Hat tip to Jude for the heads-up:

Eric O’Keefe, the director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, told the nation’s most widely known conservative editorial page he received a subpoena in early October. O’Keefe said at least three targets had their homes raided, according to the newspaper on Friday.

The opinion piece said about 30 groups had received subpoenas, including heavy hitters nationally. It named eight of them: Walker’s campaign; the Wisconsin Club for Growth; American Crossroads, a group co-founded by Karl Rove, the former adviser to President George W. Bush; the Republican Governors Association; the Republican Party of Wisconsin; Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin; Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s largest business lobbying group; Wisconsin Family Action; and the League of American Voters.

I found the last iteration of the Wisconsin John Doe investigations to be somewhat of an emotional roller coaster. Though the implications of the reporting were that clearly there had been some ass-haberdashery with the Scott Walker campaign and it was likely that Walker himself was only minutes away from being indicted himself, the only resulting charges and convictions were two thefts ($21K and $50K), a vague “contributing to the delinquency of a child”, campaign fundraising using a secret email system at a courthouse, doing campaign work on the county’s dime, and exceeding personal campaign contribution limits and laundering money for the campaign.

Considering one of the big stories of the recall in particular was the sheer amount of money involved, and that of the groups mentioned in the CBS article I just linked, the RGA, AFP, and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce are all getting subpoenas per the WSJ article, this couldshape up to be interesting. To be honest, though, I’ve been primed by the previous investigation to expect a few individuals to get a few slaps on the wrist.

But ugh, you guys.

With three weeks to go, as of May 21, the last disclosure deadline before recall election day, Walker had raised $30.5 million, while Tom Barrett had raised $3.9 million, according to public disclosure reports tallied by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

How. How is it okay to just throw that kind of money at political campaigns? I’m not talking legally, I know it’s perfectly legal. I’m talking ethically. Yes, on election day, even David and Charles Koch have only one vote each, and so the system works, but if you can throw arbitrary amounts of money at the internet and newspapers and television and get them to scare people into believing that if they don’t vote for the same person you’re voting for, the immigrants will start driving through your neighborhoods in low slung cars listening to raps and shooting all the jobs… we can’t really claim that everyone’s voice is being heard equally.

(Also: cut me some slack for a day or two pleez, I’m just getting a feel for how to rant at you all long-form.)