Thursday, March 24, 2011

Malfeasance Of The Highest Order

Shortly after the Wisconsin 14 took off for Illinois, Scott Walker inappropriately sent state troopers after them. A government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (not to be confused with the corrupt group of local thugs that use a similar name), filed complaints with the Government Accountability Board stating that state troopers cannot take part in a dispute between employer and employee when it was about wages, working conditions, and whatnot.

To me, it was a much more disturbing sign. What literally happened was that Walker sent armed officers of the state to go after political opponents who were openly defying him.  If that doesn't smack any honest person as a sign of a dictatorship, I don't know what would.

But as egregious as Walker's behavior might have been, he could always use the defense of plausible stupidity.

The same can't be said for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald.  CREW did an open records request on the  emails of the Republican senators in regards to anything to deal with the decision to send the troopers out after the Democrats.  What they found was a treasure trove of skulduggery.

Among the myriad of emails was an ongoing discussion on how to coerce the Democrats to come back and capitulate to the Republicans' collective plan.  There was discussion of several different things they could try, but most of them were illegal and/or would end up in a lengthy and costly court case.*

Included among the illegalities that were discussed and identified as an illegal maneuver was sending troopers out against their political opponents.  So what did Fitzgerald get his Republican colleagues do? Well take a vote and send the troopers out, of course!  (And I thought Walker was bad...)

If we had an honest Attorney General in Wisconsin instead of the political hack we have now, Fitzgerald would already be under investigation.  Then again, if we had a halfway decent AG, we wouldn't have a fraction of the problems that we have encountered in the past ten weeks.

The more things like this come out, the angrier the people become.  And yet the Republicans still show bafflement on why people are upset with their unilateral attempt to take away our rights and our democracy.  It's only becoming the simple question of which will come first: recall, impeachment or indictments?

*The only action the Republicans never considered was actually acting like adults and working with the Democrats.  Now they're surprised that they are reaping what they sowed.

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