I'm not surprised that the US Supreme Court didn't take the Doe prosecutors' appeal of the Wisconsin Supreme Court's dismissal of the John Doe II probe despite some state justices campaigns' acceptance of large sums of the same dark money and campaign assistance which also helped give Walker his 2012 recall win.
Lawyers I know said the US Supreme Court takes for formal review very few of the petitions it receives, and maybe the message being sent to Wisconsin is, 'you have a remedy for the pickle you're in: it's called "elections.'
Though with legislators and an unashamedly pro-Walker State Supreme Court majority making and interpreting the rules, laws, election procedures and district boundaries, that kind of 'fix-in-yourself' dictum is a cop out.
Here's what I want to say now that the legal history of John Doe II, and John Doe I, for that matter, seems to be a closing book:
Walker and his donors and his campaign committee and his appointees and support networks all the way back to his days as Milwaukee County Executive spent a helluva lot of time and money going right up to the commonly-accepted line of traditional and legitimate campaigning, financing and organizing - - and kept crossing it, knowingly choosing to cross it - - whether with a secret email and fundraising system set up and staffed in a public office, or through a go-for-broke secret system of coordination among donors and so-called 'independent' third parties - - all of whom had to be aware they could get caught, but opting for taking the chance because they believed their ends were justified regardless of the means to get there.
And, of course, knowing that if they and their cause were to hit the fan, they had stockpiled private lawyers, friendly Attorneys General, a State Supreme Court majority, and even GOP legislators waiting in the wings to redo the campaign coordination statute, and the structure of the John Doe statute, plus the elections, ethics and accountability laws and machinery if need be - - to protect, preserve and defend Scott Walker.
Who would and could sign everyone of those self-preserving 'reforms' into law, completing a deeply corrupted and perverse incineration of democracy as we knew and had honored in a once-progressive state.
That is the ruinous coordination that has taken place since the 2010 election and the similarly-across-the-line gerrymandering to deeply, and perhaps permanently, embed a Wisconsin GOP and the Governor Republicans revere because he is pledged to maintain a reactionary, donor-driven ideology that is turning the state into a low-wage, corporately-controlled, poverty-enabling polluted backwater - - politically, environmentally and ethically.
In the wake of his victorious skate past the US Supreme Court I expect an emboldened Walker to further his vindictive budget-for-starvation for the institutions he imagines to be liberal - - the UW system, city governments, the Department of Natural Resources - - even though they give the state so much of its appeal.
Walker won at the US Supreme Court, but the state, its people, history and legacy values all lost.
Pretty steep price, one politician's hide.
Lawyers I know said the US Supreme Court takes for formal review very few of the petitions it receives, and maybe the message being sent to Wisconsin is, 'you have a remedy for the pickle you're in: it's called "elections.'
Though with legislators and an unashamedly pro-Walker State Supreme Court majority making and interpreting the rules, laws, election procedures and district boundaries, that kind of 'fix-in-yourself' dictum is a cop out.
Here's what I want to say now that the legal history of John Doe II, and John Doe I, for that matter, seems to be a closing book:
Walker and his donors and his campaign committee and his appointees and support networks all the way back to his days as Milwaukee County Executive spent a helluva lot of time and money going right up to the commonly-accepted line of traditional and legitimate campaigning, financing and organizing - - and kept crossing it, knowingly choosing to cross it - - whether with a secret email and fundraising system set up and staffed in a public office, or through a go-for-broke secret system of coordination among donors and so-called 'independent' third parties - - all of whom had to be aware they could get caught, but opting for taking the chance because they believed their ends were justified regardless of the means to get there.
And, of course, knowing that if they and their cause were to hit the fan, they had stockpiled private lawyers, friendly Attorneys General, a State Supreme Court majority, and even GOP legislators waiting in the wings to redo the campaign coordination statute, and the structure of the John Doe statute, plus the elections, ethics and accountability laws and machinery if need be - - to protect, preserve and defend Scott Walker.
Who would and could sign everyone of those self-preserving 'reforms' into law, completing a deeply corrupted and perverse incineration of democracy as we knew and had honored in a once-progressive state.
That is the ruinous coordination that has taken place since the 2010 election and the similarly-across-the-line gerrymandering to deeply, and perhaps permanently, embed a Wisconsin GOP and the Governor Republicans revere because he is pledged to maintain a reactionary, donor-driven ideology that is turning the state into a low-wage, corporately-controlled, poverty-enabling polluted backwater - - politically, environmentally and ethically.
In the wake of his victorious skate past the US Supreme Court I expect an emboldened Walker to further his vindictive budget-for-starvation for the institutions he imagines to be liberal - - the UW system, city governments, the Department of Natural Resources - - even though they give the state so much of its appeal.
Walker won at the US Supreme Court, but the state, its people, history and legacy values all lost.
Pretty steep price, one politician's hide.