Little-Acorn
04-21-2015, 02:53 PM
Most normal Americans have known for a long time that it's not wise to elect liberal Democrats to public office where they have power to use government to crack down on them.
It turns out that this was more than a worrisome idea. Ever since Scott Walker started running for Governor in Wisconsin, his Democrat opponents in office have been conducting intrusive surveillance of people who supported him, subpoenaing their business and personal records, and conducting midnight raids where armed police raided their homes, searched and seized their belongings, and threatened them with more if they mentioned any of it to anyone.
Apparently this has been going on for years in Wisconsin, getting worse with each Walker election victory, and is only lately coming to light.
It is the stuff for which third-world countries and banana republics are (justly) ridiculed and scorned. And it couldn't happen here. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights were written specifically to prevent such behavior by government. But it actually has been happening here - in long campaigns against anyone who dared oppose the Wisconsin Democrats, their union handlers, and the police they control.
It's an ominous warning - but now more than just a warning - about what can happen when you give liberals political power, and then try to take it away from them.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417207/politicized-prosecution-run-amok-wisconsin-rich-lowry
Politicized Prosecution Run Amok in Wisconsin
by Rich Lowry
April 21, 2015 12:00 AM
The knock on the door in the dead of night is the stuff of Darkness at Noon, and of the state of Wisconsin. To the question of whether armed police can storm your house and take away your personal effects and tell you to shut up about it, based simply on your political advocacy, Wisconsin answered for years, “Why, yes, they can — now please, shut up about it.”
The so-called John Doe investigations into Governor Scott Walker and conservative groups in Wisconsin have been an ongoing travesty that — now that Walker is entering the presidential stage — should be considered a national disgrace. Walker’s opponents weaponized campaign-finance law, literally.
Our own David French has talked to families targeted in the John Doe raids for the first time, and their stories are harrowing. Shouting officers at the front door in pre-dawn raids, at least once with a battering ram. Armed police rifling through and carting off their belongings, down to and including a daughter’s computer. And warnings to stay silent. The targets were told not to tell their lawyers, or their friends, or their neighbors.
When armed cops storm the house next door, people often wonder why, but the targets were forbidden from discussing what happened. As French points out, this wasn’t the right to remain silent and avoid self-incrimination, but an order to remain silent and not to make any professions of innocence. They had a keener sense of due process in Salem, Massachusetts.
The investigators were, among other things, fishing for campaign-finance violations, on dubious grounds. So, for exercising their First Amendment rights, some targets were denied their First Amendment rights. This is the Bill of Rights, via Kafka and Inspector Javert.
(Full text of the article can be read at the above URL)
It turns out that this was more than a worrisome idea. Ever since Scott Walker started running for Governor in Wisconsin, his Democrat opponents in office have been conducting intrusive surveillance of people who supported him, subpoenaing their business and personal records, and conducting midnight raids where armed police raided their homes, searched and seized their belongings, and threatened them with more if they mentioned any of it to anyone.
Apparently this has been going on for years in Wisconsin, getting worse with each Walker election victory, and is only lately coming to light.
It is the stuff for which third-world countries and banana republics are (justly) ridiculed and scorned. And it couldn't happen here. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights were written specifically to prevent such behavior by government. But it actually has been happening here - in long campaigns against anyone who dared oppose the Wisconsin Democrats, their union handlers, and the police they control.
It's an ominous warning - but now more than just a warning - about what can happen when you give liberals political power, and then try to take it away from them.
--------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417207/politicized-prosecution-run-amok-wisconsin-rich-lowry
Politicized Prosecution Run Amok in Wisconsin
by Rich Lowry
April 21, 2015 12:00 AM
The knock on the door in the dead of night is the stuff of Darkness at Noon, and of the state of Wisconsin. To the question of whether armed police can storm your house and take away your personal effects and tell you to shut up about it, based simply on your political advocacy, Wisconsin answered for years, “Why, yes, they can — now please, shut up about it.”
The so-called John Doe investigations into Governor Scott Walker and conservative groups in Wisconsin have been an ongoing travesty that — now that Walker is entering the presidential stage — should be considered a national disgrace. Walker’s opponents weaponized campaign-finance law, literally.
Our own David French has talked to families targeted in the John Doe raids for the first time, and their stories are harrowing. Shouting officers at the front door in pre-dawn raids, at least once with a battering ram. Armed police rifling through and carting off their belongings, down to and including a daughter’s computer. And warnings to stay silent. The targets were told not to tell their lawyers, or their friends, or their neighbors.
When armed cops storm the house next door, people often wonder why, but the targets were forbidden from discussing what happened. As French points out, this wasn’t the right to remain silent and avoid self-incrimination, but an order to remain silent and not to make any professions of innocence. They had a keener sense of due process in Salem, Massachusetts.
The investigators were, among other things, fishing for campaign-finance violations, on dubious grounds. So, for exercising their First Amendment rights, some targets were denied their First Amendment rights. This is the Bill of Rights, via Kafka and Inspector Javert.
(Full text of the article can be read at the above URL)