Glad to see so many of our lawmakers have their priorities straight.

The Hill:

A recent briefing by senior intelligence officials on surveillance programs failed to attract even half of the Senate, showing the lack of enthusiasm in Congress for learning about classified security programs. [WATCH VIDEO]
 
Many senators elected to leave Washington early Thursday afternoon instead of attending a briefing with James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA), and other officials.

The Senate held its last vote of the week a little after noon on Thursday, and many lawmakers were eager to take advantage of the short day and head back to their home states for Father's Day weekend.
 
Only 47 of 100 senators attended the 2:30 briefing, leaving dozens of chairs in the secure meeting room empty as Clapper, Alexander and other senior officials told lawmakers about classified programs to monitor millions of telephone calls and broad swaths of Internet activity. The room on the lower level of the Capitol Visitor Center is large enough to fit the entire Senate membership, according to a Senate aide. 

The Hill was not provided the names of who did, and who didn't, attend the briefing.
 
The exodus of colleagues exasperated Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who spent a grueling week answering colleagues' and media questions about the program.
 
"It's hard to get this story out. Even now we have this big briefing -- we've got Alexander, we've got the FBI, we've got the Justice Department, we have the FISA Court there, we have Clapper there -- and people are leaving," she said.

Feinstein was referring to a former FISA court judge who was going to be part of the briefing. I would have asked the judge why there have been 39,000 requests for secret warrants since 1979 and only 11 had been declined.

The most important challenge to civil liberties in a generation and our Senators can't be bothered to learn the nuts and bolts of it. Our republic is in the very best of hands.