Rep. Craig threatens to investigate John Doe leak...unlike the Club for Growth's leaks to the Wall Street Journal.

Without an open admission of guilt, the only standard now granted by the US Supreme Court to determine if money had a corrupting influence, Republicans had Christmas early today.

The Supreme Court let Scott Walker and the state Supreme Court off the hook. My conservative friend in Milwaukee emailed me a link to the story with the message, "Ha, ha."

Feed me...more money!

My friend, like all Walker/Trump voters, are more concerned with shoving their "leaders" corruption in our faces than acknowledging the criminal takeover of our state.

But the Walker win wasn't enough. It's now time to send a message to anyone else thinking about challenging our one party authoritarian state; investigate and publically shame, ridicule and destroy all dissenters. According to Republican Rep. David Craig:  

This ends an unfortunate chapter of government chilling free speech in Wisconsin. It is more important than ever that a special committee in the legislature with subpoena power be empaneled to take sworn testimony in this matter. The legislature needs to determine if abusive behavior was engaged in by those involved in this investigation and to determine whether those charged with the public trust have acted maliciously by intentionally leaking sealed materials in violation of state policy."

Never mind Eric O'Keefe's Club for Growth's leaks of secret John Doe information. If anyone wants to "chill free speech," it's Craig and his fellow corrupt Republican legislative criminals. Ha, ha.

Already a Laughing Stock, Wisconsin Supreme Court clears Walker, kills off John Doe probe, orders evidence Destroyed.

It's a funny thing when a state supreme court justice declares someone innocent before ever knowing if that was true or not:

WISC: On a 4-2 vote (the majority coming from the Wisconsin Supreme Court's four conservatives), has ordered an end to a wide-ranging and secret probe into alleged election law violations during the Republican Gov. Scott Walker's 2012 recall campaign. 

Justice Michael Gableman, writing for the majority wrote, "It is utterly clear that the special prosecutor has employed theories of law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing. Let one point be clear: our conclusion today ends this unconstitutional John Doe investigation," Gableman wrote ... found a key section of Wisconsin's campaign finance law is "unconstitutionally overbroad and vague."

The court ordered all all property seized in the investigation returned to its owners and all copies of evidence destroyed.

Justice Shirley Abrahamson, our former Chief Justice until Republican legislators targeted her and tossed her out, summed it up well when she wrote, "the majority opinion's theme is 'Anything Goes,'" and that we'll never know if the individuals involved were guilty or innocent. jsonline:

“The majority opinion will deny the people of this state the opportunity to determine once and for all whether the targets of the John Doe investigation are guilty of systematically violating Wisconsin's campaign finance law through undisclosed campaign coordination. The majority opinion adopts an unprecedented and faulty interpretation of Wisconsin's campaign finance law and of the First Amendment.'"

Of course more liberal justices can't be trusted or believed, so may I present to you a conservative special prosecutor:

Francis Schmitz, the (Republican) special prosecutor leading the investigation, has written in court papers that one or more of the justices should not have participated in the case because the groups being investigated had spent millions of dollars to help elect those justices. None of those justices agreed to step aside.

So how much money did each litigant spend to elect and influence the court's conservative justices?

The Wisconsin Club for Growth is estimated to have spent $400,000 for Ziegler in 2007; $507,000 for Gableman in 2008; $520,000 for Prosser in 2011; and $350,000 for Roggensack in 2013. WMC spent an estimated $2.2 million for Ziegler; $1.8 million for Gableman; $1.1 million for Prosser; and $500,000 for Roggensack. In addition, Citizens for a Strong America — a group funded entirely by the Wisconsin Club for Growth — spent an estimated $985,000 to help Prosser.

The justices … say political spending on its own is not enough to force a justice off a case.

So money doesn’t have a corrupting, or even slight influence over our elected officials, which is what Citizens United was all about? Sure, and the SCOTUS even said so in 2009 in a West Virginia case.

Blue Jean Nation's Mike McCabe, who's former watchdog group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign tracked campaign spending, talked with libertarian leaning talker Mitch Hank. It appears the federal Supreme Court may have every reason to strike down our courts corrupt conclusion, that's if John Doe prosecutors challenge their decision. Here's an audio section of that conversation:

  

Keep in mind, Walker told contributors that if they wanted to keep their identities secret, they should send their money to the Wisconsin Club for Growth. Nothing wrong there, right?

jsonline: "The Governor is encouraging all to invest in the Wisconsin Club for Growth," said an April 28, 2011, email from Kate Doner, a Walker campaign consultant, to R.J. Johnson, an adviser to Walker's campaign and the advocacy group. "Wisconsin Club for Growth can accept corporate and personal donations without limitations and no donors disclosure ... As the Governor discussed ... he wants all the issue advocacy efforts run thru one group to ensure correct messaging,"

Why conservative voters aren’t outraged is a mystery to me, unless they think Republicans will never lose power in the state. Personally, this power grab may benefit Democrats in the long run if they fully utilize the structure and dominance the GOP is cluelessly putting in place:  

Republicans who control the Legislature have put on their agenda plans to rewrite campaign finance laws, overhaul how John Doe probes are conducted and restructure the Government Accountability Board. They have been waiting for the court decisions before advancing those bills and could take them up this fall. 

Walker, Vos dance to tune of Wisconsin Club for Growth, propose disbanding independent GAB oversight.

Who controls Scott Walker and our state legislature? The conservative party bosses at Wisconsin Club for Growth, that’s who.

And when the Club bosses are unhappy, Republican legislators develop new and aggressive "leadership" skills, that coincidentally fall in line with the Club.

After rearranging the bits and pieces in the Journal Sentinel article by Patrick Marley, you’ll see why. From the very beginning, Rep. Robin Vos has bashed the Government Accountability Board because he thinks that they, or any independent group, cannot actually be nonpartisan. That's impossible. Under that false premise, Vos thinks the controlling party should make all the partisan appointments they want, same difference. Checks and balances:

jsonline: Prosecutors and the Government Accountability Board have been looking into whether the club or other conservative groups illegally worked with the campaigns of Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans during the 2011 and 2012 recalls.

You don’t threaten or challenge conservatives. The clubs boss Eric O'Keefe sued the Milwaukee DA, making it clear he wasn't happy with Republican inaction. Vos sprung into action, and sued the accountability board because of their redesigned ballot and to make them look bad. It was stupid, so even a conservative Waukesha County judge dismissed the case. In an uncontrolled hissy fit of authoritarian rage, Vos declared on the Wisconsin Radio Network (audio from WPR):

"Kevin Kennedy (head of the GAB) has to go. He needs to be gone, he is an embarrassment and I can't say it any more emphatically than I am right now. I promise you that two years from now when we're sitting here the GAB will not be in the current format that it is currently put together. It is dysfunctional, it is unresponsive and it is totally undemocratic."

Vos, under pressure from the Wisconsin Club for Growth's party bosses and others, said he will change the elections board to one that is loyal to the authority. A sure fire way to instill confidence and integrity in our elections. 

In the meantime, party boss O’Keefe will use its vast financial resources to make an example of the GAB and the DA's office, not because of their duty to provide oversight, but because they had the gall to picked a “fight” with the real party bosses.  

O'Keefe said Chisholm had started the fight over campaign finance laws that he claims has shut out conservative voices from the state's political debate. But "my team will decide when it's over," O'Keefe said.

And like every Republican "plan," there isn't one:

Phony GOP Partisan Problems

Vos said he's unlikely to have a concrete proposal for changing or replacing the accountability board before the election.

Of course this is all speculation, based on the purely coincidental actions by Vos and the Club's party boss.

And what kind of guy is Eric O’Keefe? Check out his comments on conservative talker Vicki McKenna’s radio show:

 “I have read some about rape and I have talked about rape and I am saying this deliberately. The reactions that I got from the people I interviewed were similar to a rape victim.”

Walker's clueless act gets world wide belly laugh!

I thought this had the right amount of skepticism.

Here's Ed Schultz with DPW's Mike Tate and fact buzzsaw Ruth Conniff from The Progressive Magazine cutting through the crap:

Oddly, Walker totally avoiding what he calls "legal" coordination with outside groups this time.

While my conservative friend in Milwaukee is on a war path to remove Pres. Obama, a deliberate GOP distraction away from our state's problems, the bad news surrounding Scott Walker's time as governor isn't on his radar. I'm getting the feeling this is true for almost every other "stand with Walker" supporter.

So I guess they’ll never notice how Walker is now bragging that he’s “not” coordinating his campaign with other outside groups, like he did in his recall election. At least that’s what we’re being told. WSJ:

Gov. Scott Walker maintained Saturday he broke no laws in soliciting funds for a conservative group during the 2011 and 2012 recalls, but he said he’s not engaged in the practice as he seeks re-election in November. “Everything we’ve done is completely legitimate,” Walker told reporters Saturday in Madison.

Asked why he’s no longer doing it, he said, “as you can imagine I’m pretty busy with my own campaign right now.”

Too busy for the big donors? Well, would you believe...?

The new documents provide supplemental evidence to prosecutors’ previously disclosed legal theory that Walker and his campaign aides were involved in a “criminal scheme.” Milwaukee County investigator Robert Stelter’s conclusion that Walker solicited donations to Wisconsin Club for Growth and that such solicitation violated and was intended to “circumvent” state law on campaign contributions...

Kate Doner, a Walker campaign consultant … wrote to Johnson that Walker wanted Wisconsin Club for Growth exclusively to coordinate campaign themes. "As the Governor discussed ... he wants all the issue advocacy efforts run thru one group to ensure correct messaging," she wrote.

 Deceptive Walker Phrasing Revealed: Walker has been saying all along that he wasn't a "target," and pointed to a statement from investigators saying the same thing. But what I didn't know before was this:

A lawyer for lead prosecutor Francis Schmitz issued a statement in June stating, “Gov. Walker was not a target of the investigation. At no time has he been served with a subpoena.”

Legal experts have told the State Journal that a “target” of a John Doe probe is someone who prosecutors have enough evidence to file charges against, as opposed to a subject, who is someone under investigation for possible wrongdoing.

Which leaves the question of Walker's involvement wide open. I still don't understand why wanting to run all issues through one group isn't proof of illegal coordination.

7th Circuit Court skeptical, wants good reason for John Doe 2 Conservative groups to remain Anonymous.

Slowly but surely the wheels of justice turn....

Twin Cities: A federal appeals court is asking two unnamed parties related to an investigation into Gov. Scott Walker's 2012 recall campaign and other conservative groups to explain why they are entitled to remain anonymous.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday asked the unnamed parties (Wisconsin Club for Growth) to address that in briefs due in September.

Scott Walker's inadvertent Admission of Guilt in John Doe 2?

The Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch review of the SB 654 drafting files pretty much proves Scott Walker knew he was on the wrong side of the law, and tried to cover up his crime with legislation that would exempt him and his donors from similar activities in the future.

The author of the legislation, the uncomfortably odd Sen. Mary Lazich, was the perfect choice to carry out Walker's legal slight of hand. 

New documents indicate that just weeks after the first subpoenas were issued in Wisconsin's "John Doe" criminal campaign finance probe in October 2013, senate Republicans had begun working to change state law to legalize the activities under investigation.

Legislative Republicans surprised many in the state in March of 2014 when they tried to rush Senate Bill 654 through the legislature to explicitly carve-out an exception to the state's campaign finance statutes for so-called "issue ads" ... The John Doe investigation was never mentioned during testimony on SB 654 , even among the bill's opponents.

Senate elections committee chair Sen. Mary Lazich (R) had begun working on the bill five months earlier, in October 2013 -- just weeks after secret John Doe subpoenas were issued to Wisconsin Club for Growth, the Walker campaign, and other groups.

The timing provides further evidence that the legislation was designed to have an impact on the conduct under investigation in the John Doe. Jay Heck, Executive Director of Common Cause Wisconsin, now says "this is more than coincidental." "I'm just in disbelief at how brazen this is," he said. 

Wisconsin Club for Growth hated secrecy, before they were for it in John Doe 2.

The Center for Media and Democracy hit the nail on the head with an observation that clarifies everything. The length of John Doe 2 has allowed the probes targets to redefine who the bad guys are. Yes, it’s crazy and laid out perfectly here:

prwatch: The purpose of secrecy in John Doe proceedings is to protect the identities of those under investigation before charges are filed. And in fact, the identities of Eric O'Keefe, Wisconsin Club For Growth, and the other groups under investigation were not revealed until last November, when O'Keefe chose to violate the John Doe secrecy order and to give the Wall Street Journal editorial board his version of events and reveal that he had been subpoenaed.

Ever since, the probe's secrecy has been a rallying cry for O'Keefe and his right-wing media supporters. "This secret investigation and gag order on conservative activists is intended to stop their political successes in Wisconsin," O'Keefe said in January, when it filed the federal suit. "The state cannot be allowed to silence political speech it does not like."

Yet now it is WCFG seeking to suppress the information that might allow the public to decide for themselves whether the John Doe was warranted. WCFG and O'Keefe "are asking the court to unseal every document except those documents that support the investigation and the defendants' legal defenses in this lawsuit," wrote Nickel's attorney.

The John Doe's secrecy has been exploited by targets of the investigation, who have filled an information vacuum through a series of strategic leaks, and have exploited this one-sided information flow to recast the probe as "an abuse of prosecutorial powers" led by malevolent prosecutors.

The lying liars Club for Growth: Check out this ridiculous comment about Judge Adelman’s decision that voter ID was unconstitutional at the Club's website:

To think ACORN-like election fraud won’t be attempted is beyond idiotic. Wisconsin’s continuing defenselessness in the face of this escalating threat is due to last week’s ruling by Lynn Adelman, a federal judge whose immediate prior employment was as a 20-year member of the Democratic Caucus in the Wisconsin State Senate. Adelman ruled, preposterously, that Wisconsin’s Voter ID law is unconstitutional.

Club for Hypocrites: I wonder how the Wisconsin Club for Growth can tolerate their own Supreme Court Justice David Prosser’s 17 years as a Republican leader in the state assembly:

Prosser represented the Appleton area in the Wisconsin State Assembly as a Republican from 1979 through 1996 … he served six years as Minority leader and two years as Speaker.

Pretty partisan. But was Justice Prosser a right wing zealot back then, unlike Adelman's tenure?

In 1981, he opposed removing criminal penalties on sexual activity and cohabitation between unmarried, consulting adults, though he did express a willingness to repeal the jail terms. He stated that legalizing sex outside of marriage would increase divorce rates, the number of children born outside of wedlock, welfare payments, sexually transmitted diseases, and abortions.

Don't make Big Business Cry? Wisconsin Club for Growth desperate, throws juvenile tantrum over New Mining Bill

Want to take a trip down the rabbit hole? Check out this outlandish response from the spoiled little bully in the corner we know at Wisconsin Club for Growth:

jsonoline: The Wisconsin Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy organization, is taking on Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) for his efforts to alter proposed mining regulations: "Let’s get straight to the point: If the opportunity for iron mining, more than a billion dollars in private-sector investment, and thousands of quality jobs in mining, manufacturing, and ancillary businesses that would last for decades, go swirling down the drain in Wisconsin, you can chalk up the entire fiasco to the efforts of one man: State Senator Dale W. Schultz, R (for RINO), Richland Center."

Thereeee insane!!!  I’m surprised they just didn’t spray paint it on the side of the Capitol.

But just as belligerent and nonsensical is their statement about Schultz’s redistricting plans. Should I assume these are actual adults making comments like this from the Wisconsin Club for Growth?

"Just to clarify, derailing the mining bill and making redistricting even worse are about neither mining nor redistricting. They’re about pandering for favorable attention from the liberal media, a full-time preoccupation for Schultz since he first became a legislator in 1982."

20 years in office might mean he's doing something right? And the reward for "pandering for favorable attention from the liberal media is...?" What is gods name are they ranting about? Should we be scared now? I guess we now know how fair those redistricting maps were.