liars, drunks, and violent jerks: just another day in wingnutville
George and Rudy and Donny, oh my
conservative dipshittery was in full bloom yesterday. let’s have a look.
liars
oh, so now we can’t use campaign funds to pay for botox injections? what kind of totalitarian hellscape are we living in?
the House Ethics Committee released their report on beloved drag performer and dog rescue aficionado George If That Even Is Your Real Name Santos (R-Kleptopia) and oh fucking boy — in a party that has made an art out of thievery and lying, this guy is Hall of Fame material.
Among the bills footed by campaign donors: trips to the casinos in Atlantic City and the Hamptons; purchases at the French fashion house Hermès; regular cosmetic treatments labeled “Botox” on internal campaign records; and even small purchases on OnlyFans, a platform best known for allowing creators to sell explicit photos and videos to subscribers.
basically, nothing in George’s biography is real.
The bipartisan House Ethics Committee report tallying them up went even deeper, unveiling new details and confirming stories by The New York Times and others about a tangled knot of biographic fictions, business frauds and bizarre campaign schemes that federal prosecutors are also scrutinizing.
Santos spent every waking hour finding new ways to grift. from the report:
Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit. He blatantly stole from his campaign. He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit. He reported fictitious loans to his political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign—and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported “repayments” of those fictitious loans. He used his connections to high value donors and other political campaigns to obtain additional funds for himself through fraudulent or otherwise questionable business dealings. And he sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience.
proving that even the shameless can sometimes be shamed, Santos announced that he won’t seek reelection.
spoiler alert: no fucking way that he was ever going to win reelection. he’s currently polling lower than cancer.
besides, he may be gone even sooner than that:
House Ethics Chairman Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican, introduced a resolution Friday to expel GOP Rep. George Santos of New York from Congress, one day after the Ethics Committee released a damning report on its investigation into Santos.
the committee is also to referring its findings to the DOJ for prosecution, saying that George’s chicanery was “beneath the dignity of the office, and has brought severe discredit upon the House.”
imagine being so corrupt that Republicans don’t want you in their party. pat yourself on the back, George — or Anthony, or whatever the fuck name you’re going by these days.
drunks
uh oh — Rudy Colludy is in deep doody.
“tell us something we don’t already know,” I hear you saying.
nope, this has nothing to do with Rudy’s pending disbarment, or the defamation suit he’s losing badly, or the millions of dollars he owes his lawyers, or the sexual assault claims.
no, this is a whole new shitpile of bad news for Rudy.
Three Ukrainians who aided the Donald Trump campaign’s efforts to discredit the Biden family have been charged with treason.
The 2019 drive was led by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was Mr Trump's personal lawyer at the time.
It centered on unproven allegations that Joe Biden had corrupt dealings with Ukraine as vice-president.
Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said the three men charged were paid by Russian military intelligence (GRU).
It added that they had used a “tense political situation” to harm Ukraine’s reputation abroad.
so now it looks like Rudy is going to find himself to be an international person of interest.
whomp whomp.
violent jerks
the idiot who used a hammer to beat the shit out of Paul Pelosi has been found guilty of using a hammer to beat the shit out of Paul Pelosi.
A jury has found David DePape guilty on two counts in the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, last year in the couple’s San Francisco home.
DePape was convicted in federal court of one count of assault on the immediate family member of a federal official, with the jury determining that he used a dangerous weapon, and a second count of attempted kidnapping of a federal official. He could face a maximum sentence of 30 years and 20 years on the charges, respectively.
hey, remember after the initial attack, how there was an immediate outpouring from Republicans expressing concern for Paul Pelosi, and wishing him a speedy recovery?
of course you don’t.
Republicans laughed their faces off at an 83-year-old man being woken by an intruder in the middle of the night and savagely beaten into unconsciousness. they made sick jokes. they posted tasteless memes, trafficked in conspiracy theories, and implied that Paul Pelosi had it coming to him.
fuck the whole lot of you, you ghouls.
and this fucking guy
it wouldn’t be a day if Donny Four-Indictments didn’t find some way to wedge his unpleasant face into the news.
two quick hits:
there’s always a judge somewhere who can be counted on to do the wrong thing. that’s been Trump’s modus for getting away with crimes his entire life: end up in court, and then appeal the fuck out of everything, forever, until you find that one judge who will rule in your favor.
New York appeals court Judge David Friedman on Thursday paused gag orders on Donald J. Trump and his lawyers that had prevented them from commenting on court staff in the civil fraud trial of the former president.
The order against Mr. Trump was issued on the trial’s second day by the presiding judge, Arthur F. Engoron, after Mr. Trump attacked the judge’s law clerk in a social media post accusing her of being a Democratic partisan. It prohibited Mr. Trump from any further attacks on the clerk and other court staff.
you’ll never guess what happened next. actually, you will totally guess, because it’s the least-surprising thing to ever happen in the history of the universe:
Barely an hour after a gag order prohibiting Donald Trump from commenting about court staff at his civil fraud trial in New York was temporarily lifted, he was at it again — unleashing a blitzkrieg of social media outrage at a clerk who has become the lightning rod for the former president’s rage.
awesome job, Judge Friedman. take a victory lap.
but there’s some good news, too:
Trump’s social media company has lost over $31 million since its launch, faces potential shutdown
yup, the guy who went broke running casinos is bleeding money running a crappy twitter-clone.
I know, right? I’m as shocked as you are.
Donald Trump is a carnival-barking flim-flam artist — and not even a good one — and I will never for the life of me understand how so many fucking people continue to be taken in by his blatantly obvious clownfuckery.
Jeff, I'm thanking Ja every damn day for your substack. You bring such great levity to the most horrific era in our American experiment.
I’m not sure whether the resolution to expel Santos will pass or fail...and that really explains the state of our democracy.