Judge Phil Journey

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Four For Reform Elected!

May 1, 2024 by 3 Comments

The members of the NRA just sent a clear message to the Board of Directors. They want reform and they want it now. The old ways of doing business just won’t cut it anymore.

Jeff Knox posted this to Facebook approximately an hour ago.

The Four for Reform candidates – Jeff Knox, Dennis Fusaro, Phil Journey, and Rocky Marshall – got on the ballot thanks to the many members who signed their petition. Even with the shenanigans from the Nominations Committee of padding the ballot, all four were successfully elected to full 3-year terms.

Additionally, Rick Ector who bucked the Cabal by endorsing Wade Callender to be the next EVP was elected to a full 3-year term.

I have not seen who else was elected. I did see a comment from Gina Roberts on the Members Take Back Our NRA Facebook page that she did not win election. It will be interesting to see who will be running for the 76th Director.

As soon as I can obtain a complete list, I will post it.

Now for a word of caution. This was a great win for the members but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that the Board is just too damn large with 76 members and even five members committed to reform will have a hard time changing things. It will take time which, to be honest, the organization doesn’t have a lot of to spare.

One final note and this is not related to the Board election. Judge Phil Journey is the lead individual plaintiff in a Federal lawsuit along with the attorneys general of 21 states challenging the new ATF rule that redefines “engaged in the business” of firearm sales. I will have more on that suit in another post.

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My 2024 NRA Ballots

March 11, 2024 by 3 Comments

Here are my ballots for the 2024 NRA Board of Director election and for the bylaw change.

Now to explain my votes. It should go without saying that I support the Four for Reform. I signed and promoted their petitions to be on the ballot as well as have supported them here. I would love it if they ended up as the top four winning candidates.

I would have voted for Owen Buz Mills except that he told Jeff Knox that he wanted people to bullet vote for the Four for Reform. As to why I added Rick Ector as the fifth candidate, his “missionary work” in Detroit in which he has introduced thousands of women is worthy of recognition. Just as importantly, he bucked the Old Guard aka “The Cabal” when he endorsed Wade Callender to be the next Executive VP of the NRA. These two factors were why I added Rick to the list of candidates for whom I voted.

While I consider the bylaw change to add a Chief Compliance Officer independent of the EVP as closing the barn doors after the horses have escaped, it is a reform in the right direction. I worked for 25 years in the financial services industry and we always had a Chief Compliance Officer. There were times I thought they were a bit “nit-picky” but their goal was to protect both the company and the client. If I had questions on something such as a political contribution, I knew I could reach out to them for advice on the best way to handle it.

While the appointment of a Chief Compliance Officer must wait until the vote is tallied, it appears that a candidate has been hired in anticipation of the bylaw change. Robert Mensinger was hired by the NRA in September 2023 as a Managing Director. He holds a law degree, has had an extensive career as a compliance and business integrity officer, and spent almost 25 years working as a Special Agent/Criminal Investigator for the Small Business Administration, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and Treasury Department. My only reservation about Mensinger is that he was selected for his present job by Wayne LaPierre upon the advice and counsel of Bill Brewer. Other than that, he seems ideal for the job. Only time will tell if I was worried about nothing which is my actual hope.

UPDATE: This is just a reminder that you should vote by NAME and not by NUMBER. There are 5 or so different ballots and the order of the names varies. It is randomized as a security measure.

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Vote Four For Reform

February 21, 2024 by 8 Comments

The official NRA magazines with the ballots for the 2024 Board of Directors election have started to arrive. The Complementary Spouse and I both received ours today.

I would urge you in the strongest possible terms to bullet vote, i.e, only vote for these candidates and no others, for the Four for Reform. While there are a couple of others deserving of your vote, it is essential that these four get elected.

All four are on the ballot as a result of your efforts in signing their petition. We need people like them on the Board as they won’t put up and shut up. Indeed, both Judge Phil Journey and Rocky Marshall were retaliated against for standing up for what is right. That retaliation has led to the NRA being charged with violating the State of New York ‘s whistleblower law. This is one of the charges that the jurors in the New York trial are in the process of deciding guilt or innocence.

So few of the eligible voters actually vote that every vote for these four is critical.

We don’t know the outcome of the trial in New York and we don’t know what remedies Judge Cohen will impose if the NRA is found guilty. He could dissolve the current board and reduce it in size. He could appoint a special overseer. He could appoint a temporary board of people who are not tainted such as these four. He could do all of these things and that is why support for clean, untainted candidates is so important.

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I Endorse Four For Reform

February 3, 2024 by 1 Comment

The NRA’s trial in New York has provided more than enough evidence that many members of the Board of Directors ignored their fiduciary duties. Many thought loyalty to Wayne was the same as loyalty to the organization. It was not.

The ballots for the 2024 Board election go out to eligible voters in the March issue of the NRA official magazines. Not only has the Nominations Committee stacked the ballot with retreads, they are the same people that allowed the rot and corruption to grow. They include people like former NRA President Carolyn Meadows who currently is considered too ill to testify either in person or virtually in the NY trial. It also includes 2nd VP David Coy who served on the Audit Committee for many years who voted to approve questionable expenditures after the fact.

There are four people on the ballot who were not put there by the Nominations Committee. Dennis Fusaro, Judge Phil Journey, Jeff Knox, and Rocky Marshall are on the ballot by petition. In other words, enough of you who are voting members said you wanted them on the ballot. They are untainted by the corruption of the past and are running on a platform of reform. I wholeheartedly endorse all four and would urge you to give them your votes.

The only two current Board members I might consider voting for are Buz Mills and Rick Ector. As evidenced by his letter to the Board exposing the backdoor shenanigans to make Charles Cotton the next EVP, Buz is not a go-along to get-along sort of guy. Rick Ector had done phenomenal grassroots work in the Detroit area introducing thousands of women to self-defense through firearms training. He also bucked the trend with his endorsement of Wade Callender for the EVP.

If it were me, I would not consider anyone else on the list of candidates. The four petition candidates plus the two that have bucked the system are the only candidates that I think will work day in and day out to restore and reform the NRA. We need an effective and untainted NRA. Now is the time to do it.

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Get Phil Journey On The NRA Ballot (UPDATE)

October 25, 2023 by 1 Comment

UPDATE: Time is running out for petition candidates for the NRA Board of Directors to obtain the necessary signatures. Judge Journey must submit all signatures by November 7th. This means he needs everything in hand ASAP. If you are eligible to vote in the 2024 election for NRA Board of Directors and you have not signed the petition, DO IT NOW!

As a reminder, the Nominating Committee has nominated 28 people for the 25 board seats up for election. A full 25 of these people are already on the Board. It is the same old, same old which has allowed the NRA to flounder, to be brought into court in New York, and which has allowed grifters like Wayne, Marion, and company to get away with it for years.

Judge Phil Journey is running for the NRA Board of Directors. I did send in his nomination to the Nominations Committee but I imagine that nomination will be sent directly to the circular file by them. While he was nominated by them in 2020, they refused to do so in 2023.

Why?

That is easy to answer. When he called for an independent examiner in the abortive NRA bankruptcy case, he outed himself as not one of the go-along, get-along Friends of Wayne. He also called for Wayne’s replacement as CEO and Executive VP. Thus, he became persona non grata to the powers that be and was a threat to their perks paid for out of the members’ dues. I won’t even get into the childish and contemptible behavior that some Board members have shown towards Phil.

Phil is also Judge Phillip Journey. He serves in Kansas’ 18th District Court, Division 1, and is currently assigned to handle Family Law cases. He told me in the past that as an officer of the court it would have unethical for him to ignore what Bill Brewer was attempting to do when he had the NRA file for bankruptcy protection.

Since the Nominations Committee will ignore Phil Journey, he needs to get on the ballot by petition. This year, thanks to the abysmal voter turnout in 2023, one only need approximately 375 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

So what is a valid signature? It would be that of a Life Member of any level or that of a five-year continuous member. If there had been any break in your annual membership during that five years, the clock starts again. It also has to be an original signature. I suggest signing with blue ink so there is no question that it is not original.

Completed petitions need to be sent back to Phil by October 15th. He must submit all petitions to the NRA by November 7th and this gives him to time to verify membership numbers, etc.

Send the signed petition to him at:

Phillip Journey, PO Box 501 Haysville, KS 67060

Share this post and especially Phil’s petition with friends. We need people like Phil and Rocky Marshall working for us on the inside where there is a chance – slim though it might be – that they can have an impact.

I have embedded both the official petition form and Phil’s bio below.