I know it’s hard to believe, but George Santos has been expelled from congress.
By a vote of 311-114, the House voted to expel Santos, with 206 Democrats and 105 Republicans voting for expulsion, and two Democrats and 112 Republicans voting against it. This was just the sixth time in U.S. history that the House has expelled one of its own and the first time the House has done so without a criminal conviction, though Santos doesn’t dispute that he lied about most of his resume. (He does, however, dispute that he broke the law, despite the 23 criminal counts against him and substantial evidence in his indictment—as well as an Ethics report released two weeks ago—that detailed a number of alleged legal violations.)
As members voted on Santos’ removal, the serial fabulist was in and out of the chamber, at one point leaving, and then reappearing with his coat draped over his shoulders to watch the finally tally and shake hands with certain members.
It is revealing, though, that lying on your CV and misappropriating campaign funds can get you expelled, but enabling pedophiles and committing statutory rape, as people like Jordan and Gaetz have done, doesn’t even get you a slap on the wrist, and the ethical standards of the Supreme Court are a joke. It’s the money that matters.
The two Democrats are Bobby Scott of Virginia and Nikema Williams of Georgia. Wonder what possessed them?
@1 robro
Maybe the question ought to be “what evidence did GS possess?”
Always has been.
It was questionable whether George Santos was more of an asset for the Democrats if they just left him in the House.
He was a continual embarrassment for the GOP and that was never going to change.
Now that he is out and gone, his 15 minutes of fame will be over with and he will soon be forgotten.
@raven: I’m sure some other Republican will out-do him before the next election cycle is over.
It’s interesting that lying on one’s resume gets one ejected, but one violating repeatedly the Mann Act is considered acceptable.
Oh wait, only white people are allowed to violate the Mann Act.
Obligatory Randy Rainbow parody
Artor @ # 5: … some other Republican will out-do him …
Already did.
@1 Wondered who they were. Astonishing that there alway seem to be at least a handful of Democrats who will vote like Republicans on any issue. D.I.N.O. – why isn’t that a thing like RINO?
nomdeplume @ #9 — DINO is a thing like RINO. I’ve heard both Manchin and Sinema described as DINOs. There are others.
@10 Ah, and I thought I had just invented it….
Certainly Manchin and Sinema fit the term!
Had Rep Santos been a cis white male from a Red State he would have survived the expulsion vote.
This is not a defense of a person who had no business being in Congress, it is a condemnation of Rethugican hypocrisy.
Put everyone who voted against on a watch list. If they aren’t already.
You know it makes sense.
It sounds like a big factor in so many Republicans voting to oust him was because last night, a Republican House Member shared that Santos had stolen money from him- he’d donated to Santos’s campaign fund and Santos had stuck an additional $5000 charge onto his credit card. And did the same thing to his mother.
The “official” reason is that the Democrats are open to new ideas and will not turn down support from anyone regardless of ideology.
(Yeah, the Dems will suck up to religious shits, segregationists, and Millionaire/Billionaire robber barons, but the second a socialist shows up and it’s Katie bar the flap of the “Big Tent.”)
However, the real reason is that they’re desperate to stay in power, so they’ll pander to anyone. The Republicans don’t have this problem because their racism, sexism, theism, and capitalism are more in line with the American people than the Dems pretend to be.
laurian @#12 It’s possible that his lack of cis-ness may have contributed to the vote but he was an outsider so Republicans may have decided to toss him and then use it as proof of their own integrity.
@ 2 ardipithecus
In my humble opinion, GS probably doesn’t understand the concept of evidence, nor the difference between right and wrong.
Incredible. I’m still shaking my head in disbelief. And a guaranteed Republican House vote at that.
Don’t start believing the GOP did the right thing. Remember over half of the party members voted against expulsion, evidence be damned. That’s a perfect sign that it is party first, integrity second with these clowns.
Key phrase from the linked report: ‘…as much as Santos wanted lawmakers to wait, it’s been clear even before Santos was sworn in that he’s a serial liar who made up most of the biography that helped propel him to Congress.’ In other words, he should never have pased the selection process.
And, as microraptor@14 points out, he probably lost those Republican votes because he had stolen directly from them. Stealing from other people is SOP.
Now can they do, well, I was going to say Trump but then remembered that in the weird USA system the
PMPOTUS doesn’t come form the ranks of theParliamentarians Congresscritters but at least can they kick out the actual traitors who helped the attempted coup on Jan 6th like Josh Hawley, Lauren Boebert, MTG, aet cetera.* If lying gets Sants kicked out actively trying todestroy democracy and engage ina treasonous cip means automatic dismissal right?.* Specifically :
Source : https://coloradonewsline.com/briefs/jan-6-protesters-met-with-lauren-boebert-insurrection/
Aren’t there laws against sedition and aiding terrorists and domestic enemies in the USA?
FFS! Take II :
Now can they do, well, I was going to say Trump but then remembered that in the weird USA system the
PMPOTUS doesn’t come form the ranks of theParliamentariansCongresscritters but at least can they kick out the actual traitors who helped the attempted coup on Jan 6th like Josh Hawley, Lauren Boebert, MTG, et cetera.* If lying gets Santos kicked out then actively trying to destroy Democracy and engage in a treasonous coup means automatic dismissal right?.* Specifically :
Stevo, Stevo, Stevo: You’re displaying a charming naïveté about how the law actually works. Yes, there are multiple constitutional provisions (in particular, the extremely-cramped-purposely-narrower-than-anywhere-in-Europe definition of “treason,” which merely participating in a meeting explicitly doesn’t satisfy; the possibility of impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors”; barring from office for engaging in rebellion and insurrection under § 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which is automatic but can be lifted by a 2/3 vote of both houses of Congress). Yes, there are multiple statutory provisions (such as 18 U.S.C. § 1001, generally called “false swearing,” and § 1018, regarding false certifications such as the false electors, as might well be brought into play under the general conspiracy statute, § 373).
But those are for the little people. Not for our (mostly self-selected and/or by-descent-determined) betters. And they are our betters — just ask them.
OT: Here’s a cool show about origami and its relationship to instances of “folding” in biochemistry. Also, someone makes a nice-looking paper spider:
Akira MacKenzie @ 15, that’s due to commiephobia, a remnant of the Boomer generation.
weylguy @ 18, glad my parents didn’t get to witness that.
I may disagree with their political views, which were stretched by Regan, but that’d likely have killed them.
Jaws @ 23, I disagree. Misprisonment of treason insists upon reporting the same meeting.
Do you want to argue against case law?
Honestly?
Yeah, there’s Big People vs Serfs, but therein lies their fallacy, big and little can topple and therein lies a threat.
Hence, eliminate all threats.
And precisely why some still exist in Congress, they’re not an existential threat.
I would like to believe that the 2 Democrats who voted to let him remain in Congress were acting strategically. If Santos kept that seat, it almost certainly flips to the Dems in the election next year. Now the Republicans have a good chance of holding on to it, with a person who is better at getting away with their lies. I am fairly certain that is why many of the Republicans voted for expulsion.
I’m not saying that that strategy would justify letting him remain, but it does seem to me to be the only slightly defensible scenario.
Read this morning Santos is going to the ethics committee and dime on all his colleagues. He probably has some doozies, but with his history of lying, who will believe him?
You like stories of weasels?
I will give you a weasel !
Matt Hancock changes story, exposed at COVID inquiry.
https://youtu.be/4ZPeL6pv9pE
The ruling class seems to hold people accountable if they or their friends lose money. One of the men who was involved in the big savings and loan fraud in the 1980s had his conviction overturned since he defrauded regular people and not his country club friends.
Congress makes their own rules generally and even a conviction wouldn’t have kicked GS out if a majority of Congress supported him.
The idea of leaving him in office to make it “easier” for a Dem to win is how we got Trump – you have to take the strange ones seriously always
Re: wzrd1 @ #25…
MY parents did have a brush with the “commiephobia”. While my father was an officer in the Maritime Service, a base neighbor and fellow officer was accused of having Communist associations and guilt by association kicked in. My mother testified about the matter, specifically, that while the families were close–watching each others kids and the like–politics never came up. When leaving the hearing, an FBI agent told my mother that she’d just saved my fathers career with her testimony. In the end, it all came to nothing.
The biggest irony of it all? The accused officer was in charge of administering the annual loyalty oaths on the base.
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/7-6-magnitude-earthquake-strikes-off-the-southern-philippines-and-a-tsunami-warning-is-issued/3387207/
How to deal with a corrupt parliament
Cromwell (1970)
https://youtu.be/RkAbOGxDF6g
I don’t like comments about keeping him on board as a democratic strategy.
That would be a further eroding of already thread bare principles and a deeper chop into the foundations of governance.
whheydt, one of the few occasions in human history that makes me literally want to vomit.
The house unamerican activities committee living up to its name.
Literally.
Thunderous mode of speech, rarely employed and hence, shocking. Unamerican activities?! What kind of whore is one so thunderous in accusation and so sparse in evidence and directly contradicts the Constitution itself?!
And I’ll not pay for hearing aids afterward. Those fuckers owe me hearing aids.