What is this mailer all about? That’s the latest question circulating in the political hotbed of Wisconsin.

From our breaking news story at the MacIver News Service:

Over the weekend, a strange pamphlet began appearing in mailboxes across Wisconsin. It looks like a voter registration form and return label read, Government Accountability Board, but the return address included the incorrect post office box number.

The mailings also included requests for information not required to register to vote in Wisconsin, and at least one solicitation tried to register a six year old girl to vote.

The GAB confirmed to the MacIver News Service it had received calls about the mailing, but it did not send them out.  The GAB initially had no other comment other to relay that it was looking into the matter.

However, late in the day, the GAB issued a press release on the matter….

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Steve understands that while we’re trying to work our way out of this economic crisis, we have to hold the financial industry accountable to prevent the next one. That’s why Steve wrote a bill that would have taken back the bonuses paid to top executives at Wall Street firms – like AIG – that received federal bailout funds. (Source: Steve Israel For Congress Website)

Did you ever wonder where a self-proclaimed corporate raider and Occupy Wall Street supporter such as Congressman Steve Israel gets his campaign donations from?

According to Open Secrets, Israel has raised $1,581,081 for this election cycle (2011-2012), of which $15,790 comes from small donors, the “average Joe” like you and me.

Another $965,850 was raised from his top 100 donors, an all-star team of big labor and big business; many of those businesses from industries, which based on his committee assignments, Israel is supposed to be overseeing (including those Wall Street firms he talks about on his campaign site). The following takes a look at the donations to his reelection campaign and political action committee (PAC).

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Russ Feingold is already criticizing Barack Obama for his reversal on the use of Super PACs. Obama has consistently been on record condemning the process whereby individuals and corporations can donate to a PAC anonymously to support a related campaign.

So much for priorities. Obama’s Super PAC is Priorities USA.

Liberal ex-Sen. Russ Feingold (Wis.) is ripping President Obama’s decision to embrace super-PACs. Feingold, who co-authored landmark campaign finance legislation with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to regulate campaigns, said Obama is “dancing with the devil” by deciding to fully support Priorities USA, a Democratic political action committee.

Says Team Obama, we won’t bring a knife to a gunfight. But will they attempt to punch back twice as hard? I’d make book on it, if I were you.

With so much at stake, we can’t allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm.

Check out the above video of Obama denouncing said Super-PACs.

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It’s official.  Former Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), who resigned in disgrace over a bizarre sexting scandal this past June, was NOT hacked.

Today, eight months after the congressman first claimed he was the victim of a hacking or a prank, the NY Daily News has broken the story that Anthony Weiner spent more than $13,000 in campaign funds to hire private investigators to track down a hacker that never existed.

Weiner paid T&M, a Manhattan-based firm, $13,290 for “legal services” in the fourth quarter of 2011, financial statements filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission reveal.

Sources told the Daily News, however, that Weiner hired T&M — a firm loaded with former NYPD sleuths — when he was in full spin mode over the controversy that eventually led to his resignation from the House.

[...]

Two sources familiar with Weiner’s downfall said the Queens pol told investigators the same story. T&M investigated — and learned Weiner had sent them on a fool’s errand.

“They did their job, and then it was time to sit down with lawyers,” another source said. “Self-denial, it dies a slow death.”

Surprised? No, neither were we.

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Barack Obama coasted to electoral victory in 2008 on the phrases “Hope and Change” and “Yes We Can!”, but it appears that in 2012, his winning campaign slogans could instead be “I like the ability to fire people” and “I’m not concerned about the very poor.”

Of course, these aren’t his words. They’re the words of his potential opponent in the general election, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Romney’s seeming callousness toward poor and unemployed Americans has gone viral among left-wing pundits and social media users, and this is a major problem. As much as conservatives may quibble about context and Romney’s actual intentions, we must keep in mind that Romney will be facing the same electorate that voted Obama into office in 2008–the same electorate that believed Sarah Palin, not Tina Fey, said, “I can see Russia from my house.”

The voters of 2012 will, by and large, not choose a candidate based on proposed policies and governing records; they will choose based on a simple narrative, a log line that makes the case for one’s candidacy in as few words as possible. In 2008, Obama’s was “First Black President.” McCain’s was “Veteran Endured Torture, Served His Country With Honor,” and Palin’s was “Ordinary Mother Rose to Governorship.” By the same token, candidates craft counter-narratives about their opponents. The anti-Obama narrative, “Too Radical, Too Inexperienced,” did not stick, and the anti-Palin narrative, “Stupid,” did, thanks almost wholly to the shameless left-wing advocacy of the mainstream media.

It is an unfortunate fact that having the truth on our side is not enough. Not every voter is as informed as those of us who follow politics religiously; we are the exception to the rule. Nationwide elections such as this are decided not based on truth but the perception of truth, and while I do not say this to justify deception by the Republican Party’s eventual nominee, that individual must be able to withstand the deception and false impressions presented by Obama and his media proxies. (more…)

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has come under fire, including from Judicial Watch, for his controversial relationship with mortgage giant Freddie Mac in the years after the former House Speaker left Congress. The issue is especially sensitive in Florida, which has been described as “ground zero” of the housing crisis. Voters take to the polls in the “sunshine state” today in the Republican primary. (Judicial Watch does not endorse or oppose candidates for office.)

Gingrich initially said in debates and press interviews that Freddie Mac paid his company as much as $25,000 per month for his services as a “historian.” He has since switched that term out for the more standard “consultant.” But the documents released by the Gingrich campaign suggest he may have been more than a “consultant.”

Politico reports:

New details from Newt Gingrich’s contracts worth $1.6 million with Freddie Mac show that the Republican hopeful wasn’t just a boardroom consultant, but served as a high-profile booster for the beleaguered organization. He even gave a rallying speech to dozens of the group’s political action committee [PAC] donors in the spring of 2007.

Shortly after the “rah, rah” speech, as one source described it, Gingrich gave an interview for the Freddie Mac website, where he supported the group’s model at length. The interview is no longer on Freddie’s site.

Gingrich said in the interview that Freddie has “made an important contribution to home ownership and the housing finance system,” even though many Republicans revile it.

And so these records seem to suggest that Gingrich, who described the Freddie Mac business model “insane” on the campaign trail, had a different tale to tell when Freddie Mac was filling his corporate bank account.

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A little publicized political story, if played out to the satisfaction of California Democrats (read: Progressives), would not only set the stage for a politically motivated raid on the US Treasury, it would afford President Obama, his administration and political operatives plausible deniability in any “coincidental” benefit to Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign. And if you don’t think that has David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett and David Plouffe salivating, you haven’t been paying attention for the past three years.

According to a report by TheHill.com:

“A long list of California Democrats is urging President Obama to name a new housing regulator using a controversial recess appointment.

“In a letter to the president, more than two dozen House members said the temporary head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Edward DeMarco, simply hasn’t done enough to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure. The lawmakers are pushing the president to name a permanent director ‘immediately.’

“‘FHFA has consistently and erroneously interpreted its mandate far too narrowly and as such has failed to take adequate action to help homeowners,’ the lawmakers wrote. ‘Installing a permanent director of the FHFA will allow the FHFA to move forward to make key decisions that will help keep families in their homes and improve our economy.’”

Okay, let’s first examine the FHFA. According to their website:

“The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) was created on July 30, 2008, when the President signed into law the Housing & Economic Recovery Act of 2008. The Act gave FHFA the authorities necessary to oversee vital components of our country’s secondary mortgage markets – Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks…FHFA’s mission is to provide effective supervision, regulation and housing mission oversight of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks to promote their safety and soundness, support housing finance and affordable housing, and support a stable and liquid mortgage market…”

The reason the California congressional delegation is pushing for a permanent replacement for Mr. DeMarco has little to do with the well-being of California’s citizens whose mortgages are both underwater or in foreclosure. It has everything to do with 2012 being an election year. The California delegation’s letter to President Obama urging the so-called “recess appointment” of a new FHFA director presents as a gift to the Obama re-election effort. I say “so-called recess appointment” because the US Senate is in pro-forma session and it is unconstitutional for the president to make recess appointments when either house of Congress is in session. I and the rest of the Conservative and Republican rank-and-file are still waiting for congressional Republicans to do something about the initial round of “recess appointments.” Of course, one needs a spine to stand-up to a bully, so we probably shouldn’t hold our collective breath.

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In an editorial board interview with Breitbart.com, Rick Tyler, a former spokesman for Newt Gingrich and current senior adviser to Mr. Gingrich’s Winning Our Future Super PAC, told Editor-in-Chief Joel Pollak he was unsure whether the Gingrich Super PAC would return and refuse any contributions it has or will receive from employees of Bain Capital, the company Mitt Romney previously ran.

“I’m not prepared to comment on that right now,” said Mr. Tyler. “I hadn’t even contemplated that idea… I don’t know. I don’t know that there are any Bain employees giving money. I don’t really have an answer for you. I don’t have an adequate answer for you.”

Pollak raised the question as Gingrich and his Super PAC have targeted Romney’s tenure as CEO of Bain Capital, casting Bain as a firm of corporate raiders whose business model was allegedly to “loot” American companies and ship jobs overseas. Logically, Pollak implied, if Bain is evil, then Winning the Future should return and refuse contributions connected to Bain.

It is unknown whether Gingrich’s Super PAC, “Winning the Future,” has in fact received donations from Bain employees or investors, since it is not due to report its contributions to the Federal Election Commission until January 31.

On Wednesday, Winning Our Future is set to release a movie titled When Mitt Romney Came to Town in advance of the Republican South Carolina primary. The Washington Post says the film, which was made by a former Romney advertising adviser, “savages” Mr. Romney’s record as head of Bain Capital. The film’s website describes Mr. Romney as a “predatory corporate raider” who “looked for businesses he could pick apart.”

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