Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Get Rid of George Santos
Following the discussions and analyses about the newly elected Congressman George Santos, we see another tragic revelation of how far our culture has fallen. Santos appears to be a compulsive liar with little to no redeeming attributes. And yet he was elected to Congress in New York. How could this happen?
If you are curious about the innumerable lies that Santos perpetrated, you can go here and here. I was especially disgusted by this claim:
He maintained he was Jewish, the grandchild of Jewish refugees who escaped the Holocaust. But it turns out he has no Jewish ancestors or any connection to the Holocaust. (He later said he “never claimed to be Jewish” but jokingly said he’s “Jew-ish”).
His joking about the claim makes him even more despicable.
Due to his outrageous claims, his fundraising activities have also been questioned:
Santos hasn’t offered many clear explanations. He has refused to directly answer questions on the matter and said last week that he would hold a press conference “soon” to “address everything.” In the meantime, his campaign treasurer resigned, and the man Santos initially said had taken the job said he had done no such thing.
The red flags, the opacity of it all, should shine a light on the dangerous swamp that is US election funding. Hiding a contribution by one person under another’s name is prohibited, but what is permitted is even more troubling.
The campaign watchdog Open Secrets has raised the alarm over so-called straw donors and shell companies that conceal real donors. They not only cover the tracks of people who may want their identity hidden but also conceal some who may be contributing illegally, injecting “dark money” to manipulate US democracy and lawmaking.
In response to this disgrace, Kevin McCarthy’s response has been less than satisfactory. He named Santos to the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and the Small Business Committee. Fortunately, Santos removed himself from those committees shortly thereafter. Given the shameful lies that Adam Schiff told, which were at least part of the reason for his removal from the Congressional House Intelligence Committee, how does McCarthy explain his accommodation of Santos?
At least Santos’ constituents are not standing down in light of his deceptions:
He said during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s’s War Room podcast this week that he would only resign if 142,000 asked him to do so—a reference to the more than 142,000 people who elected him in November.
Online petitions demanding his resignation continued to receive support only one week after he was sworn into office. Various petitions are nearing the threshold the GOP lawmaker mentioned, though his remarks were not binding and he could still stay in office regardless of how many signatures these petitions receive.
Is there any way to get rid of Santos? There are steps, but they aren’t easy ones to take. The Ethics Committee would need the support of the Republican majority in order to take action:
Should the Ethics Committee recommend expulsion, Mr Santos would only be removed if two-thirds of the House voted to support such an action. It’s theoretically possible, but much more likely that the embattled congressman would take the road more traveled: resignation.
Expulsion from Congress has only been carried out a handful of times by the lower chamber, the lion’s share of which stemmed from cases that arose during the Civil War or shortly thereafter.
In more recent years members have chosen to resign when it became clear that the House or law enforcement authorities were preparing to take action.
* * * *
But the most disheartening response came from Tara Isabella Burton, author of Self-Made: Curating our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians. The interview was on NPR, where they decided not to discuss the truth or falsity of Santos’ claims, but to focus on the aspect of his success due to his being a “self-made man.” I was baffled by Burton’s willingness to laud those actions she claims to have been self-made attributes, where in an era of social media and disinformation, there is no longer nobility to be credited to those who become famous by any means available. Integrity, honesty, and dignity have no place among the modern aspirants labeled self-made. Although in the NPR discussion, they admitted that Santos had gained success through his lies and deception, they believed that he had earned the title of “self-made.” I disagree.
Frederick Douglass, a self-made man himself, described such a person this way:
Self-made men are the men who, under peculiar difficulties and without the ordinary helps of favoring circumstances, have attained knowledge, usefulness, power and position and have learned from themselves the best uses to which life can be put in this world, and in the exercises of these uses to build up worthy character. They are the men who owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, or friendly surroundings; to wealth inherited or to early approved means of education; who are what they are, without the aid of any favoring conditions by which other men usually rise in the world and achieve great results. . . They are in a peculiar sense indebted to themselves for themselves. If they have traveled far, they have made the road on which they have travelled. If they have ascended high, they have built their own ladder . . . Such men as these, whether found in one position or another, whether in the college or in the factory; whether professors or plowmen; whether Caucasian or Indian; whether Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-African, are self-made men and are entitled to a certain measure of respect for their success and for proving to the world the grandest possibilities of human nature, of whatever variety of race or color.
Plain and simple, Santos’ actions were despicable, making him unworthy to serve in Congress. He’s not a self-made man.
He’s a con man of the highest order.
Published in Politics
If there’s less than 6 months before the next general election, a special election is required. But what are the chances that, especially given enough time to gin up voter outrage etc, Santos wouldn’t be replaced by a Democrat?
While I hold Congress in very low regard, with the same opinion for the Executive Branch, I want to be clear that I am not using “whataboutism” in any way, shape or form. Nor does Santos’ party affiliation, or the state of our majority, come into play.
Santos was elected. By the people who live in his district. They elected him, and if they are not happy with his performance as their representative, then they have the power to vote for someone else in less than two years.
Were I in his district, I would not be happy that people thousands of miles away were pressuring their own congress person to get rid of mine.
Elections matter. Or they don’t. If there is a concerted effort to remove George Santos, that’s just another nail in the coffin for elections. Maybe the last one …
Edited to add: In my humble opinion, that’s a principled stand.
But if he does, seems like it would be deserved.
If he gets re-elected with all this exposure, then his constituents want him. Where would it stop if you threw him out? There is a significant size group that would love to throw out a particular politician who made vulgar tweets. This would start witch hunts against everyone. It’s too puritanical.
I agree. I wasn’t referring to you specifically.
IIRC, vacancies in the House are filled via special elections, not appointment. So no Hochul appointment, but I do think a special election would center on the Dems’ tarring with the Santos brush whoever the GOP put up. With such a slim majority, such a contest would present a great risk.
Absolutely fair question, 100%. And all I’ve got in reply is pure Machiavelli: if it is only one side in a fight that keeps to the rules, and thus loses to the side that mocks the rules, then the losing side isn’t playing by the rules. I want Santos gone, but only if the same set of rules is observed by both sets of opponents.
The House replacements are a constitional issue, but 37 states including New York allow the governor to appoint a temporary replacement to the Senate. And New York doesn’t require the replacement be from the same party as the one being replaced. Only 9 states require that.
I don’t know. The other knowledge I lack is even more difficult to gain: all things considered, which result would be worse? The analysis would be way over my head. I’m like, I only know how to design the circuits to meet requirements and throw them over the transom. Supply chain management, costing, and forecasting are too complicated for me.
[EDIT: Susan, that paragraph just means I don’t know anything practical about politics, like names of politicians or what the bellwether precincts are…hold please, I’ve got to take this…”What was that, Susan?”…”Good question. I don’t know why I didn’t just say that.”
In my own acerbic way, it all boils down to the to the dumbing down of Americans. The Dumb Masses send dumb-asses to Washington DC. PJ O’Rourke summed it up nicely in his book title, ‘Parliament of Whores’. Angry women, and weak men have found a home in DC.
Define the word “party.” After 1968 the word “party” became synonymous with the word “voters.” The party organizations don’t do the smoke filled back room thing anymore and that became the reason for the primaries.
Biden has a lifetime of felonies and desires a lifetime in prison.
That seems fair. For those arguing that Santos should be removed, is he the only dishonest Congress member you want removed? If so, that seems irrational.
Given that members of Congress are openly profiting from insider trading, the administration is locking up political prisoners like some South American caudillo (putting them on trial in party-controlled where convictions are assured), drug cartels control our southwest border, the president’s son was influence peddling with full knowledge of the president, and the FBI is acting as the enforcement wing of the ruling party… I really can’t get too worked up because of the lies of one particular member of Congress.
He deserves prison. I think his desires now are limited to ice cream and sniffing.
Santos is a scoundrel, no mistake. I think my party (that’s the Republicans) would do well to keep him off of committees and otherwise sideline him within Congress. However, I’m not aware of any mechanism that allows us to throw out a Congressman because he lied to get elected, so I’m content to let the fellow be primaried and (hopefully) ejected the next time around.
Gary mentioned Roy Moore in an earlier comment. I virtually never oppose a Republican nominee, because I think majorities are critical, but I opposed Roy Moore because of the special kind of judicial corruption he represented. Santos’ sins are of the more conventional I’ll-say-anything-to-get-elected variety, much like President Branden’s, and so not terribly offensive to me. I think the best thing for the GOP is to acknowledge that he’s dishonest, make it obvious that he isn’t going to achieve prominence in the House, and support a primary challenger in two years.
And let the Democrats fume over finding out that theirs isn’t the only party that will tolerate corrupt politicians in its ranks.
If Santos was expelled, Hochul and others in NY would just bitch about how it’s all just a trick to make them spend money on another election so soon after the one Santos won.
We had an election once in which one man was going to be elected and he alone would cast the deciding vote for or against 0bamacare. And the Republican won, and he voted for 0bamacare. Voting for the party block makes a big difference between winning and losing — big time.
Before this OP I didn’t know or care about Santos. I read the headline and thought he must be a Democrat. And I thought, well, the Democrats sure aren’t going to give him up to — at the moment I thought removal and a new election — by chance being replaced by a Republican. And if they can’t find a single replacement of any higher virtue, that’s their bad luck, but so be it. I had put myself in the Democrats shoes.
Then I read that he was a Republican. And I thought, well, if we can’t find a replacement of any higher virtue, that’s our bad luck, so be it — we don’t want to lose to on the next big 0bamacare.
And yes, as someone pointed out, we don’t kick out representatives for lying during a campaign — ever. If we did, we’d have few to no representatives in congress (which would actually probably be a good thing).
And now I read that the governor of New York can appoint a replacement regardless of the ousted member’s party affiliation. Does anyone really want to lose this vote?
That seems to be only for the Senate, not the House. Probably because the House only has 2-year terms. For the House, if a member has to be replaced, unless there’s already an election coming within 6 months, they have to have a special election in that state/district.
We could use the warm body with the accompanying votes in the House, which is all we’ve got.
He sucks, but I’m not interested in making the kind of effort it would take to oust him as it would only draw more attention to him in the meantime.
This guy is hilarious. All this shows is the incompetence of the media and the Democrat party. Pre-election, a few google searches probably would have shown this guy is a fraud. They come up with fantastical stories of Trump, urine and hookers in Russia, yet they can’t do simple opposition research. We deserve jokes like this.
Meanwhile, if we had “outed” him and a Democrat won instead, maybe we wouldn’t have even marginal control of the House, and hence Speaker McCarthy.
Well, okay. Do you really think the Republicans will win the new election?
No, I’m one of those who wouldn’t risk it, as I commented earlier. He’s useful in keeping a majority, at least for now, and who knows, in 2 years he might even be re-elected.
Who’s this “we”?
I know the answer: “we Republicans“.
Here’s another example of the above common usage. Same form, same question, from the very same thread, but…different answer!
Again we must ask, “Who’s this ‘we’?“
But here it doesn’t mean “we Republicans.” It means, “we who did not believe in obamacare, as a matter of principle“.
Moral: “We” is a tricky word. Watch out for it.
* [Emphasis removed, different emphasis added]
To try to remove every dishonest Congress member is irrational.
There could be illegal fundraising activities. But of course, no one wants to look into those.
Susan, and others who have made the same argument,
When I say, “George Santos is a liar[1]” and “Every member of Congress is a liar[2]” the word “liar” has two different meanings, and the difference is qualitative, not quantitative.
The distinction lies in the pattern of his past actions, and also in his presumably persistent nature as evidenced by that pattern. The intents of any remedy for the state called “being a liar[1]” are multiple.
With respect to the past actions, one creates consequences in order (a) to limit the damage caused by bad precedent, or (b) to administer punishment. Or as in and/or. “Exclusive OR” and/or “EXOR”, as the logicians and programmers like to say.
With respect to the degree to which the offender is given discretionary powers for the future that will permit him to do more of the same, the purpose is more direct: to block him from doing the harm that he is clearly likely to do, absent any evidence that he has reformed himself. (And pathological liars can’t reform themselves, I reckon. We should ask Bryan or another expert to confirm that.)
Having a Member who is a liar [1] is a problem to be carefully weighed, and perhaps acted upon, by a person or group that is in a unique position to do something about it. Like the Speaker (who has already acted on it) EXOR the Republican caucus EXOR the House.
If a certain member is a liar[2] AND is NOT a liar[1], then there is no cause for action.
Was that special corruption the display of the 10 Commandments?