Recalling One Classic Rant As WI Legislature, DNR Bend The Rules

There were several disclosures over the last week about the Legislature and the DNR awarding $500,000 through a last-minute budget insertion to a so-called 'sportsman's' non-profit group with no track record but insider connections to top GOP politicos.

A sample disclosure - - the non-profit doesn't even have official, legal non-profit status:

State and federal registries have no record of a sportsman's group that claimed federal nonprofit status in winning a controversial $500,000 state grant to promote hunting and fishing, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel review has found. 

The grant for bringing youth, women and others into the state's sporting traditions was awarded to the United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation Inc. Thursday by state Natural Resources Secretary Cathy Stepp despite questions at a public hearing earlier that day about the group and the award process.

As one state radio station newscast put it:

Stepp had the final say on the matter, after the Sporting Heritage Committee voted 4-to-1 earlier in the day to give the two-year, $500,000 grant to the United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation. 

The panel heard a lot of testimony about the grant, almost all of it in opposition to the award. Critics said the group has no experience in training sportsmen, and its members had political ties to majority Republicans at the State Capitol.

The G-O-P inserted the grant in the new state budget but did not allow several conservation groups to apply for the money.

There was a time when Stepp complained bitterly about such things - - not only about the DNR but the way state agencies and political leaders went about rewarding their friends.

Remember her infamous blog rant about the state budget ("O'k, I went waaay wordier than I intended, but here's some language that was inserted into this BudgetPig...") and the DNR before Scott Walker said she had the "chamber-of-commerce mentality" he wanted at the helm there?

Wrote Stepp - - and yes, all the formatting is hers:

Those of you that haven't had the pleasure of peeking behind the scenes of our state agencies like DNR, Health and Family Services, etc...need to know how some of the most far-reaching policies come down on our heads.... 

It's always the fine print in these things that have the heaviest hit. 

Just another example of the democrats game plan: Change the Rules to Fit the Players. 

Shout it with me, now: HYPOCRISY, THY NAME IS DEMOCRAT.