Until the announcement that Barack Obama was extending the state of emergency that has legally existed in the United States since September 14, 2001, hit my inbox this afternoon, I will confess that I was somewhat unaware we were in an emergency situation.

But, apparently we are:

Given that the emergency is defined vaguely as constituting something like “terrorists might attack the country,” it seems like we should consider dropping the charade of annual renewals and just admit that “emergency” 9/11 powers are now a permanent part of the landscape.