Less Drama
I don’t think this article (“The War Isn’t Over,” Fly, Feb. 3) is very fair and balanced. I wish the media would give us voters a break here. I’m tired of trying to figure out who to vote for with this type of reporting on candidates. More facts please and less drama! Thanks!
Kathleen
From SanJoseInside.com
Gag Orders
Hot mashed fiddlesticks and thwapping mashed potatoes! I am tired of the fearmongering by the feds, how about you? Yet that is exactly what is going on in Congress right now, as the debate to renew and worsen the FBI-empowering Patriot Act is happening, according to the ACLU. The act allows FBI and police to seize property and arrest without warrant or probable cause. The Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU, Marjorie Cohn as president of the National Lawyers Guild, the American Rifle Association, Bruce Fein, former U.S. Attorney General and more all agree that its “overbroad” terrorist definition includes activists and is designed to clamp down on free speech. UC-Berkeley students against the Iraq war, Food Not Bombs, the Quaker American Friends Service Committee, Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and more are being investigated by the FBI as terrorists.
The gag-order-containing National Security Letters portion of the act has been abused since the warrant requirement was lifted: 183,000 NSLs were issued between 2003 and 2005 alone, and 53 percent of those “terrorists” subpoenaed under gag order by the FBI were Americans, according to the ACLU. Please call Congress and just say no! to renewing the Patriot Act and making the abuses even worse. Typically the FBI and the feds have been overinvoking “endangerment to national security” as excuse for secrecy. Enough already, not on our dime! Thank you!
Drina Brooke
Novato
One Thumb Up
It’s easy to be cynical about this given the city’s schizophrenic treatment of downtown businesses (millions in subsidies followed by iron-fisted nightclub police and strict code enforcement)—but the fact is this looks like a pretty good plan (“City Life,” Cover Story, Feb. 3).
I hope the council listens to the smart people quoted in this article. A thriving downtown is good for everyone in the valley.
Local
From SanJoseInside.com
At Long Last
At long last, the Supreme Court has made a decision that real Americans can get solidly behind by ending second-class citizenship for long-oppressed corporations. Restricted for decades, their freedom of speech curtailed and stifled, corporations could only spend limited amounts on election campaigns; a disgraceful defiling of their First Amendment rights.
Not since their greatest hour—preventing Al Gore from becoming president—has the court triumphed in the cause of free-market democracy. Finally, corporations, their tiny voices choked by the campaign-finance-reform fanatics, can be heard throughout the land. Their long-overdue full personhood has been established, and they are now free to speak their minds and support with their heard-earned fortunes the righteous and deserving. Bite on that, liberal Democratic (redundant?) surrender-monkeys.
Only trouble is they didn’t go far enough. Everyone knows corporations are persons and deserving of individual rights—so why can’t they vote or run for office or get married if they want? Why are corporations left out in the cold, excluded from the warm inner sanctity of full citizenship? This was a glaring oversight in jurisprudence, but it’s only a matter of time. Rejoice, fellow real Americans, and imagine the incredible mess we’d be in now if Gore had become president. One shudders to think. We’d all be forced to marry trees and put clothing on animals.
Will Shonbrun
Boyes Springs
