The Republican Party Has Flat Out Lost Its Mind

[jackd]

Yes, with this court, it's a crap shoot but do you think the court could stand being the immediate cause of a government default?

[LFC]

Nov 28, 2022 0:49:29 GMT jackd said:

Yes, with this court, it's a crap shoot but do you think the court could stand being the immediate cause of a government default?

Why not? They’re safe for life.

[jackd]

But they seem to care about whether people respect them. Look at how they're stamping their feet about criticism of the abortion decision. Also, Congress has many ways it can restrict them if they get too far out of hand; like restricting their jurisdiction, for example.

[LFC]

Nov 28, 2022 3:13:01 GMT jackd said:

But they seem to care about whether people respect them. Look at how they're stamping their feet about criticism of the abortion decision.

They've stamped their feet and whine about not being political hacks but it doesn't seem to have slowed them down. And there's always the shadow docket to keep their political hackery as close to under radar as they can.

Also, Congress has many ways it can restrict them if they get too far out of hand; like restricting their jurisdiction, for example.

Can you explain (5,000' level is fine)? I've never heard of anything like that and don't understand the basis for it.

[indy]

"The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."

It's all about that second part of Article III, Section I. Congress has substantial authority on how the federal courts exercise judicial power but there are limitations.

ETA: Here is a link for a much more detailed explanation from the congressional research service: crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44967

[LFC]

An explanation of McCarthy's dilemma (paywalled).

Here are some revealing comments from Rep. James Comer (R-KY), a big player in the incoming GOP House majority, on resistance to Kevin McCarthy. Note specifically the references to Ryan and Beohner. As we’ve discussed, post-midterm Washington conventional wisdom is that Trumpism is toxic at the ballot box and Republicans are looking for a new leader. But the argument from House Republicans is that the problem for McCarthy is that pro-Trump/Freedom caucus voices have been, are being silenced.

Here’s Comer, a McCarthy supporter, explaining continued resistance to McCarthy’s elevation to Speaker.

REP. JAMES COMER: Well, certainly, there’s been instances in the past that certain Republicans’ voices weren’t heard in the conference, but at the end of the day, we need to give Kevin a chance. I think a lot of these members are frustrated because of the things that Paul Ryan did or things that John Boehner did. Kevin McCarthy has never had a chance to be speaker. We had an election. We had a lot of debate in the conference. And in the end, Kevin McCarthy was the overwhelming winner. And I’m hopeful that our conference will come together, and I believe we will on January 3rd and make Kevin McCarthy the next Republican Speaker of the House.

Once again the GOP is being held hostage by it's most radical wing which, since their entire party has become radical, means the really, really, REALLY crazy ones. Boehner and Ryan are mentioned but they already gave in partially to the utter nutters. It's not enough this time. They want control and with the party's narrow win they have the GOP by the gonads. If Kevin gives it to them will the rest of the House Republicans go along, knowing they'll be dancing to the tunes played by Greene, Boebert, Biggs, Gaetz, Brooks, Jordan, et al for the next two years?

Time for the MSM to get out the headline, "DEMS IN DISARRAY!"

[goldenvalley]

Nov 28, 2022 21:54:01 GMT LFC said:

An explanation of McCarthy's dilemma (paywalled).

Here are some revealing comments from Rep. James Comer (R-KY), a big player in the incoming GOP House majority, on resistance to Kevin McCarthy. Note specifically the references to Ryan and Beohner. As we’ve discussed, post-midterm Washington conventional wisdom is that Trumpism is toxic at the ballot box and Republicans are looking for a new leader. But the argument from House Republicans is that the problem for McCarthy is that pro-Trump/Freedom caucus voices have been, are being silenced.

Here’s Comer, a McCarthy supporter, explaining continued resistance to McCarthy’s elevation to Speaker.

Once again the GOP is being held hostage by it's most radical wing which, since their entire party has become radical, means the really, really, REALLY crazy ones. Boehner and Ryan are mentioned but they already gave in partially to the utter nutters. It's not enough this time. They want control and with the party's narrow win they have the GOP by the gonads. If Kevin gives it to them will the rest of the House Republicans go along, knowing they'll be dancing to the tunes played by Greene, Boebert, Biggs, Gaetz, Brooks, Jordan, et al for the next two years?

Time for the MSM to get out the headline, "DEMS IN DISARRAY!"

Comer seems to be missing some information. Greene, Boebert, Gaetz were not in Congress when Boehner and Ryan were Speakers.  And the talking heads plus insiders believe that McCarthy has cut some sort of deal with Greene so she's on his side. I'd saw Comer isn't in the running for speakership; he can't count votes.

[LFC]

Kevin continues to claw for the Speakership. Now he's threatening the crazy wing with Democratic influence.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) dared those in his caucus making noise about opposing his speakership to keep up the act, warning that Democrats could end up picking the next speaker if House Republicans don’t come together.

“We have to speak as one voice. We will only be successful if we work together, or we’ll lose individually. This is very fragile — that we are the only stopgap for this Biden administration,” McCarthy said on Newsmax. “And if we don’t do this right, the Democrats can take the majority. If we play games on the floor, the Democrats can end up picking who the Speaker is.”

McCarthy has been in campaign mode since the midterms, as he prepares for the new year when he will need to get 218 votes in House elections to secure his role as speaker. 

McCarthy’s public warning is a shift in strategy – calling his far-right challengers’ bluff, after spending the last two weeks trying to woo them with various shiny objects. The California Republican now says he will do whatever it takes to be the next speaker. He reportedly has no plans to drop his bid and will force a floor vote — or multiple floor votes — if needed, according to Punchbowl News. 

But this might come with the cost of further rupturing an already tense divide among House Republicans and could lead to a floor fight that hasn’t happened in a century — the last time a speakership bid included floor-fight drama was in 1923, when Rep. Frederick Gillett (R-MA) had to brawl with his own party members for two days to finally get reelected as speaker. 

[LFC]

A little longer piece from TPM:

How The Right Developed Its Victim Complex
Once a party that touted rugged individualism, today's Republicans have an ever-expanding list of grievances and complaints about perceived wrongs.

A proliferation of intense invective and polemical demands for freedom characterizes the present American right, driven by an intense sense of victimhood: The reactionaries, we are told, are truly the oppressed. Even before the presidency of Donald J. Trump, the right framed various anodyne reforms, like the Affordable Care Act, as existential threats to freedom. Things got so bad that then-president Barack Obama admitted in 2012 that he hoped the Republican fever would break following his reelection. But, as Trump’s candidacy, presidency, and, now, second candidacy demonstrate, the body politic’s illness has only gotten worse. And while the midterms reflected a degree of ambivalence among Americans about the fringiest political figures and narratives, the incoming Republican House leadership looks set to be controlled by these voices, as it is beholden to the furthest-right members in order to keep its slim majority unified.

Trump’s rhetoric (whether campaigning or governing, he did not shift much), was steeped in the narrative of victimhood. Immigrants threatened the U.S. with sexual violence, urban criminals menaced the forgotten Americans, and China was dominating and beating the U.S. Once president, legitimate democratic criticism of Trump became a sign of his and his supporters’ unjust persecution: whether the impeachment proceedings targeting his attempts to force Ukraine to help him out in the U.S. election or his role in encouraging the January 6, 2021 invasion of the Capitol, Trump framed accountability for unprecedented historical events as witch hunts, lynch mobs, and illegitimate persecutions. 

The GOP candidates for Senate in this month’s election adopted Trump’s list of grievances and tailored it to their own circumstances, underscoring the purchase victimhood has on the right: Blake Masters, Republican candidate for Arizona’s Senate seat, had no “issues” section on his campaign website, choosing to let rage-filled voters fill in the blanks themselves, while political action committees like Truth PAC produced ads attempting to link Mandela Barnes, the Black Democratic candidate for Wisconsin Senate, to child abductions, darkened silhouettes of people brandishing knives, and surveillance camera footage of shootings. Outrage without a clear set of policy solutions — and hostility towards democracy itself — was the order of the day. Democrats’ surprisingly narrow losses prompted some hand-wringing among conservative pundits, but, as following the 2012 and 2018 elections, it’s not clear that broader capacities for introspection even exist on much of the right.

Its perhaps a little surprising to consider how widespread the cult of victimhood is on the right: weren’t they tough on crime, didn’t they thump their chests, invoking appeasement at Munich whenever a threat appeared on the global stage, and didn’t they talk ceaselessly about rugged individualism and pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps? 

Why did victimhood become so central on the right?

In fact, it has been central from the start. But only in the last 30 years have its idioms been destigmatized for mainstream conservatives, facilitated by a combination of national and international political disruptions which revealed the central role that the victimized ethos has played in GOP politics.

[LFC]

Gym Jordan is yet another Congressional Republican who has no idea what the First Amendment says. Also apparently free speech only applies to the people and companies they like.

This comment says it all.

Tim Bailey
@timmybaileyusa

Replying to
@acyn

Government investigating free market companies going woke, as if being woke is somehow unlawful.

This is right wing authoritarianism rhetoric.

[LFC]

Musk is now a Faux News parrot.

Between the lines: Over the last several months, Musk has frequently trolled Democrats and engaged with right-wing commentators who view him as a like-minded culture warrior.

• "The woke mind virus has thoroughly penetrated entertainment and is pushing civilization towards suicide," Musk tweeted last week. "There needs to be a counter-narrative."

• Musk has cited criticism from progressive politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a central factor in his political evolution — at one point calling Democrats "the party of division & hate."

• He's even claimed attacks from Democratic politicians are "coordinated," tweeting on Tuesday: "Outside of party leadership and independents like Manchin, they are essentially actors on the political stage, not directors or script writers."

This is interesting. I guess Musk doesn't care that Joe Biden won 70% of the nation's GDP. Twitter may end up hawking overpriced gold, prepper kits, and MyPillows.

The intrigue: High-profile Republicans gained tens of thousands of followers in the weeks after Musk acquired Twitter, while their Democratic counterparts lost followers, according to a Washington Post analysis.

• It's unclear what precisely is driving the fluctuations, but "the pattern suggests that tens of thousands of liberals may be leaving the site while conservatives are joining or becoming more active, shifting the demographics of the site under Musk’s ownership," the Post writes.

[goldenvalley]

Dec 1, 2022 16:59:26 GMT LFC said:

Musk is now a Faux News parrot.

Between the lines: Over the last several months, Musk has frequently trolled Democrats and engaged with right-wing commentators who view him as a like-minded culture warrior.

• "The woke mind virus has thoroughly penetrated entertainment and is pushing civilization towards suicide," Musk tweeted last week. "There needs to be a counter-narrative."

• Musk has cited criticism from progressive politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a central factor in his political evolution — at one point calling Democrats "the party of division & hate."

• He's even claimed attacks from Democratic politicians are "coordinated," tweeting on Tuesday: "Outside of party leadership and independents like Manchin, they are essentially actors on the political stage, not directors or script writers."

This is interesting. I guess Musk doesn't care that Joe Biden won 70% of the nation's GDP. Twitter may end up hawking overpriced gold, prepper kits, and MyPillows.

The intrigue: High-profile Republicans gained tens of thousands of followers in the weeks after Musk acquired Twitter, while their Democratic counterparts lost followers, according to a Washington Post analysis.

• It's unclear what precisely is driving the fluctuations, but "the pattern suggests that tens of thousands of liberals may be leaving the site while conservatives are joining or becoming more active, shifting the demographics of the site under Musk’s ownership," the Post writes.

Lots more bots are online, I'm guessing. 

[LFC]

The MAGAts, being MAGAts, are bitching and whining but providing no realistic alternative. It's their jam.

The cartoonish staring contest between the House Republicans has lingered this week, with neither side showing any signs of blinking. The small but mighty chorus of MAGA-aligned detractors in Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) caucus have stepped up their opposition and are now calling on McCarthy to drop out so they can find an alternative.

“He can avoid it now. He doesn’t have the votes,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) told CNN this week. “We can move to different candidates. I’m willing to entertain anyone else.”

Freedom Caucus conservative hardliners insist another candidate will emerge to replace McCarthy and that talks have been going on to recruit a replacement. But so far, it seems they have no serious contender to put forward after Biggs lost his symbolic challenge to McCarthy in the House GOP leadership vote last month.

“There’s quiet talks going on with other candidates,” Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) recently claimed. “But as you might imagine, those candidates are going to be very hesitant or reluctant to be in any way public.”

So far five MAGA-infused conservative Freedom Caucus members — including Biggs, Good, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) and Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) — have publicly said they will not support McCarthy’s speakership bid.

But despite the pushback from some members of his caucus, McCarthy has been in campaign mode for weeks, trying to make sure he has the 218 votes he will need to secure his role as speaker in January. 

While there’s been lots of talk of opposition to McCarthy’s bid, the five detractors haven’t engaged seriously on offering up a viable alternative. Earlier last month, conservative Republicans even went as far as to suggest that their nominee for speaker might not even be a sitting member of Congress. 

McCarthy, being McCarthy, has nothing really to offer other than "we need the majority."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Sunday said the potential handful of GOP lawmakers opposing his bid for Speaker stand the risk of “squandering this majority” when it comes to the Republican takeover of the House in the next Congress.

During an appearance on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” with host Maria Bartiromo, McCarthy said he has spent “hours” meeting with the House Freedom Caucus, as at least five of its members indicate plans to vote against McCarthy in next month’s floor vote.

“Right now, it’s actually delaying our ability to govern as we go,” McCarthy said. “So I’m hopeful that everybody comes together, finds a way to govern together. This is what the American people want. Otherwise, we will be squandering this majority.”

Delaying the Republican "ability to govern?" BWAHAHAHA!

[LFC]

I don't think this is actually the GOP being out of its mind but who knows, the alternative to Ronna Romney McDaniel is likely to be just as bad if not worse.

Ronna McDaniel has now served three terms as head of the RNC, almost entirely on the basis of being the choice of Donald Trump. Her loyalty was so great she agreed to change her name for him. Professionally known as Ronna Romney McDaniel until 2017, she dropped her middle-family name reportedly to please Trump. Now she has drawn what appears to be her first serious challenger for a close to unprecedented fourth term, Harmeet Dhillon. (MyPillow guy Mike Lindell is running. But that’s a longshot.)

Trump himself is apparently staying out of the contest. But Dhillon’s law firm represents Trump and she’s been a go to for a number of other big names from the MAGA cinematic universe. So it certainly doesn’t seem like she’s running as an anti-Trump candidate or someone, even implicitly, running as a candidate to move the RNC past the Trump years. If anything, the opposite. Where that leaves McDaniel I’m not sure.

[goldenvalley]

Dec 5, 2022 22:35:43 GMT LFC said:

I don't think this is actually the GOP being out of its mind but who knows, the alternative to Ronna Romney McDaniel is likely to be just as bad if not worse.

Ronna McDaniel has now served three terms as head of the RNC, almost entirely on the basis of being the choice of Donald Trump. Her loyalty was so great she agreed to change her name for him. Professionally known as Ronna Romney McDaniel until 2017, she dropped her middle-family name reportedly to please Trump. Now she has drawn what appears to be her first serious challenger for a close to unprecedented fourth term, Harmeet Dhillon. (MyPillow guy Mike Lindell is running. But that’s a longshot.)

Trump himself is apparently staying out of the contest. But Dhillon’s law firm represents Trump and she’s been a go to for a number of other big names from the MAGA cinematic universe. So it certainly doesn’t seem like she’s running as an anti-Trump candidate or someone, even implicitly, running as a candidate to move the RNC past the Trump years. If anything, the opposite. Where that leaves McDaniel I’m not sure.

Dhillon is bad news, another person who is smart and who has decided that her future is best served by courting the extreme right in the Party.  She ran for state legislature a couple of time in CA, never won.  She was head of the CA Republican Party, in terms of number of members, the party continued to decline while she was there. The only political success she achieved was convincing the Republican Caucus in the CA Assembly to remove their Minority Leader who had the audacity to vote with Democrats to extend a cap and trade program.  

[LFC]

Where are the Republican losers today? Some of them are working on being even bigger losers as they let their freak flags fly.

A month after losing his gubernatorial election, Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano was tweeting pictures of what he implied were suspicious clouds.

“Over Franklin County today,” Mastriano tweeted on Sunday, above four pictures of airplane trails across the Pennsylvania sky. He followed up with a link to an article about proposed future plans to study the effect of artificial clouds on climate change. The tweet appeared to be a nod to the “chemtrails” conspiracy theory, which right-wing candidates have previously disavowed under electoral pressure.

He’s not the only candidate using the post-election period to go all-in on weird claims. Mark Finchem, the Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state, went on a days-long screed about George Soros, the Jewish philanthropist who’s become a favorite figure in antisemitic conspiracy theories.

“Soros controls Fontes. Soros controls the press. Soros controls Hobbs. Soros controls the affiliates. Soros controls the Sheriff. Soros controls the recorder. Soros controls the county supervisors. It is time we stand up to Soros and take back Arizona,” Finchem tweeted last week, amid other tweets separately accusing reporters, news outlets, and political foes of being controlled by Soros.

The remarks were far from Finchem’s first foray into Soros conspiracy theories. As of mid-September, Finchem had invoked Soros 24 times on the messaging platform Telegram, the Arizona Mirror reported. But Finchem’s post-election pivot saw him turn from trying to win votes, to a more aggressive path to power.

“When we hold treason trials never forget who the traitors are,” he tweeted last week, the day after entreating his followers to “stand up to Soros and take back Arizona.”

Another failed candidate took the post-election pessimism even further. Shukri Abdirahman, who ran a failed Republican primary campaign in Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s district, took to Twitter last week in response to a story about Hunter Biden.

"We can no longer get rid of tyranny with ballots,” she tweeted. “It's only by bullets now.”

All of these people live comfortably within the Republican base.

[LFC]

Kevin is ready to completely feed the crazies. With many of the few sane House Republicans retired or defeated, and the propensity for the rest to be good Germans, the crazies are driving the bus.

5 Carrots McCarthy Is Dangling In Front Of The MAGA Caucus As He Begs For The Speakership

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has been in campaign mode, scrambling to lock down the 218 votes he’ll need in House elections to secure his role as speaker. Given the tensions within the House Republican conference — between the McCarthy loyalists and the small but mighty MAGA-infused Freedom Caucus members opposing McCarthy’s speakership bid — his campaign has inevitably been structured around wooing his party’s furthest-right members. This has required him to dangle a few bizarre carrots.

So far five conservative members — Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) and Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) — have publicly said they will not support McCarthy’s speakership bid. (One of them, Biggs, announced his own bid for the speakership this morning.) But the Freedom Caucus members insist there are plenty of others who are quietly not on board with McCarthy.

Here are five promises McCarthy made in a bid to win the speakership

The list of sub-headings without details:

- Investigations. Investigations. And More Investigations.

- Remove Some Democrats From Committee Assignments

- Roll Back IRS Funding

- Lean Way In To The Culture Wars

- End Proxy Voting

[LFC]

KKKrazy Andy Biggs it trying to challenge McCarthy again, likely just as a spoiler.

Three weeks ago, conservative Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., was defeated by GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy in their party’s private, internal vote for speaker of the House.

On Tuesday, Biggs said he’s launching yet another challenge to McCarthy for speaker — this time in the public vote on the House floor set for Jan. 3.

“I’m running for Speaker to break the establishment,” Biggs tweeted, linking to an op-ed in the conservative Daily Caller outlining his opposition to McCarthy. “Kevin McCarthy was created by, elevated by, and maintained by the establishment.”

The point of Biggs's second bid for speaker in as many months is not to win the coveted gavel — the former leader of the far-right House Freedom Caucus has zero chance of winning over moderate Republicans who have clashed with his group in the past.

Instead, Biggs is aiming to give his colleagues an alternative to vote for on the House floor and to deny McCarthy the 218 GOP votes he needs to secure the speaker's gavel during the first vote of the new Congress next month.

[goldenvalley]

Dec 7, 2022 17:49:31 GMT LFC said:

KKKrazy Andy Biggs it trying to challenge McCarthy again, likely just as a spoiler.

Three weeks ago, conservative Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., was defeated by GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy in their party’s private, internal vote for speaker of the House.

On Tuesday, Biggs said he’s launching yet another challenge to McCarthy for speaker — this time in the public vote on the House floor set for Jan. 3.

“I’m running for Speaker to break the establishment,” Biggs tweeted, linking to an op-ed in the conservative Daily Caller outlining his opposition to McCarthy. “Kevin McCarthy was created by, elevated by, and maintained by the establishment.”

The point of Biggs's second bid for speaker in as many months is not to win the coveted gavel — the former leader of the far-right House Freedom Caucus has zero chance of winning over moderate Republicans who have clashed with his group in the past.

Instead, Biggs is aiming to give his colleagues an alternative to vote for on the House floor and to deny McCarthy the 218 GOP votes he needs to secure the speaker's gavel during the first vote of the new Congress next month.

Obstruction and blowing stuff up seems to be the game plan for the Freedom Caucus.  

[LFC]

Show of hands, who's shocked? Anybody? Hello? Is this thing on?

[goldenvalley]

Dec 8, 2022 15:30:19 GMT LFC said:

Show of hands, who's shocked? Anybody? Hello? Is this thing on?

Youngish blonde woman smiles and hangs onto Trump's arm...of course he's all in for whatever she is selling.  He doesn't believe anything except that he's the greatest and she clearly agrees. 

[LFC]

The McCarthy Follies continue! Face it, Kev, you're a spineless tool that nobody actually likes.

As a right-wing faction threatens to tank his speakership ambitions, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy delivered a promise: “I’ll never leave,” making clear he has no plans to drop out of the race even if the fight goes to many ballots on the floor.

“I’ll get 218,” McCarthy told CNN, referring to the votes he’d need to become House speaker.

But Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, a conservative hardliner who is challenging McCarthy to be the most powerful member of Congress, doubled down on his commitment to stop the California Republican’s ascension.

“I’m not bluffing,” Biggs told CNN on Thursday when asked if he would drop out.

With the increasing likelihood that the speaker’s race could go to multiple ballots – something that hasn’t happened since 1923 – McCarthy’s allies and foes alike are starting to quietly game out the next steps if he can’t get the necessary 218 votes on the first round and they move into uncharted territory.

McCarthy’s supporters are vowing to keep voting for him on multiple ballots, and GOP sources said there are early discussions about a floor strategy for that potential scenario, including whether to recess the House or let the votes keep rolling – no matter how long it takes.

To prevent that from happening, McCarthy and his team have been engaged in serious talks with a group of conservatives, including over potentially giving them influential committee assignments and more power to drive the legislative process. GOP sources said those negotiations are still early in the process and could ultimately end up giving the group some aspect of what the hardliners desperately want: additional power to seek a sitting speaker’s ouster with a vote on the floor.

Asked if he would drop out of the race if he doesn’t get 218 votes on the first ballot, Biggs refused to say.

“I’m not going to talk about hypotheticals,” said Biggs, who lost his conference’s nomination to become speaker last month after securing 31 votes.

But in the case of a doomsday scenario – where neither McCarthy nor Biggs can get 218 votes on January 3 and neither drops out – some pro-McCarthy Republicans are signaling support for a different approach. Some said they would be willing to work with Democrats to find a moderate Republican who can get the 218 votes to clinch the gavel – a long-shot idea that underscores the uncertainty looming over the speaker’s race.

“Our initial plan is vote for Kevin and let him fight this out repeatedly. … But if they think they’re going to use this to infinity to drive him out, well, we’re not going to bend to their will,” said Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican.

[LFC]

They're screeching about Brittany Griner being released, of course, but we must not forget that some of the same screeching right-wingnuts delayed bringing home Trevor Reed!

[LFC]

Represenative-elect George Santos (R-NY) provided details of his bio during the campaign that, uh, let's just say aren't holding up under scrutiny. (Here's the Web Archive link if you can't get past the NYT firewall.) I would not be shocked if we find out this clown was more or less manufactured by shadowy money groups, possibly backed by foreign money. Here's a bit of summary but for the big picture read the whole thing. This guy has been a grifter and a crook since he was a teen, and there's no sign he ever changed.

George Santos, whose election to Congress on Long Island last month helped Republicans clinch a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, built his candidacy on the notion that he was the “full embodiment of the American dream” and was running to safeguard it for others.

His campaign biography amplified his storybook journey: He is the son of Brazilian immigrants, and the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat as a non-incumbent. By his account, he catapulted himself from a New York City public college to become a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor” with a family-owned real estate portfolio of 13 properties and an animal rescue charity that saved more than 2,500 dogs and cats.

But a New York Times review of public documents and court filings from the United States and Brazil, as well as various attempts to verify claims that Mr. Santos, 34, made on the campaign trail, calls into question key parts of the résumé that he sold to voters.

Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, the marquee Wall Street firms on Mr. Santos’s campaign biography, told The Times they had no record of his ever working there. Officials at Baruch College, which Mr. Santos has said he graduated from in 2010, could find no record of anyone matching his name and date of birth graduating that year.

There was also little evidence that his animal rescue group, Friends of Pets United, was, as Mr. Santos claimed, a tax-exempt organization: The Internal Revenue Service could locate no record of a registered charity with that name.

His financial disclosure forms suggest a life of some wealth. He lent his campaign more than $700,000 during the midterm election, has donated thousands of dollars to other candidates in the last two years and reported a $750,000 salary and over $1 million in dividends from his company, the Devolder Organization.

Yet the firm, which has no public website or LinkedIn page, is something of a mystery. On a campaign website, Mr. Santos once described Devolder as his “family’s firm” that managed $80 million in assets. On his congressional financial disclosure, he described it as a capital introduction consulting company, a type of boutique firm that serves as a liaison between investment funds and deep-pocketed investors. But Mr. Santos’s disclosures did not reveal any clients, an omission three election law experts said could be problematic if such clients exist.

And while Mr. Santos has described a family fortune in real estate, he has not disclosed, nor could The Times find, records of his properties.

Mr. Santos’s eight-point victory, in a district in northern Long Island and northeast Queens that previously favored Democrats, was considered a mild upset. He had lost decisively in the same district in 2020 to Tom Suozzi, then the Democratic incumbent, and had seemed to be too wedded to former President Donald J. Trump and his stances to flip his fortunes.

His appearance earlier this month at a gala in Manhattan attended by white nationalists and right-wing conspiracy theorists underscored his ties to Mr. Trump’s right-wing base.

At the same time, new revelations uncovered by The Times — including the omission of key information on Mr. Santos’s personal financial disclosures, and criminal charges for check fraud in Brazil — have the potential to create ethical and possibly legal challenges once he takes office.

That last part about ethical challenges is a bad joke. Republicans will control the House. There's nothing this asshat could have done that would cause them to do anything meaningful which might hurt their slim majority. That shit ended with Steven KKKing. There are, however, possible legal issues.

Mr. Santos’s improved circumstances are evident on the official financial disclosure form he filed in September with the House of Representatives, though the document still leaves questions about his finances.

In the disclosure, Mr. Santos said that he was the Devolder Organization’s sole owner and managing member. He reported that the company, which is based in New York but was registered in Florida, paid him a $750,000 salary. He also earned dividends from Devolder totaling somewhere between $1 million and $5 million — even though Devolder’s estimated value was listed in the same range.

The Devolder Organization has no public-facing assets or other property that The Times could locate. Mr. Santos’s disclosure form did not provide information about clients that would have contributed to such a haul — a seeming violation of the requirement to disclose any compensation in excess of $5,000 from a single source.

Kedric Payne, the vice president of the watchdog Campaign Legal Center, and a former deputy chief counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics, was one of three election law experts consulted by The Times who took issue with the lack of detail.

“This report raises red flags because no clients are reported for a multimillion-dollar client services company,” Mr. Payne said, adding: “The congressman-elect should explain what’s going on.”

The Times attempted to interview Mr. Santos at the address where he is registered to vote and that was associated with a campaign donation he made in October, but a person at that address said on Sunday that she was not familiar with him.

Material omissions or misrepresentations on personal financial disclosures are considered a federal crime under the False Statements Act, which carries a maximum penalty of $250,000 and five years in prison. But the bar for these cases is high, given that the statute requires violations to be “knowing and willful.”

[goldenvalley]

Dec 19, 2022 16:39:04 GMT LFC said:

Represenative-elect George Santos (R-NY) provided details of his bio during the campaign that, uh, let's just say aren't holding up under scrutiny. (Here's the Web Archive link if you can't get past the NYT firewall.) I would not be shocked if we find out this clown was more or less manufactured by shadowy money groups, possibly backed by foreign money. Here's a bit of summary but for the big picture read the whole thing. This guy has been a grifter and a crook since he was a teen, and there's no sign he ever changed.

Why didn't the NYT figure this out during election season? It took a lot of research to track all this down but still...