A poll published on Wednesday at the Washington Post finds that a majority of even "liberal Democrats" approves of Obama killing US citizens. Of course, this would almost certainly be different if Obama were a Republican.

What if an organization with money but no partisanship (are there some?) were to commission a poll from a pollster willing to face a firestorm of attacks from the political parties (are there any such pollsters?), a poll that would ask people all their demographic info, including politics and party identification if any, and ask some of them:

• If President Obama had to kill a US citizen to protect the nation, based purely on the word of the President, would you approve?
• If President Obama had to imprison a US citizen with no trial to protect the nation, based purely on the word of the President, would you approve?
• If President Obama had to launch a war without congressional authorization in order to protect the nation, based purely on the word of the President, would you approve?
• If President Obama determined it to be necessary to deploy a nuclear bomb and did so, would you approve?

Ron Paul, especially in comparison to his fellow Republicans, does seem a very likeable fellow. His position on ending our nation’s wars and interventions is on target, I believe. However, seeing some otherwise positive, well meaning folks becoming so infatuated with Mr. Paul that they call him “progressive” is ridiculous. For me, it’s brought to mind an old proverb I’d heard about ‘Freedom.’ “Freedom,” the saying goes, “means different things to different folks. Freedom for the fox means freedom to eat the hen, but freedom for the hen means freedom from the fox!”

We really do need to look a bit closer at just whose liberty & freedom it is that Mr. Paul is most interested in protecting. In this time of increased rights for corporations and fetuses, and decreased ones for regular working folks, ’freedom’ no longer has a neutral meaning. Ron Paul has been damned good, but the ‘freedom’ he’s been good at fighting for isn’t ours!

As the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves a construction/operating license for two new reactors in Georgia, alarming reports from Japan indicate the Fukushima catastrophe is far from over. 

Thousands of tons of intensely radioactive spent fuel are still in serious jeopardy. Radioactive trash and water are spewing into the environment. And nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen reports that during the string of disasters following March 11, 2011's earthquake and tsunami, Fukushima 1's containment cap may actually have lifted off its base, releasing dangerously radioactive gasses and opening a gap for an ensuing hydrogen explosion. 

There are some two dozen of these Mark I-style containments currently in place in the US.

For progressives and populists around the country who take an interest in Congressional races there are always a few good challengers we might hope to send to Washington. Incumbents, we assume, can take care of themselves.

But in Northern Ohio, redistricting has thrown two incumbents into one district. It's a heavily Democratic district created purposely to guarantee a number of other districts to Republicans. The incumbents are both Democrats, both white, both 65, and many imagine that they do similar work in Washington. In fact, they could not be more different. One of them does tremendous good for our national politics, working to move our government in a better direction from inside it, just as the rest of us do from the outside. We cannot afford to lose him. We would be obliged to work for his reelection even if his opponent were far above average. The record suggests something else.

Before President Barack Obama’s interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer, aired before the Super Bowl on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu probably hoped that, if Obama discussed Iran, he would give him the strong backing that Israeli leaders crave, freeing them to lash out at Iran — militarily, if they so choose.

Few could have been more keenly interested than he in what the President would say in an interview beamed to a hundred million American TV viewers. The problem was that Netanyahu could not have been completely sure of what to expect, given the confusing mixed signals coming out of Washington in the past several weeks.

President Obama with advisers in the Oval Office (White House photo by Pete Souza)

Some of those signals had been disquieting to Netanyahu and other Israeli hard-liners — for example, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta saying flat-out on Jan. 8 that Iran is NOT “trying to develop a nuclear weapon” – undercutting the key casus belli for war – and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey visiting Israel on Jan. 19, reportedly to repeat that in person and warn his hosts against provoking war with Iran.