"Gerrymandering is okay when WE do it!"

The Republicans in the North Carolina legislature should just say it and get it over with.

Matt Mittan was the first to bring my attention to the just-released maps for North Carolina's newly-redrawn congressional districts.

And how has the GOP now "controlling" (I have never liked how a party "controls" a legislature and I don't see how anyone else should like it either) Raleigh done, following decades of Democrat-led gerrymandering?

By doing their own gerrymandering!

From the original article at Carolina Journal...

(Carolina Journal) Three Democratic incumbents will face a tough re-election fights next year under new congressional maps released today by the Republican-controlled state legislature.

The redrawn maps significantly weaken U.S. Reps. Brad Miller, D-13th; Heath Shuler, D-11th; and Larry Kissell, D-8th. Republicans currently have six of 13 congressional seats. If previous voting patterns hold, the GOP could gain a 9-4 or even 10-3 advantage in 2013.

For Shuler’s diminished chances, Reps. Patrick McHenry, R-10th, and Virginia Foxx, R-5th, are the culprits. McHenry’s new district would cut into Buncombe County, a hotbed of Democratic votes, diluting Shuler’s base of support. In addition, Shuler picks up some conservative regions of Foxx’s district.

“The anchor for Democrats in this district has always been Buncombe County,” Davis said. “Not only has half of Buncombe County been put into Congressman McHenry’s safe Republican district, but several of the most Republican counties in the state have been moved from districts held by Congresswoman Foxx and Congressman McHenry to Heath Shuler’s district.”

I almost used the word "chutzpah" to describe what the Republicans in the legislature are doing. But let's call this for what it really is, folks: hypocrisy!

This country is facing trial and tribulation as it has never known in any recent memory. Perhaps any living memory. And the elected politicians continue to play their stupid little games of power: never mind that it was such shenanigans that in large part brought us to this place to begin with!

(Funny thing: I seem to remember many if not most Republican officials in this state complaining about gerrymandering and how they were against it. So what happened? Huh? Hello? Hello? Bueller?)