How To Rein In A President Who Kills Americans

That's every president in these troubled times, so what Ian Millhiser and Zack Beauchamp of Think Progress offer in "5 Practical Ideas To Rein In The Presidential Power To Kill Americans" is well worth contemplating. Reducing each idea to a single phrase, they are

• Public disclosure,
• Mandatory (presidential) consultation (with Congress),
• Special courts (which evaluate and approve or disapprove targeted killings),
• Lawsuits after-the-fact (allowing current courts to review the legality of targeted killings after-the-fact, circumventing the "state secrets" rebuttal),
• An outright ban (of targeted killings of American citizens).

I am the first to point out that every one of these entails a hornet's nest of constitutional issues, but we'd better start discussing these and other possible resolutions immediately, because after two administrations' use of targeted killings, including Obama's targeting of American citizens... one administration from each major political party... the provocation isn't going away any time soon.