That was quick: Film about Santos already in the works

To no one’s surprise, there is going to be a made-for-TV film about serial fabulist and no ex-congressperson George Santos. In Santos’s case, the film will be based on a book on his life that was released last week.

A book about the improbable rise and rapid fall of former congressman George Santos has been optioned by HBO Films, it was reported Saturday, and will be produced under the guidance of Frank Rich, a former New York Times columnist known for executive production credits on Emmy awards-winning Succession and Veep.

HBO reportedly optioned the rights to Mark Chiusano’s The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos, published last week.
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“He is someone who is clearly very ambitious and wants to live a kind of wealthy life, a life of fame and notoriety, and he is trying to attain essentially a version of the American dream, which so many people have sought over the years,” Chiusano said.
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According to Deadline, the adaptation of The Fabulist will be written by Mike Makowsky, who wrote the screenplay of HBO’s crime drama Bad Education, and will tell the “Gatsby-esque journey of a man from nowhere who exploited the system, waged war on truth and swindled one of the wealthiest districts in the country to achieve his American Dream”.

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For some, doing well is not enough

Some of you may remember the college admissions scandal of a few years ago in which many famous actors and other well-to-people were caught finding ways to game the college admissions process so that their children could be admitted to the schools of their choice. One of those people was actor Felicity Huffman who paid an exam proctor $15,000 to correct some of the incorrect answers on her daughter’s SAT exam so that she would get a better score. I was struck by something she said recently as to why she did what she did.

Huffman, 60, ultimately pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud as well as honest services mail fraud. She spent 11 days in prison in October 2019 and completed 250 hours of community service after becoming the first of 34 parents to be sentenced in the scandal’s fallout.

Huffman on Thursday said: “I know hindsight is 20/20, but it felt like I would be a bad mother if I didn’t do it. So – I did it.”

Elaborating, she said: “I felt like I had to give my daughter a chance at a future. And so it was sort of like my daughter’s future, which meant I had to break the law.”

Huffman described enduring pangs of anxiety and regret as she drove an unwitting Sophia to the exam.

“She was going, ‘Can we get ice-cream afterwards? I’m scared about the test. What can we do that’s fun?’” Huffman recounted to KABC. “And I kept thinking, ‘Turn around, just turn around.’ To my undying shame, I didn’t.”

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Trump faces even more lawsuits

Following the riot on January 6th 2021, a Democratic congressperson and two Capitol police officers brought lawsuits against serial sex offender Donald Trump (SSAT), accusing him of inciting the mob with his speech that day to the crowd.

The lawsuits seek civil damages for harms they say they endured when rioters descended on the Capitol as Congress met to certify Biden’s election victory, smashing windows, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police officers and sending lawmakers running into hiding. One of the lawsuits, filed by Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, alleges that Trump directly incited the violence at the Capitol “and then watched approvingly as the building was overrun.”

Two other lawsuits were also filed, one by other House Democrats and another by officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby, who were both injured in the riot. Blassingame said Friday that he “couldn’t be more committed to pursuing accountability” in the case.

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Santos soap opera comes to an end – maybe

The House of Representatives voted today to expel George Santos from the body by a vote of 311-114, well above the 290 votes needed, making him only the sixth person to be so treated. It did not help his case that two of the people he is alleged to have ripped off in his fraudulent credit card scheme were a fellow Republican congressperson and his mother. That is not how you win friends and influence people.

10 members either voted present or did not vote. 112 out of 222 Republicans and 2 out of 213 Democrats voted not to expel him. All four members of the Republican leadership team also voted not to expel him. After the vote, he refused to answer any questions and left in the style to which he has become accustomed, in a Jaguar SUV. There will now be a special election within 90 days to fill his seat.

Yesterday at a news conference Santos had leveled all manner of accusations against his fellow members and promised a scorched-Earth response if he were expelled. But that did not seem to sway enough of his colleagues to support him. He also said that he planned to continue in politics. It may have been bluster on his part, like so many of his other claims, or he may be saving it all for a tell-all book or a made-for-TV film. You can be certain that he will seek to monetize his 15 minutes of fame to help pay for his legal expenses to avoid prison time for all the frauds that he has been accused of committing.

Kissinger gets the send-off he deserves

Once again, we need a comedy show (The Daily Show‘s Michelle Wolf, Ronny Chieng, and Michael Kosta) to give us the unvarnished truth about this monster who just died, and other US war criminals.

The late Anthony Bourdain, the much traveled chef, also had the right take on Kissinger way back in 2001.