And make no mistake: there is a snitch or working enemy operative inside the NRA. There is no way that all the records would suddenly go from the NRA HQ in Virginia, somehow bypass the Washington Post which is basically next door, and land in the desk of Bloomberg’s The Trace/NYT. I am almost willing to bet that two decades from now, we will see in Bloomberg’s bio that he managed to buy/insert somebody inside the NRA and create its downfall from the inside and the same time to pay or convince other organizations to badmouth the NRA to create dissension within the ranks and proving that Fifth Column works every time.
I disagree with the last part. You don’t have to pay most of those orgs to badmouth NRA. They were willing to do that long before this shit started up. But I’m starting to seriously consider that the possibility that Bloomberg has a plant in Wayne’s inner circle. What would look different if he did?
A reader commented a few days ago, I and I think it’s very true, that when things go this sideways, the CEO has to go even if it’s just to restore confidence. This is the case here.
Could it have been the same plant that somehow convinced them go soft on scoring home runs against the antis such as deliberately fumbling the HPA and national reciprocity? The same one that told them to deliberately squander the ability to use AckMac as a PR machine to convert the non gun owning public in blue states?
I’m pretty sure what fumbled HPA and National Reciprocity was not having 60 votes in the Senate when we had the House, and then losing the House.
Turning votes to our side is their business. That’s what we pay them for. Blaming the Senate is a farce, a part thin excuse at best.
Only one person can turn water into wine
Where do the 60 votes come from? Who can you flip? I’ll even take today’s Senate. Who can you flip to get those 60 votes?
60 votes means 30 states worth of senators as my math tells me, correct? That means not more than 20 states voting anti gun. Are there 20 absolute 100% anti gun states to whom being pro gun is absolutely unthinkable because gun owners have a virtually zero cultural and therefore political presence? Last I checked the number was 10 or less.
There’s a lot of pro-gun and marginally pro-gun states that have long histories of sending Dems to the Senate that are lukewarm on guns. Mine is one of them. We also like sending Republicans who are lukewarm on guns. Do you think Casey can be convinced to change his mind? Or Michael Bennett? Debbie Stabenow or Gary Peters? Lehey or Sanders? Mark Warner? Tim Kaine?
You probably have to flip those seats to switch them to yes votes. That’s a tall order.
I did the math (it’s in a post here from late 2017).
We didn’t have 60 votes, and we couldn’t beg, borrow, or steal them either, not without turning over at least 2 seats in the Senate, ones with long-standing incumbents.
Which, incidentally, didn’t happen in 2018. The seats that did turn over replaced pro-gun dems with presumably pro-gun Pubbies. We effectively lost one vote because Luther Strange’s seat went Dem.
Now, we did (probably) gain a Yea vote from the last time the vote was held in 2013.
The reason a vote didn’t happen in 2018 was because of that jackass in FL – the vote HAD BEEN SCHEDULED for shortly afterwards, and was indefinitely postponed for predictable political reasons.
And then we lost the House.
I wanted to see the votes, because how else are we really going to know who are our friends and enemies? How many Republican Congress Critters talk a good game to both us and Bloomberg? Remember how after six years and dozens of votes they suddenly forgot how to repeal Obamacare? How they forgot how to vote for a wall? How they suddenly decided that spending like the drunken whores they are was OK?
Make the Democrat Senators in red and purple states make the hard choices. Vote Guns or plan on retiring. Same for Republicans. Honor your promises, don’t hide behind non votes.
“I wanted to see the votes, because how else are we really going to know who are our friends and enemies?”
That question just keyed my memories of how the NRA went balls-out to elect Tom Ridge governor of PA back in 1994; after he had voted for the Clinton AWB in congress. “Balls-out” went as far as suppressing that fact, and getting individually vicious with state RKBA activists who raised that issue.
So I guess the question is, “how indeed?”
If there is actually a leak, I suspect that it isn’t in the NRA, but is instead in Ack-Mac and/or Brewer.
I’d be amazed if there’s _a_ single leak — if there’s one there’s almost certainly more than that. And likely people authorizing them.
I would wager that the NY Attorney General’s office is actually leaking to the NYT, not necessarily someone directly affiliated with the NRA.
That would be unethical.
Next you will tell me that politics plays a part in prosecution decisions.
“I’m starting to seriously consider that the possibility that Bloomberg has a plant in Wayne’s inner circle.”
Last week I told my Old Story about how an infiltrator inserted himself into the Keystone Firearms Coalition as chairman at its founding in 1994. An important element of that story is, the guy wasn’t hostile to gun rights, he was just there to divert our efforts to another agenda. He didn’t succeed at that, but an argument/excuse could be made that his lack of dedication to the firearms issue contributed to the eventual foundering of the organization.
Within a few years I would have additional experiences with similar infiltrations in other organizations.
A tenet of guerrilla warfare is “use the resources of others as if they were your own.” The major digressions of NRA spokespeople to other conservative issues in recent years would suggest more an infiltration by social conservatives looking to expropriate the NRA’s platforms, than it would suggest infiltration by those of liberal persuasion. In short, I would look more for infiltration by conservative fellow travelers with less than pure dedication to the firearms issues, but who fall beneath notice, than I would look for infiltration by overtly hostile forces.
There was an old and arguable chestnut that a problem with NRA lobbyists was that many were only lobbyists and not ideologues; and so they would avoid burning bridges they might need when they moved on to lobbying for Big Oil or Big Pharma. While I know that idea was rejected by many, in a way it is what I’m suggesting in this case; a lack of ideological/issue focus can provide the foundation for other conflicts and factional formations.
Be careful what you say about this topic. You may very well get subpoenaed by the NRA for simply just repeating what you read online or for speculating and offering your thoughts. This was certainly the case with Rob Pincus. NRA Director Tom King has already threatened a repeat of that.
Something is seriously wrong when your supposed civil rights organization is threatening you and makes you considering hiring an attorney, because you repeated something you read on the Internet and it may actually be true.
Rot this bad always infects the head. And here I mean the board. WLP is rotten, but honestly, people paying attention have known for years Wayne needed to go. WLP should have retired in late 2016 at the top of his game. His legacy would be two (or more) Supreme Court Justices who ushered in a new era of 2A jurisprudence.
Now, his legacy is a CF.
And I agree that there is mole in the NRA, no way does so much info go directly to The Trace or NYT.
Hmmm. You have an attorney who has Wayne’s ear, who seeks to drive a wedge between him and former close allies, who is sucking the NRA dry with his bills, and who gives money to Beto and Hillary. Oh, and by the way, maintains an office in NYC.
Bill Brewer?
He wouldn’t do that says Carolyn and Marion. Wanna bet? I’ll wager he has Danny Hakim’s number on his cell contacts list.
“who gives money to Beto and Hillary. Oh, and by the way, maintains an office in NYC.”
It almost sounds like you believe there is ideology in The Swamp. ;-)
The purges from committees has seriously shown to me that Wayne and his cronies must go.
I will not give another dime to the NRA. I understand that some will think that will allow our enemies to win. I disagree. What Wayne and his cronies and those who insult is are the ones that are allowing our enemies to win.
I’m not going that far yet. Give to PVF. That money is legally pretty well protected. CRDF is also still worthy. Though, I think people who have NRA as part of their estate planning ought to start using that as leverage, because that won’t immediately hurt, unless they are planning to die soon. Threats need to made by big donors at this point, but it’s not yet time to burn it all down. At least that’s my opinion.
Didn’t the NRA do exactly that to anti-gun organizations in the 2000s?
Is this payback for that?