Discussion for article #238520
Judges are politicians too. Gosh who could have known that?
Bottom line: case closed. I doubt the feds want to pick it up now.
2 Likes
What happened in the bigger picture is early satellites detected a large copper ore body in the northern part of the state, and multinational corporations got interested. They applied the divide-and-conquer methodologies inherited from the old British empire that spawned them, and which have subsequently constantly been honed around the world wherever there is something to be extracted and rule of law is in the way. An Exxon operative named James Klauser put Tommy Thompson in power, and a tremendous amount of resources were invested to divide right against left, hunters against natives, north against south, white against black. Groundwater laws were eroded, the Department of Natural Resources (a model for the EPA) came under attack, and yes, Supreme Court elections also became a primary target in the assault on good government and the environment.
Scott Walker is just another maggot crawling in the rot that resulted. I grieve for my old home state.
26 Likes
This is the kind of investigative journalism I look for and rarely find. Tremendous work, Brian. Thank you.
34 Likes
Some Judges are corrupt politicians too. Exactly why the Feds should pick it up.
13 Likes
Yes in theory the feds should jump on it. In practice we have a number of 5-4 SCOTUS decisions dating back to Bush vs Gore, Voting rights, Citizens United, & etc. The higher the court in this country, the greater the political influence. At this point Republicans probably can custom order SCOTUS decisions with a cell phone app.
5 Likes
“Is This America’s Future?”
Yes.
2 Likes
Antonin Scalia’s mocking of the majority as pursuing a “quixotic quest to right all wrongs and repair all imperfections through the Constitution,”
There he goes again.
5 Likes
Who in our political class could honestly condemn this system?
Is this an example of Roberts calling balls and strikes? I guess it helps to come the the plate with a wad of money in your pocket to hand to the umpire before stepping into the batter’s box. Citizen’s United has opened the door wide open to widespread corruption in the conduct of elections and Wisconsin is only one of many states where money from (GOP) special interests has put the most radical ideological partisan conservatives in charge of setting government policy and, worse yet, using the Courts for partisan political purposes. That why so many states which have slight Democratic majorities or are equally divided are nevertheless governed by ideological right wing radicals. American democracy at work - just bring money to the game if you want to play.
Excellent journalism, Brian. Thank you.
7 Likes
Unfortunately the very best example yet of why Scott Walker is the most dangerous candidate seeking the GOP nomination.
If this guy wins that nod, he is going to have a TON of money behind him and it seems clear, it will be used to launch an anti-Hillary s…t storm designed to divert attention from just how he and his supporters have taken over full control of all levers of power in Wisconsin and surged forward in the worst possible way for a democratic government.
11 Likes
Walker and all of his cronies are so corrupt they stink to high Heaven!!
1 Like
It’d good to be the paymaster.
6 Likes
The best justice system money can buy –
3 Likes
That is what mght save us, if at all.
Some caveats:
(a) There is already alternative reality/journalism to combat “excellent journalism”
(b) The younger generations are probably going to have to grow up pretty fast
(too many older people have succumbed to the Right)
(c) There is little corporate motivation for the MSM to engage in real journalism
Just as several dozen schoolteachers and administrators can run a school of several thousand people (based on social organization), so can the 0.001% (through the mechanisms on display in the Scott Walker case) easily control our so-called “representative” government.
There needs to be a spark to arouse the Americans the way they were in 1941.
4 Likes
Such flagrant corruption. And so commonplace people hardly bat an eye.
1 Like
To elaborate on a minor point on this excellent article, the Republican Assembly Speaker, Scott Jensen, who is portrayed as “winning an appeal” actually got off on the barest of legal technicalities. The trial judge accidentally gave a very minor incorrect jury instruction, and Jensen’s lawyers were able to leverage that into an appeal that the jury’s deliberations were tainted. He’s now one of the leading lobbyists for several of the shadow groups that support Walker, despite one of the primary points of his original overturned sentence being that he couldn’t do business in the Capitol for a good number of years.
Now, as it happens, I know a couple of the people who were sitting on that jury. Not only did the alleged mistaken jury instruction have absolutely no influence on the deliberations (indeed, that point never even came up), but Jensen nearly got off on a charge due to a court clerk typo that required him to have done something and something else, instead of something or something else. (Jensen’s lawyers successfully argued that the jury instructions had already been given and therefore the typo could not be fixed in a new jury instruction, even though the jurors asked for a clarification.) The two things were seemingly contradictory, but the jury actually found evidence that he had done both things, just on slightly separate occasions. So really, not only was the jury finding completely valid, but the jury actually had to find conduct more egregious than the statute’s requirements to convict.
The whole situation reeks.
9 Likes
The Koch dark-money groups have pledged at least $850 Million for the Presidential campaign, with no limit on the state campaigns and they are even involved in local county/city elections now! (dog-catcher and the like.)
And this does not bother the 5-4 majority on the SCOTUS one whit because THAT WAS THE PLAN all along.
5 Likes