Poor little 'ol United Sportsmen of Wisconsin, requesting Hardship exemption for Lying.

Job creation within conservative circles continues to thrive despite some major setbacks, like the failed and almost laughable Koch brothers brainchild United Sportsmen of Wisconsin.

jsonline-Jason Stein: A controversial sportsmen's group is asking the federal government for a hardship exemption from penalties for having botched its tax filings.

The United Sportsmen of Wisconsin, which won and then lost a $500,000 state grant, had to repeatedly clarify its tax status last fall after … it had misrepresented that status and failed to make the required federal filings … some four months after they were first requested … the group paid $118,400 in 2011 to an out-of-state Republican consultant, had only one donor in 2011 and ran a $29,000 deficit in 2012 just before seeking the taxpayer-funded grant for teaching state residents to hunt and fish.

This is what passes for conservative “job creation.” Right wing groups employ low information true believers to do their bidding. With a little luck, groups promoting these teetering or completely failed ideas can get a new lease on life if given the right taxpayer supported legislative gift. 

The news media intentionally protects those responsible, like in the sentence below, that replaces the Koch brothers influence with the generic reference “GOP insiders.”

United Sportsmen, a three-year-old group with close ties to GOP insiders...

No Consequences for Bad Behavior, Law Breaking:

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. "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.

These finely tuned “small” (don’t laugh) right wing machines, when caught, always feign a childlike innocence over their run of bad luck. And yet it's anything but:

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...

This innocent small "sportsmen's" group has quite an "inadvertent" political track record: 

The political group Citizens for a Strong America Inc. gave $235,000 to United Sportsmen in 2011 ... $118,400, went to Arena Communications of Salt Lake City, Utah, that helps design and send out mailings to voters ... has high-profile GOP clients … including Walker; Rep. Paul Ryan; the state GOP; and the committee representing Republican state senators. United Sportsmen sent out a mailing in the 2011 state Senate recall elections.

Besides the 2011 mailing, the two affiliates of United Sportsmen sponsored the Sportsmen Freedom Fest and Concert in Lake Delton with Americans for Prosperity and the National Rifle Association … just before the presidential election. The group also has spent $60,387 lobbying lawmakers in favor of sporting legislation, such as the creation of a wolf hunt, as well as bills to ease the way for a controversial open pit iron mine in northern Wisconsin and to better enable development in wetlands.You’ll love this hilarious response…

Walker also has a bridge he wants to sell you: 

Republican lawmakers and Walker's office have said they didn't seek to benefit a political ally.

Absentee Governor can't manage the state here or on the road. Real presidential material.

Guess what happens when, as governor, you’re never around? You make bad decisions, and have to manage problems from far off areas of the country. That’s our Scott Walker. 

The question is; can he really get away with a record of bad management and poor political choices?

Walker’s latest show of “planned” cluelessness may attempt to shift the blame, but he also unintentionally shows us how bad he is at managing anything, and that includes nearly bankrupting Milwaukee County, aides breaking campaign laws in his own office, forgot about loans handed out by WEDC, and getting the boot at Marquette for dirty campaigning. Anyone see a pattern here?

Such a small man...

WSJ-Mary Spicuzza: Gov. Scott Walker said Wednesday he did not know that the $500,000 sporting heritage grant lawmakers added to his budget plan was being steered toward the United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation … “In our case, this was something that the Legislature added,” Walker said. “And it’s something where really my only involvement directly in it was when we issued our vetoes at the end of the process, and that was because it was made known to me at that time that there was a potential risk of some federal money.”

Like Sgt. Schultz used to say, “I see nothing!”

The moral corruption and cronyism of the United Sportsmen debacle shows...the “process worked?” So says one of the most irresponsible Republicans to ever control the states purse strings, Rep. John Nygren. Insulting doesn't even begin to describe the following comment:

“Every step along the way, the process worked,” he said. “There may not have been information that was accurate at every step of the process, but the process did work.”Not much you can add to that.

Anyone want to see where things weren't "accurate," so this doesn't happen again? Or that withholding important information pertaining to a bill’s passage might be problematic and intentionally deceptive...crooked even? Or have that information shared with others? Nothing, really?

Democratic lawmakers sought to discuss the circumstances of the grant. But Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, said that the matter would not be up for discussion and that the grant was rescinded.

And like the strict parental figure he likes to project, Nygren won’t have any more of this. 

And you'll love this:

Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder, who has since left the Legislature to join the Walker administration, (and who took) the lead on the sporting heritage grant told the State Journal last week he is now a “private citizen” and had no comment.

Scott Walker would have given up $28 million in federal funds to pay off Koch front group United Sportsmen!

I ran across this informative WSAU interview with state Rep. Katrina Shankland that gets into the details of Scott Walker's incredible funding mistake to United Sportsmen, a group described by reporter Greg Palast as a Koch brothers front group. 

The Koch Operation, Americans for Prosperity, had its Chief set up a front called United Sportsmen of Wisconsin. United Sportsmen of Wisconsin, which appeared and then instantly vanished after the recall vote...

A nice quick listen, audio only:

WSAU’s: Shankland says Governor Walker’s administration willfully moved forward with the grant during the budget knowing the risk to federal wildlife funds. “It appears that the Walker administration failed to do their due diligence and informing all members of the Legislature of this issue, specifically members of the Joint Finance Committee who voted to approve this $500,000 grant without knowing that we would be losing $28 million dollars in funds.” When asked if this issue will come up soon in a committee meeting, Shankland says, “It better.” She added, “I think this isn’t over. As a member of the Natural Resources and Sporting Heritage Committee in the Assembly, I’ll be following this issue very closely, and at the very least, we need an apology.”

Another Legislator upset about this is Republican Senator Rob Cowles from Allouez. Cowles says lawmakers should not be finding out about potentially costly problems with a state budget provision months after the budget was signed, and that this whole situation raises serious questions.

No really, did you hear the one about United Sportsmen...again?

Bare naked handouts to donors and cronies of the Walker administration and legislature was a ballsy move, no doubt about it. It was a $500,000 taxpayer giveaway that would repeat every two years. 

Now both Walker and former Rep. Scott Suder-who pulled a guilt ridden disappearing act, have been fingered for putting taxpayers on the hook, endangering federal tax dollars, and secretly slipping this one by their own fellow Republican joint committee members.

Remember the John Doe investigation, or Walker's failed student president campaign at Marquette University:

According to the university's student paper, the Marquette Tribune, Walker violated campaign guidelines on numerous occasions when running for the student body presidency. The student paper called Walker unfit because he had distributed a mudslinging brochure about his opponent, and several of his campaign workers, upset with the endorsement of his opponent, took piles of the paper and threw them away.

What we're seeing here is a repeat offender. I wonder what it would be like if Walker had ultimate power? I guess we now know the whole ugly story:

jsonline-Patrick Marley and Jason Stein: GOP lawmakers plunged ahead with a controversial $500,000 grant to a politically connected sportsmen's group even though federal officials had warned Gov. Scott Walker's administration that the grant endangered $28 million a year in federal money for protecting state wildlife, records show … It also ultimately ended up putting state taxpayers entirely on the hook for the grant, when federal taxpayers could have potentially covered a large share of the cost.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service sent two sharply worded letters to the Walker administration after lawmakers on the budget committee hastily slipped the grant into the state budget. The letters said the proposal would cost the state $28 million in annual federal money. Lawmakers worked on the budget for more than two weeks after the state received the first letter, but didn't fix the provision to guard the federal money.

Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon), who sits on the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, said he was stunned that the administration didn't tell him about them. "I'm relatively speechless," Olsen said. Aides to the four Democratic lawmakers on the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee said that none of their offices had been contacted by the DNR or the governor's office … Walker spokeswoman Jocelyn Webster said "It seems a little ridiculous (some lawmakers) want to push this off on the governor. The Legislature is the one that added it."

What a gutsy cowardly thing to say and do, Webster is real work of art:

The grant would have given a group $225,000 in federal money and $275,000 in state money…Walker used his vast partial veto powers to rewrite the measure so that only state money was used for the grant. That meant that state taxpayers were going to have to pay for the entire grant. Walker's veto also locked in place the likelihood the money would go to United Sportsmen, a group that has promoted the governor's agenda and endorsed him during his 2012 recall campaign.

Sen. Rob Cowles (R-Allouez) expressed outrage that his fellow lawmakers and Walker didn't halt the budget measure … Suder, who has since left the Legislature for a job with the state Public Service Commission, has not returned repeated calls from the Journal Sentinel this week.

United Sportsmen didn't File Tax Returns. Republicans, the Great Watchdogs of Taxpayer Money Exposed, Award Donors Gifts.

The United Sportsmen of Wisconsin blunder, Scott Walker and the Republican Party's "Waterloo," is a window into what conservative governance looks like. 

It's moments of naked arrogance like this that should alert voters of all stripes. If you wanted to see what reduced regulations and government would do for taxpayers, here it is.  

Oh, and they didn't file any tax returns:  

jsonline: An affiliate of an embattled sportsmen's group, United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation Inc., that had sought a controversial $500,000 state grant has represented itself as both a nonprofit and a for-profit group, and in spite of its substantial revenue it has no record of having filed a state tax return, a Journal Sentinel review has found.

In statements with a donor in 2011, United Sportsmen represented itself as a nonprofit. But on Friday, the group said in a statement that it was a for-profit entity. State tax information requested by the Journal Sentinel showed that neither the United Sportsmen of Wisconsin nor its affiliate group, the United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation Inc., has filed a tax return for 2011 or 2012.

Separately, the two arms have applied for the state grant, sent out mailings on a 2011 recall election and done tens of thousands of dollars' worth of lobbying on state legislation … failed to follow state law by not reporting whether it owes taxes.

These groups had Walker's backing...until they blew up in his face.  Gee, so close to his reelection campaign too. 

And then came this:

On Friday, United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Inc. said in a statement that it was "not a public charity" and instead is a for-profit corporation required to file its federal tax return using Form 1120. Melissa Scholz, a Madison attorney specializing in nonprofit law, said that all didn't make sense. "There's clearly a disconnect between a group that's now calling itself a for-profit that got a grant from a (c)(4) when it organized," Scholz said. 

David Werner, a certified public accountant in Milwaukee said that corporations filing using a Form 1120 at the federal level must also file taxes with the state. "If they are a for-profit enterprise ...they have a filing requirement," he said.

Scot Ross, executive director of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, blasted the state's involvement with United Sportsmen. "We think a full investigation and accounting of the events that led to this provision being put into the budget and signed into law by Gov. Walker are owed to the people of Wisconsin," Ross said. "What's clear is Gov. Walker's plan to reward an organization that endorsed him was suspect from the get-go."

United Sportsmen just another Scott Walker mistake.

Caught again, Scott Walker had no choice but to overrule a bad decision made by DNR Sec. Cathy Stepp. As it turned out, the blatant cronyism wasn't the deciding factor, this was; the president of United Sportsmen ironically broke a hunting law back in 2005:

jsonline: Gov. Scott Walker late Thursday canceled a controversial $500,000 grant to a sportsmen's group with little training experience but close ties to GOP politicians. The decision was announced only hours after the Journal Sentinel asked state officials about a 2005 case in which the president of the United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation Inc. was cited for hunting with an improper license.

I can only hope this fast tracked giveaway will not be forgotten.

Walker’s bad decision to put DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp in charge is now proving to be another growing liability for him. After the DNR and Republican legislators did nothing to stop this festering cronyism, the Walker Authority instead had to step in and cut their losses.

But Walker had no choice after being caught red (state) handed funneling taxpayer money to donors. Stepp's reaction typified the bizarre "follow the leader" mentality within the party:

Cathy Stepp said she spoke with Walker on Thursday and he canceled the grant to United Sportsmen … Instead, Walker ordered the DNR to find other means to achieve that goal … Stepp (said) “United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation Inc. did and does still meet the statutory criteria established by the Legislature for the grant award, the governor asked me to not finalize the grant award. I will honor this request and fully support this decision."

Walker magic trick: Make two recent bad decisions just disappear.

Suspiciously clearing his plate for the upcoming election, Scott Walker thinks canceling two major missteps showing obvious cronyism will just make everything disappear and right the course. Wrong.

Walker got caught! That's the only reason Walker was forced to act.

Will the following headlines spell disaster for an administration caught with their hands in the special interest cookie jar? Will a Democratic gubernatorial candidate repeat in every media response the bad judgement shown by Walker and the unchecked legislature that approved this stuff?

The fact that he made these kinds of mistakes so close to his own reelection, and during his nationwide campaign for the 2016 presidential race, proves the John Doe investigation and subsequent arrests was no fluke.

jsonline: In a reversal, Gov. Scott Walker's administration is acknowledging it acted improperly in retroactively raising the pay of the Capitol Police chief by 11.7% and will take back $720 from him. State Rep. Jon Richards (D-Milwaukee) said, "The fact they overlooked an important statute makes me even more concerned people weren't following the rules when they gave him an enormous pay raise." 

What a way to treat his own people. Set them up, and then publically take them down. Honor among thieves?

Did you hear the one about United Sportsmen....can you believe this stuff?

Not only is the following $500,000 Republican payout to right wing activists an in-your-face giveaway to donors, but can you imagine what kind of deals are being made behind the scenes to even bigger players favored by our red state legislators. If they don't care about how this looks, with no blowback, skies the limit for the Walker Authority from here on in. 

This is just so wildly out there, with no plausible excuses given, I'm still on the amazed side:

jsonline: United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation Inc., a group that claimed federal nonprofit status in winning a controversial $500,000 grant to promote hunting and fishing hasn't actually received that status yet ... showing it had misrepresented its tax status during the process of receiving a grant to promote hunting and fishing in the state. The DNR requested the letters from United Sportsmen, apparently following a Friday report by the Journal Sentinel that the group wasn't listed in federal and state registries of 501(c)(3) nonprofits.

United Sportsmen, a group with close ties to Republican politicians and other conservative organizations but a scant track record, applied for federal nonprofit designation on March 1 but has not yet received it. And the group has been denied a hardship request to speed up that process ... 

So could this group lie in it's application, a firing offense anywhere else, and still keep its job and credibility with our straight arrow Republicans?

Despite the misrepresentation, the DNR officially notified United Sportsmen in a letter Tuesday that it would be receiving the grant anyway, with $50,000 of it as an advance before receipts are filed. Rep. Al Ott (R-Forest Junction), chairman of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, was displeased the group had not been forthright with lawmakers and potential donors. "They misled and I'm disappointed about that," Ott said. 

As is typical with all Republicans, no response is necessary.

DNR spokesman Bill Cosh has not commented on whether the DNR has concerns about any possible misrepresentation by United Sportsmen about having received the federal designation. 

But wouldn't donors be surprised when they find out about their lack of tax exempt status:

Without the federal recognition, the group won't be tax-exempt, and its donors won't be able to deduct their contributions to United Sportsmen on their tax returns.

According to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin:

Suder’s resignation comes as questions are swirling about his motivations in an award process that resulted in a $500,000 state grant made in perpetuity to a shadowy Tea Party organization with ties to the National Rifle Association … group calling itself United Sportsmen of Wisconsin, headed by Suder’s former chief of staff, Luke Hilgemann … During the 2011 senate recalls, United Sportsmen faced backlash for their involvement in a series of misleading “Absentee Ballot Application” mailers and in 2012 they endorsed Scott Walkerin the recall election, stating that, “The second amendment took on a new meaning in Wisconsin under Governor Scott Walker.” 

Did Republicans give a Half Million Dollars of taxpayer money to United Sportsmen after they misrepresented their tax exempt status?

Lobbyist front group United Sportsmen may have lied about Tax exempt status for $500,000 of taxpayer money, a violation of law.

So what’s new. Still more money mismanagement from our Republican legislature, this time awarding a half million bucks to a group of right wing lobbyist tied to the Koch Brothers, who lied about their tax status. Don’t Republicans ever ask any questions, do any research or have any business sense at all?

Apparently not. Like the paramilitary groups brought in from Arizona who didn't have any of the required licenses for their weapons, now the DNR is awarding political cronies taxpayer money despite no proof of their 501(c)(3) status. That’s how things look now, which is how it would have looked had Republican sugar daddies asked the completely unqualified United Sportsmen a few questions.

jsonline-Jason Stein/Michael Phillis: State and federal registries have no record of a group that claimed federal nonprofit status in winning a controversial grant to promote hunting and fishing, a Journal Sentinel review has found … United Sportsmen presented itself as having a designation as a federal 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Neither the IRS website, an official state registry of charitable groups, nor the popular private website GuideStar have any record of that status being given to either the United Sportsmen foundation or an affiliate group.

Since Thursday, the Journal Sentinel has made repeated requests to United Sportsmen's board president to provide the federal Internal Revenue Service letter determining it qualifies as a federal nonprofit. The federal tax code prohibits false claims of 501(c)(3) status and requires groups claiming it to produce their IRS determination letter on request, according to the federal agency. Groups still waiting on an IRS determination typically present themselves as seeking that status, not as having it.

State DNR spokesman Bill Cosh declined comment on whether the DNR had concerns about any possible misrepresentation by United Sportsmen about having received the federal designation. 

Scot Ross, executive of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, said United Sportsmen's tax-exempt status still needed to be cleared up. "It raises serious concerns about the legitimacy of the organization and even larger concerns about the elected officials who spearheaded this half-million-dollar earmark," Ross said.