Please stop the Hate Speech.
America must come together and Move On.
Thanks for the information about two more disasterous politicians. It is getting discouraging, but nice to read about someone else besides you know who. This is off your subject(s) but I was thinking that we need a different baseball hat to look at at in the news photos. How about a blue hat with a catchy counterslogan that will get our base all fired up? We don’t have to chant “ lock him up” to go with it, but we could. Just a thought.
21
Why would anyone vote for people like these that have been accused and indicted? We have enough crooks in the White House and this current administration, some arrested and pled guilty...others yet to be charged (but that will happen soon). Time to clean out the House and Senate, fumigate the White House and start over...We need checks and balances on what is not working....A party that abuses power does not need to have it! We are not Saudi Arabia or Putin's Russia...at least not yet! Wake up and vote.
32
And why wouldn’ rightwingers vote them back in?
3
America in decline! I don’t blame these candidates for running but the American people for voting for them. What is it, aside from too much screen time?
48
@ Kevinlarson
What is it aside from too much screen time?
Did you miss the part where Donald Trump said during his presidential campaign: "I love the poorly educated"?
It all starts there.
13
Too much Fox Fake News watching explains a lot!
9
In what is an increasingly rare occurence, I was at a dinner party last night with more than a few "Trumpettes."
The entire conversation centered around Chappaquiddick, JFK's philandering and Monica Lewinsky, as if all of that unseemly history somehow excuses the shortcomings of the buffoon-in-chief.
I'm afraid our situation as democrats is quite hopeless.
16
Given that it hasn’t been all that much fun to watch Trump, his grotesque family, and his sleazy Cabinet for quite a while, I’m in favor of keeping these two morons around simply for the comedic value.
I mean, for every hilarious excuse for buying a $35, 000 table with taxpayer money, for every image of some fool emerging from the Cone of Silence to zoom around Washington in a caravan of Explorers stuffed with security that makes him look important, there’s some depressing blather about how we need to resegregate schools from from a heiress whose eyes don’t track together and whose brother runs a company that shot and killed 17 people trying to get home from work.
Maybe we’re lucky Scott Pruitt eased it on down the road before he figured out what a great power move that’d be.
So anyways, at this point I figure $600 bucks of my money to fly a rabbit around is a pricey, but useful, snicker.
6
"Collins and Hunter were the first two members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump for president. Just saying."
A cheater and a chiseler. Don the Con was their mentor: they took lessons from him.
16
Corrupt candidates are not all Republican, but they all support the same Republican talking points:
1. Congress is a swamp.
2. Your representatives don't care.
3. It's all about the money.
All of these points, repeated many times, feed an attitude of cynicism and futility among the voting public: "Why bother voting? The candidates are all jerks, anyway."
As a columnist and union organizer wrote recently on these op-ed pages, Futility is a Republican campaign strategy. Republicans really, really want voters to believe it's all futile, so they will either stay home, or maybe vote for the Tea Party candidate because, "What the hell, he's not the same jerk we already have, and things can't get worse, right?"
Meanwhile, the GOP are very skilled in getting their own base out to vote. And they know that the more easily discouraged voters are predominantly Democratic-leaning.
Futility is a GOP strategy for voter suppression.
Vote!
12
Also on the bright side, no one had been picked by by the police for cavorting in the Reflecting Pool on the Mall in DC with an "entertainer' named Fanny Fox. Ah the good old days!
7
Hey, the GOP Trumpites have a new star among them. If they like to elect a real, live, wild-eyed felon, Cesar Sayoc is their guy. Man o' the hour. That loser who merely body slammed a reporter is just puny by comparison. And the Duncans and Collins of this world merely steal for things. They don't draw real blood.
I shouldn't joke; there is doubtless a huge GOP/alt-right gofundme legal defense fund up and running right now for Sayoc; and don't forget Trump promised to pay legal fees for people who assaulted opposition, so he's set. For life.
16
It still eludes me why The Times covers the subversion of democracy and citizenship as though it amuses you. One used to find in your Op Eds clarity and interpretation of the day's events. Now you diagnose the obvious and make fun of it.
3
Trump said he was going to clean up the swamp. He did, sort of, he replaced it with a sewer that he has provided the environment and mentality for. That's where the vermin hang out together. None of them belong in government starting at the top.
17
At least we do not have convicted crackheads running for Congress, unlike the mayoralty races in Washington and Toronto in years gone by.
5
Joe Biden is going to give George W. Bush a medal? Is there any better way to say you're not running as a socialist.
Biden/Lieberman _2020?
2
@Jackie, if Gail Collins is going to yell fire she better be ready to be hit with a bucket of cold hard facts when she chooses to ignore the obvious. The selective use of facts is equally as bad as fake news!
2
Democrats, left-leaning moderates, and anyone else who is still pinching themselves after 11/8/16 (remember how you felt that night? Remember?):
If I/you/we do not VOTE, we have only ourselves to blame.
We get one chance - *one* - to make a difference.
To effect change.
To be *heard*.
I implore you.....
11/6/18.
VOTE.
9
Seriously, you had to go back 40 years just so you appear to be “fair and balanced” with the forced false-equivalency?
2
You nailed it. Voters who would elect a politician who has been convicted should be horse whipped. Voters who would elect one who has been tried should question their judgment. I guess being ex-military we had a higher standard: a condemnation letter, just suggesting a behavioral flaw, was enough to end an officer's career.
11
Gillum, Menendez, Ellison. Shouldn’t you at least note that bad behavior is seen in both parties? Or do you believe opinion is best unencumbered by data.
5
You throw up your hands.
Or should I have said: you throw up period?
Do these guys ever blush?
It's like the President himself. The man is incapable of shame. Incapable of guilt. Incapable of remorse.
On some level, it seems, incapable of THOUGHT.
But your column spoke of persons "beyond Trump."
When I started reading, I thought at first: no no--BENEATH Trump.
Then I reconsidered.
Seriously, you cannot GET--beneath this man. You really can't.
But Mr. Collins and Mr. Hunter--they come close. They come REAL close.
I still remember the "bunny" scandal connected with Mr. Hunter. Sakes, the man looked so comparatively innocent back then.
That about the bunny rabbit provoked mirth.
Not horror.
One bright spot, Ms. Collins. Virtually the ONLY bright spot.
You--and I--and anyone else--can still talk and write about these things. You can still (strange to say) make merry over them--and believe me, I have laughed heartily as your wicked pen SKEWERS this or that crook.
Let's use that power while we can.
'Cause who knows? Maybe the crooks, buffoons, and oligarchs who now rule our fair land--
--may soon be stretching out those gnarled, conservative hands to snatch even THAT tiny privilege.
As they glorify the SECOND amendment--
--laboring stealthily and indefatigably to subvert the FIRST.
Who knows?
Then we'll be in REAL trouble.
When the "Failing New York Times"--
--becomes the "Suppressed New York Times."
5
never underestimate the stupidity of the American voter
16
Where’s Menendez mentioned? 9 million people in New Jersey and all the state could find to run was this gifted. Sad.
4
Dear friends,
You are the worst American problem.
You are the blind followers that are unconditionally, uncritically, irresponsibly and sheepishly following the most corrupted politicians in the world.
I don’t indicate and accuse here either the Republicans or the Democrats but both groups!
The polarization of a country is the deadliest sin leading to the civil wars and social destruction.
If you still believe it cannot happen to you it just means you learned nothing from the history and have established the countless universities only to enjoy the college sports, the tailgating parties, the fraternities and the sororities, and saddle self with the colossal student debt even before you worked a single day in your life.
We can’t achieve the health care reform as long as it’s just a business. The health care, as well as the national defense, the justice, the education, and law and order, cannot be profitable.
If they were, they would make profitability the most important national priority.
Of course, the only way to increase the profitability is to pile up the national debt and saddle the future generations with our spending.
If you never learned this at your local university, sue them and demand the return of your money for cheating you.
None of the aforementioned could ever happen without the utterly corrupted free press (shockingly, a profitable institution too).
They always find something completely irrelevant to write about…
The question now is whether voters are going to re-elect these guys?
And why not?
These days being a politician in the US is not about what you have archived or what kind of values you live by, but which clan you belong to.
Even if the major clan seems to be "Take what you can and get the hell out of here".
1
Gail, you missed not mentioning Congressman Jim Traficant, who in 2002 was expelled from the House after being convicted of bribery and racketeering? But wait it gets even better. While serving his seven year sentence in federal prison he runs for his old seat from his prison cell and still gets 15% of the vote. His biggest supporter at the time was white supremacist David Duke who had taken up the cause of raising money for Traficant, since it is somewhat more difficult to raise money from a prison cell. Still, one in seven of his old constituents wanted Jim as their representative. Gail, how could you miss Jim Traficant and his outrageous toupee? The rest of these guys are amateurs compared to old Jim.
8
Perhaps the GOP will have Hunter on the top of the ticket in 2024
4
Ugh. Why do we have such despicable people in office? If we don’t do something about it we deserve the government we get.
9
Well, Trump's father was once arrested at a KKK protest when 1000 Klansmen were marching, and he and the other six arrested shared the same attorney. He was charged for refusing to disperse. His framed photograph is now in the Oval Office of the White House.
The GOP gubernatorial candidate in Georgia has an entire banquet table laid out with both his voter suppression efforts and distasteful ads showcasing pointing a gun at a teenager, using his big pickup truck to personally round up immigrants, and targeting immigrants. This in a state where agriculture is the largest business, and the last time there were harsh restrictions on immigration, crops rotted in the fields and fruit on the trees.
More will show up on the GOP candidates. Too many in the past have had sexual assault accusations, corruption ethics charges, and openly racist tweets or comments. Time will tell.
14
So, what is the deal here? Are honest folks afraid to run for public office? Maybe there are too many dishonest folks out there with "dirty" backgrounds so we simply have to take what comes along. Pitiful that we don't do good background checks or folks running for office.
Vote.
5
Doesnt Mrs Collins understand she should focus exclusively on the mistakes of the Democratic Party, assuming that she wants to make that party better? By underlining the mistakes of the other party she actually makes the GOP stronger. Is it too hard to comprehend?
1
These two proudly Trumpian candidates are the perfect expression of what is the current state of Congressional Republican politics today. The immoral, corrupt, and resolutely defiant Hunter and Collins are the natural political “sons” of the Fake President, including a measure of misogyny. For the average citizen, of a certain age, it is difficult to contemplate why these two miscreants would ever possibly contemplate continuing their political careers, yet alone aggressively still continue pursuing them. But then the shining example of their standard-bearer, the F.P. comes onto full focus. MAGA.
12
Term limits have never sounded better.
13
My mother used to say, if you want to know the character of someone, look at who they hang out with. No matter how you spin it, it should be evident that the GOP has a problem with integrity, honesty and accountability. Corruption is not a value I look for in a politician.
15
Not my district, but Collins will win. He might have lost a primary if there was time, but they will never elect a Democrat. This is what it’s come to. Party affiliation is more important than ethics and I get it. Would I rather have Menendez in the Senate for his votes or a Republican who will rubber stamp Trump?
37
The wrestling business of the 1950's was performance art. To call it fake misses the point. It was scripted and loosely choreographed with villains ,heroes,maidens, good and evil, a continuing story line, and music. It's a model for the Trump campaign and the conduct of his administration. We are the audience, the lovers and haters of this Gorgeous George imitator and somehow we cannot take our eyes off him. But unlike the wrestling business this is not harmless entertainment.
7
Collins and Hunter are prime examples of just how far our democracy has strayed from its early conception. In voting political party loyalty has been substituted for ability discernment and actual criminal behavior is couched within. In the past week I have overheard two elderly women discussing their political voting. Both said in one way or another, "I always vote straight ________." This approach gives license to the above. My own opinion is that it begins in the schools. We must get back to teaching American History and Civics. Social Studies hasn't done it.
14
The schools never stopped teaching U.S. History. That's a canard.
The addition of social studies subjects such as Economics and Sociology has enhanced the curriculum, not diminished it.
Finally, Civics has shifted all over the place during the past century — it was originally taught as part of U.S. history, or in sequential semesters. It was taught late in high school, but so many were dropping out, it shifted to 9th grade.
But it's irrelevant. It was almost always taught in mechanical fashion, focused on such topics as “How a bill becomes a law”, while ignoring the far more important political and economic power realities of “How a bill is actually created, shaped by lobbyists, and how it actually gets passed, with the pressure and great of campaign donations”.
Even when Civics was a mainstay of the curriculum, students never learned it well. Early in the 20th century, a majority of the elite, college-bound group FAILED their College Board exams.
Textbook memorization of dull facts — e.g., about the bicameral system — do not sink in, nor do they prepare students well for democracy.
Worse, no matter whether Civics is taught — or what is taught in it — the fact that most high schools are bureaucratic, authoritarian institutions teaches a far more worrisome lesson that undermines democracy.
You need to look elsewhere for the source of corruption, rightwing nationalism, and authoritarian instincts than whether or not a semester course in Civics is taught!
2
the NY district 27 is "safe" Republican because of the way the lines are drawn. Growing up in a suburb of Buffalo, I distinctly remember a heavy Dem presence. With population loss, the suburban districts was mashed into the 27th, along with heavily rural counties--yet the actual cities of Buffalo & Rochester are mysteriously cut out of this new district.
Anyway, point being, if you live in a suburb of Buffalo,you are not voting with people who are literally minutes away, you're voting with people who are hours away, and light years away in terms of thinking and life experience.
13
I have two relatives in Hunter's district. One is on GOP autopilot and will certainly vote for Hunter, while the second might think about it. This is a rural/suburban district with a GOP heritage that will not elect a foreign sounding, hyphenated name- unless it runs under (R).
10
I considered that last graph. It's likely because Republicans this year are an unenterprising lot.
Do voters understand that electing a crook will almost certainly lead to a special election?
Of course that depends on a Ethics Committee expulsion action -- a committee the Republicans of this Congress wanted to eliminate as their first order of business.
11
I admit that I love the ending "So far." it says so very much these days.
14
Excuse me Ms. Collins!! I am a veternarian who specializes in rodent (i.e. bunny or rat) dentistry. I deeply resent your making fun of these important pets and the sometimes serious dental problems they have which may require airlifting them for emergency dental work.
11
@Bob
Do you mean to say that's the only thing you got from this article? -- Sorry, but this country is in greater trouble than that.
1
I propose to eliminate one office of government and save a few dollars, the House Ethics Committee. It is never used for any meaningful purpose, and the term itself is an oxymoron.
3
I never thought I'd be so relieved to know that other "disasters" lurk on the political stage outside of this president -- but then again, they both appear to have ties to him.
7
If voters in these districts want cake served to them, then let them eat it...same people who lose money at casinos and think wrestling is a real sport.
8
This says a lot about the people who vote these sleazy, unethical, and criminally inclined politicians back in office no matter what they do.
Evidently, Duncan Hunter's bad behavior impresses and represents his voters well.
And likely, Duncan and his voters are all Foxed up and inoculated against caring about truth but ginned on irrational fears about liberals, rapists, and the government out to get their money and commandeer their guns.
See interesting Times article, where the reporters watched Fox News/Fox and Friends for hours ("above and beyond" I would say; I can't watch Fox News for 10 minutes). They then documented how Fox differed from mainstream news.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/business/media/fox-news.html
6
The best Collins columns remind me of Hieronymus Bosch paintings--enlightening and entertaining to contemplate (especially the adorable bunny or Labrador lurking in the ferns) but terrifying to experience in real life. As we do.
9
You forgot to mention Menendez in NJ. Guess he's OK with you.
1
@kwb Bob Menendez is not a Congressman. He is a Senator. Gail's piece is clearly about Congressmen, who are always up for reelection every cycle.
12
She also didn’t mention Trump or half his cabinet or Betsy de Vos and her family, though in fairness there’s far too much hilarious material there for anything much shorter than the Oxford English Dictionary.
8
No, he's not OK with me or many progressives. Unlike far too many rightwing Republicans (that's now redundant), we decry unethical behavior whether it's by liberals or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans.
But in this era, and with this current administration, corruption and self-enrichment have reached all-time highs. Trump's lying, self-dealing, and constitutional violations are unprecedented. A score or more of Trump's officials have had to resign, withdraw their nominations, or been indicted for illegal and unethical acts. His cabinet is the most corrupt in U.S. history. The Republican leadership and a host of Republican Congressmen are undermining the democracy, violating the constitution, and enriching themselves and their patrons.
It is a staggering situation. To pretend that the same degree of malfeasance exists on the Democratic side is to ignore reality.
6
I often asked my students after a spirited discussion on the future if they would be interested in running for office- the response ranged from -
" I've got better things to do." to "I can't afford to." That is why we ended up with a basket of wealthy yo-yos taking up the vacuum. This is not the best of us- those folks are unsung and busy with real life pursuits. Not that I blame them for finding bliss away from the limelight, but I hope we are fed up enough to put the "public" back in our common vocabulary- from there its just a short step to human rights and justice for all.
12
Bob Menendez, whose trial on federal corruption charges ended with a hung jury, is running for reelection in NJ. I think the party should have dumped him and started with a fresh face. However, if I lived in NJ I would likely vote for him simply because he is the democrat.
80
@Suzanne Bee
Suzanne, New Jersey voters did send Menendez a message. The Democratic woman who opposed him in the primaries didn't run any ads or campaign, nobody really knew who she was, but she won almost 40% of the vote. Hopefully if he does win now (which isn't a sure thing), he'll retire before the next election.
16
@Suzanne Bee
I am a long time Democrat in NJ who will vote for Menendez while holding my nose. I wish he had not run for reelection after the hung jury and charges being dropped. His votes in the Senate will generally be ones I agree with and his reelection will help limit the damage
that Trump and Republicans are currently doing to this country.
25
Republicans in Republican Districts and they will win and then resign eventually. Compared to the Medicare for All economic ignorance spouted by Democrats I’ll take them any day after holding my nose of course.
So you will take misogyny, racism, corruption and hyper nationalism over people trying to develop a universal health care system that most civilized countries already have? Have you ever questioned the assumptions of the economics that gave us the Great Recession? Or is it just I’m alright Jack?
12
Oh, you mean like a national health care program that would cost significantly less than the disastrous war in Iraq? On which fiction are you basing your charge of economic nonsense?
8
Many of the people who run for office and have attained political office are total incompetents who seek these position to avoid doing any real work.
If truth be told many of them, like these crooked nitwits, have no more ability than to maybe deliver pizzas or drive cabs or sell newspapers on street corners, if they can make change.
6
Collins, Hunter and Trump
Band of brothers on the stump
They don’t live by the rules
Those are for ordinary fools
Who can’t take the lumps
Playing hooky on the side
Never admit that you lied
You will be forgiven for any sin
As long as you are able to win
Taking voters along for the ride
But the people aren’t all fools
To be used as unwitting tools
Collins, Hunter, Trump take note
On November 6 they will vote
And get rid of you awful ghouls
12
What's with Republicans and their bunnies? At least Pence's Marlon Bundo wrote a book and I assume made money so he didn't need to fly on tax payers dime.
4
In Hunter's defense, it appears he didn't put the bunny on the roof.
14
Just more proof that Republicans politicians from the White House to county clerks are cheaters, They lie, steal from their campaigns, are inside traders and suppress the vote. It's difficult to understand how decent people can continue to be Republicans.
11
The Republican Party has become an evil cult.
18
Hunter, using the infamous “ Women Be Shopping “ defense.
What a Moron. Seriously.
21
Perhaps I am an old fuddy duddy, but I believe that anyone convicted through our legal system should serve the penalty to which they are sentenced.
It is also true that as on lookers we will have opinions about charges and the validity of evidence especially in the light of past behavior. Judgement it seems is the human business.
Trump supporters chant lock her up even long after charges or investigations against her have ended. We can judge, but why do these people create a penalty for which she was not convicted or brought to trial?
Trump on the other hand has been to court thousands of times and ordered to pay millions of dollars for misdeeds.
Trump even claims immunity from prosecution because he is president, something Bill Clinton never did.
I enjoy Gail Collin's columns, but this one is not funny as it involves our lose of trust by those we hope will serve us without personal interest. Pointing out others who fit this model only detracts from the fact that our politicians are often servants to the Game of Thrones rather than the best interests of the people.
12
Here in Virginia, Congressman Rob Whitman (R-01) is running an ad in which his first words are, “there are 500 members of Congress. You know what makes me different?” Every time the ad runs, which is a lot, even here in the 7th district (Dave Brat is my rep!), I yell at the tv: “the other 499 know how many members of Congress there are!”
13
Here in Arizona, the race for Jeff Flake's open Senate seat is between Kyrsten Sinema (D) and Martha McSally (R). Right now it looks like a tossup. McSally just sent out a mailer depicting a nuclear mushroom cloud over Phoenix, intended to convince voters that Sinema will not protect them. It is ironic that, according to FiveThirtyEight, McSally has voted with Trump 97.8% of the time. As we know, Trump just tore up the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty designed to protect us from first-strike nuclear weapons, signed by Reagan and Gorbachev. And when McSally isn't misrepresenting herself with nukes, she is dropping the f-bomb just before voting to rescind the ACA. Now she runs attack ads saying that she protects people with pre-existing conditions while Sinema does not, which is an outright lie. McSally has been attacking Sinema going back 16 years, before Sinema even held elective office. Phoenix media is reporting this Senate race as one of the nastiest in the country. I don't want criminals elected to serve us, but when I look at someone like Martha McSally, I'm not sure who is worse. Who would be more trustworthy? I can't figure it out.
27
Mc Sally voted against the ACA more than 70 times in spite her aid claiming support for preexisting conditions. That, I think qualifies as a deal breaker?
And Mitch her leader who is laser focused, said last week the only way to pay for the $1.6 billion tax payday for the rich, and over $600 million in military allotment is to go after entitlements Medicare, Medicaid, and social security. They seriously and calculatingly want to dump 20-30 million people if ACA is struck down...
Indiana has traditionally a poor state but our Donnelly is transparently
real and looks out for us...not a Trump stooge.
Voting early, 10 days to go
10
Frankly and honestly, both Mrs. Collins and the NYT are disgusting.
But, that’s very tiny problem. What is the worst one?
You!
If you cannot understand this simple truth, you are even worse national problem that’s going to sink us into another civil war and the Great Depression.
If you still think none of those can happen to you, that’s just the crown evidence of your willful ignorance, prejudice and hubris.
It happened to the Catholics and the Protestants. It happened to the Sunnis and the Shiites. It happened to the North and the South too.
Why it couldn’t happen to the Democrats and the Republicans?
Two of them aren’t the political parties but new religions in which their followers believe blindly, uncritically and unconditionally, thus directly undermining the Constitution demanding separation of the government and ANY religion.
Do you still BELIEVE those two non-profit organizations protect you and provide with the better future? Yes, you do!
But, is it happening? Not really, not at all!
Over the last two decades we have waged the never-ending wars, created the largest refugee crisis in the world, piled up $15 trillion in debt, exported the bread-earning industrial sectors to China and polarized the country.
All the aforementioned can only by accomplished by the foolish religions, not by the critical and independently thinking humans.
@Kenan Porobic
Huh?
4
@Kenan Porobic
Really. With all the horrific events now taking place, with a Trump supporter sending explosive devices to fellow Americans, and someone shooting up a Synagogue in Pittsburgh -- the best you can come up with is disparaging Gail Collins and the NYT?
No offense, but your priorities are alarming.
3
Does anyone know which of these candidates has the support of the international axis of evil leaders on Team Trump aka Kim Jong un, Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman and their mutual dummy pawn pet puppet aka Donald John Trump,Sr.?
They are aiding and abetting and colluding with Trump in his quest to have the Trump Organization profit from whatever he is hiding from the American people in his personal and family income tax returns and business records while he occupies the Oval Office of our White House.
14
I would bet that either one could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and still be elected. Oh wait....
10
It used to be said that “Truth is stranger than fiction.” But in the age of Trump, truth is scarier than fiction. Can we survive these corrupt, immoral, psychopathic politicians?
13
We need to hold Fox News accountable for the cover they give these GOP criminals. They, Fox, are not a member of the 'free press'. They are a state organ for propaganda promoting only the GOP/Trump agenda. (again, How does Shep Smith survive in the mess?)
I hear many countries, including Canada, do not allow Fox broadcasts. Fox's news is considered trash. This is Rupert Murdoch's baby. Can he be deported back to Australia?
36
GOPs brightest rising stars the new face of republicans
7
62 million or so voted for a self-confessed sexual predator and known thief so I guess we shouldn't be shocked if parts of upstate New York or southern California elect a couple more. But we are. How stupid are these voters ?
31
I’d rather vote for an “inside trader” than vote for a Democrat.
I’d rather vote for a philandering drunk than vote for a Democrat.
I’d rather vote for an expenses fraudster than vote for a Democrat.
I’d rather vote for a racist xenophobe than vote for a Democrat.
I’d rather vote for a misogynist than vote for a Democrat.
I’d rather vote for a child molester than vote for a Democrat.
I’d rather vote for a religious hypocrite than vote for a Democrat.
I’d rather vote for a Russian operative than vote for a Democrat.
I’d rather vote for an S&M blackmailer than vote for a Democrat.
I’d rather vote for a sleazy bully than vote for a Democrat.
I’d rather vote against policies that would benefit me and my fellow Americans (healthcare, the environment, consumer protections) than vote for a Democrat.
etc. etc. etc.
The Republican electorate now hold their candidates to even fewer ethical and moral standards than they did Trump in 2016. Unbelievable.
59
@Susan,
Yes, and somebody responded back to a comment of mine recently, saying that he would vote for a ham sandwich rather than vote for a Democrat.
4
Haha. You think you have it bad? Down here in Brazil there's a convicted congressman who's serving time in jail. But he's on a "work-release" program, so he he goes to congress for his day job, and goes back to prison at night. Tomorrow Brazilians go to vote in a run-off election and they're likely to vote in Trump-style (some say Duterte-style) presidential candidate. Brazilians follow the U.S. in outlook and temperament in a lot of ways, but in the case of the going-to-do-the-people's-work congressman, perhaps the U.S. should follow Brazil's lead.
51
@Lldemats
Brai;l does have the US beat for melding corruption with elections, but - as you can see - we've been trying hard to catch up.
4
I've been thinking about what the conflicts in our society are and why our politics is as poisonous as it now is. I believe we need to look at above the fray to understand what the issues are.
Our society is in crisis and for 50 years we have been trying to continue down a road which lead to our ruin. The conflicts are about the economy, about race, and about the environment. Our economy was originally built, especially in the South, upon slavery. We jettisoned slavery rather painfully, but continue building our economy upon shaky foundations--that our environment was limitless, that we could do whatever we wanted without consequence.
That foundation started shaking when Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring." Those whose fortunes rest upon those shaky foundations are not giving up power. They deny the consequences of using our storehouse of carbon-based power. It makes sense to me that we have a president who loves inequality and exacerbates it, who promotes violence and denies it, who eviscerates the EPA, bowing to the captains of our industrial power. We have a president who reflects a strain of denial in our population--that we can be great while denying the consequences of what we do. While our president has made a life story of evading consequences of his substantial failure as a business man, the bill for our excesses is coming due and it is not avoidable by giving free reign to those at the top who have gained their wealth by denying consequences.
17
@rdb1957: The unconstitutional legislation of 1953 that inserted the words "under God" into the national loyalty oath recited by students every US school day, has made this land a playground for religious charlatans and fakes.
All claims to know what "God" thinks are as divisive as they are presumptuous.
3
Don't forget: while 2 Republican Congressmen are running while under indictment, a 3rd running for re-election is a CONVICTED criminal--and Donald Trump made a big point of praising Gianforte for committing that violent crime, an assault!
But Trump has admitted to repeated sexual assaults and hasn't even been indicted for it.
When it's a Republican, it's "Innocent until proven guilty". When it's a Democrat it's "Lock Her Up!!!"
Let's hope America has woken up enough to shut down Trumpism.
33
Makes you wish there were Democrats this scummy to avoid the apprearence of bias.
4
So here’s the mental status.
I laugh while reading Gail Collins because she has a way of putting things. Then, alone with my mind and just the facts clanking about, I think, yeah, but how did we get here? This leads to Trump, because I just watched the North Carolina rally, and I’ve mastered tuning-out of the audio since, you know, trash-in trash-out, but I do watch the people chosen to stand behind him, with their signs and red caps, chanting and cheering his lies, and I think, how do you end up like that?
Usually I conclude, this is a democracy, they are citizens.
I watched President Obama’s speech in Wisconsin. Someday I may need to find an actual oasis and I would guess the feeling will be the same.
I asked my wife yesterday, “What do you think will happen if the Democrats don’t take the House?”
“I’m not going there,” she said.
Sometimes, I feel like praying.
I will be glad to vote and then spend the afternoon and early evening (my time zone) watching the results come in. It will be over and, except maybe for some recounts, the stage will be set. That I can handle better than the waiting.
Ten more days.
28
The party of “ Family Values “. The Manson Family.
Seriously.
16
I wish it were news that Republican voters have no shame, but the continued Evangelical support of Trump and his stooges is what absolutely blows the mind. These people claim that they are voting their values, but if that's true, it's apparent that they know absolutely nothing about the Jesus of the Bible. The rest of the world smells their hypocrisy and wants nothing to do with them or their false god... and the (praise) band played on.
29
Munich massacre of Olympic Athletes? Really Gail.... why did you leave out the fact that it was Israeli athletes, all Jewish. And, the grandfather was “involved”? He was a senior member of the infamous Black September terrorist group. He terrorized and murdered these young strong Jewish athletes.
7
@Laura Pitt Why does it even matter? That's the candidate's grandfather, by way of a father who wasn't involved in raising him. The grandfather was dead before the candidate was born. I don't see how that's relevant at all.
5
@Laura Pitt--Should his grandson be made to pay for the grandfather's sin? How many generations have to pass before the family is free of guilt? Is the answer: never?
7
@Laura Pitt Why is that relevant? We are not destined to follow the beliefs of our ancestors. It is individual choice. One hopes to learn by the mistakes of previous generations.
7
Well, let’s put it this way. Morality only comes in handy when Trump and colleagues are bowing their heads leading prayer at all those Christian breakfasts they pretend to enjoy.
28
"Campa-Najjar’s paternal grandfather... was part of the 1972 Munich massacre of Olympic athletes."
Let's be a bit more specific. The grandfather was one of the masterminds behind the Munich massacre, not just "part" of it. That said I wouldn't blame anyone for any of their relatives behavior...well, other than Mel Gibson.
8
Collins and Hunter. The best that republicanism has to offer...
14
Thank you Gail for making me laugh out loud. These two are gems.
I am just wondering if you think Chris Collins will end up in jail like Martha Stewart did for her insider trading. Or do you think because he is a white male he will get to walk?
Or maybe Collins will pull a Hunter and throw his son under the bus. So many questions.
17
My district is right next to Duncan Hunter's 50th district.
I went to his arraignment.
He is profoundly despicable.
Hence, Republicans love him.
You know, family values.
60
Having criminals and liars in government is Trump’s way of “cleaning up the swamp “ in Washington. America is agonizing.
16
Anyone nutty enough to run for a public office in the US is assumed bad to begin with.
2
Good leadership is the single factor that limits our civilization and stops us from solving our most intractable problems. Until we find a way to identify and promote honest, capable leaders who place the interests of the society above their own, we will remain mired in the swamp.
5
Americans have lost their values.
1
@dlb
No, Americans who have no values have chosen the Republican Party. The rest of us are still fighting for what’s right.
6
@dlb Republicans have lost their American values. Not all Americans.
1
@dlb
The MAJORITY of us have not . See "election 2016 POPULAR vote."
4
I'm uncertain if it's worse or just metastasizing.
The archetypal critter for loud and obnoxious, mud slinging and vacuous, phony patriot and self-dealing congress-critter from Hunter's area was a guy named Robert Dornan.
This guy was the template for misdirection and obfuscation and worthless to everybody but arms manufacturers and oil dealers.
He was so bad the only people I knew who liked him were a pair of holy rollers who lived quite well off a long term position in the physics dept at UCSB as a technician while denouncing gov't help and christian ideals for everybody else on Earth. Anybody who bought property in the 1950s or 60s in Santa Barbara and sold it in the late 1990s did really well, but these folks wouldn't have understood that the money at UCSB's physics dept wasn't a gift from god but money earmarked for weapons development and atomic bomb design; they believed they truly blessed.
In the 90s I worked as a tech for California's Food and Ag, catching and counting fruit flies and gypsy moths, and our trucks only had AM radio which played, sorry, I mean blared bombastic hate from that viagra eating troll currently denying climate change in Florida. The aforementioned people would not have been able to comprehend that the troll they revered visited prostitutes overseas - the news would have passed thru their heads without making a single ripple on their ear drums.
And they loved Bob Dornan as much as they loved Rush, too. I hope it's terminal.
6
I see the trolls are out after Senator Menendez. I guess it needs to be repeated that there was no conviction in this case and it was primarily politically motivated. He has been a very good senator for his state, my state, and although hardly squeaky clean, that last comment applies to a large number of current and past political figures.
And then there's Trump....
12
It's not so much the offenses the candidates are charged with that is troubling, but the acceptance of the candidates shown by the electorate. People obviously believe that these candidates reflect their values and beliefs. Many people would prefer to elect a thief to office than elect a member of the opposing party. That's how partisan we've become.
19
@Ms. Pea Most people don't even know who or what they are voting for. They just like the candidate's name, or somebody or something told them who to vote for, or they vote for the guy on the sign they saw on the way to the polling place. The dumbing down of the populace through budget cuts to education was the first step of the successful conservative coup detat. The effects are obvious throughout the land.
6
@Ms. Pea
I think I have now become guilty of this .Its the first time ever I have voted a straight democratic ticket. I usually bone up on each official running but Im so disgusted I just voted the whole ticket.Midterm election overload?
3
There are moments, more frequent than occasional of late, when the clear indicators of autocracy, or plutocracy for the conspiracy minded, seem to stand out like billboards. Most of the time, you have other things to do and other concerns like keeping your eye on that woman with the cell phone to her ear driving a bit erratically. Then the Administration cages brown kids, turns some desperate brown people into an invading alien army or suggests that a political terrorist targeting your enemy is actually an agent of your enemy. Holy shades of 30's Germany, Batman!
Perhaps it is just me, but it certainly looks like the Trumpista message for uniting the country is eliminating any opposition and turning America into one Big Beautiful Cult, the majority being non-Hispanic White Come-to-Jesus folk. This, more frequently than occasionally of late, makes me anxious almost to the point of bile spewing nausea.
When you desire peace, normalcy and civility in public discourse and a relatively large number of folks are metaphorically shooting at you, or sending pipe bombs to those who want the same, that billboard is screaming at you again.
Thank you Gail Collins for taking the edge off. I would also like to thank Sarah Silverman for "I Love You, America" and just being yourself, wonderfully funny and thoughtful. I must also thank Matt Bai; if you have not read "You can oppose Trump's nationalism. But don't sneer at it.," it is bridge over troubled waters.
4
@Eugene Ralph
My sentiments exactly but also watch out for that man driving erratically with the cell phone at his ear.
1
Not even a mention of Bob Menendez!?
1
@LawDog, never convicted.
His case doesn’t fit the profile. BTW, that is butwhataboutism. @LawDog
@LawDog -- because he was tried, it ended in a hung jury, and the DOJ gave up:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/31/politics/menendez-charges-dismiss/index.html
Am I happy about Bob Menendez? No, I'm not.
But the new standard, post Kavanaugh, is that Menendez, or even O.J. Simpson ...are "proven more innocent than Kavanaugh" ... because they were tried and not convicted.
6
Why is there no mention of Menendez (NJ Democrat senator) in this op ed? Incomplete, omissive news here.
2
His case doesn’t fit the profile. BTW, that is butwhataboutism. @Susan
10
@Susan, it's an opinion column, not a news article. Also, Gail did mention several Democrats. Trump cult members are incapable of anything more than screaming "what about them!!"
I'm very sorry for you that there are no Democratic pipe-bomb mailers right now. We will be unable to discuss political violence, until Fox News gives their base a new 'whatabout'. I'm pretty sure that if a leftist was mailing bombs to Republicans, Susan would not be blaming the recipients! You people have no shame or even normal American ideals.
2
In a column about corrupt politicians running for office, Where is the mention of NJ Senator Robert Menendez?
5
Worse than an indicted pol running for office is a crook running from indictment by running for office.
Hillary beat the rap twice using this scheme—see comments of Robert Ray & James Comey—and I predict she will do a repeat in 2020 if she’s in hot water in 2019.
Menendez and Gillum are corrupt examples currently on the D ticket.
Unresolved quid-pro-quo charges that include sex with underage girls bedevil Menendez.
Gillum, one of the Ds’ anointed falling stars, predictably cried "racist" while being metaphorically hauled away by an undercover G-man for taking Hamiltons and lying about it.
Finally, as to Hunter’s “throw-honey-under-the-bus period,” it pales in comparison to Hillary’s throw-honey’s-victims-under-the-bus-so-I-can-be-the-first-woman-president period.
2
Have you forgotten that the TX AG, Ken Paxton, is currently under multiple felony indictments, yet is not only still in office, but is running for a second term. Not sure what kind of faith the public can put in an AG who's accused of multiple felonies. I prefer my attorneys general to be unindicted, but maybe that's just me.
333
@RHD
Well...it IS Texas...
12
It took some doing to amass all those bumper stickers.
I assume he purchased them at Trump rallies.
A few years from now collections as complete as his will be selling for selling for substantial prices on eBay.
Eventually the entire van complete with stickers will be up there too.
And Trump Enterprises rolls on its merry way.
3
In the current political climate, I am not sure if brawling outside a night club would get anyone arrested. The public seems so desperate for scapegoats that anyone can get by with "blame the immigrants." We live in a very sad country.
5
I think this column is proof of democracy in America.
23
@Stephen Kurtz
I think today's NYT front page is proof that Progressive journalists soon forget their passed beloved. Not a word nor pic about MsB. I was beginning to think he was being mocked; for at every chance he was displayed in cultural attire -- specifically hat and gown.
Progressive journalists, particularity women, should wear some sort of headdress in protestation and or remembrance; at least until a judicial resolution is reached --and completed (sentences served, etc.). They should at least care that much; they don't. (For this NHL Season, the Chicago Blackhawks are wearing Mikitas' 21; the number is also on the ice rink.)
The American spirit of no one left behind, doesn't seem to be of value to the Progressive philosophers of today. After all, he went into the Consulate on a Progressives public relations mission -- to show up the Prince. Whether he was under the influence of something or just belligerent, he became engaged in some sort of fisticuffs, and apparently lost. How soon Progressives are willing to forget; don't get caught in a foxhole with one.
I guess it is a good thing to maintain one's sense of humor in the face of the avalanche of of political news that confronts us daily. But there are times in history when the difficulty in doing so seems to increase exponentially, and there comes a point when even a macabre humor is impossible to maintain.
Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins are the sort of political hacks who may be found humorous, in a way, at any point in time--their kind are always with us.
But in the news today are politicians of a different breed entirely. Today we see someone sending bombs to public figures who have been continually attacked and vilified by the President of the United States. He apparently did so in support of that President, who recently styled himself a "nationalist". Others have also been arrested recently, for inciting and engaging in violence explicitly on behalf of Trump. I, for one, do not find this sort of politician to be humorous.
Trump has often been seen as a political clown, a buffoon. There were a couple of politicians in Europe in the 1930's, also "nationalists", who also initially were seen as clowns. They also attracted thugs who attacked those they described as "enemies of the people" and "enemies of the state". Were there columnists in Germany or Italy in the early 1930's who humorously equated them to "other disaster candidates" , as though they were on a par?
Getting more difficult to laugh about politics, I think.
241
@Louis H Dunlap
Thanks, Mr. Dunlap. Much of your comment is absolutely spot on.
Nonetheless, I think most of us appreciate Ms. Collins' writing precisely because we need some comedic take on the horrors befronting us. We are quite aware of the horror that faces us. Still, we need something other than doom and gloom if we are to go forward.
Also, we know that certain types of tyrants can not bear mockery. HAHAHAHAHA
39
Look it Gail at least Hunter didn’t put the pet rabbit in a cage on the roof of the plane like good old Shamus. Just saying, since you won’t.
18
In our short history, Government has has Many crooked, manipulating greedy lawbreaking politicians. No excuses. Keep on prosecuting them in spite of apologists and/ or friends .
14
Gail,
I really liked how there is no mention of Senators and Menendez. This is the problem. You do not play fair. Just raising tensions between the two parties. How about, for a change, you present an "even handed" commentary about the horrible choices we, the citizens have on all sides of the political spectrum.
You are doing nothing to lower tensions. Rather, once again, increasing the rhetoric.
4
@bsb Gail Collins is an Opinion columnist, and a darned good one. In my opinion, it is always a pleasure to read her columns. But Gail Collins is not a reporter. Reporters are supposed to be unbiased and tell us "just the facts, ma'am." That's their job. That's why they get paid. Opinion writers are supposed to tell us their opinions. That's their job. That's why they get paid. Opinions are not unbiased. They are opinions, and the readers of these opinions are free to agree or disagree. And if Gail doesn't have an opinion about Menendez, she doesn't have to write about Menendez. And if you, as a reader and consumer of opinion pieces, feel that your stress level has increased when you read opinions that do not agree with your basic political viewpoint, you are certainly free to not read them just as I choose not to watch Fox News or listen to Rush Limbaugh.
18
Menendez was acquitted
5
@Jackie
You go Jackie. I find so many commenters don't understand the difference between an opinion piece and a reporting piece.Thank you for making that point.
1
Gail, as always, you are a bright spot in an otherwise morbid election cycle.
But you made a serious omission: “the 1972 Munich massacre of Olympic athletes.”
They weren’t just any random athletes. The targets were Israeli Jews, on German soil.
The murder of any athletes would be a horror from which we should recoil. But 1972 Munich offered a whole new depth of sinister.
Nonetheless, I hope the murderer’s grandson wins the election, even if by default.
12
@David G.--She does indeed mention his paternal grandfather, who died before [the candidate] was born. I certainly wouldn't hold it against Ammar. And it certainly doesn't match Hunter's misdeeds.
7
Thank you for the tongue-in-cheek political humor and hubris column. Always appreciated.
There is an urban legend here that someone in a minor local office stole funds, got charged, did time, came back out ran again for that office, got it, stole funds again.....
Like a vicious cycle or a hamster in a cage. On the not so funny side they are all despicable never mind convictable.
6
You forgot James Traficant who received 15,000 votes while incarcerated.
6
@unclejake Some guys have been elected after they died.
Actually, I'd prefer our congresspeople were brawling at a club full of naked people. That way, they'd have less time to carry out their primary nefarious activities, serving the plutocrats in looting the nation.
22
If you are looking for sense in politics you will be sorely disappointed. Just like America's religion, America's politics has resorted to a belief system; dogma. And blind ignorant belief must exclude all sense by necessity.
10
Sadly, if this "on the plus side, it's been worse" is true - and it seems to be the case - America is not only not out of the wood but actually sinking deeper into the do-do
8
On the plus side we survived: the DRAFT; LBJ; Nixon; Vietnam; Watergate; Clinton; Bush; Greenspan; 2008 financial madness; Bernanke; SARS; Y2K: the oh so many years we'll be mired in Afghanistan; Catholic Church scandals; Obama's rule.* The USA will survive Trump.
+++++
* He governs like a visitor from a morally superior civilization.
--David Brooks in the New York Times
3
@HLB Engineering, Obama was indeed a visitor from a morally superior civilization to the one we are now enduring under Trump. Personally, I'd rather live in that civilization, civil being the core word.
4
@HLB Engineering
I'd be happy to a government run by a morally ( and mentally) superior visitor. That sure beats what we have in there now.
6
These two seem typical of the type of flies you'll find buzzing around Donald Trump's "only the best people" swamp, all hoping to land on some tasty — or lucrative — droppings.
21
"Then we moved on to the congressmen’s extramarital expenses. “This is the first time I’ve heard of use of campaign money to finance multiple mistresses,” said Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21."
What? FredW, listen again, and closely; you're missing a bigee:
StormyD (and others) and the orange GrandWizard_Of_Id do not count?
21
This does make one speculate about "except for all the others" (forms of government that aren't the one we're trying to use).
Thanks for the perspective, gail.
5
These 2 men offer a test of the electorate. Do we value party and power over country and ethics? This is the moment when WE have our say.
20
"evidence of infidelity… do not equate to criminal activity.”
Apparently not among Christian Conservative Voters either.
22
Despite our best efforts, our country is still in business. We elect the people with the worst morals and character flaws that can be found in the land, and then we are puzzled when they do what they are predisposed to do.
13
I dare to repeat an old slur on Louisiana politics: a local candidate campaigned on the slogan, "Yeah, you know I'm a crook, but at least I'm YOUR crook."
Perhaps people vicariously enjoy such behavior and vote accordingly, only wishing they could be so outrageous themselves. But what do you call a whole party of such wishful thinkers?
110
@Texas Trader, there is currently a local candidate in New Jersey with the last name of Crook who is indeed seriously campaigning on a variant of that old joke!
8
@Texas Trader
Republicans.
12
If criminally convicted politicians can still serve in public office, we should really allow felons the right to vote after time served. Conversely, a conviction should disqualify a candidate from office or force their resignation once in office.
One or the other. The current arrangement is a logical fallacy.
50
Remember Harry Chapin's 'Cat's in the Cradle'?
It was based on a politician. The coldest among them will stomp on anyone and everyone in their scramble to the top, and take perks, even if illegal or immoral, as their due. And every generation learns from the last. It's up to the voters to reject these selfish people as unworthy, and break the chain.
"You know we'll have a good time then ….."
20
Too bad these guys aren’t honest paragons like Sen. Bob Menendez in NJ, right? You mean we have a bunch of corrupt and sleazy politicians that people will excuse and vote for solely on a party line basis? Appalling if it’s an R but not a D? Uh huh....
3
Gail gave several examples of Democrats who (in the past) were under investigation and still won. Plus, whatever your views regarding Menendez, all charges against him were dropped. I bet you thought Kavamaugh innocent until proven guilty, right? Yet you think Menendez is guilty after being proven innocent. Fascinating!
26
I keep feeling like I somehow have gotten myself stuck in a George Orwell novel. I just want to wake up and be relieved that it all was a dream. A bad dream.
But each morning I have to face another day with a guy who has scammed people out of money with his fake university, a guy who is the original poster boy for the @Me Too movement, a guy who says whatever random thought that somehow finds its way into that empty mind even when it contradicts previous statements, as our President.
And I have to face another day with a government that is run by wealthy representatives of big corporations, lackeys who think that a commitment to idealism is something that disappears with your first set of teeth.
If this really isn’t a George Orwell novel, then how the hell did it happen?
37
One redeeming aspect of this election cycle is the larger number of inspirational first time woman candidates. The old republican swamp dwellers have such a nasty smell compared to this breath of fresh air that we can honestly say that America does not deserve to be held in high esteem by the world if the same batch of subhumans are re-elected.
Vote for a cleansing wind November 6 or suffer the consequences.
32
My conservative-to-English dictionary defines "crime" as "fighting back."
4
Duncan Hunter's name, or Hunter Duncan, or Huncan Dunter, all sound great for the white MAGA crowd.
19
You forgot Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General (Republican), indicted felon awaiting trial after the election.
28
Typical of a left-leaning Op-Ed Columnist that she does not even refer to the obvious - blatant - conflict of interest here. How can someone called Collins comment on someone called Collins in an impartial way?
Shame on you Collinses. Or at least on ONE of you Collinses!
2
Benghaaaaaaaaazi!
3
It is unfathomable that either could win but here we are in 2018 in which nether region grabber Trum is in White House. . Hunter not only used campaign expenditures to pay off his extracurricular activities but then blamed his wife. Talk about chutzpah.
16
No matter which way things work out for Messrs. Hunter and Collins, they’re either going back to their house, or maybe the House, or possibly house arrest, or perhaps The Big House. You can’t say they aren’t homebodies.
Maybe this is how things work in the End Times. We just need to realize that the voters have a right to be represented by disgusting creeps, abusive fools, liars, cheats, idiots and other politicians who reflect the values of citizens who looked at a snorting, cursing and groping excuse for a candidate and though, hey, we need some of that.
After all, this is what the rest of the Republicans have devolved into lately. They don’t even pretend anymore. They voted to approve Kavanaugh, even after some shed crocodile tears for Prof. Ford. If not for an ailing John McCain and his downward pointing thumb they’d have ripped away health care from millions. They passed a multi-billion dollar tax boondoggle to enrich the filthy rich, and now they’re saying the deficit is so high they’re going to try to slash Social Security and Medicare.
Where’s the pretense? Shouldn’t there be pretense? Or are Republicans so jaded and the voting public so clueless that you can tell people you’re going to abused them, and they jump and shout for joy?
It’s one thing to have low expectations, but this is ridiculous.
1047
@gemli
And McCain's thumb was more about Senate procedure than the issue itself.
46
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Well done.
45
@gemli - (Q)"Or are Republicans so jaded and the voting public so clueless that you can tell people you’re going to abused them, and they jump and shout for joy?"
(A) Yes
46
Just watched the Oklahoma Republican gubernatorial candidate's ad (during the World Series). Every one of his points was about how the Democratic candidate would take away your right to shoot someone.
Really. It was all about guns. Guns and fear.
What is with Republicans? Are they really that small minded?
35
Is there any doubt that career politicians are professional hucksters?
14
The fish rots from the head down. Trump's blatant corruption encourages his supporters to do the same because heck, if the president does it so can I. Long ago the GOP used to expel its bad apples just as the Dems did to theirs. Now it encourages them to run for reelection for fear of losing power.
29
“ I believe BOTH of them “ - Senator Susan Collins.
17
Costa Rican ex-pat status looks better and better with each passing day.
12
It's a very sad time, yet it's still a pleasure to read Gail's prose.
16
The Trump regime has driven a stake through the heart of character-based leadership, criminals, perverts, all electable in modern America. Going forward, it's just about gerrymandering and power. This ends in civil unrest and violence against a minority, autocratic government, unless we get the redistricting under control. Democracy itself is at stake. Republicans will do nothing to sustain it as long as they are in power and can enrich themselves with tax cuts.
28
My dad used to say that the reason to vote was to turn out the sitting politicians to get in a new crop of crooks. It would take them a while to get situated, so it would be harder for them to get going right away. But this crop of Republicans has set a new record. More disregard for law so they can enrich themselves than I have ever seen. The robo Republicans don't even to pretend to think about their actual jobs, they just do what McConnell and Ryan tell them. Please, some of the Democrats running don't seem to even be crooks. Vote Democratic as if your life depended on it. It does.
34
What dental work was performed on Rep. Hunter’s rabbit? Did he discover the rabbit had an overbite?
12
The leader of the party runs an organized crime family. What else can be expected of the rest of the party?
24
"Collins and Hunter were the first two members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump for president. Just saying."
And again, you can't make this stuff up.
27
Collins is scared of his own constituents - he won't appear at any public gatherings, only in carefully controlled settings with financial supporters. He won't respond to constituent letters. When called on the phone, his staffers promise to get back with an answer, but never do. When leaving messages on his web site, he promises to respond immediately, but never does. He never accepts invitations to debate his opponents. He is scared of his own constituents. This was true before the indictment, it's even worse after the indictment. From his hidden bunker he authorized the most xenophobic political ad imaginable, seeming to suggest that because his opponent, the very capable Nate McMurray, is fluent in Korean, he must be following the orders of North Korea's Kim Jong-Un. Of course, he savages McMurray as a Pelosi-style communist, even though McMurray has stated that he would not support Pelosi for Speaker. Collins doesn't represent his district, he represents himself. The video shows him making his insider stock tip phone calls right there on the White House lawn. Even at the White House he's looking out for only himself, certainly not for any of us who inhabit his district. He seems to have skipped the HS civics class on the essentials of representative democracy. He is scared of his own constituents. Most people I talk to, even if they lean Republican, reasonably wonder how Collins can represent us while distracted by an indictment. He's pathetic! Vote Nate!
29
@James Renfrew Out here in San Diego Hunter is in a polling tie with his opponent. Interviews showed 64% of Republicans, in his district, believe his malarky about the charges against him being the product of a "Justice Department controled by Democrats" and the "Fake News Media". 64%, incredible!
5
Interesting that the groups of indicted Congressmen cited are Republicans when Republicans were in power, and Democrats when Demsocrats were in power.
Power corrupts. Not all, but it appears that the weak links cannot handle it.
Ergo, term limits.
We are blessed in this country with a lot of qualified people, especially now that women are stepping up. Therefore we should not hesitate to throw put corrupt candidates of either party. We just don’t need to put up with that anymore.
12
Republicans will vote for these guys. They voted for Roy Moore!
22
"Nobody running for Congress this year has been indicted for brawling at a club full of naked women. So far. "
We still have two weeks to go. I wouldn't bet against it.
122
Like Dagwood's comment, I too live in CA 50th (in the community of Ramona), and Hunter trully represents the propertied old families, former military, and white guys of the area. This race will be the closest challenge to the Hunter Family nearly four decade Reign. Many of the electorate here will not sit down and write down a list of the challenges they or their neighbors face and go on to compare that list to the candidates promises and record, and vote accordingly.
Ammar Campa-Najjar CLEARLY is the better candidate for those who are informed. Trump edged Clinton here in 2016, but if Hispanic, Sanders, and thoughtful voters turnout, Hunter will have lots of time to deal with his legal and relationship issues . . .
23
@Jon I’m in the 50th, too, and I have to say I’ve never seen the electorate so galvanized in opposition to Hunter and what he stands for. Many will still vote better red than dead and Ammar may not win this time around. But the district is changing and Pandora’s box has been opened. Hunter is doomed whether he wins or not. And any future candidate will have to prove that they deserve the our votes.
3
Sometimes I think we should just get rid of all campaign finance laws. If donors actually thought that their candidate was allowed to spend their money on whatever he or she wanted, like extramarital affairs, they might be more careful who they gave their money to and they might even put some strings on it.
My only restriction would be that they have to fully disclose the contribution (by individual, how much and when) and, after the money was spent, the politician must disclose exactly what it was spent on.
I think much of this Hunter-type nonsense would stop, even if the potential contributions were unlimited, if both donors and donees had to simply make full disclosure. Certainly the current extensive set of rules and regulations doesn’t seem to be stopping them.
8
@Jack Sonville Good luck getting the current SCOTUS to uphold that one.
1
"Collins and Hunter were the first two members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump for president. Just saying."
And, counted as the American electoral system undemocratically does, the American people also endorsed Donald Trump for president. Just saying.
Give Republicans credit for one thing: they are absolutely masterful at manipulating the American political system to assure their perpetuation of minority rule.
This column gives us a very good idea of what Gail Collins thinks about the situation. The big mystery is, what does the Democratic Party think? We never hear a peep from the Democratic leadership. This is just astounding!
11
@John lebaron The Democratic leadership thinks that laying down and yelling "whip me" is somehow taking "the high road".
It's not only Senate candidates in the campaign circus. Here in Michigan we are enduring a barrage of insane negative ads from Republican front groups. One gem against Elissa Slotkin, candidate for the 8th District, is in grainy black-and-white with ominous background music with a voice-over that says Slotkin was "parachuted in by Nancy Pelosi money." You see, after 911 Slotkin signed up for miltary service and then worked in Washington for U.S. intelligence, so clearly she does know about parachutes.
22
So, if America want's to create some political turnover, aka "drain the swamp", it might want to consider Congress, with a 76% DISAPPROVAL rate, as a starting point?
18
For Republicans apparently ethical behavior, like science and education is not seen as necessary. Their base has no problem with that. Cheat on your wife? Not a problem. Boys will be boys. Insider trader? Smart business person. Use campaign funds for personal fun time adventures? Who cares about something that is illegal? Run for governor of Georgia and refuse to step down from your appointed position which includes being in charge of the midterm election, and suppress voting? Good political strategy. Run for the presidency of the United States of America and encourage racism, misogyny, xenophobia, violence, and hatred? What's the big deal? That's a winner.
59
"Revenge of the Rich Right White Swamp Men", the B horror flick starring Trump as the Swamp Buffoon in Chief, isn't playing in Peoria anymore.
Trump failed to consider who might step up to drain the swamp while he was still in it -- the mainstream media and countless American activists.
The clearer the swamp water becomes, the more Trumpers go to prison.
Thanks to the real swamp drainers, we might save our country yet.
26
@Sarah This is a movie I want to see !
1
I think a big area is not being considered here. And that's positions on "political issues!" To explain:
Let us, for example, take the very hot button political issue of the "caravan" headed towards our border. There a 3000 or whatever that want to come into the country. Trump, and the Republicans basically are saying "They ain't gettin' in" and he will do anything to stop them. The Democrats say...well....I don't know what the Democrats position is because I can't find a specific policy statement about it.
Now...for the sake of this comment I'm not discussing the merits of letting them in or not. Its about how the voters in each district feel about it. If a voter feels strongly about keeping them out, he/she will vote for the candidate that reflects that. It doesn't make a difference if that candidate is a womanizer, insider trader, a tax cheat or whatever. That candidate is "the only game in town" that represents that voter's interest. To vote for someone who may be as honest as the day is long but is opposed to every side of political issues that the voter believes in will never, ever happen.
There are many people who don't like, and don't think much of the choice of candidates they are given to choose from. So it comes down to issues alone and which candidate's policies most aligns with those of each individual voter.
Most voters I know think all politicians stink. So they vote on issues alone, even if it means voting for one under indictment!
7
@SAH I disagree. The majority of people vote the way they were brought up and too many of them know nothing about the issues.
3
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The United States needs to return to the original intent of the Constitution: a democracy wherein citizens are elected to serve in political office for a finite time, then return to their private lives. The nemesis of honest government appears to be a system that facilitates career politicians.
8
I have a Trump supporter friend who is livid about the charges of insider trading filed against New York Congressman Chris Collins. He said that Collins shouldn't be prosecuted because he was "trying to save his son from being wiped out, and who wouldn't do that if he had the information?" "But it's against the law," I said, "and it has been for years." "They should make an exception for a guy who's trying to save his son from bankruptcy," he said. "How about if it was his niece," I asked, "or his sister." He got angry with me. This is how Republicans think. If he lived in New York, my friend would certainly vote to re-elect Mr. Collins.
44
@baldinoc With all due respect, I think it's time for a new friend!
Hunter and Collins will both win easily. Incumbents, even those devoid of moral character, almost always win re-election mostly from citizen ennui.
3
@PaulB67
No, the cause is gerrymandering and voter harassment « laws »
It is a myth that voters are indifferent or lazy
Voters become cynical when their vote is systematically repressed. Republicans have set put to become experts at voter oppression. Gerrymandering is their biggest success so far.
6
We haven't quite reached "Vote for the Crook, It's Important." When the crook is running against the Grand Wizard, you have a real race going.
My own take is that Collins will be e-elected, because no one sees insider trading as a crime. If his constituents found out that their retirement plan took the hit, they might be less forgiving.
But mostly, people seem to feel that corruption is sort of a job perk of the elected, or at least it seems so given the tendency of pretty much everyone in the WH (except, I believe, the generals) to make hay while the sun still shines.
Maybe this year's bumper stickers should read "Vote for the Crook. It's Expected."
24
@Cathy
Apparently you missed the story about the admirals taking payoffs to supply our fleet in the Pacific.
Military humans are not exempt from corruption, and it is not unpatriotic to criticize them - we all gotta get over that...or some will end up with not only all the money but all the guns too. See: military dictatorship
4
Good choices, Gail, but my choice today, this morning, is a Republican in Maine running for the Maine Senate.
His name is Matt Stone and he gave an interview on the "New Right Network" ( that's where you go if you have been banned from Twitter or Facebook, according to the author of the piece, Steve Mistler).
In the interview Matt was asked about the opioid crisis.
It seems that Matt Stone has a plan: "One of the ideas I really like is for able-bodied young people in particular, I think rehab boot camps, or special detention facilities, would not be too far in the wrong direction. In fact, a lot of east Asian companies have had a lot of success with this method where you really dry someone out, you force them to learn a skill or a trade, you educate them, but you also put them through a physical, you know regimented program where they're exercising and becoming healthy again."
I was wondering how long it would be before someone suggested forced detention and forced labor as a cure for opioid addiction.
Why, we'll just use the examples of Vietman and China and how they handle such "problems"!
Some one is getting ready to make a vast fortune off opioids.
This is one Republican's plan.
What's Trump's?
A man that would cage toddlers is capable of anything!
A nation that would let him is capable of it, too.
Sorry, no nudes.
https://bangordailynews.com/2018/10/26/politics/controversial-comments-a...
23
I would not be surprised if the voters returned these two to office. They both meet the basic requirement for office, namely that they are both the kind of guys you could enjoy stealing a beer with.
33
You go Gail. The election in this District with Duncan Hunter is a little odd. You have favorite son and local yayhoo, who has thrown the mother of his children under the bus vs. a 29 y.o. Democrat with a Hispanic parent and an absent Middle Eastern parent. I would definitely vote for Duncan Hunter’s challenger. I would be uncomfortable about his youth and inexperience, but not his ethnicity or bona fides.
5
I've had a hard time laughing since election night, 2016. My liberalism left the building too, and hasn't returned.
To say the most charitable: I can't care anymore for self-destructive types who vote against their interests.
I hope we start righting the ship in November. We need to regain some sanity.
51
My nightmare is waking up November 7 to find that not only are these two re-relected, but Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate. Then I will start looking for another country in which to spend my remaining years. I sincerely don't want to live in a country populated by citizens who prefer ignorance over enlightenment, shady behavior over ethical, etc.
17
The representation from either political party is farcical. We have long ceased to be truly a republic, one may argue that we were never a "democracy" what with 3/5 person status accorded to people of color in the original 1789 constitution and the monstrous Electoral College. Nope. Instead we are ruled directly through these buffoons we elect by the multinational corporations and their all-powerful lobbies. A cursory reading of the "Federal Register" will show how they get everything they want from Congress...
11
I wish I could laugh given my state’s Republican candidate and our only present Representative. Corruption is a very bad thing. It seems less viscerally scary to me though than physically assaulting a reporter and lying about it to the police afterwards. My Representative did that.
Corruption is very bad for our government and our society. There is something scary in my gut though about an elected official physically attacking a mild mannered reporter asking about health care. And it was a viciously violent attack. At least people who engage in corruption have a veneer ( albeit it a thin one) of civilization. The tape of this attack is like hearing civilization reduced to violence.
16
In 1832 the U.K.'s Parliament enacted the 1832 Reform Act that did away with rotten boroughs the most notorious of which was Old Sarum.
Hunter's district outside San Diego reminds me of Old Sarum.
Perhaps it is time that the U.S. enact a similar reform to get rid of the rotten and pocket Congressional districts?
It is not likely to happen but it surely past time that it did.
6
@Fred
You put your finger on the core cause of how we got these creeps
In Michigan we are going to vote to undo gerrymandering for exactly this reason
Gerrymandering creates unlosable districts that inevitably causes corruption
4
Did the bunny fly economy or business class? Makes a difference to this voter. I just voted on a proposition to decrease the chicken per square inch ratio here in Cali, wish I could do the same for air passengers.
15
@James Griffin
I have always regretted SOMEONE or other didn't make more of that "bunny" incident.
I have always regretted, Mr. Hunter did not take a leaf from Richard Nixon's playbook of 1952. When (you will remember) he did the celebrated "Checkers" speech. "Checkers" being the name of their family dog.
I have always regretted Mr. Hunter did not go on statewide TV, cradling that darling little bunny in his hands.
Ah, but what to CALL the little dear? How about "Floppy."
I have always regretted Mr. Hunter did not EXCORIATE the fake new media--the unconscionable liberals--the left wing, radical Failing New York Times--
--for wickedly, heartlessly--
--trying to separate Mr. Hunter and his family from their own beloved "Floppy."
I have always regretted that Mr. Hunter (suddenly choked up with emotion) did not press the little creature to his heart--
--while DEFYING the liberal media, the left wingers, the America-hating radicals of the Democratic party--
--to separate him and his loved ones--
--from "little Floppy.'
Well--
--there's still time, Mr. Hunter. There's still time.
Only, instead of "little Floppy"--
--we would have Marge and Madge and Ruth and Brenda and. . ..
Let's just forget the whole thing.
Wouldn't have worked anyway.
1
Michael Cohen,Trump's lawyer plead guilty for making an “excessive campaign contribution at the request of a candidate or campaign”, the candidate being Trump, of course.
Cohen’s lawyer tweeted: “If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?” Indeed!
You could have a sitting president indicted for a crime and running for office. I don't know if it could worse than that!
14
No one running has been arrested for brawling outside a nude bar because none of the Palins are on the ballot this year.
26
Bless Gail for letting poetry make love to Journalism.
7
Odds are these two will both retain their seats. Pretty soon the House will look like the Supreme Court. Arrogance, greed, corruption, chutzpah, call it what you want. Nowadays, the traits of these sleazy officeholders might as well be plastered all over their campaign advertising materials. Plus, there's nothing partisan about it since both parties have their own shameful examples of this disease. Yet, it's not their fault alone because each of them only has one vote. The worst of it is, that it takes a majority of voters to enable such behavior. Just look at the honcho who commutes daily from The Oval to his golf courses and blames everyone but himself for the vast, indelible and indefinite mess he's created for us all, then has the gall to campaign under the 'borrowed' slogan of MAGA.
Who in the world and how in the world could anyone make anyone else see the irony and humor in such a tragedy?
Thanks again, Gail!
14
The humor of Gail Collins is always appreciated, and her honesty is usually welcome. Some of us among her readers may have become too partisan in our resolve to defeat Trumpism in the midterms to appreciate the Collins honesty.
We wince when we read that an indicted scoundrel like Representative Duncan Hunter may get re-elected because his talented Democratic opponent with the hyphenated name, Ammar Campa-Najjar, was abandoned by his Palestinian father years ago and the father’s father was a terrorist two generations ago.
It is what it is. We should root for Campa-Najjar to overcome any stigma of his roots. Chalk it up to another example of hyphenated names causing more problems than they solve.
3
"Nobody running for Congress this year has been indicted for brawling at a club full of naked women. So far", That's right but only because Kavanaugh wasn't running for Congress. He was running for the right to decide who gets elected to Congress.
26
I think it might be a good idea to award carrots for every lie told by Duncan Hunter, in much the same way WaPo awards Pinocchios to Trump.
8
My good mother never failed to vote.
She was a refugee from Nazi Germany.
Her elderly parents and young brother perished in Auschwitz.
In America, she and my father opened a small candy store, where they worked hard six days a week.
She was always the first in our house to get up and the last to go to bed.
Her house was spotless. She ironed shirts, darned socks, replaced buttons, scrubbed pots and pans, did the grocery shopping, went to PTA meetings and looked after my father and his mother and me whenever we needed looking after, which was all the time.
She tended my father and grandmother lovingly during their declines.
She prayed three times a day and more on the High Holidays.
On Sunday nights, after my homework was done, she would tuck me in bed, and listen to The Lone Ranger, The Shadow and Jack Benny with me.
She used to send off for the little toys the cereal companies would offer for a quarter.
She loved my wife and children when they came along.
She was in the habit of mailing off small contributions to dozens of charities in the U.S. and Israel in memory of her parents and brother.
She never blamed me for not living up to all the hopes and dreams she had for me, though it would have been justified.
She would have liked to vote for a woman President or member of Congress, but never had the opportunity.
There are still many women like her in this country.
I hope that every one of them will vote this year.
41
@A. Stanton
I can’t thank you enough for sharing this beautiful portrait of your mother.
I am going to print it out to remind me of why I am supposed to continue to work to get women like her elected.
14
Unfortunately, to the vast majority of Republicans, participating in financial chicanery seems to be a bagde of honor, as evinced by their continuing fawning support of the reality show huckster shamelessly enriching himself by occupying the Oval Office.
21
Over the last two decades we have waged the never-ending wars, created the largest refugee crisis in the world, piled up $15 trillion in debt, exported the bread-earning industrial sectors to China and polarized the country.
Back to Congressman Hunter.
Who he thinks he is, maybe president Obama, to promise us to protect America, but only burdening us with all those terrible problems while personally profiting several dozen million dollars.
And regarding those desperate refugees fleeing from Central America, if only Obama helped them a decade ago instead of destabilizing the Middle East and forcing several million Arabs from their homes, leading to destabilization of Europe, the Brexit, the rise of far-right movements across the Old Continent and saddling us with Donald Trump.
Trump presidency is the most important legacy of Mr. Obama, isn’t it?
Before Barack getting elected, the fellow Americans demanded the change, hope, unity and prosperity. Those are the pure facts, and those are completely unrelated to journalistic bias, prejudice and willful self-deception.
1
Think about it.... we send and re- send guys like this to Washington... expecting these kind of people to do this nation’s business... and just what kind of business gets done?
16
Gail,
The fact that 2 indicted Republicans are still favored to win their districts tells me all I need to know about the Republican party and the members of it.
14
It may be that rage has been masquerading as headline news for too long, and fatigue has set in.
Khashoggi, Kavanaugh, the Caravan, pipe bombs, Megyn Kelly, and Donald Trump's fiery rhetoric simply have little relevance to my upcoming vote. Democrat "leaders" -- if they exist -- don't seem to be offering much in the way of policy, and are somewhat lukewarm in their anger.
"You can see pictures of him amid his happy colleagues, standing on the grass clutching a cellphone and looking a bit desperate. Collins and Hunter were the first two members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump for president"
Well, if I'd endorsed the president and was looking at my phone months later--maybe reading articles from the NYT or CNN, I'd be looking a bit desperate too.
Forget stocks and multiple mistresses in the two indicted candidates--focus on their support for this administration as the real crime.
On the other hand, all that time analyzing a sure-fire investment and entertaining ladies of the night might have kept them from doing even more damage to our nation's institutions.
I've often thought, as our politics becomes more rancorous, that it's not such a bad idea for Congress to stalemate.
We'd still have to pay their salaries. But say, on the big tax bill (aka giveaway to rich folks and corporations), keeping them from passing it would mean government coffers would be a whole lot fuller than they are now.
Instead, we face a mountain of debt, a crashing market, and the prospect of cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to pay for the excess.
Vote.
35
GOP candidates and office-holders share two characteristics that should cause citizens to encourage them to seek employment outside of government.
First, they support and enable trump who harms our nation daily.
Second, they work to restrict our access to healthcare by fighting the ACA and Medicare.
36
The re-election of Hunter and Collins simply would confirm that, just as their hand wringing about deficits, GOP voters’ clamor for law and order just applies to Democrats.
61
@CEA
As I frequently say, it's okay if you're a Republican.
I usually love Gail’s wit, but, after almost 2 years of reading about Trump and his acolytes, I no longer am amused. We know about Trump. We know about the bottom feeders in, or, running for Congress.
I don’t want to read any more analyses about “what makes Trump be Trump” or why his base continues to support him. Trump and members of his base think and reason differently than I do. We have different priorities and values.
Trump and his supporters fear and hate those who are different.
Well, Mr. President, I’m different, and proud of it.
125
Thank you for this. My sentiments exactly. I didn’t even crack a smile and I usually love Gail’s columns. I am depressed and anxious and angry. It seems like an eternity waiting for the midterms, yet I am fearful the Dems will fall short like they usually do despite some wonderful candidates who have come forward to enter the political wars. Vote!
9
I used to think that this country had a second-rate government. Now I'm wondering if I was maybe being overly optimistic.
126
@Beelzebub You are correct. When I was growing up in the sixties I often pondered how Mussolini and Hitler came to power. Now I know.
Scrutiny of federal campaign expenditures should be the responsibility of the challenger, not the Justice Department. Campaign expenditures are a form of political speech, one of the most highly protected types of expression.
Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. was convicted for, among other things, buying a collectable fedora hat that had once belonged to Michael Jackson. It sounds frivolous, but that's not the point. The point is that if he believed at any time that the hat might improve his electability, then it was appropriate. The most important way the hat could have helped him was by improving his popularity among young African Americans. It's a group that's difficult for politicians to impress sometimes and whose participation is considered valuable. It's not the Justice Department's role to decide what campaigns should buy.
Most importantly, some believe the only expenditures that are appropriate for a campaign are things like advertising and polling. Campaign funds belong to the campaign, not to political consultants. And, once again citing Jesse Jackson, Jr., some funds spend on consultants are no more effective than buying a $6,000 fedora.
1
@Real D B Cooper. You have got to be kidding.
4
I used to live in Collins' district. Being a Blue voter in the most Red district of Upstate NY meant one had to be discrete with your views. Some parents of my former students used to give me a hard time because of my Blue support. Living in the past is a big part of the lifestyle in this region. I would not be surprised to see the fear candidate - Collins - will win.
40
The problem, of course, is the constituency that has no problem with being used by the Congressmen. They know they can't be beaten, so they act the way the do, forcing the constituents to make a choice they can't make.
14
The indictments of Hunter and Collins triggered Trump to go apoplectic on Jeff Sessions, and publicly lamented that the charges could hurt their reelection bids. Gee, let's see. Congressmen should get away with corruption? The Justice Department should be used as a political tool? The president should put his hands on the Attorney General's work? How swampy can you get?
72
Much of what's wrong with Congress boils down to one throwaway word: "inherited."
This institution has way too many legacy admits.
22
There appears to be a growing fear of 'The Liberals' among our Republican neighbors. The word 'Democrat' is less heard by this rabbit, whose ears drooped when reading more on the Hunter Saga.
The 'Don't Vote for Pelosi and Delgado!' Ads are growing in desperation, and the photo of President Trump in the Tabloid News, having a fit over the unmasked bomber, is beyond grotesque. This was followed by an invitation to join the Military.
Cautious by nature and immune to calls for mind over matter at the moment, it is my belief that we should be prepared for another ghastly mud-wrestling match between the two political parties. True, it has begun but it could get worse.
The Stock Market has taken a tumble. Our Nation is vulnerable, and Trump supporters are having a case of the raging reds. 'Winning' is the key word and they will think about our State of Affairs tomorrow, when they do not get up on the right side of the bed.
Only Mother Nature, erratic and unpredictable, is keeping our community on the same side of the fence. If voters can get to the polls on time, with the clock ticking away, to avert a national tragedy, we will be fortunate. Right now a great majority of Americans are on edge, and it is going to take a show of character and strength on our part, not to let go of our country and hand it over on a filthy platter to these ignoble go-go shouting politicians.
35
Unfortunately, we humans are very flawed; some of us are quite satisfied with fulfilling our needs,while others aren't satisfied until their wants are overflowing. It seems that one thing most humans have in common is their desire for "more". Just a simple word causing so much turmoil. To borrow a line from Seinfeld, "People,they're the worst."
19
Well, Ms. Collins every district deserves to have a representative who reflects the values of that district. If the voters in Chris Collins's district want to be known as people who support insider trading and can be a rubber stamp for the Trump agenda in the House let them tell their children Trump and Collins are their heroes. If the voters who have seen the pictures of Duncan Hunter drinking away his afternoons in D.C. instead of doing his job let them continue to vote for a man who inherited his seat in the House of Representatives.
Let those foolish enough to donate to a Duncan Hunter campaign enjoy the knowledge that what he actually spent their donation on was entertaining multiple mistresses; most voters will agree his wife didn't sign the checks for those expenses.
Only 435 people in the US are fortunate to be elected to the House of Representatives and given the honor to vote on laws affecting the lives of every person in the US. These two men don't deserve anyone's vote no matter how deluded a Republican a voter is. Shame on those who continue to put these crooks back into office.
103
@Lynda
When the partisan divide is this great, as when we see Trumpkins (very frequently big, fat drunken ones) wearing t-shirts with "I'd rather be a Russian than a Democrat, as well as posh conservative clubs welcoming new-Nazi thugs from Proud Boys as guest speakers, then we have something far beyond party enthusiasm, which is the downfall of American democracy.
8
Gail, I think they're both going to win. Their 'safe' seats mean they could probably do much worse things, and still get elected. They could probably 'shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue' and still get elected, in the carefully-curated districts they "represent". And who's to say there aren't a plurality of spouse-cheating, donation-stealing, alcohol-abusing citizens in those districts? What about that Gail, huh? Maybe these two *perfectly* represent the plurality in their districts... what about that?!
And both probably have higher political prospects looking pretty good right now. I see that "infidelity" and "irresponsibility" are essentially presidential qualifications in our new age, and alcohol abuse is Supreme Court material, or so some people are saying. Reps Hunter and Collins have *great* prospects - after all, this is the era of "making American Great Again", after all.
80
I'm torn. In theory, no term limits should ensure that a candidate grows with the job, acquiring expertise with which to better serve their constituents. In actuality, they ensure that a candidate becomes a savant at gaming the system, building an unassailable fiefdom, becoming mysteriously wealthy, and it doesn't matter what party they're from. Think I'll go with term limits; let's give some other stupid people a chance to embarrass this country.
29
@stan continople
Equitably distributed Congressional districts so that they aren't gerrymandered is the best solution, in my opinion.
13
Both of these criminals should thank their lucky stars for Trump - they'll both get reelected because their crimes pale in comparison to his. These days, republicans are very forgiving. I shudder to think what it might take for them to turn against one of their own.
36
What qualifies these candidates is in fact their utter lack of ethics and demonstrated amorality, thus assuring any future donors of the salability of their votes and faithful readiness to implement the GOP agenda without pause.
25
A staffer from my Congressman's office called me last summer, because I send emails to them asking my Representative to do impossible things, like overcome gridlock and pass bipartisan legislation for the common good of all citizens.
She asked me what I thought the most critical problem in national government was.
I told her it was lack of ethical behavior.
She just sighed and said, "yeah, we know...".
She was right.
We all know about the critical problem.
33
Who says politics is boring?
It's one thing to wrap your mind around someone who commits obvious crimes, having no shame, instead having the chutzpah to run for a public office; it's entirely different to wrap your mind around the public that will vote for such a criminal.
What would the public expect to get by electing a criminal to represent them? Delivery on the promises he makes? Or, to be further embarrassed by their criminal representative further ripping off the taxpayers to prove that their voters are defined in the P. T. Barnum adage: a sucker is born every minute.
25
Corrupt or Indicted Politicians who refuse to debate their opponents is a sign of:
A: ostrich defense
B: state of denial defense
C: running the clock out defense
The 2 point conversion is awarded for Teflon responsibility where the parties ethical lapses are laid bare. They cloak themselves in a United States flag and smear their opponent with false accusations. Those accusations are calibrated to gin up their base.
The perquisite Fox News interviews with Hannity allow for airtime and softball questions. Those are lobbed from the mound and reinforce the Teflon nature “who, Me?”.
Have we seen this script before?
22
Look folks, if you wouldn't want the person running for office as your next door neighbor because they lack ethics and moral values, DON'T vote for them. Period. Easy as that.
14
It. Is a sad commentary that (supposedly) thinking human beings can vote for Hunter/Collins. If you can't bring yourself to vote for the other party then at least have the decency to stay home.
Sadly I sent money Beto O'rourke's way (twice) only to find that he is yet another sweet taking pretty boy who will do anything to get elected. Let me send some to Campa Najar. One has to keep the hope that somewhere, some day, a politician will. Come. About who's not a Trump, Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell, or Ryan. Yes, putting them all in the same bucket is a bit of a stretch, but not by much. All of them are demagogues.
4
@Groovygeek
Although I would vote for Beto in a heartbeat if I lived in Texas, I did not receive a thank you e-mail amidst all of the other Beto campaign e-mails. I donated to his campaign and never got an acknowledgement of my donation.
@Groovygeek I'm sorry, but I cannot understand most of what you have written.
4
American politics would be vastly diminished without Gail's Rogues Gallery which has faithfully provided election after election an invaluable resource for voters who correctly consider themselves duty bound to take the moral and ethical lapses of candidates for public office into consideration when casting their votes. Gail, in her indomitable feistiness, and refusal to cast age old values aside like worthless trinkets, continues to show the way.
18
Thanks Gail -
You always turn my tears to laughter.
17
@Eatoin Shrdlu
Or at least a smile
3
As for me, I appreciate this column.
I tend to rise early and look at the Times e-edition while it is still dark and stormy. I have noticed a definite problem with how I embrace my day, if I spend too much time immersed in the slow motion disintegration of my country, one Putin stooge story after another.
So thanks for the reminder that democracy has a major flaw...us.
We human beings, all of us, are privately challenged to remember to listen to our better angels.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
187
As much as I love and admire Gail's wit I no longer find any of this amusing. There was one way into this and there is one way out. It starts in 10 days.
119
The piece is amusing but not very profound. Pointing out that today there are just two indicted congressmen running to stay in office, as opposed to four in 1978, does not even begin to recognise the frightening level of crime and corruption committed by current U.S., especially those employed by Trump.
Today is far worse than 1978, when the U.S. had a decent and well meaning president in office. Carter's presidency may not have been associated with the word 'successful', but at least he and his White House colleagues were infinitely more honest than the current crop of sleazebags and misfits staining the nation's prestige and reputation.
The majority of U.S. politicians has turned into a collection of bloodsuckers placing their own interests before those of the nation, bleeding it dry in the process. While over 100 countries have developed from dictatorships to democracies in the past century, the U.S. has achieved the unusual distinction of developing from a democracy into a dictatorship. The juggernaut will be difficult to reverse.
155
@Hamid Varzi At the rate we're going with dump in office we can expect many more indicted congress members and senators in the 2020. There is a foul stench of crime in DC these days and it's not from the citizenry.
16
@Hamid Varzi: The Iranian Islamists who held the US Embassy hostages long enough to elect Reagan sure had lousy character judgment.
8
@Hamid Varzi
Sometimes we need a bit of amusement to carry us through the bad parts. We have "profound" every morning; we need the smiling to just survive.
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"'Our strategy is our strategy,' (Representative Chris) Collins explained helpfully at one point."
No one appreciates dry humor like a Republican Congressman under indictment. It's way, way above his base's radar. Of course, "indictment" was off their scope, so not much gets through. Hence, strategy: If they're broke but in our camp, don't fix them.
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Add to the list of disaster candidates--Dana Rohrabacher, Kevin McCarthy, and of course Devin Nunes. It would be a worse slate, except Darryl Issa is retiring.
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God help us this is a mess, we will need quite a bit of strength and patience to sort it all out won’t we?
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Collins should not be running for office. But a fair account of what he did, while illegal, is less serious because of mitigating circumstances. Collins did not benefit financially from his insider trading. Rather, he improperly disclosed information to remedy a bad investment that would have led to large losses on the part of his son. This surely was illegal and harmful. But, because Collins' motivation wasn't personal gain, the extent of the wrongdoing is less. That is provided for in the Sentencing Guidelines and would lessen the sentence against Collins if he were convicted. Fraud crimes where a culpable party gets no financial benefit are unusual and not particularly serious.
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@michjas But it caused real, quantifiable harm to the unknowing marks who bought the stock at full price and took the fall.
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Yes. And robbing 2 banks is worse that robbing 1. I suppose if the stolen money is used to repair my mother’s home, it may not be a crime at all.
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@michjas - Wow; umm, the 2 facts that Collins was prevented from ' benefiting financially ', because his stock was actually held in Australia and physically couldn't be sold as Australian markets had stopped trades in the stock, AND that an ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation prohibited him from selling said stock, hopefully would be taken into account when considering ' Sentencing Guidelines '.
Think about it: how truly compromised a GOP'er Congress-critter must be to actually be under House Ethics Committee sanctions in THIS Congress !
And keep in mind Collins, his family, friends, and fellow Congress-critters reportedly owned just short of 50% of the outstanding shares.
This entire cesspool of insider-ism should be weighed alongside any ' mitigating circumstances '.
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The basic tenet of any politician is that they are there to serve the people (their constituents), and if they cannot abide by that, then they should automatically be disqualified.
I say that as a Liberal, but I mean it for all.
It is a disgrace there are so many people running for office with dark clouds over their heads (with the law or otherwise), and that is because (I am not quite sure of the percentages, but only know that it is ridiculously high) if you are an incumbent, then you are most likely going to get reelected. (especially in so called ''safe'' districts)
I would call (as many do) for term limits, but the limit should be decided by the voter. Even with horrible, horrible candidates, they still seem to get elected here and there do to apathy, or worse, (especially on the republican side) will have voters voting completely out of tribe and against the ''socialist'. (all Democrats are considered Socialist by the right)
This is the state of our affairs, and they are a mess.
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@FunkyIrishman: Antisocial people, like the bomber living in the van in Florida, call sociable people "socialists".
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The emperor has no clothes and the rubes love it. Did the Americans, who love these bent politicians, skip school every single day? And, and, and on the make believe "left" I'm hearing Joe "sanctimonious Joe" Biden is presenting Dubya with some kind of citizens award for all he's done for veterans. On Veteran's Day, no less. You can't make this stuff up. Really depressing.
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This is a free country and Duncan Hunter will do everything he can to show it, prove it and fight for it! He cares not, whether that fight takes place in the House of Representatives, the House of I'll Repute or the Penitentiary!
Collins is perplexed about the Australia issue. That "also continent", continent is so far away. We have more important issues to worry about. Too, I firmly believe he's wondering about calling his stock deal "insider trading" when he is clearly outside on the White House lawn!
If my points don't make sense to your readers, just tell them it stopped making sense to me, a long time ago. Especially the question raised by voter in one of the hypertexted videos, that these election issues always seem to surface at or near election times!
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The most depressing aspect of the current political climate is the fact that the "Main Stream Media" is filled with reporting about the Republican candidates lying all the time about everything. Trump's successful domination of America's front pages is proof that dishonesty is the best policy. Lies appeal to an uncritical public, who prefer the sugar coating of false content to the complexities of real issues.
This avalanche of deception, and the obsessive reporting of it by the press, drowns out the voices of Democratic Party candidates, whose messages tend to be boringly substantive. Trump's presidency is the proven and tested template for Republican candidates. There's is no end of free publicity in being outrageous, obnoxious, and untruthful.
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@Reed Erskine
Ah... what you're suggesting is that Americans are generally dumber that treestumps. Why yes, they are. Simply read the comments to validate this truism.
Or -- as H.L. Mencken famously noted: “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
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In defense of Hunter’s lawyer, when properly understood … he’s a LAWYER, for heaven’s sake. Think Avenatti. Think Tom Hagen. Think Michael Cohen.
If this really is the first time Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21 ever heard of using campaign funds to finance multiple mistresses, then he really needs to come out of his cave now and then. He might consider assembling some campaign funds himself – don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it.
Clearly, the best thing that Chris Collins could do for himself is to forswear public service, because it’s apparent that pretty much the only people who get CAUGHT for insider trading are elected schlimazels.
BarRUMbum.
Ya’ gotta love America. Everybody does these things, but who else has the chutzpah to ADMIT it?
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@Richard Luettgen Funny, Mr. Luettgen, how you and other Republicans have no problems with your fellow Republicans--and even your president--breaking the law, but then come down like a ton of bricks on those poor migrants and their children for "disrespecting" our laws and trying to claim asylum.
As for insider trading: No, "everybody" does not do it, "everybody" does not have the means to purchase millions of shares that can be quickly dumped at great profit. This is a crime that is reserved for the upper echelons, which is why you approve of it.
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@Richard Luettgen
“Your honor,I plead equivalence, with time off for bad behavior.”
Meanwhile our block is holding a massive pity party, filling tiny champagne glasses with tears for trump, who is complaining about how unfair it is that so much attention is being given to reporting accurately and responsibly on the MAGA Bomber — taking attention away from his making a national emergency out of a diminishing handful of mostly women and children who are trudging northward to ask asylum from violence. (And they’re doing it in precisely the way they’re supposed to when seeking asylum).
So unfair that the media reports real news instead of his fake crisis. So unfair.
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@Richard Luettgen: It looks like the Saudi Royal Family has some of that chutzpah, although they seem to be a bit slow on the output.
9
How does Duncan (my wife did it) Hunter afford a big black SUV and two hirelings all on his Representatives pay? How does Chris Collins afford the millions of dollars needed to buy a million shares of stock on his Representative's pay?
Then we have Hunter's and Collins' behavior. They plumb the depths of corrupt behavior right along with Trump and his corrupt cabinet.
Such people aren't swamp creatures. These are sewer snakes. GOP sewer snakes.
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@Liam Jumper
More accurately, Liam, sewer rats.
18
Sewer snakes are not mean spirited. No animal analogy can describe these human creatures
13
The sewer would smell lovely if it weren't contaminated by the GOP.
10
Collins and Hunter may have been the first two members of Congress to support Trump, but unfortunately, they weren't the last. Every single Republican in the Senate and House are aiding and abetting in the fraud engaged in by our President and are complicit in his lies to the American people. Every. Single. One. No exceptions.
The President is a phony who has hardly done an honest days work in his life. He was earning 200,000 a year when he was 2, was a millionaire by 8, and his biggest success has been in gaming the tax laws to avoid declaring income, stiff his contractors, and declaring bankruptcy to eliminate debt. The Republicans know this and deliberately do not insist that he show his tax returns, because it would make greedy rich people look bad.
They let the President spew his toxic lies because it helps them stay in control, and they cry about the lack of civility and bipartisanship.
This election IS a referendum on Donald Trump. Are we a country who respects the rule of law, or are we going to let ourselves be governed by a con-man?
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Collins won a primary vote (Sept) to get on the November ballot after charges were filed (Aug). This suggests either a weak bench of GOP candidates in his district or perhaps a preference for likely criminals to represent GOP voters.
In addition to BunnyGate, Duncan Hunter has to be getting some flak for voting for the GOP tax cuts, which are going to cost his CA property owning supporters a lot of extra taxes because of the SALT cap.
But elections are no longer about policy or character or loyalty to country, otherwise Dana Rohrabacher would be history after Kevin McCarthy, House Majority Leader, was secretly recorded saying:
“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,”
Once upon a time, being pro-Russian in Southern California was a ticket to political oblivion. Apparently now, being suspected of being paid by Putin is no longer a political liability.
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"Nobody running for Congress this year has been indicted for brawling at a club full of naked women. So far."
Ah, she writes this as if it is a bad thing.
She implies it is worse even than all the rest of that.
Nah. Good fun.
20
Lock 'em up, eh Mr. President?
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We have Republicans who commit adultery, who duct tape their mistress to an exercise machine for he can take photos he can use for blackmail, who want to date teenage girls, who blame their wives for their troubles. There was even one state representative in Oklahoma who preached against homosexuality but was arrested with a male teenage prostitute in a hotel room...while they smoked pot. But why should they care. The adulterer in the White House is too busy worrying about the number of his Twitter followers than he is about the behavior of other adulterous Republicans...or major incidents most other presidents would hustle to work on.
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It is not unusual for politicians who are in arrears of the law to get reelected. The one I remember the most was James Michael Curley mayor of Boston who was in jail at the time. As for Hunter, California has had its share of politicians who if not in jail should have been, especially going back to the Gold Rush days.
That Duncan Hunter leads in the polls simply shows the mentality of Republicans in California, they have to stick together, one of them is Devin Nunez who lists himself as a dairy farmer from Tulare. The farm is actually in Iowa where it seems undocumented immigrants are safer, working for Republicans.
New York certainly has had is share of political crooks, the one we know the most about was Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall, in those days Democrats were the ones that gave Christmas baskets to loyal voters, the more they voted the more they got.
We are not sure what affects those Republicans in San Diego, a place with the best weather fin the U.S. despite a few fires. It gets a lot of military money so Democrats stay away, You could call it Alabama in California. We do have to contain them to keep them from harming the state, but we do have a lot of nuts here, we grow them and some get elected to office, keeps us from getting complacent.
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@David Underwood: Reading all this reminds me of Edwin Edwards' extremely successful campaign slogan "vote for the crook, it's important".
5
It's not easy being a Grand Old Phony and a Family Values hypocrite; you have to lie from morning to night when you're not busy stealing, boozing it up, committing adultery, insider-trading, ripping healthcare away millions, praying to Jesus...or simply licking the bottom of Donald Trump's shoes.
It takes a unique sociopathic skill set, a religious commitment to amorality and a complete lack of conscience that few non-criminals possess.
Duncan Hunter is that kind of a Republican peach of a guy.
Before he threw his wife under the bus for campaign finance law violations, Hunter was busy drunkenly throwing attractive females under the covers in Washington DC while doing the people's business.
POLITICO reported that Hunter’s carousing started in 2014, when he hired a young woman and promoted her from intern to full-time, a decision that perplexed staffers who said she frequently failed to show up for work and was hostile to co-workers.
Former Hunter staffers said the atmosphere grew toxic because of the woman, who would text with Hunter and accompany him to the Capitol Hill Republican Social Club for drinking sessions.
Multiple aides complained about her attire, saying it was inappropriate for work.
Despite mounting concerns within his office, Hunter refused to fire her...because, well, you know.
Meanwhile Mrs. Hunter was back in San Diego raising three children on her own while charging the family's expenses to the Hunter campaign credit card.
Family Values
GOP 2018
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@Socrates "Mounting concerns"...that is gold.
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@Socrates I agree that these two GOP congressmen are deficient in positive character traits. Apparently that is not enough to keep them from being elected or re-elected.
What should keep them from being elected and re-elected is the Republican party agenda and the laws passed in the last two years with the votes of Collins and Hunter. 1) Tax Cut which cut taxes only for wealthy and corporations 2) Repeal ACA (ObamaCare) by Executive Regulation. Allow Insurance Companies to use pre-existing conditions to deny coverage; Sell "junk" policies which cover nothing; deny coverage to 30 million US citizens 3) Ban Birth Control religious authorities consider to be abortion 4) Ban all abortions in US because of religious objection by Big GOP donors. 5) Eliminate protections for LGBTQ communities. Define transgender people out of existence despite biological evidence. 6) Allow corporations to exploit federal lands and parks for oil, mining and other polluting for-profit activities.
It is the Harmful Republican Agenda that is the Reason to Vote for Democratic Candidates on Nov. 6. Provide the Checks and Balances against the incoherent Trump policies: Vote Democratic at all levels of government.
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@Socrates-I hope Duncan Hunter's wife schools herself in the wisdom found on www.chumplady.com -- then figures out her revenge. Go talk to all the best lawyers in town; tell them she's seeking counsel and reviewing firms. That way Hunter can't get them to represent him, when she files for divorce after cleaning out the bank account and turning FBI/State's witness. This could work so well, other pols' wives--treated like trash--will sign up too. An her success leads to a best-selling book and blockbuster Hollywood movie.
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Little things like character, empathy, fairness, morality, public service, sincerity and honesty, are not even seen as optional extras by some Republican politicians.
As long as they are surrounded by too many American flags, and they can move on to talk about substantive issues that matter, such as Trump’s hair or Republican talking points, they will be re elected by their supporters, who seem fine with representatives who are shallow, possibly criminal, and will not work in their best interests.
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I am unfortunate enough to live in Duncan Hunter’s district. He is still well ahead in polls and no doubt would be if he had been convicted of felonies already and was in prison. Yes, my neighbors believe that a philandering alcoholic perpetrator of fraud and other felonies, who would, in effect empty his Congressional seat while he sat in his cell, is preferable to a Democrat. FoxNews must be very proud of its work.
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Dagwood....don't fret.
Almost half of Alabama's voters thought that Holy Republican Roller and retired child molester Roy Moore was a finer choice than the dignified and sensible Senator Doug Jones, whose Democratic affiliation was considered to be the sign of the Devil.
Doug Jones the Democrat won.....in Alabama
Miracles can happen....but people have to vote...in historic numbers.
November 6 2018
VOTE !
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@Dagwood
Sounds a whole lot like the Senate race in Florida. Rick Scott, a Republican, has an abysmal environmental record, has financial ties to an energy company, and has a long history of Medicare fraud, among other things. Yet, according to polls, the race between Scott and Bill Nelson is a tossup. Incomprehensible.
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@Dagwood
"FoxNews must be very proud of its work. "
In 1975 Murdoch tried to get a license for a broadcast network in France and was promptly rejected.
It was that third rated actor turn president-aka The Gibber- who granted Murdoch his life dream.
A 24/7/365 propaganda machine in America.
Since day one, FIX News mission of spreading falsehoods, incitement to violence, smear of Libs/Dems resulted in giving us Trump as president.
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Ali Trump and his passel of thieves
Engaged in their persistent reaves
So busy by thunder
In piling up plunder
And stacking it up to the eaves.
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@Sarah,
You are correct. He is doing a great job for himself, his Nationalist and Foreign Handlers - but not at all for AMERICANS or Democracy.
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@Larry Eisenberg Do you speak of Sheikh Covfefe and his one thousand and one nightmares?
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@Larry Eisenberg All hail, Bard of MA!
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