Sen. Jack Harper – dazed and confused

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

State Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, likened the behavior of legislative Democrats during budget talks this year to that of Sunnis who ruled Iraq with an iron fist for more than two decades. Political Insider: Sen. Harper: Capitol Democrats behaving like Sunnis and Saddam Hussein:

The minority Sunnis, led by dictator Saddam Hussein, long controlled Iraq and its majority Shiite population through a mix of intimidation and brute force. Torture and murder at the hands of Hussein and his goon squads were commonplace.

The connection to Democrats at Arizona's Capitol? Harper, who prefaced his statement on the Senate floor Monday afternoon by noting that he knew it would be controversial, said Democrats in the Legislature have effectively killed efforts to reach a state-budget deal by voting as a bloc against GOP proposals. "The tyranny of the few," Harper called it.

Sen. Harper is clearly dazed and confused from having spent the summer in Phoenix for an interminable Speclal Session. There are rules regarding how one addresses their colleagues in the Senate. The Democrats should demand a formal apology. (You can be certain the Republicans would if the situation was reversed).

Let's break down this jack-hole's analogy.

There is a "tyranny of the minority" in Arizona alright, but it's not the minority Democrats. They have been shut out of any budget negotiations and almost none of their bills get heard in committee. Democrats represent slightly less than 50% of all residents in Arizona, yet they and their constituents are effectively disenfranchised by the GOP majority out of partisanship and authoritarianism. (This would be the same GOP that incessantly whines about "bipartisanship" at the national level).

No, the actual "tyranny of the minority," as I have written about at length, are the Grover Norquist Republicans who have pledged their undying allegiance to their dark lord and master of the underworld of corrupt K Street lobbyists. Surprise! Sen. Jack Harper signed the "no tax" pledge. It was the "Grovers" who killed the budget negotiated between the GOP insane clown posse leadership and the Accidental Governor.

And Sen. Harper should take a look in the mirror. He was a "tyranny of one" when he held up budget negotiations in the Senate to extort his colleagues into agreeing to his "special demands" in a package of four amendments to the budget in order to get his vote for the sales tax referral. Me thinks he doth protest too much.

Pressed afterward for justification, Harper added this: "The excessive influence that the party in the minority is trying to have over the process is not representative of their numbers in the Legislature."

Excessive influence? See above. Maybe the Democrats should just go home since they are not needed, as Sen. Bob Burns constantly reminds them.

What Sen. Harper is really saying is that Democrats should just bend over and grab their ankles and vote for whatever the GOP majority has deigned acceptable. When Republicans in Congress demonstrate that they are willing to follow Sen. Harper's advice, maybe Arizona Democrats will. Until then, shut your pie hole, jack-hole.

I have to agree with Tedski over at R-cubed It’s Your Fault that We Didn’t Talk to You! This is part of a messaging strategy to try to shift the blame to Democrats for the GOP insane clown posse and the Accidental Governor demonstrating that they are incompetent ideologues who are miserable failures at managing Arizona's government. The GOP owns this train wreck, and the voters know whom to hold accountable.