If All Else Fails, Blame The Dead Guy

Surely, the gentle reader remembers the United Sportsmen scandal in which former Representative Scott Suder had put in special language which would have created a perpetual revenue stream which only United Sportsmen would have been eligible.  It was surely pure coincidence that the members of United Sportsmen were all Republican supporters and that the group used money to support Teapublicans like Scott Walker during the recalls.

Now the same group of reprobates are asking for an exemption from their penalties for their false tax filing status, blaming it on a now deceased member of the group:

In a letter last month to the federal Internal Revenue Service provided by Annette Olson, the secretary-treasurer for United Sportsmen, the group argued it shouldn't face penalties despite its mistakes and misrepresentations. Olson didn't respond to requests for comment.

"It would be against equity and good conscience to impose such a penalty on this small tax-exempt organization. This late filing was not an act of deliberate late filing but was an administrative oversight which will not happen again," the letter read.

The Department of Natural Resources awarded United Sportsmen the grant on Aug. 30, but Gov. Scott Walker rescinded it a week later after the newspaper reported the problems with its tax filings and its president's 2005 citation for shooting a black bear without the proper license.

At that time, United Sportsmen made a number of contradictory claims about its tax status.

Initially, the group presented itself as a nonprofit and then, when it was revealed it hadn't yet received federal nonprofit status, said it was a for-profit company. When the Journal Sentinel reported the group hadn't filed any state tax filing required for for-profit firms, United Sportsmen reversed itself again and said it was a nonprofit and had hired the law firm of Foley & Lardner to help get its state and federal filings in order.

In its unsigned letter, the group said the tax mistakes had largely been made by board member Scott Maves, who was in charge of its finances and who died in June.

"Prior to (September), the other board members of the United Sportsmen believed everything was being filed properly and had been taken care of," the letter reads.

As previously reported, the political group Citizens for a Strong America Inc. gave $235,000 to United Sportsmen in 2011. The newly released filings show that single donation made up United Sportsmen's entire revenue for that year. The group spent most, but not all, of that donation and finished the year with $39,044.

The bulk of the money spent, $118,400, went to Arena Communications of Salt Lake City, Utah, a firm that helps design and send out mailings to voters. Arena has high-profile GOP clients around the country, including Walker; U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, a Janesville Republican; the state GOP; and the committee representing Republican state senators.

United Sportsmen sent out a mailing in the 2011 state Senate recall elections.

The next year United Sportsmen took in $51,813 but spent $80,769. To cover the difference, the group spent from its reserves and finished 2012 with $10,088.

They're so committed to this course of action that they couldn't even sign the letter blaming the dead guy.  I wonder how this all makes Andy Pantzlaff feel, since he's already taken the fall for their incompetence.

This also shows that they've never heard of the adage that one shouldn't speak ill of the dead.  Then again, what do you expect from a bunch of zombies?

The Sweetheart Deal That Keeps On Giving

Well, now we can see why Scott Walker rewarded Scott Suder with a cushy position on the state's Public Service Commission.  It was for his work in setting up a scheme that will allow Walker a perpetual flow of campaign donations using taxpayer dollars.

I am referring to this story in which a ghost sporting group has just been rewarded a contract giving them a half million dollars every two years ad infinitum:

A $500,000 sportsmen's grant slipped into the state budget earlier this summer is set to go to a group with ties to Republican insiders that has praised GOP politicians and lobbied for legislation such as lowering regulations on iron mining and development in wetlands.

The United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation Inc., a group formed in January with no record of its own in outdoors training, is the only applicant for the scantly noticed two-year grant to promote hunting, fishing and trapping in Wisconsin that is being reviewed Thursday by a special panel.

If the grant is approved, the state could end up paying it every two years to United Sportsmen, which has said in its application that it would use most of the money to pay its staff and consultants.

The carefully crafted grant requirements were unanimously voted into the state budget in May after just seven minutes of discussion by the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee, which acted on a motion drafted by outgoing Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) and Rep. Dan LeMahieu (R-Cascade).

United Sportsmen has ties to several Suder allies, including his donors, lobbyists, a former lawmaker who worked on major concealed-carry legislation, and his former chief of staff.

Ah, but wait, there's more:

In an interview, Suder said the grant would help to avert a "looming crisis" for hunting and fishing and ensure the future of those pastimes in the state. He said he talked to United Sportsmen and other groups about the grant but wasn't aware that United Sportsmen would include his former chief of staff, Luke Hilgemann, in the application as one of its educators.

Hilgemann recently left his job overseeing and lobbying for the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity to take a job in Washington as the No. 2 executive for the group favoring conservative economic policies.

So, so far we have Scott Suder slipping through a bill that gives a half million dollars every two years to a shadow group that was headed up by his former chief of staff and former AFP-WI leader. Well, if you thought this was bad, remember, there's always more:

The grant will provide $200,000 this year and $300,000 in 2014. Thereafter, it will provide $450,000 in each two-year budget. The grantee will have to provide $150,000 of its own funds in matching dollars in each future two-year budget.

The state money in the first year will be from general tax revenue; the DNR said it was still clarifying how the grant would be funded beyond 2013.

After the Sporting Heritage Committee meets next week, it will be disbanded, said the DNR's Paul Heinen. If conditions such as the matching funds are met, the grant will be paid in perpetuity, he said.

Yes, you read that right. It could go on forever and ever, or at least as long as Walker is in office.  What a lovely way to make sure that you keep getting tax dollars kicked back to you in the form of campaign contributions.

But hold on a minute. All that bilge is just what the reporter wrote. There is yet still more.

United Sportsmen of Wisconsin (USW) was founded in 2011, just days before the recalls.

Although they were not registered as a PAC, they were very much involved in the recalls.   USW had been involved with sending out misleading absentee ballot mailings.  These fraudulent mailings included an incorrect date (August 11 instead of August 9) and excluded information such as who paid for the mailers. (A copy of the fraudulent mailer can be found here.)

USW has registered a lobbyist, who has been pushing for not only the right to kill more animals with more weapons, but also had been pushing for the iron ore mine.  Perhaps they merely want the challenge of killing the mutant animals that would be created from the pollution?

At least we don't have to worry about these corrupts money launderers being free floating.  Walker and the Teapublicans in the legislature were kind enough to make sure that they had a home - the former MacKenzie Center.

As the Teapublicans were distorting the original intent of the Mackenzie Center, former legislature and Teapublican plant, Bob Welch, suggested that the Natural Resources Board get rid of the requirement that the land be used for environmental education.  The Board, which treated Welch like a long lost friend, took his suggestion over the pleas of more than 40 people who came to speak to keep the center intact.

In what I am sure is not merely coincidental, the now president of USW, Andy Patzlaff, was quoted as being just fine with the dropping of environmental educational requirements, even though he wasn't familiar with the center:

Promoting hunting, trapping and fishing in Wisconsin is in complete harmony with the MacKenzie Environmental Education Center’s current mission of teaching young people about the environment, according to the president of United Sportsmen of Wisconsin.

Andy Patzlaff, who lives near Maribel in Manitowoc County, said he’s not familiar with the MacKenzie Center, located east of Poynette in Columbia County’s town of Lowville.

But there’s no reason, he said, why the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources can’t make the MacKenzie Center into a “first-of-its-kind outdoor skills recruitment and retention center,” while keeping the things that the center already has — including an exhibit of Wisconsin’s indigenous wildlife and working with schools to incorporate the environment into children’s education.

“We fully support having environmental education continue,” Patzlaff said Friday, “and the DNR people I’ve talked to seem to feel the same way.”

To sum it up, Walker and his allies changed the conditions of the MacKenzie Center to drop the environmental education standards.  Then, with the use of Suder, the Teapublicans slip in a new grant crafted from thin air, which put in very specific guidelines on who could get the money and without telling anyone it was there.  Then a shady group made up of only a handful of leaders - all of whom just happen to be politically connected - but no members applies and is granted this money which they will probably use for anything but teaching how to hunt. Now we can keep giving our taxpayer money to this AFP/NRA group forever and ever, and they can keep using it to help keep Walker and other Teapublicans get elected.

Can this state even get any more corrupt?