[Occupymendocino] [Fwd: Daniel Ellsberg Urges You: Take a Stand Now For a Free Press]

[agnes at mcn.org]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Daniel Ellsberg Urges You: Take a Stand Now For a Free Press
From:    "Matt Rothschild" <editor at prwatch.org>
Date:    Wed, May 7, 2014 8:57 am
To:      agnes at mcn.org
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August 28, 2013
CONTACT: Nikolina Lazic, nikolina at prwatch.org

WISCONSIN PREPARES TO HAND HALF-MILLION IN TAXPAYER FUNDS TO KOCH-TIED GOP
LOBBY SHOP

A small GOP lobby shop tied to the Tea Party and David Koch's Americans
for Prosperity, and which was active in the state's recent recall
elections, was awarded $500,000 in taxpayer dollars in what some are
calling a backdoor, sweetheart deal cooked up by the American Legislative
Exchange Council (ALEC) State Chair, outgoing Assembly Majority Leader
Scott Suder.

Send an email to the commission which will review the sweetheart deal
tomorrow:
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/632/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=14195

The United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation was the only applicant for a
newly-created grant to promote hunting, fishing, and trapping in the
state, despite the organization having no record in outdoors training. The
grant was slipped into the budget bill by Suder and barely advertised, and
other outdoors groups with more experience in the area were largely
excluded. Suder has ties to United Sportsmen, and announced last week he
would be leaving the Assembly for a higher-paying job in the Walker
administration.

The organization's record, thus far, appears to be that of a lobbying
organization for an array of Republican priorities, from mining to the
"Castle Doctrine" -- neither of which has anything to do with hunting or
fishing -- and working with Americans for Prosperity to organize events
and support Republicans in the 2011 recall elections. The Foundation wing
of the group, which has received the grant, only incorporated in
January.Although United Sportsmen describes itself as a membership
organization, there is little indication it has a wide membership list;
its Facebook page, for example, only has 290 followers, many of whom are
politicians or right-wing leaders.

The grant, if approved by a panel reviewing the application on Thursday,
will go almost entirely towards paying the salaries of United Sportsmen's
staff and consultants.

"This last minute, half million dollar raid on the public treasury ought
to be rescinded immediately," says Jay Heck of Common Cause Wisconsin. "To
award this huge chunk of scarce, taxpayer money to a new group with no
track record or experience in hunting, trapping and fishing and with
obvious partisan, special-interest ties appears, at the very least to be a
quid pro quo conflict of interest."

Taxpayer Dollars Funding the Tea Party?

United Sportsmen was incorporated in June 2011, just weeks before the
hotly-contested Senate recall elections when, apparently in coordination
with Koch's Americans for Prosperity, it sent misleading absentee ballot
applications with the incorrect date for the elections.

At the time, minimal information was available about the organization, but
readers of the Brad Blog uncovered how United Sportsmen's website was
purchased by John W. Connors, an Americans for Prosperity staffer and
former Walker campaign volunteer.

This was not Connors' first foray into the dark money arts. Earlier in
2011, the Center for Media and Democracy uncovered how Connors had also
purchased the domain name for a mysterious group called "Citizens for a
Strong America," which subsequently spent hundreds of thousands on the
Wisconsin Supreme Court race. (That election, between Supreme Court
Justice David Prosser and challenger Joanne Kloppenburg, was being treated
as a referendum on Governor Scott Walker's controversial anti-union
legislation). The street address for the domain name registry was the same
as that of AFP.

United Sportsmen of Wisconsin received $235,000 from Citizens for a Strong
America in 2011, according to the latter group's tax filings. That same
year, Citizens for a Strong America funnelled a stunning $916,045 to a
pro-life organization called Wisconsin Family Action, which also appeared
to have been involved in Americans for Prosperity's absentee mailing
scheme: its address was the same as the "Absentee Ballot Application
Processing Center" listed as the destination for AFP's absentee ballot
submissions.

Unlike Citizens for a Strong America, United Sportsmen continued its
political activities after the recall elections. It aso maintained its AFP
ties. In October of 2012, for example, the group worked with AFP and the
National Rifle Association to sponsor "Freedom Fest," a party at the
Kalahari Resort featuring politicians like U.S. Senator Ron Johnson,
right-wing talk show host Vicki McKenna, and Brian Fraley of the MacIver
Institute, as well as the head of Governor Walker's Department of Natural
Resources. Activities included a "Freedom Phone Bank" and presentations
titled "Rules for Radicals" and "Grassroots Lobbying."

United Sportsmen presents itself as an organization focused on hunting and
fishing, but its lobbying efforts suggest a broader agenda. The main
legislative priority for the group this session in terms of lobbying hours
was the promotion of a bill to ease the way for a controversial open-pit
iron mine that environmentalists and tribal groups fear will contaminate
groundwater. That bill was a top priority for Governor Walker and
legislative Republicans (as well as Americans for Prosperity), who
promoted it as a jobs measure.

"Conservation only happens when people have jobs," United Wisconsin said
in a statement at the time.

Narrowly-Tailored Sweetheart Deal Involves Suder's Former Chief of Staff

The sportsmen's grant was slipped into the Wisconsin budget with minimal
debate by then-Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder, who has close ties to
many of those involved with United Sportsmen.

For example, one of the educators listed in the United Sportsmen grant is
Luke Hilgemann, Suder's former Chief of Staff and now Chief Operating
Officer of the national Americans for Prosperity in Washington DC After
leaving Suder's office in 2011, Hilgemann led the Wisconsin chapter of
AFP; he was promoted to the national group earlier this month.
(AFP-Wisconsin is now led by David Fladeboe, who was also a Suder
staffer.) Other educators include Darren LaSorte, a longtime Washington DC
lobbyist for the NRA. United Sportsmen board members and their families
gave Suder $2,500 last year.

Send an email to the commission which will review the sweetheart deal
tomorrow:
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/632/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=14195

And, the grant requirements were narrowly drawn to make few organizations
eligible besides United Sportsmen, and was opened for bidding with
essentially no public notice. According to Jason Stein of the Milwaukee
Journal-Sentinel:

	The motion said the grant can be given only to groups that are "not an
affiliate of a national federation or organization." That meant
conservation groups such as the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and state
chapters of Pheasants Forever, National Wild Turkey Federation and Rocky
Mountain Elk Foundation were prevented from applying for the grant.

	And due to the lack of public notice, several eligible groups weren't
aware of the grant until after application deadline. Reached last week,
Don Kirby, executive director of the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association,
said he had no knowledge of the grant.

	"Our organization would have been interested to pursue this," Kirby said.
"I'm more than a little disappointed to find out now." The Wisconsin
Waterfowl Association has a long history of running Learn To Hunt and
other training events.

George Meyer, executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation,
praised the purpose of the grant but questioned the narrowly-drawn
criteria. "We aren't criticizing the purpose of this at all," said Meyer.
"We think its purpose is important. But clearly it looks like it was put
together for one group."

In contrast with United Sportsmen, the Wisconsin Wildlife Foundation
lobbied against the mining bill, expressing concern about mining's impact
on lakes, wetlands, and groundwater.

Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine), who was part of the budget committee, told the
Journal-Sentinel he hadn't realized how uncompetitive the grant really
was. "In hindsight, it seems like a sweetheart deal for one group that has
ties to Scott Suder," Mason said. "That was not how it was described."

Led by Right-Wing Apparatchicks

United Sportsmen's Tea Party and right-wing ties are well established. For
example, United Sportsmen boardmember John Meegan is president of the Sauk
County Tea Party, and worked with the political training group American
Majority to train Tea Party activists and organize pro-Walker rallies at
the height of anti-Walker protests. In addition to training Tea Party
activists and grooming candidates, American Majority sponsors the Media
Trackers website. Meegan is also on the board of the Wisconsin Coalition
of Virtual School Families, which promotes for-profit virtual schools like
those operated by ALEC member K12 Inc.

Also working with the group is Annette Olson, who makes the vast majority
of posts on the group's Facebook page and has testified on behalf of
United Sportsmen. Olson leads the Tea Party groups Women United for
Liberty (which appears to have an association with Freedomworks) and the
pro-gun Tea Party group Uninfringed Liberty. Uninfringed Liberty describes
itself as having "a strong emphasis on the second amendment because it
protects all liberties and freedom," and says it works to "participate in
vetting and promoting conservative candidates that best exemplify the
basic principles of liberty." The group boasts of its lifetime membership
in the NRA and Gun Owners of America, and supports "open carry." Both
Uninfringed Liberty and Women United for Liberty have also held activist
trainings with American Majority.

At the state Republican Party convention in 2012, Olson was peeved that
the convention hall didn't allow concealed carry, and sponsored a motion
urging the party to only hold its events on properties that do.

Those extreme views on guns are reflected in United Sportsmen's lobbying
efforts. It was one of just a handful of groups to lobby in favor of
Wisconsin's "Castle Doctrine Act," which mimics the infamous ALEC "Stand
Your Ground" law implicated in the Trayvon Martin case. No other group
purporting to focus on hunting, fishing, and conservation is listed as
lobbying on the bill.

Olson and two other United Sportsmen representatives stood behind Governor
Walker as he signed the "Castle Doctrine Act."

Will Wisconsin Fund Tea Partier Salaries, in Perpetuity?

The grant will pay United Sportsmen $200,000 this year and $300,000 in
2014. According to the group's grant application, $370,000 will be spent
on staff salaries and $20,000 on staff benefits, plus $56,000 on
consultants, the Journal-Sentinel reports.

A five-member committee dominated by Republicans will review the grant on
Thursday, and then disband. The committee will include Scott Gunderson,
DNR executive assistant and a former Republican legislator; Sen. Neal
Kedzie (R-Elkhorn), chairman of the Senate Natural Resources Committee;
Rep. Al Ott (R-Forest Junction), chairman of the Assembly Natural
Resources Committee; and two both appointed to the committee by the DNR.

If the grant is approved, United Sportsmen will receive $450,000 in every
two-year budget for perpetuity.

Many have noticed how odd it is for a Tea Party-connected group opposed to
government spending to turn around and use their political connections to
ask for a handout.

"How ironic that this phony front group, with such close ties to Americans
for Prosperity -- which professes to be in favor of cutting government
spending -- would burden Wisconsin taxpayers in this manner," says Common
Cause Wisconsin's Heck. "They should have asked the Koch Brothers -- who
finance AFP -- for the handout instead."

TAKE ACTION! SEND AN EMAIL TODAY AT:
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/632/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=14195




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