Where government controls political speech, the speech police will play

Bill Lueders is a thorough and dedicated journalist. Can he help it if the Progressive magazine editor sees the world through the Emerald City’s liberal-progressive-socialist (LPS) lens?

In shutting down the John Doe 2 investigation, the state Supreme Court ruled that it was “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.” But that’s not Bill’s story.

No, what gets Bill Lueders’ ink a-boiling is that the court ordered prosecutors to destroy the copies they made of the seized computer hard drives, cell phones, and paper files. This “unusual move would make it harder for the public to know what prosecutors found.” (Read his story in Madison’s Isthmus.)

“Break out the paper shredder and grab that can of lighter fluid,” Bill shrieks.

So the prosecutors should be rewarded for their ill-gotten gain? Just because the court ordered the return of the compact music discs stolen from B-Side Records, shouldn’t we be able to listen to the music they copied?

Bill quotes Democratic supernumeraries to support his bias, including One Scot Ross, paid attack dog for the secretly funded Democratic front group One Wisconsin Now. Ross predictably levels the charge that the majority justices were bought and paid for by Walker’s “money machine.”

Taken at face value, the probe was always about one group of conservatives coordinating with another over issues of mutual concern. That is something over which our liberal-progressive-socialist acquaintances high-fived in the run up to the recall elections.

In fairness to Bill, he does quote Rick Esenberg of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. The more telling quote comes from celebrity criminal defense attorney Stephen Hurley, not known as a partisan, who notes that if John Doe proceedings are conducted in secret — as they are — then the materials collected in that proceeding should also remain sealed if no prosecution results. As, indeed, no charges were brought after two-plus years.

About those John Doe raids themselves? Nothing from First Amendment champion Bill Lueders. Deb Jordahl, of Middleton, told Wisconsin Watchdog:

“I told the deputy who was guarding us that I wanted to call my lawyer. She backed me down on the sofa and told me I could not call anyone. I felt completely helpless in my own home.”

Jordahl has had a lot of helpless feelings since the coordinated John Doe raids of Oct. 3, 2013, but maybe nothing compares to watching her 15-year-old daughter, her “little girl,” sitting in her pajamas on the living room couch, crying, as a deputy told her she could tell none of her friends at school about that morning.

At least Bill Lueders has a First Amendment right to coordinate his writing with One Scot Ross and his ilk.

Ross and his LPS allies (no coordination there!) are crying that the four majority justices should have recused themselves since conservatives supported their elections. No, former Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson need not absent herself, even though she received significant labor union and LPS support.

Esenberg deconstructs the recusal argument at RightWisconsin (pay wall). Just one point: Prosecutors selectively target conservative speakers, and then demand that conservative jurists step aside. That is having and eating your cake.

Blaska’s bottom line: Armed deputies bearing battering rams target the private homes of politically active citizens in pre-dawn raids. The terrified residents, including children, are ordered to sit down and shut up. No, you may not contact an attorney. You may not tell your story under penalty of law.

That is Putin’s Russia, my Stately Manor neighbors. The mainstream news media (with the notable exception of the Wall Street Journal) are okay with that. Not a peep of protest from Jay Heck of Common Cause or Matt Rothschild the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Because they favor government control of political speech.

Someone they disagree with may be “coordinating” with other people they don’t like in order to commit free speech. Where government decides who may say what and when, the speech police will play.

Meet the Banshees

Former Madison Isthmus contributor Michael A. Baron — known for his sci-fi comics — says Wordfire Press is publishing his “rock and roll horror novel” Banshees, “about a satanic rock band that returns from the dead.” Sounds like the Stones.

Death only adds to their mystique as the Banshees steamroll across North America toward a triumphant appearance at LA’s Pacific Auditorium. Ian finally grasps the real reason they’ve returned — to tear a rift between our world and a monstrous evil — a rift created by an infernal machine built into Pacific Stadium and powered by human flesh.

From the author of “Whack Job.”

“When world leaders burst into flame like a string of Lady Fingers, the President calls on a renegade former agent with a history of mental problems.”

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