Eugene Robinson's column in today's Washington Post looks at the mentality - or one might say lack of thought process - of the Senate Republicans who seem hell bent to hasten the demise of the Big Three automakers and the demise of the larger U.S. economy as well. Their motivation? Revenge on the pro-Democrat United Auto Workers' union and helping the foreign owned automakers with plants in their own home states. I'm not necessarily a fan of the UAW, but at some point one needs to put down the Kool-Aid and look at the larger picture of what's going on. True, that's hard for the today's GOP - remember John McCain stating that the economy was fundamentally sound even as the bottom was falling out on Wall Street. The GOP has run the economy into the ground and wildly expanded the national debt , but the Senate Republicans apparently do not believe they have yet wrought sufficient financial destruction. Here are some column highlights:

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Despite the popular belief, lemmings don't really hurl themselves off cliffs to reduce their numbers. That sort of behavior is seen only among Republicans in the Senate, who gave us a demonstration when they torpedoed legislation to bail out the auto industry.

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It may be that General Motors, Chrysler and Ford are lumbering, Jurassic beasts that deserve their looming extinction. But only a free-market fundamentalist, a lunatic or a Senate Republican -- perhaps that's redundant -- would conclude that now is the moment to hasten Detroit's demise.

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To recap: We're in the midst of a global financial crisis. The housing bubble has burst and prices have collapsed. The economy has been in recession for a year. Unemployment has risen to 6.7 percent, and if "marginally attached" workers are included -- those who have given up even looking for jobs -- along with those who want to work full time but are forced to accept fewer hours, the rate is 12.5 percent.

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[I]t would be insanity to throw hundreds of thousands of auto company employees, and maybe a few million others in the supply and sales chains, out of work -- leaving them and their families at the mercy of an economy that has no replacement jobs for them. Public funds would end up supporting these people anyway, except that we would have lost our domestic auto industry -- which, despite its many failings, is the only domestic auto industry we've got.

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Some of the most vocal critics of a Detroit bailout -- Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), for example -- happen to have foreign-owned auto plants in their home states. This has led to accusations that they are deliberately trying to sabotage the Big Three to help foreign automakers, but I think it's more likely that they're just being doctrinaire and ultimately self-defeating.

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They have managed to position their party as being against unions, against America's domestic industrial patrimony, against the blue-collar working class -- and also, incredibly, against the Rust Belt states, such as Michigan and Ohio, that are home to UAW-represented auto plants and that also regularly tip the balance of presidential elections.

With all the pressing issues in the USA not to mention the world - starvation, genocide, wars, homelessness - one has to wonder about the priorities of the "conservative" Episcopalians who obsess over gay clergy and the acceptance of gays as full church members to the exclusion of all else. Are their faith and belief system so terribly fragile that the concept that maybe, just maybe, the few phrases they cling to in the Bible to justify demonizing gays might not be accurate that the thought sends their house of cards world crashing down? I would love to see psychological profiles worked up on the male members of this break away group - I suspect it would reveal that these people are very f*cked up and have some serious mental health issues. Oh, and as I have argued before, why are they perfectly alright with divorce even though JESUS is said to have condemned it (why he was silent on gays)? I seriously do not understand the bigotry and hypocrisy of these "conservatives." Here are some highlights from the Washington Post concerning the Pharisees/homophobes' latest actions:

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Conservatives from the Episcopal Church voted yesterday to form their own branch of Anglicanism in the United States and said they would seek new recognition in the worldwide church because of their growing disenchantment over the ordination of an openly gay bishop and other liberal developments.

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The conservatives remain upset about the 2003 ordination of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the role of female clergy, the church's definition of salvation and changes to the main book of prayer. It was unclear how other branches of Anglicanism, a loose affiliation of 77 million people that is the third-largest Christian church in the world, will react.

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Bishop Martyn Minns, a Virginia-based conservative leader, said a new constitution and canons approved by conservatives would be reviewed this week by seven like-minded Anglican leaders, mostly in Africa, who were expected to approve it. He said meetings both formal and informal would begin with other branch leaders to seek approval.

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Although yesterday's votes took some church leaders by surprise, conservatives have been speaking of forming an alternative body for decades. Among the challenges they have faced are internal divisions about issues including the role of laypeople and female clergy. Minns said the new canons allow female deacons and priests in churches that choose them but do not allow female bishops.