‘To hell with this place’ — George Santos

Is our quotation of the week! 

Clear out your desk! As George Santos trudged to his waiting Jaguar SUV, the disgraced fabulist might have dramatized the event with a soundtrack, say Eric Burdon bellowing “We gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do.”

Or channeled Richard Nixon: “You won’t have George Santos to kick around anymore for, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”

Rodney Dangerfield would have remarked on the lack of respect. Tugging at this tie: “I’ve been kicked out of classier dives than this.” 

Jon Lovitz as Tommy Flanagan will portray Santos in the Netflix movie.

“If George Santos is his real name.” — Wall Street Journal

Never seated in the first place

We are told that George Santos is only the sixth to be booted out of Congress, three of them Johnny Reb. The other two were convicted of felonies.

Wisconsin lays claim to electing a candidate in 1918 that Congress refused to seat in the first place. That would be Victor Berger, one of Milwaukee’s sewer socialists. Berger opposed the war with the Kaiser’s Germany and was convicted of sedition. (The dreadful Woodrow Wilson was President.) 

When Berger arrived in Washington to take his seat, Congress formed a special committee to determine whether a convicted felon and war opponent should be seated as a member of Congress. On November 10, 1919, they concluded that he should not, and they declared the seat vacant, citing the same 14th Amendment. Probably didn’t help that, having been born in the old Austro-Hungarian empire, old Victor sounded like sauerkraut and knockwurst.

The good burghers of Milwaukee again elected Berger the following month and a month later, Congress again refused to accept the man. Later that year, Milwaukee relented and elected a Republican (!!!) but Berger was re-elected in 1922 and twice more, serving each time. The U.S. Supreme Court in January 1921 had overturned the original sedition trial, which had been overseen by Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who became baseball’s first commissioner after the Black Sox baseball scandal of 1919 came to light. (Also, Berger’s daughter wrote the daytime soap opera, General Hospital.) That’s history for you!

A little potpourri

• We said at the time, prison for Derek Chauvin was a death sentence. Criminals don’t like cops or whites who kill black people. (Just ask Jeffrey Dahmer.) Chauvin was both.

• In threes? Rosalyn Carter, Henry Kissinger, Sandra Day O’Connor.

• Paul Soglin explains city finances so that a 5 year old could understand. And returns fire at another former mayor!

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Every legislative body has the right and duty to police itself, recognizing that the power can be misused. But then, can’t everything?

Who knew Congress doesn’t like liars?