Tag: ackerman mcqueen
Wayne LaPierre, Chief Executive Officer of the NRA

Kansas Judge Asks Court To Probe NRA Leadership's ‘Hidden Compensation’

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

At the beginning of the new year, the National Rifle Association announced its plans to file for bankruptcy in order to reorganize and set up shop in Texas. One of the reasons the Second Amendment cult and money-laundering scheme organization filed for bankruptcy was to get out from under the New York state investigation into the dubious financial dealings of the "nonprofit."

Those dubious dealings had been leaking out to the press as a result of a legal civil war within the money-loving, gun-obsessed group and their longtime bankrollers, PR firm Ackerman McQueen. Even before those lawsuits and the public civil war between Ackerman McQueen and the NRA began, story after story of the financial woes of the organization leaked out. Since the battle between the two organizations has been unearthed, story after story after story has also leaked detailing wild spending habits, mismanagement, and alleged corruption among top executives. Meanwhile, board members have been pushed out or resigned.

In more bad* news, a possible new civil war is breaking out within the board as Wichita, Kansas, judge and veteran board member Phil Journey is adding a wrinkle into the NRA leadership's attempt to cleanly move through bankruptcy court in the Lone Star State. According to the Wichita Eagle, Judge Journey's attorney filed a motion in a Dallas court asking for "an independent examiner to investigate allegations that the NRA's longtime chief executive and others mismanaged the organization to enrich themselves and a handful of well-connected insiders." Journey is quoted as saying that in having an independent investigator mandated by the courts, "The hope is to either confirm or deny the allegations swirling around the association."

This move by Journey, who served on the board for three years in the 1990s and had returned to the board last year, is entirely plausible due to all of this crazy spending by higher-ups. This move might make the more cynical minds among us scratch their collective heads as to what exactly is happening here. According to the filing, at issue is NRA chief Wayne LaPierre's housecleaning over the past few years, as he has centralized his hold on the organization.

"The Debtors (the NRA) have improperly paid excessive compensation to current management in base salaries, and, perhaps more troubling, via a series of excessive perks that were wholly for the Debtors' insiders' personal benefit.
"The Debtors' insiders received this hidden compensation for items via direct payment of purely personal costs. This includes the Debtors paying for purely personal travel costs for private chartered airplane trips for the Debtors' insiders and extended family members and friends."

Journey's motion also alleges that a swath of board members were not made aware of the Chapter 11 filing, nor the new LLC, Sea Girt, being used to "bootstrap this filing into this district and venue." According to Judge Journey, he and others found out about all of this by way of the news. Teehee. Journey, of course, has no issue with the move to Texas, but he is clearly making a move against the current leadership. I'm praying for you guys!

Some of the many things at play here are NRA frontman Wayne LaPierre's spending habits. That includes little things like LaPierre's reported interest in getting the NRA to help him purchase a $6 million mansion on the company dime. LaPierre and his family also seemed to enjoy jetting about on private excursions, billing their lifestyle back to the 'nonprofit.' What all of these allegations and stories have in common is that they try to point fingers at one another to lay the blame for the company's continued financial decline.

But financial issues have been at the forefront of the gun group's concerns over the past couple of years, as proven by choices to pull back on lawsuits defending them against being labeled "domestic terrorists" and the like. Their fundraising efforts in recent years have led them far afield of our country's borders—you know, the way real faketriots like the NRA are wont to do.

Is this the first sign that Wayne LaPierre might really lose control over the organization he has worked so hard to make money off of? Possibly. It shows that the bankruptcy process is going to be more than simply getting out from under the numerous legal issues the Second Amendment conmen are running away from. If Journey is successful, he and whomever else he has in his corner might angle their way into leadership positions with the shady public relations claim that they have cleaned house of their bad apples.

Amid Internal Strife, NRA Shuts Down Its Failing TV Network

Amid Internal Strife, NRA Shuts Down Its Failing TV Network

The National Rifle Association was forced to shut down its official propaganda arm, NRA-TV, after the beleaguered organization of gun extremists ran out of money to keep it going.

NRA-TV consistently produced widely derided content in defense of the NRA’s extremism on guns, like putting KKK hoods on Thomas the Tank Engine.

“After careful consideration, I am announcing that starting today, we are undergoing a significant change in our communications strategy. We are no longer airing ‘live TV’ programming,” NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre said in a statement released late Tuesday night.

Dana Loesch, an NRA TV on-air personality and a national spokesperson for the NRA, is also out. She led the organization’s charge in attacking the teenage survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and has a long history of spreading lies.

“Many members expressed concern about the messaging on NRA-TV becoming too far removed from our core mission: defending the Second Amendment,” said LaPierre.

The organization has severed ties with the advertising firm of Ackerman McQueen, which operated NRA-TV for them.

An ongoing lawsuit between the two parties has exposed sordid details of the NRA’s inner workings. LaPierre spent hundreds of thousands of dollars donated by NRA members on fancy clothing, even as the organization was cutting back on gun safety classes — one of its core functions.

The financial situation has been so dire at the NRA that it cut back on free coffee for employees.

The shuttering of NRA TV continues a slow-motion train wreck at the NRA, one of the pillars of the conservative movement. The disaster has been unfolding for years now.

The NRA faces multiple investigations for a number of issues, including potential campaign finance violations and its ties to Russia. The NRA took in Russian money while investing heavily in Trump’s election in 2016, and an admitted Russian spy was connected to NRA leaders.

Disgraced Iran-Contra criminal Oliver North took the reins for a short while, only to be ousted by LaPierre and others and replaced by a new president, Carolyn Meadows — who almost immediately made a racist attack against Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA), a prominent advocate for gun safety.

Along with its internal drama, the NRA has also been losing politically. Many of the Republican candidates it backed in 2018 lost their races, and the Democratic-led House has been passing gun safety legislation after the NRA blocked such bills for years.

Despite years of bloodshed in America’s cities, towns, churches, and schools as a result of gun violence, the NRA has stood in the way of popular, common sense reforms. NRA-TV was a key tool used by the organization to fight against those reforms and against common decency.

Now, largely thanks to the NRA’s ignorance and corruption, NRA-TV is dead. “Thoughts and prayers.”

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

 

Lawsuit Highlights Feuding Inside Gun Lobby Over NRATV

Lawsuit Highlights Feuding Inside Gun Lobby Over NRATV

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

The National Rifle Association has filed a lawsuit against Oklahoma City-based Ackerman McQueen, which has been the group’s ad agency for nearly 40 years and produces the pro-gun extremist network NRATV.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the lawsuit was filed on April 12 and claims that Ackerman McQueen “was obliged to provide access to to records underlying its bills” but that as of halfway through 2018, some such requests had been “rebuffed or baldly ignored.” The lawsuit also zeroes in on NRA President Oliver North, who has a contract with Ackerman McQueen to host the NRATV show Oliver North’s American Heroes. The NRA says it is required to disclose and approve its top officials’ pay, but that neither North nor Ackerman McQueen will share all the details of their contract.

The article highlights a split between the “pro-Ackerman McQueen faction” of the NRA’s board, who think that Brewer Law, the firm leading the lawsuit, is charging too much, and those who think it is “money … well spent, because it’s for the survival of the NRA,” which reportedly includes Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.

Ackerman McQueen and the NRA have long had a symbiotic relationship. The NRA’s lawyer who is handling the lawsuit is related to two top Ackerman officials, and some employees have worked with both organizations, either alternating or at the same time. The ad agency was responsible for some of the NRA’s darker videos and helped former NRA President Charleton Heston hone his image as he led the organization.

This latest bout of infighting, however, comes a little over a month after NRA board member Marion Hammer went on record to The New York Times questioning “the value of” NRATV network and less than six months after layoffs hit the network.

The gun lobby’s media platform has been a cesspool of bigotry and extremist talking points for over a decade. Those characteristics were on full display last month when NRA spokesperson and NRATV host Dana Loesch shared an image of the trains from the children’s TV show Thomas & Friends wearing KKK hoods to protest the show’s focus on diversity. The move reportedly left LaPierre “livid and embarrassed.”