I was going to write about something else this morning but then I happened upon a video of President Obama saying yesterday that he should have closed Guantanamo Bay on day 1 of his presidency I have written here on Continuations in 2010 and in 2013 that I wish we had the courage to close down Guantanamo Bay. It’s good to at least see the President Obama acknowledge this as an error. But he is still in office and he should do this using executive power. After all, he did sign an executive ord...

I was very happy to see President Obama win a second term last night. For starters it was gratifying that despite all sorts of last minute challenges this was not a close vote with hanging chads and damage to the integrity of the democratic process. It was also a compelling repudiation of candidates with backward positions on issues such as abortion and women’s rights more generally. But there are important issues on which I have have deeply disagreed with the approach taken by the Obama admi...

I tweeted earlier this week that I had switched my voter registration to New York City from Westchester (something that can be done online in New York State!). I will vote in the upcoming presidential election and I will vote for President Obama. But unlike 2008, when I did so enthusiastically, this time it will be with a heavy heart. As John Stewart once put it so succinctly, “we would have hoped for some audacity." Now it is a lot easier to criticize the president than to do his job. And I ...

During the 2008 crisis, I argued that we should take over the big banks and restructure them. Instead, we bailed out the banks with tax payer money and with an unprecedented increase in the Fed’s balance sheet. We did nothing to get rid of banks that are “too big to fail” or to severely restrict their activities (which might lead them to break themselves up). So yesterday, JP Morgan Chase had to announce a $2 Billion trading loss from what they claim was a hedge gone wrong in Credit Derivativ...

Unlike many other people, I have not been disappointed with Barack Obama’s presidency. There have been many moments of frustration, but it is a damn tough job, especially when so many representatives from both sides seem to have lost all sense of what their responsibilities are. But I do find the idea of assassinations targeting US citizens without due process deeply disturbing. Due process is one of the key breakthroughs of the modern state and is at the foundation of what sets us apart from...

I was excited to vote for Obama this past November. Now I am excited for him to actually be our president. As I wrote back then, I hope that he will an unleash “a tidal wave of involvement, innovation and improvement." For that to succeed, we the people have to be that tidal wave. We all have to ask ourselves what we can do. It has been great to see posts to that effect, including Fred’s post on selflessness and Alex’s post on 7 Online Things To Do To Restore America. So here are three things...