July 10, 2016

Forget the Usual Suspects: What Surprising VP Choice could Hillary Make?

Personally, I think she'll go with Tom Perez, who has already been mentioned prominently, as he should be! But how about

July 10, 2016

Bin Laden's son threatens revenge for father's assassination - monitor

Source: Reuters

Sun Jul 10, 2016 2:47pm IST

The son of slain al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has threatened revenge against the United States for assassinating his father, according to an audio message posted online.

Hamza bin Laden promised to continue the global militant group's fight against the United States and its allies in the 21-minute speech entitled "We Are All Osama," according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

"We will continue striking you and targeting you in your country and abroad in response to your oppression of the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and the rest of the Muslim lands that did not survive your oppression," Hamza said.

"As for the revenge by the Islamic nation for Sheikh Osama, may Allah have mercy on him, it is not revenge for Osama the person but it is revenge for those who defended Islam."

Read more: http://in.reuters.com/article/usa-security-qaeda-idINKCN0ZQ0A6

---

The son? I thought OBL had twenty or more!

July 10, 2016

Ehud Barak SLAMS Bibi Netanyahu

From Politico, July 3, 2016 (crossposted)...

Ehud Barak hadn’t given a speech in months, and speculation was rife about what he was going to say when he took the stage at a prestigious policy conference in Herzliya, an affluent suburb of Tel Aviv, two weeks ago. Barak was one of Israel’s leading political figures for two decades, having served as the country's prime minister in the late 1990s and later as defense minister under Benjamin Netanyahu from 2009 to 2013. Was he about to announce a political comeback?

It turned out that Barak, a former special ops commando officer, had one last mission in mind: To take out his former boss and partner.

In his speech, Barak accused Netanyahu of cowardice, opportunism and fear-mongering. He warned that Israel's current government, arguably the most right wing in its history, was showing “signs of fascism,” and that if Netanyahu wasn’t stopped, Israel was on course to become an apartheid state. “The entire Zionist project is in grave danger,” he proclaimed. And the main source of that danger wasn't Israel’s external enemies, but rather its own democratically elected leader.

Barak hasn’t let up since. “Netanyahu,” he said in a televised interview broadcast a day after his angry speech, “has gone off the rails. He needs to go.”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/netanyahu-prime-minister-obama-president-foreign-policy-us-israel-israeli-relations-middle-east-iran-defense-forces-idf-214004

Good for Ehud!

July 10, 2016

Non-Fans of Tony Blair: July 6, 2016

Anyone here know who Christopher Titus is? My (beautiful!) wife is dragging me to see him up in Escondido tonight, so I'm signing off now.

Enjoy the rest of the evening, DU!
Paul

July 9, 2016

Charges likely after Navy SEAL trainee dies during drill

Posted on Thursday by CBS News.

Reminds me of A Few Good Men. (Yes, that film was about the Marines, but I think you can see the comparison.)

July 9, 2016

Up to 300,000 Syrians could get Turkish citizenship

Source: Globalpost

Agence France-Presse
Jul 9, 2016 @ 12:46 PM

Up to 300,000 Syrian refugees living in Turkey could be given citizenship under a plan to keep wealthy and educated Syrians in the country, a Turkish newspaper reported on Saturday.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on July 2 that Syrian refugees in the country would be offered nationality "if they want it," the first time such an idea had been proposed at the highest level. Nationality would be given step-by-step, with initial plans for 30,000 to 40,000 Syrians gaining citizenship, the Haberturk daily said.

In total, Turkey is targeting giving Turkish citizenship to up to up to 300,000 Syrians, it added.

Turkey is hoping such a move would allow skilled Syrian refugees to become citizens, the paper said. Educated refugees from other countries could choose to become nationals as well. Family members of those chosen to become Turkish citizens could also get the right to become nationals, it added.

Read more: http://www.globalpost.com/article/6781507/2016/07/09/300000-syrians-could-get-turkish-citizenship

---

If you got the money, honey...

July 9, 2016

U.S., Russia expel each other's diplomats

Source: CNN

By Elise Labott, CNN
Updated 2:35 PM ET, Sat July 9, 2016

Washington (CNN)Diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Russia began to unravel after Moscow said Saturday it had expelled two American diplomats and the U.S. revealed it had tossed two Russians in response to an attack on one of its personnel.

"On June 17, we expelled two Russian officials from the United States to respond to this attack," State Department spokesman John Kirby told CNN, referring to an American diplomat who the spokesman said "was attacked by a Russian policeman" while trying to enter the U.S. embassy last month in Moscow.

Russia revealed Saturday it had responded in kind.

According to Russian State News Agency Sputnik, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said two Americans were declared persona non grata after an "unfriendly move" by the U.S. that was not specified.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/08/politics/russia-attack-us-diplomat/index.html

---

I feel like the 80s again!

July 9, 2016

Child marriage is finally illegal in Virginia — and other states may be on their way

Mary Elizabeth Williams in Salon, Friday, Jul 8, 2016 04:32 PM EST

Bad news if you’d like to marry a child in the state of Virginia — as of this month, children under the age of 16 can no longer get hitched.

In case you thought that child marriage was a relic of bygone eras or an abusive practice that happens in other places, before July 1, 16- and 17-year-olds could marry with parental consent — and children even younger could wed with parental consent if the girl was pregnant. Relatedly, Virginia is one of the 37 states the mandate that its sex education curriculum include abstinence education. And according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, nearly 5,000 Virginia teenagers became new moms in 2014.

In a conversation with William & Mary News this week, Vivian Hamilton, a professor at the school who worked on raising the state’s marriage age, explained that “The new law does away with the most troubling, youngest marriages. By putting procedural safeguards in the way of 16- and 17-year-olds seeking to marry, we hope it will drastically reduce the occurrence of minors being coerced to marry.”

And to prove that that’s something that badly needed to happen, Hamilton went on to state that “In Virginia alone, almost 4,500 minors under age 18 were married between 2004 and 2013. Some 90 percent of minor spouses in Virginia were girls, and many of them married men significantly older than they were — sometimes decades older…. {The previous law} allowed abusers who could otherwise be prosecuted for statutory rape to evade prosecution by marrying their victims.”

http://www.salon.com/2016/07/08/child_marriage_is_finally_illegal_in_virginia_and_other_states_may_be_on_their_way/

smh

July 9, 2016

AP Exclusive: Islamic State's Twitter traffic plunges

Source: Associated Press

By BRADLEY KLAPPER
Jul. 9, 2016 2:57 AM EDT



WASHINGTON (AP) — The Islamic State group's Twitter traffic has plunged 45 percent in the past two years, the Obama administration says, as the U.S. and its allies have countered messages of jihadi glorification with a flood of online images and statements about suffering and enslavement at the hands of the extremist organization.

Among the images: A teddy bear with Arabic writing and messages saying IS "slaughters childhood," ''kills innocence," ''lashes purity" or "humiliates children." A male hand covering a female's mouth, saying IS "deprives woman her voice." A woman in a black niqab (veil), bloody tears coming from a bruised eye, and the caption: "Women under ISIS. Enslaved. Battered. Beaten. Humiliated. Flogged."

U.S. officials cite the drop in Twitter traffic as a sign of progress toward eliminating propaganda they blame for inspiring attacks around the world.

When the U.S. formed an international coalition in September 2014 to fight IS, the administration outlined multiple goals: military action and cutting off foreign fighters and finances, confronting the group's extremist ideology and stemming the militants' growing popularity in the Arab world and beyond.


Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/21c9eb68e6294bdfa0a099a0632b8056/ap-exclusive-islamic-states-twitter-traffic-plunges

---

Darn!