Assassination by presidential decree – disclosure needed

David McCraw, vice-president of the New York Times and a graduate of Albany Law, has been involved in a lawsuit for documents showing how the Administration decided which Americans to assassinate who were on foreign soil but not in war zones. United States District Judge Colleen MacMahon decided that the government did not have “to explain in detail the reasons why its actions do not violate the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

But she added, “The Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me” and she called it “a veritable Catch-22.”

IRAN

Iran’s position looks a bit stronger once the war in Gaza shifted everyone’s gaze.  But let’s use the breather to understand the bombast about Iran which will surely return.

Public bombast is not an effective or accurate way to get so-called messages to the other side. What goes on in private is vastly different. Diplomacy is private until public deals are reached and announced.

Romney-Ryan Rickshaws

Both candidates say they want to pull us out of the recession and put people back to work – to create jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs, the election seems to be about jobs.

President Obama is straightforward

Supreme Court Protects Prosecutorial Misconduct That Threatens the Innocent

As you think about whom you’ll vote for, let me tell you about two decisions of the Roberts Court where the Court sprang to the defense of prosecutors whose denials of constitutional protections had put innocent men in prison for decades.

Response to rhetoric from the Republican Convention

I have no illusion that what I say today will register over the important news that will be coming out of the Democratic Convention in North Carolina. But I want to respond to the Republican Convention and the party line the Republicans have been repeating.

Romney at the Convention told his people that “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise…is to help you and your family.” In other words Romney made fun of the single largest threat to the American way of life, coming in hurricanes, droughts, floods and the spread of serious diseases, suggesting if we didn’t already know it that the basic Republican position on the seriousness of the environmental threat is denial and ignorance.

But the basic Republican attack on Obama is that his policies have failed the economy.