Politics

On Tuesday, a suicide bomber detonated in Istanbul’s Sultanahmet Square outside the city’s Blue Mosque killing ten German citizens and injuring dozens.

Graphic images began to surface immediately on social media including the following two visuals which depict the moment of the explosion and the immediate aftermath:

There was little question that ISIS would be blamed. The PKK has largely eschewed civilian attacks of late, preferring instead to fight the army directly in the southeast.

Relations between Poland the EU are deteriorating rapidly on the heels of President Andrzej Duda’s move to approve new laws that allow the conservative (and eurosceptic) Law and Justice (PiS) government to name the chiefs of public TV and radio, and select judges for Poland's constitutional court.

Nikki Haley competently delivered her response to Obama’s State of the Union address, and made it as clear as possible that she lines up with the anti-Trump side of the party. Noah Millman sums this up in his latest post:

Submitted by James Stafford via OilPrice.com,

The rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran has quickly ballooned into the worst conflict in decades between the two countries.

I rarely listen to the State of the Union address. I rather incline to Thomas Jefferson’s sentiment that it flatters the institution of the Presidency, and to his decision to deliver his in writing. So, as with most of his previous addresses, I read President Obama’s last oration on the state of our union rather than listening to it in real time.

So I don’t know if it came off this way when he delivered it, but reading it I was struck by an overarching theme, that of winners and losers.

I wonder where that theme might have come from.