In Wake of Newtown Shootings, N.R.A. Leader Faces Big Challenge

“Today,” Mr. Keene told a roomful of conservatives in Hawaii, “guns are cool.”

That, of course, was before the massacre at a Connecticut elementary school dramatically revived the once-moribund debate over gun control.

With the N.R.A. set to hold its first news conference on the shootings Friday after a weeklong silence, Mr. Keene is facing perhaps the biggest threat in decades to his organization’s gun rights stance.

He finds himself in the difficult position of persuading Americans outside the N.R.A. that guns are, if not “cool,” at least not the stark danger that President Obama made them out to be this week. “His instinct is to fight back and make his case as strongly as he can — that’s been his modus operandi for as long as I’ve known him,” said Craig Shirley, a conservative author and former business partner and occasional hunting buddy of Mr. Keene.

Indeed, Mr. Keene, 67, a combative and sometimes bombastic political operative who has advised Republican leaders from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney, has rarely shied from a fight.

In a videotaped confrontation that quickly made the Republican rounds in 2009, he threatened to punch a conservative filmmaker who challenged his leadership of the American Conservative Union and his criticism of “whining” by the former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

And when Mr. Keene was a senior adviser to Senator Bob Dole’s losing presidential bid in 1988, his clashes with others in the Dole campaign became so heated that he and another top aide were fired midtrip, with the campaign manager yelling during a stopover at the Jacksonville airport to “Get their baggage off the plane!”

That fighter’s instinct puts him squarely in the tradition of past leaders of the N.R.A., a four-million-member group that has one of Washington’s most powerful, well-financed lobbying arms.

In the most iconic scene of defiance in the N.R.A.’s 141-year history, its most famous president — the actor Charlton Heston — lifted a colonial musket over his head in 2000 and dared opponents to take it “from my cold, dead hands!”

A year earlier, the N.R.A. spurned calls to cancel its convention in Denver less than two weeks after shootings at nearby Columbine High School killed 13 people. As 7,000 people protested, Mr. Heston declared that the N.R.A. “cannot let tragedy lay waste” to gun rights.

Even after the Columbine shootings, the N.R.A. was able to block a measure in 2000 to close the so-called gun-show loophole, allowing private gun sales at shows without background checks. The aftermath of the Columbine shootings provides one possible road map for how the N.R.A. may respond now.

The group has been uncharacteristically quiet in the week since the Connecticut shootings, and Mr. Keene and other N.R.A. officials did not respond to messages and e-mails seeking comment for this article.

The N.R.A. did offer a short statement of condolence four days after the shootings and said, without elaboration, that it “is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again.”

What it was billing as a “major news conference” Friday will be its first response to growing calls for greater gun restrictions. Mr. Keene, elected president last year, was also scheduled to appear Sunday on “Face the Nation” on CBS.

After past shootings, N.R.A. officials have stressed the need for greater safety training and enforcement of existing gun laws, without offering significant concessions to gun control advocates.

Josh Sugarman, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, which supports increased gun control, says he expects a similar approach this time.

“I don’t see him as any type of change-agent inside the organization,” Mr. Sugarman said. “What will guide the N.R.A. is to try to delay any action on guns for as long as they possibly can.”

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 20, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the position once held by former Representative Tom DeLay. He was majority leader in the House of Representatives, not the speaker.

View the original article here

Woman Posed as Newtown Victim’s Aunt in Fraud Scheme, F.B.I. Says

The woman, Nouel Alba, 37, claimed to be an aunt of a 6-year-old victim and used her Facebook account, telephone calls and text messages to solicit money for a “funeral fund,” according to a criminal complaint filed in Federal District Court in Connecticut.

When contacted by federal agents investigating fraud schemes related to the shootings in Newtown, Conn., law enforcement officials said Ms. Alba denied that she had posted any messages on Facebook soliciting donations.

“It is unconscionable to think that the families of the victims in Newtown, and a sympathetic community looking to provide them some sort of financial support and comfort, have become the targets of criminals,” said Kimberly K. Mertz, the special agent in charge of the New Haven division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Today’s arrest is a stern message that the F.B.I. will investigate and bring to justice those who perpetrate Internet fund-raising scams, especially those scams that exploit the most vulnerable in their time of shared sorrow.”

If convicted, Ms. Alba faces a maximum of five years in prison and $250,000 fine.

Ms. Alba, who was released on $50,000 bond at her arraignment on Thursday in Hartford, was represented by a federal public defender, Deirdre Murray, who did not immediately return a call.

Allegations against Ms. Alba were first reported by several news organizations.

The complaint cites a report that aired on Dec. 19 on the CNN program “Anderson Cooper 360,” in which Ms. Alba denied taking “any funds from anybody.”

Jeff Rossen on the “Today” show on NBC also reported on the case on Dec. 21. In his report, Mr. Rossen said that within hours of the shooting, someone started posing as the aunt of Noah Pozner, a 6-year-old boy killed at Newtown.

“All we know is 18 kids have been killed,” the person wrote. “Still no word on my nephew.”

According to the criminal complaint, the person posted on Facebook under the name Victorian Glam Fairys and used an account controlled by Ms. Alba.

A few days later, Victorian Glam Fairys posted a message asking for donations and included a PayPal account and bank information.

Noah’s uncle, Alexis Haller, told Mr. Rossen that the family was disgusted when they learned people might be trying to make money off the shootings.

“It’s trying to turn a profit on a horrible tragedy, on the death of kids, 6-year-old kids, 7-year-old kids,” Mr. Haller said. “And to me, that’s just a horrible thing to be doing.”

According to the complaint, Ms. Alba kept up her ruse even when she was contacted by potential donors, claiming via text message that she hugged President Obama when he visited Newtown and that she was an emotional wreck.

“Ima mess,” she wrote to one person. “Not looking forward to see that casket cause that is what will kill us all today. 11 gun shot in his little body.”

“The guilt we have,” she continued, “just keeps building up.”

View the original article here

White House Memo: President Obama Facing Critical Choice After Newtown Shooting

Should he invest his energy and the stature he won with his re-election last month in a fight he may believe in but is not sure he can actually win? And with his last election now behind him, is he willing or even able to shift the dynamics in Washington to make such fights winnable?

To his core supporters, this is a moment that will define what a second-term Obama presidency will look like — whether it will be closer to the soaring aspirations that set liberal hearts aflutter in 2008 or more like the back-room deal making that characterized the four years that followed. Advocates on the left have long lamented that Mr. Obama was too quick to compromise, even as those on the right see him as a champion of a radical agenda.

From his point of view, Mr. Obama has been pragmatic, making cleareyed if cold assessments about when the votes were there and when they were not. Mr. Obama does not accept the notion that he has not pursued goals that seemed hard to achieve, most notably the historic health care program he pushed through. The economic crisis invariably forced other priorities onto the shelf.

But with the election over, outside events have now presented Mr. Obama with a series of decisions. Vote counts might suggest that he is still a long way from passing significant legislation on climate change, immigration and gun control. But Hurricane Sandy, last month’s Latino turnout for Democrats and now the Newtown shootings have also given him openings to make new arguments.

The developments in his fiscal negotiations with Republicans, overshadowed momentarily by the gun control debate, underscore the same tension. After agreeing to renew Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy in his first term, Mr. Obama has stood firm against it on the eve of his second and forced Republicans to accept raising rates on high income. But he compromised this week by agreeing to exempt many of those he has deemed wealthy and faces a test on whether he will stick to that even as House Republicans readied an alternative proposal.

Although he has spoken out for gun control without putting muscle into it before, his emotional speech at a memorial service in Newtown on Sunday declaring that there was no longer any “excuse for inaction” suggested that this time may be different. The pressure is high from pundits who compared the speech to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and suggested that Newtown may be what Birmingham was to John F. Kennedy in inspiring civil rights action.

“This moment is so pain-filled and there is such a desire — I think you can feel it building — to move forward in a common-sense way that he sees the imperative,” said Melody Barnes, the president’s former domestic policy adviser. “I’ve looked at the pictures of his face, and I think he sees that there’s no other course than to move forward. The situation demands it.”

Yet the normally sure-footed White House has seemed uncertain how far the president intends to go. Aides who normally offer expansive explanations of Mr. Obama’s thinking have declined to return phone calls. On Monday, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, generally stuck to repeating the president’s words from his speech to avoid boxing him in, and he tamped down expectations of instant action by using the phrase “in coming weeks” 16 times.

Then, later in the day, the White House confirmed that Mr. Obama had met with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and three cabinet secretaries to discuss gun control and other responses to the tragedy, but declined to provide details. Even the simple question of whether the president put Mr. Biden in charge of developing a response went unanswered by a half-dozen White House aides questioned on Tuesday. (The president planned to announce Mr. Biden's assignment on Wednesday morning.)

The White House opened the window a little on Tuesday, hinting at the kinds of gun measures Mr. Obama would embrace. In the past, he has endorsed the reinstatement of an expired ban on assault weapons, but this time, Mr. Carney said the president would be “actively supportive” of a new legislative effort. The president will also support reversing the exemption from background checks for gun show purchases in certain circumstances and “potentially” limits on high-capacity ammunition clips of the sort used in Newtown, Mr. Carney said.

But Mr. Carney said the president hoped to forge a broader response, including looking at mental health, education and cultural issues.

These decisions are made on a scale of trade-offs that may be unique to the White House. President Bill Clinton made big pushes in his early days for priorities that did not have the votes, or that helped cost Democrats control of Congress in his first midterm election, including the assault weapon ban that later expired and left the party feeling burned for nearly two decades. Then Mr. Clinton adjusted and focused more on making incremental progress toward his goals.

President George W. Bush scorned what he considered Mr. Clinton’s “small ball” approach and prided himself on bold initiatives like cutting taxes, remaking education, expanding Medicare to cover prescription drugs and combating AIDS in Africa. But by his second term, he pursued big goals like overhauling Social Security and immigration only to lose.

“There certainly can be a cost to it,” said Peter Wehner, an adviser to Mr. Bush who worked for Mitt Romney this year. “You can fight for something and lose and be a weakened figure. On the other hand, sometimes there’s honor in loss. You may lose but in the process you advance a cause in the eyes of history.”

Mr. Wehner and other conservatives consider the groundswell for gun control to be understandable but more a symbolic gesture than an effective response. But he said Mr. Obama had been smart about picking the terrain he fought on. “He has waited until the stars aligned before he acted,” he said.

In the end, the stars have not aligned before for Obama priorities like legislation on climate change and immigration. He took office amid the worst economic crisis in generations and pursued a historic health coverage expansion that had eluded his predecessors. By the time he pushed that through, enacted a stimulus package, toughened Wall Street regulations and lifted limits on gays in the military, he had lost the House and did not think the new Republican majority would agree to gun legislation.

“The president always had a personal commitment to the issue,” said Phil Schiliro, who was Mr. Obama’s first legislative affairs director. “But given the crisis he faced when he first took office, there’s only so much capacity in the system to move his agenda.”

View the original article here