George Santos Steps Down from Committees
Representative George Santos, elected to Congress in November after lying about... basically everything... in his qualifications for office, has chosen to step down from the two committees Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy had assigned him to.
It's notable that McCarthy refused calls not to assign Santos any roles after his utter lack of ethics became known. McCarthy cited the will of the 160,000 voters who voted for Santos in November's election. How ironic that is after McCarthy voted on January 6, along with 146 other Republicans in Congress, to overturn the will of 80,000,000 voters who voted to elect President Joe Biden.
How ironic also that McCarthy's refusal to act against Santos comes just days after he used his unilateral power as Speaker to boot two Democrats, Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, from the powerful House Intelligence Committee. McCarthy, acting sadly in the form of his namesake Sen. Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957), made transparently phony accusations against Schiff and Swalwell he refuses to provide any evidence for. Furthermore, with the Santos issue now out of the way (at least in terms of committee assignments), McCarthy now thinks he has the votes to boot another Democrat, Rep. Ilhan Omar, from her seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, on spurious charges.
The narrative of the 2022 election from many pollsters is that Republicans won a narrow majority in Congress by flipping suburban voters swing districts with moderate-sounding messages about addressing inflation, the budget, and crime. Attention suburban swing voters: You were duped.
The modern Republican party is a den of liars, conspiracy theorists, and unscrupulous power-seekers. What we've been seeing the past few weeks are the opening rounds in putting conspiracy crackpots in leadership roles to waste everyone's time on bad-faith investigations, and subverting the levers of power to punish their political opponents. Republicans crow about how our form of government is a republic. They're making it a banana republic.
It's notable that McCarthy refused calls not to assign Santos any roles after his utter lack of ethics became known. McCarthy cited the will of the 160,000 voters who voted for Santos in November's election. How ironic that is after McCarthy voted on January 6, along with 146 other Republicans in Congress, to overturn the will of 80,000,000 voters who voted to elect President Joe Biden.
How ironic also that McCarthy's refusal to act against Santos comes just days after he used his unilateral power as Speaker to boot two Democrats, Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, from the powerful House Intelligence Committee. McCarthy, acting sadly in the form of his namesake Sen. Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957), made transparently phony accusations against Schiff and Swalwell he refuses to provide any evidence for. Furthermore, with the Santos issue now out of the way (at least in terms of committee assignments), McCarthy now thinks he has the votes to boot another Democrat, Rep. Ilhan Omar, from her seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, on spurious charges.
The narrative of the 2022 election from many pollsters is that Republicans won a narrow majority in Congress by flipping suburban voters swing districts with moderate-sounding messages about addressing inflation, the budget, and crime. Attention suburban swing voters: You were duped.
The modern Republican party is a den of liars, conspiracy theorists, and unscrupulous power-seekers. What we've been seeing the past few weeks are the opening rounds in putting conspiracy crackpots in leadership roles to waste everyone's time on bad-faith investigations, and subverting the levers of power to punish their political opponents. Republicans crow about how our form of government is a republic. They're making it a banana republic.