Progressive Briefing for Monday, August 13, 2018

Saudi Arabia’s newest enemy is... Canada?, Green Party candidate in Montana was on GOP payroll, and more.

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As victims’ families fight for justice, secret report details how Israel used armed drone to kill Gazan children

A secret report by the Israeli military police – obtained by The Intercept‘s Robert Mackeyreveals that a week into Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in 2014, “air force, naval, and intelligence officers” mistook four 10- and 11-year-old boys who were playing on a beach in Gaza for Hamas militants and killed them by firing missiles from an armed drone.

While “hacked Israeli surveillance images provided to The Intercept by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden showed an Israeli drone armed with missiles in 2010,” Mackey notes that “the Israeli government maintains an official stance of secrecy around its use of drones to carry out airstrikes” – meaning this report provides perhaps “the most direct evidence to date that Israel has used armed drones to launch attacks in Gaza.”

Green Party candidate in Montana was on GOP payroll

Timothy Adams, a man who registered as a Green Party candidate in Montana, was actually on the state Republican Party’s payroll and leads an anti-tax group, the AP reported. Adams filed to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, who is one of the more vulnerable Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections in November.

Saudi Arabia’s newest enemy is… Canada?

Although there was great hope when he took power, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has been a disappointment for Canada’s progressive left, at least in terms of policy, if not always in terms of rhetoric. While in certain areas it’s obvious that the Liberals are much better than the Conservative government that proceeded them, by for example, creating gender parity in the Prime Minister’s Cabinet for the first time in Canada’s history and joining an exclusive club of five nations that have achieved this win for equality, at least at the top.

White House takes aim at financial protections for military

The Trump administration is taking aim at a law designed to protect military service members from getting cheated by shady lending practices.

NPR has obtained documents that show the White House is proposing changes that critics say would leave service members vulnerable to getting ripped off when they buy cars. Separately, the administration is taking broader steps to roll back enforcement of the Military Lending Act.

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