The GOP is going to cheat, lie and cover up,. Dems and courts need to stop laying back.

I must admit, this tweet made my Friday evening a bit more enjoyable.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos must testify in Wisconsin's gerrymandering case, judges rule https://t.co/jVbSDkLYH1 via ⁦⁦@patrickdmarley⁩

— Molly Beck (@MollyBeck) May 4, 2019

Look at that picture. I think Robbin' Vos may have passed Paul Ryan for "most punchable face" in Wisconsin politics now. And the story accompanying that picture makes Vos punchable.

Vos spent weeks fighting the effort to force him to answer questions under oath about legislative maps lawmakers drew in 2011 to help the GOP win elections. But in a 2-1 decision Friday, the judges concluded Vos had to give a deposition and turn over documents.

"We acknowledge that a sitting legislator is not subject to civil process in any but the most exceptional circumstances. But this is an exceptional case that raises important federal questions about the constitutionality of Wisconsin’s plan for electing members of the Assembly," the majority wrote.

"Vos was a key figure in enacting that plan and he was involved at nearly every stage of the process. Probably no one has a better understanding of the challenged (redistricting) plan than he does."...

In the latest feud, Democratic voters who sued over the maps sought to depose Vos, of Rochester. He argued he didn't have to answer questions or turn over documents because lawmakers are generally immune from civil litigation under the state constitution.

Hmm, Vos thinks that [Republican] legislators are above the law and that the public has no right to find out what they're discussing and why they're doing what they're doing.

That reasoning should sound familiar to you, and go back to July 2015 when we found out the details behind the Wisconsin GOP's desire to gut the state's Open Records Law, which was supported both by then-Gov Scott Walker, and Vos.

According to newly released documents, the Republican governor's office and his Department of Administration in May issued a dozen letters to news organizations and others denying access to records because they claimed doing so could inhibit the free exchange of ideas. State law does not explicitly recognize that as a reason for withholding records.

In the following weeks, aides to Walker — who is now running for president — worked with GOP lawmakers to try to rewrite the law so they could use that rationale for keeping the public from learning about internal deliberations.

At the same time, Republican legislators were drafting a measure that would keep the open records law from applying to them in the vast majority of cases. Those provisions were requested by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), files released this week show.

This type of scummy evasiveness and "above the law" mentality also applies to Republicans in DC these days. I want show this clip, where US Sen Cory Booker asks Attorney General William Barr about the part of the Mueller Report that describes the sharing of polling data shared between Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Kremlin-linked oligarch (with Wisconsin one of those states). Barr goes between not seeming to know about it, and denying it.

One moment from Barr's hearing that I'm still replaying: This exchange with Cory Booker where Barr seemed to be unaware that Paul Manafort had shared internal polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik. pic.twitter.com/5v8ddTmXmG

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 4, 2019

This is who Republicans are. They lie, cheat, deny and steal, and try to muddy the facts and cover things up. There is no debating with people who operate in bad faith this way. They can only be neutralized and hopefully crushed.

We've seen the result of what the "by the book" methods of Robert Mueller in DC and John Chisholm in Milwaukee got when it came to trusting the judicial system and that the "facts would win out" when it came to bringing these money-laundering thugs to justice. NOTHING. The bad guys gaslighted and abused the judicial system, and found crooked officials at the Department of Justice (for Trump) and crooked judges (for Wisconsin Republicans in John Doe) to make something up to get the GOP scumbags off the hook.

Waiting for 18 months for the next election is not going to get it done, because the GOP has no problem with rigging elections. That's whether it's through gerrymandering, voter suppression, or allowing certain foreign groups to help them out and compromise the country. They don't care as long it keeps them in some form of power, or at least ties the hands of Democrats from cleaning up the mess they have left.

The only ways to remedy this situation are through jail time handed out in the courts, and through Dems flexing any power they have to carry out political acts, INCLUDING IMPEACHMENT. When subpeonas are denied, LOCK THEM UP! When they lie, CALL THEM LIARS TO THEIR FACE. I don't mean only Trump, but the entire crooked, rancid GOP.

Yes, I don't like having to constantly fight and struggle and deal with this ugliness that today's GOP has caused for 2019's politics. But that's the circumstance we're in, and it has to be dealt with while there's still a democracy to defend. Because GOPs cheating is the given. What Dems do in response is the variable.