There's Your Answer, Fish-Bulb

One of my fellow travelers at the Simpsons Collector Sector (David, aka "MeesterSparkle") got a letter to the editor published yesterday in the San Francisco Chronicle. It's a very good letter and relates to many of the issues I've been writing about this week. So here it is-

U.S. fights for freedom as we lose it at home

Editor -- We are constantly reminded that "our boys'' are fighting in Iraq and other places to preserve our freedom. Here at home, we seem all too willing to give it away. Another so-called Patriot Act has passed, with barely a whimper, and Thomas Jefferson is rolling over in his grave.

Wouldn't we be honoring our fighting soldiers more if we were all willing to fight for our liberty at home, instead of expecting them to do it by themselves, and only in far away places?

How can we expect democracy to be embraced in foreign lands, when it is crumbling at home?

DAVID LYNDS

And here's information on the President's 'victory' on the Patriot Act (win for him, loss for democracy):
Bush Signs Renewal of Patriot Act

This is a picture I found on the AP wire-


There's something genuinely disturbing about the joy on their faces here.

(Not to mention the Orwellian "Protecting The Homeland" sign)

And a guest blogger at Glenn Greenwald's site discusses the Act's relationship to the President's spying-

On Thursday the President once again signed into law a statute--the Patriot Act renewal--which amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The Patriot Act made many significant changes to FISA--changes which were made permanent by this bill--but there is one crucial provision that has not changed; FISA still clearly states that its procedures "shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . may be conducted." In other words, the President has once again reaffirmed the validity of a law which expressly criminalizes the type of warrantless surveillance which his administration has been conducting for four and a half years.

Kind of makes the smiles of those cowardly Republicans even more unnerving, no?