-By Warner Todd Huston
When most of you woke up today you saw media coverage all across the country breathlessly “reporting” that Republican Governor Scott Walker was facing “new” charges that he engaged in a “criminal scheme” to illegally coordinate with outside groups during his 2011/2012 recall election. But the fact is, the allegations were all dismissed and this isn’t anything “new” at all.
The “news” that occurred on Thursday is that groups suing the state for its unfair and illicit investigation asked a judge to release documents pertaining to the invalidated “John doe” investigation. So, the “charges” that were reported as if they were new on Thursday night and all day Friday are not “new” charges at all. They are just old charges being made public for the first time.
The initial series of far-reaching investigations were declared at an end on March 2 of last year. It resulted in no charges being filed against the governor.
Despite the purported end of the investigation, though, prosecutors continued their attacks on Walker and his associates until by May of 2014 U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa issued an injunction calling into question the legitimacy of the whole operation.
The information released Thursday came at the behest of the conservative groups suing officials for using the prosecutor’s office to launch a political campaign against them in violation of their rights to free speech.
So, as you see, these documents were released at the request of people who support Gov. Walker so that they can show the public how the state violated the law.
The case has been dismissed and a federal judge told the prosecution that they were engaged in an illegal action.
My friend Hans von Spakovsky over at The Daily Signal also notes that these “new” charges are “much ado about nothing.”
“Why?,” von Spakovsky asks. “Because federal district court Judge Rudolph Randa already enjoined the prosecutors’ investigation, saying they were trying to criminalize the political speech of the governor and conservative organizations in violation of the First Amendment.
What these unsealed documents provide is simply more evidence that local prosecutors were attempting to prosecute First Amendment-protected activity–specifically political speech on issues–by conservative organizations and to curtail the speech of someone they considered a political enemy. As Wisconsin Club for Growth’s attorney, Andrew Grossman, said, what these documents actually show is how local prosecutors “adopted a blatantly unconstitutional interpretation of Wisconsin law that they used to launch a secret criminal investigation targeting conservatives throughout Wisconsin.”
Yet, everywhere you look the media is reporting this information as if it is new, as if these charges are new charges that will “dog” Walker.
Meanwhile, Gallup finds that Americans trust the media less than ever. As the pollsters found, “Across newspapers, TV, and Internet, confidence no higher than 22%.”
When you look at the truth in this Walker case and compare it to the lies that the media are selling today, it’s no wonder they aren’t trusted. The old media establishment is not a “news” service. It is a propaganda machine for the far left.
In the end, this “investigation” into Walker was conducted by partisan Democrat “prosecutors” who were engaged in an adjunct to the political battle of the recall election which was nothing but a partisan attempt to remove the Governor from office. This “investigation” violated both the Governor’s and the people of Wisconsin’s political free speech and was a perfect example of a government thug misusing the power of her office and warping the law to serve her political ideology.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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