Political Bipartisanship is Possible!

It is rare in today’s political climate int eh USA.  Usually, the votes are strictly divided over party lines, on THIS rare occasion we have bipartisanship!

 

Political parties can work together!

Yes, you read that right!  Bipartisan agreements in Congress did happen yesterday December 1, 2023.  Yesterday was a historical day as the Republican U.S. Representative from New York’s 3rd congressional district, George Antony Devolder Santos was expelled from Congress in a Bipartisan vote.

As much as I agree that it was right to expel Santos from this exulted position, this is not necessarily a happy day in America.  The real question is: How was he able to hold on to that seat for such a long time?  (Or at all for that matter) Santos entered congress after falsifying – essentially pretty much everything.  His education, his credentials, his income, his affiliations, and I can go on for hours on that.  Seriously, this young man had quite the affinity for stretching the bounds of truth.  Some of his lies were pretty petty too.

And despite the superficial perception, I am not trying to bash George Santos (although he also was not forthcoming with his name among many other things – and he did a stellar job at discrediting himself without any help).  But rather I am trying to show how important it is for us to take politics seriously.  At least seriously enough to ensure that whoever gains an exulted position is actually the person they are claiming to be.  Later in this article I will list many of his red flags before, during, and after – and we’ll talk about what he is likely going to do next.  He did leave Congress spewing a lot of choice words against his own party and of course against the democrats (in office and throughout the country).

I really want to discuss the situation on the merits, but unfortunately, Santos did become the face of this very case study.  And I am sure scholars from decades to come will look at this time in our American history and talk about it – because it deserves the attention is getting.  Of course, for a great block of voters (both Democrats & Republicans) this situation is possibly an oblivious fact.  I know this for a fact, because I like to ask these types of things.  And much like I said in my last article, the answers I tend to get are pretty frustrating.

 

Partisan politics galore.

In yesterday’s article I spoke about how there is political theater in the United States of America.  And no, it is not the only country suffering from these types of performances – this is a systematic world-expanding problem.  And to be honest, depending on the proclivity of different segments of the population, this political theater can range from non-existent to very enticing in the minds and hearts of actual voters.

Well, that is another problem, a lot of voters do not really want to learn about what is affecting their lives.  And I can imagine this can be incredibly frustrating to many of us who in one way or the other depend on people voting in a well-informed manner.  Why, because it affects all of us.  But the fact is that for a long time, voting has become a visceral situation – it is about the feeling rather than the actual policy.  This has been normalized, and many might be voting “their conscience” without actually scrutinizing the validity for that decision.

I also mentioned in yesterday’s article, as I have in the past, that the politician’s voting record is what ultimately matters.  Because that ground truth is what will tell you if what they say is true or not.  Sure, some will vote for terrible legislation and won’t be shy about it.  Others will prefer not voting on better legislation because that becomes politically inconvenient at the time.  There is actually an artform when it comes to that voting record.  I don’t mean that it is good art, per say – but it is not (unfortunately) a straight forward process.  And that is also very frustrating.

Why frustrating?  Well, when you see it pragmatically – if a person is voting one way or the other just because they are required to follow a certain crowd, then they are [not] actually doing what is best.  And of course, this has been very evident, especially in the last few years when voting on any legislation ends up split by party lines.  Hence, whomever controls the majority – no matter how slim, will win by default.  That is a problem, because that means that either the policies set forth to the floor are crap, or (and) that this partisanship is not sustainable.

 

You can see this yourself.

For the U.S. House of Representatives Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives – Votes

For the U.S. Senate https://www.senate.gov/legislative/votes_new.htm

 

I invite you to look at these.  You can spend some time on those – because there is plenty to see.  But the fact is that I want to show you that what I am speaking of does not come out of thin air.  I am not a pundit – I am just a dude with a website who likes to state facts that are affecting us all.  Division solely on party lines is not good.  It creates gridlock and the actual substance of conversations that need to occur are pre-determined even before the vote comes to the house.  Everything else is just lip service and sound bites.  The decision was largely already made up before it had a chance to be properly heard.

And that brings us back to the fact that George Santos was kept in office despite the fact he had a rap sheet longer than the Pacific coast in the continent.  But Santos had an ace under the sleeve, the House of Representatives was hurting for members.  The “red wave” they predicted did not happen.  The Republicans lost the Senate majority and gained only a very slim majority in the House of Representatives.

Santos, although he was drenched in controversy – kept a low profile as far as voting.  He would show up, do his partisan game when it came to voting.  And of course, bash Democrats any moment he could get a camera in front of him.  That was convenient for the slim majority when pushing (or what many would rather call “stalling”) legislation.  That is why he was voted to stay in as a sitting member the first time he was supposed to be expelled.  However, he did become a political liability as the ethics committee validated the character most people (not politicians) both Republicans & Democrats had already assessed – not fit for duty as an elected leader.

 

Bipartisan Support to expel Santos out of Congress.

This is the first time in the history of the United States of America that a sitting legislator is expelled out of office – without being actually convicted of a crime.  You can read the report in the link provided below.  Court trials are forthcoming though.

Ethics Report on Rep. George Santos 2023

However, Santos did not have a clear-cut vote to oust him.  The troubled ex-legislator did get votes from several Republicans and even a few Democrats to prevent his ousting.  However, mathematically it was already evident that Santos was not going to win this round.  I will not focus on what each Democrat of Republican colleague said about him. Especially the more unflattering language.  But I will point out that Santos was in the scorching end of the statements given by many of his fellow Republicans.  And in today’s political climate that is very significant.

In the link about the voting record, you can see how each legislator voted. However, I will highlight that some of those you could expect to support Santos did vote to hold him in Congress, despite the fact of this scathing report and prelude.  Among those are Gaetz, Boebert, Greene, Johnson (Speaker of the House) … and yes those are some I mentioned in the previous article.  I will let you have your own reasoning about their decision.  My intent is not to disparage anybody, but rather to show the connection points to spark deeper conversations.

To that end, let me just add a list of the things that have been deemed problematic by most people who had been aware of Santo’s antics; and why this has been problematic for the ousted member of the House of Representatives.

George Santos Lies & Controversies (short list until I get bored of talking about this gentleman’s controversies). But I figure this would make you understand why it is significant that 114 people voted to keep him as a member of the House of Representatives.  Fortunately, 311 voted to oust him.  Let’s see why I say fortunately.

Batch #1 Santos was charged with 23 counts.

– One (1) count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States
– Two (2) counts of wire fraud.
– Two (2) counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission
– Two (2) counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC.
– Two (2) counts of aggravated identity theft.
– One (1) count of access device fraud.
– Seven (7) counts of wire fraud,
– Three (3) counts of money laundering
– One (1) count of theft of public funds
– Two (2) counts of making materially false statements to the United States House of Representatives

In the second indictment Santos was accused of stealing his campaign donor’s identities!  Using it for all kinds of selfish expenses to include clothes, sessions at Only Fans, and money back to his own bank account.  This is donors’ money who did not authorize additional expenses – but he had their credit card numbers.

Adding to the list, in a superseding indictment, Santos was accused of loaning his campaign half a million dollars, as an effort to pad his campaign.  This falsifying of finance reports is of course criminal in nature.

Even before these latest accusations, he had quite a few others.  I wrote an entire article about him back then.  But let’s do a quick recap of some of the many simply bizarre stories we had to deal with.  I’ll just add some teasers about it, you are welcome to look more into it.  You might find it entertaining and/or frustrating.

– Claimed to be a model for Vogue.
– Impersonated (Former Speaker of the House) Kevin McCarthy’s Chief of Staff to try to raise money from rich donors.
– Claimed to have lost four employees in the mass shooting at the Pulse night club.
– Made national news for alleged swindling a disabled veteran out of money to save his pet – the pet tragically died.
– Lied to his landlord about being robbed on the way to pay his rent.
– Accused by former roommates of stealing their belongings to include an expensive scarf.
– Being charged in Brazil for writing bad checks.
– Claimed to be connected to working with Goldman Sachs and/or Citigroup to use as leverage for a Ponzi scheme.
– Claimed to be a volleyball start champion in a college he never attended – or was even enrolled at for that matter.
– Claimed to have been victim of an assassination attempt in 5th Avenue in New York City.
– Claimed his mother died in 9/11.
– Claimed his niece was kidnapped by Chinese Communists as retribution.
– Claimed his Grandparents Fled the Holocaust.
– Claimed he was Jewish, and when he was confronted, he said he was Jew-ish – I know, cringe alert.
– Stole donors credit card numbers and made personal charges with them.

I can go on, but I got bored to be recounting these crazy antics – but there are plenty more.  Sure, some of these stories are allegations – but the fact that he has actually been so prone to lying (and admitted himself he was a liar)– his credibility is not quite helping him with the benefit of the doubt.

 

This is a link to my previous article about him in case you want to see what I was already talking about earlier this year when we were introduced to this gentleman.

         Rep. George Santos – Why Should you Care Jan 12, 2023.

 

This was meant to be a relatively short article, because I figured my readers would like to review the information I enclosed.  Case in point the Congressional voting record and the ethics report.  And those can take a while to go through, but please feel free to bookmark this site as a quick reference point.  Whatever time you invest reviewing the information provided in this article (to include the links) it will be time well invested.  In future articles I will delve more in-depth into these political intricacies.

To close, you might be surprised to learn that I am not actually all that much of a fan of politics.  Much like I am not a fan of getting a kick to the kidneys with soccer cleats.  But in order to prevent that I have to have situation awareness to avoid that proverbial kick.  The difference is that legislators make decisions that will affect our lives for generations to come.  And if we don’t understand if they are up to the job, then we are actually at fault for not paying attention when the house is burning down.  We are all in this together – like it or not.  That is why this has been taking so much bandwidth in my attention span.

Please let me know in the comments (down in this site’s comment section) or any of our social media outlets about what other topics you would like me to talk about.  Thank you for being with me through this journey!  HLC