Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

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

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Consistently wrong since 2002

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

How stupid are these people?

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

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Squishable Morning Thread

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This should be good:

SEMAFOR: Congressman-elect George Santos, R-NY, who is accused of faking just about every single aspect of his biography, said on Twitter he had a “story to tell” and would clear things up “next week.”

We will no doubt be taking a break from our holiday celebrations to tune in, after a series of revelations — beginning in The New York Times and continuing in the Forward and Daily Beast — that Santos may not, as he claimed, be a successful businessman, a college graduate, a grandchild of Holocaust survivors, or even married to his husband.

In the meantime, though, we did find at least some partial corroboration for a murky part of his life story: His marriage. George Santos does have a husband, sources say, or at least a partner.

“I’ve known his husband for several years and have interacted with him on a few social occasions and at political events,” Charles Moran, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, told Semafor. “That said, the current story is about George, not his spouse, so I don’t really know why any of this is relevant.

Well, it’s relevant because Santos lied about everything else, Chickens for Colonel Sanders guy? Also, people who spend hours poring over stolen pictures of Hunter Biden’s dong don’t really get to choose what’s relevant for public discussion.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

128Comments

  5. 5.

    lowtechcyclist

    Also, people who spend hours poring over stolen pictures of Hunter Biden’s dong don’t really get to choose what’s relevant for public discussion.

    True that.

    Good morning, all, and happy Christmas Eve Eve!

  6. 6.

    matt

    Dick response by Charles Moran. Anyone with adult level intelligence knows why people are asking questions about Santos.

  11. 11.

    lee

    What really pisses me off about this story is how some folks are blaming the Democrats for not figuring out all these lies.

    One of the first articles about this had the Democratic candidate actually questioning some of the claims yet the press completely ignored them.

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    Well, that’s helpful, innit? USPS notice for Xmas Eve.

    Local Post Offices will be open. They may have extended, normal, or limited hours:…

  13. 13.

    geg6

    Happy Festivus jackals!

    My first grievance for the day is the horrible weather.  It’s impossible to distinguish blowing snow from the falling snow.  It’s all going sideways.  It’s now 6 degrees, a three degree drop in the last half hour, with windchill at -14.

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    @pluky: Maybe it was a green card thing. The accounts I’ve read don’t say when Santos married the woman he divorced in 2019. But here’s a statement he made in 2022:

    “I am openly gay, have never had an issue with my sexual identity in the past decade, and I can tell you and assure you, I will always be an advocate for LGBTQ folks,” Santos told USA Today in October, responding to criticism about his support for Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay Bill” signed into law this year by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    Emphasis mine. That might be enough to get him deported if the previous marriage to a woman was a sham. Should also add I have no idea what his immigration status is and don’t care outside of how it might play out to reduce the number of lying House Republicans by one.

  15. 15.

    Geminid

    The Santos affair is picking up attention world wide. At least, the Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post have each had at least one article on him since the NYT “broke” the story.

  17. 17.

    Geminid

    @lee: I believe that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put out an extensive fact sheet about Santos’s lies weeks before the election. Some critics complain that this fact sheet was too long.

  18. 18.

    Soprano2

    @lee: Yep, TPM says that the local paper was all over this story, even endorsing the Democrat when usually they endorse the Republican. It does sound as if the governor’s race and the emphasis on crime by the R’s and the NY Times drowned this story out in the minds of most voters.

  20. 20.

    Soprano2

    @geg6: It was -8° when I got up this morning! Now it’s clear and all the way up to -6°. LOL At least we only got a couple of inches of snow. I saw that I-44 was shut down in a couple of places in MO yesterday due to accidents.

  21. 21.

    Ken

    In last night’s open thread, lgerard was celebrating receiving his $5.21 in the Equifax settlement. The Festivus data-breach gifts keep arriving, with the announcement that Facebook/Meta has agreed to a $725 million settlement in the class-action lawsuit against them for allowing Cambridge Analytica to access user data. So if you were a member of Facebook during the 2016 presidential campaign, watch for another settlement check in your mailbox!

  22. 22.

    JMG

    This is an awesome scandal, not least because you just know there are many more shoes to drop. I am positive this dude has at least two previous names and lives in which he did much criming.

  24. 24.

    Another Scott

    The statement from the head of the delusional Log Cabin Republicans is [ chef’s kiss ]. They are supermen at refusing to get the point.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  26. 26.

    Steeplejack

    The freezapocalypse is getting closer here in NoVA. It’s 43° now, with freezing rain coming down (judging by the prickling sounds on my windows), but the temp is going to drop to 26° by noon and 17° by sundown. Then 9° overnight. I am going to drizzle my taps and boost the thermostat to 76° to increase the ambient temperature in here.

    After succumbing a bit to the disaster porn on the Weather Channel yesterday, I did a reset and reminded myself that I’m not going to be snowed in; it’s just going to be very, very cold. I can go out if I need to get things, and in fact I still have my weekly appointment to pick up my friend after work at Trader Joe’s tomorrow afternoon. My only concern is a burst pipe, and that because I cringe at the thought of trying to find a plumber at Christmas, especially with everyone else trying to do the same. Well, we’ll see how it goes. Everyone stay safe!

  28. 28.

    Geminid

    One aspect to this matter may have been that many people assumed that Santos would not be elected. He hed run once already in 2020 and been trounced  by incumbent Tom Suozzi.

    Suozzi retired, but after redistricting the 3rd was still considered a safe district for Dems. In November, though Republican turnout was high and Democratic turnout was very weak, and Santos won by (I think) 8 points.

    So what seemed less important than other stories is now a sensation. And instead of taking a holiday season victory lap, Santos is in hiding.

  31. 31.

    Ken

    @Another Scott: Maybe if Santos is forced to resign from Congress, he can take over as head of the Log Cabin Republicans. Supporting Florida’s abhorrent law while simultaneously claiming he will always stand up for LGBTQ persons, shows that he has the necessary doublethink skills.

  32. 32.

    Starfish

    @lee: This is another illustration of the incompetence of the state party. The state party should have gone after this dude. The state party did a bunch of stupid things.

    The governor is about to put some conservative judge on a state court who is weak-kneed about abortion. Is this what New Yorkers want of their Democratic Party?

    New York has a “party machine” that is filled with incompetent people.

  35. 35.

    Geminid

    @JMG: That’s why I hope people get past the questions of the guy’s sexual orientation and marital status. Santos apparently is involved in major crimes relating to fraud and other offenses, and the personal questions seem to me to be a more minor part of the story.

    There also may be a Russian connection involving Long Island resident and Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselburg. Santos seems to have a lot of “funny money” and it could be Vekselberg’s..

  42. 42.

    Spanky

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Ditto.

    And back to Santos. Anyone who thinks he’s going to resign, or that the Republicans in the House will kick him out, is delusional. It’s all about the power, baby.

  47. 47.

    Starfish

    @Geminid: In a world where scandals around Hunter Biden’s laptop exist and there was an entire Pizzagate, the Democratic Party cannot get the word out?

    Wouldn’t it involve, “ooh, look at this scandalous information on George Santos” with a couple of high follower count Twitter accounts retweeting it to have gotten it out?

  48. 48.

    sab

    0 degrees outside and the wind is howling. I am very worried about our little squirrel friends, living in their little leaf houses.

  51. 51.

    Ohio Mom

    It’s -6 here in the Cincinnati suburbs, no match for our poor heat pump which has gotten the house only to 64. I see a lot of roasting vegetables and even baking today.

  52. 52.

    Mimi haha

    I closed the drapes even though I have fairly new windows. I’m letting the faucets drip even though I’m not sure I really need to–none of the pipes run through walls touching that mass of cold outside. It’s chilly in here but I’ll live. When it gets to a more civilized hour to call people I’m cancelling my dinner plans.  I’d text but some of these people are old school.

  53. 53.

    Suzanne

    @sab: There are two neighborhood squirrels who have broken into our birdseed crate, and I am on #teamsquirrel. I am enjoying watching them from indoors!

  54. 54.

    sab

    @pluky: That doesn’t actually work anymore. My nephew has been trying to get his Canadian wife legalized for ten years. I do not understand what our government’s problem is with her. She is a lovely girl.

  56. 56.

    Starfish

    @Betty Cracker: We are still speaking about him like he is a toddler, aren’t we?

    First, there is his need for attention, which is tied up with his fear of boredom. “He doesn’t have anything else to do,” one adviser told me. “What else can he do? Why did he see Kanye? He wants to be relevant and wants the limelight. He’s thirsty.”

    Trump did not like this. “I think I’ve always been relevant. Like, I’ve been relevant from a very young age. I’ve been in the mix, to be honest,” he said.

  57. 57.

    sab

    @Ohio Mom: We set our thermostat at 63, which helped a lot in getting the grown kids to leave the nest.

    We wear socks and hats at home. And our pets are very fluffy with fur.

  58. 58.

    NotMax

    @Mimi haha

    a more civilized hour

    Good on you.

    Some bozoic entity has been setting the landline ringing around 5 a.m. for the past week. Answering machine picks up and ias is typical with robocalls, there is no response other than a hang-up. Still jarring to have the phone ring at that hour.

  60. 60.

    Josie

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: ​
     Funny. I did the exactly the same thing. My eyes glazed over after reading several of his nonsensical statements and descriptions of his boring routine. What a has been.

  64. 64.

    MattF

    Got out, before the big freeze this afternoon and tonight, and replenished my supply of bagels. I’ve got cream cheese and various kinds of smoked fish, so I’m set for the next few days.

  65. 65.

    sab

    @NotMax: Back 50 years ago when I took the Michigan bar exam, the bar review course told me that putting that extra “e” in judgment was an automatic fail

    Daniel Webster was an idiot. Dropping that e made no phonetic sense.

  71. 71.

    Leto

    @Steeplejack: TLDR? It’s Sunset Story irl. Irrelevant conman continues to lose grip on reality as his white nationalist party moves on without him. That the emperor not only has no clothes on, but that he’s 320lbs of orange cream shit stuffed into an Edgar suit.

  74. 74.

    Layer8Problem

    @Betty Cracker:  Jesus Christ, Sunset Boulevard.  In the back of my head I’m thinking “but if he goes full-on mad he’ll never think he’s finally, truly lost it all!”

  75. 75.

    Geminid

    @Starfish: I cannot answer that question, and I’m not sure why you are asking me it. Though it may be a rhetorical question, in which case you might as well answer it yourself.

  77. 77.

    Starfish

    “It was like watching Elvis at the end.” On second thought, it was worse than that: “It was like watching Elvis at the end if he was completely relegated to just piano bars.” He laughed a sad laugh. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

  79. 79.

    PBK

    @indycat32: I’m so glad to hear this.  How did you end up keeping them warm?  We’ve done shelters for our barn cats but you’re dealing with some really extreme temps.

  80. 80.

    kalakal

    I have to say I love the ever unfolding scope of Santos’ ( can we be even be sure that’s his name? ) lies. I bet he even fibbed about his star sign. A lot of it’s trivia really but as Geminid said above he may be facing serious fraud charges

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

     I read about half that and then got bored. Trump is so boring

    And that’s what’s going to bury him. He hasn’t changed, the schtick is the same, but, except for the really rabid, everyone has moved on. He’s so last year. Without the breathless MSM coverage of his rantings he’s nothing

  81. 81.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @sab: My guess would be neither is she. :-(

    Every time I hear of this BS I am ever happier that I convinced my wife to get her citizenship. She’d only been here 30 years or so by then.

  82. 82.

    Layer8Problem

    @Starfish:  Mind you the New York State Democratic Party would have had to do at least some ground work.  I haven’t seen any post-mortems saying “we put out fact sheets, called local newspapers, set up news conferences, we did all this work!”  I haven’t seen anything.  There’s a certain Florida Democratic Party vibe about them, and lingering Cuomo stuff.

  83. 83.

    Starfish

    @Geminid: In what world, does someone go to the New York Times with a bunch of stuff, have them ignore you, and then just give up?

    The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is something different from the New York Democratic Party, but given how much money the DCCC asks for, I would expect a little more effort.

  84. 84.

    Anyway

    @Geminid:

    The Israeli newspaper angle may be due to Santos’ sketchy/questionable stories about his grandparents… whether they were fleeing the holocaust.

  88. 88.

    Geminid

    @Starfish: Tom Watson has been putting up good material about the Santos affair on his Twitter account. He discusses the questions regarding the New York Democratic Party’s culpability, etc. that you are asking me about.

    Watson also discussed Governor Hochul’s controversial judicial nomination made yesterday, and the prospects for confirmation by the state Senate.

    Watson is a NYC resident and seems to be a knowledgeable and honest commenter on his state’s politics.

  89. 89.

    Starfish

    @Anyway: Right? I am looking at Google Trends, and look how there are no mentions of George Santos other than maybe when he entered the race, when he won, and then…

    I mean, I am happy because they were looking at this guy as the “future of the Republican Party” because he won in a Democratic stronghold, but should he have won at all? I guess that speaks to how bad a lot of the Republican candidates were, but there was a candidate unvetted by their own party, and no opponent bothered to do the work either?

  91. 91.

    Betty Cracker

    @Anyway: Yep. That turned out to be a big fat lie too. IIRC, the grandparent who supposedly fled Ukraine to Brussels to escape a pogrom and then fled Brussels to Brazil to escape the Nazis was actually born in Brazil in the 1920s.

    Odd stuff is also coming out from people who worked with Santos at a Dish Network customer service center. He bragged all the time about how wealthy his family was, then tried to get people to start a GoFundMe account to pay for his mom’s funeral. Hakeem Jeffries said it’s like a bad “Catch Me If You Can” sequel, LOL!

  92. 92.

    indycat32

    @PBK:  Used a  a styrofoam cooler (shelter of choice for outdoor kitties), that had a six inch opening cut in it,  lined the inside of it with  reflective bubble attic insulation I got at lowes,  added straw, put it inside the large cage, put foam board on top of the cage  and covered  the entire cage with several layers of blankets.

  93. 93.

    Ken

    @kalakal: He hasn’t changed, the schtick is the same, but, except for the really rabid, everyone has moved on.

    When you put it that way, it sounds a lot like those comedians who are doing the same routines they did thirty years ago, and complaining that no one is laughing.

  95. 95.

    geg6

    @Suzanne:

    I’m upstairs in our bonus room/my office and there is a small deck off it that looks out over our backyard.  John built two bird feeders attached to the railing and we put Cleo’s cat tree there.  The feeders are quite large.  We get loads of birds there and chipmunks and squirrels can climb the big pine and get onto the deck railing from there in the window.  We currently have two mourning doves huddled in one feeder and a rather large squirrel huddled inside the other.  Cleo keeps jumping up on her tree to watch and then running over to the register where the forced air blows out.  Much animal entertainment here today.

  98. 98.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: I like how Hakeem Jeffries keeps a straight face while he’s lampooning the opposition. Jeffries comes across as a very serious man and I believe he is, but I bet part of him is laughing while he’s flinging these beanballs.

  99. 99.

    Low Key Swagger

    All the talk about Tesla got me thinking about what @Martin said here the other night, which was (paraphrasing) that all they did was swap out the powertrain.  It made me laugh even though I found myself saying, no, they also loaded it up with tons of sensors for ridiculous frills and that seems, at least for me, to offset the fact that there are fewer moving parts.  Sensors routinely go bad.  I remember GM made an electric car decades ago that the few people allowed to lease them really loved.  This was before cars were expected to have GPS, back up cams, chargers, microwaves and hot tubs.

    Please just build me a car with an electric powertrain, a durable battery and maybe an 8 track player.

  103. 103.

    Shalimar

    Out of all the lies in this story, the most unexpected fact to me is that the president of the Log Cabin Republicans is a Moran.

  104. 104.

    PBK

    @indycat32: Oh I like the attic insulation idea.  So glad you’re helping these fluff balls.  Have a great Festivus or anything you choose to celebrate!

  105. 105.

    kalakal

    @Ken: Good comparison.

    They can’t change, don’t want to change, everyone is out of step except for them.

    There was never any substance to Trump’s appeal ( euphemism ) , but the media loved his gormless Gish Gallop and if the media is  giving constant, unquestioning coverage people think you must be the bees knees *. He was great for ratings, but now the coverage is all loser stink.

     

    * It’s the “if you’re rich you must be smart” garbage

  108. 108.

    Shalimar

    @Betty Cracker: From Nuzzi’s Trump story: “There (Doral) he meets regularly with an impressive, ideologically diverse range of policy wonks, diplomats and political theorists for conversations about the global economy, and military conflicts and constitutional law and I’m kidding. He goes there to play golf.”

    Ouch.

  110. 110.

    Geminid

    @Starfish: That’s the Tom Watson I was talking about.

    I am a lousy linker and won’t try to link here. But I suggest looking up these stories, especially as reported by state and local newspapers (like the New York Daily News) and TV stations (which ofter provide text versions of their stories). Plus, City and State-New York probably will have good reporting, and Gothamist might also.

  111. 111.

    different-church-lady

    @Soprano2: It does sound as if the governor’s race and the emphasis on crime by the R’s and the NY Times drowned this story out in the minds of most voters.

    Hey, you made a funny!

  112. 112.

    Keith P.

    “That said, the current story is about George, not his spouse, so I don’t really know why any of this is relevant.”

    A Republican actually said that?  On record?

  117. 117.

    sab

    @indycat32: There is nothing as grateful as a feral cat.//

    ETA Our Shadow likes Tim and the stepkids, but she hisses at me every opportunity.

    ETA And I am the one who gives her canned catfood.

  120. 120.

    Ohio Mom

    @sab: I hate being cold. In a previous life, I was a turtle sunning itself on a rock.

    I am currently wearing long underwear, a flannel nightgown, a fleece bathrobe, two pairs of socks (outer pair is fuzzy) and a ski hat and I am still cold.

    I don’t know how you do this all the time.

  122. 122.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @different-church-lady:  @Betty Cracker: Damn.

    “When he was in New York in 2016, the whole world was coming to him. Now we’ve got the Villages, and it shows,” the adviser said, referring to the famous Central Florida retirement community.

    He had wanted to be in the movie business. It’s important to never forget this about him. He watches Sunset Boulevard, “one of the greatest of all time,” again and again and again. A silent-picture star sidelined by the talkies, driven to madness, in denial over her faded celebrity. When he was a businessman, he showed it to guests aboard his 727. When he was president, he held screenings of it for White House staff at Camp David.

  124. 124.

    trollhattan

    Bwa-ha-ha.

    December 23, 2022 at 1:15 pm EST By Taegan Goddard

    New York Times: “Where Mr. Santos currently lives remains unclear, in part because he has offered conflicting accounts… Mr. Santos had also told Newsday that he would eventually move to Oyster Bay, N.Y. Instead, he appears to have settled in a house in Huntington, a town just outside his district’s boundaries.”

    “Members of Congress are only required to live in the state they represent, not the district.”

  125. 125.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    @Shalimar: Years ago someone said, “A Black man joining the GOP is like a Black man trying to join the Klan.”

    Log Cabin Republicans aren’t a whit brighter.

  126. 126.

    HinTN

    @Betty Cracker: It took me half the day, on and off, to very through that, but thank you for the link. The money quote, for me:

    The endorsements were just as impressive: Kari Lake, Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Max Miller, the New York Young Republicans, the Texas agriculture commissioner.

  127. 127.

    OverTwistWillie

    Help I’m steppin’ into the twilight zone

    The place is a madhouse,

    Feels like being cloned

    My beacon’s been moved under moon and star

    Where am I to go, now that I’ve gone too far?

  128. 128.

    Ruckus

    @ian:

    Not that I care who he is married or attracted to, but there is nothing about this fellow that holds up to scrutiny.

    If it wasn’t for the lying I’d question if he is actually human. The lying part confirms his humanity……

    Every single other aspect of his being seems to be a lie, fib, made up, bullshit, fabrication, fake, any or all of these.

Comments are closed.