Abbreviated pundit roundup: The sad tale of fabulist George Santos just keeps evolving

[Brexiter]

Dan Diamond:

'They're calling me a survivor': George Santos' evolving story of fighting covid

Shifting timelines, changing symptoms and even talk of a brain tumor

Covid led to “very aggressive pneumonia” for Santos and left him with “a cough that lingered around for 30 days,” according to The Island Now, a local news outlet, in September 2020. “Nobody would come near me thinking I was still viral,” Santos reportedly told the paper.

But in a series of earlier interviews, Santos cited different dates for his diagnosis, a different set of symptoms and a much shorter bout of infection. Rather than weeks of agony, Santos initially said he suffered a high fever for several days but was able to manage it at home with cold medicine.

And not long after that, he was back to outdoor exercise.

We are into “I invented oxygen” territory with this guy.

Tara Palmeri/Puck:

The Real Santos Shocker

Robert Zimmerman, the Democrat who lost to Santos, was a veritable oppo expert in a past life. So how come he failed to deliver the Santos bombshell himself?

But here’s what I learned from an operative in another New York camp: Zimmerman, who was short on cash after an eight month, five-way primary in a reconfigured district, made some grave miscalculations. After being handed a half-baked oppo packet on Santos from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he decided against spending between $30,000 to $50,000 to develop that research, which would have made it easier to report and might also have turned up other falsehoods, like the fact that Santos is not Jewish or the mysterious origin of the $750,000 income that The New York Times reports is currently being investigated. Instead, Zimmerman had to raise $2 million in 10 weeks, so he decided not to make the investment.

What difference does money make to a campaign? Well, apparently, it’s not just what you spend on GOTV.

NEW: conservatives have a Millennials problem. In both UK & US, it’s not just that Millennials aren’t voting conservative because they’re young. Every previous generation grew more conservative with age, but Millennials are not playing ball. My column: https://t.co/MyIKv5sZ4o pic.twitter.com/tFDZpjY669

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) December 30, 2022

The FT paywall column is here:

Millennials are shattering the oldest rule in politics

Western conservatives are at risk from generations of voters who are no longer moving to the right as they age

It’s not every day that concepts from public health analytics find a use in politics, but if you’re a strategist on the right, then now might be a good time for a primer on untangling age, period and cohort effects. Age effects are changes that happen over someone’s life regardless of when they are born, period effects result from events that affect all ages simultaneously, and cohort effects stem from differences that emerge among people who experience a common event at the same time.This framework is used to understand differences in a population and whether they are likely to be lasting. This makes it perfectly suited to interrogating why support for conservative parties is so low among millennials and whether it will stay there.

Former Pope Benedict, who stepped down as leader of the Catholic Church in 2013 in a highly unusual move, dies aged 95 https://t.co/oxOpTjxBil

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) December 31, 2022

Stephen Daisley/Spectator (UK):

The 2024 election will be cataclysmic for the Conservatives​

So when I read an unnamed Conservative MP in the FT pronouncing the red wall ‘dead’, my reaction wasn’t one of satisfaction but impatience. I don’t care about the red wall tumbling, I want to see the blue wall flattened. I want them run out of Staffordshire, Lincolnshire, Essex. Clacton must fall.

While I don’t expect anything so dramatic come next polling day, I suspect the Tories will have a worse night than even their gloomier MPs are predicting. Setting aside card-carrying members of the party, I know no one under 40 who is planning to vote Tory next time. Not a single one. Not in Scotland, nor London, nor Wales, nor the Midlands, nor the North.

The breadth and depth of the revilement is breath-taking. I know blue-collar small business owners who spend their days inveighing against crime, mass immigration and wokeism but would sooner see a gang of non-binary Albanian drug-dealers move in next door than vote Tory. I know graduate professionals champing at the bit to elect a Labour government that will clobber them with higher taxes. I know people who despise the SNP and yet are determined to withhold their vote from the Tories in blue-yellow marginals. The Conservatives are at the worst point a government can reach: the voters don’t just want to boot them out, they want to hurt them.

Shades of Tucker citing the lack of Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy charges to suggest it wasn’t an insurrection … shortly before such charges were filed. https://t.co/cWvreDF8iO

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) December 30, 2022

Politico:

Trump’s tax returns released, launching fresh scrutiny of his finances

The documents, covering 2015 to 2020, could provide new insight into Trump’s wealth, the performance of his business empire and how he was able to reduce his tax liability.

A single agent at the IRS was responsible for examining Trump’s voluminous returns and was pitted against partners at a global law firm and a former IRS chief counsel. Trump’s representatives protested when it was suggested that the IRS bring in two more auditors to help handle the sizable paperwork.​

Bill Scher/Politico Magazine:

The Presidential Race Is Entering a New Phase.

Here’s Who’s Best Positioned.Where the 2024 hopefuls stand at the end of 2022.

In my previous 2019, 2020 and 2021 year-end assessments of the 2024 candidates, I did not christen singular winners in each party. But 2022 is different. We have undisputed victors: Joe Biden and Ron DeSantis.

SARS-CoV-2 variant update for the United States: Rapid growth of the new XBB.1.5 "Kraken" lineage to 7% frequency nationally, 32% in New York state, 28% in Connecticut. Growth advantage vs BQ.* of 12% per day.https://t.co/1Aw2X2c5fk

— Mike Honey (@Mike_Honey_) December 30, 2022

There are new transcripts out Friday. There are plenty of nuggets to learn from, but here’s one.

Rick Hasen/Election Law Blog [short post]:​

Cleta Mitchell, in Jan. 6 Committee Deposition, Expresses View that (Old) Electoral Count Act is Unconstitutional and Legislatures Have Absolute Power over Electors; The People’s Vote for President is Just “Advisory”

[what follows is that portion of the transcript]​

A new Congress is being sworn in 4 days from now, Jan 3rd, and there is no Speaker or GOP leadership team in place. What an incredible shitshow this is. https://t.co/cHBKm0tzsh

— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) December 30, 2022

For those interested:

Julia Angwin/The Markup:​

Can Mastodon be a reasonable Twitter substitute for journalists?​

Adam Davidson: “I think we got lazy as a field, and we let Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and, god help us, Elon Musk and their staff decide all these major journalistic questions.”

Of course, moving into a new town is always fraught with culture clashes. Mastodon users are not uniformly happy about this band of Twitter journalists arriving on their doorstep with different cultural norms. So this week I spoke with Adam [Davidson] about his experience, what he’s learned, and what we can all learn from this different type of social networking experience.

Our conversation, edited for brevity and clarity, is below.​

ANGWIN: What has your experience been like as a user on Mastodon, and how does it compare to Twitter?

DAVIDSON: I first joined four years ago and basically peeked at it and then ran away. There’s no question, it’s nowhere near as user-friendly as Twitter, which is both good and bad. Clearly, a lot of people get hung up when they are just signing up in the beginning. The first question is so confusing: You have to pick an instance — what does that mean? On the other hand, the reason it’s confusing is because there aren’t buildings full of UX designers spending hundreds of millions of dollars figuring out how to make every step of your experience on this for-profit platform smoother so that you can be monetized.

I think a social network is only as good as who you follow, who follows you, and what conversations you’re part of. My coming to Mastodon was not me thinking, “I love everything about Twitter and I want to find a place that’s exactly the same.” My coming to Mastodon was also not just, “Oh, Elon went crazy last week.” I’ve really been critiquing my Twitter usage for several years and have been looking for an alternative.​

Same with blogs, and for long time bloggers, no surprises here.