Fully -- Fully, I Say -- Bipartisan

So, the government-lapdog secret "court" whereby the government supposedly protects us from itself -- don't laugh, dammit! -- is now better than ever, and the lawbreaking but government-cooperative telecoms are as safe, warm, and secure as if in their mothers' arms:

After more than a year of wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory on Tuesday by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants.

One by one, the Senate rejected amendments that would have imposed greater civil liberties checks on the government’s surveillance powers. Finally, the Senate voted 68 to 29 to approve legislation that the White House had been pushing for months. Mr. Bush hailed the vote and urged the House to move quickly in following the Senate’s lead.

The outcome in the Senate amounted, in effect, to a broader proxy vote in support of Mr. Bush’s wiretapping program. The wide-ranging debate before the final vote presaged discussion that will play out this year in the presidential and Congressional elections on other issues testing the president’s wartime authority, including secret detentions, torture and Iraq war financing.

None of us has any excuse to pretend to be surprised by this. I hope, though, that we all recognize how fully complicit the Congress and both major-brand political parties are.

And, for my fellow Hoosiers, be assured that both your senators -- that's the "R" one and the "D" one -- voted in favor. Onward to Our Glorious Police State!