Beg to quibble, but the modern Klan was more like a MLM scam. When someone joined the recruiter got a big chunk from the dues, then three levels of managers took a share before it reached the national org, where Edward Young Clarke, the “Imperial Kleagle” personally got a portion as well. On top of that you were required to buy all your Klan swag from headquarters, including the robe, books, pamphlets, cardboard red crosses and little cards to scatter around your town announcing the Klan was there, plus other awful goodies. Soon growth was exponential, with about four million boyz in the hoods by 1924.
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Not a quibble. The Betsy DeVos’ family would have understood what was going pretty well.
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When I was a kid in the 1950’s the NRA was all about gun safety. Not now. It’s all grifting now … and power that comes with money.
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Since we’re still in the middle of it, why can’t this second time be the charm?
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"Hey! I resemble that remark!"
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Great reporting. It’s hard to read this and then think about Parkland families, or Aurora, CO families, or thousands of others. Blood curdling.
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1977, the equivalent of the Red Wedding.,…
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If you are the Board of Directors, you don’t let that happen. Because you are the Board of Directors! Christ on a cracker, how lame are these guys? I’m a gun owner who despises the NRA and lobbyists in general but everyone quoted in this article trying to defend their lack of leadership should resign.
Least shocking development ever. Grifters gotta grift.
Don’t you just love it when right wing douche bags fight?
The FBI is investigating the NRA for financial impropriety because they routed tens of millions of dollars into Republican candidates campaigns in 2016.
The lawsuit filed by Giffords against the FEC alleges the NRA made illegal contributions to the Trump campaign up to 9,259 times the limit set by Congress.
I hope the NRA is so distracted with their current chaos, it dampens their ability to raise funds to donate to politicians.
Grifting and obtaining enough influence over the House and Senate to have a law on the books forbidding the National Institute of Health from funding any scientific research whatsoever on the problem of gun violence in America. And it appears they were able to squelch freedom of inquiry during a period in which their grifting was already known.
No wonder Trump and LaPierre love each other so much. True con men admire each other’s work.
Thankfully there’s the example of Australia. After a mass shooting the country changed its gun laws and did a buy back. In the years since suicide by gun is way down as is murder and other forms of gun involved crime/violence. The NRA wanted to hide the solution and thereby contributed to death and associated pain and suffering. The blood on their hands will not wash off.
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But their censorship of research via prohibition on public funding is still our problem. And seems it will be until we manage to have both the House, Senate, and a non Republican President. This is really an outrage.
As someone who’s professional life was science based research… censorship of what can be researched for the public good is… well, in the case of the NRA … supporting any kind of gun violence you or I would care to name. I’ve been altogether way too close to speeding bullets a few times and I would prefer to have those situations lessened. By getting that law passed the NRA shows itself to be an advocate for pain suffering and death.
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Please let it be a real bus …
Well, they did toss him off the bus. Now lets see if there’s a legal necessity to chuck him under.
In 1998, a group of NRA board members delivered a 127-page packet of documents to the Federal Elections Committee …
Josh, Josh, Josh…
There’s no such thing as “the Federal Elections Committee”.
Did you perchance mean the Federal Election Commission?
You’re a professional, Josh. Or supposed to be. These things matter.
Facepalm.