A Few More Details and Derails

Well, I had great intentions for tonight's episode, but the research caught me off guard and it's not the simple investigation I was planning on. More about that in a moment.

G-d bless PBS NewHour. Tonight they ran an interview with Grant Lally, publisher of the North Shore Leader, the paper that broke the Santos story last September. I loved what Geoff Bennett said: "...after a bombshell report by the New York Times last month, but the Times wasn't the first to report on Santos' fabricated biography..." Nowhere in the original NYT article does it mention that. And that, folks, pissed me off. 

Lally told PBS interviewer Geoff Bennett:

Well, look, he was a prominent personality while he was running for office. And we're pretty attuned to the political activities of folks on the North Shore.

 

So, a lot of people with a newspaper and a lot of people I knew outside the newspaper were following him and tracking him and looking at what his claims were. And what we all concluded was that he was a fraud. He was making things up and lying and boasting and putting people down, claiming he was such a rich man, when he clearly wasn't.

 

And so we all smelled a fake, and we started looking through his campaign finance reports. And we saw a lot there that looked fraudulent, really over-the-top fraudulent.

Watch the interview with Greg Lally. It's quite enlightening. The segment begins at -28.00:

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...........

USPS seems to be imploding before our very eyes. I no longer get mail on a daily basis. Even with Informed Delivery, they tell me mail is coming, but it rarely shows up when it's supposed to. I've had three packages showing "out for delivery," but never delivered. One came 10 days after the tracking notice showed it was out for delivery. I actually wrote to my congresswoman, Angie Craig, and was assured I was not only not alone and she was starting a formal complaint process with the Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy-less. 

Here's the thing: the PG is actually appointed by the USPS board of governors. He does not serve at the pleasure of the president, although the president often nominates the candidate. DeJoy was nominated by Feckless Loser despite known conflicts of interest with the Postal Service. From the outset, he has done more to damage the USPS than to help it, despite his claims to the contrary. 

A dear friend who works in a rural post office in another state sent me the following:

I had hoped to talk to my friend SXXXXX, who's been a letter carrier for 37 years, as to what he sees as different. I know there's been new--expensive--sorting machinery, which, like most of DeJoyless's ideas, didn't work. 

The consensus is that the man is trying to destroy the USPS, and it's working. I read the "customer satisfaction" surveys every day.  Customers are swearing off the USPS in droves. 

Since it is an absolute nightmare of a place to work, we can't hire enough people. Particularly difficult roles to fill are the delivery people, whose work week is 7 days. I know he's hired many new people--who have no more idea how a post office works than how to make mayonnaise.

I've heard tales from the front lines who report sorting machines that worked were pulled and not replaced, leaving the ones that were there flooded beyond capacity. On the few days I actually do get mail, much of it isn't mine or my neighbors...it's for different buildings on my block. I don't know what anyone else does, but I drive around and deliver the mail. That's what I hope someone would do with my mail. 

So I started researching DeJoy, USPS, and some of the peripheral issues. It wasn't a can of worms...it was a veritable snake pit.  Here's the thing: USPS is an important agency and one that is mentioned in the Constitution under Section 8: The Powers of Congress. It includes the following statement:

To establish Post Offices and post Roads

Which basically means postal service is a constitutional right. And yes, the post service should attempt to be self-supporting. And yes, I know all about mail levels dropping and shippers creating ties for package delivery. Di-dah, di-dah, di-dah. That's what the research is about at the moment. And before you blame Amazon for USPS non-delivery of your Prime orders, understand that it's contracts with Amazon, UPS, and Fed-Ex that might just be keeping the post office afloat. Still, that does not relieve the Postmaster General of his responsibility to keep USPS mail delivery on track. 

So enough for now. It's been a challenging week here and it ain't over yet. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

I understand we Minnesnowtans are not alone with USPS issues.

but I do have a request of you, gentle readers: 

if you are NOT getting normal mail delivery,  please leave a comment,

or send an email to me with your town, state, and zip code.

Let Me Make This Perfectly Clear

Let me make this perfectly clear from the get-go: whether or not The Muscovite Candidate is seated in Congress on January 3rd is not the real issue here. Santos is nothing more than a harbinger at best, a red herring at worst. The guy lied. He was exposed, stripped naked in the glare of reality's limelight. The best we can do is hope he doesn't think morals are mushrooms and scruples are money in Russia. The GOP is gonna seat him whether America likes it or not.

That said, my friend Jill who writes at Brilliant At Breakfast - Rebooted, pointed out:

Unless the incoming Speaker of the House (whomever that may be) decides otherwise, pathological liar George Santos will have access to classified national security information after he is sworn in tomorrow. Federal legislators are not required to get security clearances. They have always been assumed to [be] people acting in good will and are loyal Americans. Perhaps this needs to change.

Sleep well tonight, America.

There is nothing that can unwind the election....although I'm sure if this was a Democrat, the GOP would be screaming bloody murder....but it doesn't freakin' matter. It's over. 

But not entirely; two significant issues are still hanging out there: journalistic integrity (or lack, thereof) and political chicanery. Both of these are dangerous to any future for American democracy. Both damage the election process while undermining confidence in that process. Both are, unfortunately, very subtle subterfuge, and are easily buried in the mulch of politics as usual.

On Sunday, The New York Times published an article: As His Life of Fantasy Comes Into Focus, George Santos Goes to Washington

Mr. Santos has admitted that he fabricated key parts of his educational and professional history, after a New York Times investigation uncovered discrepancies in his résumé and questions about his financial dealings. Federal and local prosecutors are investigating whether he committed crimes involving his finances or misleading statements. Now, new reporting shows that his falsehoods began years before he entered politics.

That's my highlight in yellow because that line jumped right off the page for me. The line makes it sound like the NYT was breaking the story, that their reporting alone had uncovered this deception when, in fact, they did not. The NYT, who should've reported the questions being raised back in 2020 or again in September 2022, merely jumped on the currently rolling bandwagon. Anyone wanna explain that to me?

Actually, the story was broken by The North Shore Leader, yet no one ran with it. Sarah Ellison of the Washington Post, did a fascinating piece about this failure. She wrote:

It’s possible that the Leader’s reporting fell into a void in part because there are fewer papers to cover the news than in the past. The number of journalists has declined by 60 percent since 2005, according to government statistics. 

Research from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University this year found that on average two newspapers are disappearing in the United States every week. The nation has lost more than a quarter of its newspapers since 2005 and is on track to lose a third by 2025. There are now more than 1,600 counties with only one newspaper, typically a weekly.

This tidbit stopped me dead in my tracks. With all the access to media and information, how is it possible the number of journalists has declined by 60% since 2005? One would think newspapers would support remote access for reporters on the ground. 

This past week, there's been a lot of attention paid to the lack of local reporting. It is entirely possible that giant conglomerates owning major news organizations dismiss local reporting as unable to generate significant amounts of income. It is also possible that local reporting cuts into advertising revenue for any number of un-great reasons causing advertisers to flee, making newspapers financially unsustainable. 

In the case of The North Shore Leader, explained owner Grant Lally, many of the reporters and contributing staff are students and retirees.

Local news doesn’t get much more local than the Leader. A weekly published and primarily run by Grant Lally, an attorney whose parents bought it in the late 1990s, most of the newspaper’s staff works part time and holds down other jobs to pay the bills. “Nobody can survive on local papers alone,” Lally said in an interview.  

Lally was particularly well-prepared to cover the race for New York’s 3rd District. He had run for the seat himself in 1994, 1996 and again in 2014. A lifelong Republican, Lally was George W. Bush’s floor manager in Miami during the 2000 presidential election recount. 

The Leader’s staff, which includes students and retirees, all are steeped in the largely wealthy local communities on the North Shore of Long Island, which gives them access to local political gossip. “We can boil that down very quickly,” Lally said.

That newspapers and journalists are disappearing cannot be ignored. If only the BIG stories are reported, guys like Santos will continue to exploit that fissure in the system. That should come as no surprise to anyone. 

When big news is not covering the elections on the ground, one still has to get information about candidates and platforms. We already know BIG money is running garbage ads on both sides. Fact has given way to spin, shoring up whatever bubble the algorithms think you're in. Social media's not gonna give you an even picture of candidates; it's gonna give you what you wanna hear. Who is gonna know the truth?

One can only hope the nominating parties are investigating their candidates thoroughly. One might hope, after the debacle of Feckless Loser, the GOP and the DNC would be paying close attention to the person wearing the party colors. Clearly that was not the case in Georgia where they nominated and ran a marginally cogent sexual predator for Congress. Let's not forget to mention his inability to form a coherent sentence in a press conference. One would've thought that listening to him during the primaries would've sounded a deafening warning claxon to the party, but alas; it did not. 

Perhaps even scarier is that 49% of Georgia's voting population voted for this clown. 

The failure of the machine to vet guys like Santos or Kistner (MN2 loser) or Walker (GA Senate loser) should be a warning shot across the bow of all voters. One cannot rely on a political party to tell you the truth about any one candidate. Trusting the downline of names listed by your party, filling in circles on the ballot without recognizing those names, without knowing what those candidates represent, without doing a bit of googling on your own does not give you a "Hey, I-didn't-know-that's-what-he/she-believed" hall pass; just the opposite. You own your vote.

For the record, the failure of the press isn't gonna bail you out here, either. While the Washington Post does a great job fact-checking lots of stuff, they didn't do squat here. Of course, some say Santos was within the purview of the New York Times and Newsday; it's safe to say both papers failed to cover news important to their local readership. In turn, both must be held accountable for that. 

Along with the voters. 

What can you do? Support your local paper. Read it. Write to the editor. Maybe contribute an op-ed piece or a letter to the editor. Pay attention to your local caucus. Write to your Congressclown. It's easy enough to do...every one of their websites has a contact form. And even if you write how much you hate what they're doing, it gets read. 

I've said this a hundred times: silence is complicity. You cannot draw the drapes and pretend this doesn't impact you. Guys like Santos will have access to classified information about this country. If you're okay with the very real possibility he's capable of selling information, sit back, relax and do nothing. We already learned the hard way on January 6th, 2021, that not every elected official in this country has our best interest at heart. 

What you do with this information/rant is up to you. We can only hope We, the People, are committed to the preservation of democracy. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

We lost one of the great icons of news media this past week. 

Women in news really do stand on her shoulders.

Ms Walters provided a great roadmap to success in just about any endeavor:

Be the last one out.

Do your homework.

Choose your battles.

Don't whine and  

don't be the one who complains about everything.

Fight the BIG fights. 

Barbara Walters  (1929-2022)

You Just Cannot Make This Stuff Up...Or Maybe You Can ~ Part Deux

BREAKING NEWS: SANTOS FESSES UP BUT DOES NOT RESIGN 

from the NY TIMES: George Santos Admits to Lying About College and Work History

When I wrote about Congressclown-Elect George Santos a week ago, barely anyone outside of Nassau County was talking about this clown. Now, he is all over the place. This guy gives Pinocchio a run for his nose, and it keeps getting longer with every utterance. Increasingly apparent is the concept that IF...better yet, WHEN it falls outta his mouth, it's not true. 

Several questions rise to the surface and none are being adequately addressed. In fact, there's so much blame-passing it's beginning to look like an oil spill in Alaska. 

The LI Herald published an article on December 22nd, 2022, quoting candidate Zimmerman himself:

"My campaign has been calling out George Santos' scams and lies about himself for several months," Zimmernan said in a statement on Tuesday. 

Really? And you're expecting us to believe this because...? Were you going for a Muppet-esque whispering campaign? How is it that News 12 Long Island didn't bother to pick it up? This is just their kinda story. 

Meanwhile, the GOP, running Nassau County since I was a kid, is suddenly being excoriated for not vetting this guy prior to nomination. Now you do this? How did they nominate someone for Congress without a simple HR check? A SECOND TIME!?!?! It's not like they didn't have time to vet the guy the first time. 

Jeet Heer of The Nation, a liberal magazine, published a rather explicit article, The Making of a Congressional Con Man (26DEC2022, 5:30 AM) damning the NYTimes and other news providers:

But the Times hardly covered itself with glory. For much of the last two years, its coverage of New York was slanted toward sensationalistic reporting on crime that only benefited the Republicans. Smaller local papers (notably The North Shore Leader and Newsday) did a better job covering Santos. Mark Chiusano, a member of the Newsday editorial board, did several important pieces that highlighted how sketchy Santos was about his background. But like a lot of local papers, The North Shore Leader and Newsday don’t have the reporting staff they possessed even a decade ago, when they could have pursued the story with vigor. The New York Times—which does have the staff—stayed away from the story until it was moot since Santos had already won.

He's spot on. This was real, hard news, and journalistic pundits at every level chose to ignore it. And if you're gonna choose not to investigate such incredibly disturbing leads, what is your purpose? Clearly, it has nothing to do with providing your readers with news they can use... or at least talk about at the luncheonette counter over a hard roll and coffee. 

Just put GEORGE SANTOS in the Google search box and go to NEWS. Here; let me do it for you. Click this: GEORGE SANTOS NEWS. Pick through the articles; they're all scary. 

Not scary on the level of Feckless Loser and his insurrection, but scary in a Manchurian Candidate sorta way. Not that Santos is an assassin, merely an asshole, but still, who is paying for this? 

And his marriage to Uadla Santos Vieira Santos? He's supposed to be gay. He's supposed to be married to some guy. Granted, divorce records in New Jersey (where the divorce was filed) are sealed, but still, the petition is still visible. And how did the GOP miss that he was married and divorced, and that no record of a second marriage exists?

This is a whole new kinda scam. While part of me believes that Santos thought this up because, after all, the GOP really doesn't vet anything at all (see Marjorie Taylor Green and Madison Cawthorn...oh, yeah...Feckless Loser to name a few,) and he trusted that no one would vet him either, I cannot believe there isn't an outside brain thinking this stuff up. I just don't think he's that smart, or that he can play this virtual chess game several moves ahead. However....

...and gee, isn't there alway a however? This was not the first time he ran for this seat. One would think someone would've noticed the stench the first time and checked into this guy a little more thoroughly, but clearly, no one did. If that is indeed the case, how did both parties manage to lose the ability to Google stuff over presumably 3-4 years of candidacy?  That no one checked on this guy's resumé in either run for office screams more than simple sloppy research, it screams intentionality.

When Tyler Kistner ran against Angie Craig the first time, he was an unknown quantity. He seemed honorable enough because he was an active duty Marine captain from 2011-2019, a status that is easily documented. He becomes a captain in the Marine Reserves when he leaves active military duty in 2019 and appears to still be in the reserve. Does he have another job, or was he looking to go to Congress for employment? I can't figure that out. Reservists serve part-time, but officers get paid about $50K in the reserves, so he has an income. 

During the 2020 campaign, he claimed to have led combat missions. He lied about that, then lied about lying, saying he never saw combat. You'd think the GOP would think twice about running him again. Nope. They did, and amazingly, Kistner went down the same Pinocchiroad a second time.  Minnesota Reformer detailed the issue. Even though there was ample hard proof he was aggrandizing his service as he veered off the Truth Trail, GOP chose to run him again, as if We, the People of MN2 didn't remember he lied about his military service the first time around.

Which brings me back to Santos. 

My guess would be that honesty is not a policy for vetting candidates. I'm not suggesting that this is only a GOP problem; I am absolutely certain the Dems are guilty of the same sin of embellishment. Ilhan Omar is a good example of what not to do..or whom not to date. The optics were horrendous, but she married the guy. This time, she still managed to win the nomination in a rather heated field of Democrats, and then went on to retain her place in the House. That would indicate her ability to tell the truth is not a factor. The difference is that her inability to be honest with her constituency was exposed, examined, and intentionally set aside by the voters. Then it's their choice. But a candidate like George Santos who completely fabricates his educational, occupational, and marital resumé one might think the national party would hesitate at putting a liar of that magnitude in Congress. 

Or would they? 

If the journalist and news organs are supposed to serve the public by reporting accurately and honestly, how did they miss George Santos' lies twice? How is it not one single reporter went to city hall to check records? How is it that no one checked his yearbook for famous classmates? Hell's bells! The TV stations haul out the brother's-uncle's-cousin's-friend's-sister-in-law any time someone stubs a toe overseas. How is it that no one bothered to check on his family's Holocaust history? Everyone loves a heroic Holocaust story. Lots of votes to be had with that one. If what he had said was true, this was great human interest ratings-getters...but no one ran with that either. Why the hell not?

I replay this stuff in my brain over and over and over. There is something really fundamentally broken with Santos, and I cannot tell if it's him or the Nassau GOP that ran him. Years of living in the thumb of the county Republican Machine had taught me that it doesn't matter how corrupt or evil you are; if you're a big Republican in Nassau, no one can touch you. My cousin Ellis, a guy active in the Nassau County Democratic Party, assures me this is slowly changing; that Democrats have actually won a few local elections. Be that as it may, why didn't Zimmerman's campaign go after Santos for a House seat that woulda made a significant difference? What were they afraid of?  

Maybe that's the question no one is asking because they're afraid of the answer. Maybe it's time to ask the question before another election cycle starts in about a week. 

Happy secular New Year to all. May this one be a marked improvement over the last.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

The Vikings' win over the Giants on Saturday

will necessitate a cemetery run. 

Gotta make sure Ziggy hasn't clawed his way to the top.