Exclusive: President Obama is finally giving the congressional Intelligence Committees a look at a Justice Department legal opinion justifying the killing of Americans in senior al-Qaeda positions plotting attacks on the U.S. The disclosure comes as the Senate considers John Brennan…
Category: Constitution
How Secrecy Corrodes Democracy
Exclusive: The Obama administration is under fire for its secret policy of using drone strikes to kill alleged al-Qaeda terrorists, including Americans. But the public suspicion is heightened by frustration over decades of excessive government secrecy and deception, says Robert…
How Congress Undermined 9/11 Cases
Congressional “tough-guy-ism” blocking President Obama’s plan to shutter the Guantanamo Bay prison and insisting on military tribunals for 9/11 terrorism suspects is making the prosecutions harder than if they had been transferred to civilian courts, an irony addressed by ex-CIA analyst…
Reality Bites Back
Exclusive: More than a Right-Left battle, the conflict for the world’s future is between empiricists and fantasists, those who are committed to reality and rationality and those who happily embrace propaganda as truth. It is a struggle with global implications,…
Defending Guns, Ignoring ‘Due Process’
Millions of Americans are almost literally up in arms over the prospect of a few commonsense restrictions on “gun rights,” but there has been no similar resistance to far more sweeping, post-9/11 encroachments on fundamental constitutional rights relating to due…
Return of ‘Three-Fifths’ of a Person
Exclusive: Stung by back-to-back defeats to Barack Obama, the Republican Party is undertaking a national strategy to devalue the votes of blacks and other minorities, a partial revival of the infamous clause in the U.S. Constitution rating African-American slaves as…
Finally, the Republicans Are Afraid
Exclusive: House Speaker John Boehner warned his fellow Republicans that President Obama may be preparing “to annihilate” the GOP, surely an overly dramatic claim but one that marks a stunning reversal of fortune for swaggering Republicans who once dreamt of their own one-party state,…
What to Make of Barack Obama?
Exclusive: In his Second Inaugural Address, President Obama offered a powerful rejoinder to the Right by arguing that progressive reform fits firmly within the Founders’ vision of a strong country advancing the “general Welfare” and securing “Blessings of Liberty.” But…
Making ‘Lethal Drones’ Routine
Seeking consistent standards for using lethal drones, the Obama administration is drafting a manual to govern when such attacks can be unleashed. But the secret guidelines carry other risks, including the acceptance of assassination as a routine part of U.S. foreign policy,…
The Troubling Message of Inaugurals
Pundits talk about presidential Inaugurals as celebrations of democracy, but the pomp and circumstance attended by Marine guards and punctuated by cannon fire carry an implicit message of intimidation that is closer to monarchy than a people’s government, writes Joe…