With the news coming rapid-fire, I want to make sure we target Wayne LaPierre and the NRA. These are despicable traitors, worse in their own way than even Trump, and I want to explain exactly why their villainy is singularly evil.

[THREAD]
1/ Two stories broke yesterday about the NRA.

First, as we’ve known for some time, the NRA was infiltrated by Russians, specifically Maria Butina & Alexandr Torshin. Per the Senate Finance report, the organization allowed Moscow to influence its policy: https://twitter.com/RonWyden/status/1177586583643525120
2/ The second story, reported by the (much-maligned) NYT, is that the NRA’s LaPierre met with Trump and offered "financial support for the president's defense" if Trump promised to "stop the games" on gun control legislation:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/us/politics/trump-lapierre-nra-impeachment.html?login=email&auth=login-email
3/ Taken together, this shows one Russian puppet (LaPierre) offering to bail out another Russian puppet (Trump), likely w/Russian money (provided via Torshin), to advance Russian policy aims (more on that in a minute). This is illegal, un-American, morally & ethically bankrupt.
4/ The NRA is the best propaganda organization the US has ever produced. It's managed to convince millions of Americans that a) it is but a friendly association of hobbyists, b) the 2nd Amendment doesn’t included the word “regulated,” c) lib’ruls want to take away ALL the guns.
5/ The NRA is, in fact, a lobbying group for arms manufacturers. The bulk of its financing does not come from your uncle who likes to skeet-shoot. Rather, the NRA hides under cover of men like your uncle, exploiting him and those like him for cynical gain.
6/ The intentional misreading of the Second Amendment is nothing short of profane. The NRA are blasphemers, knowingly & cynically contorting the words of our Founding Fathers to promote merchants of death.
7/ And no serious politician has EVER called for banning ALL guns. That’s idiotic, and by propagating this blatant falsehood to sell more guns & ammo, the NRA indicates that it believes that its members are all idiots.
8/ This is all bad enough. But it gets more nefarious.

I’ve been making “National Russia Association” jokes on my feed for years now. But it’s not a joke. Certainly it’s not funny, what LaPierre & Co. have been up to.
9/ Consider this: Russia has very strict gun-control laws. So why would it deploy two of its best spies to infiltrate the NRA? To what end?

As the Senate Finance report shows: Moscow wants influence over US policy.
10/ What sort of policy does the NRA have influence over? Simple: gun control. 90+ percent of Americans want better regulations on firearms. Yet the NRA won’t budge. Why IS that?
11/ As even my children are well aware, the AR-15 is the weapon of choice for mass shooters:

—Aurora: AR-15
—Parkland: AR-15
—Las Vegas: AR-15
—Sandy Hook: AR-15
—Texas Church: AR-15
—San Bernardino: AR-15
12/ But, like, who wants AR-15s to be legal? Very, very few Americans. A Trump-finger-sized minority, small enough that it should be politically impotent. Most NRA members, even, don’t like the AR-15s.

And yet the NRA remains obdurate, like Pharaoh.
13/ Why doesn’t the NRA budge here? Wouldn’t the good press be worth it? They could be heroes!

And yet, whenever there’s another mass shooting, the NRA, ahem, stands its ground. They offer thoughts & prayers and not much else.
14/ You know who wants AR-15s to remain legal? Vladimir Putin. He WANTS us shooting each other. It makes the US look terrible internationally, and it makes Russia, with its strict gun laws, look responsible by comparison.
15/ There’s simply no other rational explanation for NRA’s refusal to budge on the AR-15, given the Senate Finance report.

LaPierre is, in effect, lobbying for Moscow, to help ensure that mass shootings keep happening in the United States—to please his Russian whoremasters.
16/ Wayne LaPierre chose Torshin, Butina, and Putin over San Bernardino, Parkland, and Sandy Hook. The NRA, in effect, sacrificed KINDERGARTENERS to do Russia’s bidding.

These are the worst sort of traitors. Words fail to describe how evil this is.
17/ And the politicians & GOP lickspittles who take the NRA $ know all this. They know the drill. Trump/McConnell/Rubio/Rand Paul/Cruz/Abbott/Scalise (who of all people should re-think this).

They take the blood money & dance the NRA jig (which sounds like a Russian folk song).
I hope and pray—as many an NRA-owned politician has done after a mass shooting—that these new revelations will destroy this cynical, mendacious, EVIL organization.

Wayne LaPierre & his cronies should go to hell. But first, they should go to prison for a long, long time.

[END]
You can follow @gregolear.
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