To recap, George “Anthony Devolder” Santos (R-NY) has been busted for lies about:
- Where he went to high school
- Where he went to college
- Having bachelor’s and master’s degrees
- Being a star player on the college volleyball team
- Working at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup
- Being the grandson of Holocaust survivors
- Being the son of a 9/11 victim
- Running a legit animal rescue charity
There’s also the mystery of where he got all that money after getting bounced from a couple of modestly priced apartments for non-payment of rent, etc.
But the drag queen denial is my favorite in the series so far, maybe because harassing drag queens is the preferred pastime of the humorless prick who is my governor.* When the rumor that Santos had performed in drag in Brazil broke, he huffed the following on Twitter yesterday:
The most recent obsession from the media claiming that I am a drag Queen or “performed” as a drag Queen is categorically false.
The media continues to make outrageous claims about my life while I am working to deliver results.
I will not be distracted nor fazed** by this.
See, drag ain’t George/Anthony’s bag, baybee!
Headline in today’s New York Post:
Video shows drag-denier George Santos dressed in drag, boasting about drag shows
I understand that the presence of a pathological liar like Santos and other assorted lunatics in the House GOP caucus raises concerns about the health of our democracy, but this is some genuinely funny shit, man!
Open thread!
*As some wag pointed out, there is surely at least one Florida drag queen using the stage name Rhonda Santis. My guess is there are several!
**Astonished kudos to Santos for not spelling this word “phased.” It’s like coming across “ice floe” in the wild!
Baud
I will always support proper spelling over honestly, 100 times out of 100.
Cameron
Isn’t Anthony Devolder the perfect title for a really constipated Victorian novel?
Jackie
He epitomizes what every Republican dreams of getting away with. I’m sure he has a secret fan club.
Antonius
Don’t forget a mother who died a couple of times.
TerryC
I, too, was taken aback at this rare sighting of that proper spelling.
JoyceH
I can’t help but think that stealing medical funds from a dying dog has to be the worse. And if there’s one, there’s bound to be more.
Baud
@TerryC:
Maybe that tweet was composed by ChatGPT.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Cameron: I was thinking more like the villain in one of those bone-cruncher 1980s action movies – the smarmy type, who struts like a rooster as he sends legions of mooks to get dismantled by the over-steroided hero, but then folds like a camp chair when confronted directly.
Josie
If someone wrote a story about Santos and the whole Republican House of Reps’ approach to governing, no one would publish it. It is too ridiculous to be a good story.
Brachiator
The GOP version of a big tent includes lots of clowns.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Josie: That’s the problem with the times we’re living in. Fiction is constrained by the plausible; fact doesn’t have that limitation.
Ken
When I heard about Santos’ denial, I just knew there would be video. Wish I knew more about online gambling, I might have placed a bet.
Cameron
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Works for me.
BigJimSlade
I forgot all about that Austin Powers scene until I rewatched the movie a couple years ago. It still cracks me up.
As for Santos, he can nosh on ye olde bag of salted dicks like they were nacho cheese doritos.
PaulWartenberg
There’s reports now about how he defrauded at least one campaign contributor out of $300,000 or so. I mean, it’s on fcking record. Arrest this fraud already! /headdesk
oldster
Add to the list:
* whether he has the knees he was born with, or replacement knees.
From all that volleyball.
Cameron
Next he’ll claim that he personally perished on 9/11.
GrueBleen
@Baud: You have to be beyond the pale to tow the line.
Geminid
Now that the LaSalle nomination controversy is apparently over, New York writer, professor and twitter commenter Tom Watson has been covering the Santos affair. He quote tweeted someone saying that while Santos’s personal misdeeds matter, the questions about who chose Santos and who financed him may be more consequential.
Watson commented: “All roads lead to Lee Zeldin.” Zeldin is a long time Long Island power broker and the Republican candidate for Governor last year.
rikyrah
He’s a phucking crook. Bought and paid for. Time for the investigators, any of them, to put his crooked, paid for azz IN JAIL.
Betty Cracker
@Antonius: It’s alluded to in the second to last bullet, but yeah, the lies about his mother’s death probably deserve two bullet points of their own. IIRC, he claimed she died in her South Tower office on 9/11. Then, when confronted with a GoFundMe he used to raise money for her funeral expenses years later, Santos said she’d escaped her office on 9/11 but had been engulfed in an “ash cloud” that gave her cancer. THEN, it turns out she was in Brazil on 9/11 and had never had a South Tower office anyway.
Keith P.
@Cameron: It sounds like a character name that Larry David created.
Kent
@Geminid: It will be interesting to see how many NY Republicans claim never to have known or met Santos. Probably all of them except when there is photo evidence to the contrary.
Kind of like how NOW no one actually knew Epstein. Yet he always had huge parties with lots of rich people in attendance.
Tony Jay
In the movie this is the part Hector Guillén was born to play. Except to make it believable he’s actually a down-on-his-luck croupier desperate to get out of a stale relationship who witnessed a Russian mob hit and adopted the victim’s identity in moment of madness, little knowing the extent of the mistake he’d made.
While Kevin McCarthy is played by a rusty old boot-scraper from outside a derelict whorehouse on the outskirts of Bakersfield.
rikyrah
I’ve been watching Mannix on MeTV. Got back to the first season. Had no idea that they did an entirely different concept for the show for the first season. Mannix worked in a detective agency that billed itself as ‘ cutting edge’, because they used computers to help them with the information and the cases. They had car phones, and trackers, and an entire IT department to help with cases.
I looked it up and the producers of the show thought that the computer angle was a bit too much and ‘unrelateable’ for the American audience, so that’s why they had Mannix quit and open his own ‘mom and pop’ detective agency, that was the focus of the rest of the seasons.
prostratedragon
@JoyceH: Oh yeah. One measure of the man is that he rushed to deny the drag queen business –pretty innocuous to those who don’t hang out with bigots– but made the cruelty to the dog and its owner a throw-in.
West of the Rockies
@JoyceH:
Well, now, who among us hasn’t stolen funds intended for a dying dog’s surgery?
Geminid
@PaulWartenberg: I’m not sure which campaign contributor that was. When I hear these reports though, I remind myself that a lot of people who knew Santos was crooked are now protesting that he fooled them.
It’s not just embarrassment; they are afraid they’ll be dragged down with Santos. In some cases, that fear may be well founded.
Cheryl from Maryland
Also tb added –
Where is this woman he married and divorced?
Was it a green card marriage (for him)?
Is Santos a US citizen?
Josie
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Sad but true.
Geminid
@Kent: I noticed that a few days ago, Santos’s Twitter heading had a picture of him and Elise Stefanik. Maybe I was being too cynical, but it seemed like a not-so-subtle blackmail hint.
piratedan
@Antonius: well… she got better. :=)
Bill Arnold
@Geminid:
Was my first thought too.
Van Buren
@Baud: I hardily agree!
DrDaveChemist
@Baud:
ChatGPT was my speculation as well. Definitely a possibility worth considering.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Submitted as a rotating tag.
Uncle Cosmo
@GrueBleen:
Phyxed that phore yew! :^D
Sure Lurkalot
@Geminid:
You hate to see it (meanwhile searching Costco.com for bigger TV).
mrmoshpotato
Now I’m doubting that he wrote the tweet. I bet he’s lying about that too.
Also too, I refuse to be phased at this ice flow before me.
Van Buren
Came home last night to find Fiona, my 14 year old Lhasa Apso, shaking uncontrollably. That eventually subsided, but she hasn’t eaten since yesterday morning. Taking her to the vet this evening. Her normal activity level is one notch above hibernation, so I didn’t pick up any hints that something was amiss.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
FTFY.
mrmoshpotato
@Geminid:
Is this lying asshole threatening to start telling lies about Stefanik too?
tobie
The irony here is delish and revenge is a dish best served cold.
Betty Cracker
Peggy Noonan devoted this week’s WSJ column to “Santos must go!” An excerpt:
May that final sentence prove prophetic!
prostratedragon
@mrmoshpotato: Or the truth about where GOP money is coming from.
p.a.
Funny & disgusting but Santos is also the squirrel! SQUIRREL! while the Treason
CaucusParty starts its reign of (t)error in the House.Poe Larity
Santos is the prototype for a new generation. He will be seen as mainstream in a few years and retire to Fox.
Geminid
@mrmoshpotato: I think Stefanik’s worry is that Santos might tell the truth.
M31
“I got better”
Renie
Where is this video of Santos as a drag queen? I’ve only seen pictures. I’m still waiting to see any confirmation like a long form birth certificate that he is an American citizen.
mrmoshpotato
@West of the Rockies:
Ummm…..hello? What kind of scumbag doesn’t steal funds intended for a dying dog’s surgery? It’s as American as stealing apple pie.
mrmoshpotato
@Cameron: No. He’ll claim he killed bin Laden.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
Including, apparently, Peggy Noonan. Or at least that’s what I get when she says the party is embracing him because they need him. If you put expedience above principle, you’re the one making that call, not the people who point it out.
Baud
I’m laying down a marker: Santos performs on OnlyFans.
lollipopguild
@Cameron: I am surprised he does not have a great-grandmother who died on the Titanic.
Baud
@Van Buren:
🤞
Wyatt Salamanca
andrew kaczynski @KFILE
Researching George Santos for couple weeks now on and off I think this is every name I’ve encountered him use:
Anthony Santos
George Santos
Anthony Devolder
George Anthony Devolder
George Devolder
George A.D. Santos
Anthony Zabrovsky
George Anthony Santos-Devolder
https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1616080236143058946
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
But the GOP is a cabal of fraudsters. They don’t care that Santos is a political grifter, as long as he votes the right way.
And the media is enjoying unpeeling the layers of Santos’ crazy past like the layers of an onion.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Van Buren: Dogs break your heart sometimes
Paul in KY
There will be a book written about how this lunatic got elected to congress.
mrmoshpotato
@lollipopguild:
C’mon! Have some compassion for a guy whose entire family died on the Titanic, the Eastland, and the Lusitania! You monster!
Anyway
I was told Squeaker McCarthy would be hounded by the press about Santos — is that happening?
Was surprised to see him named to committees — is that normal for frosh Reps?
Poe Larity
Born in 1988… you remember those rumors about Ronnie and Boys from Brazil? Peggy never denied them.
The Moar You Know
@Van Buren: I am sorry. 14 is definitely past warranty on any dog, sadly. They just do not live long enough.
I feel for you and for your pup, and wish you both luck.
JPL
@Cheryl from Maryland: It would be awesome if ICE arrested him on the floors of Congress. Kevin McCarthy would be on the phone to Fox explaining it was the dems fault.
Kent
Ahhh. But which one of his 20 names is his PORN name?
Kent
AND in the WTC on 9-11
JPL
@Anyway: The press moved on to cover the story of the century, but his documents.
Kent
I mean, of course. This is the party that thought Hershel Walker was the most qualified Republican in the whole state of Georgia to serve as their Senator. And even then, they had to borrow him from Texas.
RedDirtGirl
@Tony Jay: Did you see him on Colbert’s show last night?
Geminid
@Anyway: I think McCarthy gets at least one Santos question when he has press events. He’ll keep getting them, I think because Santos will be staying in the news. Journalists are still finding out stuff, and local, state and federal prosecutors are in the mix too.
Paul in KY
@Keith P.: Sounds like the name of a very arch restaurant owner/chef.
RedDirtGirl
@Van Buren: Sending good thoughts your way!
Almost Retired
Holocaust? 9-11? Jeez, this guy is like Disaster Zelig. I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
James Carville, on the other hand, has said that Santos should be allowed to stay in the House, where Democrats can use him as a piñata for the next two years.
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: If you’d written this up as a movie script 10 years ago, you’d have been tossed out for it being too unbelievable. Even Netflix would have turfed you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
LOL X 2
Dangerman
@Ken: I wonder if I can get a line on whether or not he rips off the mask to reveal he’s either Kang or Kodos. Nothing, even space aliens, would surprise me about now about him.
Trump and Santos. Bandini Mountain*. Bullshit all the way down.
* This might be an LA thing.
Dangerman
@Ken: I wonder if I can get a line on whether or not he rips off the mask to reveal he’s either Kang or Kodos. Nothing, even space aliens, would surprise now about him.
Trump and Santos. Bandini Mountain*. Bullshit all the way down.
* This might be an LA thing.
RedDirtGirl
@Renie: See this link at 4:22.
kalakal
You’re giving him too much credit. He was talking about how he was offered, but turned down, a major part in Star Trek
...now I try to be amused
@Almost Retired:
Apparently there is an Irish saying about that guy who always has to one-up you on everything:
“If you’ve been to Tenerife, he’s been to Elevenerife.”
MisterForkbeard
@Brachiator:
Just like Joe Biden, who only informed the government investigative authorities and didn’t immediately light himself on fire in the press when they discovered a few classified papers in an old office of his.
We can clearly conclude that both sides are the same, and Democrats must jettison Joe Biden so that Republicans should think carefully about some kind of mild pushback on Santos.
Heidi Mom
@Van Buren: Sending good thoughts to you and Fiona.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: when the lady who believed in magic dolphins, just for starters, is telling you you’re too far gone…
HumboldtBlue
@Antonius:
By golly, you’ve cracked the code!
Santos, noted drag queen, is definitely related to Corporal Max Klinger, noted drag queen!
JPL
@Amir Khalid: If there wasn’t such a good chance that we could pick up the seat, then I’d agree with James.
DaBunny
@Geminid: Per TPM, at least one of the contributors was a woman on fixed income who gave him $25. He wound up billing her credit card for himself and multiple other NY pols, to the tune of about $9000! She got the extra charges reversed long before he was unmasked, so I’m pretty sure it really was a scam by him and not someone belatedly getting embarassed at who they’d supported
Paul in KY
@Van Buren: I hope Fiona is able to get better. If not, hope her passing is super peaceful.
Almost Retired
@…now I try to be amused: Ha! Stealing that!
JPL
What are the odds, that Santos plans on writing a memoir. He probably has a publisher.
redactor
@Geminid: My pet theory is that Trump and Trumpism are based almost entirely on blackmail. See also Cawthorn, Madison.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Does anybody take Carville’s advice anymore?
Paul in KY
@mrmoshpotato: A member of Seal Team Fabulous
Bill Arnold
@Amir Khalid:
Nah. We’re much better off if McCarthy’s majority gets reduced by 1. (I am a connoisseur of chaos, to be clear.)
The rest of the GOP house will be writing and acting in, sometimes with video, plenty of campaign advertisements for the Democrats.
cckids
Now that’s a rotating tag!
James E Powell
In all the articles written about this yutz, nobody brings up the fact that the good & wise people of New York’s 3rd congressional district – D+2 – voted for him. Did they think he’d lower the price of gas? Reduce crime? Make inflation go away? Are they the stupidest voters of this election cycle?
lgerard
There doesn’t seem to be much discussion about his father.
Is it true that his father is King Charles, who had a torrid affair with his mother when they met in Brazil, only to have their marriage forbidden by Queen Elizabeth?
Suzanne
@Baud:
Oh Jesus take the wheel.
cckids
Is . . . is his mother actually dead? Or will that shoe drop next week?
Mike in NC
Here’s what should happen next: George Santos changes his last name to “DeSantos”, moves to Florida, and announces he’s running for president. Enough idiots would confuse him with that other guy that he’d suck up a few million votes and pocket a ton of money. Win-win!
lashonharangue
This seems like a Coen brothers movie.
Geminid
@Amir Khalid: That’s kind of what I want: George Santos twisting in the wind. It would be nice if McCarthy was down a vote because Santos retired. He’s already down one because Florida Representative Steube is out with a bad injury. Reports are that Steube fell 25 feet from a ladder so he won’t be back very soon if ever.
And Democrats might end a vote up if they win a special election for Santos’s seat. I’m not sure that vote will make a difference on any critical legislation though.
And Santos’s notoriety rubs off on his colleagues; they will all get asked, should George Santos resign? In light of this new scam being reported, should George Santos be on the Small Business Committee? And I think it’s not a matter of whether he’s indicted, but when and by how many different prosecutors. And who is indicted besides Santos.
Republicans are in the majority the first time in four years, and they wanted to start out looking good. But first they went through a protracted and divisive Speaker election, and now the Santos scandal will stay in the news. I’ve likened this to a crew of pirates taking their new pirate ship out for its shakedown cruise with a dead albatross nailed to the mast.
HumboldtBlue
It appears Twitter has suspended Santos’s account.
trollhattan
I can’t keep up, is it he’s Jewish/ Jew-ish/ talked to a Jew/ had matzo once?
The screenwriters are on a crystal bender the likes of which the world has never seen.
Amir Khalid
@Bill Arnold:
I agree: Santos is a stain on Congress’ good name, his word is no good, and he’s a security risk. He needs to go. He would be a stain on his party’s good name too, if they hadn’t already thrown that away. Carville is the most entertaining political pundir on TV, but he’s clearly wrong about Santos.
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
Haha. Santos should have lied about being a Nazi.
Paul in KY
@lollipopguild: Actually that was his great great great grandmother Mollie Brown Santos De Volder
Roger Moore
@redactor:
I’m not sure about that. I thought Josh Marshall’s concept of “nonsense debt” is a very good explanation of a lot of Trumpism. Basically, the idea is that the Republican Party has been letting people get away with bullshit for so long, the entire party platform is now BS from top to bottom. They can’t call someone out for lying, because they risk exposing the extent to which their entire enterprise is built out of the same set of lies. The net result is that the party is now in the hands of the best (by some measure) liars.
Paul in KY
@mrmoshpotato: Actually, he had relatives on the U-20….
Paul in KY
@Kent: Hunk Studerton
prostratedragon
@mrmoshpotato:
Was the cousin thrice-removed on the General Slocum disowned?
karen marie
Wonkette has a somewhat lengthier list of Santos’ lies, including that “I was a guy who used to go to the Met Gala.”
I’ve seen video where he claims he was “a banker.”
We’re finished as a country. There is no recovering from what Republicans have done and are doing.
James E Powell
@karen marie:
Me & Joe Biden disagree. We say never bet against America.
All we need to do is elect more & better Democrats, as we used to say at the Great Orange Satan.
Paul in KY
@…now I try to be amused: Just used that one on my Irish mother and she giggled. Thanks!
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: @Brachiator:
We’ll have to run that by Omnes to see if clowns in a rotating tag would be too distressing.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker:
That also has potential as a phrase we could repeat to help calm ourselves when the political situation gets to be overwhelming. Kind of like a mantra!
jonas
@Wyatt Salamanca: Reminds me of this shot in one Simpsons episode showing a list taped to Apu’s cash register at the Kwik-E-Mart:
WaterGirl
@Paul in KY:
Not only that, but we will learn that the person started the book a year ago but didn’t want to share any of the information while it could have impacted the race. Because if they guy doesn’t win, no one wants to buy your book!
WaterGirl
@Almost Retired:
Now that’s rotating tag material!
Barney
Perhaps Santos is the first AI robot elected to Congress. It’s an acknowledged problem with AI that it frequently tells lies when asked to explain something, but it can be easily programmed to get spelling and grammar right, all the time.
BlueGuitarist
US Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL)
@RepBillFoster
Steeplejack
Somewhere in the Santos-in-drag coverage on Twitter I saw my new favorite drag queen name: Flotilla DeBarge. Genius!
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: That fact would make not buy his/her crappin book!
Paul in KY
@BlueGuitarist: Well played Rep. Foster. Well played.
randy khan)
I was so startled to see the correct spelling of “fazed” that I briefly thought it was wrong.
But I think this is evidence that a staffer wrote the tweet.
Steeplejack
@Cheryl from Maryland:
Santos was born in New York, according to a couple of newspaper stories when all of this stuff first started hitting the fan. I don’t think we’ve seen the long-form birth certificate that Republicans prize so much, though. 🤔
karen marie
@James E Powell: I’ve been watching this downhill slide for 50 years and have yet to see it reverse even slightly.
Redshift
@RedDirtGirl: Yeah, it was pretty amazing.
I also enjoyed Colbert’s crack about being surprised his drag make wasn’t Anita Alibi…
trollhattan
@Barney: Good one!
Would the lie be, “I failed the Turing test” or “I passed the Turing test”? I feel like Spock arguing with an alien computer.
delphinium
@BlueGuitarist:
Ha-that is awesome!
SiubhanDuinne
@Kent:
Not to mention the Hindenburg and the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Cameron
@JPL: Only one memoir?
Geminid
I typically look up something like “Santos Intrater” or “Santos Stefanik” because these relationships seem important.
I looked up just George Santos a couple hours ago and as soon as I typed in G and e, google listed “George Santos US Congressman” before even I got to o.
There’s a lot of interest in this guy.
trollhattan
November dismember.
bcw
Drag names for George Santos: “Miss Representation” or “Liza Lott.”
Interstadial
Reverse floe vs. flow:
In a long-ago article that mentioned a glacier (which is in fact an ice flow), the author called it a floe. Sigh…
Dan B
My brain hiccupped “Schrodinger’s Drag Queen”.
SuzieC
GOP must be so proud that the first drag queen elected to Congress is one of their own.
Brachiator
@Interstadial:
Ice Floe. Good name for a drag queen.
redactor
@Roger Moore: i agree that the nonsense debt and hate debt that Marshall describes explain much of Trump’s support among the Republican base. The rapid conversion of the (surviving) old guard feels different, though. The July 4 visit to Moscow, Lindsay Graham’s sudden shift from McCain ally to raving Trump defender, the Putin worship, and the election denialism seem to point in another direction. When Cawthorn got too far over his skis, the ensuing revelations were devastating and remarkably quick.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
The lie would be “I’m a control for the Turing test”. The test as originally proposed by Turing had a questioner, a human control, and the computer program. The goal is to see if the computer can fool a skeptical questioner who was warned in advance they will be trying to tell a computer from a human.
Brachiator
The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast has a story about how a local paper, The North Shore Leader, printed stories about Santos being such a known liar that people referred to him as “George Scam-tos.” But nobody seemed to pay attention.
Some GOP people of influence figured, “what the hell, he’s a fraud, but he’s our fraud “and it was off to the races.
WaterGirl
@BlueGuitarist: That is so great!
WaterGirl
Couldn’t some staffer put up a “Congratulations to the First Drag Queen Elected to the House!” sign? Santos couldn’t complain without admitting that he’s the drag queen.
*not that there’s anything wrong with that, unless you are a total fucking lying hypocrite.
Ruckus
@Tony Jay:
While Kevin McCarthy is played by a rusty old boot-scraper from outside a derelict whorehouse on the outskirts of Bakersfield.
Isn’t that who/what Kevin actually is?
Frankensteinbeck
@lgerard:
Immaculate conception.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
I suspect his conception was very, very maculate.