• Due to ongoing issues caused by Search, it has been temporarily disabled
  • Please excuse the mess, we're moving the furniture and restructuring the forum categories
  • You may need to edit your signatures.

    When we moved to Xenfora some of the signature options didn't come over. In the old software signatures were limited by a character limit, on Xenfora there are more options and there is a character number and number of lines limit. I've set maximum number of lines to 4 and unlimited characters.

George Santos charged with defrauding campaign donors

dann said:
That's what I've been saying the whole time:
Click to expand...
I think you misunderstand. You are talking about AFTER they are elected, in which case you have always had a fair point. We are talking about BEFORE they are elected.

The difference between the cadre of loonies including DeSantis, Gaetz, Borbert, EmptyG, etc. is that they were always and openly like they are now as they were before they were elected to office on the campaign trail. Everyone knew what they were going into their election. They have, if you like, been true to their election advertising brochure.

The difference with Santos (if that is his real name!) is that his election advertising brochure has proven to be a total bunch of horse-****. Whatever he presented himself as to his constituents to get elected, it was all a lie. He misrepresented himself, and has now been caught out misrepresenting his campaign finances to the election authorities, yet another rancid pile of pre-election steaming doo-doo.

Note this has nothing to do with what he has done/is doing in Congress, or what he purports to represent or do for his constituents (your point). By all accounts, he is simply providing a vote for McCarthy when needed, and not one ******* thing else helpful to the country or his party. That's all they want from him; that's all he does. Not illegal or unconscionable or even unprecedented. A seat-warmer and voting numpty.
 
Last edited:
A brainless pathological liar and apparent fantasist not being one of the worst people elected to office is a damning indictment of American politics, but it certainly is different from the Josh Hawleys and EmptyGs.
 
Seeing that shame is no longer a hindrance in one Party, politics is the new grift for the criminally minded. And if being seen doing it gives 'em a chubby or makes 'em moist, all the more enticing.
 
Santos is whining that it "wasn't very Mormon" of Romney to tell him he doesn't belong in Congress. How "Christian" is it to lie to the voters about almost everything about your life?
 
Well tomorrow he will be the reincarnation of Brigham Young. And Joseph Smith.

Combined.
 
Has he put his name up for president yet?

He conveniently turns 35 in July, and looks an ideal candidate. Maybe Trump could use him as a running mate if it's too soon.
 
Norman Alexander said:
I think you misunderstand. You are talking about AFTER they are elected, in which case you have always had a fair point. We are talking about BEFORE they are elected.
Click to expand...


Before and after. I was talking about the lies Santos and everybody else tell to get elected. Besides, the looney programs were always a way of deflecting the focus from what they actually intend to do, tax cuts for the 1 percenters, to the squirrel themes: war on Xmas, drag queen story hour, pronouns, gendered M&Ms, Potato Head, wokeness, cancel culture, stop the steal, deep state, windmills, Bengasi, border wall, pedophile rings, the banning of beef and gas-stoves.

One thing is what their corporate supporters pay them to do. Quite another thing is the insane slogans. The themes are misdirection. It's what representative democracy all about. Screw the working classes while pretending that you are on their side.
Ron DeSantis gets campaign contributions from Disney! The don't give a **** about Don't say gay! and that stuff as long as they can be seen as the victims of DeSantis. What they fear is that they might have to pay taxes.

Otherwise, they all win: DeSantis gets to prove to his voters that he is tough on LGBTQ. Liberals will see 'progressive' Disney as a victim of censorship and start wearing 'I'm Disney' badges.
 
dann said:
Before and after. I was talking about the lies Santos and everybody else tell to get elected. Besides, the looney programs were always a way of deflecting the focus from what they actually intend to do, tax cuts for the 1 percenters, to the squirrel themes: war on Xmas, drag queen story hour, pronouns, gendered M&Ms, Potato Head, wokeness, cancel culture, stop the steal, deep state, windmills, Bengasi, border wall, pedophile rings, the banning of beef and gas-stoves.
Click to expand...
...after they are elected.

One thing is what their corporate supporters pay them to do. Quite another thing is the insane slogans. The themes are misdirection. It's what representative democracy all about. Screw the working classes while pretending that you are on their side.
Click to expand...
Not misdirection but misplaced expectations. Dumb voters mistake a single-policy candidate as their ONLY policy. No candidate is really going to be a one-pet-subject representative and just ignore everything else that passes through the government on their watch. They may be a Dem against the don't-say-gay, but they could also be a fiscal conservative, or a Trotskyite communist for other social programs. What, did you expect Mr don't-say-gay to be fiscally liberal and surprise they are not? Did s/he tell you they were what you expected?

Ron DeSantis gets campaign contributions from Disney! The don't give a **** about Don't say gay! and that stuff as long as they can be seen as the victims of DeSantis. What they fear is that they might have to pay taxes.
Click to expand...
I suspect those donations, if they still happen now, are strategic, not personal. In Australia, some big businesses contribute equally to our major conservative and progressive parties, so as to get support to the one they want but without looking like they are biased against the other. Mind you, Australian business contributions to political parties are nowhere near in the same scope that happens in the USA.

Otherwise, they all win: DeSantis gets to prove to his voters that he is tough on LGBTQ. Liberals will see 'progressive' Disney as a victim of censorship and start wearing 'I'm Disney' badges.
Click to expand...
Not quite sure what you are arguing for here. :confused: Want to rephrase?
 
Last edited:
Norman Alexander said:
...after they are elected.
Click to expand...


Both before and after! Here are some before examples: Why do you think articles like these exist?
Why are candidates allowed to lie in political ads, and why do TV stations run the commercials? (CBS, Nov 3, 2022)
Candidates can lie in political ads, experts say (CBS, Oct 18, 2022)
The truth about political adds: They can include lies (NPR, March 28, 2022)
Dishonest Candidates Win Elections, According to New Research (Forbes, Oct 13, 2020)
Trump has resumed babbling on about windmills. Do you think he ever intended to anything about them? Or was it one of his personal grievances that he noticed got his audience riled up? (Much like his 'Deep State' crap that he admitted that Cambridge Analytical had come up with, that he didn't believe but tested on his audience, and then kept repeating when he found out that it worked.

Not misdirection but misplaced expectations. Dumb voters mistake a single-policy candidate as their ONLY policy. No candidate is really going to be a one-pet-subject representative and just ignore everything else that passes through the government on their watch. They may be a Dem against the don't-say-gay, but they could also be a fiscal conservative, or a Trotskyite communist for other social programs. What, did you expect Mr don't-say-gay to be fiscally liberal and surprise they are not? Did s/he tell you they were what you expected?
Click to expand...


There obviously are no real 'single-policy candidates'. One thing is what they say to the voters and on camera, another thing is what they say to the people paying for their campaigns. It's about getting elected and thus gaining power and getting pacs and superpacs and getting rich catering to lobbyists.

That is what I expect and that is what happens. If you want to look at what "they could also be," allegedly, "a Trotskyite communist" is obviously made up. Even the "fiscal conservative" is usually a lie, a way to present themselves to certain segments of voters and/or people contributing to their campaigns. When they present themselves as such, they usually intend to cut back on social security and health care. Recent examples were mentioned after Biden's SotU speech. Allegedly "fiscal conservatives" tend to go overboard when it's about expenditures for the police and the armed forces. Somebody's gotta be there to keep the hungry masses down ...

Romney Tells Millionaire Votes What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters (Mother Jones, Sep 17, 2012)
Do you think it's just a coincidence that he didn't say that out loud for the whole world to hear, and that the whole world only got to hear it due to a "SECRET VIDEO"? A few years later: Mitt Romney ... wants to 'lift people out of poverty' (Guardian, Jan 17, 2015). Yeah, right!
By the way, Romney is now a hero for telling Santos to be ashamed of himself. Chelsea Handler loved him for it!

I suspect those donations, if they still happen now, are strategic, not personal. In Australia, some big businesses contribute equally to our major conservative and progressive parties, so as to get support to the one they want but without looking like they are biased against the other. Mind you, Australian business contributions to political parties are nowhere near in the same scope that happens in the USA.
Click to expand...


They aren't in most countries. And big contributions will obviously make candidates be grateful to the donors. As will small donors, probably. I think it was Ben Golddacre who referred to studies showing how medical doctors are influenced by even small trinkets from the pharmaceutical industry. There is no reason to think that politicians are any different in that respect.

Not quite sure what you are arguing for here. :confused: Want to rephrase?
Click to expand...


No. It's representative democracy.
 
Last edited:
Stacyhs said:
Santos is whining that it "wasn't very Mormon" of Romney to tell him he doesn't belong in Congress. How "Christian" is it to lie to the voters about almost everything about your life?
Click to expand...
Romney called him a sick puppy. If Santos isn't careful, he may find himself tied down onto the roof of Romney's car.
 
In 2017, Santos was charged with theft for writing bad checks to dog breeders in PA. Charges were dropped after he said his checkbook was stolen.
Tiffany Bogosian, a New York attorney who attended junior high with Santos, told the outlet she helped him deal with the charge after they had reconnected. Bogosian confirmed details in a call with Insider.

Santos made out $15,125 in checks to dog breeders in an Amish area of the state, Politico reported. Days later, a pet store in Staten Island, Pet Oasis, held an adoption event in conjunction with Friends of Pets United, a pet charity Santos has claimed to have founded, according to Politico and the store's Instagram page.

In 2020, Santos asked Bogosian for help addressing the theft charges, telling her that his checkbook had been stolen so he had called the bank to cancel the checkbook before they had been cashed, causing the checks to bounce.

The November 2017 checks, which were obtained by Politico, have the name "George A Santos" on them, but no address or contact information. The memo lines say "puppies" or "puppy," and the signatures on each check all appear different.

Bogosian told Insider she did not think Santos was the most trustworthy person, due to what he was like when they were younger.

"He would always lie, about stupid things," she said. Still, she decided to help him because of their past and because the story had piqued her interest. Now she no longer believes his story that the checkbook had been stolen.

The theft by deception charge was ultimately dropped and was expunged from Santos's record in 2021, a representative for the York County District Court confirmed to Politico. A reason for the charge being expunged was not given.
Click to expand...


Yeaaaaaaaaah.....his checkbook was 'stollen'. Uh-huh.
 
varwoche said:
Romney called him a sick puppy. If Santos isn't careful, he may find himself tied down onto the roof of Romney's car.
Click to expand...

Romney is one of the few Republicans who have stood solidly agianst Trump. Not so sure dragging out the dog incident which i am conviced was something really stupid Romney did when yound rather an deliberate cruelty....serves much use here.
 
dudalb said:
Romney is one of the few Republicans who have stood solidly agianst Trump. Not so sure dragging out the dog incident which i am conviced was something really stupid Romney did when yound rather an deliberate cruelty....serves much use here.
Click to expand...

Somewhat true, but then again, he did go cap in hand after T's election wanting the SoS (?) position.
 
Stacyhs said:
In 2017, Santos was charged with theft for writing bad checks to dog breeders in PA. Charges were dropped after he said his checkbook was stolen.

Yeaaaaaaaaah.....his checkbook was 'stollen'. Uh-huh.
Click to expand...

This is perplexing. Couldn't the breeders have looked at a picture of Santos and said "Yeah, this is (or isn't) the guy who bought our dogs." And did Santos show up at the pet adoption event with dogs like the ones the breeders sold? It sounds like the DA didn't make this a high priority.
 
Santos claims he is getting support of Senator Sinema, Sinema's office said she never spoke to him. Another day for Santos, another Lie.
The House's continued ebrace of him show the current GOP has no morals or ethics except power.
 
Bob001 said:
In 2017, Santos was charged with theft for writing bad checks to dog breeders in PA. Charges were dropped after he said his checkbook was stolen.

Yeaaaaaaaaah.....his checkbook was 'stollen'. Uh-huh.
Click to expand...
This is perplexing. Couldn't the breeders have looked at a picture of Santos and said "Yeah, this is (or isn't) the guy who bought our dogs." And did Santos show up at the pet adoption event with dogs like the ones the breeders sold? It sounds like the DA didn't make this a high priority.
Click to expand...
The article in question mentions that the signatures on each of the checks is different. Which might mean either he is telling the truth about his checkbook being stolen, he had an accomplice or 2 in whatever scheme he was involved in, or he was smart enough to disguise his signatures.
 
Segnosaur said:
The article in question mentions that the signatures on each of the checks is different. Which might mean either he is telling the truth about his checkbook being stolen, he had an accomplice or 2 in whatever scheme he was involved in, or he was smart enough to disguise his signatures.
Click to expand...

Considering everything else he's done, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he had doctored his signature for exactly that reason. Although if his claim was that it was used by somebody else who stole it, it might have made more sense to make all the signatures similar to each other, but distinctly different from his own.
 
The Amish make a lot of money with puppy mills, and so do a lot of non-Amish. The states with the most puppy mills are Missouri and Iowa.
 
TIL. Kind of makes sense I suppose - though can't explain why exactly.

But since he was governor of both states at the time and lobbied hard against puppy mill laws, it's hardly his fault.
 
dudalb said:
Santos claims he is getting support of Senator Sinema, Sinema's office said she never spoke to him. Another day for Santos, another Lie.
The House's continued ebrace of him show the current GOP has no morals or ethics except power.
Click to expand...

In this case, I'm not so sure that it's Santos is lying. Sinema has taken up the mantle that Gabbard laid down and is a prolific liar herself.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
In this case, I'm not so sure that it's Santos is lying. Sinema has taken up the mantle that Gabbard laid down and is a prolific liar herself.
Click to expand...

But that’s the joy of Santos for other law makers: they can tell him anything to his face so long as it isn’t recorded. His word is wholly worthless even against a prolific liar like Sinema.
 
kookbreaker said:
Yeah, it’s not all cuteness and horse-drawn buggies with the Amish.
Click to expand...

There is a lot to unpack as to how US culture sanctifies the Amish and similar sects. It's like we've developed the societal perception that familial abuse was invented in the 1960s so going back to "simpler" times means it didn't happen.
 
Suddenly said:
There is a lot to unpack as to how US culture sanctifies the Amish and similar sects. It's like we've developed the societal perception that familial abuse was invented in the 1960s so going back to "simpler" times means it didn't happen.
Click to expand...


I never watched it because the commercials looked trashy, and it's been accused of being fake by multiple parties, but for several years Discovery ran a "documentary" reality series called "Amish Mafia".

I remember a friend getting mad about Weird Al's song "Amish Paradise" because it "made fun of the Amish".
"There's no time for sin and vice." "We don't fight, we all play nice." "There's no cops or traffic lights." "I ain't never punched a tourist, even if he deserved it. An Amish with a `tude, you know that's unheard of." Scathing mockery there.
 
For me, I tend to see groups like the Amish, old order Mennonite and Hutterites as deeply rooted in Christianity; people who take the Bible their faith seriously. So it comes as a surprise when I see them acting like every other group of human beings and ignoring the tenets of their faith.
 
Blue Mountain said:
For me, I tend to see groups like the Amish, old order Mennonite and Hutterites as deeply rooted in Christianity; people who take the Bible their faith seriously. So it comes as a surprise when I see them acting like every other group of human beings and ignoring the tenets of their faith.
Click to expand...
Not just seriously but almost completely literally. By the book, and nothing else.

I suspect that they are acting out the tenets of their faith rather than ignoring them, i.e. in much the same manner as prescribed by a bunch of pre-Christian Middle East desert-dwellers.
 
I am reminded of a friend long ago wha grew up in an area surrounded by " black bumper" Mennonites. A schism that allows modern machinery, but still eschews ornament. So they strip their cars of chrome and paint the bumpers and grilles black. But that did not stop them from one upping their neighbors by buying bigger more expensive black cars. No matter how much paint you apply, a black Lincoln beats a black Ford.

Perhaps one of the down sides of living according to strict literalism is that what isn't in the text isn't anywhere - a variation of the dodge so often seen in political arguments that if you do not say a thing explicitly you can insinuate anything.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom