CSotD: Say what?

When the little newspaper on Long Island revealed the cascade of lies under which George Santos was elected, it touched off a storm of political cartoons and memes and jokes and not a lot more.

Kevin Kallaugher sidesteps the new rash of “Santos is gone” cartoons to focus on why Santos is gone and what it means for the Republican Party, and the nation.

There’s nothing more to say about Santos himself, though I suppose we’ll hear about him anyway, since he remains good copy, and at some point will stand trial for his actual crimes.

And, after all, 112 Republicans and two Democrats voted against his dismissal, and so perhaps he’ll become this year’s Ashli Babbit Innocent Martyr.

In fact, here he is now, filing ethics complaints, which is like the old story of the boy who murdered his parents but then asked for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.

I understand the argument that it set a bad precedent to kick him out without his having been convicted in a court of law, but there is an ethics committee that handed down a unanimously-approved more-than-damning set of findings.

However, 114 Representatives have declared that “House Ethics Committee” is an oxymoron, and perhaps they’re right.

In any case, 105 Republicans found their backbones for a brief moment, but if they want to prove Kal a liar, I would point out that the locker where they store their spine is unsecured. There’s nothing stopping them from reaching in there and pulling it out again.

Other than fear of being called a RINO for failing to toe the party line, in a party that hasn’t bothered to come up with a coherent platform lately.

There’s no party hesitancy in kicking out RINOs, or at least stripping them of power. Santos continued with all his assignments right up to the bitter end.

Still, when just under half the party temporarily behaves responsibly, I guess it’s news.

Man bites dog and all that.

Ann Telnaes follows up with this portrait of the Incredible Shrinking Man, as we find Mike Pence’s original stance as a heroic defender of America diminishing each time he opens his mouth to explain.

Gotta say this about Josh Hawley: He behaved like a weasel before the coup attempt and he hasn’t shut up since, and it’s too bad for him that he got caught on camera running like a coward in between, but at least he’s consistent. If the voters of Missouri want to continue to be represented by him, they’ll know what they’re getting.

Pence is proving to be more of a fancy dancer, and his story of Undaunted Courage isn’t exactly holding up. We all deserve a clean reckoning if anyone is supposed to vote for or against him again.

You have to admit it’s very confusing. Pence reportedly wasn’t supposed to have contact with women unless his wife was present, but apparently Florida GOP chair Christian Ziegler was under the same restriction.

When we reach the point where Donald Trump is the one telling us the truth, we’re at the climax of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Maya Angelou was a great lady, but it’s clear there are a whole lot of people for whom “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time” doesn’t mean much.

In the old story, the Boy had lied so many times that nobody believed him, with the result that, when the real Wolf appeared, it gobbled him up unimpeded.

In this version, the Boy and the Wolf are the same person and it’s we who are willingly, gullibly on the menu.

As Matt Davies suggests, it’s just a shame that Joe Biden is nearly four years older. Oh well.

Looking at Pat Bagley’s depiction of truth and illusion, you have to admire the effectiveness of continual whining and blame-throwing.

He’s somewhat overstating the sunny state of the economy. There are plenty of jobs out there, but they may not meet the needs of that 40-year-old with a mortgage and kids. Still, things are pretty good and continue to be getting better.

And yet, due to the Eeyore factor, we are sinking into the Slough of Despond that FDR warned against in his first inaugural, when he declared that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

But Fear Itself can be a powerful tool for would-be dictators, and Ann Telnaes is back with a commentary on the phony, ginned-up $16 McDonald’s meal that went viral despite the burger in question being an artery-clogging promotional double Quarter Pounder with bacon and cheese, the entire meal weighing in at 1,820 calories.

Which would leave that guy with just 680 calories to divide among the rest of the day. As Telnaes’s version of Biden says, the fellow should be grateful he can’t afford to eat like that

More to the point, it’s a lie. Certainly, increases in wages at burger joints have led to increases in prices. You’d expect it. But this is just the kids’ version of David Brooke’s $78 airport meal, in which he included two shots of top-shelf bourbon.

Are they purposefully lying or are they genuinely that stupid?

Michael De Adder reminds us that these bogus statements are not always accidental, with the panic over the Rainbow Bridge traffic accident a perfect example of poor reporting being elevated into a Big Lie by Fox and its Republican cohorts.

It’s not simply that they got it wrong. In the current deadline-free scramble to be first, there are bound to be errors. But that’s why you report what you’ve heard but make it clear that it’s unconfirmed. You don’t spin it into a certainty and use it in your other coverage.

And when you find out you were wrong, you don’t bury the fact. You stand up and say it in a clear voice, whether it has to do with terror attacks or, as De Adder notes, vaccines or Ukraine or climate change.

Especially for Fox, since telling deliberate lies has already cost them $787 million with additional cases pending.

But maybe it’s worth that much, if they’re are able to convince enough voters that they’re hearing the truth.