Search Results for: chris collins

Wednesday afternoon, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its score of the Trumpcare bill. It squeaked through the House of Representatives in early May 217-213.

Local Republican Congressman Chris Collins, a reliable cheerleader for the Trump Administration, voted in favor of the bill. He has refused to meet with constituents to explain and defend his vote, or – more critically – to hear from people who will be palpably harmed by poor, unaffordable health coverage. 

Paired with the massive cuts to Medicaid, Trumpcare would see 23 million Americans lose their health insurance over the course of the next 10 years. More dramatically, 14 million of them would lose their health coverage just next year. Once you get sick and actually use your health coverage, you would end up paying much more for it in the future. 

Because of the “McArthur Amendment”, which was used as bait to lure hard-line ultra-right wing House votes, states have the option to permit discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions. In those cases, rates would skyrocket into the realm of hypothesis. Other states would have the ability to opt out of requiring health coverage to include things like prenatal care, mental health, and substance abuse. People would need to buy separate policies to cover these situations and ailments. 

In essence, Trumpcare would result in something arguably worse than the pre-Obamacare status quo. It starkly betrays every promise the Republicans made about making health insurance better, protecting people with pre-existing conditions, and people losing coverage. The text of the bill was available for only 24 hours, and there were only about three hours’ worth of debate, and Democrats were shut out of the process. Once, House Republicans promised to read every bill, and that any bill’s text would be available to read for days in advance. They broke this pledge.

The rationale behind yanking health insurance from 23 million Americans is the cost savings, which will fund a massive tax cut to the superwealthy. While you and your family find themselves paying more for worse insurance, or you are being gouged due to your pre-existing diabetes or cancer, people making millions will have a little more cash in hand to fuel up the Gulfstream. Win-win!

It exchange, Trumpcare would roll back Medicaid expansions in certain states, offer paltry “tax credits” of a couple thousand dollars to ostensibly help people buy health coverage that would cost exponentially more per year. But Trumpcare would harm the elderly poor the most: 

The new report tends to validate criticism of the House Republican bill by AARP and other advocates for older Americans. “For older people with lower income, net premiums” — after tax credits — “would be much larger than under current law, on average,” the budget office said. As an example, it said, for a typical 64-year-old with an annual income of $26,500, the net premium in 2026 would average about $16,000 a year, compared with $1,700 under the Affordable Care Act.

Imagine paying 62% of your annual income on health coverage when you need it most. 

The 217 Republicans – including Clarence’s Chris Collins – who voted in favor of this Trumpcare disaster did so without first waiting for and reviewing the CBO’s analysis of its effects. This is, itself, wildly irresponsible. That irresponsibility is compounded by the fact that Collins never read the 100-page bill before voting on it, and had absolutely no idea of its effects. Mr. Collins is too busy buying up and puffing pharmaceutical penny stocks while promoting legislation that would directly help that investment. Now, he’s soliciting big-money contributions from DC’s wealthy, who will benefit most directly from the federal theft of people’s health coverage.  

Collins is willing to sell his presence to the highest Beltway bidder, but refuses freely to meet with constituents whom his legislation will harm. What a coward, essentially crossing his fingers and hoping the “R” after his name will be the key to yet another easy victory in 2018. But consider this passage, the day after the House vote on Trumpcare: 

Told by a Buffalo News reporter that the state’s largest loss of federal funds under the bill would be $3 billion annually that goes to the state’s Essential Health Plan, Collins said: “Explain that to me.”

The Essential Plan is an optional program under Obamacare, offered only by New York and Minnesota, that provides low-cost health insurance to low- and middle-income people who don’t qualify for Medicaid. State Health Department figures show that more than 19,000 people in Erie and Niagara counties were on the Essential Plan in January.

Asked by The Buffalo News if he was aware of the bill’s cut in funding to the Essential Plan, Collins said: “No. But it doesn’t surprise me for you to tell me that there were two states in the nation that were taking advantage of some other waiver program and New York was one of the two states.”

Chris Collins has no idea what he’s doing or whom he’s harming, and he refuses to meet with people who might tell him about it. He votes on bills he didn’t read, that weren’t posted long enough for people to review, and which had barely any debate and no minority input. He voted for a bill that will do real harm to people, weakening and fragmenting an industry representing a fifth of the economy. 

But hey, at least Collins hasn’t body-slammed any reporters yet. 

In April 2017, Congressman Chris Collins uncritically cheered President Trump’s military strike against Syria – the same type of action that President Obama had proposed in 2013, and which Collins vehemently opposed as “ill-conceived”. Is there some substantive difference, or is it just a craven partisan about-face? 

Collins’ obsequiousness in the face of Trump’s missile strike is informed only by naked partisanship and the Republican policy of de-legitimizing President Obama not only as President, but de-humanizing him.  Chris Collins’ positions can be summarized as: Trump good, Obama bad, even when the topic at hand is practically identical.

In August 2013, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians living in Damascus’ eastern suburbs – a war crime.  President Obama believed that this attack compelled some sort of American military response, most likely launching missiles from Navy ships at military targets. From CNN, 

“It is not in the national security interests of the United States to ignore clear violations” of what he called an “international norm” banning the use of chemical weapons, Obama said at a meeting with visiting heads of Baltic nations Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

He called the Syrian attack a “challenge to the world” that threatens U.S. allies Israel, Turkey and Jordan while increasing the risk of such weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.
 

Our NATO allies, however, preferred that any military action first be sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council; however, it had failed to act, in part, because of the Russian veto. Domestically, some Congressmen signed a letter asking that President Obama seek Congressional approval before any military action. 

Chris Collins (NY-27) also demanded that President Obama seek Congress’ okay before launching any naval strike on Assad. In a press release dated August 28, 2013, Collins cited his belief that any military action would, “impact the ongoing civil war within Syria, but possibly have ramifications throughout the region”. 

Within days, President Obama acquiesced to demands that he first consult with Congress.

In one of the riskiest gambles of his presidency, Mr. Obama effectively dared lawmakers to either stand by him or, as he put it, allow President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to get away with murdering children with unconventional weapons. By asking them to take a stand, Mr. Obama tried to break out of the isolation of the last week as he confronted taking action without the support of the United Nations, Congress, the public or Britain, a usually reliable partner in such international operations.

“I’m prepared to give that order,” Mr. Obama said in a hurriedly organized appearance in the Rose Garden as American destroyers armed with Tomahawk missiles waited in the Mediterranean Sea. “But having made my decision as commander in chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests, I’m also mindful that I’m the president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.”

Congressman Collins responded on August 31, 2013, again citing that any military action against Syria could have regional ramifications. 

In the ensuing days, Russia intervened on behalf of its longtime client, Assad, and war was averted through a deal whereby Assad would destroy his chemical weapons under Russian supervision. It was a weak response that only served to strengthen Assad – and Russia’s influence in the immediate region – and gave Republicans in Washington an excuse to reject Obama’s half-hearted request for military authorization.

Congressman Collins, like most of his Republican peers, used the Russian “diplomacy” as a partial excuse to tell Obama to pound salt. He released a statement indicating that he would not vote to authorize Obama’s proposed missile attack to punish Assad for his deliberate chemical targeting of civilians, adding that he was “unconvinced” that any such strike would be in America’s “best interests”. 

Characterizing President Obama’s plan to launch a targeted missile strike in Syria as “ill-conceived”, Collins demanded that any such request for military action include a “clear set of objectives” and a “clear exit strategy”. 

Collins even released a video: 

In the ensuing three years, America took a hands-off approach to Syria, arming anti-Assad rebels who found themselves battling each other, Assad, and ISIS. ISIS ran roughshod throughout northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq, and its tyrannical horrors became emblematic of the worldwide disease of jihadist terrorism. Russia intervened militarily on behalf of the Assad regime, and the US and Iraq intervened to back, among others, Kurdish fighters battling ISIS. 

Throughout Obama’s Presidency, regime change in Syria was American policy. On March 30, 2017, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled a dramatic change: 

In the last sentence of his news conference later Thursday with Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, Tillerson said the “longer-term status of President (Bashar) Assad will be decided by the Syrian people.” That is a highly significant departure from the long-time stance of the Obama administration, which always insisted the Syrian dictator — accused of killing thousands of his own citizens in indiscriminate bombing — must step down as part of any negotiated political solution to the crisis.

Last week – a few days after Tillerson’s declaration – Assad’s regime again launched a chemical weapons attack targeting civilians. Had Assad actually destroyed his chemical stockpile? Apparently so, according to the team of international inspectors sent to monitor the situation. The Sarin that Assad used was either hidden from inspectors, or part of a fresh batch. This article lays out the chemical realities of the creation, storage, and usage of Sarin. It is chemically difficult to store, so it is either synthesized in flight or shortly before being used. Based on Syria’s capabilities, it is most likely that it was a new batch.

To date, all of the nerve agents used in the Syrian conflict have been binary chemical warfare agents, so-named because they are mixed from several different components within a few days of use.  For example, binary Sarin is made by combining isopropyl alcohol with methylphosphonyl difluoride, usually with some kind of additive to deal with the residual acid produced. 

President Trump launched a missile attack from US Navy ships last Thursday night without first seeking any Congressional approval. There was no statement of intent – no plan or exit strategy. In essence, President Trump revealed that this military action was brought about due to the emotions he felt while watching television images of the attack and its victims. Critics accused the Trump Administration of effectively green-lighting Assad’s attack on his own people; it was April Glaspie 1990 all over again. 

In the absence of strategy or concern for the ramifications of action, Congressman Chris Collins, who is President Trump’s loudest and most consistent Congressional cheerleader, issued this statement: 

Gone now is the hand-wringing over Constitutionality of Presidential military action. Absent are the concerns about how American intervention might adversely affect the Syrian civil war or regional stability. In essence, Collins was cheering for the exact same thing he had opposed three years earlier, with literally the only difference being who occupies the White House. 

Why shouldn’t we have not tolerated the “status quo” in 2013? How many Syrians have been slaughtered between 2013 and 2017? 

Trump’s missile attack? Within sixteen hours, Syrian jets were taking off from the base that had been targeted. Military expert Malcolm Nance noted that the Pentagon has runway busting munitions, but didn’t use them. 

No plan, no strategy, no consultation, no effect, but Collins supports the same action Trump took that he denied Obama. 

To my mind, Chris Collins’ is complicit in bringing about every “status quo” death and refugee arising out of the Syrian conflict since 2013. His flip-flop is anti-American partisanship at its most craven. Shame on him and his blatant absence of principles.

It’s an Obama-era regulation with such broad support, even many Breitbart commenters can’t believe it’s being repealed. 

Over the past week, the Republican Senate and House voted to strike FCC Internet privacy rules which would have, “required home Internet and mobile broadband providers to get consumers’ opt-in consent before selling or sharing Web browsing history, app usage history, and other private information with advertisers and other companies.” So, Spectrum and FiOS and Comcast Xfinity can track the websites you visit and sell that data to advertisers. 

Local Representative Chris Collins (R-NY27) voted in favor of allowing internet service providers collecting and monetizing your web and app histories, without your knowledge or consent. It seems like a no-brainer – the only rationale that backers of this rule have proffered is that websites had some sort of unfair advantage over ISPs. So, Facebook and Google would remain free to monetize your online activity, but your ISP wouldn’t. The problem with this logic is that people have a choice whether to visit Google or Facebook or any other website – there is seldom any meaningful competition among ISPs. Most of western New York has only Spectrum for Broadband service. A small handful of communities have FiOS. That’s it – the ISPs enjoy the advantage of monopoly. 

The only entities cheering this development are ISPs and advertisers, which stand to profit from Congress selling out your internet and app history. You revert back from being a broadband customer and internet user to being a marketing data point. Your ISP can continue to make money off your online behavior, while you deal with internet speeds that are fraudulently slow or ridiculously poor. 

The privacy concerns are legitimate: 

ISPs can’t see encrypted traffic, so if you visit an HTTPS site, ISPs will see only the domain (like https://arstechnica.com) rather than each page you visit. But that’s still plenty, said Dallas Harris, an attorney who specializes in broadband privacy and is a policy fellow at consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge.

ISPs might be able to figure out where you bank, your political views, and your sexual orientation based on what sites you visit, Harris told Ars.

“You don’t need to see the contents of every communication” to develop efficient ad tracking mechanisms, she said. “The fact that you’re looking at a website can reveal when you’re home, when you’re not home.”

An ISP might notice that a particular tablet often visits children’s websites. From that, “they can infer that this tablet then belongs to a child” and deliver advertising targeted to kids. “The level of information that they can figure out is beyond what even most customers expect,” Harris said.

This Republican handover of web traffic data to ISPs didn’t come cheap. The Verge has tallied how much the telecom industry donated to each of the 265 Republican (and it was only Republican) lawmakers who voted to sell you out, revealing that Chris Collins received $57,500 from the telecom lobby. 

$57k to a guy who has deep pockets to self-finance is a drop in the bucket, so this isn’t so much about money as priorities. You – as a consumer or a constituent – have less value to Collins than any big corporate entity. That’s why Collins votes against your privacy in order to further enrich monopolistic telecom giants. It’s also why Collins opposes net neutrality – the rules put in place to ensure that ISPs can’t prioritize what traffic gets to you fastest. For instance, if your ISP, Spectrum, bought Hulu, net neutrality prevents it from throttling or slowing traffic from Netflix or any other competitor; net neutrality stands for the proposition that you – not your ISP – should have the freedom to choose what traffic your broadband connection should deliver to you.

One enterprising activist is raising money to buy the internet browsing and app histories of the Republicans who voted for the repeal of this privacy rule. Check it out here. 

Of course, Representative Collins didn’t, doesn’t, and won’t care what you think about any of this. His only point of contact with any potentially disgruntled constituent will be the phones lackadaisically operated by a gaggle of unpaid fugitive from this month’s Vineyard Vines catalog. No town hall, no meetings with privacy advocates – nothing. 

Not that it would have mattered. Not only did Collins vote for the anti-privacy bill…

…he was one of its co-sponsors. 

Representative Chris Collins is one of the biggest cheerleaders for Trumpcare, which will cost Americans more money for no guarantee of coverage for essential medical services, and throw 24 million people off their health insurance. Mr. Collins, a multi-millionaire, can afford whatever insurance he wants, or use the health insurance offered to him as a member of Congress. He also refuses to hold meetings or town halls with constituents who are concerned about losing their insurance, or not being able to afford it anymore. 

Trumpcare is an unmitigated disaster; when the CBO score showed that it would reduce the deficit by over $300 billion over time, and throw 24 million off of their insurance, Republicans went back to the drawing board. What they came up with has been scored by the CBO as reducing the deficit by half as much as the original proposal, and throwing the same 24 million people off their policies. 

Their fix was to spend $186 billion more for no gain in coverage. 

But what’s also evident is that no one knows what’s in this health insurance revocation act. It was literally thrown together in a couple of weeks, done in secret, and Democrats have been completely shut out of the process – not one Democratic amendment has been considered, as opposed to Obamacare, which included around 100 Republican amendments. 

Chris Collins, ever the cheerleader for Donald Trump, predicts “victory”, and asks his constituents to be patient. 

“In my district right now there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what it is we’re doing,” Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) told MSNBC’s Brian Williams. “And once we get it done, and then we can have the chance to really explain it.”

Williams had asked Collins how he would explain the bill to residents of his district who may stand to lose insurance coverage.

“I don’t believe that’s the case,” Collins responded.

I wish there existed a way for a Chris Collins to come before his constituents to fix their “misunderstanding” and “really explain it”. 

Sounds a lot like we have to pass the bill before we can explain to people what’s in it. Nihilism is a failing ideology. 

What do you call it when a sitting member of Congress drafts legislation, which passes and then results in a direct personal financial gain? I call it “Corruption 101” and it’s the stuff that 3rd world kleptocracies are made of. 

On Thursday, Washingon ethics watchdog Public Citizen released a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics and the Securities & Exchange Commission alleging that Republican Representatives Tom Price and Chris Collins (NY-27) may have acted unethically and engaged in possible insider trading.

According to Public Citizen and its analysis of news reports and financial disclosures, Collins is a “prolific trader of health care investments on the stock market.” Collins, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, is a board member and the largest shareholder of a major biotech company, Australia’s Innate Immunotherapeutics Limited – a company in which both Price and Collins made major stock purchases within days of each other, according to financial disclosure reports.

“Collins purchased 4 million shares in August in the company whose board he sits on, and Price followed up with his own major stock purchase in the company two days later,” said Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “The stock value doubled in the three months following their investments. That’s quite good luck. This is worthy of investigation to determine whether any wrongful conduct occurred.”

Price is alleged to have traded over $300,000 worth of stocks in about 40 health care companies while “sponsoring and advocating legislation that could potentially affect” the value of those stocks. The Wall Street Journal says that since 2012, Price sponsored 9 and co-sponsored 35 bills in the House that could have resulted in direct, personal financial gain. In August, Price bought between $50,000 – $100,000 in Innate Immunotherapeutics, the value of which has since doubled. 

Price is President-Elect Trump’s nominee to be the director of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Collins is the Trump transition’s Congressional liaison. Public Citizen bills itself as “protecting democracy from corporate greed.” 

Since passage of the STOCK Act in 2012, members of Congress have been subject to the same laws against insider trading that apply to everyone else. Additionally, congressional ethics rules warn members to avoid substantial conflicts of interest that may cast aspersions on the integrity of their office. Rules also mandate that members may not use their office for personal gain. Public Citizen’s letter asks that the OCE and SEC investigate the stock trading activity of Price and Collins for potential violations of insider trading laws and conflict of interest rules and regulations. 

Request for Investigation Price Collins by Alan Bedenko on Scribd

“Extensive stock trading activity in industries that Price and Collins oversee as congressmen, and unusually good timing and financial benefits of those stock trades, raise red flags about the potential use of insider information,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “The public information available falls short of hard evidence of insider trading, but the patterns of trading activity certainly warrant further investigation to determine if it occurred.”

The letter specifically asks, 

These patterns of extensive trading activity in businesses and industries that Reps. Price and Collins oversee in their official capacity, and the beneficial timing of these trades, raise legitimate questions concerning both potential insider trading and conflicts of interest. Some ofthese questions include:

• Did Price and Collins have access to nonpublic material information accounting for adoubling in value of their investments in Innate Immuno? Collins sits on the board of thecompany, a company which is placing its bets on an experimental drug currently inclinical trials, and both members of Congress made substantial purchases in the company’s stock at almost the same time.
• Does pharmaceutical and health care legislation sponsored by Price and Collins run afoulof conflicts of interest concerns in that the legislation could directly and substantially benefit the lawmakers’ own investments beyond the benefit to the public generally? These legislative vehicles could well produce windfall profits for Price and Collins

The Wall Street Journal adds, 

Innate Immuno’s chief executive, Simon Wilkerson, said at investor presentations this year that its future depends on an experimental drug to treat an advanced form of multiple sclerosis, which is currently in clinical trials.

One law enacted this month that could benefit Innate Immuno is the 21st Century Cures Act, which authorizes spending $6.3 billion for medical research, including $500 million for the FDA to speed up drug approvals.

A key provision that would permit clinical trials of new medical treatments to proceed more quickly was written by Mr. Collins as a member of the health panel of the Energy and Commerce Committee…

…[Collins told the Buffalo News that] his authorship of legislation wasn’t a conflict of interest, but rather an instance of bringing his business knowledge to the Congress.

A spokesman for Mr. Collins said he used his business experience and meetings with patients and regulators to write legislation that “will put patients first and get cures more quickly to those who need them most.” The statement added that Mr. Collins “has followed all ethical guidelines related to his personal finances.”

Both Mr. Price and Mr. Collins voted yes for the bill’s final House vote in November, just three months after they bought more stock in the company.

In August 2015, Collins bought between $500,000 and $1 million worth – 4 million shares – of Innate Immuno stock. Collins was an author of a law that has a direct positive benefit on that investment and Collins’ wealth, but dismissed these concerns to the Buffalo News. The value of that stock doubled after passage of that law. Collins has relentlessly pushed for repeal of a tax on medical devices, which would have a direct benefit on two of his stock holdings. 

Earlier this week, House Republicans held a secret vote with no advance warning that would have changed congressional rules and effectively abolish the Office of Congressional Ethics. Public outcry and a Tweet from the President-elect quickly prompted the Republican majority to abandon this first, tone-deaf act of the new Congress. As of this writing, no one knows how Collins voted. Ask him on Facebook, Twitter, or at 

Representative Chris Collins has never been a thoughtful politician, and has always been something of a hypocrite. He’s a tough-talking Spaulding Lake elitist millionaire who spent his time as County Executive cutting services to the middle class and poor to pay for things like his multi-million dollar Six Sigma experiment. 

He’s also a political opportunist, willing to back a neofascist charlatan like Donald Trump for his own political gain. It’s a gamble, for sure – but it’s a calculated risk that takes Collins’ own ambitions into account, at the expense of his constituents. Remember that Collins is neither leader nor follower – he is an anti-democratic tax-raising bureaucrat’s bureaucrat. This is a guy who, when a majority of the representative County Legislature overrode his veto, simply tried to declare the override, “null and void“. With those dictatorial bona fides, maybe Collins has more in common than Donald Trump than we thought. 

In the couple of weeks since Collins officially boarded the Trump roller coaster, we’ve come to find out more about how and why it happened. Specifically, we can turn to this interview with Collins that appeared in the Huffington Post. Before you yell, “smear job” and “nonsense” notice that this story transcribes actual questions posed to – and answers given by – a sitting Congressman from WNY. 

For weeks now, local developer and equine porn enthusiast Carl Paladino had made threats against Republican members of the New York congressional delegation, demanding that they line up and support Trump. The theory seems to be that it’s best for constituents if their congressmen succumb to empty threats from bigoted failed candidates for statewide office. Chris Collins is just that kind of guy, sending the following text message to his GOP colleagues from New York: 

I know Carl Paladino has been aggressively pushing all of you to endorse Trump. And I know he has indicated he will start ‘attacking’ NYers who don’t endorse Trump. You may or may not care, but he does have a formidable email list.

Oh, formidable indeed. 

So, here’s a sitting Congressman sending a text message to other sitting Congresspeople, playing “good cop” to Paladino’s “loud and obnoxious cop”. The HuffPo interviewer catches Collins at first denying that Paladino had anything to do with his Trumpdorsement, before acknowledging quite clearly that this was all about Paladino. 

Collins told HuffPost that his role between Paladino and the other New York Republican members was brokering a sort of detente, where Paladino would lay off pushing for an endorsement before the primary filing deadline and Collins would remind his colleagues that, once the deadline had passed, Paladino would be back at it.

This is about appeasement. If you want the bully to be quiet, you don’t confront him or ignore him – you give him exactly what he wants. Collins went on to explain his rationale for backing Trump, 

He’s the only chief executive, not chief politician.

Right. Maybe Trump can do for the country what he did for the Trump Taj Mahal, the Trump Plaza Hotel, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, and Trump Entertainment Resorts. Maybe as part of Trump’s cabinet, Collins can do for the country what he did to the men and women whom he stiffed out of a mandated and contracted-for prevailing wage as part of one of his company’s contracts with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Collins evidently agrees when Trump says that “wages [are] too high.” He was then confronted about Trump’s more ridiculous and sexist comments, and the exchange went like this: 

When asked whether he has any concerns about some of Trump’s more egregious behavior and remarks, Collins came up with an explanation that was downright Trumpian.

“What I’m going to say is he’s been misquoted many times,” Collins said.

When pressed that he’s clearly been accurately quoted many times, saying horrific things about women and minorities, among others, Collins said, “Well, he’s also been misquoted, and they’ve taken things out of context.”

After some crosstalk, Collins said, “I’m very comfortable with his stance on defense, I’m very comfortable with his stance on jobs, I’m very comfortable with — his actions speak louder than words on the women’s issues.”

Pressed about Trump’s statements on women, Collins interrupted the question and blurted out, “I’m saying actions speak louder than words!”

I mean, such as?! 

Trump’s stance on defense and jobs are taken from the same playbook of dominance politics that informs Trump’s entire disjointed series of thoughts that make up his platform. If you can set forth a narrative portraying America as a loser who is being humiliated and defeated by everyone at every turn, then you make your central thesis about turning the tables and getting back at our perceived tormentors. 

Carl Paladino, Donald Trump, and Chris Collins are three New York politicians who are allies because of their patent similarities. They are millionaires. They believe that the very wealthy are victims of the poor and middle class. They appeal not to our better angels, but to our darkest prejudices. They focus on what divides us. 

Donald Trump is going to win the Republican primary in New York State not only because he’s a local, but because he’s on track to become the Republican Party’s nominee for President. Donald Trump is going to win the Republican primary here because he has widespread support from right-wing upstaters, and because a plurality of downstate Republicans are attracted to his message, and the remainder are split between Kasich and Cruz. 

Normally, Kasich would be the perfect New York Republican pick. Unlike Trump and Cruz, he’s not a lunatic. Unlike Trump and Cruz, he’s as close to a political centrist as you’re likely to get out of a contemporary Republican nationwide candidate. Having just finished seasons 3 and 4 of House of Cards, I’m amazed that the real-life 2016 is crazier than the soap opera version. 

Kasich, however, isn’t going to win New York because Donald Trump is a reality TV icon, a right-wing hero, and a guy with whom downstate New Yorkers have been familiar since Abe Beame was mayor. 

Congressmen and women, who have been duly elected to serve and represent a particular constituency, have earned the right to back whomever they want for President of the United States. But this isn’t just for electeds – under normal circumstances, inter-party squabbles are held in abeyance for the purposes of Presidential primaries, because people recognize each other’s right to vote their conscience. Just because you support Sanders over Clinton – or vice-versa – doesn’t make you any less of a Democrat. 

But Paladino and Collins are teaming up to make the New York GOP primary a litmus test for the Paladino/Palin wing of the tea party, which in New York makes up a minority faction of a minority party. They’re loud, but they’re ineffective – don’t believe me? Ask Senator Kevin Stocker. They are a paper tiger, and any self-respecting Republican elected official in New York should feel perfectly comfortable rejecting these empty, childish threats from political gangsters. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a Harvard graduate with solid GOP credentials, should feel perfectly comfortable ignoring Collins’ and Paladino’s Trump protection racket.  

Do you side with thoughtfulness and principle, or do you side with threats and intimidation?