Over on Facebook, there’s a bit of gloating and laughter about the historic expulsion of a Congressman.
I understand the humor, kinda sorta … it’s Facebook, after all.
But we should not be laughing.
George Santos personifies the decay at the heart of today’s Republican party:
It’s not a “clown show” when more than half (112-105-5) of the Republicans in the House of Representatives ignore facts as they voted to keep Santos in the House.
Plus, seven Democrats failed (in one way or another) to vote for expulsion. I do not know what to make of the fact that most are people of color or from southern states.
The vote, 311-114, was only slightly more than the two-thirds required by the Constitution (290).
Look: the House Ethics Committee report concluded that Santos “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit” and “blatantly stole from his campaign.”
Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) claimed, shortly before the vote, that Santos had charged “contribution amounts that exceeded FEC limits” to his credit card as well as that of his mother. The freshman stated that neither he nor his mother had approved the charges which had resulted in “tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees in the resulting follow up.”
Yet GOP leadership chose power over principle.
Speaker Mike Johnson (LA), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (LA) and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (NY) each opposed expulsion.
These men – and the other 111 Representatives who voted to retain Santos – need remedial ethics. STAT.
As Sidney Blumenthal notes in The Guardian:
So long as Santos voted as a reliable Republican (100% Heritage Action rating), he was shielded from ritual rounds of queer bashing, much less expulsion. The narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives required every able-bodied member who could hold up an arm. Santos was straight as a party liner.
He also reminds the reader of Johnson’s own dubious past, which faded from front pages as Israel dominated them:
Johnson might well cite Matthew 7:1: “Judge not, that ye not be judged.” His own financial disclosure forms since he was a state legislator in Louisiana and as a member of the House are extraordinarily sketchy. He claimed he did not have a bank account. But as a legislator he had a contract to bill the state $400,000 to defend a law he sponsored to restrict abortion clinic access. In 2015 his financial disclosure form showed he cleared tens of thousands from religious right organizations: Freedom Guard, a legal operation; Living Waters Publications, a Christian publishing house that offered “biblical evangelism training camps”; Louisiana Right to Life; Louisiana Freedom Forum; and the Providence Classical Academy ($5,000-$24,999), “part-time” (emphasis added).
GOP leadership needs to spend time with Aldous Huxley; this observation is from 1937:
The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.
See how your Representative voted: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2023691
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The post Santos expulsion vote reflects the diseased heart of the GOP appeared first on The Moderate Voice.
