Posted on 04/04/2018 2:19:06 PM PDT by Twotone
In November 2013, the president of the National Rifle Association, David Keene, was introduced as an honored guest at the conference of the Right to Bear Arms, a gun lobby in Moscow. "There are no peoples that are more alike than Americans and Russians," Keene said. "We're hunters. We're shooters. We value the same kinds of things." Keene underscored his friendship with Alexander Torshin, a top politician in the ruling party of Vladimir Putin; for the past three years, Keene said, "I've hosted your senator Alexander Torshin at the National Rifle Association's annual meetings." In words that now carry a darker connotation, Keene insisted, "We need to work together."
Torshin, now 64, is a roly-poly politician, perhaps five feet six, with thick glasses and a passion for borscht – "like medicine!" he once tweeted. A member of Putin's right-wing United Russia party, he served in the Russian senate for more than a decade, forging close ties to Russia's internal security service, the FSB, which awarded him a medal in 2016. His embrace of Keene, says Steven Hall, who served as chief of Russian operations for the CIA until 2015, was about more than forging "an international brotherhood of the NRA."
As part of Putin's "active measures," Hall says, Russia has attempted to influence right-wing and populist factions abroad, preaching unity around social conservatism: "'We're both religious-based countries – we have the Orthodox Church that's a big deal for us.' " The Russians, Hall believes, "made a natural transition in the United States to the NRA"; over time Putin became determined to exploit the American gun lobby "and decided Mr. Torshin is going to be the guy to do it for him."
Keene proved an easy mark. A career lobbyist who advised presidential candidates from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney...
(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...
“Russia backed an organization that is populated by arguably the most anti communist folks in the country,”
In Russia, communists today won something like 15% in the last election. They are about as relevant as the Gus Hall was here and have turned into a joke. Mostly old people who were left behind by the modern era.
The Russian government and people are not the same thing, same as here.
Same as here...so true.
Everyone knows the R in NRA actually stands for “Russian.”
What a bunch of lunatics...
DANG it! That information was only for members to know! Now you let the cat out of the bag.
Yeah, everybody seen the little redhead.
That's right, everybody!
Why she come runnin' through the dinner,
Right in the middle of the pineapple sherbet;
Didn't have nothin' on but your fez, Coy!
Coy, you're the only one who's got a fez with a propeller on top!
Yeah, yeah and she was a yellin' out the secret code too, Coy.
We're gonna have to change it now!
Приходите и получите их!
LOL!!
“Emairrrgency!! Everybody to get from streets!”
;^)
ping!!
Hillary was bloviating about the NRA causing her to lose the election today! Talk about collusion!
LOLOL!!
You mean I am a member of the National Russian Association?
Oh well; as long as I can keep my weapons and ignore unlawful government rules, I guess that’s OK.
LaPierre is colluding with Russia?
There’s a Russian in every tea cup!
Do not join the NRA, you will be put in a liberal fascist Gulag designed by the magic negro! You will be fed a steady diet of hot dogs and cigarettes until your lips turn purple, your nasal septum rots from snorting and you’re addicted to cocaine.
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