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.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
Good morning everyone!!
ian
It may still be a lie.
George Santos Hid Marriage to Woman, Says He’ll Explain Alleged Lies
Not that I care who he is married or attracted to, but there is nothing about this fellow that holds up to scrutiny.
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
NotMax
Batty over the holidays.
:)
lowtechcyclist
True that.
Good morning, all, and happy Christmas Eve Eve!
matt
Dick response by Charles Moran. Anyone with adult level intelligence knows why people are asking questions about Santos.
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist:
Aka Festivus!
pluky
The marriage might have been of the “get me a green card” variety.
Ken
That’s what got you in trouble, George. Try the truth instead.
OzarkHillbilly
@Spanky: For the rest of us!
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.
NotMax
Well, that’s helpful, innit? USPS notice for Xmas Eve.
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.
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:
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.
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.
Soprano2
@pluky: Which one? LOL
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.
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.
japa21
@Betty Cracker:
@Betty Cracker:
Only another 221 lying House Republicans to go. I think that is the correct number.
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.
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!
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.
Betty Cracker
OMG, y’all — Trump called “journalistic assassin” (as Anne Laurie calls her) Olivia Nuzzi of New York Mag, and wow, a schadenfreude festival ensues…
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.
There go two miscreants
Gave me a good laugh to start the day!
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!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️:
Good morning!
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.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Betty Cracker:
I’d love to see Chotiner interview Trump
Leto
@Betty Cracker: I appreciate the fact that they drew/colored Trumpov to look like Putin.
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.
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.
indycat32
It’s -8 here in Indy, -35 wind chill and gusts up to 40 mph. I need to go check on kittens.
Suzanne
Happy Festivus!
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..
mrmoshpotato
I… What… It’s still -7 here. Back to hibernation for me.
Quinerly
@Betty Cracker: damn. I’m out of links for the month.
mrmoshpotato
@indycat32: Hope the kitties are ok.
mrmoshpotato
@Quinerly: You bought so much (breakfast) sausage that the grocery store cut you off? 😁
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: I read about half that and then got bored. Trump is so boring that I didn’t even enjoy the sarcasm enough to keep reading.
Steeplejack
@Quinerly:
Same. Somebody give us a recap.
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.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
rikyrah
The temp right now is -7.
Wind chill is -32😪
High today is 3.
HIGH.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Turn off javascript. Voila!
Suzanne
It’s a balmy 7 degrees here in Pittsburgh! Yoga class is canceled. A good day to stay inside.
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?
sab
0 degrees outside and the wind is howling. I am very worried about our little squirrel friends, living in their little leaf houses.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@rikyrah:
Good morning
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
Read all of it, thus was twice as bored.
Also sadly shaking head over such egregious carbuncles as “judgement” slipping through the (non-)editing process.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Good reminder.
Starfish
@Betty Cracker: We are still speaking about him like he is a toddler, aren’t we?
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.
NotMax
@Mimi haha
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.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ohio Mom:
@sab:
It’s 2F atm here where I’m at. Wind chill is -21 brrr!
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.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: Same here!
Soprano2
@sab: They will probably be all right. They’ll find a place inside a tree or something.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Can you mute the ring on the land-line phone? Answering machine would still pick up, so you wouldn’t miss anything.
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.
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.
NotMax
@Soprano2
Squirrel scrum!
(B-list garage band name, also too?)
:)
indycat32
Kittens are OK!
OzarkHillbilly
Maybe that’s the problem.
Jay
@sab: some Americans still hold a grudge over Nickleback
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: I think he is not sufficiently wealthy.
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.
sab
@Jay: Well of course we do.
Gin & Tonic
@Josie: Me three. Halfway (I think) through I said to myself: self, why are you wasting your time on this?
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!”
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.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Wow. SAD!
Not.
Starfish
Lapassionara
@Betty Cracker: Amazing read. Thanks, Betty!
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.
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:
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
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.
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.
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.
Anyway
@Geminid:
The Israeli newspaper angle may be due to Santos’ sketchy/questionable stories about his grandparents… whether they were fleeing the holocaust.
Anyway
@Starfish:
A top 10,000 blog devoted to D politics would have picked up the Santos story if it was out on the birdsite…
Steeplejack
@Layer8Problem:
The New York Dems seem to have a case of “long Cuomo,” as someone memorably put it here in the last day or two.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: We let endless Murdochs in, but draw the line at decent normal people.
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.
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?
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Were I asleep I’d be much more mightily p.o.’d.
Rung just now at 5:01 a.m. Right on schedule.
MagnetsTime zones, how do they work?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!
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.
Ken
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.
Geminid
@Anyway: Yeah, that is the lead in these stories. Both news sites do a fair amount of reporting on US politics anyway.
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.
sab
The wind here is really howling. Snow flying everywhere.
kalakal
@indycat32: That sounds like a pretty good shelter to me. How long is the extreme cold supposed to last?
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.
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.
indycat32
@kalakal: 26 by Monday, 50 by Thursday.
Starfish
@Geminid: Like here?
I am not on Twitter anymore, so I am having trouble googling for what you are seeing. If you have some links, that would be helpful.
Steeplejack
@Low Key Swagger:
“Get a free Best of Foghat cartridge when you buy a Turbowatt 3000. Act now!”
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.
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!
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
sab
@indycat32: So they are sitting in the dark, unaware that you are trying to save their lives.
Ken
Last time I saw one of those was in Men In Black. Though I think the powertrain was nuclear.
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.
indycat32
@sab: They do come out and hiss at me. I’m sure it’s their way of saying thanks.
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.
different-church-lady
Hey, you made a funny!
Keith P.
A Republican actually said that? On record?
different-church-lady
@indycat32:
What is, “How do I feel about my age on a typical week?”
different-church-lady
@Jay:
It’s just fair payback for our Gretzky-napping.
sab
@different-church-lady: I whine about my arthritic hands, until I talk to my husband who’s back is completely phucked up.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker:
Now that’s what sharing your assassination coordinates is really all about!
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.
Another Scott
re “Santos”, Bloom County got there first.
(via Gary Legum at Wonkette)
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@indycat32: oh, whew! I have been worried.
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.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
Yeah. You’re on #teamsquirrel until they chew their way into your house.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady: @Betty Cracker: Damn.
Ella in New Mexico
@Quinerly:
Incognito mode worked for me
trollhattan
Bwa-ha-ha.
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.
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:
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?
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.