Year: 2019

Wayne will turn 70 in November. He’s the same age as my father, who has been retired now for 8 years. My father is starting to go from an old guy to an elderly guy. How many more productive working years does Wayne have left? Five maybe? Are we to have an octogenarian running NRA? Is there a possibility he’s already losing his mojo and is lashing out?

At some point, NRA will face a future without Wayne at the helm, and they just pissed away the most likely and probably the most effective replacement. Chris was the heir apparent. So what now? This isn’t a long term question. At the very least, Wayne isn’t going to live forever. Chris had already been positioned and groomed. I am hoping the Board starts to understand the depth and seriousness of the matter that is now before them.

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.

The latest victim in the Ack-Mac dispute. I think Media Matters is feeling a bit self indulgent over believing they played a role, since they brought to light the Tommy the Tank fiasco. Though, I do have to admit that their statement that “NRATV was a malevolent and destructive force” is kind of hard to argue with.

Way before NRATV, Ack-Mac was putting on some reasonable programming. Then they brought in Internet personalities like Colion Noir, Billy Johnson, Dom Raso, and actually, Angry Dana was part of that initial group. None of that early foray I had issues with, because their programming was very gun focused initially, and some of it even watchable. In hindsight, bringing them in as paid professionals was a mistake. They were more valuable to the movement as independent personalities.

I can’t exactly recall when, but at some point Ack-Mac really started taking NRATV off the rails with loony right-wing bullshit that had nothing to do with guns. The poster child I have in my mind for all this was Grant Stinchfield. Any time NRATV became controversial, and I don’t mean “no such thing as bad publicity” controversial, it’s this guy who kept turning up like a bad penny. Angry Dana just got angrier. A lot of our people were publicly questioning the value and tone of NRATV, not just our opponents. The Tommy the Tank gaffe was just the dog shit icing on the mold ridden cake.

I feel for a lot of the Ack-Mac employees who worked hard for NRA all these years, and who are victims of this shit show. But for the sake of NRA’s future, we have to move on. NRATV is gone. Time to keep cleaning house.

Chris Cox is suspended. I thought he was hired by the Board, so who is suspending him?

The palace intrigue at the National Rifle Association deepened on Thursday as the gun group suspended its second-in-command and top lobbyist, accusing him of complicity in the recent failed coup against its chief executive, Wayne LaPierre.

This isn’t a good thing to be happening out in the New York Times. Up until now ILA seemed relatively un-embroiled in the struggle with Ackerman-McQueen.

We’re going to pay a price for this, without a doubt.

John Richardson has the latest.