“Wayne LaPierre Falsely Claims ‘All’ The NRA's Money Comes From Small Donors,” Chris Brown of Media Matters sneers in triumph.
He’s focusing on an interview with Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre by Glenn Beck, where the association head was asked about how NRA could hope to match union political contributions. LaPierre’s response:
We raise it all through 5, 10, 15, 20 dollar contributions that Americans are willing to preserve freedom. And they're willing to support it. But, you know, that's what NRA is about. I mean, I always say we're about our membership and we're about giving voice to our membership.
GOTCHA, Brown would have us believe:
LaPierre's claim that the NRA's fundraising is based exclusively on small dollar donations is false. The reality is that under LaPierre's leadership, the NRA has built extensive financial ties to the gun industry and other corporations.
The thing is, LaPierre wasn’t talking about “NRA fundraising” in general. He was clearly responding to a specific question about NRA political contributions. For that, their Political Action Committee has been established as NRA-PVF (Political Victory Fund), which is separate from other NRA entities (and does not use members' dues), including the NRA Foundation, Whittington Center, and NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund. The funding is separate for these groups, as is the reporting of expenditures, with the non-PACs making their own Form 990 IRS filings. Go to Guidestar and see for yourself.
PVF, as a PAC, registers with the Federal Elections Commission, and there are two convenient ways readers (and reporters interested in doing basic fact-checking, with a heavy emphasis on “interested in”) can see who their major contributors are—one is through the FEC and another is through the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org. Go ahead and click on the links and explore for yourself, and check out representative screen captures in the sidebar slideshow accompanying this column. Then find all those major gun corporations gaming the political contributions system and proving LaPierre a liar, as Brown would have us believe.
What, you can’t? Are you surprised?
Shall we now examine Media Matters’ funding? First, note they claim tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status despite a clearly partisan agenda. Funny how the administration allows them to get away with that. And as long as they brought up entities within the umbrella organization, we mustn’t’ forget to include Media Matters for America and all its wealthy “liberals” (you know, the 1%), the Democracy Alliance (formed by former Clintonistas), oh, and this Soros guy…
Typical national socialists—ever deceptive and always projecting. Which leads me to my standard dismissal when dealing with the (is there a more precise word than “author”…? “Manure spreader”…?) of this latest bit of weasel-worded misdirection.
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DISCLOSURE: I am a life member of the NRA. That said I am sometimes condemned for being a frequent critic of its management when I believe they are wrong.
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