Breaking News!!

thanks to the Democrats taking over the Senate and getting the documents regarding the redistricting that should have been released all along, we found out some earth shattering news! 

1. Republicans Lied to the people of Wisconsin:

2/7/12 - Jeff Fitzgerald and Scott Fitzgerald:

 Jeff  Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, and his brother, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, told The Associated Press in an email that Republicans developed the district lines properly.

August 1, 2012 not so much:

Newly released documents show that Wisconsin legislative Republicans talked privately about using the redistricting process to keep GOP incumbents from losing elections.

2. Republicans lied to a judge and ignored a court order:

Emails showing the internal debates among Republican lawyers were released this week after Senate Democrats gained the majority and took hold of the legal file and made them available to reporters. The files take up three banker boxes and several computer discs, and Democrats are putting them online so the public can easily view them.

Some of the emails appear never to have been released before. If they were not, it could spell legal woes for Republicans because of a raft of court orders to release material earlier this year. During that earlier fight over records, a panel of federal judges fined attorneys for lawmakers about $17,500 for filing frivolous motions to block the release of records.

"I have some very serious concerns about whether the Legislature was forthcoming about the documents they produced and the representations they made to the court," said Peter Earle, an attorney for immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, which sued over the maps.

Earle and Doug Poland, an attorney for a group of Democrats who also sued over the maps, said they did not recall seeing the two email chains in which Troupis, McLeod and others discuss citizenship. Earle and Poland are checking whether they had been produced during the lawsuit.

"They appear to go right to the heart of the Voting Rights Act claims," Poland said. "It's hard to believe we would have missed something like that."

Troupis, McLeod and another attorney involved in the case did not respond to questions Thursday on whether the material had been previously released.

3.  Republicans have absolutely no problem wasting taxpayers money if it helps keep them in power:  

 The state paid Voces $185,500 because it lost the case and is in negotiations with the group Poland represents over paying its legal fees. All told, taxpayers have paid $1.6 million so far to draw the maps and contend with litigation.

4.  Then followed this all up with a massive dose of hypocrisy:  Scott Fitzgerald seriously asked Mark Miller to release all of the redistricting documents?? 

And this is just one issue! Imagine what they are doing that we do NOT know about! 

The Secret Republican Money-Loving Voter-Haters Club

Are the state Republicans that megalomaniacal or just plain stupid?

The whole mess the Republicans made with their gerrymandering is coming back to bite them in the arse.

Now it's starting to sound like a bad movie based on the Godfather movies but starring the Marx Brothers.

This story will not bode well for them at all, and it shouldn't:

Included in the documents released Monday was a set of talking points that stressed that those who discussed the maps could eventually be called as a witness in a court case.

"Public comments on this map may be different than what you hear in this room. Ignore the public comments," the talking points also say.

[...]

An immigrant rights group contends that Republicans violated the state's open meetings law in how they developed the maps and filed a complaint Monday with Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne.

Legislative leaders sometimes ask rank-and-file legislators to keep quiet about sensitive legislation, but they do not ask them to sign pledges of secrecy.

The agreement tells each lawmaker "you agree not to disclose the fact and/or contents of such discussions or any draft documents within your possession."

And there's a part that the gone but not forgotten Illusory Tenant would have been all over (emphasis mine):

All the agreements were also signed by Eric McLeod of Michael Best & Friedrich, one of several attorneys who advised lawmakers on the maps. Legislative leaders have committed $400,000 in taxpayer money to pay Michael Best and the Troupis Law Office for their work on the maps.

McLeod has drawn attention in recent months for providing legal services to state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman under an arrangement in which Gableman did not have to pay.

That old peppercorn won't go away, will it?

When this matter hits the Supreme Court, and you know it will, Gableman will either have to recuse himself or set himself up for the third wave of recalls.

Outside of Waukesha and Washington Counties, where money rules all for those Republicans, I wonder if there will be any left in power within the next couple of years. I cannot imagine how any person with even a shred of self-respect could stand by Scott Walker or any of these other corrupt fools.