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MidwayUSA
is a Missouri company well known among gun enthusiasts for its firearms
accessories: the company website boasts that the firm stocks "Just
about everything for shooting, reloading, gunsmithing and hunting."
These wares include high-capacity magazines similar to those used
in the Arizona shooting spree that enabled the accused assailant to
kill six people and wound 14 others -- including Rep.
WASHINGTON - MidwayUSA
is a Missouri company well known among gun enthusiasts for its firearms
accessories: the company website boasts that the firm stocks "Just
about everything for shooting, reloading, gunsmithing and hunting."
These wares include high-capacity magazines similar to those used
in the Arizona shooting spree that enabled the accused assailant to
kill six people and wound 14 others -- including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords --
by rapidly firing a fusillade of shots without pausing to reload.
Over the last two decades, MidwayUSA has done just about everything to help the National Rifle Association flourish financially.
In 1992 MidwayUSA developed a fundraising tactic to boost the NRA's
fortunes, dubbed "Round-Up," that has yielded $5.7 million for the NRA's
lobbying operations. The MidwayUSA money drive asks customers to "round
up" the total of each order to the nearest dollar or higher. Then the
company donates the difference to the NRA's Institute for Legislative
Action, a lobbying arm of the gun rights group.
For good measure, Brenda Potterfield, the wife of Midway CEO Larry
Potterfield and a co-owner of the firm, serves as vice president of the
NRA Foundation's board of trustees. Little wonder that the firm's
website declares that no company in the country is "more dedicated to,
and more supportive of, the goals of the National Rifle Association than
MidwayUSA."
A Center for Public Integrity review uncovered several little-noticed symbiotic ties between gun companies and the NRA.
Other companies that sell high-capacity magazines and gun gear also
embraced the round up idea to boost the NRA's finances. The website of
MidwayUSA notes that since 1992 other companies have deployed the same
round up fundraising tool: together with MidwayUSA, other firearms
industry players have funneled a total of $7.5 million to the NRA's
Institute for Legislative Action.
During the first nine months of last year, the NRA and its ILA unit spent a total of $2 million on lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Further, some of these vendors of high-capacity magazines also boast
executives who are board members of the NRA. Ronnie Barrett, the CEO of
Tennessee-based Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, which makes a
military-style rifle sold with high-capacity magazines, was elected to
the NRA board in 2009. And Pete Brownell, who runs Iowa-based Brownells
Inc., which also makes high-capacity magazines, joined the NRA board in
2010.
The strong financial and corporate ties to the NRA underscore how the
gun rights goliath has become increasingly intertwined with some of the
nation's leading accessory vendors that sell high-capacity magazines.
All have big stakes in fighting a pending gun control measure in
Washington.
The links between the NRA and the firms that sell high-capacity
magazines are likely going to get more scrutiny as Congress weighs
legislation that will be introduced Tuesday by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy,
D-N.Y., to ban the transfer, importation or possession of high-capacity
magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. (It would "grandfather"
high-capacity magazines already in the possession of gunowners). A
companion bill will be introduced in the Senate by Sen. Frank
Lautenberg, D-N.J.
The NRA seems poised to launch a lobbying blitzkrieg to defeat the legislation. Last week the NRA issued a statement
calling high-capacity magazines "standard equipment for self-defense
handguns and other firearms owned by tens of millions of Americans." And
the NRA also vowed to "stand front and center in defense of the rights
of gun owners."
Gun control advocates are hoping to undercut some of the NRA's
famously strong support among congressional Republicans and moderate
Democrats by targeting these close ties between the NRA and
high-capacity magazine distributors.
"The NRA acts as a trade association for the firearms industry," said
Josh Sugarmann, the executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a
gun control advocacy group that backs the new legislation. "The NRA's
priorities are not gun owners but the manufacturers of guns and
accessories."
The NRA's opposition to gun control measures, Sugarmann added, often
"isn't about protecting the rights of millions of gun owners [so much]
as protecting the financial interests of NRA board members and the NRA
itself."
Both MidwayUSA and Brownells are major distributors of gun
accessories including high-capacity magazines. And Barrett's
high-capacity magazines are sold with one of their military-style
rifles. For example, MidwayUSA offers magazines at 10, 15, 30, 33 and 40
rounds, all of which won 5-star reviews from users. "Well worth the
money," said one buyer. Another wrote, "It doesn't get any better than
this!"
Top executives from the three firearms companies were in Las Vegas this week for an annual trade show,
dubbed the "SHOT Show," where numerous companies display their wares.
None of the companies returned phone calls or emails seeking comment.
Members of Congress who back bans on the sale and manufacture of
high-capacity magazines stressed that they are unnecessary for hunting.
"The only purpose for the existence of these devices is to be able to
shoot as many people as possible as quickly as possible," said Rep.
Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband was killed and her son wounded in a
commuter train mass shooting in 1993. In a "Dear Colleague" letter
that she wrote as her House bill was being prepared. "There is no
reason these devices should be available to the general public."
A weaker version of the McCarthy bill was part of the assault weapons
ban which became law in 1994 and expired in 2004 -- despite support for
its renewal by President George W. Bush.
The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit organization dedicated to producing original, responsible investigative journalism on issues of public concern. The Center is non-partisan and non-advocacy. We are committed to transparent and comprehensive reporting both in the United States and around the world.
"You'd be a fool to think Trump won't go after others he dislikes," warned Sen. Ron Wyden, "including American citizens."
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon slammed the Trump administration over the weekend in response to fresh reporting that the Department of Homeland Security has intensified its push for access to confidential data held by the Internal Revenue Service—part of a sweeping effort to target immigrant workers who pay into the U.S. tax system yet get little or nothing in return.
Wyden denounced the effort, which had the fingerprints of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, all over it.
"What Trump and Musk's henchmen are doing by weaponizing taxpayer data is illegal, this abuse of the immigrant community is a moral atrocity, and you'd be a fool to think Trump won't go after others he dislikes, including American citizens," said Wyden, ranking member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, on Saturday.
Last week, the White House admitted one of the men it has sent to a prison in El Salvador was detained and deported in schackles in "error." Despite the admitted mistake, and facing a lawsuit for his immediate return, the Trump administration says a federal court has no authority over the president to make such an order.
"Even though the Trump administration claims it's focused on undocumented immigrants, it's obvious that they do not care when they make mistakes and ruin the lives of legal residents and American citizens in the process," Wyden continued. "A repressive scheme on the scale of what they're talking about at the IRS would lead to hundreds if not thousands of those horrific mistakes, and the people who are disappeared as a result may never be returned to their families."
According to the Washington Postreporting on Saturday:
Federal immigration officials are seeking to locate up to 7 million people suspected of being in the United States unlawfully by accessing confidential tax data at the Internal Revenue Service, according to six people familiar with the request, a dramatic escalation in how the Trump administration aims to use the tax system to detain and deport immigrants.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security had previously sought the IRS’s help in finding 700,000 people who are subject to final removal orders, and they had asked the IRS to use closely guarded taxpayer data systems to provide names and addresses.
As the Post notes, it would be highly unusual, and quite possibly unlawful, for the IRS to share such confidential data. "Normally," the newspaper reports, "personal tax information—even an individual's name and address—is considered confidential and closely guarded within the IRS."
Wyden warned that those who violate the law by disclosing personal tax data face the risk of civil sanction or even prosecution.
"While Trump's sycophants and the DOGE boys may be a lost cause," Wyden said, "IRS personnel need to think long and hard about whether they want to be a part of an effort to round up innocent people and send them to be locked away in foreign torture prisons."
"I'm sure Trump has promised pardons to the people who will commit crimes in the process of abusing legally-protected taxpayer data, but violations of taxpayer privacy laws carry hefty civil penalties too, and Trump cannot pardon anybody out from under those," he said. "I'm going to demand answers from the acting IRS commissioner immediately about this outrageous abuse of the agency.”
"I think that the Democratic Party has to make a fundamental decision," says the independent Senator from Vermont, "and I'm not sure that they will make the right decision."
"I think when we talk about America is a democracy, I think we should rephrase it, call it a 'pseudo-democracy.'"
That's what Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Sunday morning in response to questions from CBS News about the state of the nation, with President Donald Trump gutting the federal government from head to toe, challenging constitutional norms, allowing his cabinet of billionaires to run key agencies they philosophically want to destroy, and empowering Elon Musk—the world's richest person—to run roughshod over public education, undermine healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and attack Social Security.
Taking a weekend away from his ongoing "Fight Oligarchy" tour, which has drawn record crowds in both right-leaning and left-leaning regions of the country over recent weeks, Sanders said the problem is deeply entrenched now in the nation's political system—and both major parties have a lot to answer for.
"One of the other concerns when I talk about oligarchy," Sanders explained to journalist Robert Acosta, "it's not just massive income and wealth inequality. It's not just the power of the billionaire class. These guys, led by Musk—and as a result of this disastrous Citizens UnitedSupreme Court decision—have now allowed billionaires essentially to own our political process. So, I think when we talk about America is a democracy, I think we should rephrase it, call it a 'pseudo-democracy.' And it's not just Musk and the Republicans; it's billionaires in the Democratic Party as well."
Sanders said that while he's been out on the road in various places, what he perceives—from Americans of all stripes—is a shared sense of dread and frustration.
"I think I'm seeing fear, and I'm seeing anger," he said. "Sixty percent of our people are living paycheck-to-paycheck. Media doesn't talk about it. We don't talk about it enough here in Congress."
In a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Friday night, just before the Republican-controlled chamber was able to pass a sweeping spending resolution that will lay waste to vital programs like Medicaid and food assistance to needy families so that billionaires and the ultra-rich can enjoy even more tax giveaways, Sanders said, "What we have is a budget proposal in front of us that makes bad situations much worse and does virtually nothing to protect the needs of working families."
LIVE: I'm on the floor now talking about Trump's totally absurd budget.
They got it exactly backwards. No tax cuts for billionaires by cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for Americans. https://t.co/ULB2KosOSJ
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 4, 2025
What the GOP spending plan does do, he added, "is reward wealthy campaign contributors by providing over $1 trillion in tax breaks for the top one percent."
"I wish my Republican friends the best of luck when they go home—if they dare to hold town hall meetings—and explain to their constituents why they think, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, it's a great idea to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut Medicaid, education, and other programs that working class families desperately need."
On Saturday, millions of people took to the street in coordinated protests against the Trump administration's attack on government, the economy, and democracy itself.
Voiced at many of the rallies was also a frustration with the failure of the Democrats to stand up to Trump and offer an alternative vision for what the nation can be. In his CBS News interview, Sanders said the key question Democrats need to be asking is the one too many people in Washington, D.C. tend to avoid.
"Why are [the Democrats] held in so low esteem?" That's the question that needs asking, he said.
"Why has the working class in this country largely turned away from them? And what do you have to do to recapture that working class? Do you think working people are voting for Trump because he wants to give massive tax breaks to billionaires and cut Social Security and Medicare? I don't think so. It's because people say, 'I am hurting. Democratic Party has talked a good game for years. They haven't done anything.' So, I think that the Democratic Party has to make a fundamental decision, and I'm not sure that they will make the right decision, which side are they on? [Will] they continue to hustle large campaign contributions from very, very wealthy people, or do they stand with the working class?"
The next leg of Sanders' "Fight Oligarchy' tour will kick off next Saturday, with stops in California, Utah, and Idaho over four days.
"The American people, whether they are Democrats, Republicans or Independents, do not want billionaires to control our government or buy our elections," said Sanders. "That is why I will be visiting Republican-held districts all over the Western United States. When we are organized and fight back, we can defeat oligarchy."
"Imagine if federal worker unions and Democratic Party officials showed up at the plant gate of a company that was about to close its doors," said one labor advocate recently. "Why aren't the Democrats doing this?"
Congressman Ro Khanna is raising the alarm about mass layoffs in the U.S. economy resulting from President Donald Trump's failed economic policies. Over 4,000 factory workers lost their jobs this week due to firings or plant closures.
On Thursday, automaker Stellantis, citing conditions created by Trump's tariffs, announced temporary layoffs for 900 workers, represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW). "The affected U.S. employees," reportedCNN, "work at five different Midwest plants: the Warren Stamping and Sterling Stamping plants in Michigan, as well as the Indiana Transmission Plant, Kokomo Transmission Plant and Kokomo Casting Plant, all in Kokomo, Indiana."
In a social media thread on Saturday night, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—a lawmaker who has advocating loudly, including in books and in Congress, for an industrialization policy that would bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States—posted a litany of other layoffs announced recently as part of the economic devastation and chaos unleashed by Trump as well as conditions that reveal how vulnerable U.S. workers remain.
"This week," Khann wrote, "19 factories had mass layoffs, 15 closed, and 4,134 factory workers across America lost their jobs. Cleveland-Cliffs laid off 1,200 workers in Michigan and Minnesota as they deal with the impact of Trump's tariffs on steel and auto imports."
"We need jobs and currently at this time, the majority of the companies that we work with and represent our members at are not hiring." —Mark DePaoli, UAW
For union leaders representing those workers at Cleveland-Cliffs, they said "chaos" was the operative word. "Chaos. You know? A lot of questions. You've got a lot of people who worked there a long time that are potentially losing their job," Bill Wilhelm, a servicing representative and editor with UAW Local 600, told local ABC News affiliate WXYZ-Channel 7.
The United Auto Workers says the layoff fund set aside for those losing their jobs won't last long and find them new jobs of that quality will not be easy. "Our first concern will be to look around at all the companies where we have members and see if we can find jobs," said the local's 1st vice president, Mark DePaoli. "I mean, jobs are going to be the key. We need jobs and currently at this time, the majority of the companies that we work with and represent our members at are not hiring."
The pain of workers in families in Dearborn, as indicated by Khanna's thread, is just the tip of the iceberg. In post after post, he cataloged a stream of new layoffs impacting workers nationwide and across various sectors:
With public sector workers being fired in massive numbers nationwide due to the blitzkrieg unleashed by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, private sector workers are no strangers to mass layoffs within a U.S. economy dominated by corporate interests and union density still at historic lows.
Les Leopold, executive director of the Labor Institute who has been sounding the alarm for years about the devastation associated with mass layoffs, wrote recently about how the situation is even worse than he previously understood. On top of existing corporate greed and the stock buyback phenomena driving many of the mass layoffs in the private sector, Trump's mismanagement of tariff and trade policy is almost certain to make things worse, triggering more job losses in addition to higher costs on consumer goods.
In order to combat Trump, Leopold wrote last month, "Democrats should take a page from Trump and put job protection on the top of their agenda. As tariffs bite and cause job destruction, the Democrats should show up and support those laid-off workers."
Instead of simply calling Trump's tariffs "insane," which many rightly have, the Democrats "should call them job-killing tariffs," advised Leopold. "As prices rise, they can blame Trump for that as well."
With Trump's economic policies coming into full view, the picture is bleak for businesses large and small—and that means more pain for workers.
As Axios' Ben Berkowitz reported Saturday. "When everything gets more expensive everywhere because of tariffs, that starts a cycle for businesses, too — one that might end with layoffs, bankruptcies, and higher prices for the survivors' customers," he explained. "The cycle is just starting now, but the pain is immediate."
The "big picture," Berkowitz continued, is this:
The stock market is not the economy, but if you want a decent proxy for Main Street businesses, look at the Russell 2000, a broad measure of the stock market's small companies across industries.
—It's down almost 20% this year alone.
—That in and of itself doesn't make a business turn the lights off, but it says something about public confidence in their prospects.
—"The market is like a real time poll ... this is going to impact all businesses in one way or another undoubtedly," Ken Mahoney of Mahoney Asset Management wrote Friday.
In Sunday comments to Common Dreams, Leopold wanted to know where Khanna and other Democrats were last year when John Deere laid off a thousand workers.
"What do the progressive Democrats have to say about the tens of thousands of mass layoffs that take place each month? Radio silence," he said. "It would be useful if they had a policy that addressed Wall Street induced mass layoffs rather than just opposing tariffs, but I wouldn't bet on that."
On the question of silence and who, ultimately, will stand up for American workers—whether in the public or private sector—it's not clear who will emerge as a true defender or what forces would galvanize to truly represent the interests of the nation's working class.
"Imagine if federal worker unions and Democratic Party officials showed up at the plant gate of a company that was about to close its doors to finance hefty stock buybacks for its billionaire owners," Leopold wrote in early March. "A show of support for their fellow layoff victims and a unity message aimed at stopping billionaire job destruction would be simple to craft and easy to share. It would be news."
"Why aren't the Democrats doing this?" he asked.