I wonder who these people represent, the people in their districts or the party they run under? If it was a good thing to do, then why the secrecy, why hide away from the capitol in a lawyer office? My goodness, do they think we are that stupid?

Mouse, comparing any US politician to a man who was directly responsible with the slaughter of 8 million people , discredits your point. Thats Fox News tactics, dont go there.

A state agency head in Gov. Scott Walker's administration late last year gave the wife of a Republican Party official a political appointment and a $27,000 raise.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Tuesday that no other applicants were considered before Angela Herl was appointed to take over a state division with 40 employees that processes professional credentials.
She is married to Mike Herl, chairman of the Dane County Republican Party. She received a 49 percent pay increase with the appointment to earn $81,265.
Dave Ross, Walker's secretary of the Department of Safety and Professional Services, told the Journal Sentinel that he hired Angela Herl on merit alone. Walker's spokesman said the governor's office was not consulted about the appointment.
Democrats criticized the move, saying the appointment raises questions about cronyism

Tell me one time the Doyle administration done anything close to this

Are we still in Wisconsin or a State of DENIAL? Where do I now go to vote?

"""Looking forward to some responses from partisans here."
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Says a partisan""

Thanks RAF thats exactly what I was talking about.

Sorry the wife of the Chairman of the Dane County Republican party!LOL

How ridiculous are these people?
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepoliti...
A 27,000 a year49% raise to the wife of the dane county Rep party? BTW this is an appointed position? How dumb are these people? Oh but I am sure she had it coming, when every other state worker, including teachers are taking hits? This is the kind of thing that will bring Walker down!

No partisan here, independant thinker. Just because you dont agree with my stances or many tend to lean one way, you and others label me. And I love the labels, because it means you come with nothing. As is evidenced by the responses.

"No one seemed to give a damn on the left side of the table...blah blah blah."

Mindreader? Still blaming Doyle?

wislady just can't bring herself to right the words: "Republicans were wrong". Ever. The side stepping is hilarious. Keep it up!

schnibble -- Sorry -- was unable to reply. This is fine, a penalty, not compensation for doing anything harmful to a specific person. The state should retain ALL of the money and the money from the settlement should go to shoring up the budgets. It would not be appropriate for the money to go to individuals that were foreclosed upon. If anything, it should be given to those the responsibly took out loans. Using the money in the budget is perfectly acceptable and in essence the money has therefore gone to the public good. I would think that democraps would love that.

Can you say blackmail, if they did not sign they got rotten district.

What happened to open Government? This seems to be a direct violation of Wisconsin's Public Records Law. Secrets in government lead to corruption!

So Wislady, so you think what the Republicans did was wrong but the Dems do it to? Sounds like two wrongs make a right to me. Do you think that what they did was wrong? And can you answer without mentioning Obama (who has nothing to do with this article?)

"Looking forward to some responses from partisans here."
-
Says a partisan...

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepoliti...

Link to the article.
What I am curiousabout, and this is an honest question. If what the Repubs have been doing is so virtuous, why fight to keep emails secret? If this is, " to the victors go the spoils" then why all of this secrecy? Shouldn't they just be comfortable with everything they have done and be able to stand by it in the arena of public opinion? Or is this just another conspiracy driven by the "liberal media"?
Looking forward to some responses from partisans here.

According to today's Milwaukee journal sentinel there are 84 emails between republican senators and attorneys from mb&f that they want to keep from the public and these people think this secrecy is acceptable. The taxpayers paid mb&f $400,000 and the taxpayers need to know how this all transpired and what is in those emails. There is no attorney client privilege when it comes to attorneys being paid by the taxpayer to do work for the people. This type of secrecy cannot be acceptable in this country.

DeGryse
You are kidding me right? You think walker is looking out for construction unions? Maybe you missed the entire past year of walker catering to his rich buddies. Yes these rich buddies are the ones who hire your Union Contractors. Do you think walker and his buddies stand to make any more money using union contractors or do you think they would prefer to pay less to non union and pad their pockets with the difference? The public union breaking was only the beginning for this idiot. And you seem to be supportive of private unions yet you support Walker? Maybe you should wake up and smell the coffee. Your next buddy. This whole fiasco to end collective bargaining was to break unions to cut off money for the dems. If you can't see that maybe you sniffed to much glue on the jobsite.

Will you EVER cease with the partisan parroting, wislady? You can't even answer a question about your partisanship without breaking into a partisan rant. It's really, really sickening.

"You haven't really provided reasons that what the Repubs did was alright"

Because....I NEVER said it was. I said (it is a fact), that both sides do it.

Democrats talking about ethics?

Meet Obamas new Wisconsin "Truth Team"
Wisconsin’s Truth Team members include:

WisDems Chair Mike Tate
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett
State Senator Jon Erpenbach
State Senator Bob Jauch
State Senator Jen Shilling
State Senator Lena Taylor
State Assemblyman Cory Mason
State Assemblywoman Chris Taylor

How successful the Wisconsin Truth Team is may depend in no small part on the credibility of its members. Right now, several of those members do not appear to have a tremendous amount of credibility judging from PolitiFact. While PolitiFact is an opinion piece and its conclusions should be accepted with a grain of salt, a pattern of negative ratings accumulated by Truth Team members does raise a lot of questions about the trustworthiness of their efforts.

Wisconsin Truth Team members with false ratings include:

Mike Tate, Chairman of the DPW, has led the DPW and himself to earn no less than six False, Mostly False and Paints on Fire ratings since PolitiFact Wisconsin was launched in 2010.

Jon Erpenbach, state senator, has earned a Mostly False rating from PolitiFact.

Lena Taylor, state senator, has earned a Mostly False rating from PolitiFact.

The presence of several individuals who have between them earned so many negative ratings from PolitiFact makes the credibility of the Wisconsin Truth Team seem more than partisan: it seems they also have less than a passing acquaintance with the truth.

http://mediatrackers.org/2012/02/wisdems...

>Voter Suppression (ID)
>Election fraauuu??? (re-districting)
>Bought an paid for (Walker talking to Koch brothers/not Koch brothers)
>John Doe investigation...Walker lawyers up
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Why, how anyone can continue to support this governor is beyond me. I can respect someone who is a conservative, but cannot respect anyone that continues to support this administration.
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I felt the same way about President Clinton. This is one year of policies that do not represent a political party. They only represent corruption.
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These last two are just icing on the cake for a moderate-liberal like myself. I would support the recall without the two, more political, issues.
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>No negotiations for public workers to save budget
>No negotiations needed for corporations to receive tax breaks

Note that the districts are only redrawn once every 10 years. Gerrymandering is then only possible when one party controls all legislative and executive branches of government.

The "everybody is doing it" argument is something a nine year old would use.

The situational ethics voiced by the right on this issue is business as usual I guess.

Its interesting to hear the left hipocracy on this issue. BOTH sides to this and its only gerrmandering to the opposing side. Its only wrong when the opposing side does it. So lets quick the rediculousness and not pretend either side is clean here.

By definition, gerrymandering is unethical folks. It may be a "bonus" for the party that wins control of both houses and the Governorship, but it's still unethical.

concernedwi, wislady is confused with your comment, because she doesn't think gerrymandering is wrong.

wislady wrote: "I didn't say it was wrong, I showed an article that proves both political parties do this."

That sums up her viewpoint.

concernedwi, if you are commenting on me and not wislady. I don't believe it was wrong for either party as that is a bonus for either party that wins the vote of the majority. Not the screaming tantrum whiners that don't complain when their party has done exactly what they are crying about now.
Point: The left is whining about everything now because they are losing the arguement of Act10 and why we like Walker and the recall is nothing more at this point but a gigantic waste of taxpayer's money.

myview -- the point I was trying to make is that things are discussed in meetings that may never see the light of day. I really dont care what is discussed, but would like to see formal proposals. Once its on paper fine. Until then, you get people on BOTH sides using discussions for political purposes and as such people hold back ideas for fear that information is mis-stated or miss-used for political purposes. That happens on both sides, so its not a right left issue. Once its in print, then we should be able to see, regardless of any agreement. Until then, its just conversation and leads to misapplication or miss-use.

Wislady, well you keep pointing (in several articles) that the Dems have done it. You haven't really provided reasons that what the Repubs did was alright. To me that says two wrongs make a right. I wasn't quoting you, just paraphrasing.

Ezoner - “As for the agreements by the repubs, I wish most people would keep to themselves what is being worked upon until there is something workable on the table.”

I very much object to where this statement can lead. Remember the stealthy senate vote on eliminating the collective bargaining rights of state workers nearly a year ago? You think this is the norm as to how our government should work? I can understand that you do not like collective bargaining and that you want to see it gone, but if you subscribe to this way of conducting state business, sooner or later you will be on the receiving end. Greed of the politicians will get to you someday also unless there are constraints put on them.

Schnibble -- Not sure what the point is on the foeclosure settlement money going to the state budgets? The court settlement is bascially a penalty or a fine. In reality, no bad was doen to the homeowners. They owed the money on the homes, they over leveraged themselves and lost their property. The issue is really a procedural issue. So I am not sure what the problem is. The individuals were not illegally foreclosed upon. So no individual was damaged and would not be due a prtion of the settlement. The fault is with the individuals that over leveraged themselves planning for increased values (much as a stock market venture).

As for the agreements by the repubs, I wish most people would keep to themselves what is being worked upon until there is something workable on the table. This avoids agendas being fought publically for self benefit in the media.

What I do not approve of is the Pelosi attitude, that you must approve the bill before you see whats in it.

This whole thing is party over state. Sad.

pre-RECALL Schnibble.

concernedwi

Where did I make that statement?

You really should not use quote marks suggesting that I made that statement on this blog, when it is not true.

Schnibble for Governor!

As usual Wislady, two wrongs don't make a right. Instead of saying, "well the Dems have done it". Why not call for ALL politicians to be honest and do the right thing?

It just is just showing how they want power

Che said, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and blah. Also, blah, blah blah, blah, blah!"

That's the most intelligent comment made by you or your conservative cronies in a long, long time!

Another Wynnism..."It was very much like the process we go through when we are developing legislation.”

Yep...that's the freakin problem. And until you are willing to admit that you are screwing your constituents by conducting the peoples business in the dark...you are the problem.

wislady...your partisan hypocrisy is beyond old...it is as lame as an arthritic mule.

Reread Zoom's post and then address the point.

No one said gerrymandering hasn't been around forever...so has murder.

It's your defense of it that shows your true colors.

And that is what is disgusting about politics today...and all that it stands for.

I can't wait to hear your hypocritical spin on this.

Transparency in government?

What's the big secret? Government...will we ever learn?

You know the difference between Republican and Democrat politicians?
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Republicans don't want working people to make any money. Democrats want them to make money so they can steal it .

I have to say I went from the anti-recall side to the recall side from the time this all started. It is all clear now. I was blind now I can see. The GOP has yet to produce a candidate I like for POTUS as well. I am the type of voter that all the GOP should be afraid of as I am an Independent. The 44th is up for grabs and I think the current fellow needs to go as well

That was a great politiscoop article schnibble. More of the same dishonest politicians to play their mindless little games. Despite this incontrovertable evidence the trollers on the blog will deny that their Republican elected officials are unscrupulous, at best- criminals, at least. Kaysbrew/fedup/wislady/poorrichard and all the other alter egos- what do you have to say about the post that schnibble gave us?

schnibble,
I'm in the same camp as you. I'm just trying to figure out what legal justification there could have been for locking out the Democrats and the public in general from this process. The potential for lawsuits is what they've been hiding behind, but that's certainly not a viable reason and shouldn't be regarded as such.

Great read, schnibble. Thank you for the link. I hope many others read the article as well. It's incidents like this that are going to flood the media during the recall.

Pssssst, I just heard that this week's secret word is, "RECALL."

'Wynn said he has no problem with signing the agreement. “I agreed not to talk about what I had learned because it was preliminary and not in final form,” he said. “It had nothing to do with secrecy. It was very much like the process we go through when we are developing legislation.”'

This scares me even more than the redistricting incident. Does Wynn and his buddies regularly develop their legislative proposals in some smoke-filled room in the basement of the Capitol with a peephole in the door and a secret word to be allowed in?

So what you are saying is the Republican party has been sneaky liars since 1810. Of course, now they are just outright liars.

So lets here from AMY, JOE and EVAN. If they had read the agrrement or tried to understand it then why would they sign it unles they ment to hide something. Thank you for standing with WALKER. Get a thought of your own once.

The reason Erpenbach is not being the information he is requesting is because the Senate is probably not technically the client of the firm in this matter. The RNC is probably footing the bill and pulling the strings here. That is why the non-disclosure agreement was necessary. The state senators are claiming the reason for it was that the plan was not yet complete, but that's probably a smoke screen. The Republicans did not want this to be subject to outside eyes at all. They didn't want Democrats involved, and they didn't want the public involved.

What a Fascist thing to do. Par for the course for those fools.

Zoom

Sorry to inform you that gerrymandering has been around for a long time, not invented just this past year by republicans. It started in 1912, by Ethridge Gerry, hence the name.

Nass's defense is ignorance?

If you meet in secret, you're putting the shaft to somebody.

Wislady's partisan blinders are so large, she even defends gerrymandering, and has to find an example from outside Wisconsin to try and make his/her ridiculous point. It's sad that someone can be so ignorant of what is right and wrong.

This story just reeks of impropriety.

This has got to be one of the biggest whoppers of all time. Nass touts his proposed legislation all the time! “It’s similar to the legislative process,” Nass said. “You don’t go around publicly discussing bills when they are still in draft form.

When I voted for Amy I thought she would be different. I thought she would be honest. I thought she would be different from other politicians in Madison. Now it has become clear that she is just a Republican flack. She vote the party line, she does the party business, she has aligned herself with Scott Walker and the Fitzgerald brothers and votes the way they order her to rather than representing her constituents. Her attempt to hide the fact that she signed the secret nondisclosure agreements promising not to publicly discuss new election maps drawn last summer proves that she knew it was wrong and unethical, that she was embarrassed by being called on it, and that she fell back on the typical argument "I did sign what I consider to be a standard nondisclosure agreement with a law firm," Loudenbeck said. As if that explains it all away. Plain and simple Amy represents the Republican agenda not the people of her district. The same as ALL OTHER Republicans.

This state's government is looking more and more corrupt everyday.

Lifelonger, whether the redistricting will stand depends first of all on the outcome of the federal lawsuits. The court may order the process reopened, or turned over to an independent panel.

So if the recall is successfull and some Republicans are replaced by Demoocrats, are the boundry lines going to be redrawn again? Just curious.

Why aren't draft forms of bills open to public input? I am sure lobbyists see them in draft form. In fact, wouldn't it make sense to release things in draft form to get some reaction and modify as need be.
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Boy, it would have been great to know of Walker's union-busting initiatives before the repair bill was unveiled last year.

"Rep. Amy Loudenbeck said, through a spokeswoman, that she would not comment on the matter."

Hmmmm...won't answer questions from her constituents?

I guess she is not really representing the people of her district as she promised to do.
Only representing the Republican party.

No surprise there.

More corruption from our junta.

4bears

I didn't say it was wrong, I showed an article that proves both political parties do this.

After watching how these republicans do business, is anybody surprised by this?

If they are trying to invoke attorney/client privledge and the legislature is the truly the client as the repubs insist, then why won't MBF release the case file to Jon Erpenbach? He is a member of the Senate (and therefore a "client") and should have the right to see what's in there, but he has asked for it twice and is still not allowed to get it.
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And as the payer of the bill to MBF, shouldn't I have access to it as well? The legislators work for me so why shouldn't I get a copy?
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It's because it was never about that and only about a secret cabal amongst the repubs to keep info from the public.

wislady, funny how most liberal posters just consider this wrong and want change no matter who is in the majority... and somehow you only claim this wrong when done by the left?

Hmmm.......Walkergate. Has this happened in the past? And people like this governor? Maybe this comes the next year in college, which walker quit.

Yes, wislady. the Repubs are the party of "freedom" and "honest government". When they play the same dirty political tricks they, and the Dems have always played, why do you defend it? Isn't a bad idea, a bad idea no matter what the political party is, or does the ends justify the means? That seems to be the case, as usual.

The same thing happened in Illinois, redistricting is generally favorable to the party in power. If the dems were in control in Wisconsin, how do you think it would play out?

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/hous...

The fact of the matter is, there was never any intention by the Republican majority to have a discussion on this matter. Beloit's representative didn't care that the redistricting split up the city. If anyone listened to this hearing on Wisconsin Eye (I did), it now makes perfect sense why the Republicans didn't utter a word or respond to questions from the Democrats. They had already gotten their orders.

A law frim was hired to formulate redistricting plans?

So much ado about denial.