Secret emails reveal that anti-union lawsuit was just a tactic by Co. GOP

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4494738

E-mails: Union lawsuit part of tactic
By Chris Frates
Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Last Updated:10/15/2006 12:15:43 AM MDT

Colorado Republican operatives who filed a lawsuit accusing a union of illegally taking campaign money from noncitizens were pursuing a strategy of using the issue of illegal immigration for political gain.

Republicans hoped to use the lawsuit, filed this summer, to "paint all unions with a broad brush" and "illustrate unions as facilitators of illegal immigration," according to internal e-mails obtained by The Denver Post.

The GOP insiders were also working to "give weight" to campaign-finance-rule changes they were seeking from Republican Secretary of State Gigi Dennis that would effectively hobble traditionally Democratic union donors.

They said they hoped to "dovetail" news coverage of the lawsuit with the start of the special session on illegal immigration and filed the suit the day the session began.

"We (potentially) have a very rare opportunity to take a hard whack at the unions, using illegal immigration as the blunt instrument and our legal prowess as the surgeon's knife," said an e-mail from Jack Stansbery of the Trailhead Group, a GOP political group founded by Gov. Bill Owens, money man Bruce Benson and beer magnate Pete Coors.

"Ideally, we can come up with a coordinated legal, political, media and policy plan to present to a larger group for buy-in," Stansbery wrote.

FULL story at link above.

[pscot]

1. How the fuck can people behave like that?

Have they no sense of right and wrong? Is there no inner voice of conscience that tells them they're stepping across a bright line? Have they no shame at all? Just what exactly does it mean to be a Republican? Whatever it it is, I just don't think I'd have the stomach for it.