A Tea Party-sponsored call last night featuring Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)’s communication director and the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector also featured an alleged “joke” about shooting Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) over her potential support for immigration reform.
According to Think Progress, this is what happened when the moderator opened up the phone lines to callers:
BOB FROM MAINE: I’m from Maine and our Tea Party will be meeting up next week. What is the best way that we can get our senator to listen to us?
ANOTHER CALLER: Shoot her. [laughter]
MODERATOR: Yes, we will shoot her with…(inaudible) and phone calls.
No one voiced their opposition after the so-called “joke,” with other callers only voicing laughter and “oohs”. (Apparently by that time, Sessions’ communications director had already left the call.)
The call was hosted by the super-conserved Eagle Forum, hosted by Phyllis Schlafly, a proponent of the “North American Union” conspiracy theory which believes that global elites are planning to surrender American sovereignty on a planned merger with Canada and Mexico. Sen. Jeff Sessions, of course, is the anti-immigrant Senator now well known for doing his best to delay and thwart the Gang of 8 immigration bill in Senate markup. And Robert Rector is an author of the recent, heavily panned Heritage Report on the economics of immigration, which also featured co-author Jason Richwine of ‘Hispanics have lower IQs’ fame.
