While that representation fits the desired liberal narrative, it may not fit the facts. Local media outlets in Wisconsin pointed out in the days and weeks after the shooting that local law enforcement agencies repeatedly failed to apprehend the eventual shooter after coming in contact with him numerous times in violence and domestic abuse related incidents.

On Sunday October 21, 2012, Radcliffe Haughton walked into a suburban spa outside of Milwaukee where his wife worked and opened fire with a handgun he purchased in a private sale. Haughton killed 3 – including his wife – and injured 4 before taking his own life. Because Haughton purchased the weapon used in the shooting from a private seller, liberals cite the tragedy as proof that more restrictive gun laws are needed.

Although the alleged “gun-show loophole” is blamed for Haughton’s ability to purchase a gun, in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy it was law enforcement’s failure to enforce existing law before the shooting that made headlines.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, police officers were called to Haughton’s home in Brown Deer, Wisconsin at least 20 times, but never made a single arrest. At one point Haughton made a threatening move with his hand, causing an officer to draw a weapon in defense. When Haughton then slammed the door in the officer’s face, the officer left without arresting him.

In early 2011, police officers engaged in a 90-minute tactical standoff with Haughton at his home. When police first arrived on the scene they believed Haughton had a weapon and was threatening his wife. The standoff ended when a police supervisor told officers to leave the scene. Wisconsin law requires that officers make an arrest in instances where domestic abuse is suspected. No arrests were made.

When asked, the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office said they couldn’t necessarily file charges against Haughton because local police would not arrest him. An attempt by a prosecutor in the DA’s office to get a misdemeanor conviction failed after the prosecutor didn’t realize that the key witness for the particular event, a police officer, was on vacation the day of the trial date.

Haughton was ordered by a court to turn any guns he had over to the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office in a restraining ordered that his wife requested shortly before the shooting.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) has not mentioned any of these failures to enforce existing law, and use existing law enforcement tools and options, to deal with the killer before he became a killer. Founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and led in Wisconsin by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, MAIG has successfully framed the tragedy as solely about Haughton’s ability to procure a gun.

Earlier in the gun debate, Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn admitted in a U.S. Senate hearing that in the City of Milwaukee police officers do not make it a priority to pursue individuals who illegally obtain a gun before they commit a crime, even if they fail a background check.

In that case, Walker’s handling of Medicaid puts him squarely in the lead among his peer governors.

The expansion of Medicaid is fraught with financial peril for individual states, experts warn. Although the federal government insists it will pay for the expansion, federal subsidies financing the expansion are quickly reduced over time, leaving cash-strapped states to ultimately add even more money to their Medicaid budgets.

Republican governors like Chris Christie of New Jersey, Rick Snyder of Michigan, John Kasich of Ohio, Rick Scott of Florida and a couple of others have opted to call for an expansion of Medicaid in their respective states. Governor Rick Perry of Texas has, in keeping with his typically conservative approach, expressed opposition to a Medicaid expansion there. But right now Perry is noticeably absent from the Medicaid debate as some Texas state lawmakers push to accept the federal funds anyway.

In Wisconsin, Walker is embracing a third way that by all appearances might be the most politically sophisticated and thoughtfully conservative approach to the problem.

Walker rejected the ObamaCare expansion of Medicaid citing the folly of addicting the state to federal funds that would be drawn down over time. Liberals argued that a Medicaid expansion would save Wisconsin taxpayers $95 million, but a study by the left-leaning Kaiser Family Foundation put the cost for Wisconsin at $725 million over 9 years.

Simultaneously, Walker announced a sweeping overhaul of BadgerCare, Wisconsin’s existing medical assistance program. The reform would focus on taking people over 100% of the federal poverty level out of the program and using the newly freed-up money to cover more people below the federal poverty line. A cap on enrollees has prevented some below the federal poverty limit from entering the program. BadgerCare enrollees who are not at or below the federal poverty limit will be placed on the federal ObamaCare exchange, where they will be eligible to receive federally subsidized health insurance plans.

The genius of this, from a conservative perspective, is that while expanding coverage to the most needy, Walker is forcing the federal government to pay for what it promised to pay for: health insurance subsidies in a federal exchange.

Of course, ObamaCare is a taxpayer expense even if it doesn’t come through state taxes. But by forcing ObamaCare to do what it promised to do, Walker is refusing to bailout the federal government on what increasingly looks like a promise they may not be able to keep. In their rush to pass health care reform, Democrats and liberals did not fully consider the cost or consequences of the reform. Forcing ObamaCare to pay for what it says it will pay for places tremendous financial pressure on the federal government.

All this means that while Walker is rejecting federal money, safeguarding Wisconsin’s state budget and expanding care to the most needy, he is forcing a debate at the federal level about the true costs of ObamaCare.

Republican governors serious about healthcare reform, serious about opposing ObamaCare, and serious about forcing an adult discussion about the true costs of ObamaCare would do well to follow in Walker’s footsteps. If nothing else, those thinking about a 2016 campaign need to shore up their healthcare credentials.

Already, Governor Scott Walker, if he should choose to run, is ahead of his competition when it comes to health care reform and the repeal of ObamaCare.

Yes, Wisconsin taxpayers may have to spend millions of dollars to bailout a cash-strapped circus museum.

The proposed state budget under consideration by lawmakers is the largest in the state’s history. Included in its various proposals are provisions that would add 710 new employees to state government. That’s a jumbo-jet and a half of new state workers complete with pensions and health care plans financed by taxpayers. Hardly a small irony after Governor Scott Walker balanced his first budget in 2011 by forcing state workers to contribute more to their health insurance and pension plans.

Ten of those new state employees would be individuals who would run the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Baraboo is a relatively small town located north of Madison. Once home to the famed Ringling Brother’s Circus, it is now home to the private Circus World Museum.

According to internal documents obtained by Media Trackers, a conservative watchdog organization, the museum has been struggling financially in recent years and the number of visitors it attracts has been in decline since the museum’s peak period in the 1970s.

The Wisconsin Historical Society, a state agency, thinks the solution is to have a taxpayer bailout and takeover of the museum. Under their plan, the museum would become part of their agency and its budget would become part of the state budget with taxpayers assuming all financial responsibility for the old museum. The agency is actively lobbying lawmakers to do just that.

Wisconsin earned a reputation in 2011 as a state where government reform is sometimes contentious, but conservatives are willing to do what it takes. With so much work yet to be done to overcome the problems pointed out by the Tax Foundation, lawmakers could be hard pressed to find ways to cut taxes and still spend taxpayer money on a circus museum.

Feinstein may not know this, but bazookas are already off limits.

As for Congressional responsibility to act, well that hinges on the Constitution. And this is where Cruz starting making things uncomfortable. Bypassing the debate about bazookas and the merits of political posturing, Cruz questioned Feinstein on the constitutional merits of her proposal.

Daniel Horowitz highlighted the video of the Cruz-Feinstein exchange here.

What Cruz did was brilliant; he torched the straw man arguments raised by Feinstein simply by going beyond the surface rhetoric and focusing on the underlying issue: is this legislation constitutional?

For decades in Washington, both parties have agreed to a sort of kabuki dance that involves focusing on bureaucratic details to the exclusion of debates about principle. Chief among the reasons for this is a bi-partisan recognition among some political leaders that the “ruling class” is all in this together and principles are not terribly important when re-election and political power are the bottom line.

Conservatives need to start scoring some wins, even as they lack full power in Washington. The way to do that is to ignore the bureaucratic morass and start focusing on the big picture and the fundamental issues at stake.  The rule class will hate it, but the country will applaud it.

The investigation was supposed to be secret, with details kept locked securely out of sight of the public thanks to a court order. But mysteriously, leaks happened and reporters at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel were all too ready to run juicy tidbits that bolstered the political spin generated by Democrat political flacks.

On Friday, with little fanfare, prosecutors announced they have found nothing, absolutely nothing, on Walker and are shutting the nearly 3-year old probe down.

But that is not good enough for the Democratic Party’s top spokesman in Wisconsin. Graeme Zielinski, who used to work for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has insisted that Walker is Nixon re-incarnated and that the Governor is as guilty as the most infamous murderer in Wisconsin history. Zielinski’s unhinged ranting unfolded on Twitter where he successfully managed to show just how much Democrats were depending on this fabricated scandal to take out Walker.

“What do @GovWalker and Jeffrey Dahmer have in common?” Zielinski tweeted at one point.

Other provocative tweets included:

“.@GovWalker spent more than Jeffrey Dahmer to beat criminal charges.”

“Now @GovWalker must release the relevant documents to the corruption probe.”

“.@GovWalker has refused to tell the public his role in the crimes convicted. #corrupt“

“Wisconsin has NEVER had a more corrupt governor than Scott Walker. NEVER. .@govwalker @wisgop“

That last one there is a bit ironic since the only Wisconsin governor to be kicked out of office was Democrat William Barstow who was found guilty of fabricating election returns in his 1855 re-election.

Partisan spokesmen and women on both sides of the political aisle are expected to be provocative, but to accuse an opponent of committing a crime when prosecutors concluded – after the most sweeping investigation of a sitting governor – that no crime was committed, well, that’s a bit delusional. To compare that person to a convicted murderer is beyond the pale.

Unfortunately, this is just the latest iteration of Zielinski’s unhinged rants. Just when Democrats like Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, U.S. Rep Ron Kind, and others with reputations to protect will decide Zielinski’s outrageous antics have gone too far remains to be seen.

The reasoning behind the legislation is somewhat muddled. The impact, however, is quite clear. According to a legislative counsel review of the legislation, it would essentially make it impossible for civilians to hunt deer or bear in Wisconsin.

“The provision in the bill draft that provides whoever intentionally sells, transports or possesses any bullet that expands or flattens easily in the human body is guilty of a Class H felony conflicts with current DNR hunting rules.  Under s. NR 10.09 (1)(c)2., ‘no person shall hunt any deer or bear with any air rifle, rim-fire rifle, any center-fire rifle less than .22 caliber, any .410 bore or less shotgun or handgun loaded with .410 shotgun shell ammunition or with ammunition loaded with nonexpanding type bullets or ammunition loaded with shot other than a single slug or projectile.’ The bill draft does not provide an exception to the prohibition on possessing expanding bullets for deer or bear hunting.” (Emphasis added)

The draft legislation was circulated by Sen. Nikiya Harris (D), Rep. Mandela Barnes, (D), Rep. Evan Goyke (D), and Rep. Fred Kessler (D). Mandela and Goyke are freshman lawmakers elected just last November. A phone call around 3:00 pm to Rep. Goyke’s office went unanswered, as did phone calls to Rep. Kessler’s office and Sen. Harris’s office.

When asked about the contradiction between the bill draft and DNR rules, an intern (who did not identify himself as such) for Rep. Barnes said that Barnes wasn’t interested in banning deer hunting and indicated that the lawmakers had no clue that their legislation – if formally introduced and passed – would have done just that. However, a staff member later followed up that comment saying it did not reflect the official position of the office.

A spokesperson for Rep. Peter Barca, the leader of the Assembly Democrats, was not available to comment on the proposal.

Just how familiar the Democratic lawmakers are with hollow point ammunition is open to question. In their e-mail circulating the draft to fellow legislators, the quartet claimed that the military uses hollow point ammunition. “While used by the military for decades – in part because they inflict massive wounds – hollowpoint bullets have little, if any, practical use for self-defense or hunting in everyday society. Tragically, they are essentially human-killing bullets.”

That statement is false.

The U.S. military does not use hollow point ammunition in combat because of the Hague Declaration of 1899. Some experts have argued, however, that the military should start using hollow point ammunition because it minimizes collateral damage and would thus be safer and more humane than so-called “ball” ammunition.

Rep. Dave Craig, a Republican and former staffer for U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R), who is an avid Wisconsin hunter, drew attention to the draft legislation in a press release late Friday. Craig declared, “This assault on our state’s rich hunting tradition is appalling. While I’m rarely surprised by the degree some will go to attack our 2^nd Amendment Rights, these Democrats have demonstrated just how far they will go to achieve their goal of suppressing the rich traditions so many in Wisconsin hold dearly.”

In addition to being required for hunting deer and bear in Wisconsin, hollow point and frangible ammunition is widely used by state and federal law enforcement agencies because of its precision and power. Unlike other types of ammunition, these rounds break apart or expand on impact, reducing the likelihood of going through a target and hurting innocent bystanders.

Many civilians also use such ammunition because in both hunting and personal protection situations it is far safer than using full metal jacket rounds. Fully jacketed rounds often run the risk of over penetration, moving behind the target and potentially striking or damaging people and property beyond the target.

Mainstream media talking heads soon piled on the outrage as well.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a twice-failed Democratic gubernatorial nominee and ex-Congressman, fumed that Clarke was encouraging citizens to ignore calling 9-1-1. Others said the sheriff was encouraging vigilante justice. A few media outlets compounded the problem by, like Mayor Barrett, saying Sheriff Clarke called on citizens to “Skip 9-1-1.”

But Clarke never said people should take the law into their own hands or skip calling 9-1-1 to report a situation to law enforcement. What he did say is citizens should exercise personal responsibility for their own safety including. That includes, if necessary, obtaining a firearm and becoming properly trained in using it.

In Wisconsin, before a person can obtain a concealed carry permit they must be trained in the safe and legal use of a firearm.

Liberal heads exploded at what Clarke said not just because he dared to say something that could be seen as pro-gun, but because he dared to encourage people to exercise personal responsibility for their safety. Personal responsibility is a concept that is so foreign to liberals that when confronted with it they confuse it with a heartless lack of compassion or egotistical bluster.

Central to the great liberal hypocrisy is a contradiction between saying you care about people but never respect them and trust them enough to encourage them to assume responsibility for their lives and their own success. President George W. Bush wasn’t that far off when he spoke of the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”

Appearing on CNN on Tuesday night, Clarke and Barrett took turns debating the PSA with noted gun control advocate Piers Morgan. When Barrett launched into a spiel about how terrible it is to encourage people to responsibly own a gun, Clarke outmaneuvered him saying the mayor would have probably appreciated a gun when he was attacked and clubbed with a tire iron a few years ago.

“I’m sure that if you had a gun and a plan that day, the outcome would have been a little different,” Clarke flatly told Barrett. The mayor became the target of the tire-iron carrying thug when he tried to stop the thug from attacking a woman. It was a noble act, but the injuries sustained by Barrett were serious.

After the interview, in which Barrett played second fiddle to the give-and-take debate between Clarke and Morgan, the mayor posted a note to his Facebook page urging citizens to call Clarke out for his comments.

Despite being hammered time and again over his announcement, Clarke consistently says that the reason he released it is because “I trust law abiding citizens.” And that trust is apparently what is causing so much heartburn for the Left. According to their perspective, it is good to trust government, but it is not good to trust citizens exercising personal responsibility.

Clinton, demonstrating the cunning political acumen that propelled her and her husband so far on the national political stage, weaved a range of emotions into her carefully prepared opening statement. With her final months as Secretary of State clouded by the death of an American ambassador and a subsequent lack of honesty in dealing with the situation during a political campaign, Clinton had to present a strong showing to maintain future political opportunities.

Then Ron Johnson happened.

Refusing to accept Clinton’s scripted answers, Johnson pressed the Secretary for specific details of her involvement in the disaster and her Department’s failure to protect one of its own. The exchange was contentious and tumultuous.

After the hearing, Johnson suggested to a reporter that Clinton was less than genuine in her appearance before the committee. What he suggested wasn’t flattering, but it was true. As any candid political observer knows, the Clintons are masterful politicians who are able to fabricate and project an image that may not be genuine but is quite convincing.

For daring to question Hillary Clinton’s motives, Senator Johnson was named the person who had the “Worst Week in Washington” by the Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza. Cillizza is a smart reporter, even if infected by the more liberal-leaning Potomac fever that taints a number in the nation’s political press corps elite, and his observations are often useful and insightful. But he’s dead wrong on this one.

Ron Johnson may have felt the pressure to back off his statement and the Washington intelligentsia may have found his honesty woefully out of line. But what he said didn’t only need to be said, it was true.

For far too long an incestuous atmosphere has pervaded the nation’s capitol. Establishment political figures in both parties have been given a pass by those who are supposed to be the watchdogs of the process. Instead of receiving the skepticism and vetting bestowed on others, these individuals – and the Clintons are among them – have been able to act with impunity expecting to never be held accountable.

Senator Johnson’s questions at the hearing, and subsequent candor about the attitude of Secretary Clinton, are a refreshing breath of fresh air.

Washington’s self-confidence does not comport well with a nation that sees looming fiscal and economic challenges growing closer by the day. To fix the problems we face it is going to take more honest leadership than Washington is used to being comfortable with. Senator Ron Johnson is one of those leaders who is willing to ignore the status quo that got us to where we are, and provide the honesty we need.

According to the Appeals Court document, unions challenging Walker’s reform say that the Dane County court decision striking down the law in September of last year should apply to every county in the state. That means that the collective bargaining reforms used by local school boards and municipal governments across Wisconsin would be immediately thrown out, and local governments would have to return to the status quo of allowing unions to forcibly collectively bargain.

Such a move could jeopardize the budgets of many local governing units.

In arguing their case about the scope and applicability of the decision to strike down the reform, the unions cited several cases that the Appeals Court dismissed.

“In sum, none of the authorities cited by the unions for these two propositions directly address the questions of which if any non-parties are bound, and to what extent parties are bound in other controversies. . . .” [Emphasis by the Court]

A few paragraphs further on in the request the court once again dismissed the legal precedents cited by the unions as inapplicable to the case.

“But the unions have provided no direct authority or legal reasoning showing why this would be true.”

Advocates of the reform, including the legal counsel retained by the state to defend the law, were also asked by the Court to address additional questions about the effect of the ruling, but none of their previous arguments or cited cases were dismissed as inapplicable or unconvincing.

Both sides are in the process of filing further briefs in the case and the Court’s decision to blast the unions does not mean the Court will eventually uphold the law. However, it does mean that in their first go around, the unions failed to make their case to the Court.

Under the leadership of Obama appointed EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the federal agency has been on a crusade to fundamentally reshape portions of the economy. In addition to using its regulatory power to wage war on coal fired power plants, the EPA has pushed an aggressive green energy agenda that has been criticized by some experts as long on politics but short on science.

In Wisconsin, that dual thrust has collided as Wisconsin Public Service Corporation prepares to spend $300 million to upgrade two power plants, pay a $1.2 million fine to the EPA, and spend no less than $6 million on specific green energy projects outlined by the Obama EPA.

The company has already indicated they are likely to lay off workers and possibly shutter the two power plants. Ironically, in making their case to the EPA, company officials noted that fulfillment of a large part of the EPA’s regulatory imposition would be accomplished by plant upgrades they were already working on.

Administrator Jackson has used the Clean Air Act as justification for her war on coal fired power plants. But at least one former EPA administrator believes the Act is being used today for something it was never intended for. William Reilly, who led the EPA under President George H.W. Bush, told The New York Times in 2011, that Jackson is trying to use “the Clean Air Act to try to accomplish something for which it was never designed, the control of carbon dioxide.”

Jackson has said herself that she views her role and the EPA’s role as an activist one, focused on changing the way Americans get their energy. The EPA seeks to use its position to “level the playing field,” to quote Administrator Jackson, between green energy sources and traditional energy sources. Many forms of green energy are not completely commercially viable at this time with cost savings and reliability issues dogging them.

To help pay for imposing the green energy agenda on local governments, individual consumers, and communities, the EPA appears to be using settlements with power companies to force power suppliers to underwrite the cost of green energy projects. The Wisconsin case is not alone, although it stands as a stark example of the agenda-driven approach adopted by the EPA.

The $6 million that WPS must spend in support of green energy agenda projects is spread across several items. A total of $500,000 must be paid by WPS to the National Forest Service and the National Park Service. Another $300,000 must be spent by WPS on helping a community within its service area of north and eastern Wisconsin set up a manure or biomass digester that can turn waste products into biogas or electrical energy.

Wind energy farms in Wisconsin stand to get a potentially massive windfall of cash, up to $4 million total, from WPS to improve their power production. The funds could be used to buy the latest technology, both hardware and software, used in wind energy production. Alternatively, a hydroelectric project could also receive some of the money in that $4 million pot of cash.

A minimum of $500,000 and a maximum of $2 million must be spent by the power company on replacing wood burning furnaces in stoves in parts of Wisconsin with newer, EPA-standard compliant wood burning appliances. The federal agency also encouraged, but did not mandate, WPS to spend up to $2 million to replace vehicles owned by either WPS or local governments with new alternative fuel powered vehicles.

A final elective project allows WPS to spend up to $2 million installing solar panels on public school buildings and buildings owned by non-profit organizations within their service area. WPS would be required to pay for the maintenance of the solar panel systems for the next 25 years.

The slew of mandates to spend money on special green energy projects isn’t completely unique to the case of Wisconsin Public Service. A similar case in Louisiana found the EPA mandating late last November that Louisiana Generating, which operates a large coal fired power plant in New Roads, Louisiana, pay for a similar series of green energy projects. The EPA insists that the spending is necessary to mitigate the alleged negative environmental impact of the power plants.

How many Wisconsin jobs will be lost as a result of the EPA’s mandate remains to be seen, WPS has not yet announced a concrete number. What is clear is that the President’s EPA is costing some Wisconsin workers their jobs at the expense of pet projects like solar panels and special wood stoves.