bblhd672 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 28, 2023 10:09 am
Another damning expert witness report:
https://nraindanger.wordpress.com/2023/ ... ss-report/
There's too much in the report to post, below is the last two paragraphs. Everything above these two is worse.
“Between 2014 through 2020, there were approximately $420,000 in restaurant expenses by NRA Personnel where individual charges were over $500 each. For example, in the two years 2019 through 2020, there were $18,000 in expenses charged to Ms. Meadows’s NRA-issued Card consisting of 8 transactions at various steakhouses – an average of over $2,000 per visit. In just three days, January 24 to 26, 2018, over $30,000 was charged to Christopher Sprang’s NRA credit card at the restaurant AquaKnox, a high-end seafood restaurant in Las Vegas. Over a five-year period 2014 – 2018, over $60,000 was charged to Mr. Phillips’s NRA-issued Card at Margaritaville in Nashville, at an average cost of $4,000 per visit.”
We are staggered, I can’t put it in other words. Millions of members kicking in their $45 per year, and these people are blowing it all on limos, first class tickets, thousand-dollar dinners, international hunting trips, and golf fees.
I am by no means excusing or discounting any of these huge expenses, however I am curious as to why there's no context included in the linked article.
For example, I'm just a layperson, but even I understand that the SHOT SHOW is an annual event held in Las Vegas in January of each year. The 2018 dates for SHOT SHOW were 23-26 January 2018, which coincides with the dates listed in the article. I'm not happy that the NRA spent $30k at a high-end restaurant, but it is the norm for large national organizations & companies to host big gatherings in the evenings during Shot Show. This is a networking function, which builds or strengthens alliances.
Would I rather those funds had been spent by the NRA Foundation to give grants to community -based non-profits focused on the shooting sports, or by the NRA's Education program to modernize their instructional materials, or by the NRA-ILA's lobbying efforts to prevent further erosion of our rights/regaining rights ceded to regulation? Absolutely!
However, if these funds were allocated to an event for building industry support, and in the end this $30k enabled the NRA to pull in funds from the industry that netted more than $30k to benefit the other programs, then I would see it as a worthwhile expense. Or, if it was a $30k expense that furthered the core mission of the NRA.
However, this article only lays out "what" was spent without context as to "why" or "how it was in furtherance of the NRAs mission", or conversely "how it was a boondoggle/ embezzlement of funds". It only provides enough info for us to draw our own conclusion, & for me I have an innate distrust of anything that smells of slanted reporting. ((The best propaganda / influence operations give the target audience just enough hand-picked info to draw their own conclusions, for whatever desired effect/influence is desired)). I haven't liked LaPierre/ Cox for some time, and any organization that gets too big for it's britches is prime for corruption. However, I have to separate my "feelings" from actual analysis of the facts.