‘Twas several nights after Christmas and a few nights before the New Year of 2023 when I first heard the news about George Santos. A recently elected Representative from NY to a very narrow Republican Majority in the US House of Representatives. Santos has been caught in a series of lies regarding his background and credentials. Tulsi Gabbard conducted an interview with him on the Tucker Carlson show this past Tuesday night (12-27-22). The transcript of this interview was published in “The Hill” by Emily Brooks on 12-27-2022. I would like to add my commentary to the views that were published regarding this interview. First, I must give my congratulations to Ms. Gabbard for her interview. She asked some hard questions and literally kept the lying Santo’s feet to the fire.
My prologue to this interview is simply this. Lying starting with Trump has become endemic in the Republican Party. They seem to have no qualms or shame when it comes to telling lies. They will do little or nothing to sanction Santos for two reasons. First, because lying is the norm for Republicans today, and it is not illegal. Second, because they do not want to risk losing Santo’s seat in the house. With this preliminary insight out of the way, I want to add my comments to the following transcript. I shall try to make my comments obvious by bolding my opinions and viewpoints.
I have one caveat to make before I start. I am not kicking a sleeping dog. This dog refuses to stop biting. He is not giving up his seat and he refuses to accept any responsibility for his lies. Instead, he says he is ready to serve his constituents and wants the world to just forget his transgressions.
Tulsi Gabbard tears into George Santos during Fox interview: ‘Do you have no shame?’ — BY EMILY BROOKS – 12/27/22 9:38 PM ET
Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) ripped into Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) over his embellishments and fabrications about his background, asking him point-blank, “Do you have no shame?”
“If I were one of those in New York’s 3rd District right now, now that the election is over, and I’m finding out all of these lies that you’ve told, not just one little lie or one little embellishment — these are blatant lies — my question is, do you have no shame?” Gabbard asked while filling in for Fox News host Tucker Carlson in an interview with Santos on Tuesday evening. “Do you have no shame? And the people who are now, you’re asking to trust you to go and be their voice for them, their families and their kids in Washington?”
“Tulsi, I can say the same thing about the Democrats,” Santos responded. “Look at Joe Biden. Joe Biden has been lying to the American people for 40 years. He’s the president of the United States. Democrats resoundingly support him. Do they have no shame?”
Here we have the time-honored way of deflecting the blame by attacking someone else. It is a version of the philosophical “Ad Hominem” fallacy, where you attack another person to avoid taking any responsibility for your own problems. Santos attacks Biden and avoids answering the question regarding his lack thereof of any shame. If he was going to mention a President who lied, he should have mentioned Trump who undoubtedly broke all records for lying to the American people.
Gabbard interjected, saying that her question was not about the Democrats.
Three cheers for Gabbard who stepped on his strategy.
Santos has emerged from days of silence following reports from The New York Times and other outlets this month that revealed misrepresentations, fabrications and lies about his personal background.
In various interviews with the New York Post and elsewhere this week, Santos has admitted to “embellishing” his resume, including saying that he did not graduate from college and that he did not work directly for financial giants Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.
I love this. He did not graduate from college. He did not work for one of the major financial giants. But he just calls adding these lies to his resume an “embellishment”. I wonder if you went in for a job interview with lies like this on your resume whether the interviewer would see it as a simple embellishment? If they found out after you were hired, do you think they would keep you on the job? Where else in the world can you lie repeatedly and keep your job except for the US House of Representative and US Senate. The present salary for a US Representative is $174,000 a year.
Santos says a poor choice of words led to confusion about his work history, insisting that he did business with both companies and helped make “capital introductions” through “limited partnerships.” He relayed some of that explanation in the interview with Gabbard.
I did not lie says Santos, I merely chose my words poorly. Like me saying that Santos is a lying sack of putrid excrement instead of a lying sack of shit. Sorry, I just chose my worlds poorly. I hope I did not offend anyone. I promise I will choose my words more carefully in the future.
He has also come under fire for representing himself as an “American Jew” and saying that his maternal grandparents fled Europe during World War II, even though reports have emerged that those grandparents were born in Brazil before the war.
This is truly unbelievable. He is on record and on video as lying to a Jewish assembly about his religion and heritage. He claims he is culturally Jewish but was raised as a Catholic. I was raised as a Catholic but was culturally Italian since my father was Italian. I cannot see how any Catholic could be culturally Jewish. As many Jewish people will tell you, for many years, Catholicism treated Jews as “Those killers of Christ.” I remember being told that it was a mortal sin to step into a synagogue. I am sure my Catholic priest would have had a heart attack if he found out that I attended a “Seder” or Passover rite with some Jewish friends.
Gabbard pressed Santos on those points.
“My heritage is Jewish. I’ve always identified as Jewish. I was raised as a practicing Catholic,” Santos said. “Not being raised a practicing Jew, I’ve always joked with friends and circles, even within the campaign, I’d say, guys, I’m ‘Jew-ish.’ Remember, I was raised Catholic.”
This sounds like some sort of Orwellian Double Speak. “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” — George Orwell. 1984. Part 1, Chapter 5.
Santos uses some convoluted thought to try to convince us that deep down he is Jewish. I suppose if he were running in Alabama, he would be a Baptist and in Utah, he would be a Mormon.
“So, look, I understand everybody wants to nitpick at me. I’m gonna reassure this once and for all. I’m not a facade. I’m not a persona. I have an extensive career that I worked really hard to achieve. And I’m going to deliver from my experience because I remain committed in delivering results for the American people,” Santos said.
Boohoo. Please feel sorry for me. Santos must have picked this shtick up from Nixon. He needs a small dog in his lap while giving us this speech before I can feel sorry for him. Yes, I know he has a mother who loves him.
“Congressman-elect Santos, we’ve given you a lot of time. I think the time that is owed is to the people of New York’s 3rd. It’s hard to imagine how they could possibly trust your explanations when you’re not really even willing to admit the depth of your deception to them,” Gabbard said.
This coming from a Tucker Carlson show host really surprised me. Gabbard skewered him mercilessly. She must have forgotten that she switched parties and was now a Republican. I would not be surprised to see a rebuttal from the Republican party concerning her remarks.
Gabbard is the second former Democratic member of Congress to interview Santos this week. He also spoke with former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who resigned in 2011 after the revelation of sexually explicit messages he sent to a minor, on WABC radio this week.
My guess is that Weiner and Santos have a lot in common and it is not their Jewishness. You might remember Weiner as the man who sent a picture of his penis through a text to one of his girl friends while he was married. Birds of a feather flock together.
I have nothing more to add folks. As they say, actions speak louder than words. When are we going to demand some level of truthfulness in our politicians and trouble them for their lying ads and words? Even now, I hear people saying “Well, he did not do anything illegal.” Whatever happened to unethical and immoral? Are we willing to tolerate deceit and falsehoods regardless of the circumstances because they are not illegal.
There is a difference between justice and the law. Justice demands that people we elect are honest and ethical and moral. Any less should disqualify a person from holding a public office.
How do you know if you know anything? You have two paths to answer this question. The first path involves your belief that you do know something. You can choose this path if you are fairly certain that you know something. It may surprise you, but this is not a path of science. This is a Faith-Based path. No matter what anyone tells you, science relies on faith almost as much as religion relies on faith.
The Faith Based Path could lead one to accept that hundreds of systems across America could not all have been wrong and that the tallies were accurate because someone you trust told you they were. If you do not trust the poll counters, you will reject the decisions made by election boards and cling to the idea that Trump was cheated by liars and scoundrels. Either way it is a matter of faith.
I have often been accused of being a pessimist but there is nothing about this quote that is pessimistic. It is simply a fact that we must use our imaginations to see a different world and to believe that a different world can exist. As long as we are stuck in the same thinking that generated our problems, we are not free to consider alternative realities. We need more thinking about possibilities and the future. We are bogged down with what Dr. Deming called the “problems of today.” Deming said, “We must balance the problems of today with the problems of tomorrow.”
I want to make an argument as to why most of what you hear or read is biased, prejudiced and based on narrow minded thinking. Most of what you read will not lead you to the truth but will take you down a path away from the truth. My argument will also apply to what you are about to read. I am biased, narrow minded and prejudiced. So why should you read or listen to what I am about to write? Well, let’s start at the beginning.
I have been seeking the truth or what might pass as “truth” for most of my 75 years on this earth. I was considered the “smartest” guy in the room in many of my high school and college classes. The authorities or those that are supposed to be good judges of truth and knowledge gave me two undergraduate degrees, one master’s degree and a Ph.D. Degree. Once upon a time, I belonged to many different professional associations and was also a member of MENSA, the so-called high IQ society. None of my qualifications or associations prepared me any better than anyone else upon this earth to find the TRUTH. Like most of you, I am still looking and hoping that the “Truth will set me free.” If only, I can find it.
“Rathom campaigned for the U.S. to enter World War I in support of the British. Under his management, the Providence Journal produced a series of exposés of German espionage and propaganda in the U.S. In 2004, that same newspaper reported that much of Rathom’s coverage was a fraud: ‘In truth, the Providence Journal had acquired numerous inside scoops on German activities, mostly from British intelligence sources who used Rathom to plant anti-German stories in the American media.’” – 
“The media are among those that profit by marketing fear – nothing gives a boost to circulation and ratings like a good panic – but the media also promote unreasonable fears for subtler and more compelling reasons. The most profound is the simple love of stories and storytelling. For the media, the most essential ingredient of a good story is the same as that of a good movie, play or tale told by a campfire. It has to be about people and emotions, not numbers and reason. Thus, the particularly tragic death of a single child will be reported around the world while a massive and continuing decline in child mortality rates is hardly noticed.” — Pg. 294
Integrity is everything to lose and nothing to gain, except your self-respect. Integrity is standing up for what you believe is right even when everyone is against you. Integrity is the ability to put compassion and kindness ahead of self-interest. Integrity cannot co-exist with greed. It cannot co-exist with lust. It cannot co-exist with a thirst for power. It cannot co-exist with a drive for money, fame, or fortune. All of these elements are like Kryptonite to Integrity. Kryptonite was the one thing that could rob Superman of his powers. Lust, greed, money, fame, and power all have the ability to rob one of his/her integrity.
Politics is a sham in America today. We have men and women who are elected for life and spend more time campaigning then they do in serving their constituents. Public servants who start collecting money to run their next campaigns within days of winning their present office. We have a system of government where money is the most important factor in who gets elected and who gets reelected. Our politicians are more worried about losing votes than they are in the constitution or in protecting our democracy. What Integrity is there in supporting a riot to overthrow a fair election that every court and every state in America found was fairly conducted? The media seized on the outrageousness of the Big Lie to sell news. The losing party seized on the credibility of millions of gullible supporters to buy the Big Lie and try to maintain their power.
The media in America has become another hallowed institution gutted by greed and a desire for more and more money. Reporters, writers, and journalists in America today are more interested in selling advertising than they are in balanced objective reporting. You can divide the news up by whether they lean Right or Left, Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican. Each side has a mirror image on the other side of the political spectrum. CNN is opposed by Fox News. The New York Times is opposed by The New York Post and the Washington Post is opposed by the Washington Times. One side supports the Right and the other side supports the left. This is not balanced reporting, and no truth comes out of the dynamic between the two sides. What both sides have in common are reporters who will report the most useless, tasteless, uninformative stories if they perceive that these stories will sell advertising or if they can figure out a clickbait title that will attract readers and thereby expose them to paid commercials.
f you want more of a description of each scale you can follow the hyperlink above. The USA ties for 10th place with Great Britain on this index. I can see some correlation with Integrity, but I can see many differences. I think honesty is one component of Integrity, but Integrity is more complex than being simply honest. An honest person can still lack integrity if they are unwilling to stand up for what they believe. Cowardice and Integrity are incompatible.
There are many who would consider Martin Luther the father of the Protestant Reformation. Growing up Catholic, we regarded Protestants as heretics. We all knew that the one true religion was Catholic, and Protestants did not know what they really wanted. What does the name Protestant even mean? Taking it at face value, it would seem to mean to protest against. The dictionary defines a Protestant as someone who has broken from the Roman Catholic church. If you are a Protestant you practice a form of Christianity in protest to the Catholic form. There are over 200 major Protestant denominations in the USA and over 35,000 independent or non-denominational Christian churches which are ostensibly Protestant. During the past few decade, we have seen numerous splits in Protestant churches over such issues as gay marriages, gay clergy, women ministers. Even though I am a non-Catholic myself, I can’t help but be amazed at the dissension and disunity among Protestants. I wonder what Martin Luther would have thought if he were alive today.
“Primary-source accounts of the trial and execution of Socrates are the Apology of Socrates by Plato and the Apology of Socrates to the Jury by Xenophon of Athens, who had been his student; contemporary interpretations include The Trial of Socrates (1988) by the journalist I. F. Stone, and Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths (2009) by the Classics scholar Robin Waterfield.” —- 
If you think about the ideas or premises or nostrums that guide your life, you will soon notice that we have many ideas that along our journey we have adopted. The sources of these ideas are vast. Fairy tales and children’s stories give us ideas such as “A stitch in time saves nine” or the “The race does not always go to the swift” or “Those who do not plan ahead may starve in the winter.” Many of our ideas about living no come from our parents and family. My mother used to say such things as “Ignorance is bliss” and “If you give them enough rope, they will hang themselves.” My father was fond of saying “Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.” He also used to like to say, “You have nothing to fear from the dead, only the living.” These two later beliefs have guided a great deal of my life.
