Rep.-elect George Santos, R-N.Y., right, talks with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., during the ninth vote in the House chamber as the House meets for the third day to elect a speaker and convene the 118th Congress Jan. 5 in Washington. (AP photo/Alex Brandon)
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On our website NCR has announced it is looking for a major gifts officer, who "will have a specific focus on developing major gifts, planned gifts, and foundation funding." Obviously, this kind of job needs someone with great people skills, someone with strong powers of persuasion, someone who inspires other people.
I nominate Rep. George Santos. He got 145,824 people on Long Island to vote for him to represent them in Congress, and that is a stunning achievement. First, the Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voter Index gave the 3rd Congressional District a +2 Democratic rating in 2022. Second, Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the district by the healthy margin of 53.6% to 45.4% in 2020.
Official portrait of Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., for the 118th Congress (Wikimedia Commons/U.S. House Office of Photography)
Most significantly, however, Santos campaigned while finishing his doctorate in aeronautical engineering at MIT (he really is a rocket scientist!), winning a spot on the U.S. Olympic volleyball team and managing an investment fund that returned 20% to its investors despite the sluggish economy.
Also, sources tell me that Santos was created a cardinal in pectore by Pope Benedict XVI at the consistory held on Nov. 24, 2007, that is, his name was not made public but he is a prince of the church. He is the first child of Holocaust survivors to be raised to the sacred purple. This honor was conferred shortly before Santos went to Brazil to participate in beauty pageants as a drag queen, leading to speculation that he did not stay in Rome because of a fight with some enthusiasts of the Tridentine rite. Something about lace.
His brief time as a prince of the church and beauty pageant contestant came shortly after he served as an astronaut on the space shuttle. After his foray into the curia in Rome and beauty pageants in Brazil, Santos led the Peace Corps for a few years before decamping to the Mayo Clinic where he single-handedly led efforts to cure cancer. And the common cold, too.
Republicans sometimes suggest you can't trust politicians but this upstanding overachiever proves that canard wrong! I would follow him into a war. I would follow him into an unjust war. I am betting he could bring in tons of cash to the NCR coffers. We've never had a cardinal-astronaut-Peace-Corps-director-rocket-scientist and member of Congress on our development team.
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I also saw in the news that Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is seeking to become Donald Trump's running mate in 2024. Taylor Greene came to prominence when she ran for Congress in 2020 because of her belief in QAnon conspiracy theories, theories she now distances herself from.
Earlier this year, Greene told Fox News' Howard Kurtz, "Like a lot of people today I had easily gotten sucked into some things I'd seen on the internet." A lot of people? I actually do not know a single person who believes that "a group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media," which appears to be QAnon's most basic fantasy theory.
Now, having all that in the rearview mirror, why not place her one heartbeat away from the presidency?
Naming Taylor Greene as Trump's running mate is a splendid idea. First of all, it will make it easier for our friends at EWTN to cover the GOP ticket, seeing as they have already interviewed both Taylor Greene and the former president. It's always easier to get a second interview once you've snagged the first.
Taylor Greene also has been an outspoken critic of Ukraine. She called its heroic president Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "shadow president" and opposed his coming to Washington to address Congress. In a tweet, she called Ukraine "the 51st state," applying the charge of double loyalty historically given to Jews and Catholics to the defenders of democracy in Ukraine. Given Trump's abject willingness to believe Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence, as demonstrated during their 2018 joint press conference in Helsinki, if a Trump-Taylor Greene ticket won, at least U.S. foreign policy would have a clear sense of priorities.
There is a problem with Santos and Taylor Greene and the rest of the GOP clown car. I fear that comedy writers will be put out of work. How, from a comedic standpoint, could you improve on what these congresspeople say in all sincerity? It almost makes one feel sorry for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Almost.
