Bailey Whines

[rwl1955]

Steve Bailey is pissed the ATF is investigating his little straw purchase in NH.
WAAA!
*****
A.K.A. gunnut

By Steve Bailey, Globe Columnist | August 10, 2007

Who is Alan Gottlieb, the gun champion who wants to put me in jail?

It is a question of some interest to me, as you might imagine. Regular readers know I am being investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. This silly flap grows out of a column I wrote nearly two years ago about buying a handgun at a New Hampshire gun show. Gottlieb and like-minded gun fanatics went into spasms a few weeks ago after the column came up again on local radio. Gottlieb wrote my boss, Globe Editor Marty Baron, demanding I be fired, and asked the ATF to investigate his allegation that I was guilty of an illegal "straw" purchase of a handgun.

It is galling, to say the least, to be falsely accused of a felony by a convicted felon. But that is where we are.

Gottlieb is founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, a pro-gun group based in Bellevue, Wash. But that hardly begins to explain the thriving multimillion-dollar industry that is Alan Merril Gottlieb.

Operating from a suburban office park just outside Seattle -- in a complex called Liberty Park -- Gottlieb runs a series of closely affiliated nonprofit and for-profit entities that have for years brought in millions by promoting various conservative causes from gun rights -- America's most important civil right, he says --to antienvironmentalism to a long list of Republican politicians. "I am," he has been quoted as saying, "the premiere anticommunist, free-enterprise, laissez-faire capitalist."

The Gottlieb money machine includes two nonprofits focused on gun rights, the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. He is president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, which fathered the antienvironmental Wise Use movement. To quote Gottlieb's colleague and frequent coauthor Ron Arnold: "Our goal is to destroy, to eradicate the environmental movement."

There is much more. He runs a marketing firm, a publishing house, a data-processing and telemarketing business, several radio stations, and political fund-raising groups. A decade ago, he told a reporter his various enterprises grossed more than $12 million a year. He is publisher of Gun Week and has authored many books, including "George W. Bush Speaks to the Nation," a collection of the president's speeches. He uses "akagunnut" as his e-mail address.

Gottlieb, 60, went to prison for 8 1/2 months in the mid-1980s for filing a false income tax return related to his various enterprises, according to government records. His right to possess a gun was later restored through an ATF program that gave felons a second chance.

I have spent more than a week unsuccessfully trying to talk with Gottlieb. But the nice thing about a guy who went to jail for tax fraud is he tends to file tax returns. And the returns for three of his nonprofits offer an interesting window into his empire.

The Second Amendment Foundation alone has raised $17.5 million in five years, according to those returns. In 2004, the latest available return, the foundation collected $3.3 million in contributions. Gottlieb was paid $42,358 in salary and benefits (and similar compensation from the Citizens Committee). His Merril Associates, which provides marketing support, got $421,783 and the Service Bureau Association, a nonprofit cooperative started by Gottlieb, got $645,734 for accounting and telemarketing support. The foundation paid him $54,240 in rent and his Merril Press was paid another $30,009.

In all, Gottlieb and his affiliated entities received about $1.2 million from the Second Amendment Foundation alone. In addition, the tax returns show the foundation and the Citizens Committee invested in a radio station Gottlieb runs. Charity Navigator, which evaluates fund-raising efficiency and financial health of charities, using tax-return filings, gives the foundation a "poor" rating, compared to its peers.

The entrepreneurial Gottlieb has found there is money to be made in any number of right-wing causes. And he is very good at what he does. Taking on The Boston Globe has to be good for business.

Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at [email protected] or at 617-929-2902.
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

 

[Admin]

Bailey is such a whiney bitch...

 

[drgrant]

That's amusing.... he gets caught red handed, and now all he can
do is try to make lame attempts to smear Gottlieb. If Gottlieb
hadn't ratted him out, someone else would have.

-Mike

 

[dreppucci007]

Bailey is such a whiney bitch...

Holy crap yeah

 

[Admin]

That's amusing.... he gets caught red handed, and now all he can
do is try to make lame attempts to smear Gottlieb. If Gottlieb
hadn't ratted him out, someone else would have.

-Mike

That's what I love. He breaks the law and then says "Well look at Gottlieb he makes lots of money and was a felon 20 years ago for tax evasion...."

 

[JonJ]

Nothing more than a feeble attempt at deflecting his wrong doing. Could we expect anything different from the Globe?
Bailey kisses Felon Finneran's ass every morning on WRKO. I've never heard Bailey attack Tommy Boy before.

 

[C-pher]

That's what I love. He breaks the law and then says "Well look at Gottlieb he makes lots of money and was a felon 20 years ago for tax evasion...."

Yea, I was going to say... What's the point of this article? That they guy makes money? Good for him...so what's the point?

I guess, it's not good if people make money.

 

[kevin9]

The juxtaposition of this thread and the Porn Name thread is most amusing.

 

[matt1956]

what a putz

 

[rwl1955]

Bailey

what a putz

I emailed him and told him he should do a better job of picking his friends. Rosenthal and Finneran are not exactly honest, for the people kind of guys. I attached the article from the CT. newspaper saying us gun nuts might be right. If I get a response I`ll post it.

 

[matt1956]

he may simply just reply that we are "gun nuts" and the cause of all crime and everthing evil in the world.

i say again... He's a putz

 

[pipmaster1971]

So in his world two wrongs make a right then? Just because Alan Gottlieb may not be the most honest and trustworthy of people that makes it OK to break straw purchase laws? Am I missing something?

 

[Admin]

So in his world two wrongs make a right then? Just because Alan Gottlieb may not be the most honest and trustworthy of people that makes it OK to break straw purchase laws? Am I missing something?

No you're not missing anything... Liberal logic is a hard thing to understand if one actually can.

 

[Weerd Beard]

Wait he never mentioned how well gun control laws are working, seeing as he's getting an ATF proctology exam just for an alleged straw purchas.

Why not?
Ohhh Steve just isn't a fan of the truth.

 

[Fooped]

Yea, I was going to say... What's the point of this article? That they guy makes money? Good for him...so what's the point?

I guess, it's not good if people make money.

Personal wealth and success is not part of the Kommunist doctrine, so The Globe denounces it.

 

[hminsky]

Personal wealth and success is not part of the Kommunist doctrine, so The Globe denounces it.

Something stinks when I hear about people who run non-profit organizations, which raise money via contributions for good causes, and who have a "marketing and public relations firm" on the side which just happens to rake in millions of dollars from that non-profit. I think that is a conflict of interest, and while not illegal, it is not ethical either. If they are going to make a huge salary from their non-profit, they should take that salary up front so people know it before contributing.

 

[Arioch]

Bailey's logic is typical liberal drivel.

 

[Lugnut]

I don't read the Globe... that wasnt' a column... it was an attempt at a diversion. Dick head.

 

[csharpdev]

Let me put my Democrat hat on and turn it ALL the way to the left and see if I can interpret this clown.

He seems to think that because he's a good honest law abiding citizen and because he performs a valuable service to the leftist, socialist, communist, anti gun movement that the law doesn't apply to him, and gun laws are certainly not applicable.

[remove hat]

My head hurts...

 

[pipmaster1971]

Wait he never mentioned how well gun control laws are working, seeing as he's getting an ATF proctology exam just for an alleged straw purchas.

Why not?
Ohhh Steve just isn't a fan of the truth.

+1...That's just it isn't it?

Him and his ilk complain that there aren't enough gun laws. They introduce a law to help "fix" the straw purchase problem. He then goes and breaks said law (which according to the antis shouldn't be possible since having a law creates some sort of legal force field that prevents the bad guys from breaking them).

Now he finds that when you break a law that the cops do investigate, so he wants more laws that people can ignore and break.

Arrgghh...I'm so confused now that my head hurts.

 

[JonJ]

Let me put my Democrat hat on and turn it ALL the way to the left and see if I can interpret this clown.

He seems to think that because he's a good honest law abiding citizen and because he performs a valuable service to the leftist, socialist, communist, anti gun movement that the law doesn't apply to him, and gun laws are certainly not applicable.

[remove hat]

My head hurts...

You forgot to add that he thinks that the media is the 4th branch of government.

 

[Riverside]

Ordinary citizens who go through life day after day doing the right thing are "forced" to join organizations such as the NRA, GOAL, SAS, as a means to protect our rights from idiots like Steve Bailey, John Rosenthal, Mike Bloomberg and Menino and on and on.
I told Steve, anyone can rob a bank but that doesn't mean that you should do it. Anyone can break the gun laws, but that doesn't mean you should do it. He did not agree with my comments. Steve apparently sees himself as above the law; it does not apply to him.
Steve proved one noteworty point, he had to break the law to purchase a gun in NH! That's exactly what law abiding citizens have been saying for years.
What good are additional gun laws? Criminals like Steve will simply go on disregarding them.
Enforce the gun laws already in place! That enforcement should apply to Steve's criminal behaviour.
A person of reasonable intelligence would have thought beyond the immediate goal of breaking the law and would have certainly thought about the consequences of his actions before jumping into the plan full speed ahead.
So now Steve is trying to deflect the fact that he knowingly set out to break the law by pointing his finger at someone else's "mistake". If that's his best defense, he should look forward to a big fine and a few nights in jail.
Best Regards.

 

[csharpdev]

You forgot to add that he thinks that the media is the 4th branch of government.

While true that can't be acknowledged while wearing a Democrat hat.

 

[dwarven1]

that hardly begins to explain the thriving multimillion-dollar industry that is Alan Merril Gottlieb.

As opposed to the "thriving multimillion-dollar industry" that is his a$$hole buddy, John Rosenthal?

He should be thrilled that the ATF is taking accusations of straw man purchases so seriously. Isn't that what he wants? I don't understaaaaaannnnndddd!

 

[Weerd Beard]

Arrgghh...I'm so confused now that my head hurts.

If you keep your head as brain-free as possible, the pain will stop. Ask any Lib-Tard

 

[Major D Ret.]

Me thinks he feels the impatient blade decending on his pencil neck.

MAJOR D

 

[Gaffer]

You won't get a response as I have sent him two and nary a word. His type are too arrogant and condescending to reply to us ordinary folk. Why do you think he believed he could break the law and not be challenged? His liberal types are all the same, whiny opinionated blowhards.

You have to have noticed that it took someone from out of Massachusetts to challenge him as he knows that he and the anti-gun crowd have the Massachusetts gun owners intimidated. May be GOAL didn't go after him for lack of money but that is the fault of Mass. gun owners who do not support enough financially it seems.

 

[drgrant]

You have to have noticed that it took someone from out of Massachusetts to challenge him as he knows that he and the anti-gun crowd have the Massachusetts gun owners intimidated. May be GOAL didn't go after him for lack of money but that is the fault of Mass. gun owners who do not support enough financially it seems.

Sorry, but IMO that statement is BS- Alan Gottlieb is not the only
person whose sent something to the AUSA or law enforcement
about these people... I'm sure there are a few folks on the board
(From MA) here who have sent letters of inquiry, etc, to the
appropriate state and federal law enforcement orgs. There were
some huge threads on the board about it, if you bothered to
read them.

If anything, it's possible that folks from MA got Gottlieb's attention;
considering the articles were in an MA newspaper and exposed on
an MA centric radio show. Otherwise I doubt anyone outside
of the state would have even noticed, because Rosenthal and
Bailey are strictly MA bunghole types... nobody outside the
state really knows who they are.

And slandering GOAL is pretty rough, considering that not that
long after the broadcast the issue was pretty much front and
center on their website; so I have no doubt that GOAL staffers
were aware of the issue (and likely made some noise about
it).

I agree that GOAL is undersupported; but a large part of the
problem is that there simply aren't enough votes in MA to increase
it's power base. You can have millions of dollars but money
generally is not going to buy votes, at least not if you play
clean, like most RKBA orgs do.

I guess my point is, it's not very polite to throw rocks at a block
of people you know little to nothing about.

-Mike

 

[boomerang]

OK. I went to the Charity Navigator site that Bailey quoted.
Rosenthal's companies were not in the site.
Bailey said the 2nd Amendment Foundation was rated as "Poor".
It does show that his company is only one star out of four.

BUT, both the Violence policy Center and the Brady Center were also one star out of four. POOR!

Whereas the NRA Foundation is rated as four stars out of four.

—
A year or two ago I mentioned that I was in the same building that houses Stop Handgun Violence. I was picking up a friend with whom I would often have lunch. She worked in a marketing company in the same building. Some woman from the Stop Handgun Violence company upstairs came down to the lobby of the company I was in and started yelling and swearing about someone parking in her space. She was out of control about a parking space.
F-bomb, F-bomb. F-bomb.

This is what goes on over there.

 

[DR]

A year or two ago I mentioned that I was in the same building that houses Stop Handgun Violence. I was picking up a friend with whom I would often have lunch. She worked in a marketing company in the same building. Some woman from the Stop Handgun Violence company upstairs came down to the lobby of the company I was in and started yelling and swearing about someone parking in her space. She was out of control about a parking space.
F-bomb, F-bomb. F-bomb.

This is what goes on over there.

Plenty of anti-gun folks peddle dire predictions of shootouts over everyday friction. I wonder how much of that is simple projection: they imagine themselves shooting Bob in Accounting when he parked in "their" space and assume that everyone else is the same.