http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/us/scott-walker-wisconsin-governor.html?hp&_r=1 Wisconsin Governor at Center of a Vast Fund-Raising Case CHICAGO — Prosecutors in Wisconsin assert that Gov. Scott Walker was part of an elaborate effort to illegally coordinate fund-raising and spending between his campaign and conservative groups during efforts to recall him and several state senators two years ago, according to court filings unsealed Thursday. The allegations by five county district attorneys, released as part of a federal lawsuit over the investigation into Mr. Walker, suggest that some of the governor’s top campaign aides directed the political spending of the outside groups, most of them nonprofits, and in effect controlled some of them. The documents made public on Thursday threatened to cloud the political prospects of Mr. Walker, who is seeking election to a second term this fall and is mentioned as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016. They provided a rare view of the inner workings of a far-flung network of conservative nonprofit groups that have come to play a decisive role in national and state elections, secretly moving hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns by avoiding traditional political action committees, which typically face tougher disclosure requirements. ...
OK, so they make it sound like Walker committed some sort of crime. Yet, much much much later in the article, they tell the truth: This year, Gregory A. Peterson, a judge overseeing the investigation, quashed subpoenas, saying he had found no probable cause of campaign finance violations. And in May, a federal judge, Rudolph T. Randa, granted a preliminary injunction to halt the criminal inquiry, known in Wisconsin as a John Doe investigation, which is usually secret. The documents were unsealed as part of an appeal to that ruling, which is before the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago. “These documents show how the John Doe prosecutors adopted a blatantly unconstitutional interpretation of Wisconsin law that they used to launch a secret criminal investigation targeting conservatives throughout Wisconsin,” said Andrew M. Grossman, a lawyer for the Wisconsin Club for Growth. In a statement, Mr. Walker said: “The accusation of any wrongdoing, written in the complaint by the office of a partisan Democrat district attorney, by me or by my campaign is categorically false. In fact, two judges, in both state and federal courts, have ruled that no laws were broken.” He added, “This is nothing more than a partisan investigation with no basis in state law.”
It looks like a partisan abuse of power and office by the prosecutors to me. That should be the headline.
The NYT article is not biased, as your own quotes prove. The Club for Growth broke the law. It distributed a lot of political money. Organizations must report this but they hid it. Randa is a Wisconsin right-wing judge whom Republicans like to appeal to. Look at how biased he is. http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/05/12469/randa-kills-wisconsin-campaign-finance-law
So much for the partisan attack against the federal judge. http://thefederalist.com/2014/06/20/a-basic-primer-on-the-scott-walker-case-for-ignorant-reporters/ Fortunately, judges saw right through this partisan abuse of power. Early this year, a state judge, ruling in a secret proceeding, quashed the subpoenas and all but ended the investigation. According to the judge, “the subpoenas do not show probable cause that the moving parties committed any violations of the campaign finance laws.” This started the unraveling of the John Doe investigation that had many conservatives fearing they would be targeted for subpoenas and raids next.
Your quotes in this thread are all from the right wing and the to-be prosecuted governor, yet your thread title alleges bias against the Times article. AP says the same as the Times. The media isn't biased in this case. It's telling you what prosecutors are doing. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/prosecutors-gov-walker-part-criminal-scheme-0
I'm biased for wanting news reporting instead of opinions disguised as a news article. The NYTimes is plenty liberal on its opinion pages, but there's no false advertising to it. I'm not defending Fox News, but it's a joke to suggest their bias makes up for CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, and NYTimes and WaPost, etc. It's also a joke to claim the article I posted is unbiased or fair. Walker is unpopular on the left and they've tried to destroy him with every legit and illegitimate means. Including a failed recall. Sore losers. This investigation is another attempt to undo the will of the people. That is the story. The courts aren't buying it. That is the story.
It doesn't really matter what the media says or doesn't say. Walker is a crook, and so is Judge Randa, and both have put themselves above the Real Americans who pay their legal salaries. They should rot in jail.
LOL at Denny Crane supporting the country's most rabid activist judge. Judge Randa's May 6 decision halting the investigation is extraordinary. It involves a federal court injecting its own interpretation of state law into a high-profile criminal probe of political operatives of the party that appointed him to the bench, while state court proceedings are ongoing. It deploys a strained reading of U.S. Supreme Court precedent and the facts of the case, portraying the investigation -- led by a bipartisan group of District Attorneys and a Special Prosecutor who voted for Walker, and approved unanimously by the bipartisan group of retired judges on Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board -- as politically-motivated retaliation against Republicans. It green-lights electoral coordination between candidates and third-party groups, making it easy for politicians to bypass contribution and disclosure limits and solicit unlimited, secret donations for so-called "issue ads" timed to influence elections. Randa even celebrated the intentional evasion of campaign finance rules by the players under investigation in the John Doe. He described their tactics as a means of promoting "speech." Randa wrote that Eric O'Keefe's WCFG -- which filed the federal challenge to the probe and had spent $9.1 million on undisclosed election ads during the recalls -- "found a way to circumvent campaign finance laws, and that circumvention should not and cannot be condemned or restricted. Instead, it should be recognized as promoting political speech, an activity that is ingrained in our culture." Activist Judge Orders the Destruction of Evidence in Criminal Probe Perhaps even more astoundingly, Randa ordered prosecutors to destroy all evidence gathered in the investigation. Such an edict is an extreme measure in a criminal case. It is not clear when the last time was that a federal judge actually ordered that evidence in a criminal case be destroyed, as opposed to declaring that certain evidence could not be used or should be returned. Ordering the destruction of evidence in any case is an especially extraordinary step for a preliminary injunction, which is an intermediate measure that is only supposed to halt the investigation while the court case proceeds. Prosecutors immediately appealed the decision, and the Seventh Circuit barred Randa's decision ordering the destruction of evidence. Despite Randa reinstating his order on Thursday, the requirement that prosecutors destroy evidence remains blocked. ... Round Two for Randa This is not the first time Judge Randa has been smacked down by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in a case with political overtones. In 2007, Randa wrongly convicted a state official accused of steering state travel contracts towards a firm linked with Wisconsin's Governor Jim Doyle, a Democrat. Randa sentenced state purchasing supervisor Georgia Thompson to 18 months in prison -- yet when the Seventh Circuit heard the appeal, they immediately ordered her release. Appellate Judge Diane Wood called the evidence that Randa relied on to convict Thompson "beyond thin." Thompson was prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic, whose relentless pursuit of Thompson, and the timing of the prosecution to coincide with the 2006 gubernatorial race, was widely perceived as a political move (see, for example,this 2007 New York Times editorial). Biskupic's wife is reportedly Randa's judicial assistant. Biskupic is now in private practice and represents Scott Walker in the John Doe case.
This is why you hold up opinion pieces as 'reality'? Seems like you've got things entirely backwards. barfo
Opinion pieces belong on the op ed pages, not in the rest of the newspaper. Seems like things are in reality backwards. Can't defeat him at the ballot box, so it comes to this. Undemocratic.
And LOL at MARIS. The will of the people is to let Walker serve out his term. His opponents will stop at nothing, including assailing the judges who don't put up with the undemocratic attempts to oust him. The guy won his election, won the recall. Man up and beat him next election. That's democratic.
So you say that even if the prosecutors are right that the Governor broke the law, the media should not report what the prosecutors are doing. You say, if no media coverup, then media bias. Does your rule apply when Democrats are crooked?
