Politics Plus

The has been much ado about the white paper in which the Obama administration has claimed the authority to kill US citizens abroad, without oversight or transparency.  Regardless of my overall support for Obama, I must oppose this policy, based more on what I do not know about it than on what I do know.

On one level, there were not too many surprises in the newly disclosed “white paper” offering a legal reasoning behind the claim that President Obama has the power to order the killing of American citizens who are believed to be part of Al Qaeda. We knew Mr. Obama and his lawyers believed he has that power under the Constitution and federal law. We also knew that he utterly rejects the idea that Congress or the courts have any right to review such a decision in advance, or even after the fact.

Still, it was disturbing to see the twisted logic of the administration’s lawyers laid out in black and white. It had the air of a legal justification written after the fact for a policy decision that had already been made, and it brought back unwelcome memories of memos written for President George W. Bush to justify illegal wiretapping, indefinite detention, kidnapping, abuse and torture.

The document, obtained and made public by NBC News, was written by the Justice Department and coyly describes another, classified document (which has been described in The Times) that actually provided the legal justification for ordering the killing of American citizens…

Inserted from <NY Times>

I have to grant that America’s current enemies are not state based, do not wear uniforms, and do not fight using conventional means.  Therefore I recognize that there are people who threaten our national security, who are at war with us, and who need to be stopped.  I even recognize that some of those people could be US citizens, who have joined forces with our enemies.

If it can be indisputably proved that a US citizen is a clear and present danger to the US, because that individual is actively involved in unconventional warfare against the US, and if it can be demonstrated that capture is not a viable option, I do not object to taking that person out, as long as there is 100% transparency after the fact in which the American people are informed of the evidence on which the action was based.  The problem is, I can’t see where the present policy has any of these features.

We don’t know who can make the decision to issue a kill order.  We don’t know under what conditions a kill order may be issued.  We have no guarantee of transparency at any point in the process.

Rachel Maddow provided some excellent coverage of this issue.

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Rachel summed it up perfectly, when she asked how we will determine who is a bad guy. Wyden’s questions were also excellent.

Frankly, it would surprise me to see Obama use this policy abusively, but Obama will not be President forever.  I feel terrified at the notion that another Dick Cheney may someday sit in an undisclosed location, secretly picking off everyone he considers his enemy.

Now that the American people have at long last been shocked into demanding reasonable firearms reform, Republicans have been twisting in the wind, with scheme after scheme to prevent it, each one more absurd than the last.  I thought it could not get any worse, but I was wrong.

Last night, David Barton appeared on Glenn Beck’s television program to discuss the "real issues" regarding gun control and the Second Amendment.  After an opening segment in which Beck claimed that Obamacare will force people to give up their guns and lead to Nazi-like euthanasia programs, the two got down to business with Barton explaining that the NRA was founded in order to protect freed slaves from lynchings and that there never used to be school shootings in the 1800s because all of the kids carried guns to school…

Inserted from <Right Wing Watch>

Here’s the video.

Now I have no doubt that someone will want to accuse me of taking an absurd wing-nut and calling him a Republican.  Not so fast.  David Barton is the former chairman of the Republican Party of Texas.

Right now the US economy is stuck in a vicious circle.  Potential employers are not expanding production, so they are not hiring, because demand for their products and services is low.  Demand for their products and services is low, because so many people are unemployed, and far too many of those that are do not make enough to support their families, let alone consume additional goods and services.  So many people are unemployed and underemployed, because potential employers are not expanding production, so they are not hiring.  Recovery demands more and better jobs.

In President Obama’s first term, the fiscal stimulus and the auto-industry rescue of 2009 created and preserved millions of jobs. But the stimulus ended years ago, replaced with temporary measures that have been insufficient to propel the economy forward. Health care reform in 2010 was a major step in the effort to support the middle class, but its broad effects will be felt only in the years and decades to come.

In recent years, the administration and Congress have been consumed with deficit reduction, which is antithetical to job creation because it curbs government spending when the economy is weak. Unless Mr. Obama can shift policy away from premature austerity and toward ways to bolster demand and foster investment, job growth will remain sluggish and unemployment high.

What has been missing for years is a forceful labor agenda — one that calls for more jobs, but also has as its goal rising wages coupled with robust hiring.

Mr. Obama can take an important step in that direction by placing his next labor secretary at the center of his economic team. The first-term labor secretary, Hilda Solis, was largely sidelined, a reflection of the administration’s focus on the recovery of Wall Street, not Main Street. Some of the names that have been floated for the job — including Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan — show that Mr. Obama is seeking someone of high stature, but any secretary’s ability to be a transformative force will depend on the president’s support… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Photo credit: A Taxing Matter

Note the differences between recoveries from the great Republican Depression, and the Republican Recession.  So fall all the income growth has gone to the super-rich while the rest of us are losing.  That is why me need programs similar to those instituted by Roosevelt in the 1930s to get people working, give them money to spend, thus creating demand for more products and services to provide potential employers the incentive to increase production.  That will, in turn, increase tax revenue for the government to eliminate the deficit.