by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Some would consider it a daunting task to find someone - anyone - who lies more than Donald John Trump, but somehow Trump's own Republican Party has managed to do just that. George Santos, a newly elected Republican member of Congress who serves a district from New York's Long Island, has been in the news almost daily since the New York Times revealed last month that much (almost all) of Santos's resume is fiction. The lies are coming so fast, in fact, that few can keep up with, or much less know, who the new congressman really is.
Despite the pile of falsehoods that helped to elect George Santos to Congress, the Republican Party, which currently controls the House of Representatives, is loathe to do anything which would result in his being ejected from that august political body. The Republicans have a bare majority in Congress, and they feel a strong need to tenaciously hang onto every single one of their members, even those who happen to be as odious as George Santos.
No, George Santos had not attended or graduated from Baruch College. No, he also had not worked for Citigroup or Goldman Sachs - in any capacity. No, his mother had not been in the World Trade Center on 9/11, and she was, in fact, in Brazil on that day. No, George Santos is not Jewish, nor did his family escape the holocaust.
And yes, there were 37 expenditures of $199.99 listed on his campaign finance forms - each just one penny below the $200 threshold that would have required that he produce receipts for those expenses. The comes to a total of just 37 cents shy of seven thousand and four hundred dollars - all without receipts.
But yesterday a story broke that put all of that other stuff to shame. Two veterans of the US military have come forward with an allegation that back in 2016 the future congressman, using an assumed name, helped to raise money on-line, around $3,000, for life-saving surgery on a dog belonging to one of them - a vet who was homeless and living in a tent at the time. The two men, one of whom is acting as a representative for the other, allege that a supposed charity run by Santos managed to accumulate around $3,000 in donations for the dog's surgery, but that Santos then absconded with the money.
The dog, a honey-colored pitfall but by the name of Sapphire, died as a result of not being able to get the surgery. Sapphire's owner and best friend had this to say:
"Little girl never left my side in ten years. I went through two bouts of seriously considering suicide, but thinking about her without me saved my life. I loved that dog so much."
Stealing the medical fund set up for the benefit of a dog belonging to a homeless veteran - and causing the dog's death because of that theft - should be about as low as it is humanly possible to go.
This week, instead of moving to expel George Santos from Congress, or at least speaking out forcefully against him, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican Kevin McCarthy, dutifully doled out a couple of committee assignments to the freshman congressman from New York. Santos apparently meets the standards of the Republican Party for serving in Congress, but he probably should not expect to be invited to any of their parties, especially the ones like those that former Congressman Madison Cawthorn told us about!
Republican politicians, after all, have standards. (Wasn't it Donald Trump who said that?)
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