Oliver North to be NRA's new president

[struggle4progress]

By Eli Watkins, CNN
Updated 5:47 PM ET, Mon May 7, 2018

Washington (CNN)Oliver North, the Fox News contributor and central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, will be the National Rifle Association's new president, the group announced Monday.

"Oliver North is, hands down, the absolute best choice to lead our NRA Board, to fully engage with our members, and to unflinchingly stand and fight for the great freedoms he has defended his entire life," NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre said in a statement on the pick.

In his statement, LaPierre compared North favorably to Charlton Heston, the Hollywood icon who was once president of the group.
North will become president "within a few weeks," the group said, and is retiring from his position at Fox News, effective immediately ...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/07/politics/nra-oliver-north/index.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Iran Contra

[struggle4progress]

2. Cocaine

[RockRaven]

3. Given that the NRA's core purpose is selling weapons

this guy is right up their alley.

[Beartracks]

5. Win. n/t

[struggle4progress]

4. The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations

Documentation of Official U.S. Knowledge of Drug Trafficking and the Contras

The National Security Archive obtained the hand-written notebooks of Oliver North, the National Security Council aide who helped run the contra war and other Reagan administration covert operations, through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in 1989. The notebooks, as well as declassified memos sent to North, record that North was repeatedly informed of contra ties to drug trafficking ...

José Bueso Rosa

Reagan administration officials interceded on behalf of José Bueso Rosa, a Honduran general who was heavily involved with the CIA's contra operations and faced trial for his role in a massive drug shipment to the United States. In 1984 Bueso and co-conspirators hatched a plan to assassinate Honduran President Roberto Suazo Córdoba; the plot was to be financed with a $40 million cocaine shipment to the United States, which the FBI intercepted in Florida ...

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/index.html

[still_one]

6. More than appropriate that a felon lead the NRA

great job NRA

Might I also suggest they find a role for Rudy?

[ProudLib72]

7. When will Scooter Libby get his appointment?

Pardoned and now ready for gainful employment. But where? VP of the NRA maybe?

We need to get a scapegoat theme going here.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. But how oddly appropriate

[struggle4progress]

9. Descent into crackpottery

By Jennifer Rubin May 7 at 4:20 PM

The National Rifle Association, which proclaims its devotion to the Second Amendment and the rest of the Constitution, announced that Retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North will be its next president. How perfect ...

North was convicted on three felony counts for his part in the scandal that rock the Reagan administration (including misleading Congress and ordering that documents be destroyed), though he successfully had his conviction overturned on the grounds that his congressional testimony, obtained under a grant of immunity, may have tainted the jury. So, naturally, he now will lead a group that touts its devotion to law and order and the Constitution ...

North is the ideal person to be the public face of the NRA. Loopy conspiracies, victimization and extreme anti-government rhetoric are now becoming commonplace for NRA figures (including spokeswoman Dana Loesch, who accused the media of loving mass shootings) and among the right-wing universe that thrills to the Conservative Political Action Conference, absorbs hours of Fox News and hangs on the words of right-wing talk shows. Ranging far beyond gun rights, it has become a hotbed of anti-government conspiracy theories: Wayne LaPierre, the group’s chief executive, earlier this year declared of the Democrats, “If they seize power, if the so-called European socialists take over the House and the Senate and, God forbid, they get the White House again, our American freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed forever.” In the venom-soaked, anti-fact world in which these people operate, North is a truth-teller and a hero ...

North’s ascension to the NRA’s presidency is but one more sign that the genteel, fact-based and constitutionally-sophisticated Republican Party is a thing of the past. The louder, the crazier and the less fact-bound, the bigger the audience on Fox News or at NRA gatherings. North is a symptom of the infection that has spread throughout Republican Party. Unfortunately, it’s no longer clear the GOP can recover.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/05/07/the-nras-descent-into-crackpottery-continues/?utm_term=.472b27d3b7b7