Posts Tagged ‘Barack Obama’

“Combatants”: Detained But Untried

Do we want our presidents empowered to imprison people simply for their beliefs?

Seems Like Old Times in Afghanistan

Next I Read The News Entry Seems Like Old Times in Afghanistan  They say that President Obama is meeting with platoons of advisors to determine whether and if so how to carry on that conflict.  To those of us old enough to remember Vietnam, it all seems eerily familiar.  Take one Democratic president, elected with […]

Picking Up the Flag

It is tempting to view the stories told in [Eric] Boehlert’s two books, one chronicling the failure of the mainstream media to report the news and the other revealing the success of the blogs in doing so, as being parts of the same story. Maybe the mainstream media would not be failing from a business perspective were they not, most of the time, failing from a news-reporting perspective as well. Maybe the blogs would not be succeeding, albeit under their mostly profit-agnostic criteria, were they not beginning to seize the standard of bona fide reporting falling from the grasp of the mainstream media as they tumble lifeless upon the field of economic battle.

Just Following Orders

Just Following Orders   [I]t can never be maintained that a military officer can justify himself for doing an unlawful act, by producing the order of his superior. Chief Justice Taney, Mitchell v. Harmony, 54 U.S. 115, 137 (1851)[1]              Last time, we started with the premise that the MPs who abused the detainees […]

Caesar in the Wings?

Will our next President reverse the dangerous overextension of executive power? Michael Traynor’s talk at the American Law Institute conjures up memories of ancient Rome.

Can’t Take A Joke?

All over the political spectrum, people are slow to comprehend, quick to take offense at the Barry Blitt New Yorker cover of the fist-bumping Obamas. Can’t Take A Joke? Apparently not.

Unfunny Imus

The Big Picture Home Page | Previous Big Picture Column |  Next Big Picture Column Unfunny Imus               It was certainly legal to fire Don Imus.  He was employed by private employers (at least to the extent that public corporations whose stock in trade is use of public airwaves can realistically be called private), so by […]