I’ve read the lawsuit against Ollie North. They don’t have shit on Chris Cox if this is all that’s known. But nonetheless, he’s resigned. This isn’t good. Now ILA is rudderless at a very dangerous time for us.
It’s not clear who inside the NRA could take Cox’s place, and recruiting an outsider could be especially difficult because of the financial turmoil and political bloodletting roiling the group, insiders say.
This is an understatement.
I was reserving judgement until I read the lawsuit. The text that came out in discovery were from April 24th, which is about when we all found out about North’s ultimatum. If Wayne’s side of NRA is going to interfere with ILA’s operations, they’d better have a damned good reason, and if this discovery is all they have, it is not a good reason. I don’t really care if they find evidence Chris Cox was involved in succession planning with the Board. I would expect that if there was a possibility the Board would shit can Wayne. I don’t even really care if he was aware of North’s plot, or expressed a willingness to see Wayne off. Chris Cox is hired by the Board, and is not Wayne’s report. The Board and Board members should be permitted to seek the advice from the people they hire on NRA related matters, and those people the Board hires should be permitted to give it.
I’m becoming more and more convinced Wayne needs to retire, and absent that, the Board should be willing to force the issue.
My message to the NRA Board is that we have a big heap problem. I don’t blame Wayne for the current state of affairs, because there are people that, theoretically, should be holding him to account.
If anyone is to blame, it’s the Board itself for failing to oversee the organization. I get it. I’ve been on boards. But it’s time to clean house. It’s time to start doing your jobs. The future of the NRA is at stake.
Don’t blame him for leaving before the stuff that hit the fan hits him, though.
Sucks for the rest of us, but that was NOT what he signed up for.
He can make more money somewhere else. Recall that Baker left ILA to start his own lobbying firm. He sold it and made a bunch of money. I was worried he’d resign, because if I were him, I probably would.
We used Baker’s firm before he sold it to Ogilvy PR. He made a crap ton of money on that.
I know this theme of mine is getting old, but I’ll ask again, have any of you considered that all this lawsuit business is just a charade to launder NRA’s money through friendly attorneys? A way to pick the bones of a dying horse while making the vultures appear blameless for the passing of the horse?
I think I remember the definition of “useful idiots” including that they take everything their parties or organizations do at face value. I don’t mean to name-call with this, but the one common denominator I see in most comments is, people taking the NRA’s current situations at face value.
You are not the first person to make that assumption. Problem is, if the NRA has taken to borrowing money from the ILA as reports suggest, even what is left to launder?
http://onlygunsandmoney.blogspot.com/2019/06/chris-cox-resigns.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+NoLawyers-OnlyGunsAndMoney+(No+Lawyers+-+Only+Guns+and+Money)&m=1
I’m beginning to think that short of wholesale reform up to and including the board vis a vis it’s size so that it can effectively oversee the organization,the organization is done. The board is too large to effectively consider and enact change which is primarily what the bad actors have taken advantage of.
The NRA is done, no ifs ands or buts about it. More and more so as info has come out, it really just seems like Wayne LaPierre and his cronies were just feathering their nests for personal pleasure.
Donations to the Organization started to dry up in the late summer of 2017 after HPA was dropped for the rest of that year. Same thing with National Reciprocity, the repeal of most of the 1989 Import Ban, and repealing the “Sporting Purpose Clause” from the 1968 GCA.
All of the 2016 Campaign Promises on 2nd Amendment issues have been fully scrapped, and it looks like we have a Federal Suppressor Ban on the table through 2 Separate Bills in the House and Senate with Trump verbally supporting it. Prince Jared and Princess Ivanka have done a swell job of turning this Administration Leftward, on most issues.
Constitutional Carry is working it’s way through the Ohio State Government, no thanks to the NRA of course, but Ohio Gun Owners and Ohio Carry have been godsends. I love participating with Activist Groups that actually fight to produce thorough results.
At this point, Gunowners better get off their a**, get involved with their Local and Statewide Groups, and start participating in activism instead of sitting around like the stereotypical “Couch-Potato Conservatives” who just whine and moan as their rights erode…….but do nothing.
Much of that is to be blamed on the GOP. If we were half as efficient as the Left is at ensuring their representatives are onboard, we wouldn’t have these issues.
Although, these days, it seems more and more to me that with Conservatism comes a lazy, cowardly streak.
“Although, these days, it seems more and more to me that with Conservatism comes a lazy, cowardly streak”.
You have no idea how right you are. There’s always some kind of excuse from most “Conservatives” for not getting involved in Civic Participation Activities.
“It’s all the same”. “I don’t have time”. “I gotta go to work”. “It doesn’t matter”. On bad things happening, their heads are in the sand saying “It’ll never happen here”. “That’ll never happen”. Of course when the bad things do happen, it’s a wash, rinse, and repeat of b***h, whine, moan, and complain, and then get back to being apathetic.
Your livelihood matters most when others are trying to destroy it, and you will always have time if you budget your time wisely, and things will only get worse, as in change for the worse, because it’s not the same, especially when you do nothing.
My wife is almost 3 months pregnant and we budget our time for Civic Participation. We are active with Ohio Gun Owners and Ohio Carry, as well as being members of SAF, GOA, and FPC. We’re active with our community and always do what we can to remain civically active.
Nothing more I can’t stand than a Couch-Potato Conservative.
Spent my whole career working for one board or another. Regardless of what the original cause was which I still don’t know, when things get this far out of control, the executive leadership has to be replaced and only the board can do that.
The NRA has been worse then bad for a long time.
The a-before mentioned failed federal legislation, the acceptance (if not endorsement) of red flag laws, the past support of GCA68, the cluster eF that is the training program, etc. are all reasons to clean house
The suites that have been over the last decade have been in-spite of the NRA, not because of it. Allen Gura has been the man. The state organizations have been very effective and creative as well.
It isn’t all bad for the NRA, but they need a purge of the FUDDS, boomers, and those seemingly in it for their own prestige (North).
Possibly, the most valuable thing the NRA does is be the focus of nearly all of the political and media attention. This does help the state orgs, GOA, NSSF, The 2nd Amd. Foundation, etc. operate under the radar.
The NRA leadership has derailed the organization. Plain and simple, they have put themselves before the organization and the causes it supports. Sorry, Sebastian, but I DO blame Wayne—this has happened on his watch while he was jetting around as a lavish-spending bigshot. I also blame the Board for sitting back and doing nothing while all this was happening. The only way to get the organization back on track is find leadership who will return the NRA to its roots: thoughtful 2A advocacy, gun safety training, a community of shooting enthusiasts, etc. Wayne should go as well as most of the Board. Keep out the gun-crazies and those who just want to profit personally.
Wayne has been who he is for years. None of this is new. The Board has failed for years to provide proper oversight.
“The Board has failed for years to provide proper oversight”
I was very superficially/peripherally involved in a dissident Board Member effort to provide increased oversight back c. 1999 – 2000. Then Board Member Mike Slavonic was one of the dissidents here in Pennsylvania. I’m not sure, but it seems to me that was when “The Winning Team” moniker was coined by the insiders, for themselves.
The way the dissidents were shut out and demonized bordered on vicious, and of course in those very early internet days, the Winning Team still held all the cards in terms of what information reached voting members. I don’t want to speak for him, but it appears Mike Slavonic left not only the NRA Board, but the entire gun rights movement. He and I lost touch very shortly afterward.
Roughly twenty years later, my intention isn’t to comment on the relative virtues of any individuals at the time, but to make the point that Board members who sought to make waves of any kind were shut out and condemned. It appears the lesson was well-learned.
That’s definitely true. But the battle to hold Wayne accountable has always been intertwined with the fight between the realpolitik vs. no compromise crowd. Wayne has gotten away with a lot, I think, because a lot of people who would otherwise have the integrity to force these issues with Wayne didn’t want to throw in with the no compromise crowd.
I’ve said this numerous times, it’s not so much Wayne per se, but the fact that the position of EVP even exists. It’s almost prima facie evidence of administrative bloat, or at best a sign that the Board needed to invent a position for Wayne to inhabit.
EVP is CEO in non-profit parlance, and it’s a common title in non-profits similar to NRA. NRA is not unusual for having it. Someone has to be in charge of day-to-day operations in a sufficiently large organization.
What a mess. Brilliant plan- let’s lose the head of the ILA (who was quite effective) because we are mad.
I would not have pushed Cox out, but do not overstate his importance. ILA needs reform as much as NRA does.