I would disagree that it has anything to do with being more “progressive” or more “conservative.” Values are values. There is no shame in being caught lying and voters are willing to accept lying as part of the game.
It's all so shameful. It makes me tired thinking about how we could ever possibly get back to a time when people gave their word and it meant something. I DO think that there is a greater divide between good and evil today. There are fewer people with integrity and sorting that out can sometimes be overwhelming. Stefanik and this fellow are a perfect pair representing the party.
I agree that we are in trouble. Santos should do the honorable thing and resign. And unfortunately most things need to be vetted before people should be accepting stories as facts.
I've been reading Robert Hubbell along with Heather Cox Richardson each morning. This morning he talked about a Long Island newspaper that broke the Santos story prior to the election. this is what he had to say.
"First, let’s give kudos to The North Shore Leader for breaking the essentials of the story in September. See WaPo, A tiny paper broke the George Santos scandal, but no one paid attention. The Leader followed the story for several weeks and reluctantly endorsed Santos’ opponent, writing:
This newspaper would like to endorse a Republican [but Santos] is so bizarre, unprincipled and sketchy that we cannot. … He boasts like an insecure child — but he’s most likely just a fabulist — a fake.
Here is the Leader’s story, which covered the essential facts, a month before the election: Endorsement: Robert Zimmerman for US Congress (NY3)."
Thanks. Newsday has always had a reputation on Long Island of being a great local newspaper. I couldn’t help but wonder if cutbacks also played a role in not have the time or resources to investigate backgrounds thoroughly.
Wait! You’re going to ask for truth in advertising? Clearly the people on the billboard are meant to represent thousands of real people. The hot frying pan was never really drugs and the egg cracked into it was not your brain. Are you going to insist that the scantily clad young beer drinkers playing volleyball are actual videos of the drunks down the street having a backyard party? Um, no. Nobody is having that much fun at Olive Garden and a 4 hour long erection would not fit into the time slot for a 30 second Super Bowl ad.
There is plenty of room in the world for fiction that comments on reality that bears true witness. Even Jesus spoke in parables. The problem has become the conflating of Free Speech with Bearing False Witness, of “my opinion is just as valid as you opinion.” False witness is not free speech. Far too many people will not change their opinion when shown facts contradicting their beliefs.
But bearing false witness can also be simply not presenting all the facts, which brings me to the bit about legislators voting themselves a raise, because they didn’t just vote themselves a raise, they also voted themselves a cap on earning outside income. There are arguments to be made about the size of the raise, whether they deserved a raise, whether they should be allowed unlimited outside income, whether the cost of living in various districts should be reflected in their pay…but please don’t simplify the issue to a Dan Stec or Matt Simpson level of discourse.
By the way, several years ago the state legislature voted a series of minimum wage increases and on Saturday min wage earners will start earning another buck an hour, like the extra buck they got last year and the year before. People warned that the extra pay was going to destroy the economy. It hasn’t. In fact, despite the pandemic the economy is doing relatively well, all things considered. Still, there will be those who will insist that the $1/hr extra in pockets of NY’s lowest wage workers is causing inflation. Nationwide. Even in the many states that still hold minimum wage at the federal level of $7.25/hr. They won’t change their opinion.
last first: When the minimum wage was being discussed -- They had some economic guy on (NPR I think) and he pointed out that EVERY SINGLE TIME someone said: a bill that will help the poor will destroy the economy.
it was NOT true.
/// right now if you want to keep a worker, you need to pay $20+ and still we have help wanted signs on ever door\\\
As an atheist, I wish jeHus would come down and send a few sinners to Hell (he can start with stefanik)
Well, I do believe we should have truth in advertising. But I think this billboard stretches the bounds because it proclaims to be using this baby’s photo - pulling on the heartstrings - as a real-life example of the problem. Plenty of real tragedies out there. You don’t need to make them up.
Yes, there are plenty of real tragedies, but you run into privacy issues when you use real people. When that infant gets older, 10, 16, 21, how will they feel having been the image of drunk driving death? Will that image persist on the internet and they will be forced to confront it for many years? There are likely some families who are willing to allow the use of images of their live and dead family members, but it means having to find them, pay them for a release, etc. There are reasons for having models and stock photos.
Using an image of a baby who IS alive to play the part of a baby, that never existed and then to say the baby that never existed died and we have an avatar baby in it's place.
I don’t believe it is that complicated. As a newspaper we often told stories of tragedy and families agreed to let us use images because it was for the greater good.
Fair enough. I guess I have a low bar on this. I’d just be thrilled for all journalists to live up to journalistic standards. I’m not expecting that from a billboard.
I had a thought... (posted it somewhere on social media) that maybe :
liars should be liable
Like with stefanik takes credit for a bill that she voted against... that somehow they should be facing consequences or the lie.... however much it is from omission
I knew before don the con was elected and supporters were saying: "all politicians lie" that hell was coming.
Citing a source that says you are right --- an actual source not an editorial (stiffy has been using a LOT of opinion pieces to attack Joe Biden).. is not lying. While saying you paid your taxes, and we find out you paid NO taxes.. is lying (btw, I find it interesting that once stiffy bought into tRUMP, she took her tax statements off her congressional site and stopped posting future ones)
I used to think the problem with democrats is they don’t sink into the gutter like republicans...
Or that Al Franken lost his job and should not have. Because democrats toasted him for making a joke. He didn’t rape anyone, he didn’t lie, he didn’t vote to take money from the poor, he didn’t support a pedophile (i.e. he didn’t do what republicans do to ad nauseam)
When you look at the gop leadersip - matt gaetz, gym jordan, eLIEs stefanik, kevin mccarthy, et al. it is a cesspool of evil. It isn’t a lack of ethics, it is an abundance of evil.
Maybe it’s all just a result of the Information Age. There’s been dishonesty from the top certainly through my lifetime. Eisenhower had his mistress or more than one. Kennedy had health problems and sexual liaisons that were kept quiet. Johnson’s lies on Vietnam cost so many lives. Watergate. Iran/contra. Clinton’s overall dishonesty. The lies that led to the Iraq war.
As much as I’d like to give Obama a pass I really can’t. I know there were numerous deaths as a result of the “War on Terror” that I wouldn’t countenance being done in my name.
Of course, none of them tried to become president for life. I’m looking forward to Trump’s trials whether he’s imprisoned or not. That’s up to a judge and jury, in any case. The real reason is that courtrooms are at least one place where the truth still matters. I want to hear the evidence against him and I want to hear the defense for it.
And if Republican congressmen want to continue to carry water for him let that be added to the historic record along with the courtroom evidence. Santos is just a bright, shiny object next to the pols who signed onto the Texas lawsuit and attempted to disenfranchise voters on January 6th even after the attack.
George Santos is the newest "Fake News REP" to get elected. In true Trumpian style he is lying constantly. Every time he opens his mouth it's another new lie or embellishment of an old one. Where did all that money come from and where did it go? Trump pulled off a rigged election (Russian hackers, huge fake news disinformation on social media sites, Comey announcement impacting the election, etc.) in 2016 and while he's got a lot of legal problems in front of him, he still hasn't been nailed personally for his long list of crimes (I have my fingers crossed that he finally gets his due). Fines at Trump Organization for financial fraud of a few million are spare change in the overall scheme of things. What is telling, however, is the Kevin McCarthy and the leaders of the REP party haven't said anything about this Santos fraud yet (and he's making Bernie Madoff look like a piker). McCarthy is so desperate to become Speaker of the House that he will overlook this situation to keep that one vote he needs to win, then maybe look in to the situation after he's in power. REP party has consistently shown in the past decade that they are morally and ethically bankrupt and will lie, cheat, steal, etc. to win at all costs (Watergate and Nixon anyone?). Remember McConnell prevented a sitting POTUS Obama the right to name a Supreme Court Justice on the grounds that in an election year the voters should make that decision and then turned around and jammed through Barrett just before Trump left power. Liar, liar pants on fire? Women in this country lost the right to make their own medical decisions with their doctors as a result (clock turned back 50 years on abortion rights). A group of right wing extremist Supreme Court judges are now literally legislating from the bench. Truth and facts are under a major attack in our new "fake news, social media universe", but the consequences are only now becoming clear. So why not just make up the story about your life and accomplishments as you go along? Why do we need a democracy when we have Dear Leaders like Trump, McConnell, SCOTUS abusing our system? Pay attention in 2023 and vote like your life and freedoms depend upon it, because they do! HAPPY NEW YEAR???
Don’t know if this is behind a paywall or not but I’ll put the link up. It’s a piece by Wm. Kristol who’s happy about 2022 and optimistic about the coming year. I’m in pretty solid agreement with someone I never expected to be aligned with. Politics does make strange bedfellows.
Well certainly, 2022 may be looked at as a much better year than 2021. There have some progress made in the world. So, I suppose that is encouraging. But still a long way to go.
We need for all of us to get back to being kind to ourselves, to one another.. to watch out for eachother...to help eachother ! Honesty, integrity are very important ! It can be damaging to place importance on status, material things and and other things that really do not matter that much! Its true that Stefanik and this guy do seem to lack integrity.....even at first they did not come across that way ............Worrying about what the future will be for our grandchildren and great grands with dishonest and greedy politicians being elected...what are people thinking????
Hi, I'm Bill Doolittle, past owner and editor of the only daily newspaper within the Adirondacks. I like that your substack is free. Much of the good material on the web requires a credit card. I don't have one so I'm out of luck. I can't even read my former paper Adirondack Daily Enterprise. There are many elderly people who can not fully enjoy the web because they don't have a credit card. I suppose the Enterprise would take a check. Don't have one. I'm 86 next month . So thanks. William Doolttle Sr.
I would disagree that it has anything to do with being more “progressive” or more “conservative.” Values are values. There is no shame in being caught lying and voters are willing to accept lying as part of the game.
It's all so shameful. It makes me tired thinking about how we could ever possibly get back to a time when people gave their word and it meant something. I DO think that there is a greater divide between good and evil today. There are fewer people with integrity and sorting that out can sometimes be overwhelming. Stefanik and this fellow are a perfect pair representing the party.
I share your pessimism.
I agree that we are in trouble. Santos should do the honorable thing and resign. And unfortunately most things need to be vetted before people should be accepting stories as facts.
I have seen numerous republican scandals in the last six years, I do not know of any who apologized.. let alone resigned
I've been reading Robert Hubbell along with Heather Cox Richardson each morning. This morning he talked about a Long Island newspaper that broke the Santos story prior to the election. this is what he had to say.
"First, let’s give kudos to The North Shore Leader for breaking the essentials of the story in September. See WaPo, A tiny paper broke the George Santos scandal, but no one paid attention. The Leader followed the story for several weeks and reluctantly endorsed Santos’ opponent, writing:
This newspaper would like to endorse a Republican [but Santos] is so bizarre, unprincipled and sketchy that we cannot. … He boasts like an insecure child — but he’s most likely just a fabulist — a fake.
Here is the Leader’s story, which covered the essential facts, a month before the election: Endorsement: Robert Zimmerman for US Congress (NY3)."
Thanks. Newsday has always had a reputation on Long Island of being a great local newspaper. I couldn’t help but wonder if cutbacks also played a role in not have the time or resources to investigate backgrounds thoroughly.
Wait! You’re going to ask for truth in advertising? Clearly the people on the billboard are meant to represent thousands of real people. The hot frying pan was never really drugs and the egg cracked into it was not your brain. Are you going to insist that the scantily clad young beer drinkers playing volleyball are actual videos of the drunks down the street having a backyard party? Um, no. Nobody is having that much fun at Olive Garden and a 4 hour long erection would not fit into the time slot for a 30 second Super Bowl ad.
There is plenty of room in the world for fiction that comments on reality that bears true witness. Even Jesus spoke in parables. The problem has become the conflating of Free Speech with Bearing False Witness, of “my opinion is just as valid as you opinion.” False witness is not free speech. Far too many people will not change their opinion when shown facts contradicting their beliefs.
But bearing false witness can also be simply not presenting all the facts, which brings me to the bit about legislators voting themselves a raise, because they didn’t just vote themselves a raise, they also voted themselves a cap on earning outside income. There are arguments to be made about the size of the raise, whether they deserved a raise, whether they should be allowed unlimited outside income, whether the cost of living in various districts should be reflected in their pay…but please don’t simplify the issue to a Dan Stec or Matt Simpson level of discourse.
By the way, several years ago the state legislature voted a series of minimum wage increases and on Saturday min wage earners will start earning another buck an hour, like the extra buck they got last year and the year before. People warned that the extra pay was going to destroy the economy. It hasn’t. In fact, despite the pandemic the economy is doing relatively well, all things considered. Still, there will be those who will insist that the $1/hr extra in pockets of NY’s lowest wage workers is causing inflation. Nationwide. Even in the many states that still hold minimum wage at the federal level of $7.25/hr. They won’t change their opinion.
last first: When the minimum wage was being discussed -- They had some economic guy on (NPR I think) and he pointed out that EVERY SINGLE TIME someone said: a bill that will help the poor will destroy the economy.
it was NOT true.
/// right now if you want to keep a worker, you need to pay $20+ and still we have help wanted signs on ever door\\\
As an atheist, I wish jeHus would come down and send a few sinners to Hell (he can start with stefanik)
Well, I do believe we should have truth in advertising. But I think this billboard stretches the bounds because it proclaims to be using this baby’s photo - pulling on the heartstrings - as a real-life example of the problem. Plenty of real tragedies out there. You don’t need to make them up.
The thing that is concerning.... people admitting they KNEW it was a lie
and had no problem going with the lie.
Kind of like making a deal with the devil
I think that is the greater point I was making. They knew it was a fake story and they were OK with that.
Yes, there are plenty of real tragedies, but you run into privacy issues when you use real people. When that infant gets older, 10, 16, 21, how will they feel having been the image of drunk driving death? Will that image persist on the internet and they will be forced to confront it for many years? There are likely some families who are willing to allow the use of images of their live and dead family members, but it means having to find them, pay them for a release, etc. There are reasons for having models and stock photos.
?? privacy issues...
Using an image of a baby who IS alive to play the part of a baby, that never existed and then to say the baby that never existed died and we have an avatar baby in it's place.
kind of messed up...
------
maybe it was baby george santos
I don’t believe it is that complicated. As a newspaper we often told stories of tragedy and families agreed to let us use images because it was for the greater good.
Fair enough. I guess I have a low bar on this. I’d just be thrilled for all journalists to live up to journalistic standards. I’m not expecting that from a billboard.
I had a thought... (posted it somewhere on social media) that maybe :
liars should be liable
Like with stefanik takes credit for a bill that she voted against... that somehow they should be facing consequences or the lie.... however much it is from omission
I knew before don the con was elected and supporters were saying: "all politicians lie" that hell was coming.
Citing a source that says you are right --- an actual source not an editorial (stiffy has been using a LOT of opinion pieces to attack Joe Biden).. is not lying. While saying you paid your taxes, and we find out you paid NO taxes.. is lying (btw, I find it interesting that once stiffy bought into tRUMP, she took her tax statements off her congressional site and stopped posting future ones)
I used to think the problem with democrats is they don’t sink into the gutter like republicans...
Or that Al Franken lost his job and should not have. Because democrats toasted him for making a joke. He didn’t rape anyone, he didn’t lie, he didn’t vote to take money from the poor, he didn’t support a pedophile (i.e. he didn’t do what republicans do to ad nauseam)
When you look at the gop leadersip - matt gaetz, gym jordan, eLIEs stefanik, kevin mccarthy, et al. it is a cesspool of evil. It isn’t a lack of ethics, it is an abundance of evil.
Maybe it’s all just a result of the Information Age. There’s been dishonesty from the top certainly through my lifetime. Eisenhower had his mistress or more than one. Kennedy had health problems and sexual liaisons that were kept quiet. Johnson’s lies on Vietnam cost so many lives. Watergate. Iran/contra. Clinton’s overall dishonesty. The lies that led to the Iraq war.
As much as I’d like to give Obama a pass I really can’t. I know there were numerous deaths as a result of the “War on Terror” that I wouldn’t countenance being done in my name.
Of course, none of them tried to become president for life. I’m looking forward to Trump’s trials whether he’s imprisoned or not. That’s up to a judge and jury, in any case. The real reason is that courtrooms are at least one place where the truth still matters. I want to hear the evidence against him and I want to hear the defense for it.
And if Republican congressmen want to continue to carry water for him let that be added to the historic record along with the courtroom evidence. Santos is just a bright, shiny object next to the pols who signed onto the Texas lawsuit and attempted to disenfranchise voters on January 6th even after the attack.
George Santos is the newest "Fake News REP" to get elected. In true Trumpian style he is lying constantly. Every time he opens his mouth it's another new lie or embellishment of an old one. Where did all that money come from and where did it go? Trump pulled off a rigged election (Russian hackers, huge fake news disinformation on social media sites, Comey announcement impacting the election, etc.) in 2016 and while he's got a lot of legal problems in front of him, he still hasn't been nailed personally for his long list of crimes (I have my fingers crossed that he finally gets his due). Fines at Trump Organization for financial fraud of a few million are spare change in the overall scheme of things. What is telling, however, is the Kevin McCarthy and the leaders of the REP party haven't said anything about this Santos fraud yet (and he's making Bernie Madoff look like a piker). McCarthy is so desperate to become Speaker of the House that he will overlook this situation to keep that one vote he needs to win, then maybe look in to the situation after he's in power. REP party has consistently shown in the past decade that they are morally and ethically bankrupt and will lie, cheat, steal, etc. to win at all costs (Watergate and Nixon anyone?). Remember McConnell prevented a sitting POTUS Obama the right to name a Supreme Court Justice on the grounds that in an election year the voters should make that decision and then turned around and jammed through Barrett just before Trump left power. Liar, liar pants on fire? Women in this country lost the right to make their own medical decisions with their doctors as a result (clock turned back 50 years on abortion rights). A group of right wing extremist Supreme Court judges are now literally legislating from the bench. Truth and facts are under a major attack in our new "fake news, social media universe", but the consequences are only now becoming clear. So why not just make up the story about your life and accomplishments as you go along? Why do we need a democracy when we have Dear Leaders like Trump, McConnell, SCOTUS abusing our system? Pay attention in 2023 and vote like your life and freedoms depend upon it, because they do! HAPPY NEW YEAR???
Don’t know if this is behind a paywall or not but I’ll put the link up. It’s a piece by Wm. Kristol who’s happy about 2022 and optimistic about the coming year. I’m in pretty solid agreement with someone I never expected to be aligned with. Politics does make strange bedfellows.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thetriad/p/a-surprisingly-happy-new-year?r=9qpud&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Well certainly, 2022 may be looked at as a much better year than 2021. There have some progress made in the world. So, I suppose that is encouraging. But still a long way to go.
We need for all of us to get back to being kind to ourselves, to one another.. to watch out for eachother...to help eachother ! Honesty, integrity are very important ! It can be damaging to place importance on status, material things and and other things that really do not matter that much! Its true that Stefanik and this guy do seem to lack integrity.....even at first they did not come across that way ............Worrying about what the future will be for our grandchildren and great grands with dishonest and greedy politicians being elected...what are people thinking????
Honesty and integrity - for all of us - is a great place to start. And expecting it from others.
Hi, I'm Bill Doolittle, past owner and editor of the only daily newspaper within the Adirondacks. I like that your substack is free. Much of the good material on the web requires a credit card. I don't have one so I'm out of luck. I can't even read my former paper Adirondack Daily Enterprise. There are many elderly people who can not fully enjoy the web because they don't have a credit card. I suppose the Enterprise would take a check. Don't have one. I'm 86 next month . So thanks. William Doolttle Sr.