By Suzanne Goldenberg

A number of rightwing organisations, including Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, are attacking Obama for his support for solar and wind power. The American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which also has financial links to the Kochs, has drafted bills to overturn state laws promoting wind energy.

Now a confidential strategy memo seen by the Guardian advises using "subversion" to build a national movement of wind farm protesters.

The strategy proposal was prepared by a fellow of the American Tradition Institute (ATI) – although the thinktank has formally disavowed the project.

The proposal was discussed at a meeting of self-styled 'wind warriors' from across the country in Washington DC last February.

"These documents show for the first time that local Nimby anti-wind groups are co-ordinating and working with national fossil-fuel funded advocacy groups to wreck the wind industry," said Gabe Elsner, a co-director of the Checks and Balances, the accountability group which unearthed the proposal and other documents.

Among its main recommendations, the proposal calls for a national PR campaign aimed at causing "subversion in message of industry so that it effectively because so bad that no one wants to admit in public they are for it."

—By Kevin Drum

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released a grim report on Thursday with a pretty simple message: We're eating our seed corn. Over the past two decades, the number of California high school students completing the state's most rigorous curriculum—known as the "a-g requirements"—has risen by a third, and the number of high school grads admitted to the state's CSU and flagship UC systems has risen by a similar amount. That should be good news in a world that increasingly depends on educated workers. But there's a problem: It hasn't translated into more students going to college.

According to the PPIC report, state support for higher education over the past two decades has plummeted by a third and tuition charges have skyrocketed to make up the difference. When I attended CSU-Long Beach in the late '70s, it cost me a little over $100 per semester in tuition and fees. Adjusted for inflation that's about $300 in today's dollars. But that's not what today's students pay. They pay about $3,000 per semester. UC students pay about $6,000 per semester. The cost of a state university education has skyrocketed 10 times in California.

House OKs cuts to social programs to aid Pentagon

The GOP-controlled House of Representatives on Thursday passed a 'reconciliation budget' that makes sweeping and what many termed 'devastating' cuts to social programs, including food assistance for children, federal retirement benefits for older workers, and medicaid programs for the country's most vulnerable.  Republican lawmakers justified those cuts by saying they were necessary to maintain a growing Pentagon and national security budget.

The budget passed Thursday, which was orchestrated by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), was approved along party lines, 218-199, with all Democrats voting against the bill, joined by only 16 Republicans.  The package will be ill-received in the Democrat-controlled Senate, and the President has said he would veto such a bill if it reached his desk.

"This bill before us would create a government where there is no conscience, where the wealthy and well-connected are protected and enriched — and the middle class, the poor and the vulnerable are essentially forgotten." --Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA)

"They are protecting the massive Pentagon budget with all its waste … and finding even deeper cuts in programs that benefit the people of this country," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. "This bill before us would create a government where there is no conscience, where the wealthy and well-connected are protected and enriched — and the middle class, the poor and the vulnerable are essentially forgotten."

Priorities USA Action was supposed to be the president's counterweight to big GOP outside money groups. That hasn't happened.

—By Andy Kroll

It's hard out here for President Barack Obama's super-PAC.

The group, Priorities USA Action, was founded by former Obama White House aides Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney in April 2011. As the leading Obama-affiliated super-PAC, it was supposed to provide a counterbalance to big Republican outside spending groups. But the super-PAC has so far raked in just $9 million for the 2012 election cycle. By comparison, the pro-Romney super-PAC Restore Our Future has raised $52 million, and the pro-Gingrich super-PAC Winning Our Future pulled in $24 million before Gingrich dropped out of the race. Priorities isn't just struggling to compete with its Republican counterparts—it's not playing in the same league.

If recent events are any indication, Priorities and its ilk won't be catching up with Rove and his dark-money allies anytime soon. Here are four reasons why.

1) George Soros: Savior No More?

Soros, the billionaire financier and philanthropist, grabbed headlines this week by pledging $1 million apiece to American Bridge 21st Century, a liberal opposition research super-PAC, and America Votes, which coordinates the activities of more than 300 progressive-minded groups around the country. Soros' donations fit with his preference for supporting efforts to register new voters, get out the vote, and build a strong progressive movement. (The Open Society Foundations, chaired by Soros, have supported Mother Jones' campaign finance reporting.)