After disputing allegations of misspending for years, the NRA tries to come clean — new tax filing says current and former execs misused the nonprofit’s funds for personal gain. w/ @CarolLeonnig https://t.co/GdMENP9NmF
— Beth Reinhard (@bethreinhard) November 25, 2020
Our bad!… no, really, them bad. They’re trying to save Chief Grifter LaPierre’s worthless arse by blaming the guys who’ve already been thrown off the sledge:
… The NRA said in the filing that it continues to review the alleged abuse of funds, as the tax-exempt organization curtails services and runs up multimillion-dollar legal bills. The assertion of impropriety comes four months after the attorney general of New York state filed a lawsuit accusing NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre and other top executives of using NRA funds for decades to provide inflated salaries and expense accounts.
The tax return, which The Washington Post obtained from the organization, says the NRA “became aware during 2019 of a significant diversion of its assets.” The 2019 filing states that LaPierre and five former executives received “excess benefits,” a term the IRS uses to describe executives’ enriching themselves at the expense of a nonprofit entity.
The disclosures in the tax return suggest that the organization is standing by its 71-year-old chief executive while continuing to pursue former executives of the group. The filing says that LaPierre “corrected” his financial lapses with a repayment and contends that former executives “improperly” used NRA funds or charged the nonprofit for expenses that were “not appropriate.”…
The tax filing acknowledges that there are disputes over the alleged financial abuses the NRA blames on the departed officers, including former board president Oliver North and former chief lobbyist Chris Cox.
Some of those executives parted ways with LaPierre over his leadership and are cooperating with the New York attorney general’s investigation, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the ongoing investigation…
LaPierre personally signed the 2019 tax return; such a document is customarily signed by the organization’s treasurer. “He is putting himself on the line, under penalties of perjury, which is what you do if you are trying to get in someone’s good graces,” Hackney said.
New York lawyer and expert on nonprofits Daniel Kurtz said, “It’s a smart move by the NRA instead of digging in their heels, though who knows how they came up with the numbers. It’s an admission of wrongdoing, for sure.”…
The new tax documents portray an organization trimming costs and struggling as membership dues and other revenue declined even before the coronavirus pandemic curbed charitable fundraising nationwide. The NRA reported a $12.2 million operating shortfall last year, up from $2.7 million the previous year. This is the fourth year in a row the organization has reported spending more than it took in.
The one area where the NRA’s expenses are growing: legal costs, which soared in 2019 to $38.5 million from $25 million in 2018. Ackerman McQueen was the NRA’s highest paid contractor for years, churning out provocative marketing campaigns and broadcasts, until the relationship disintegrated in a litigious squabble last year. Now the NRA’s single largest vendor is the Dallas law firm headed by William Brewer, which was paid nearly $25 million last year…
To reiterate: The NRA is not a gun organization with a lobbying arm, it’s a grift lobbying business with a gun-related trademark.
Related topics, from a longer thread:
To distill @mattyglesias' take: gun politics are bad for Democrats, gun policies aren’t effective enough to be worth the sacrifice, so progressives should just cede the issue in favor of other priorities. Why I think he’s wrong (a thread): https://t.co/5KxgAnMMF7
— Ted Alcorn (@TedAlcorn) November 26, 2020
But are gun politics really bad for Democrats? Yglesias argues that reformers’ message invariably collapses into “gun control > gun rights,” which polls poorly and puts them fundamentally at odds with gun owners. But to end gun violence we need not take the path of “gun control.
— Ted Alcorn (@TedAlcorn) November 26, 2020
The science backs focused deterrence & violence interruption to address community violence, lethal means counseling & protection orders to reduce suicide, & yes, commonsense laws strengthening norms for safely selling & storing guns. @Abt_Thomas https://t.co/o5axWsQtef
— Ted Alcorn (@TedAlcorn) November 26, 2020
Yglesias is beholden to the old myth that gun hobbyists are some uber-powerful bloc—but they’ve never been more than a fraction of the population, and they're increasingly matched by single-issue voters on the other side who have finally gotten organized. https://t.co/Me3BpF2PaW
— Ted Alcorn (@TedAlcorn) November 26, 2020
Bottom-line: if you do the hard work of building public support, addressing a national scourge (and one that falls grossly unevenly across the population) through moderate and evidence-based means can be good politics and good policy.
— Ted Alcorn (@TedAlcorn) November 26, 2020
Chief Oshkosh
As has been covered in other posts/threads today, it is not up to the vast majority of the US population to understand, extend an olive branch, or in any other way be “nice” to these people, who are very likely entirely within the Trump-voting bloc. Fuck ’em. I am tired as hell listening to them about ANYTHING. Fuck ’em. There’s plenty of legal approaches to control their ownership and use of guns. My personal favorite is a requirement for insurance, coupled with laws that add enormous liability if one of your guns is involved in a maiming or death, intentional or not, whether it was stolen, borrowed, found, or simply used by the owner. Fuck ’em.
PsiFighter37
I would not be surprised if the NRA is trying to clean up its act and manage to stay afloat so they can use the specter of Democrats being in charge and threatening to take guns away to fleece the rubes who give them money. Like everyone on the right, everything for them boils down to money.
Yarrow
It’s also a money laundering organization. See all the connections the top NRA brass have with Russia.
mrmoshpotato
If the gun-humpers hump their guns harder, they’ll keep the NRA alive!
Hump away gun-humpers!
germy
Starfish
The NRA deserves to be completely wiped off the map like Republicans did to ACORN that existed to promote the right to vote.
These single-issue gun-voters show up with their weapons at state houses annually to intimidate their legislators, and our patience with people who want government to bow down to their threats of violence should be very short at this moment.
All school children should not be doing traumatic shooter lock-down drills so these chuckle heads can run about the Home Depot with their weapons.
Rural candidates should not have to oppose this stuff loudly, but some people representing solidly blue places need to have some more backbone, and they need to throw all the legislation at the courts all the time.
Baud
Thank you, Attorney General Latitia James.
Yutsano
We don’t do something big on gun rights we lose the kids. They’re the ones who still have to go through mandatory shooter training even if they’re only in class part time. They’re beyond sick of living in this world. And they will take it out on establishment Dems who don’t work for this. Climate change is also a big priority but we shouldn’t let what has been a bipartisan issue in the past (gun control) not get worked. The youth vote is starting to wake up. Let’s see if we can keep them awake.
trollhattan
Eight months and counting since the last school shooting.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: And the only thing that stopped (mass) gun violence in schools in the US was … a pandemic that closed the schools.
SiubhanDuinne
I’m getting NRA ads between #3 and #4, and between #5 and #6.
ETA: Refreshing the screen killed them.
Elizabelle
I find it ironic the tax filings are trying to protect LaPierre, when he seems to have been the most flagrant of those grifting off the NRA. (“Kids are getting massacred in schools. You have to buy me a big house so I can stay safe.”)
Saw some language to the effect that LaPierre had complied with all NRA guidelines in effect. If so, they are big enough to sail an aircraft carrier through.
Not. Believable.
Geminid
There was a time when gun issues were bad politics for Democrats, but not any more. A lot of people want gun safety measures now. Democrats in Virginia picked up state legislative seats in 2017 and 2019 while advocating for universal background checks and other measures. This year the General Assembly passed a package of six bill’s, including expanded background checks and requirements to report stolen guns and secure firearms in homes with children. Also, localities were given greater authority to restrict firearms on public property, and prohibit them at protests. These measures polled at about 75% approval before the Assembly session. And while the prospect of these reasonable reforms attracted over 10,000 protesters to Richmond last January, when they went into effect this July I did not hear of any protests anywhere. Polls show that even a majority of gun owners support such laws.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: How is the younger sister doing?
Croaker
100,000,000,000,000%%% We have been talking about insurance for years. Sure thing you own the rocket launcher, machine gun, cannon, have fun killing wild things YOUR responsible for the result.
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
It’s ironic but totally understandable how it happened. LaPierre has been running the NRA for his personal benefit, which is what the suit is about. Now it’s to his personal benefit to throw everyone else under the bus to protect him, so that’s what the organization is doing. To anyone paying attention, it’s yet more proof that the NRA is his personal toy rather than a serious non-profit organization.
Suzanne
@Elizabelle: I am increasingly of the opinion that high school is such a high-pressure situation that it has contributed to a lot of mental health issues in teens. I saw some interesting data recently demonstrating that many teenagers are reporting better relationships with their families, more sleep, and less stress/anxiety since the pandemic started. I don’t think that will take care of the homicidal mania that most of these school shooters exhibit, but it is interesting to think about kids maybe being less stressed out because they may be less afraid of getting shot.
I think what we may find in the After Times (if we get there) is that a lot of our social structures are not working for us.
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: Interesting. Could be. And yes to your last sentence.
NotMax
It shifted from being a gun owners organization to a gun manufacturers organization at least as far back as when Oliver North was in knee pants.
burnspbesq
Trump and the NRA are going to be the biggest tests of Chuck Rettig’s stewardship of the IRS.
Based on the outcome of the Robert Smith case, I am not optimistic.
piratedan
I kind of wish that there was a way to actually sic the insurance lobby on these asshats. If I have to pay a premium because I put a trampoline in my yard for my kids for the elevated risk of potential harm, why the fuck can’t we do the same about guns. You want to have a gun, be my guest, here’s your policy rider, you want a semi-automatic, here ya go. If we can pay a higher price for teenage and elderly drivers, when you own a sports care versus a sedan, why NOT this?
You want the privilege of owning a gun, pay for it.
NotMax
Somehow they’ll try to pin it all on Charlton Heston.
“Here’s a spade. Double check his cold dead hand is empty first, okay?”
//
evap
Lucy McBath, 6th district of GA, just got re-elected to her second term in Congress, from what used to be a GOP district. This was the district that Jon Ossoff lost in a special election in 2017. McBath won in the “blue wave” election of 2018 in what was once a reliably GOP district, and she ran on a single issue — gun control. I’m sure it’s partly changing demographics, but her win in 2018 was surprising (in a good way!)
Suzanne
@piratedan: AND tax the fuck out of it. Now that I am in PA, I have to buy freakin WINE at a special state store and the prices are considerably higher than in other places, because the state collects revenue this way. There is no reason gun and ammunition purchases shouldn’t be similarly taxed.
Yarrow
@Chief Oshkosh:
Agree 100%. We can even use their language against them on this. “Responsible gun owner.” Anyone who leaves their gun sitting out somewhere so a kid can pick it up and shoot someone isn’t a Responsible Gun Owner. It’s in your waistband and drops on the floor and someone gets shot? You’re not a Responsible Gun Owner. There should be penalties for those people who are not Responsible Gun Owners. If you own a weapon you need to be responsible about it.
PsiFighter37
@evap: And she won by even more this time – I think it was a 9-point margin or so. The ATL suburbs have changed so quickly that it’s almost certain that Georgia Republicans are going to be forced to create another solid Democratic district (likely combining McBath’s district with just-elected Carolyn Bordeaux’s) in the next round of redistricting. I wonder what Newt Gingrich thinks of his old stomping grounds becoming a rapidly darker hue of blue.
Mike in NC
@Geminid: For a time when we lived in NoVA, there was a limit to the number of guns you could buy (one handgun per month, I think). Republicans were outraged by all that government tyranny.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh my gosh, someone just sent me a bunch of screen captures, and these ads are awful.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
I would guess this is mostly about kids being glad to be away from the social pressures of school and things like ordinary bullying rather than worries about school shooting specifically, but it still says something pretty horrifying about our schools.
Zelma
@Suzanne:
Welcome to Pennsylvania! At least they now have a decent collection of wines for sale. You should have been a wine drinker in PA twenty years ago. A nightmare.
Every governor since Schapp has been trying to get rid of the State Stores. Now there’s a powerful union.
Starfish
@Suzanne:
Children are not experiencing the racism of their peers when they are learning at home. They are experiencing less bullying while learning at home unless it is online bullying.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
And when Wayne LaPierre took over, it shifted again and became a generic Republican organization that used gun owners and manufacturers as a source of revenue.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: I am not so sure I agree with your assessment about school shootings, but I totally agree with the last part:
debbie
@Baud:
She tweeted yesterday that we shouldn’t worry about Trump pardoning himself. She said she and other AGs had reviewed the laws and were prepared and ready.
Suzanne
@Starfish: @Roger Moore: I think it’s likely that gun violence is relatively low on the list of things that today’s teens are scared of, but I think it’s there. I know my Elder Spawn and his friends would make dark jokes and comments about specific classmates who seemed aggressive or bragged about access to guns. His school had a gun suicide occur on campus the year before he started there.
High school is just a fucked-up environment in almost every way.
Suzanne
@Zelma: Dude this is dumb. I wonder what’s gonna happen when they inevitably fully legalize marijuana.
Chetan Murthy
@Yutsano:
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was inspired by the Stoneman Douglas kids. We can’t let them down.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: The folks running the ads here are determined to get everyone else running with an ad blocker, aren’t they??
:-/
Thanks for all that you and Cole do for us. I hope the ad people get their act together…
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@NotMax:
Well before that, when Chuck Heston was the face of the NRA.
Jim Appleton
@Baud:
Yes.
My neighbors and friends who still sport bumper stickers touting “Somewhere in Kenya a village is missing it’s(sic) idiot” are susceptible to that feeling of being ripped off by guys in expensive suits flying in private jets.
I know them, and feel confident that the NRA having its pants pulled down is going to hurt.
ETA They’re still cretins and the effect will not track with sane folk, but it will matter, even if only slightly.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Ten. There was the usual banner ad up top.
Mallard Filmore
@Roger Moore:
Yet little kids just starting school K, 1, 2 are SO eager to go back.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I don’t think that was in one of your screen captures, so I don’t think I can be faulted for only getting to 9. :-)
Kent
I’ve been around guns my whole life. Some of my earliest memories of hanging out with my dad and uncles was going to the rifle range to sight in their deer-rifles every fall before deer hunting season. They never took us kids hunting (as a parent I understand that now….time away from the kids). But we got to tag along to the rifle range and shoot. Half my relatives in OR, MI, and PA fill up half their FB feeds every fall with hunting photos.
Honestly I think much of the gun control vs gun rights completely misses the point of what gun rights are about. Just like abortion, they have largely become a proxy for race and racism. What do I mean by that?
Most rural folks are astute and self-aware enough to to keep a lid on the overt racism. At least they did pre-Trump. They mostly know better than to say that they are voting Republican because they are racist assholes. Instead they have learned to say that they are voting Republican to “protect their 2nd Amendment rights” knowing that most liberals with just shrug and say “single issue voters, whatcha gonna do? Just like they have also learned to say that they are voting GOP because they are pro-life. Which is something I have heard relatives of mine who I personally know have no religious convictions at all and would get an abortion in a heartbeat for their mistress or daughter if necessary.
They have learned that both 2nd Amendment and abortion have come to be thought of a lightning-rod issues for which we give right wingers a pass. But honestly, if we have learned any damn thing about the Trump years, it is that it is ALL ABOUT RACE.
The reason why Dems will never get anywhere on gun control is not because of the popularity or unpopularity of gun issues. It is because gun control has largely become a proxy for race. “Second Amendment Rights” are merely the cover many right wingers use to be racist assholes and vote for racist assholes that they like.
It’s also why they lose their shit over topics like systemic racism. It’s projection.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I originally wrote that all out and sent it to Cole in the hopes that he would share it with the ad guy. I copied it here because I figured it wouldn’t hurt if you guys knew we were aware of the level of the ridiculousness.
Amir Khalid
When you all talk about gun control, do you ever talk about private “militias”? It seems to me that unless such a group is properly regulated by the state — organised, recruited, trained, equipped, under orders etc. — it is nothing but an armed criminal gang, and should be treated as such.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
The clearest proof of this was when the police shot Philando Castile. Here was a law abiding gun owner doing everything he was supposed to do gunned down by the police on live video, and the response from the NRA was crickets. It’s never been more obvious that the gun rights they’re defending apply only to white people interested in defending themselves from minorities.
CaseyL
@Suzanne:
This! I sure as hell hope we remember what we thought and learned during isolation. People do better when they’re not warehoused all day, whether in a school or an office. Smaller, more personal experiences are more meaningful than enormous events that are overpriced, hard to get to, and pack people in like sardines. And, most of all, the really “essential” people aren’t the bankster and corporate MOTU; they’re not even in the top two quintiles.
I just wonder whether, in our rush to reclaim “normal,” we’ll go back to the normal that wasn’t serving us well.
Wag
@Kent: Fascinating theory. I think that you’re on to something.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
Why do you assume Dems will “never get anywhere” on gun control? They evidently have in Virginia recently
NotMax
@WaterGirl
BTW, last night during the wee hours blog time, site was intermittently beyond slow plus the screen would flash for half a second to a 520 error while laboring to load a refresh.
Mary G
Kent
@Roger Moore: Exactly.
Compare the NRA and right win response to police murdering Black lawful gun owner Philando Castile to how they have lionized White murderer Kyle Rittenhouse, who broke a shitload of laws on his way to murdering peaceful BLM protestors. And frankly only different from Dylann Roof in degree.
Gun rights are ALL ABOUT RACE and always have been. So is every damn “militia” ever formed in the past 50 years.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
FYI.
rikyrah
Silverman,
Do you have an opinion on this?
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
The thing is, they lionize Rittenhouse because they think he was acting in self-defense. They also smear the victims, saying one was a pedophile, etc. Personally, given everything we know about Rittenhouse, I don’t buy it for a second. He was there because he wanted to hurt/kill his ideological enemies
Castile’s case was and is disgusting
Zelma
@Suzanne:
They’ll mess is up. I do not think there is a worse legislative body in the US than Pennsylvania’s. It’s the biggest, the most expensive and the most idiotic. And that’s saying a lot since now I live in Jersey.
Kent
Not in any meaningful way that will ever get us remotely close to any modern society like in Western Europe where guns are actively controlled. I don’t see that ever happening.
The new VA gun laws are total baby steps that will probably do nothing to reduce the number of firearms loose in VA. I mean sure, tighter background checks and red flag laws are a good thing. No argument from me. But it’s mostly pissing in the wind. And isn’t going to do anything at all to reduce the extent to which VA or any other state is awash in guns.
satby
@Kent: and it’s also about their fantasized absolute right to blow away anyone who comes for their “stuff”. Which always translates to “urban” hordes coming to pillage the countryside.
Another Scott
@Mary G:
(Other parts of the thread say it was a 4 hour meeting.)
It’s a replay of The Masque of the Red Death every week over there…
Cheers,
Scott.
Lapassionara
@WaterGirl: I am using my iPad, and I am not having any issues with ads.
Kent
@satby: It’s about 2 things. Winning the “race war” when it does come, but also being able to intimidate all those new brown people showing up in their world (immigrants taking ag and meat packing jobs) and keep them in their place. Just like their ancestors used to do in the Jim Crow era.
They really believe that shit. “Urban hordes” is just code for race war.
Roger Moore
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
I think he’s saying they won’t be able to use gun control as an issue to flip voters, because gun control is an excuse for Republican voters, not their real reason for voting the way they do. The Democrats may be able to achieve policy wins on gun control the way they have in Virginia, but that’s by winning elections on other issues and then using the power they get by doing so to enact their gun control policies.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Suzanne: Can you share that data source?
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Thanks. I knew nothing about that until I saw your comment in some thread I read this morning. when I read what you wrote, I submitted a ticket to the developers asking them to work with me on this on Monday.
WaterGirl
@Lapassionara: Intersting. I presume you don’t have an ad blocker or you wouldn’t have thought that was worth noting.
Sebastian
I still think that requiring insurance is the perfect Trojan horse. It’s a common sense approach and offers very little attack surface: there is no or little government, you can trot out the “private market” argument, etc
Same thing for law enforcement officers by the way. No more payouts out of city budgets, instead cops must carry misconduct insurance. Not insurable because three payouts? No job in LE!
NotMax
@debbie
North was in knee pants back when Heston was busy hawking tablets in the desert.
:)
Kent
@Roger Moore: Yes. Same as with abortion rights. We may win some battles. But you will never win over pro-life folks to the Dem party because many are right wing evangelicals who use abortion as the cover they use to support all manner of retrograde racist stuff that they know better than to express out loud. And if we ever actually did “win” the abortion issue (or lose it), none of them would then become Democrats. they would just find some other reason to vote GOP.
That is the genius that Falwell figured out in the 70s when he realized that overt racism was becoming passé and they needed a new proxy for race.
“Second Amendment Rights” and Abortion are essentially the same issue. For many they are just proxies for race. Which is why a diverse, pluralist, non-racist Democratic party is never going to appeal to these folks, ever. You can be the biggest gun stroking second amendment fetishist ever, but you won’t win over any of their votes as long as you represent a diverse and pluralist party.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: From that twitter feed:
un-fucking-believable.
sdhays
It’s amazing how much our punditry is still stuck on the “lessons” of the 90’s, even when those “lessons” were wrong to begin with. The Democrats lost Congress in 1994 as the country finally reached the realignment tipping point started by Nixon’s Southern Strategy. One of the “lessons learned” was that there was a massive backlash against the Brady Bill and gun control was automatically a loser for Democrats.
A lot of special interests, like the NRA, took credit for the win and essentially created a self-fulfilling maxim. Democrats decided that they needed to back off gun control and Republicans pressed the advantage. Gun control became bad for Democrats because the battle was waged completely using Republican framing (as has become pervasive) and Democrats were always walking on eggshells when the issue came up. Even after the Columbine Massacre, Democrats were too scared to do anything other than regulate video games and violent TV.
But gun control has never really polled that badly whatever the conventional wisdom says, and as others have pointed out, Democrats are now winning decisive victories on these issues. It’s just plain stupid and lazy analysis to advocate continuing the Democrats’ 90’s defensive crouch on gun issues.
But I guess that’s about what you can expect from Yglesias these days. I used to find him somewhat interesting when he was blogging on TPM, but after he spread his wings and went to Think Progress, I found I didn’t consider him worth my time anymore. Never looked back.
Lapassionara
@WaterGirl: I don’t have ad blocker. Or if I have it, I must have loaded it by accident. Hmmm. Could I have done that?
zhena gogolia
@Mary G:
Was that your letter in the NYT Magazine today? About the USPS? If so, congratulations!
Sebastian
@Kent:
Succinctly put, thank you. I completely agree, guns have become what automobiles were in the 50ies and 60ies, a placeholder for race.
I am wondering if we shouldn’t start pushing a narrative that mandatory insurance will keep minorities from owning guns whereas white “law abiding” folks like them of course would have no issues at all.
Jay
@WaterGirl:
Thank you Watergirl,
satby
That was my point, exactly. And many of my rural neighbors were always offended when I laughed uproariously at the idea that anyone would drive all that way for their farm junk.
HalfAssedHomesteader
Highly durable tweet:
Another Scott
@satby: Similarly, al Qaeda was going to blow up the feed store or something…
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Villago Delenda Est
The NRA is not just a lobbying/grifting organization. It’s a terrorist organization.
Beautifulplumage
@WaterGirl:
Thank you for addressing this. The ads are causing me to limit my time here, bur I need you all for sanity’ sake.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: There you go, applying the plain meaning of the 2nd Amendment to a gun-crazy culture.
mrmoshpotato
LOL
WaterGirl
@Beautifulplumage: Trying, anyway!
I am sorry that after over a year of the email notifications working as they should, that the one time I didn’t receive the email notifications (starting(at some point during 11/27 and all of 11/28) would be when these ads are not just annoying but – I would say – downright impossible.
Hang in there, if you can!
Villago Delenda Est
@Kent: “Law and Order” was Nixon’s code words attached to his “Southern Strategy” that meant “I’ll keep the darkies in their place”. Paid off big time, even with Wallace in the race.
In 1972, Nixon was far more worried about Wallace than he was about Muskie.
Beautifulplumage
@WaterGirl: I blame Dominion Voting Machines and the nefarious Hugo Chavez. It’s only logical!
Villago Delenda Est
@Kent: US Law Enforcement in general is steeped in the tradition of the “Slave Patrols” of the South, looking for blacks on the loose without permission slips.
SFBayAreaGal
@WaterGirl: I am getting ads at the top, in between comments, and at the bottom of my screen. I’m using a Samsung Galaxy phone (Android).
At times when I open Balloon Juice, I will get a huge ad at the top and an ad at the bottom that almost covers the Balloon Juice logo.
Villago Delenda Est
@SFBayAreaGal: Android is nothing but a platform for click bait.
Jay
http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com/2020/11/november-30-2007-november-30-2020-good.html?m=1
Anti Racist Canada is closing up shop.
They are burn’t out.
There are others picking up the gauntlet.
Kent
Exactly. And it is much more pervasive than that. 250 years of operating a slave society in North America instilled in white Americans both an instinctual fear of black men (slave revolts and rape) and an instinctual appetite for punishing black bodies. Whips and shackles during the slave era to lynchings and chain gangs during Jim Crow, to police brutality and disproportionate school discipline today.
Every bit of it is fruit of a poisonous tree that still grows strong in our society.
frosty
@Suzanne: If PA goes for legal weed, Fetterman will be on it.
Living on the Mason-Dixon line has its advantages as far as liquor stores are concerned. However, I don’t see a big difference in price between Maryland and the PA state stores. You also moved here recently so you missed the whole “You can only buy beer by the case at the beer distributor” thing. PA finally let them sell by the six-pack a few years ago and now they’ve opened up sales of beer and wine to grocery stores too.
Jay
Kent
@frosty: The whole state-run liquor store thing in PA always seems so weird when I go there visit family. Here in WA I just buy my wine and whisky at Costco along with all the other groceries. Every grocery store has a liquor aisle. The state gets the liquor tax dollars either way.
cain
Left over Puritan bullshit. That said, liquor is also controlled by the Oregon state govt here, but in general it’s fairly sane. I mostly miss having a wide variety of liquor. The prices are not as cheap as California however and possibly Washington? dunno.
Wine and beer however is ubiquitous – you can get them anywhere and you can drink them everywhere – I’ve seen bars inside grocery stores, fruit and nut stores and so forth.
cain
@PsiFighter37:
Actually at this rate, they are going to have gerrymander all the suburbs. Eventually, they’ll have districts of 15 people who are all Trumpers. lol.
Yarrow
Ugh.
Achrachno
@WaterGirl: I’ve only got 5 or 6 ads in the whole thread. A banner at the top (easily ignored) 3 in the text block and 1 or 2 among the comments. I have no particular anti-ad software that I know of. This is very tolerable and I’m happy to look at that many if it helps keep the place running. Using MacBook Air 2017 OS Catalina.
scav
@Yarrow: I found it almost relaxing to have a president elect that had such a I-coulda-done-that accident. Oh, the usual subjects will make noise, but no one but the usual objects will be persuaded.
Kent
In WA it depends where you shop. Costco and Fred Meyer are cheap. Whole Foods and boutique wine shops are expensive. Same as buying anything else. Costco does private label Kirkland Signature versions of things like scotch, gin, vodka, and bourbon which are about as high on the cost/quality curve as you are going to get. Just like their Kirkland Signature wines.
cain
@NotMax:
I’m assuming we aren’t talking about Peter North here.
cain
@Kent:
I think though with abortion there is a secondary thing other than just race and that is white male patriarchy – and I think some of this is also making sure that white male patriarchy is still dominant. I mean that’s what the GOP is, isn’t it? Their platform is essentially white male patriarchy and all the entitlements included – including anti-feminism and race wars.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@rikyrah:
This will make it easier for Hollywood to rightfully name Idris Elba as the next James Bond
cain
One could claim that until the Obama years they’ve been walking on egg shells since. Those same consultants are still there – telling everyone to move to the center – the new center – which is more right of center.
NotMax
@Kent
Kirkland brand French vodka? Top shelf (stupidly designed bottle, though).
Kirkland brand American vodka? Suppose handy to have around in case the need to strip the chrome off a bumper ever arises.
;)
Beautifulplumage
@Kent: have you forgotten when WA did have state liquor stores? Changed in 2011, mostly due to Costco.
cain
@WaterGirl:
I did notice that there seemed to be an uptick on the whole ad thing like right after the election. I jjust thought we were catching up from that two day downtime or something :-)
Mousebumples
A great thread about the history of partnership between Boston and Nova Scotia.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Calouste
@Kent: That’s only been in the last 10 years or so. Before that you could only buy liquor in WA in state liquor stores, although you could buy beer and wine at other places.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: A lot of littler kids are suffering under remote education–but my teenage daughter has flat-out said she prefers it to attending school in person.
I don’t think that has anything to do with the threat of school shootings, in her case–to some extent, it’s that the particular stresses of in-person schooling in a pandemic were getting to her, while the school was open. But I think there are also more general social stresses.
cain
@Kent:
You can get the signature good stuff in California – I mean high end stuff like Scotch – mega sized Oban bottles. I sometimes used to get some for a friend – although I never bough it for me. When travel becomes a thing I again, I’m going to get one of these super sized liquor bottles. It just sucks I have to check in my bag!
Redshift
@Mike in NC:
That’s one of the things our new all-Democratic state government brought back this year.
Matt McIrvin
@Kent: I remember after the 2004 election, particularly, hearing Democrats say that the only way we’d ever win again was to go hard right on abortion and nominate candidates who favored a total ban from the moment of conception. Like we could neutralize everything with that one weird trick and not pay a price.
cain
I heard reports that everything went up in other places – but yes I heard it was the costo sponsored bill. I mean if it had to be a company I suppose one that is employee owned might be ok vs say Amazon.
Kent
And my point is that it would make no difference for a diverse pluralistic multi-racial party to do that in the first place. Because abortion is just the excuse for why many evangelicals vote GOP. Race is the real reason. And the will just come up with some other reason to vote GOP. Like “law and order” and “sanctuary cities” or whatever. If there isn’t an issue they will just invent one.
Gun control is exactly the same thing. You can run the biggest gun-humping firearms fanatic you want but if it is the party of black and brown people they won’t vote for him because “reasons”
It is pointless for Democrats to try to win these issues by coddling right wingers. Because their reasons for being 2nd Amendment and pro life absolutists are largely disingenuous anyway.
You just have to fight them and realize these are issues that will never go away and always fester because they are proxies for race. And realize that politics is about building majorities, not getting every rural white MAGA voter to see reason.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
i hated public school. The only thing that would have been worse would have been private boarding school, which would have been horrible. Not quite as bad as English Public School, but close.
Kent
Yeah, you are right. I forgot it was so recent. I never really bought liquor back then so I didn’t pay attention. I was more of a Rainier and Weinhards kind of guy. I didn’t start learning about liquor until I was married and had inlaws who expected it in the house when they arrived.
In Alaska it is even different. Liquor stores have to be separate but they can be private. So Costco and Fred Meyer sell liquor, they just have to have a separate outside entrance and cashier.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
This. Absolutely correct about this!!! Certainly once a single illegal act occurs on the part of any member.
J R in WV
@Kent:
I think the 2nd Amendment Rights stuff is racist crazy, and the Anti-Abortion and anti-birth-control stuff is misogynist patriarchal anti-woman crazy.
Kind of the same in some ways, but aimed at different classes of people that need to kowtow to real men, or get hurt. Despicable all around, tho.
J R in WV
@Beautifulplumage:
Just install an ad-blocker and then contribute $5 to the blog. Presto, no ads. AdBlock Plus is a favorite, U-Block Origin is also good.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kent: Indeed, Southern Baptists didn’t give a flying fuck about abortion in 1973, but once Jimmy Carter got serious about their segregation academies and denying them tax breaks, they teamed up with Roman Catholics on abortion, because they couldn’t sell segregation without some camouflage.
Brian
@cain: friend of mine with family in Oregon (I’m in California) sent me a picture a few years ago of a gas station with a growler filling facility. Lots of local micros.
PIGL
@Starfish: They may be getting more sleep too.
NotMax
@cain
Alcohol sales used to be verboten from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. here.
Then supermarkets started staying open 24 hours and they soon grew fed up with stacking upended shopping carts to block off the beer and liquor aisles each night (as well as policing them to ensure no one sneaked in) and reversing the process each morning.
Voila, restrictions went bye-bye.
glory b
@cain: Actually, if I recall my PA history, the state store system and the ensuing taxes were inplemented to pay fir the Johnstown flood. After that was over, they kept the system because the treasury found that the cash cane in handy.
And tes, guns and abortion are proxys for racism, somethingthe kids don’t seem to understand. I sighed when I heard that the Parkland students decided that they didn’t want to politicize the issue and wouldn’t try to make their appeals based on party. Eventually, they lost momentum.
Also, after more recent developments, more young black people who thought otherwise think now that they may need guns to protect themselves from white people…
glory b
@Kent: this is why I pull out handfuls of hair over white progressives who point out that the $15 hourly wage got voted for in Florida and the reason we don’t do better is because Dems are so terrible at messaging etc etc. White people like free stuff and things like that, but they don’t want to take it from the party with the black and brown people in it. These folks wanted better health care, but not if Obama was going to give it to them.
I remember seeing an old editorial cartoon from the Reconstruction Era, showing a white guy who would rather be swept down a river and drowned then accept the hand of a black man on the shore who would pull him to safety. We don’t seem to have done much better since then.
Anotherlurker
@Kent: The Kirkland Irish Whisky is every bit as good as Jamison’s.
Kent
I got one of those a few blocks away here in the Vancouver WA area. They have at least 40 microbrews on tap: https://www.growlerrush.com/
Cars and alcohol are an unbeatable American tradition. Back in TX we had drive-through “beverage barns” You didn’t even have to get out of your car.
J R in WV
@Kent:
Some years ago I visited a cousin in OH who had moved way outside the beltway into exurban countryside. On the way out there, his brother (my other cousin) drove through a Farm Goods type store, with drive through hay and feed, and a big beer cooler.
There too, you didn’t have to get out of the car, they’d put whatever you ordered wherever you wanted them to put it. Beer in the back seat? No problem! Chicken feed? OK!