the EXEGESIS of McCarthy on Collins

collinstrump

Chris Collins pleaded guilty in Federal Court to committing crimes. He was sentenced to prison.

Like starting up an old, garaged jalopy, Bob McCarthy took one more opportunity to just talk to Collins and then transcribe whatever he says. It was the stuff you’d expect to see in the lifestyles section of the paper. The Buffalo Spree is publishing more interesting political pieces than this nowadays, and it seems to me to be the yang to the yin that has been Jerry Zremski’s excellent reporting on the Innate Immunotherapeutics scandal that brought down the Collins crime syndicate.

For over a year – from the date of Collins’ August 2018 indictment, until he ultimately pleaded guilty in late 2019 – the people of the 27th Congressional district had no de facto representation – we had a liar purporting to represent us in Washington. We had a man in office who was distracted by his own illegalities and criminal defense strategies. When he resigned in disgrace, we then had no de jure representation until the special election in June and subsequent swearing-in of Chris Jacobs.

Chris Collins does not deserve anyone’s respect or sympathy. At least, not until he has satisfied his debt to society. Not until he has apologized to the constituents he conned and disrespected.

But when Chris Collins holds a pity party over the phone with Bob McCarthy, we get all of that in spades. Collins is still rich. He still lives in his Florida mansion. His wife and kids will be looked after. He will be serving his time at a Club Fed facility in Florida – 17 months if he’s a good boy, despite a sentence of 26. But he’s still got gripes.

And he is fearful. He does not want his 17-month incarceration – the time he expects to serve based on his imposed sentence of 26 months – to turn into a “death sentence.”

“I’m 70 years old with asthma and hypertension, and it’s senior citizens that we’re supposed to worry about,” he said while driving to Pensacola on Monday. “That’s me. 

“I’ve got to do it. But I do know I do not want to get this virus.”

There are thousands of convicted criminals in federal prisons who are trying not to catch Covid-19, and there is nothing in the eyes of the law that makes Chris Collins more special than them, or entitled to special treatment. And this is not going to be hard time.

Beginning at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Collins – a multimillionaire – reports to the prison camp in the Florida panhandle. He notes it has no hardened prisoners, no barbed wire and few guards.

“I’ll have some buddies to talk to in the morning, have a cup of coffee and read the paper – almost what you do in retirement,” he said. “You actually make good friends. Everyone there has made a mistake. They have regrets related to that mistake. But most everyone everyone has done good things in their lives, and I know I’ve done a lot of good things. 

“My family is with me. It’s not like I did something that made them destitute. My family is stronger now than it’s ever been.”

He should be counting his blessings. Any sympathy should be reserved for the victims who lost everything in the Innate Immunotherapeutics collapse and who did not have the benefit of inside information to try and minimize their losses. Any sympathy should be reserved for the people living in the 27th Congressional District, who were owed Collins’ bona fide representation and hard work but instead were lied to and cheated; cheated most importantly during that critical period from January through June of this year as the federal government learned about then lied about Covid-19 and then completely bungled the federal response.

This article was disgusting and tone-deaf, to put it mildly. Bob McCarthy always treats rich politicians with kid gloves. Maybe that’s bad.

This morning, I woke up in my house. I enjoyed a nice cup of coffee, free from direct government supervision. Then I went exactly where I damn well pleased. Chris Collins, who always had to be the smartest wiseass in any room, did not.

Jacobs Jettisons Trump

When Congressman Chris Jacobs first announced his candidacy for the House of Representatives, he posted a pretty racist video to his Twitter page that was just vicious towards Spanish-speaking economic migrants from Mexico and Central America. When Jacobs ran for the State Senate in 2016, he was publicly silent, never answering questions about whether he supported Donald Trump. Behind the scenes, he told union audiences that he did not support Trump. In 2019, however, the Erie County Republican Committee, which has various close ties to Trump, coordinated a Trump endorsement of Jacobs. That led to a congressional campaign where it almost seemed as if Jacobs was Trump’s running mate, or vice-versa.

Jacobs narrowly won a special election in June, and he is now running for his first full term in Congress. June, you’ll notice, was only four short months ago. Yet in that short span of time, Jacobs has gone from full MAGA TRUMP TRAIN to Trump who?

His latest TV ad makes no mention whatsoever about Donald Trump. Trump‘s name and image do not appear – not audibly or visibly. What a difference four months makes.

Look at him. He’s a “job creator” through his real estate investments. He gallivants about the district, maskless, pretending to “fight” to protect people from insurers discriminating against them due to pre-existing conditions. Donald Trump is nowhere. He is appealing to the people in the middle who are disgusted by Trump. It is amazing what the epic mishandling of a hundred-year pandemic can do.

Here’s an example of what Jacobs’ ads looked like before Trump caught the ‘vid and went crazy on Dexamethasone.

Big difference.

Chris Jacobs repeated the Trump Administration’s fraudulent lie that the New York Green Light Law justified the termination of Trusted Traveler status for New Yorkers. He deliberately backed Trump propaganda that was not only false, but represented an unprecedented punishment of a state’s residents by the federal government to which they pay taxes over a manufactured political issue.

Chris Jacobs is just another flaccid opportunist who has taken another step up the ladder of political power. He has no plan to better your life or the lives of the people hurting the most in this post-Covid reality.

Donald Trump has ruined this country. He has deepened class, racial, political, religious, and economic divisions that were already well-carved. Especially since his impeachment acquittal, which showed him he could engage in unprecedented conspiracies for political gain with impunity, he has carved out the closest thing this country has had to a strongman dictatorship in its history. Donald Trump is a disaster, and Chris Jacobs is part of that disaster.

He went so far as to vote “no” on a bill to strengthen the U.S. Postal Service, and I don’t think it was a mistake. When you surround yourself with brazen liars, why should we take you at your word?

What we can glean from Jacobs’ current propaganda is that Donald Trump is polling poorly enough in NY-27 that it’s best to not mention him, and that people like Obamacare insofar as it rendered illegal insurance company discrimination against people with pre-existing medical conditions. But Chris Jacobs would probably tell you he opposes Obamacare. The problem is he has no alternative plan available for review.

And that’s what really matters about the Republican Party – its only ideology now is belligerent lying and nihilism. It is only against things and people and groups. It has no plan except “whatever Trump says.”

The 27th has had enough of millionaires named Chris who are too timid to answer to – and serve – the people whom they purport to represent.