Executive Summary:
More HUGE lies by those promoting ‘The Narrative.’ Joseph Goebbels would be proud.
I try to stay off political topics on this blog but sometimes ‘The Narrative’ pushes my buttons. Plus, I like doing research and crunching numbers so this was interesting for me.
The following paragraph appeared in an article on the ‘U.S. Uncut’ website. I’ll spare you the clickbait but please check me if you would like to.
America’s largest gun lobby contributed to the campaigns of 50 Republican senators who voted against the latest gun reform legislation this Monday, from amounts ranging between $2,500 (Sen. Rand Paul) and $7,740,221 (Sen. John McCain). Over the course of all 50 senators’ careers, the NRA contributed a total of $36,290,699, according to data compiled by the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
I particularly thought the McCain number was interesting. Although I’m not his biggest fan, the number is so huge I thought it was worth checking. The article referenced by U.S. Nutcut, Center for American Progress Action Fund, didn’t provide any source for their numbers, which is always a Red Flag to me.
To get some actual data, I went to OpenSecrets. Here’s the data they provided for Senator McCain.
2014 cycle – $0
2012 cycle – $0
2010 cycle – $7450.00
2008 cycle – $1250.00
2006 cycle – $0
2004 cycle – $0
2002 cycle – $0
2000 cycle – $1000.00
1998 cycle – $10400.00
1996 cycle – $0
1994 cycle – $0
1992 cycle – $9900.00
1990 cycle – $9900.00
That’s as far back as the data on the OpenSecrets website goes.
Just to make sure I didn’t make any manual adding mistakes, I put that info into an Excel spreadsheet. Gee, it only added up to $39,900.00. That’s about $7,700,321.00 short of the number cited by the author, Mr. Tom Cahill, about whom the article said:
“Tom Cahill is a writer for US Uncut based in the Pacific Northwest. He specializes in coverage of political, economic, and environmental news. You can contact him via email at tom.v.cahill@gmail.com.”
Is Cahill an utterly inept blogger masquerading as a ‘journalist?’ Or is he an unethical lying shill for the internal enemies of our great Nation? I have my suspicion about which it is but I’ll let you make your own decision. If the latter, he obviously can’t demonstrate his case so he just creates disinformation (Dezinformatsiya, as the KGB called it) to mislead his [gullible] readers.
As Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Reich Minister of Propaganda, said:
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
tacticalprofessor 
Sadly, the people who need to read this probably won’t ever see it, and if it’s sent to them will simply refuse to read it at all. If forced to, they’ll devote their energy to refuting/denying it or attacking the source, making their attitudes more extreme. There are a college library’s worth of data about this. Of course, that’s true of everyone. It’s just that Progressives, so -called, are driving the public discussion now. Kind of social Lysenkoism. I’m always prepared to have a reasoned, data-based discussion or debate with people who disagree. Guess how many times that’s happened?
I’ve already deleted one comment trying to obfuscate the issue and support The Narrative with nonsense. If the person had provided some data to support their position, I would have posted it but it was just more blah, blah, blah in generalities with a touch of ad hominem thrown in. That’s not intelligent discussion and isn’t interesting nor relevant to me.
You are counting only direct cash contributions to McCain. You are not counting cash expenditures by the NRA specifically to benefit McCain, either through NRA PAC spending specifically supporting McCain, or through NRA spending specifically attacking McCain opponents. *ALL* of that NRA spending specifically targets and benefits McCain. How much benefit? As this source documents, the benefit is well in excess of $7M. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pkNI3qiMGf7BKD-vnNm1CztcAbIrXDKK15UxG3GxDNM/htmlview?pli=1
Now we have a discussion. Upon copying the information from the source Michael referenced into a spreadsheet with computational capabilities, this is what I came up with:
Gun money career to members of the 114th Congress
D Name Total From Gun Rights Gun Rights Support Total From Gun Rights + Gun Rights Support
N00006424 McCain, John $76,225 $559,898 $636,123
Still looking somewhat short of the cited $7,740,221. More than an order of magnitude short. Whoops!
That’s really irrelevant though because the article stated: “America’s largest gun lobby contributed to the campaigns of 50 Republican senators”. Sorry, Michael, both those articles are pure KGB style Dezinformatsiya, there’s no way around it. My distinguished colleague, Jack Feldman, put his finger on the pulse when he commented “If forced to, they’ll devote their energy to refuting/denying it.” His academic credentials in the field of psychology are impeccable and he is far more qualified to opine on that area than I am.
Thanks for leaving out the ad hominem attack this time.
You’re misrepresenting the information in the source I cited. Click on the tab, “All NRA Money to Members of 114th Congress.” The McCain entry on that page solely for “NRA Indep Expend Against Opponent” is $7,212,973. The NRA Grand Total for McCain spending is $7.74M.
Do you dispute the accuracy of those numbers? Fine, prove them wrong or come up with your own. But don’t misrepresent what that source says.
As an aside, Claude, speaking of dezinformatsiya, I would recommend the book “Disinformation”, by Lt. Gen. Ion Pacepa. He was the acting head of Romanian Intelligence, reporting directly to then-President Nicolae Ceaușescu, until defecting to the U.S. in 1978. In the book he goes into considerable detail about pre-revolution Russian and later, Soviet disinformation efforts. Included is discussion of Andropov’s Operation Ares, the framing of leaders such as Pope Pius XII and the Soviet roles in the introduction of “liberation theology” in Latin America and the explosion of terrorism seen in the late 60’s and early 70’s (which continues today–the gift that keeps on giving), among other topics. It’s a fascinating read…evil empire, indeed.
I will Czech that out. Haha, I makea funny joke, I cracka me off.
Oh spewing misinformation Mr. Cahill? I will let you know my opinion of that.