Republican Priorities

Why do they hate America?

When it's a choice between strengthening the Patriot Act, or showing up for the Tea Party Patriots, what's a GOP lawmaker to do? We'll give you one guess...

Several Republican members of Congress yesterday blew off votes on the signature anti-terror legislation of the post 9/11 era to attend Michele Bachmann's Tea Party rally against health-care reform.

Reps. Steve King of Iowa, Trent Franks of Arizona, Randy Forbes of Virginia, Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Louie Gohmert and Ted Poe of Texas all took time out yesterday for the "Super Bowl of Freedom," as Bachmann has called it. And all missed votes in the House Judiciary committee on Republican-sponsored amendments to the reauthorization of the Patriot Act -- measures that would have toughened the Act, but narrowly failed. Those votes took place, a committee staffer confirmed, between noon and two -- the very time when Republican lawmakers were rallying the Tea Party troops on the Capitol steps.  

... a few hours later, the bill that King actually had a chance to help shape was voted out of committee by 16-10 -- with King, Gohmert, and Forbes, as well as three other Republicans, again absent for the final vote. Republicans on the panel blasted the legislation, saying it would hinder law enforcement and intelligence agencies in fighting terror. But had a few more of their own showed up to vote, instead of playing to the Tea Party crowd, perhaps they would have been able to fix some of what they didn't like about it.

Don't they realize that when they stand with a bunch of lunatics, the terrorists win?