One reason that Republicans claimed that they did not like the Hate Crimes bill was that senior citizens and members of the Armed Forces were not added to the list. For two days they went on and on about the issue. So what did the Dems do? John Conyers led the way for the bill and responded to the GOP's demands. He said it wasn't a problem. So did the Republicans cheer for the bipartisan compromise?
From AmericaBlog:
The Republicans have been railing for days about how this legislation doesn't cover our Armed Forces and senior citizens, and now that the Dems offer to put our Armed Forces and seniors in this legislation, the Republicans said no and affirmatively stopped the Democrats from doing it anyway.
That means the Republicans had no intent on helping our Armed Forces and seniors, on protecting them. It was just a stunt. The GOP leaders in Congress just got up and used our Armed Forces and seniors as political fodder when they had no intent on actually doing anything to help our Armed Forces and seniors.
Well of course it didn't matter to them. Republicans don't actually care about helping the troops or our seniors. The reality is that to the right, using people for their own ideological ends is standard operating procedure. And sure enough, when the Democrats called them on it, Republicans showed their true colors. The bill passed anyways, with some Republican votes as well, 237 to 180. Yet the President will most likely veto this, as a nice little present to his extreme ideological base.
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