That’s the pattern. Survivors are good for photo ops, not for power. We’ve been used to soften up lawmakers and humanize press releases. But when it comes to shaping strategy or deciding where millions should go, our voices are nowhere.
Those of us who worked with Everytown were more often than not handed a script. Barbara and I chafed at that right away. They didn’t want us calling out Republicans, even though we knew they were the ones who would never support common-sense gun laws. At the height of our involvement, we were the “new shiny toy,” just like other survivors before us. We were “consultants” in name only — expected to parrot their lines, not speak our truth.
I’ll never forget doing an interview with CNN right after then-Congressman Mike McCaul, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. I called him out because at the time, people on the government’s no-fly list could still legally buy firearms. How absurd was that? I recall equating republicans with domestic terrorism. When I finished, I got a frantic call from Everytown’s PR handler: “Andy, you can’t say that.” My answer: “yes I can, and I just did — and I’ve got an op-ed coming out saying the same thing in national print”.
That’s how it worked: if you stayed on script, you were golden. If you went off it, you were a problem. The money, meanwhile, flowed into political vanity projects, staff salaries, or, unbelievably now — weapons training. Give me a fricking break.
At this point, you wonder if the name “Everytown for Gun Safety” is really just a hedge for weapons training.
— Andy Parker in The Billion-Dollar Misfire
“Everytown for Gun Safety” – the people who donated $200,000.00 to and endorsed Dem Jay Jones the wanna be murderer who texted that his political opponents should be murdered and their children murdered.
There is enough history and evidence to show us all that the victim>pedestal>prostitute>trash heap cycle is SOP.
Sucks when some emotionally charged and personally broken person falls for it but they’ve been warned and have no one to blame but themselves.
Oh well. At least Andy made somebody else rich.
The best part…towards the end, the author writes:
“And here’s the kicker: with Michael Bloomberg’s billions behind them, Everytown still has the balls to solicit donations. I find it ironic — and laughable. They shake down everyday Americans for twenty-dollar checks while their billionaire benefactor makes a million a minute.”
Economics and wise investment 101 – never touch the principal.
The Race For Constitutional Carry: Will This Be State #30?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ27hUCYaEE
Just when ya thought the Democrat party could not be more marxist-communist, nazi and fascist, domestic-terrorist-orientated, evil, and stupid – now they are going to more publicly facilitate left wing violence: The Democratic Party’s War on ICE Agents Continues With Launch of Web Tracker.
“At the beginning of October, Apple removed the ICEBlock app from its stores after a Leftist [note insert: using the tracker to set up] fired shots at the ICE facility in Dallas, killing two detained migrants.
Undeterred, and perhaps bolstered by such violence, the Democratic Party announced it would be hosting a ‘master’ ICE-tracker on its website.
…”
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/amy-curtis/2025/10/22/dems-ice-tracker-n2665326
left wing ‘Political violence’ comes to the the ones who actually believed they were kings: Democratic senators fear getting ‘hammered’ after ‘No Kings’ for ending shutdown.
“Some Democrats skeptical about their leadership’s hard-line stance against reopening the federal government privately acknowledge that they fear getting “hammered” by their liberal base if they vote for a Republican funding bill.
…
‘People are going to get hammered’ if they vote for the House-passed bill to reopen the government and keep it funded through Nov. 21, said one Democratic senator who requested anonymity to talk candidly about their party.
A second person familiar with the political dynamics within the Senate Democratic caucus, who spoke with The Hill ahead of the “No Kings” protests, said centrist senators are fearful of breaking with leaders while party activists are planning the anti-Trump rallies.
‘We would have enough votes’ to reopen the government ‘if people were not terrified of getting the guillotine,’ the second person said.
…”
[So overall, these so called ‘defenders of democracy’ called Democrat senators were not willing to not defend ‘democracy’ by standing up to their own party out of fear of the repercussions from the ‘political threat’ posed by their own party and left wing liberals. Ok, that checks out ’cause we knew they were always interested a lot more in themselves holding onto power like kings than they were interested in actually serving ALL the American people like they are suppose to be doing.]
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5561362-liberal-base-backlash-democrats/
Correction for: “…were not willing to not defend ‘democracy’…”
Should have been…
“…were not willing to defend ‘democracy’…”
The U.K. has fallen: Britain’s Last Election.
”
…
American policymaking is curiously inert in the face of the dissolution of its historic closest ally. This is not because Britain’s decline is anything new: the slow-motion implosion of that nation’s military power has been known to the American defense establishment during most of the past 20 years. Ben Barry’s excellent new book, The Rise and Fall of the British Army 1975—2025, offers ample examples to this end, including the 2008 fighting in Basra in which American leadership had to rescue a failing British effort.
The knowledge that Britain is facing a regime-level crisis has remained mostly confined to the establishment. Outside of it, the American Right has mostly dwelled on an admixture of Anglophilia and special-relationship nostalgia, therefore obscuring the truth of Britain’s precipitous decline.
The American Left, of course, entirely endorses what the British regime has done to its citizenry—from the repression of entrepreneurialism and the suppression of free speech to the ethnic replacement of the native population—and thus regards the outcomes as intrinsically positive.
It is past time for that inertia to end. The last election will by its nature redefine the United Kingdom—and therefore the U.S.’s relationship with it. Even before it comes, the rudderless and discredited Labour government has placed Britain into a de facto ungoverned state that may persist for years to come.
The United States therefore has an obligation to protect its own citizenry from the consequences. And it also has what might be called a filial duty to assert conditions for Britain to reclaim its best self.
…”
https://americanmind.org/salvo/britains-last-election/