NPR is all over it.
Caught in the intersectionality of Sen. Ron Wyden’s (D-Ore.) grandstanding, pervasive Russian collusion hysteria, and teenager induced attacks on civil rights, the National Rifle Association has revealed that it received contributions from individuals with some unspecified ties to Russia.
Might be US citizens living there. Might be Russian nationals living here. Might be Vladimir Putin himself. Who knows? We need to know the extent of this conspiracy.
OK: A total of 23 individuals have been identified.
They contributed a little over $2,500 to the NRA.
Since 2015.
Most of it was membership dues.
The usual suspects, like Everytown for Gun Safety and Media Matters, are outraged. But, for their main money-persons $2,500 wouldn’t even make a car payment – assuming Bloomberg and Soros, for example – didn’t just pay cash for Maseratis, Rolls, or Ferraris. Or armored Escalades.
Simultaneously, the Russians appear to have funneled several orders of magnitude more money into Green activist groups opposed to fracking and the building of pipelines.
But, don’t take my word for it. Here’s Hillary on June 18, 2014:
“Clinton Talked About “Phony Environmental Groups” Funded By The Russians To Stand Against Pipelines And Fracking. “We were up against Russia pushing oligarchs and others to buy media. We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians to stand against any effort, oh that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem for you, and a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from Russia.” [Remarks at tinePublic, 6/18/14]”
There is other evidence of Russian interest in disrupting energy supplies, which should come as no surprise from a kleptocracy heavily dependent on oil and gas revenue. See here, here and here for Russian efforts to protect Gazprom revenues.
And, of course, the Russians also used Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to spread energy-guilt propaganda. It was a bigger effort than their campaign to disrupt our elections, which we know was a few million dollars. Scroll down here to see some of the Russian social media ads attacking pipelines and fracking.
The Left hasn’t complained about those ads because they like them. Even if they were interested in the Russian attempt to stifle US energy independence, they’d have a hard time finding it at NPR, where a search for ‘russia frack’ turns up 3 hits, none related to Russian interference.
Which of these stories seems more important for people to know about? I’m looking at you, NPR.