Back in the early Aughts, the Bushies and Congress used America’s fear to ram through the “Patriot” Act, a mind-boggling assault on our Constitutional rights. This was, regrettably, done by Jackasses and Elephants alike.

But the government couldn’t violate enough of our rights, and couldn’t violate them enough. So in 2007, the Bushies and Congress rammed through the “Protect America” Act, so as to be able to quietly shred the last vestiges of our rights. Then they passed it again in 2008.

Then in 2012, the Obama administration and Congress quietly re-upped the PAA for another few years.

The point of this history lesson? Each and every Senator and Congresscritter (except for the total Noobs) knew all about the surveillance, the monitoring, the spying, the phone record keeping: all of it. They knew because they voted on the legislation to authorize it, and most of them did so more than once.

So now it suits them to climb upon the cruppers of their high horses and denounce this outrage, Dems and Repubs alike, and act as if they knew nothing of it. We had best remember that the majority of them are, in the finest bipartisan tradition, responsible for this outrage.

And we, in an equally bipartisan manner, should chuck anyone who voted for the government to spy on us right out of office. And that soon.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky