Tuesday, December 27, 2022

George Santos, a man of morality (by Republican standards)

If you had an inkling that US Republicans were maybe not always completely honest, meet George Santos, the new Republican Representative for New York's 3rd Congressional District. 

Santos, who narrowly won the election for the Queens/Long Island district on November 8th (54%-46%), has got himself into hot water when he admitted subsequently that he had perhaps been economical with the truth when laying out his education and employment resumé. "My sins here are embellishing my resumé", he quipped, guilty only of "a poor choice of words" (otherwise known as lying). Oh, and, "I'm human. I'm flawed. I'm not perfect." So, to be clear, he never actually graduated from any institution of higher education, not did he ever work "directly" for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup.

Now, it turns out that he wasn't being entirely truthful when he claimed to be Jewish either. He now maintains that he "never claimed to be Jewish", merely that he was "Jew-ish" due to the possible Jewish background of his maternal family. This was enough to rile up the Republican Jewish Coalition, however, which has disowned him, saying, "he deceived us and misrepresented his heritage". 

For good measure, there are also allegations flying around that Santos is a criminal wanted for elder fraud and cheque forgery in Brazil. Also, that he may not even be gay as claimed, (although his marriage and recent divorce are not necessarily proof against that).What are we to think?

Robert Zimmerman, the defeated Democrat candidate for the New York district, who IS Jewish (wait, it's not THE Robert Zimmerman is it, as in Bob Dylan?) has called on Santos to resign and face him again in a special election, now that more of the truth about him is public. Like that's going to happen. Like a man like Santos is suddenly going to decide to do the right thing. But there is a good chance he could face legal action.

Of course, another salient question might be: why did all this stuff only come out AFTER the election?

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