Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

White supremacy is terrorism.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Republicans in disarray!

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Republicans do not trust women.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Trump Crime Cartel / Chris Collins Took a Deal

Chris Collins Took a Deal

by | 78 Comments

This post is in: 

The Buffalo News is reporting that Rep Chris Collins (NY-27), the first Republican MoC to endorse Trump for President and a member of his transition team, is going to plead guilty to some form of insider trading charge this tomorrow afternoon. Collins’ son and his son’s father-in-law are also going to plead.

Collins loudly proclaimed his innocence when he was first charged with insider trading, and he barely beat Nate McMurray in the 2018 election in his R+11 district. We’ll find out what kind of deal he took, but nobody really thought he would run again. This will probably lead to a special election, which might be good news for Democrats, since they have a well-prepared candidate in Nate McMurray.

Also, good point from Margaret Sullivan, former editor of the Buffalo News:

Reader Interactions

78Comments

  2. 2.

    Jeffro

    Wait…I thought yelling “FAKE NEWS” at the top of your lungs (or Twitter) granted you special immunity, magical powers, that sort of thing?

  3. 3.

    patrick II

    It would take less tax dollars and police investigation if we just proved what few Republicans there are that are innocent of any serious crimes, empty out the cages holding immigrants at the border and repurpose them for Republicans.

  5. 5.

    scav

    Current generation of team GOP: They do all seem to be cut of the same cloth — children and “in”-laws along for the scam.

  7. 7.

    Barbara

    @NotMax: I know you were joking, but really, Club Fed often does recognize family relationships in deciding how to proceed with allegations of non-violent offenses where multiple family members are involved. People plead guilty to offenses like tax evasion all the time to avoid having their spouse or another family member implicated or forced to go to trial.

  9. 9.

    cain

    They all need to go to jail so that they can’t come back and try to run again. We’ll continue to consolidate the House and keep hacking away at the Senate. We might not have enough to kick Republicans out, but we can start trying to remove people like McConnell. If we can find someone as stupid as McCarthy we will be in good shape in the Senate provided we find an equally strong leader as Pelosi in the Senate. I don’t think Schumer is going to cut the mustard.

  12. 12.

    Marcopolo

    Two things:

    First, Nate McMurray, who ran against Collins in 2018 (and came oh so close to winning) is running again in 2020. Here is the website for his campaign if you want to throw him some cash or otherwise help out: McMurray for Congress

    Second, today is the 3rd Quarter deadline for campaign fundraising. All the campaigns will be reporting their quarterly numbers between tomorrow & October 15. If you have a candidate you like that you haven’t gotten around to supporting this would be a good time. If you don’t have a candidate but want to help Ds in 2020 then here is a link for the Retake the Senate fundraising page on ActBlue. You can make a donation that will be split among all the 2020 D Senate candidates or you can click through and give to that one race (Maine, Arizona, Kentucky, Iowa, etc…) that fires your heartstrings.

    And have a great day!

  19. 19.

    Martin

    Thornberry in TX-13 also retiring. I’m guessing this will accelerate as GOPers don’t want to roll into 2020 having to navigate impeachment questions.

  20. 20.

    Gravenstone

    @Gin & Tonic: James Traficant. Although refreshing myself on his sordid career, he ran from prison as an independent, after being expelled from the House. Being an Ohio native, we got to hear about his ongoing stupidity, quite frequently. Yet he kept winning…

  23. 23.

    cain

    I’d like someone to run against Cheney in Utah. That gal has to got to go. So entitled.. we can stop her from trying to be a presidential candidate later.

  24. 24.

    Immanentize

    I am somehow on a bunch of rightwing email lists perhaps just because I have talked at a panel sponsored by the Federalist Society (token libtard scape goat). Today, I received one from a guy running for Congress in NY 22 — which is where I grew up (Broome County and parts of the Southern Tier of NY). This nidget, Steve Cornwell is I am told, the current DA of Broome County. Here is what he writes:

    After all, it is a prosecutor’s SWORN duty to collect and then follow the evidence, without prejudice or personal agenda, not drive an agenda like we’re witnessing from Congressional Democrats and the House Judiciary Committee.

    The evidence shows that President Trump is innocent, and yet, 3 years into his term, Democrats are closer than ever to launching Articles of Impeachment. They are ready to break Congressional rules and violate the U.S. Constitution to do it.

    (emphasis original)

    So, I just finished writing my Criminal Law mid-term exam. This is yours: How many legal errors can you spot in these few sentences? Is this guy a serious candidate?!

  28. 28.

    Roger Moore

    @cain:

    I’d like someone to run against Cheney in Utah.

    Wyoming, not Utah. I agree it would be good to be rid of her, but the Democratic party is weak enough out there that it’s unlikely to happen.

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    @Gravenstone

    Precedent going back almost as far as the country does.

    Prison is not a bar to running for federal office, either. In 1798, Rep. Matthew Lyon ran for Congress from prison and won. He assumed his seat in Congress after serving four months in prison for “libeling” President John Adams. An effort was made to expel Lyon from the House, but it failed. Source

  30. 30.

    cmorenc

    @cain:

    I’d like someone to run against Cheney in Utah. That gal has to got to go. So entitled.. we can stop her from trying to be a presidential candidate later.

    If you’re referring to Liz Cheney daughter of Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney, she’s the Congressperson from Wyoming, not Utah.

  31. 31.

    Leto

    @Immanentize:

    I am somehow on a bunch of rightwing email lists

    You either have powerful enemies, or funny friends. I’ll leave it to you to figure which is more likely.

    How was Immp’s trip? Is he back, or off getting his nipples pierced? Did you get a chance to see the two articles I linked for you yesterday?

    Edit: but as to your question: “I’m just a simple Air Force dorm lawyer…”

  32. 32.

    jonas

    @Immanentize: So apparently in Broome County, if you’re a whistleblower who brings an allegation of serious crimes going on at city hall, and then the mayor actually releases a telephone call transcript in which he is engaging in corruption, the DA will basically tell you to get bent. Good to know.

    NY-22 was one of the blue-flipped districts (barely) in 18, represented by Anthony Brindisi who, afaik, is one of the last Dem holdouts on endorsing impeachment. The district voted for Trump +15 in 2016, so I get why he’s holding his cards close. But this Cornwell guy is a complete whackjob. I doubt he’s going anywhere. Plus, he’d have to get by Claudia Tenney in the primary, another bonafide whackjob whom Brindisi beat, and who desperately wants her old job back carrying water for Trump.

  33. 33.

    sdhays

    @hells littlest angel: If he thought President Liddle’ Hands remembered his name, he’d ask for a pardon now, without the plea.

    Liddle’ Hands only pardons people who a) have something on him (maybe…he still hasn’t pardoned poor old Mikey Flynn or Pauly Manafort) or b) is guilty of something he thinks should be legal (see Arpaio’s disgusting abuse of inmates).

  34. 34.

    HumboldtBlue

    Here’s a timeline of the Ukrainian fiasco from WaPo.

    2014

    May 13, 2014. Hunter Biden, the son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, joins the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings. It is owned by oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, one of several subjects of the Ukrainian corruption probe.
    2015

    December 2015. Joe Biden travels to Ukraine, giving a speech that touches on concerns about corruption in the country. At some point, he tells Ukrainian leaders to fire Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin or lose more than $1 billion in loan guarantees. Biden joins many Western leaders in urging Shokin’s ouster.
    2016

    March 29, 2016. Shokin is ousted from his position by Ukraine’s parliament.

    May 12, 2016.     Yuri Lutsenko becomes prosecutor general of Ukraine, replacing Shokin.
    2018

    Jan. 23, 2018. At an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, Biden describes the pressure he put on Ukraine’s government.

    Late 2018. Giuliani speaks with Shokin.

    Dec. 12, 2018    . A court rules that publication of secret documents delineating under-the-table payments to eventual Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort by a Ukrainian political party was a form of interference in the 2016 U.S. election. The ruling concludes that two officials, including member of parliament Serhiy Leshchenko, broke the law in publicizing the documents.
    2019

    Late January. Giuliani meets with Lutsenko in New York.

    Mid-February. Giuliani again meets with Lutsenko, this time in Warsaw.

    March. Still in office as prosecutor general, Lutsenko begins making allegations about the Bidens’ activities in Ukraine and the 2016 election as a March 31 election date approaches. The whistleblower notes that Lutsenko works for the incumbent, Petro Poroshenko, who is trailing Zelensky — who had promised to replace Lutsenko.

    March 20. The Hill’s John Solomon interviews Lutsenko. Among other allegations, Lutsenko claims that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch had given him a list of people not to prosecute and that he was opening an investigation of Leshchenko.

    March 31. The first round of Ukraine’s presidential election is held. Poroshenko and Zelensky head to a runoff.

    April 1. After speaking with Lutsenko, Solomon reports that a probe into Joe Biden’s push to fire Lutsenko’s predecessor is underway. Lutsenko tells Solomon that he wants to present his evidence to Attorney General William P. Barr.

    April 17. Lutsenko walks back his claims about a do-not-prosecute list.

    April 18. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III releases his redacted report detailing his team’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

    April 21. Zelensky easily defeats Poroshenko in a runoff election. Trump and Zelensky have a “brief” call in which Trump congratulates Zelensky on winning the country’s presidential election.

    April 23. Giuliani tweets about an Ukrainian investigation into 2016.

    “Hillary is correct the report is the end of the beginning for the second time…NO COLLUSION. Now Ukraine is investigating Hillary campaign and DNC conspiracy with foreign operatives including Ukrainian and others to affect 2016 election. And there’s no Comey to fix the result.

    — Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) April 23, 2019

    April 25. In an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity, Trump addresses the suggestion that Ukraine interfered in 2016.

    “I would imagine [Barr] would want to see this,” Trump says. “People have been saying this whole — the concept of Ukraine, they have been talking about it actually for a long time.”

    April 29. Ambassador Yovanovitch is recalled to the United States.

    “Around the same time,” the whistleblower writes, “I also learned from a U.S. official that ‘associates’ of Mr. Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelensky team.”

    May. Two associates of Giuliani travel to Ukraine and meet with Ukrainian officials, according to a report cited by the whistleblower.

    Giuliani meets with a top Ukrainian anti-corruption prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytsky, in Paris, according to Kholodnytsky. Kholodnytsky, who had clashed with Yovanovitch, has declined to comment on what he and Giuliani discussed, but he said the Burisma investigation should be reopened.

    May 6. Yovanovitch is removed from her position. The whistleblower says this was because of pressure originating with the Lutsenko allegations.

    May 9. The New York Times reports that Giuliani plans to travel to Ukraine to push for investigations.

    “We’re not meddling in an election, we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do,” Giuliani tells the Times. “There’s nothing illegal about it. Somebody could say it’s improper. And this isn’t foreign policy — I’m asking them to do an investigation that they’re doing already and that other people are telling them to stop. And I’m going to give them reasons why they shouldn’t stop it because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government.”

    May 10. Giuliani again tweets about a Ukrainian investigation.

    Explain to me why Biden shouldn’t be investigated if his son got millions from a Russian loving crooked Ukrainian oligarch while He was VP and point man for Ukraine. Ukrainians are investigating and your fellow Dems are interfering. Election is 17 months away.Let’s answer it now https://t.co/FT34kX7Pst

    — Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) May 10, 2019

    Trump later tells Politico that he will speak to Giuliani about his planned trip to Ukraine. Giuliani then cancels the trip.

    May 11. Lutsenko and Zelensky meet for two hours, with the former requesting to stay in his position.

    May 13. Barr announces a probe into the origins of the investigation into Russian interference. The whistleblower cites a report claiming that the Giuliani investigators’ work will aid this probe.

    May 14. Trump tells VP Pence not to attend Zelensky’s inauguration. Instead, Energy Secretary Rick Perry attends.

    It was “made clear” to officials who spoke with the whistleblower that “the President did not want to meet with Mr. Zelensky until he saw how Zelensky ‘chose to act’ in office.”

    Giuliani tells a Ukrainian journalist that Yovanovitch was “removed … because she was part of the efforts against the president.”

    Mid-May. The whistleblower starts hearing concerns about Giuliani’s circumvention of the government’s official processes as regards Ukraine.

    The whistleblower is told that officials, including Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker and E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland, had spoken with Giuliani to “contain the damage” he was doing and that the ambassadors had been working with Ukrainian officials to help them figure out how to resolve the conflict between government messaging and Giuliani’s.

    In the same time frame, officials told the whistleblower that Ukrainian leaders believed “that a meeting or phone call between the President and President Zelensky would depend on whether Zelensky showed willingness to ‘play ball’ on the issues that had been publicly aired by Mr. Lutsenko and Mr. Giuliani.”

    May 16. Lutsenko walks back his claim about a probe into the Bidens.

    May 19. In an interview with Fox News, Trump explicitly references Joe Biden’s efforts in Ukraine, falsely claiming that Biden pushed for Shokin to be fired because of Hunter Biden’s work.

    May 20. Zelensky is inaugurated as president of Ukraine. Shortly after the inauguration, Giuliani meets with Ukrainian officials who are allies of Lutsenko and who made allegations included in Solomon’s reporting.

    June 13. In an interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos, Trump says he might accept electoral assistance from a foreign government, if offered.

    The chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission subsequently points out on Twitter that this would be illegal.

    June 20. In an interview with Fox News, Trump links Ukraine and the effort to hack the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election — a link that the whistleblower (and recent reporting) suggests doesn’t exist.

    June 21.

    New Pres of Ukraine still silent on investigation of Ukrainian interference in 2016 election and alleged Biden bribery of Pres Poroshenko. Time for leadership and investigate both if you want to purge how Ukraine was abused by Hillary and Obama people.

    — Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) June 21, 2019

    July 12. Axios reports that Trump and Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats are at odds, with Trump telling confidants that he wants to remove Coats from his position.

    Mid-July. The whistleblower learns that the White House is withholding aid to Ukraine.

    July 16. Former MP Leshchenko, accused of interference in 2016, states that the court ruling from December has been overturned on appeal.

    July 18. The Office of Management and Budget tells administration offices to suspend aid to Ukraine per Trump’s orders earlier in the month.

    July 22. Shokin tells The Washington Post that he was removed over the Biden issue. Other officials have suggested this isn’t true.

    July 23. OMB reiterates that aid to Ukraine is suspended, per Trump.

    July 24. Mueller testifies before Congress.

    July 25, morning. Trump and Zelensky speak by phone early in the morning. The whistleblower reports that in the call Trump “pressured” Zelensky to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden, to “assist in purportedly uncovering that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine” — as in the July 20 Fox interview — and to meet or speak with Giuliani and Barr.

    The whistleblower wasn’t on the call but was informed that about a half-dozen people were on the call. That group included T. Ulrich Brechbuhl from the State Department, an aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    July 25, evening. Ukraine publishes a summary of the Trump-Zelensky call. It notes that Trump “expressed his conviction that the new Ukrainian government will be able to quickly improve Ukraine’s image and complete the investigation of corruption cases that have held back cooperation between Ukraine and the United States.

    Days following July 25. The whistleblower writes: “I learned from multiple U.S. officials that senior White House officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced — as is customary — by the White House Situation Room. This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.”

    The whistleblower claims to have been told by White House officials that they were directed by White House lawyers to move the transcript from the normal documentation archive and to “a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature” — a move one official called an “act of abuse.”

    In an appendix, the whistleblower adds that officials said “this was ‘not the first time’ under this Administration that a Presidential transcript was placed into this codeword-level system solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive — rather than national security sensitive — information.”

    July 26. Volker and Sondland traveled to Kiev and met with Zelensky and other politicians. There, the whistleblower writes, they “reportedly provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the President had made of” Zelensky.

    OMB reiterates that aid to Ukraine is suspended, per Trump.

    July 28. Trump announces that Coats will resign in August.

    July 31. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin speak by phone.

    Early August. Officials indicate to the whistleblower that Ukraine is aware that aid is being held, but the whistleblower doesn’t know when they learned that.

    Aug. 2. Giuliani travels to Madrid, where he meets with a Zelensky adviser named Andriy Yermak. This meeting was a “direct follow-up” to the July 25 call, according to the whistleblower’s sources. Giuliani had also been reaching out to other Zelensky advisers.

    Aug. 3. Zelensky announces that he will travel to the United States to meet with Trump in Washington in September.

    Aug. 8. Giuliani tells Fox News that the Justice Department official in charge of investigating the origins of the Russia probe is “spending a lot of time in Europe” to investigate what happened in Ukraine.

    Trump announces Joseph Maguire will take Coats’s job as director of national intelligence in an acting capacity. In doing so, he bypasses Sue Gordon, who had been Coats’s No. 2 at the directorate of national intelligence and was a career intelligence official with bipartisan support. Gordon would later resign.

    Aug. 9. Trump speaks to reporters outside the White House. He’s asked about inviting Zelensky to the White House and what advice he would offer on dealing with Putin.

    “I think he’s going to make a deal with President Putin, and he will be invited to the White House,” Trump said. “And we look forward to seeing him. He’s already been invited to the White House, and he wants to come. And I think he will. He’s a very reasonable guy. He wants to see peace in Ukraine. And I think he will be coming very soon, actually.”

    Aug. 12. The whistleblower complaint is filed.

    Mid-August. Several Ukrainian officials are due to visit the United States. It’s not clear if they did so.

    Aug. 15. Coats and Gordon officially leave their positions.

    Sept. 1. Zelensky and Pence meet as world leaders are in Poland for a ceremony commemorating World War II. Trump had originally been slated to attend the ceremony but remained in the United States to monitor Hurricane Dorian.

    Sept. 5. The Post editorial board writes that it had been “reliably told” that Trump was “attempting to force Mr. Zelensky to intervene in the 2020 U.S. presidential election by launching an investigation of the leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.”

  35. 35.

    sdhays

    @Roger Moore: I’ve read that neighboring Idaho is seeing an influx of people from California as housing prices make it too expense to live there, with the implication that in a decade or so, Idaho might be much more pink or purply than its current deep red. With Wyoming so sparsely populated, a similar trend may make a difference there faster than one might expect.

  38. 38.

    japa21

    OT but a cute little anecdote.
    Since retiring 3.5 years ago, I started working part time in a mentally undemanding position (50 years of mentally demanding was enough). Last week and this week my boss is training a young man (early 30’s) to take her position in a different location. I heard her having a discussion with him and caught the words “would you want to go back there?”

    I asked her about it and she informed me he is from Iran and is currently working towards getting his green card. I asked if he was worried at all and she said he was doing everything totally by the book. I told her that may not mean anything with this current administration. I should note, I have no idea what her political leanings are.

    She said two things in response to my comment.

    “With this administration, I’m surprised we’re all alive.”

    “Trump is an example of why the phrase ‘Anyone can grow up to be President’ should never again be uttered.”

    I think I now know how she feels about Trump.

  39. 39.

    CaseyL

    @sdhays: That’s good to hear
    Idaho is lovely and the only thing keeping it off my post-retirement move-to list has been its deep deep redness.

  41. 41.

    FlipYrWhig

    @HumboldtBlue: It has occurred to me that “corruption” in this scandal is functioning much the same way “adoption” did in the Russian one. “Actually, it was a productive meeting in which we discussed electoral skulduggery adoption um CORRUPTION, yes, corruption is what it was about.”

  43. 43.

    germy

    The woman worked the photo line, and when it was her turn to be photographed with Franken, she said, “he puts his hand on my ass. He’s telling the photographer, ‘Take another one. I think I blinked. Take another one.’ And I’m just frozen. It’s so violating. And then he gives me a little squeeze on my buttock, and I am bright red. I don’t say anything at the time, but I felt deeply, deeply uncomfortable.”

    A military veteran who is now a senior staffer at a major progressive organization, she is the ninth woman to accuse Franken of inappropriate conduct and the fourth to say Franken grabbed her butt. New York also spoke to three individuals in whom she had confided after the first Franken accusations emerged; she says that she did not tell anyone about the incident after it happened out of embarrassment.

    When she saw the first news alert about Franken, the woman said, she burst into tears. “I really considered adding my voice,” she said. But years after the Franken incident, she had reported unwelcome attention from her boss at work and ended up leaving the job after feeling ostracized.

    She dreams of being a Cabinet secretary in a future Democratic administration, she said, and “knowing the vetting process, I know that anything can be used as a flag to say, ‘Not this person.’ The idea that I would not get a job and would always wonder: Was it the article where I was the one who was raising my hand against a powerful man?”

    https://www.thecut.com/2019/09/another-woman-says-al-franken-groped-her.html#_ga=2.192506794.1021264287.1569849812-569128361.1551387542

  44. 44.

    trollhattan

    @sdhays: @CaseyL:
    Of course we’re shedding our Republicans foremost so don’t presume Californication=Pelosification.

    And Idaho is Fucking Freezing in winter, if that’s a consideration.

  45. 45.

    Leto

    @trollhattan: I have really good friends stationed there. Roughly 9 out of 12 months being snow isn’t my cup of tea. I guess eventually with climate change it’ll change those numbers so…

  47. 47.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Although the evangelicals and assorted RWNJs would probably outlaw the growing of – *gasp* – passion fruit. Think of the children!

    ;)

  49. 49.

    ChrisS

    Boise is a bit of a burgeoning tech hotspot now that Seattle and SF/ San Jose are too expensive. Fastest growing state in the country. This is the double-edged sword when locals elect pro-business GOP yahoos who sell their state to woo businesses. Someone has to do those tech jobs and its not going to be Cletus from the trailer park. Invariably, they import dems from blue states (who also enjoy the outdoors). Then all the locals complain about Commie-fornians invading their state after screwing up their own.

    Wyoming is doable, but it’s a longer timeline.

  50. 50.

    trollhattan

    @trollhattan:
    My Pocatello buddy’s lawn would disappear in October and reemerge in April. All the gas saved on the mower went instead into the blower.

    I am willing to push either mower or blower, not both. (Happiest currently with neither.)

  51. 51.

    ChrisS

    @donnah:
    I’d wager he won’t issue a press release saying that he apologizes for calling this a deep state hit on him based on meritless charges.

  52. 52.

    ChrisS

    @trollhattan:
    I live in upstate NY … winter anywhere else isn’t as bad. Although, I could be influenced to help out making some AZ mountain-adjacent town more blue than purple.

  54. 54.

    artem1s

    @cain:

    So entitled.. we can stop her from trying to be a presidential candidate later.

    You know the whole Bush Crime Family is just waiting in the wings with ‘Did Ya Miss Me’ bumpers stickers for when Dump finally gets run out on a rail. Darth Cheney will be right at the front of the snarling pack of thieves.

  55. 55.

    Leto

    @NotMax: “Passion fruit? I will NOT have any fruit inspiring these, impure thoughts!“

    @ChrisS: I’ve had the same thought. Have more of us move to an area/state to improve it. Then I remember I 1) enjoy my sanity and 2) enjoy book stores. Amazon doesn’t cut it.

  58. 58.

    Barbara

    @Leto: Not “Club Fed” meaning the prison system, but the DOJ will frequently broker plea deals among family members that allow one family member to plead out in part based on how the other is treated, e.g., they might both have to plead guilty but only one will go to jail. Only for non-violent offenses, and not always, of course, but it’s fairly common in tax and security violations. So while both Collins and his son are pleading, I would bet money that only one of them is going to serve time — and that it will be the father if the son has young children.

  59. 59.

    H.E.Wolf

    @artem1s:

    You know the whole Bush Crime Family is just waiting in the wings …. Darth Cheney will be right at the front of the snarling pack of thieves.

    He’ll be 79 in January, and his health has been poor for years. Not much need to worry about his recrudescence, vile though he is.

  60. 60.

    Kent

    @ChrisS: Boise is a nice enough city as it goes. But faces the same problem as Austin in that it is sitting in the center of a ruby red state with a paleolithic legislature hell bent on squelching anything remotely progressive coming out of Boise. Like for example transit.

    Wyoming has nothing really of interest as a place to live. I’ve spent time in Cheyenne and its only redeeming quality is that Colorado is not too far away.

  65. 65.

    Kent

    @Gin & Tonic: I guess if you have a million to drop on a ski chalet. Always struck me as the Wyoming version of Aspen. Not the sort of place ordinary people actually go to pursue normal careers and lives.

  66. 66.

    trollhattan

    @Kent:
    For now she’s likely headed to becoming one of WY’s senators. Nearly as bad as it gets for the rest of us.

  67. 67.

    Kent

    @trollhattan: Yes. Any Senator out of WY is likely to be problematic. Cheney is especially bad because she has higher aspirations as she isn’t really even from WY. So she’s not the typical Good Ol’Boy rancher type who is the typical Western GOP politician who is a reliable GOP vote but otherwise is fairly uninterested in national policy.

  69. 69.

    Kent

    Off topic sort of.

    But I just realized that New York City has a lot to answer for having given us Trump, Guiliani, Epstein, and Barr. Pretty much the entire rogue’s gallery of 2019.

    I’m wondering if there is a certain type of NYC asshole that trump gravitates towards out of natural affinity.

  71. 71.

    Kent

    @cain: The Wyoming GOP will have to sort out if they want a carpetbagger from Maryland to serve as their Senator. Sure as hell won’t be any Dems winning that seat. Wyoming is a deep red as they get. It has no cities to speak of and no minorities so it is basically Texas without any big cities or minorities.

  72. 72.

    ChrisS

    @Kent:
    I’m a hunter/angler and outdoors person, so most of the mountain west is appealing … the lower ranch and oil-lands with the truck-stop towns not so much though.

  73. 73.

    janesays

    @Martin: The Thornberry retirement doesn’t mean a whole lot. TX-13 is the most Republican-leaning district in the entire country (R+33). Every GOP presidential candidate since 2004 has won that district by at least 50 points.

    If we win Texas 13, it means we’re going to win more than 350 seats in the House, 60 seats in the Senate, and the presidency with at least 400 EVs.

    It would be absolutely fantastic, but it ain’t happening.

  74. 74.

    Kent

    @ChrisS: I agree entirely. Much of the mountain west is beautiful rugged country. I’m especially partial to Eastern Oregon and places like the Bitterroots in Idaho. But politically speaking it is a wasteland of gun-toting racist MAGA types. I grew up with them in Oregon. When I was young I spent a lot of time with my dad hunting mule deer and elk in eastern Oregon and fishing in Idaho.

    I’ve spent enough years living in tiny blue outposts in red states in both Alaska and Texas. After awhile it just gets tiresome to have every level of state government actively working against all you believe in from education to healthcare to the environment to urban planning and transportation. Now I live in Washington State and still have to pinch myself sometimes when I realize I have a state government that is actually working towards the same ends in which I believe.

  76. 76.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kent:

    I’m wondering if there is a certain type of NYC asshole that trump gravitates towards out of natural affinity.

    Oh totally. It’s what he thinks “toughness” looks like. He’s sort of intimidated by military types but he thinks NYC bullies, cops, and party-hearty rich people are his tribe because of their Don’t Give A Fuck attitude.

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