Posted on 03/25/2015 5:57:13 AM PDT by sickoflibs
John Menard Jr. is widely known as the richest man in Wisconsin. A tough-minded, staunchly conservative 75-year-old billionaire, he owns a highly profitable chain of hardware stores throughout the Midwest. He’s also famously publicity-shy — rarely speaking in public or giving interviews.
So a little more than three years ago, when Menard wanted to back Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — and help advance his pro-business agenda — he found the perfect way to do so without attracting any attention: He wrote more than $1.5 million in checks to a pro-Walker political advocacy group that pledged to keep its donors secret, three sources directly familiar with the transactions told Yahoo News.
Menard’s previously unreported six-figure contributions to the Wisconsin Club for Growth — a group that spent heavily to defend Walker during a bitter 2012 recall election — seem to have paid off for the businessman and his company. In the past two years, Menard’s company has been awarded up to $1.8 million in special tax credits from a state economic development corporation that Walker chairs, according to state records.
And in his five years in office, Walker’s appointees have sharply scaled back enforcement actions by the state Department of Natural Resources — a top Menard priority. The agency had repeatedly clashed with Menard and his company under previous governors over citations for violating state environmental laws and had levied a $1.7 million fine against Menard personally, as well as his company, for illegally dumping hazardous wastes.
“This, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with the dark-money world we live in,” said Bill Allison, senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based based nonprofit group that tracks the influence of money in politics. “Here’s somebody who obviously has issues before the state, and he’s able to make a backdoor contribution that nobody ever sees. My sense is [political] insiders know about these contributions. It’s only the public that has no idea.” Menard did not respond to email and phone requests from Yahoo News for comment about his contributions. (His company’s spokesman, Jeff Abbott, said he was not authorized to speak for the company’s owner and could not respond, either.)
They also have regular “Made in America” sales. I used to work for a company that was a large supplier to Menards. Good company to work with...can’t say that about some of their competition.
Millionaires are supposed to forfeit their 1st Amendment right to petition their government?
Dark money? That’s racist.
What about Hillary’s dark money?
Not such a secret anymore. How did his name get out?
As you know, I’ve lived in WI for most of my life. I can’t tell you how much $ I’ve dropped at Menard’s fixing up my current home and a few others before it, and up until recently, I had no idea they were Walker supporters!
Thank Goodness for YAHOOOOOOO! telling me that I’ve been doing it RIGHT all along! :)
And don’t tell Michelle O. Menard’s also sells discount candy!
So, being pro-business is nefarious now....you knew it was a liberal writing right there.
You mean like George Kaiser being a bundler for Obama and then being an investor in Solyndra which received a 536 million dollar contract from the US government? Did it rise to that degree of sleazy?
Its them against us.
That's why we need someone like Elizabeth Warren as POTUS, to make it fair.
She says that everything a business earns they owe to the government.
AND you can still find REGULAR light bulbs there! Granted, they only sell 40 watt ones, but still. ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.