The State of the Republican Party Tonight
George Santos was expelled from the United States House of Representatives earlier today, becoming only the 6th member to be kicked out.
Under a House Ethics Committee investigation and charged with a federal criminal indictment, his departure was only a matter of time. His ouster was a move opposed by the GOP leadership. Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) will soon call a special election to fill the vacancy.
Who was this masked man? As the New Yorker described it.
Washington finally rediscovers how to give a grifting congressman the boot.
Santos is a caricature of American political dysfunction, a serial fabulist who sought power to assuage unfathomable internal inadequacies, and who achieved it only by accident, because the rest of us were not paying enough attention. (It’s worth remembering that a small newspaper on Long Island called the North Shore Leader broke the story of Santos’s falsehoods before the election, but no one reads local news anymore.)
So Unfair
The absurd variety of Santos’s lies, and their essential meaninglessness, was another plus. Santos told donors, for instance, that he’d helped produce “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” one of the most accursed flops in recent Broadway history. He told the chair of the Nassau County Republicans that he’d been the “star” of the Baruch College volleyball team. His campaign bio stated that his grandparents, who as far as anyone can tell were born in Brazil, “fled persecution during WWII.”
American politics lately has been full of complicated, multiyear story lines intelligible only to paid professionals or fanatics. Santos’s situation was as baroque as any of them, but it could safely be ignored by the public, and even by Santos’s colleagues in Washington… Pretty much anything goes in the Freedom Caucus. But, even among insurrectionists, nihilists, and would-be autocrats, Santos proved to be too much. As his behavior grew more erratic—in recent weeks, he’s taken to walking the halls of Congress holding an unidentified baby—few in Washington remained at Santos’s side.
So Long, George!
Curiouser and Curiouser
You’re Gonna Regret This
Start Spreading the News
Excellent Idea
Bigger Than “The March on Washington”
Later, Alligator
“To Hell With This Place”
Bye, Felicia
Attribution for the above cartoon: Christopher Weyant @ChristophWeyant
If You Break the Law…
Unhappy Meal
The Gentleman from New York
Now We Know
The War on Christmas
Do You Know the Way to…
Phew!
Merry Christmas
Santos Claus
The Die is Cast
Gloria Gaynor Would Be So Proud