Scott Walker’s Homecourt Advantage
A week or so ago, we noted that a federal judge named Rudolph Randa — a Poppy Bush hire to the bench — effectively shut down the investigation into the chronically hinky campaigns of Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin. I argued at the time that, as bad as the outcome was, Randa really was operating in the brave new world of campaign law, where if you don’t have video of a CEO handing a politician a bag of money with “$$$$” written on the outside, then no corruption exists. I stand by that and say thank you once again to Justice Anthony Kennedy, for deciding that, “We now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” Jesus God, is that still stunning.
Since then, Randa’s order has been stayed by one court, and litigation is ongoing. (In the latter decision, the court blocked Randa’s attempt to have the records of the investigation destroyed.) In his ruling, Randa added his own delightful flourish to Kennedy’s fan-dance by congratulating the Walker campaign on how cleverly they had violated the law and declared that the campaign’s efforts in that regard were covered by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression. So, we may conclude, a stick-up kid can declare his arrest invalid because the phrase, “Give me your money” is protected speech.
However, as time has marched on, it has come to widespread attention that Randa and his wife are the very beau ideal of the judicial moles planted by the conservative movement all over the federal judiciary with the help of various Republican presidents.
More: Scott Walker Investigation Stayed - Scott Walker’s Homecourt Advantage