Things I Know

I’ve used this change in punctuation before, but it applies to Rep. George Soros as well.  What?  Was he thinking?  It’s inconceivable to me that Soros didn’t think at least some of his lies would be exposed.  One report I saw said Santos’ campaign hired a research company to check his background and some of his campaign staff resigned as a result of the report.

Latest report on the NY Post’s website today says Soros’ SUV has five outstanding speeding tickets, four of them in school zones!  If you’re going to make the laws, you should take care to observe the laws.  Soros isn’t just notorious in New York’s third congressional district on Long Island.  I heard his story related on a news broadcast over the talk station LBC in London, UK!

During the rancorous events leading up to Kevin McCarthy’s election as Speaker of the House of Representatives, Congressman Mike Rogers of Alabama had to be restrained by another House member from lunging at Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida.  To quote comedian Chris Rock who said it of another event with different circumstances, “I don’t approve, but I understand.”

Things I Know

The release date for Prince Harry’s book, “Spare,” is next Tuesday.  There have been so many news articles and gossip articles about the book that nobody will need to read it.  Personally, I don’t care about Harry, Meghan William, or Kate, and I don’t understand why anyone else does either.

In grade school, we were tasked with writing compositions about what we did on vacation.  This is reminiscent of those essays.  We were going to go to Florida in September, but the hurricane season intervened. 

In October, we like to go someplace that has some fall color.  So, in October, 2022, We went to Plymouth MA. The weather was awful on the drive there.  I’d call it a deluge.  It was also very foggy the whole time we were in Plymouth, but that didn’t really interfere with our exploration.  The weather turned nice on our last day, so we drove out Cape Cod.  Pretty area.  I understand why it’s a magnet for vacationers and those who can make use of a summer home.  The streets of Provincetown are so narrow I’d hate to take a car there in the height of tourist season though.

Have to shout out to Delta Airlines for a second time this year.  My wife and I finally got to go to Florida to visit our son and his wife’s new house, but in November, rather than September.  I lost my iPhone on the plane on my birthday.  A Delta gate attendant found it.  He answered my phone when someone called to wish me a happy birthday.  That’s how he learned where to contact me.  So, my phone and I were reunited the same day.  Of course, he earned our thanks and a little reward as well.

We like the house and of course we wish our son and his wife well with it.  We also hope to be invited back.

I’d still like to live in Florida, and my wife still wouldn’t, so we don’t.

One of my friends complained that Zoo Tampa at Lowry Park is very expensive.  I guess he hasn’t visited Busch Gardens recently.  Busch Gardens does have rides, but some of them were closed in late November and Busch Gardens is roughly twice as expensive as Zoo Tampa.

For the first time since they passed away, we visited my wife’s parents’ graves at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell Florida.  It’s really a lovely place, but we hadn’t been there since the burial, so we didn’t see the grave marker before.  I’ve said for many years that my wife should have been the PR person in our family since she’s much better at deflecting than I am.  Turns out she’s also quite the phrase maker.  Carved in stone on her parents’ grave are the words, “Together Forever.”  That inscription is both appropriate and touching, isn’t it?

We visited one of our favorite places, the north public beach on Siesta Key.  There were no warnings about it, but I guess red tide is a problem because there were a lot of dead fish washing up on the beach.  Still lovely at sunset though.

The Mazda CX-5 I rented was a nice car, but some of the controls are located in places where they’re hard to read and reach.  Also, the symbols on the remote key fob are too small to read without glasses. 

George

I’ve really been goofing off, haven’t I?  Three months since I last wrote.  Took some time off.  Have been traveling and doing physical therapy for my hip.  Traveling was good.  Therapy isn’t really helping that much as far as I can tell.

And since it’s 2023 now, I should mention this blog is copyrighted 2023, as well as in every year since I started it back in 2008. 

I wonder what George Santos was thinking.  He’s the Republican who was elected last November in New York’s third congressional district.  Beginning with an article in the NY Times after he was elected, it’s become clear that Santos lied about so many things it’s hard to know if he told the truth about anything.  Santos explained, according to the NY Post, “My sins here are embellishing my resume. I’m sorry.”  No, George. Those things are called lies. I have no medical background or expertise to make a diagnosis, but the term pathological liar does seem to this layman to describe his behavior. 

It’s safe to say the knives are out for Santos.  He’s being investigated by the Nassau County DA, the US Attorney’s office, the NY Attorney General. There’s an open fraud case against him in Brazil where he’s alleged to have passed about $700 in bad checks when he was a teenager.  There is also reportedly a House ethics complaint against him for trying to use his swearing in as a fund raiser.

The Republicans and Democrats in his district have to bear at least a large part of the blame for Santos getting to where he is.  2022 was his second run for Congress, and apparently neither party nor either opponent did any background checks on him.  I worked for a congressman decades ago.  He and his campaign did do perfunctory checks of his opponents’ backgrounds.  After Santos, both major parties and all candidates will look more closely at who they run for office and who their opponents are. 

With all the investigations going on, I think at least one of them will come up with something that requires them to bring charges against Santos.  Local Republicans have already announced they won’t support him for reelection in 2024.  I will be extremely surprised if Santos serves a complete term in Congress, and a complete term is only two years.