Politics

The top lawyer at the Pentagon offered a strong defense of the Obama administration's targeted killing program Wednesday, arguing the use of lethal force against the enemy is a "long-standing and long-legal practice."

In a speech at Yale University's Law School, Jeh Johnson said there's no real difference between high tech strikes against members of al-Qaida today and the U.S. military decision to target an airplane carrying the commander of the Japanese Navy in 1943.

"Should we take a dimmer view of the legality of lethal force directed against individual members of the enemy, because modern technology makes our weapons more precise?" Johnson said, according to a copy of his prepared remarks.

Priorities USA Action, a superPAC backing President Obama, has unveiled a new ad running in Michigan in advance of that state's GOP primary next week. It takes former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to task for opposing the auto industry bailout.

Some of those Occupy protesters who famously got face fulls of pepper spray last November on the campus of University of California Davis have now filed suit in federal court.

Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer seems to have finally hit on how to get noticed in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination: drop out of the race.

Or, more specifically, redouble his efforts to get to the White House by switching to the nascent "Americans Elect" movement while at the same time seeking the nomination of the Reform Party.

Roemer has struggled to be taken seriously by the Republican establishment, get access to the all-important televised debates, or get the media coverage that comes with both. But Roemer's announcement Wednesday was widely reported.

Roemer had been overshadowed since announcing last summer that he would seek the Republican nomination, joining what was — at the time — already a crowded field.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is making some waves, today, after expressing some harsh words about billionaire Warren Buffett in an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan last night.

Christie was talking about New Jersey's efforts to lower taxes on everyone, when Morgan asked him about Buffett, who famously asked the government to raise his taxes. In an editorial in The New York Times last year, Buffett said he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary. Those comments have led President Obama to use him and his secretary as reasons to impose a so-called "Buffett Rule," which would require those making more than $1 million a year to pay at least 30 percent in taxes.