.

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Breakfast Tune: Easter Parade – New Mountain Music

Today in History

Bomb strikes a West Berlin disco; Gen. Douglas MacArthur and billionaire Howard Hughes die; Educator Booker T. Washington born; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sets an NBA record; Katie Couric becomes CBS anchor.

Breakfast News & Blogs Below

Five Years On, the WikiLeaks ‘Collateral Murder’ Video Matters More than Ever

Christian Christensen, Common Dreams

This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of the release of the WikiLeaks “Collateral Murder” video which showed a July 12, 2007 US Apache attack helicopter attack upon individuals in a Baghdad suburb. Amongst the over twelve people killed by the 30mm cannon-fire were two Reuters staff. The video was part of the huge cache of material leaked to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning.

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In a statement by Manning made during her 2013 trial she outlined her motivations for the leak, stating (in relation to Collateral Murder) that one of the most disturbing aspects was the “bloodlust” exhibited by the US military. At one point we can hear members of the aerial weapons team begging a wounded Iraqi to pick up a weapon so that they would have a reason open fire on him once again. This, as Manning put it, was “similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass.” The violence in the video is both dehumanizing and grotesque, and serves to remind viewers of the perversity of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, as well as the subsequent deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

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So, as Collateral Murder turns five, rather than looking at the video as a curiosity from a bygone conflict, we should watch it again and consider how the film continues to speak to us about the state of contemporary geo-politics, journalism and whistleblowing. How much has actually changed? Manning continues to sit in jail. Snowden continues to sit in Russia. Civilians continue to die in Iraq. US drones continue to kill civilians. And whistle-blowers continue to be targeted. Happy Birthday.

The Bodies Pile Up in Yemen’s Civil War and Saudi Arabia’s Bombing Campaign, But Who is Counting the Casualties?

Jack Serle, Bureau of Investigative Journalism

…Saudi Arabia, convinced that the Houthis are backed by Iran, is leading an air campaign with a coalition of 10 Gulf neighbours and North African allies. Warships thought to belong to Egypt have reportedly shelled Yemen from the sea. US officials have pledged that drone strikes will continue. And al Qaeda is taking advantage of the chaos, springing hundreds of criminals from a prison in the east of the country.

It has never been more important, nor more challenging, to ensure proper mechanisms for the recording of casualties are in place.

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Scores of people have been killed already in Yemen and it appears many more may perish before stability is returned. These lives need to be marked, and the manner of their deaths recorded. Only in this way, can those responsible be held to account.

Guatemalans deliberately infected with STDs sue Johns Hopkins University for $1bn

Oliver Laughland, The Guardian

Nearly 800 plaintiffs have launched a billion-dollar lawsuit against Johns Hopkins University over its alleged role in the deliberate infection of hundreds of vulnerable Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis and gonorrhoea, during a medical experiment programme in the 1940s and 1950s.

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The experiments, which occurred between 1945 and 1956, were kept secret until they were discovered in 2010 by a college professor, Susan Reverby. The programme published no findings and did not inform Guatemalans who were infected of the consequences of their participation, nor did it provide them with follow up medical care or inform them of ways to prevent the infections spreading, the lawsuit states.

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A spokeswoman for Johns Hopkins School of Medicine said the institute expressed “profound sympathy” for the victims of the experiments and their families, but added: “Johns Hopkins did not initiate, pay for, direct of conduct the study in Guatemala. No nonprofit university or hospital has ever been held liable for a study conducted by the US government.” …

Duke Energy agrees to Virginia coal ash settlement

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press

Duke Energy has agreed to a $2.5 million settlement with Virginia over a massive coal ash spill that coated 70 miles of the Dan River in gray sludge in February 2014, state environmental officials announced Friday.

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In February, Duke and federal prosecutors said the energy giant had agreed to plead guilty to violations of the Clean Water Act and pay $102 million in fines, restitution and community service. The company said the costs of the settlement will be borne by its shareholders, not passed on to its electricity customers.

Duke adamantly denied any wrongdoing regarding its coal ash dumps for years. But in December, the company conceded in regulatory filings that it had identified about 200 leaks and seeps at its 32 coal ash dumps statewide in North Carolina that together ooze out more than 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater each day.

West Coast dockworkers union leaders endorse contract deal

Wire services

A tentative contract agreement that restored the flow of international trade through West Coast seaports earlier this year took a big step closer to becoming official, as representatives of the dockworkers’ union overwhelmingly recommended on Friday that rank-and-file members vote to approve the deal.

The difficult contract negotiations nearly closed 29 seaports from San Diego to Seattle, causing major delays in the delivery of billions of dollars of imports and exports. The tentative agreement restored normal operations on the West Coast ports, which handle about $1 trillion of trade each year.

Negotiators for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union reached the tentative, five-year deal in February with companies that run the massive ships and sprawling marine terminals that are integral to trans-Pacific trade. …

Maple Spring 2.0? Students Protest Austerity in Montreal

Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams

Tens of thousands of students, workers, and families protested austerity in the streets of Montreal on Thursday, denouncing the Quebec government’s plans to reduce spending on education, health care, and other social services.

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“The point of this protest is to show the ideological path taken by the provincial government is being done without a consensus,” ASSÉ spokesperson Camille Godbout told CTV Montreal.

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ASSÉ will hold special congress this weekend to assess the movement and decide whether to agitate for an indefinite strike. In addition, Quebec’s climate activists have called for a march on April 11, when Canada’s provincial premiers will gather for a national climate summit in Quebec City. And general labor strikes, protests, and direct actions like shutting down highways, are being planned for May 1. …