Pete Sessions: Obama Hurting Economy To Consolidate Power

Rep. Pete Sessions, head of the House Republican committee tasked with electing more GOP members, has a unique theory as to why unemployment continues to rise: Obama wants to wipe out capitalism.

Deep into a New York Times item Monday about rising jobless numbers comes a theory that the Times gently refers to as an "argument" that "may indeed face an uphill fight."

Sessions told the Times that Obama's plan is to "diminish employment and diminish stock prices." By doing so, Obama "intended to inflict damage and hardship on the free enterprise system, if not to kill it" as part of a "divide and conquer" strategy to consolidate power.

The Times then follows with another understated gem: "Polls offer little evidence that Americans are prepared to accept those arguments."

So is Obama part of some communist sleeper cell intent on destroying America? For Sessions, it's nothing new to think of politics in terrorist terms -- only in the past Sessions has argued that the Republican Party ought to emulate terrorists, not that Obama already does.

The GOP, Sessions famously argued in February, ought to model its "insurgency" after the Taliban. "Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," he said.

"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 is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with."

Asked to clarify if he was indeed suggesting House Republicans model themselves after the Taliban, he said: "I simply said one can see that there's a model out there for insurgency."

A Sessions spokesman didn't immediately return a call. An NRCC spokesman stood by the remark:

"The Chairman was simply reiterating what many members of the Democratic Party have echoed over the past several weeks, which is that one-party dominance in Washington has further damaged our economy and undercut our country's free enterprise system."

Ryan Grim is the author of the forthcoming book This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America

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Comments

[1differentdrummer]

A low IQ rant.

[filo]

I think Sessions wants Obama to fail.

[faretheewell]

The GOPers couldn't do any better for us if we were righting the material ourselves. The black helicopter folks have now become GOP spokespersons. Thank you God!

[swo68]

That's kind of off the wall. I don't think Obama's actions are more out of ignorance than anything else.

[chronic]

Like your posts?

[swo68]

Ya, I made a typo.

I meant "I think Obama's actions are more out of ignorance than anything else."

There, that should make more sense for you.

[TomTheAlmostUgly]

To quote the Republicans' sainted leader: Pete, "there you go again."

[pokemon]

I always wonder how people like him can survive in society.

[anastomosis]

It is obvious he is a crazed Commie agent. Here we are in a dreadful mess and he is always smiling!

[totalliberal]

I think Bush and the Republicans have been doing a fine job of destroying capitalism. Now "we" have to fix it. They can thank us later when we're not so busy.

[jinxed]

Pete Sessions -- going the way of bachmann? What is with these people? Do they really think mainstream America is that stupid? Now I'm just embarrassed for them when I get done ROFLMAO!

[ReealOne]

Yep..... I can smell it on 'em..... the fragrance is called D-E-S-P-A-R-A-T-I-O-N by GO-NOPErs. and boy does it stinkreal bad.

ALL THE GO-NOPERs, Dick Cheney (who should be in jail somewhere) and their boss/leader Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, John McCain, et.al, have left to STILL try to use as a "recruiting tool" is FEAR AND HATE MONGERING. Apparently the klan rallies.... er "tea parties" didn't bring in the recruits that they thought it would.

As far as all of the "nutness" coming out of the state of Texas, I'm sorry for all of the good folks who are sane and live there, and it would not be fair to say that they all are nutjobs.... but for the most part.... there is something really wrong with that State that's causing a large majority of folks there to act the scary way they do.... like real nutjobs. OR perhaps, it's really not an act.

[ProudPrimate]

despEration — spero means "I hope": paro means "I prepare" (de-sperare: not to hope)

But yeah, that's what it is: desperation. their base has shrunk faster than the polar bear's ice floe

[tahoegal]

Oh my, the GOP just keeps on giving to the Dems - Sessions being just the latest nincompoop! Keep it coming - what a bunch of nut jobs!

[dolphy]

And I'll add that Obama is a spy of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Traitor!

[newhouse1]

How do you get to Texas from here?
You go west until you smell it, then south 'til you step in it.

Texan's, like Alaskan's, pride themselves on being different. The states are big, and so the assumption is, they have big ideas and notions about stuff and things and stuff. Ideas that people from little states don't undersatnd, 'cause their little states have little problems, but big states have big problems. Well, they have little problems too, and so, they have big problems, and they have little problems. The point is that, when you're from Texas, with all that wide open sky, and steers and doggies and stuff, it makes you think. And sometimes, it's too much for you. So rather than deal with things all rational, and such, you just make stuff up. Ya'll not from Texas wouldn't understand. But Sessions, and Bush and Tom Delay, and such. they get it.

And now you know.

[loveobamas]

I am convinced there is something in the air and water in Texas that causes brain atrophy and twisted thoughts.
Someone comes up with a cockamamie half-baked thought and before long, Texas politicians run with it, and it gets added credibility from Fox News.

What "dreams" of the American people were achieved in the Bush years? It is more like nightmares!

[moongal6]

It isn't only Texas politicians, look at the strange theories coming out of Bachmann, Vitter, Fox, Jindal, etc.

[loveobamas]

That's true too.

[ProudPrimate]

When the economy of a region is based not on one's own efforts but the efforts of slaves, conscience must be silenced with ever increasing doses of denial, rationalization, mythology, and other even less fragrant applications.

Over a generation or two it becomes endemic, and only a cataclysm, something greater than the Civil War, could hope to dislodge it. I fear it is permanent.

[bilmardre]

I think it is worthy of noting how these Republicans theorize that the President is intent on destroying America so he can "consolodate power". That these "leaders" can even formulate thoughts like this is amazing, but because of their positions, they must be taken seriously. Perhaps it gives us a glimpse of what they are capable of.