• @[email protected]
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    652 years ago

    Pffft, big whoop, he’ll go back to being CEO of Goldman-Sachs and owner of the Denver Broncos, this is barely a speedbump.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    142 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The House on Friday voted to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from Congress — an action the chamber had taken only five times in U.S. history and not for more than 20 years — in response to an array of alleged crimes and ethical lapses that came to light after the freshman lawmaker was found to have fabricated key parts of his biography.

    The vote followed the release two weeks ago of a 56-page Ethics Committee report that accused Santos of an array of misconduct — including stealing money from his campaign, deceiving donors about how contributions would be used, creating fictitious loans and engaging in fraudulent business dealings.

    Santos, the report alleges, spent hefty sums on personal enrichment, including visits to spas and casinos, shopping trips to high-end stores and payments to a subscription site that contains adult content.

    A defiant Santos has long denied wrongdoing and resisted calls to resign, claiming at a news conference Thursday that fellow House members were “bullying” him and that the Ethics Committee report was incomplete and “littered with hyperbole.”

    During House debate Thursday over the resolution, Guest defended the work and report of the panel, saying investigators spent eight months reviewing 172,000 pages of documents and interviewing 40 witnesses.

    During long-winded remarks on X Spaces last week, Santos — despite saying he would not step down from office — said he no longer wanted to work with “a bunch of hypocrites” in Congress, whom he accused of committing infractions more severe than his, including being “more worried about getting drunk every night” with lobbyists.


    The original article contains 1,411 words, the summary contains 262 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • TWeaK
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    1072 years ago

    including stealing money from his campaign, deceiving donors about how contributions would be used

    I bet this was the real reason he was expelled. Congressmen rely on donations for their grift, and their donors were no doubt asking if they supported his practice.

    • BraveSirZaphod
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      792 years ago

      Hell, he literally stole money from another Republican Congressman and his wife.

      You almost have to respect it.

      • SuperDuper
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        532 years ago

        For how blatant his lies and fabrications were, and how brazenly he stole and misued money, I’m honestly impressed that he got into office in the first place (who tf was running his opponent’s campaign?). Surviving 11 months after that was just standard “Republicans refusing to hold each other accountable” behavior. But man, gotta admit the guy pulled off a pretty decent con.

        • @[email protected]
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          42 years ago

          The GOP wants blackmail and leverage options, and only when they have the power.

          Santos’s lies were pretty clear, blatant, and he was grifting his own party. Useless as an asset, and detrimental to his own people.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          He is from a safe very red district so the craziest person wins the primary and then basically gets in free after that.

          • @[email protected]
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            112 years ago

            It’s a blue district, though only D+2 (meaning it tends to be 2 points more towards Dems than the national average). It did vote for Bush in 2004, but is otherwise straight blue for President since 1992. Most recently went for Biden by +10 points.

            • @[email protected]
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              92 years ago

              Republicans have historically held that seat with very large majorities. Over 70% during Bush and Obama presidencies. Trump was enough to drag it down but then as soon as he was off the ballot it’s back to crazy land Republicans. I might be wrong but to me that says deep red.

        • @[email protected]
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          532 years ago

          I’m honestly impressed that he got into office in the first place (who tf was running his opponent’s campaign?).

          His opponent repeatedly tried to blow the whistle at what was going on with Santos’ campaign, but was all but ignored by the media who considered it a low-level race not worth covering. I think it took about a month after the election before the media started to actually give a damn.

    • @[email protected]
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      372 years ago

      I don’t even think that deceiving donors was the line. I think it was exactly what he bought. OnlyFans? Scandalous. Botox for a man? Shameful. If he’d bought guns and an F350, or just Venmo’d a high school student, he’d still a congressman.

      • TWeaK
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        162 years ago

        Friendly reminder that OnlyFans talking about banning porn on their platform was just a cover to distract from the news story about them allowing users hosting child porn, prostitution and other illegal material to get away with warnings, so long as their accounts were profitable.

          • TWeaK
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            32 years ago

            Because it’s illegal to solicit prostitution in most countries. The other common illegal content was scat. That was the point of the exposé, to highlight that they were allowing illegal users making illegal content on their platform to get away with warnings - I mean, how can you merely warn someone who is underage that they should stop posting underage content?!

            • @[email protected]
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              52 years ago

              Fair enough, though it does still seem a bit odd to list prostitution in particular. Whats the joke? If you fuck while recording it it aint prostitution.

    • @[email protected]
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      112 years ago

      Exactly. It’s like Bernie Madoff. Bernie was doing the same thing as everyone else in 2008, but his clients were all rich folks. He went to jail. The hilarious thing is that Donald Trump was interviewed about Bernie and even Donnie had to admit that it was mostly victimless, because everyone Madoff had stolen from could afford the loses.

      • @[email protected]
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        112 years ago

        Bernie is an interesting case. As part of his guilty plea, he admitted that from around 1990 onward, basically every transaction in his company was fraudulent. The actual start was probably at the beginning of his company in the '70s.

        What makes that interesting is that his clients weren’t just rich, but experienced. They knew how to smell out a con. He was able to keep his claims just plausible enough that they didn’t notice for decades.

        A lot of Ponzi schemes will claim 300% or 5000% percent returns in a year. Experienced investors know that’s bullshit; maybe you can get lucky in one or two trades, but it’s never sustainable. The SP500 will tend to give you returns of 8% or so in the long run (with plenty of year to year variation), and it’s hard to beat that while accounting for transaction costs. Bernie was claiming 15-20%, which is good, but not crazy.

        • @[email protected]
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          82 years ago

          imho, they all knew it was a scam, but they all figured that they were the insiders and only the rubes were getting fleeced.

      • partial_accumen
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        122 years ago

        Bernie was doing the same thing as everyone else in 2008, but his clients were all rich folks.

        CITATION NEEDED

        Lots of companies were using legal but sketchy as hell financial instruments and over inflating safety on investments where lots of people lost lots of money. Bernie was different. He was creating fraudulent statements saying you had money in your account with him for years and only paying out with what other new investors put in; classic Ponzi scheme.

        What other large Ponzi schemes at the time are you saying were occurring?

  • @[email protected]
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    72 years ago

    wow that only took half a year. good thing he still got to sit there and vote and get paid in the meantime

      • @[email protected]
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        92 years ago

        His antics were public knowledge weeks before he took office. It was just impossible trying to get someone to actually give a damn at the time.

        • @[email protected]
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          42 years ago

          There was a phrase back in Jim Crow days; a ‘yellow dog’ Democrat was a Party stalwart who’d vote for a yellow dog if they had a ‘D’ next to their name. The Party has changed but the dogs haven’t

  • FoundTheVegan
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    342 years ago

    Nehls claimed, without evidence, that the Ethics Committee had been “weaponized” against Santos.

    “You may accept this report as grounds for expulsion from Congress, but I say no,” Nehls said. “It’s not right. The totality of circumstance appears biased. It stinks of politics.”

    Any amount of ethics will always be resisted by Republicans. 🙄

  • @[email protected]
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    42 years ago

    Do you guys think he is going to get a job with a lobbyist group before or after he serves time in federal prison?

    • Billiam
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      72 years ago

      Former Congresscritters are only useful to lobbyists because they still have influence in Congress. Who the fuck listens to former Representative George Santos?

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      I don’t think so. I think he’s too toxic for even the worst of the GOP, especially since he’s admitted to being a serial liar. He has no credibility even within the party for him to be considered valuable to lobbyists.

      • Davel23
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        52 years ago

        So you’re saying he’ll be Trump’s VP pick?

        • @[email protected]
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          2 years ago

          Well, this is George Santos we’re talking about here. I mean, the man just received the votes of over 300 of his colleagues to leave Congress and become Trump’s VP pick. It has already led to Trump skyrocketing in the polls by 1462% among the fictional henchmen of the Marvel, DC, and Looney Tunes universes, and 3789% among incels who live in their mom’s basement and can’t even dress themselves.