Tag: NRA

Dispatches from the NRA’s Kremlin office

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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.

Copyright 2005-2019

The NRA and Senator Reid

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The NRA is waffling conflicted about whether to endorse Senator Harry Reid for re-election.  I have sent the following letter to express my disapproval:

I understand the argument the NRA is making regarding Senate Majority Harry Reid and I reject it as cynical in the utmost. Senator Reid may support the 2nd Amendment, but no one in the Senate has done more to trash the remaining 9 in the Bill of Rights.

I am not a single issue voter and I fear neither Charles Schumer nor Dick Durbin as Majority Leader precisely because I have confidence in candidates like Sharon Angle and in the NRA. Please confirm my confidence in the NRA by rejecting Senator Reid.

If the NRA endorses Harry Reid you will lose me as a member. I will be able to say, “No, I did not belong to any organization which supported the man who called the War on Terror ‘lost,’ jammed the biggest entitlement in history through the Senate using immoral means, denied that any illegal immigrants are employed in Nevada’s construction industry, called George Bush a liar, and can generally only be regarded as a nefarious hyper-partisan liar himself.”

I urge you to endorse Ms Angle. While a non-endorsement is preferable to an endorsement of Senator Reid, it would still cause me to do some serious thinking about my membership.

YMMV

Copyright 2005-2019

Judging Sonia

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Sonia Sotomayor may be as wooden as Al Gore and more prone to spoonerisms than George Bush, but even I have to admit that she is fundamentally clueless about the 2nd Amendment.

In answer to a question from Senator Leahy … Well, let’s have a shortened version of the pandering exchange:

LEAHY: Thank you. And in the Second Circuit decision, Maloney v. Cuomo, you, in fact, recognized the Supreme Court decided in Heller that the personal right to bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution against federal law restrictions. Is that correct?

SOTOMAYOR: It is.
…

LEAHY: … We all know that not every constitutional right has been applied to the states by the Supreme Court. I know one of my very first cases as a prosecutor was a question of whether the Fifth Amendment guaranteed a grand jury indictment has been made applicable to the states. [?] The Supreme Court has not held that applicable to the states.

Seventh Amendment right to jury trial, Eighth Amendment prohibition against excessive fines, these have not been made applicable to the states. … but would you have an open mind, as — on the Supreme Court, in evaluating that, the legal proposition of whether the Second Amendment right should be considered fundamental rights and thus applicable to the states?

SOTOMAYOR: Like you, I understand that how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans. In fact, one of my godchildren is a member of the NRA. And I have friends who hunt. I understand the individual right fully that the Supreme Court recognized in Heller.

She acknowledges that many Americans think the right to bear arms is important. Someone she knows belongs to the NRA. She has friends who hunt. There’s nothing in her answer that actually acknowledges we have a 2nd Amendment.

Let’s walk through it. Indeed, the 2nd Amendment does not grant the right to keep and bear arms. The 2nd Amendment merely recognizes a right that existed before the Constitution was a gleam in James Madison’s eye.

Ms Sotomayor’s understanding that the right to bear arms is important to many Americans is as irrelevant as it is ignorant. Many Americans would like to have Nationalized health care, but that does not make it a Constitutional right. If no Americans considered the right to keep and bear arms important it would still be their right.

One of her godchildren is a member of the NRA? Perhaps this is very indirect evidence of the empathy she would apply to any decision before SCOTUS involving her godchild’s rights under the 1st Amendment, but I doubt it.

She has friends who hunt? That must be in an Amendment I missed, because the 2nd Amendment has nothing whatever to do with hunting. That idea is a far-left-wing trope, invented in an attempt to lose fewer votes when trashing the 2nd Amendment.

The 2nd Amendment is about the right to self defense. The Founders assumed you have the natural right to defend yourself against individuals who would harm you and against a government that would steal your liberty. The 2nd Amendment does no more, or less, than acknowledge that you have this right, independent of the Constitution.

Copyright 2005-2019