Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Republicans have gone so batshit crazy lately that the comedy just rights itself. I am not making this up: Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told Hotline On Call (National Journal) Sessions: GOP Insurgency "May Be Required":
"Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. "And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban — I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message."
When pressed to clarify, Sessions said he was not comparing the House Republican caucus to the Taliban, the Muslim fundamentalist group.
"I simply said one can see that there's a model out there for insurgency," Sessions said before being interrupted by an aide. (ixne on the alibante congressman!) "The staffer said Sessions was trying to convey that the Republicans need to start thinking about how to act strategically from their perch in the minority." Right.
We can all laugh at this idiot congressman for inserting both of his feet into his mouth by comparing the GOP to the Taliban. But there may be a grain of truth in his freudian slip and it is not so funny.
The Republican Party has been reduced to a fringe party of conservative ideological extremists who cling to their demonstrably failed political and economic ideology as if it is a test of religious faith. In this respect, their obstructionism and rejection of the will of the vast majority of their fellow American citizens and their willingness to push the country into chaos and economic ruin in the interest of preserving their ideological purity does invite a comparison to the Taliban. Fundamentalist extremists of all stripes, whether religious or political, share these traits in common. So maybe the congressman wasn't so far off the mark with his comparison.
There is anecdotal evidence to support Session's comparison. Not a single Republican in the House voted for the stimulus bill last week out of insistence upon their articles of ideological faith: tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, cut government spending for everyone else. Republicans in the Senate followed suit on Thursday. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) proposed an amendment to eliminate all of the proposed stimulus spending in favor of — you guessed it — a package of tax cuts only. 36 Republican senators voted for his amendment, with only 4 Republican senators voting no (Collins and Snowe (ME), Specter (PA), and Voinovich (OH)). Expect substantially the same result on the final vote for this bill.
These conservative ideological extremists are engaged in an insurgency war against their fellow American citizens. So how should Americans respond?