Director Willes Lee cites the NY forensic accountant’s report, pointing out that about $200,000 was charged to NRA Amex cards, by NRA leadership, for its club dues–SCI, the National Press Club, the Columbia Club, and the Georgetown Club. The latter’s website describes it as “one of the most elegant dining clubs in the United States, patterned after the finest in London and Paris.”
Nearly $80,000 of this was for Woody Phillips, who as treasurer couldn’t claim club membership was necessary to carrying out his NRA duties.
NRA “leadership” seems to have regarded themselves as celebrities, entitled to whatever their whims dictated. Private jets at $7,000 an hour, a private travel agent paid a fortune, a favorite manicurist flown in from Nashville, a $300,000 wardrobe, a European vacation and a safari now and then. But when a celebrity blows money away, he’s blowing his own money. In this case, the “leadership” was squandering the members’ money, given to their nonprofit.
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NRA in Danger 
I’m a member of Safari Club International. Unlike Wayne and Company, I paid the dues out of my own pocket just like I paid for my Endowment Life membership and other 2A organization memberships.
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Thank you for continuing to shine a spotlight on management malfeasance.
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Willes Lee – you can’t be a fox in the hen house eating the chickens, then once you’re done start yelling about foxes eating the chickens.
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Sure he can, but it seems a bit disingenuous to do so in cryptic social media posts rather than standing up, admitting his own mistakes and culpability, and clearly reporting to the membership about what’s really been going on.
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I agree with Jeff Knox that Willis Lee was self serving crony of Wayne when it benefited him as evidenced my my several posts regarding Lee’s ineptitude as a director.
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The heck of it is, he has the chance to really make a difference now, with both his knowledge of the inner workings, and his being gone from the NRA. He could take on the role of someone who is now trying to do the right thing. Instead, what it seems like he is doing is to make excuses for his own bad deeds.
I don’t know the people of the board personally, unlike so very many of you here. So I cannot speak to the character of any of them. I can however speak to the things that I have seen leadership, including the inaction of the board. I have never been a formal leader of a group, although I have been an informal leader most of my life. And I can say that if the board has allowed the top management to bring them paperwork to sign, after things are a done deal, they have failed in their jobs. It is one thing to have the wool pulled over your eyes. It is another thing to not get pissed and start looking once you have your eyes opened. I see the board members, including some of them who have quit to get away from the fallout, facing some very hard questions before things are said and done.
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Sorry Bastards.
They make me sick
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The board is to blame for this waste. Sycophantic behavior and apathetic behavior have replaced the duty to manage and to act as a fiduciary.
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If our enemies were in charge of the NRA and determined to bankrupt it, what would they do differently? Personally, I can’t think of a thing.
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Mike V, et al., how do you know who the enemies actually are?
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There are enemies everywhere, especially the board of directors (except that one or two who voted against Wayne), Wayne, and his officers.
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The gun control forces. Everytown, Mom Demanding whatever it is they’re demanding this week, Bloomberg, Main Stream Media, most Democrats, I’m sure there are others
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sorry mate…the folk you named are not the entities destroying the organization known as the NRA, but rather they are internal to the organization, BoD for inaction, Wayne et al., as well as the folk within E&T who have completely changed the organizational philosophy from “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis.” to training john q citizen to be a military marksman in the basic firearm courses or you fail!
NO, it isn’t the gun control forces nor the politicos you referenced who are destroying this organization but rather it is the savants from within and nobody outside seems interested in diminishing the demise!!!
observation…in the articles, this forum, and other sources…there has not been any active promotion(s) to get membership organized to repeat the ’70s revolt…why?
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WHY has there been no “any active promotion(s) to get membership organized to repeat the ’70s revolt”? Because the rules changed, and such a revolt would be impossible these days. It just can’t happen. Reality is that NRA members have next to no power, and it has been that way for many years now. Members voted to accept horrible changes to the bylaws some years back. The NRA no longer is a member organization.
For those of us who paid for “life memberships” and above, it was something of a con job. Reality is that the NRA has not been a member-run organization for a long time. And, what we see clearly now is that it no longer is a serve-the-member organization. It’s nothing but a grift. What used-to-be is not what-is. Get over it, and move your dollars and your efforts elsewhere. We all know who did this; no point in once more naming the culprits and cowards and cucks who are responsible. Discussion about who did what when just keeps dragging on. I feel like someone hanging around the funeral for too long.
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I’m sorry, impossible…really?
Last I checked, BoD are elected by membership…yet nothing has been done for a mass mailing to life members asking them to do xyz [TBD] and when new elections come…blow those in power out…
write to the ny prosecutor and tell the prosecutor to give the case last rites and finish the minimal life support there is to the organization.
write to IRS and press with investigations of improprieties done by sr management, to numerous to regurgitate, on their personal income taxes.
Tho, I do enjoy the continued rhetoric ‘take your money elsewhere’ constantly being espoused – just so history can repeat itself with a new organization.
sometimes the funeral is interesting, e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEXIEneoA20
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Mr. Curiouscuz is 100 percent correct – The NRA is being destroyed by an insidious cancer from within the NRA!
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Mr. Curiouscuz is 100 percent correct – The NRA is being destroyed by an insidious cancer from within the NRA!
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The only practical solution to get rid of the inept board is for one of the judges to put the NRA into receivership.
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