HUTCHINSON -- That reckless applause you heard last week in response to the Supreme Court’s lifting of rules against union and corporate campaign advertising came from the boardrooms and stockholders of those who will benefit most: television stations and newspapers. It might even save some jobs in both sectors.

Locally, Hutchinson News Managing Editor Mary Rintoul offered an indignant editorial denouncing the decision, and I share her disdain. I don’t know whether you can literally buy an election these days, but you can bet supporters on both sides are sure as hell going to try.

But I’ll wager her bosses at Harris Enterprises weren’t as nearly as disappointed. That’s a lot of money being put up for grabs, Those who have it and are willing to spend it call it “free speech,” and the Supreme Court agrees -- if you want to call a 5-4 decision “agreement.”

And that means a lot of attack ads are headed our way -- the kind of stuff that will turn Super Market “exposes” into legitimate political campaign advertising. My hunch is we’re going to be teabagged unmercifully -- from the NRA, the teachers, the blue-dog Democrats and the Christian Right Wing.

Speaking of which, let’s face it: the Teabaggers have gained some legitimacy, some power, something to boast of and flap their skinny, white wings about … or at least, that’s the perception.

Of course, most middle-of-the-roaders kind of snickered at them before. Now they’ll get a taste of boastful, smirking Teabaggers, and they’re going to like them even less. So, who knows? Maybe the Teabaggers will self-destruct from an overdose of free-lance grinning.

<

The common response in the Reno County courthouse to the possibility of a bill passing the state legislature that would replace some Kansas district court judges with magistrate judges is … it probably won’t, but, yes, it could happen.

And if it happens in Reno County? The most popular scenario has District Judge Joe McCarville moving upstairs upon Judge Dick Rome’s retirement to handle felony trials and hearings, on the assumption Chief Judge Patti Macke Dick would prefer to keep her present juvenile docket.

McCarville’s Division 3 court would then change and go the election as a Magistrate Court, and probably changed to “Magistrate Court, Position 2” -- Judge Randy McEwen’s magistrate court is billed as “Position I.”

Of course, this all depends on the voters putting McCarville back in for another four years, but no one yet is suggesting they want to run against him, and no one is predicting McCarville will lose if they do.

There’s also a heavy suspicion among the lawyers in the judicial district that the robust budget cuts that necessitated the closing of some courthouse functions, hiring freezes and all-but-assured upcoming and unpaid employee furloughs … are the results of a cranky state legislature still ticked off over the State Supreme Court’s ruling on school finance several years ago. “They’ve got no love for judges of any kind right now,” offered one, non-judge attorney.

<

The power of the state, and its occasional foray into pointless bullying, came into play in Judge Rome’s courtroom last Friday, in the form of a request by a local attorney to get his dud hand-grenade returned to him.

Attorney Sam Kepfield ticked off Rome and local prosecutors when he used the grenade in a failed attempt to show the jury -- which he erroneously presumed would be frightened -- how his guilty client felt when she was allegedly scared into committing forgery.

The Attorney General’s Office determined no crime at been committed, no evidence existed that he was attempting to scare the jury into freeing his client, and rationally, it seems, declined to file charges.

Fine, Kepfield responded, then I want my grenade back.

The AG replied, Sorry, no. We’ve got five years to change our mind and file charges.

Fair enough, said Rome. You don’t get it back.

And then chewed Kepfield a new one, which, Kepfield certainly had coming. You don’t pull explosives out , even neutered ones, in courtrooms, not in this day and age. As one deputy said, if he or she had been there, “I might have shot him. I can guarantee you my gun would have come out.”

But do you really believe the AG has ANY intent of reviewing the case at ANY point in the next five years to see if the facts have changed or if something was missed?

Of course you don’t. This was a clear-cut act of pointless, shameless muscle-flexing by a government willing to club a citizen over the head who had done nothing illegal, simply because it could.