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.

How’s that saying go? Oh, yeah, “just words.”

The activity in Wisconsin over the last few months becomes crucially pertinent as the state gears up for the 2012 Wisconsin Senate race.  It’s worth looking at the financial innards  of the Supreme Court race and the protests against Governor Scott Walker in order to assess what the fight for the Wisconsin Senate seat, soon to be vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Herb Kohl, will look like.  What many don’t realize is that this race could have broader implications – not just in national politics, but in specific policy areas, like health care and your personal medical records, for example.  Lots of money, fueled by liberal business interests and an ever-growing progressive movement in Wisconsin, has already been freely flowing.

But is anyone watching? Who are some of these donors?

Let’s start by looking back at the recent Wisconsin protests and the Supreme Court election, and then dissecting some of the money trail.

The hostility stemmed from the union reform bill signed by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on March 11^th as a stand-alone portion of the overall budget repair bill.

Preceding this were weeks of relentless organized labor protests, many of which included acts of thuggery and even death threats against Republican lawmakers.  But the measure was promptly challenged by Democratic officials and restraining ordered away into legal-limbo land until June 6th.  Expecting that the challenge may ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court, Democratic supporters promised an ugly fight for that Supreme Court Justice seat.

And ugly it got.  Not only did the Wisconsin judicial election between conservative incumbent Justice David Prosser and liberal Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg turn into an unprecedented sleaze fest, but spending levels also broke records.  Topping that list of sleaze funders was a non-profit group called the Greater Wisconsin Committee – a medley of labor unions, the Democratic Party, a few powerful liberal business elites, and even the offspring of George Soros.

At the top of mind for most Wisconsin residents was this controversial anti-Prosser TV ad, sponsored by the Greater Wisconsin Committee.

Politifact Wisconsin thoroughly examined each of the claims made in the ad and rated the ad to be “barely true”.

The Greater Wisconsin Committee claims David Prosser didn’t ask police to investigate a mother’s report that a 30-year pedophile priest had indecently touched her two sons, then refused to file charges [against] him and participated in a cover-up of the priest’s acts.

The committee’s TV ad uses generally factual statements to make its case, but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. By using information that only became known later, it suggests more information was available to Prosser at the time than really was. For instance, Prosser didn’t know that the priest had a long history of molestation — that came out 24 years later. And it wasn’t until 24 years later that one of the brothers made the most serious allegation against the priest.

The ad was so offensive to some that even one of the priest’s victims spoke out against it to ABC news in WI:

“In an email obtained by 12 News on Thursday, one of the victims in case, Troy Merryfield, wrote that he finds the ad offensive, inaccurate and out of context and said he hopes the organization will remove the ad.”

Offensive or not, the strategy of sleaze appeared to have worked.  All that money flowing in, especially from one group in particular, made an impact.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Tuesday’s race between Justice David Prosser and liberal challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg was a dead heat, with Ms. Kloppenburg pulling ahead by about 204 votes late yesterday. Until Mr. Walker’s collective bargaining reform passed last month, incumbent Justice Prosser was a heavy favorite. Unions then turned it into a grudge match, with the union-backed Greater Wisconsin Committee alone spending $1,363,040 for Ms. Kloppenburg, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Turnout of 1.5 million was nearly double the usual number of voters in a state Supreme Court election.

So, who is this Greater Wisconsin Committee?

Established in 2004 as a 501(c)4, , the organization describes itself as “a state-based, progressive issue advocacy organization that conducts aggressive grassroots and media campaigns on the important public policy issues facing the state.” The Greater Wisconsin Political Fund is its affiliated 527 organization.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Greater Wisconsin Committee’s 2010 funders include:

• AFSCME: $915,000
• SEIU: $185,000
• Judith R & Gordon T Faulkner, Epic Systems (CEO, Judith Faulkner): $60,000
• Lynde Uihlein of Brico Fund/Time Out Enterprises (Schlitz Brewing heir): $275,000
• Grant Abert (co-founder of the Donor Collaborative of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Community Fund): $30,000
• Jonathan Soros, Soros Fund Management: $5,000
• Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and Democratic Governor’s Association: $1,580,000
• Greater Wisconsin Committee: $300,000

The special interest spending building up to this year’s Supreme Court race rivaled that of Wisconsin’s active 2008 race, when conservative-leaning Judge Michael Gableman defeated incumbent Justice Louis Butler by just 2% of the vote.  When the state’s leading pro-business lobby Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) spent $1.2 million on that race, it sparked outrage amongst liberal Democrats and the media.  So much so that Greater Wisconsin Committee member Judy Faulkner, founder and CEO of health information technology company Epic Systems, called for a boycott of WMC in protest, prompting the resignation of WMC board member and J.P. Cullen & Sons CEO, David Cullen.  (Cullen’s company was also Faulkner’s building contractor working on the $300 million expansion of Epic Systems Verona campus at that time).

It turns out that Judy Faulkner is also important outside of Wisconsin.  She was appointed to the federal Government Accountability Office Health IT Policy Committee in April 2009.  This is a committee that was created in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for the purpose of “mak[ing] recommendations on creating a policy framework for the development and adoption of a nationwide health information technology infrastructure, including standards for the exchange of patient medical information.”  Electronic Medical Records (EMR) / Electronic Health Records (EHR) – long considered by the left to be the holy grail to a single payer system -  are a key financial component of both the ARRA and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  Faulkner’s company, Epic Systems, is the same software that is installed at many of the facilities often cited by President Obama and members of Congress as the “model health care systems,” including Geisinger, Kaiser Permanente and Cleveland Clinic, to name just a few.

Epic Systems and the Faulkners are also donors to many liberal and Democratic candidates, including some who have been cited as potential 2012 Wisconsin Senate candidates, such as Rep. Tammy Baldwin.  Epic Systems came up recently when five members of a congressional delegation, including Tammy Baldwin, sent a letter to the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, asking them to consider using a commercial off the shelf system for their electronic health records solution.  The letter cited Kaiser Permanente, Cedars Sinai and Cleveland Clinic as model examples – all Epic Systems installations.

This year, Greater Wisconsin Committee spent over $1.3 million on just the Supreme Court race.  The remaining top four donor groups spent under $1 million each, two of those under $500K.  That seems quite a reversal from the same “principled” stance of these same liberal voices in 2008.

So, why has one organization – the Greater Wisconsin Committee – had so much financial pull in Wisconsin?  And just as importantly, why are just a few individuals and companies in particular, like Judy Faulkner and Epic Systems,  so closely aligned with the labor unions and Democratic party machine?  Wisconsin is having a nationwide impact on politics in our country today.  It’s just as likely that the people shaping Wisconsin’s politics may have a nationwide impact as well.  Just look at Judy Faulkner and Epic Systems – who knows? Wisconsin could even decide who manages your personal medical records.

As the 2012 Wisconsin Senate Race shapes up, perhaps it might be time to watch what the left is doing while they’re crying foul over Koch money.

Now, for the election analysis — including lots of good news from the events of Nov. 2.

There’s no doubt the American electorate in many, many places rejected the Obama-Pelosi-Reid anti-Constitutional approach to government, i.e. Progressivism.

That’s clear, even though the Republican pickup in the Senate was disappointing, especially with the re-election of Harry Reid. Take a look at Republican gains in the State legislatures: 650-700 seats, compared to 505 in 1994. That’s huge.

There’s bad news to be sure.

Boxer won, and by a surprisingly comfortable margin. Polls can still be wildly wrong, apparently. Henry Waxman and Nancy Pelosi coasted to easy wins, Moonbeam Brown became Governor of California again. State legislators there are their younger clones. All that seals that state’s fate. It will be at least 25 years before the once-Golden State recovers, if ever, no matter who is elected two, four, or six years from now.

Worse still, the majority of voters in Nevada betrayed their fellow citizens by re-electing Harry Reid, who will almost certainly remain Majority Leader. This is bad news far beyond the re-election of one of the six most dangerous Federal employees in the country. (Obama, Reid, Bernanke, EPA head Lisa Jackson, Sec. Sebelius, and any swing vote on the Supreme Court.)

The reason is simple: Reid can now tie up any pro-freedom legislation introduced in the House while Obama has Executive Branch bureaus ensnare the populace through administrative regulations. That means among other things that repeal of any part of ObamaCare will have to wait until 2013. Luckily, the major handouts don’t start until 2014, so there’s time.

Now to leaven our depression with a little more good news.

Russ Feingold got his pink slip. The prime author of legislation that violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech is now unemployed. He has been replaced by a very promising Republican.

The other author of that odious bill, John McCain, conned his way into a six-year reprieve by donning a new conservative suit. However, despite his desire to appear the maverick, McCain can often be relied on to go along with his Republican peers, especially on defense issues. Since Cap-and-Tax is essentially dead for the next two years at least, he can’t do any damage on that score. Better still, he had a close brush with unemployment and may be more cautious for a while.

In more good news, the loathsome Blanche Lincoln — she was a major driver of the ruinous Farm Bill and voted for ObamaCare — has been shown the door with a healthy boot (58% for Boozman v 37% for her) to assist her on her way. With so many nearby states turning Red too, maybe the south really is rising again.

Perhaps best of all, Marco Rubio tromped the opposition in Florida, a state where most voters normally have no idea who they are. Rubio is young, a relatively reliable pro-freedom voice, and he’s being touted as Vice Presidential material. He’s also Cuban-American. While discussions of ethnicity in politics are generally loathsome, it’s a clear indication that Hispanics won’t always vote Democrat.

There are some heartening results in the House races, too. Walt Minnick lost his Idaho seat by a 10% margin. Far from the worst Democrat around — he voted against ObamaCare — he still voted with his party 70% of the time. That’s interesting not so much because Raul Labrador is a Republican — Idaho is firmly a Red State and Minnick’s election a fluke — but because he was such a weak candidate with far inferior TV ads and still won.

All these disparate results offer a clear overall theme: with exceptions like the utterly hopeless Massachusetts, California, and New York, the majority of the American people are now saying they strongly favor fiscal conservatism and limited government — at least for now.

To keep them favoring it will require a continued educational campaign that demonstrates every day the rightness of those positions. Republicans could easily blow it. They have many times before. But there is beginning to build in the House (and to some extent in the Senate) a consensus around Madison’s view of government.

If we help stiffen Congressional spines daily, America has a good chance to gain needed breathing room from the 50-year-long onslaught of Progressivism in government. (Even Reagan had to deal with a Congress that tilted left much of the time.)

Into that gap can slip the cultural changes that are essential to keeping the political momentum going.

That means educating the American people about why every piece of Progressive legislation has harmed them, including Social Security and Medicare — the immoral, impractical, and unconstitutional twin programs that are bankrupting the country.

It means teaching citizens why the Constitution is not just a bunch of rules of thumb. Though the Supreme Court shouldn’t be, they’re heavily influenced by the tone of Congress and public sentiment. If the people believe more firmly in the Constitution, SCOTUS will uphold it more consistently.

It means re-creating a country that broke all the precedents set by the 2,000 years before its founding to become the freest, most innovative, most prosperous, and most moral society in history.

It’s now up to the American people to decide the future they desire. The odds of them choosing wisely, and their chances of success, have just improved by an order of magnitude.

“Nothing, just lower our taxes.”

Fat chance.

An embarrassed Joe Biden ignored him and walked away.

WISN 12 News reported:

A spokesman for the GOP responded to the VP’s visit:

“Vice President Biden probably decided not to take questions today because he didn’t want to fess up as to why Wisconsin has lost over 73,000 jobs since the stimulus was enacted.”

Ouch.

Their latest pitch is that the highpoint of the GOP advance was the Scott Brown election and that, from here on, things will “improve slightly” for the Democrats.

Once again, Carville and Greenberg are totally misreading the public mood. Each time the Republican activists battle, they become stronger. Their cyber and grass roots grow deeper. The negatives that attach to so-called “moderate” Democratic incumbents increase. And each time Obama, Reid and Pelosi defy public opinion and use their majorities to ram through unpopular legislation, frustration and anger rise.

Were Obama’s ambitions to slacken, perhaps a cooling-off might eventuate. But soon the socialist financial takeover bill will come on the agenda, followed by amnesty for illegal immigrants, cap-and-trade and card-check unionization. Each bill will trigger its own mobilization of public opposition and add to the swelling coalition of opposition to Obama and his radical agenda.

And, all the while, the deficit will increase, interest rates will rise and unemployment will remain high.

Meanwhile, the political process will generate more and more strong Republican challengers. We have yet to see if former Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin or Dino Rossi of Washington state will emerge to challenge Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.). Better House candidates will decide to capitalize on the momentum and will jump into the race and Republican donors will come out of hiding, their efforts catalyzed by the growing optimism about GOP chances.

Presaging the looming Republican sweep is the shift in the party ratings on various issues. Rasmussen has the Republicans ahead by 49-37 on the economy and 53-37 on healthcare. His likely-voter poll shows GOP leads on every major issue area: national security (49-37), Iraq (47-39), education (43-30), immigration (47-34), Social Security (48-36) and taxes (52-34).

When Republicans are winning issues like education, healthcare and Social Security — normally solidly Democratic issues — a sweep of unimaginable proportions is in the offing.

Will the rise in economic growth and job creation — if they continue — offset the Republican gains? Not very likely. Remember Bill Clinton’s 1994 experience. Even though the recession had officially ended in the quarter before he took office and he proudly pointed to the 5 million new jobs that had been created during the first two years of his presidency, Clinton got no bounce from the jobs issue or the economy. Even in the election of 1996, the economy was only marginally a source of strength for the Democratic president. It wasn’t until impeachment that the job growth that had been ongoing since he took office began to work heavily in his favor with the public. The hangover from a recession, and certainly from one as violent as this, lasts a long time. A very long time.

And all this assumes that things will, indeed, improve. Worries about inflation loom large and concerns that higher taxes and interest rates will trigger a new downturn also abound. As long as the deficit is as high as it is, there is no solid foundation for a sustained period of economic growth.

Finally, Obama is now responsible for healthcare in America. When premiums rise, it will be his fault. When coverage is denied, it will be on his watch.

When Medicare cuts kick in, it will be Obama who gets the blame.

Carville’s last book touted “40 more years of Democrats.” Now he dreams of a loss of “only” 25 seats in the House and “six or seven” senators. But these are pipe dreams. Republicans will gain more than 50 House seats and at least 10 in the Senate, enough to take control in both chambers. That’s reality.

This article originally appeared in The Hill.

I might as well have watched a bunch of people using high-tech gadgetry to try to make contact with the other side, because I certainly didn’t learn anything new in this world.

Anyone who has paid even scant attention to Obama over the past year or two has heard it all before. We heard about the need to act “boldly” and “aggressively” in a crisis, the need to pass climate change legislation, the need to pass the health care boondoggle, the requisite bashing of banks and Wall Street, and, lest we forget, blaming Bush for everything except ABC’s cancellation of the show “Ugly Betty.”

In the private sector, constant passing of the buck gets you fired. In government, it earns you points with your base.

Watching Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden sitting behind Obama, I was reminded of proud parents watching their child take his first steps. I half expected Nancy to offer him an animal cracker and a sippy cup of apple juice for his efforts.

So, you may be wondering, what was missing?

Gravitas, for one thing. Sure, there was the upward tilt of the head that is part and parcel of every Obama speech. I guess he thinks we enjoy being able to count his nostril hairs. But the entire speech had the tone of a parent lecturing an errant child. All that was missing was a wagging finger and the threat of no dessert for a week if little Billy didn’t stop dragging his feet and clean his room.

What else was missing? Truthfulness. The AP points out at least 10 major fibs contained in the speech, including Obama’s position on lobbyists and how many jobs were actually saved by the stimulus package.

Then there was the real shocker: his smackdown of the Supreme Court because of their ruling last week that lifted limits on corporate campaign donations. “Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”

Does this mean that unions will also have more campaign finance restrictions put upon them?

Even Justice Sonya Sotomayor looked peeved, as well she should.

But upon what is the mainstream media focusing its energies? Not the fact that Obama’s remarks were incorrect and in bad taste, but disparaging Justice Samuel Alito for mouthing “not true” after he and his colleagues were attacked by the President in front of the nation. Apparently it’s all well and good for the president to pile on the Supreme Court, but not fine for a member of that court to object – even silently.

And what about jihad? Excuse me, “terrorism.” Wait, make that “man-caused disasters.” Only eight paragraphs out of 110 were dedicated to national security, despite the fact that just a month ago an attempt to blow up an airliner full of passengers over Detroit was narrowly averted; a strong majority of Americans don’t want KSM and his cohorts to be tried in New York; and Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan gunned down his colleagues at Fort Hood, killing 13, while shouting “Allahu Akhbar.” Security interests don’t take a holiday. Neither should the attention of the White House.

Speaking of which, the two police officers who were responsible for stopping Hasan’s bloodbath before it could get worse were special guests at the SOTU, seated in the box next to First Lady Michelle Obama, along with several other military guests. But the traditional “shout out” to such special guests was oddly missing, although the First Lady received two mentions and Jill Biden received one. Why bother having such distinguished guests if you plan to ignore them completely?

Finally, what was missing was any sign that the President is listening to the American people. Three big elections – governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey and a special senate election in Massachusetts – were bloodbaths for the Democrats and essentially a referendum on the President’s agenda. Nearly 70 percent of those polled say Congress should dump the current version of health care reform. Sixty-three percent don’t believe global warming is a crisis. And polls are showing that even “safe” pols like Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) are in danger of being toppled. If Frank Luntz’s focus group on Fox News was any indication, the American people were not fooled by his rhetoric. They’re not looking for “just words,” but results.

Yet Obama says he will continue to “fight.” A true ideologue, he refuses to abandon his beliefs, even if it means political suicide. He even told Diane Sawyer he’d rather be a “really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.”

He just hasn’t figured out that people don’t think he’s a “really good one-term president.”

The Senate is primarily concerned that President Obama may be end-running the Constitution, along with the growing fear, shared by many citizens, that the power and the extraordinary amount of funding that is controlled by the Czars may be undermining the authorities of the senate-confirmed agency heads on whom the Senate has placed its imprimatur and its trust. 

Czars currently influence or directly control over a trillion dollars of government spending, which is more than the spending of the entire federal government during the Reagan Administration.  And, yet, few of the Obama  czars were ever vetted through the traditional review process where potential conflicts of interest are revealed.  Nor are Obama’s czars accountable to the Senate to justify policy or spending decisions. 

In addition, three issues concerning czars continue to perplex:

• Do the non-Senate-confirmed Czars undergo the same vetting process  as other political appointee, such as background checks by the FBI, White House and Ethics Office review of Standard Form 278—financials and potential conflict of interest statements, to name just a few?
• Has the President clearly outlined the duties and objectives of the Czars in relation to the Senate-Confirmed cabinet members who, currently, appear to share similar job objectives and responsibilities?
• Will the White House permit Czars to testify to Congress, or will the White House exert Executive Privilege, thereby circumventing Congress’ statutory role of Advice and Consent?

So far, the answers to these questions doesn’t look promising.  The circumstances surrounding the resignation of Van Jones, the Green Jobs czar, highlighted the disturbing fact that, at least in the case of Jones, the traditional political appointee vetting process was not followed, and that, indeed, he may not have completed all of the requisite paperwork before commencing employment with the government.

The clarification of czar and czarina duties and responsibilities is now an urgent requirement by the Senate because Obama’s many Czars are very powerful.  For example, Ken Feinberg, the Pay Czar, has just cut the salaries and bonuses by 90% of some of Wall Street CEOs and senior staff whose companies received bailout funds.  One can debate the wisdom and potential long-term negative consequences of the government’s heavy hand, but the inappropriateness of a czar making a such a critical decision seems clear.   

As a czar, Feinberg is immune to oversight and accountability.  He is, arguably, one of the most powerful men in America since he seems to have the ability to decide how much people should be paid.  Are any of us comfortable with a pay czar with the powers and ability to arbitrarily set pay and bonus levels for bankers and senior staff?  Would we not be better served if our normal governmental checks and balances were in effect? 

There are also potential unintended consequences of Feinberg’s actions.  A few days ago, President Obama promised to put more money into small and regional banks to kick start small business lending.  Feinberg has set a precedent for governmental interference in pay negotiations.   There is a possibility that few of those banks are likely to accept government TARP money, since with it comes the implicit authority of the pay czar to set compensation levels for bank employees.  The result is that small businesses may not see any improved lending any time soon.

In a similar manner, Carol Browner, the Energy and Environmental Czar recently assumed broad powers to dictate automotive manufacturing emissions standards.    Curiously,  the Administrator of the EPA, who is a member of the President’s Cabinet appears to defer to Ms. Browner.  And yet, the Senate has not vetted or confirmed Carol Browner, nor are they able to hold the EPA responsible for decisions and actions taken by a policy czar.

The White House has already provided an indication of their intent regarding future congressional testimonies by czars.  Recently, Senator Feingold invited the White House to attend, and to testify, at the hearing he hosted on czars and the Constitution.  The White House declined to attend.

To be fair, Czars, both senate-confirmed and those otherwise appointed, seem to be a mixed bag under the Obama Administration.  Some seem to have exemplary credentials, solid expertise that can certainly provide additional advice to President Obama if he does not feel his Cabinet members provide sufficient counsel.  Others are so clearly unsuited for their positions that they are an embarrassment. 

Past Presidents have appointed czars to lead special efforts, and all Presidents deserve to have the assistance of the experts that they believe will help them do the best job for the American people. But, President Obama has taken this past practice to dizzy, new extremes, and concerns grow that he has created a de facto shadow government.  

The 15 Senate-confirmed Cabinet members are overshadowed and outnumbered by the Czars, whose decisions  seem to reign supreme on policy issues.   The potential for disruptive White House turf wars and feuding grows, as each czar adds yet another  layer of management between the Cabinet Member and the President.  

American taxpayers are questioning the broad powers of the czars.  The Senate is too.  The Senate may be controlled by members of the President’s own political party, but there are limits to just how much power and financial control they will blindly seed to the President.  Even if that President is named Obama.