Month: February 2023

To avert ‘poppy apocalypse,’ California city closes canyon to visitors

The Washington Post

To avert ‘poppy apocalypse,’ California city closes canyon to visitors

Hannah Sampson – February 9, 2023

Visitors pose for a picture among wildflowers in bloom in March 2019 in Lake Elsinore, Calif. (Gregory Bull/AP)

Wildflower lovers won’t be able to get their fix this year in one Southern California city after officials announced that they were closing trails, roads and parking at a canyon that attracted thousands of visitors during an earlier poppy bloom.

The superbloom of 2019 blanketed Lake Elsinore’s Walker Canyon with a layer of vibrant orange poppies. They proved irresistible to phone-wielding, Instagram-posting visitors, who clogged roadways and trails, trampled the growth and occasionally needed rescuing due to heat and exertion and at least one rattlesnake bite.

“The flowers were beautiful,” Lake Elsinore Mayor Natasha Johnson said during a news conference this week with patches of California poppies in the background. “The scene was a nightmare.”

Facing another seasonal bloom – though likely not a supersized one – city, county and law enforcement officials decided not to risk a repeat. Johnson announced that the trails on Walker Canyon, as well as parking around it and an access road, are all closed. Shuttles will not run to the canyon, as they did for part of the 2019 season. Trails were closed in the spring of 2020 due to the pandemic, and drought kept blooms away for the last couple of years.

“While typically the city of Lake Elsinore welcomes visitors to enjoy our vibrant community and boost our economy, the overwhelming number and unfortunate behavior of our visitors to Walker Canyon in 2019 came at a cost that was way too steep for our residents and our wildlife,” Johnson said.

Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco warned that the penalty for visiting anyway could be steep, though he said courts would determine any fine.

“We don’t want anybody coming here thinking that they’ll pay the fine and be good with it,” he said. “It’s a misdemeanor infraction subject to arrest.”

Walker Canyon, which closed in 2019 due to the crowds, has become the latest popular destination to close because of overtourism. A daffodil-dotted ranch east of Sacramento that had been open to the public for decades announced it was closing indefinitely in 2019 after being overwhelmed by a “crush of visitors.” Comparing the influx of tourists to a “zombie apocalypse,” Ontario farmers shut down access to their sunflower fields after a little more than a week, the New York Times reported in 2018.

The story has been similar around the globe, with a canyon in Iceland, an island in the Philippines and a bay in Thailand closing, at least temporarily, due to an influx of tourists.

In Lake Elsinore, reaction on the Facebook page that carried the news conference ranged from laudatory to disappointed to politically charged.

“So instead of responsibility, City officials decide to take away our rights,” one person wrote. “Taking their orders from the progressives.”

Another was more succinct: “Poppy police,” they wrote.

Some residents said they had been excited to explore the canyon, though others – still scarred from 2019 – were glad to escape a few weekends of gridlock. Many chastised officials for missing out on the chance to make some money from the phenomenon.

“You’re going to lose million in tax and tourist revenue,” one commenter wrote. “Should have leaned in and had a poppy festival with shuttles etc. Missed opportunity.”

But Bianco, the county sheriff, said there was no way to safely accommodate the crowds that have shown up in the past.

“Your warning is right now; we will have a zero-tolerance policy for people that are here trespassing and parking on sides of the roadways,” he said. “If you are going to come here and you are going to park your car, you are subject to citation and possibly the towing of your vehicle.”

For poppy fans who need updates on the bloom, the city has live video footage of Walker Canyon linked from its website.

“We understand that this is not the news that everybody may want to have heard, but our community’s safety as well as preservation is our main focus,” Johnson said. “Thank you for your support and especially your poppy patience. This weekend I encourage you to focus on the Super Bowl and not the superbloom that we’re not having.”

Subpoena could complicate Pence decision to run for president in 2024

Yahoo! News

Subpoena could complicate Pence decision to run for president in 2024

Special counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed Pence after months of unsuccessful negotiations with his legal team to obtain his testimony.

Tom LoBianco, Reporter – February 9, 2023

Mike Pence
Former Vice President Mike Pence speaking at the Heritage Foundation in last fall. (Leah Millis/Reuters)

WASHINGTON — The subpoena issued Thursday to former Vice President Mike Pence by the special counsel investigating former President Donald Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol will likely complicate the Indiana Republican’s White House prospects.

Special counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed Pence after months of unsuccessful negotiations with his legal team to obtain his testimony, according to multiple news reports. While Pence has been critical of Trump’s actions leading up to and on Jan. 6, when a mob of his supporters sought to block the Electoral College certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, he refused to voluntarily sit for questioning with the Department of Justice and the special counsel.

ABC News first reported the subpoena had been issued Thursday evening.

Pence’s path to winning the Republican nomination in 2024 was narrow to begin with, and the latest development may make it that much harder for him, Republicans keeping tabs on the rapidly developing 2024 field told Yahoo News.

“It is hard, in my view, to say you are the grown-up in the room and in favor of law and order if you refuse DOJ subpoenas,” said one former Trump administration official. “Though, in the end, he still has no hope in 2024.”

Pence should respect the subpoena and cooperate, said Vin Weber, a former House Republican leader and longtime Republican operative.

“He’s got to be the straight-up guy he is, or he loses his brand,” Weber said.

Pence has been aggressively putting together a political team in recent months in anticipation of a formal announcement that insiders say will come this spring.

Donald Trump
Former President Donald Trump at a New Hampshire Republican State Committee fundraiser, Jan. 28, 2023. (Cheryl Senter for the Washington Post)

A Pence spokesman declined comment for this story.

After leaving the White House two years ago, Pence largely avoided talking about his former running mate and the stunning attack on the Capitol, at which Trump’s supporters, egged on by the president, angrily chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” as they ransacked the building and delayed the certification vote.

But slowly, as Pence traveled the country in apparent preparation for his own presidential run, he began talking more about how it felt to have Trump falsely claim he could have overturned the 2020 election results.

Pence’s top aides played a key role in providing testimony and evidence to the House Jan. 6 select committee, and Pence himself floated the idea last summer that he might testify before the panel.

Following the 2022 midterm elections, many Republicans blamed Trump for the party’s worse than expected showing. The day after Pence’s memoir was released in November, revealing for the first time his thoughts on what transpired on Jan. 6, Pence announced he would not testify before the House committee.

Since then, Pence has continued aggressively campaigning in early primary states that will play a key role in deciding the party’s next nominee. He has routinely polled in third place in polls of Republican voters assessing a hypothetical field of candidates, outperforming other top names like former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is set to announce her entry into the race next week, but his standing has also slipped over the past year or so.

“I think Pence was always vastly overpriced as a 2024 stock. For all that, I think the subpoena is a low-intensity thing,” said Rick Wilson, a former longtime Republican operative who co-founded the Lincoln Project, a Never Trump group. “His campaign is already over … he just doesn’t know it yet.”

The Colorado River should really be named the California River

VC Star – Ventura County Star

The Colorado River should really be named the California River

Joe Mathews – February 9, 2023

Why do we still call it the Colorado?

Sure, the river begins in the Colorado Rockies. But in law and practice, the waterway making headlines is clearly the California River. And the first provision of any deal to save the river should rename it accordingly.

This condition wouldn’t be about Golden State pride. Instead, a name change would more accurately reflect the imperial role California plays out in the movement of water, people and power in the American West.

Right now, the Grand Canyon-sized divide over how to reduce the amount of water drawn from the rapidly diminishing river is being portrayed as a dispute between states. On one side, six states that rely on California-nee-Colorado water — Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — have come together to demand cuts in water use that would fall heaviest on California.

In response, California water officials have produced a plan emphasizing how our state’s rights to the water are more senior than those of our Southwest neighbors. Their newly released plan would cut less from California’s take, and more from Arizona and Nevada. In the Wild West of Water, this argument — We stole it first! We stole it fair and square! — is a strong legal position.

But such descriptions of the fight fail to capture the true dynamics of the situation — that California is less a state than an empire, and the six states challenging it over water are California colonies. California is by far the richest and most dynamic area in this half of North America. California has more residents and a bigger economy than all the other western states of the U.S. put together.

In recent generations, California, like other great empires through history, has grown so much that it has exported people, money, and culture to nearby territories. California’s investment has helped make the intermountain West the nation’s fastest-growing region.

Many of the greater West are native Californians, or immigrants who came through the Golden State. Nevada is the most Californian state; with nearly as many California natives (20%) as Nevada natives (25%), and more than 90% of its population living within 50 miles of the California border. But Californians have also provided sizable percentages of new residents to Utah, Colorado, and Arizona, where one out of every 10 residents was born here.

Are these transplanted Californians grateful for our largesse? Of course not. Colonists don’t freely thank their emperors, which is why every so often, the L.A. Times or New York Times interviews some real estate agent in Phoenix or Las Vegas or Denver, who whines about how the California ex-pats are driving up housing prices.

Oh, you denizens of western deserts and mountains, please forgive us Californians for making you wealthier!

With water, our successful colonization policies create headaches for us. We seized the water of the Western wilderness to build the world’s fourth-largest economy. But that wilderness is now full of former Californians and their communities, which now mercilessly seek a bigger share of the water.

Alas, the patently strong argument that Californians should keep the water because we do more things with it is not politically palatable in our colonies. Nor should we expect the president, from the tiny corporate tax haven of Delaware, to choose the needs of our great empire over the demands of those swing state deserts, Arizona and Nevada.

Instead, we have little choice but to behave like wise empires, and do for our colonies what they won’t do for themselves. “The price of greatness,” Winston Churchill observed, “is responsibility.”

California must develop and finance a water plan not just for itself but for the West — with more water recycling, more capture of stormwater, more desalination, and more water for everyone — so that our empire is no longer dependent on that workhorse river.

In return, everyone should start calling our river by its proper name.

A secret Russian satellite has broken apart in orbit, creating a cloud of debris that could last a century

Business Insider

A secret Russian satellite has broken apart in orbit, creating a cloud of debris that could last a century

Morgan McFall-Johnsen – February 8, 2023

illustration shows satellite shedding bits of metal debris high above earth
An illustration of a satellite breaking up above Earth.ESA/ID&Sense/ONiRiXEL, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

A mysterious Russian satellite with a shady mission has broken apart in Earth’s orbit, creating a hazardous cloud of debris zipping around the planet and menacing other satellites, US Space Force announced.

The 18th Space Defense Squadron said on Twitter Monday that it had confirmed a satellite called Kosmos 2499 had broken apart into 85 pieces.

Previous collisions and satellite break-ups have created far larger and more hazardous debris fields than this.

But the pieces of Kosmos 2499 are orbiting at an altitude of about 745 miles — so high that they’ll probably be there for a century or longer before Earth’s atmosphere drags them down and burns them up, according to NASA.

Kosmos 2499 is one of three satellites that Russia launched secretly from 2013 to 2015. Its beginning is even more mysterious than its end.

NASA and the US Department of Defense did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.

The satellite was launched secretly and made ‘suspicious’ maneuvers in orbit
rocket spews orange flame lifts off in the arctic
A Russian “Rokot” rocket lifts off from a launch pad near the town of Plesetsk in Arctic Russia.Reuters

On Christmas Day 2013, Russia launched a small Rokot rocket into the skies above Plesetsk, carrying three military communications satellites into orbit.

It seemed like a standard launch, until space trackers noticed that the Rokot had released a fourth object into orbit, according to Anatoly Zak, an English-language reporter who covers Russia’s space program and runs Russianspaceweb.com.

A few months later, Russia admitted to the United Nations that it had launched a fourth satellite, which came to be known as Kosmos 2491. Its purpose was unclear.

Russia launched another secret satellite in May 2014, and it soon began maneuvering itself in orbit, dropping and raising its altitude until it brought itself “suspiciously close” to the rocket stage that had delivered it to orbit, according to Zak. The US military designated the object Kosmos 2499.

For nearly half a year, this mystery satellite trailed its rocket stage and maneuvered up close to it repeatedly. Then it transmitted telemetry data back to Earth in Morse code, according to Zak.

The bizarre behavior led to speculation that Russia was testing technology to follow or wreck other satellites, according to Space.com.

The head of Roscosmos at the time, Oleg Ostapenko, assured the world in a December 2014 press conference that Kosmos 2491 and Kosmos 2499 were not “killer satellites,” Zak reported. Ostapenko said the satellites had peaceful, educational purposes and that “they completed their mission.” Zak said the Roscosmos chief never specified what that mission was.

A similar Rokot launch sent a third unregistered satellite into orbit the next year.

The first secret satellite, Kosmos 2491, broke apart in 2019. Kosmos 2499 just met the same fate.

The satellite may have exploded, rather than crashing

The cause of the satellite’s disintegration is not yet clear.

Brian Weeden, a space-debris expert at the Secure World Foundation, told ArsTechnica that he doesn’t think a collision caused it, since two of the secretive satellites have gone out like this.

“This suggests to me that perhaps these events are the result of a design error in the fuel tanks or other systems that are rupturing after several years in space rather than something like a collision with a piece of debris,” Weeden told ArsTechnica.

That aligns with a preliminary analysis by LeoLabs, a company that tracks objects in Earth’s orbit. The company tweeted that its early data “points toward a low intensity explosion,” likely from the satellite’s propulsion system.

LeoLabs said its models had “moderate confidence” in this finding.

“As more of the fragments get cataloged and included in the analysis we will be able to provide a more definitive cause of the event,” the company wrote, adding that “understanding why these types of events occur is key to preventing them in the future.”

Dating while dying: Finding love when I have 9 years left to live

Today

Dating while dying: Finding love when I have 9 years left to live

Chiara Riga – February 8, 2023

A little over a year ago I shared my story about being diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer and being told I have about 10 years to live — 15 if I’m lucky. So much has happened since then — from landing a dream job at a new company to deciding to remove my ovaries as part of my cancer treatment, my life post-terminal cancer diagnosis has surprised me in so many ways.

Perhaps the best and most surprising change, though, is that I now have a boyfriend.

We learned that we loved the same things, including being outdoors and traveling. (Courtesy Chiara Riga)
We learned that we loved the same things, including being outdoors and traveling. (Courtesy Chiara Riga)

When my terminal cancer diagnosis happened, I felt like I was watching all of my dreams shatter like a mirror falling to the ground before my eyes. I wouldn’t survive the cancer, so why would I continue spending all my time trying to climb the corporate ladder? I wouldn’t survive the cancer, so why would I buy a home only to leave my family with the responsibility of a mortgage that would likely outlive me? But the shattered dream that saddened me the most was the dream I had of finding my person — after all, what man looking for a serious relationship would sign up to be with a woman who would likely not live to age 40? What man would knowingly sign up to be a widower long before retirement age? I can’t say I would blame anyone for not wanting to sign up for this kind of life. Before this cancer experience, I can’t say that I would have jumped at the opportunity to be with a man whose remaining years on this earth could be counted on one hand. I resigned myself to a life of singledom, with my dog, Scout, as my only life partner. I watched my friends get engaged and married, buy homes and welcome children, and I cheered them on while each celebrated milestone grew the ache in my chest that longed to live those milestones, too.

And then I met David. We met at a mutual friend’s wedding and hit it off right away — we both love the outdoors, national parks, travel and Taylor Swift sing-alongs in the car, and our personalities couldn’t be more similar. He knew I was sick — our mutual friend had told him — and I tried not to get too attached, because there was no way he would be interested in a romantic connection with me given my incredibly short lifespan. When he asked me to spend a day together a few weeks after the wedding, I said yes, thinking it would be platonic. Our hangout was a few days before my birthday, and when he picked me up he brought me gluten-free brownies he had made from scratch. After that, we spent at least one day every weekend together and against my better judgment, I started falling for him. I thought I was destined for heartbreak, but the happiness he brought to my life felt worth a thousand heartbreaks, so I continued to spend time with him.

One night we were talking on the phone and ended up expressing that we had feelings for each other. I was shocked that he felt the same as I did. But would he want to be with a terminal person? Later that night, while we were texting, I expressed my fears about cancer, my prognosis and how I feared that it would affect our relationship. I expected him to take a step back, to find someone with a longer life expectancy. Instead, he wrote words that I’ll never forget, words that brought me to tears: “Just because you live long doesn’t mean you’re happy or your life is meaningful.” He added, “If we can’t cure you, you will leave us a little earlier than the rest of us, but I will be so happy to know we had something real.”

Before he sent me that message, I don’t think I knew what it was like to be so loved for every part of me. Some of my exes loved me for what I looked like, or my body or the promise of the life we could live together. David loves me for who I am today, for every part of me, both good and bad. He makes me a better person and shows me a love I thought I’d never get to experience in this lifetime.

My current plan is to enjoy this for as long as possible. (Courtesy Chiara Riga)
My current plan is to enjoy this for as long as possible. (Courtesy Chiara Riga)

Our relationship isn’t without its struggles, of course, and cancer is a big one for us — the first time we kissed I ended up with an infection that landed me in the ER with a neutropenic fever. And, with David coming from a traditional Chinese family, telling his parents about my diagnosis has been a struggle for both of us.

I also know that loving myself first is a big part of this. I thought I loved myself pre-cancer, but loving yourself is not just learning who you are, what you like and dislike, and accepting your flaws. It’s also taking care of yourself — your mental and emotional health along with your physical health. Physical health is one that many young people tend to ignore — we’ve always been told that youth equates to health. But if I’ve learned anything since my diagnosis in 2020, it’s that youth and health are not synonymous. If I hadn’t advocated for myself when I found a lump in my breast — even after a doctor nearly laughed me out of the room given my age — I might not be here today. I’ve since learned that women under age 45 make up 9% of all breast cancer diagnoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I do not know what the future holds for us, but right now, I'm just happy to have found love. (Courtesy Chiara Riga)
I do not know what the future holds for us, but right now, I’m just happy to have found love. (Courtesy Chiara Riga)

My story is not unique. I have met countless other young women whose doctors told them that they had nothing to worry about due to their age, despite the fact that breast cancer in young women is more likely to be found at a later stage and be more aggressive and difficult to treat, according to the CDC. It is because of my own advocacy, and my love for myself, that I am still here today and am able to be in a place to love David and be loved in return.

I don’t know what the future holds for David and me — maybe (hopefully) I’ll get to live my dream of a wedding and we’ll sail off into the sunset, or maybe we won’t be each other’s forever. But whatever happens, I’m grateful for the most selfless man I’ve ever met showing me a love I could only dream of during a time when I thought all love was off the table for me. Like he said, we have something real, and I’m the luckiest girl in the world to get to experience it for however much time I have left.

How Hecklers Turned the State of the Union Into a Biden 2024 Ad

Time

How Hecklers Turned the State of the Union Into a Biden 2024 Ad

Philip Elliott – February 8, 2023

State of the Union 2023
State of the Union 2023

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., yells during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, February 7, 2023. Credit – Tom Williams—CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

When a fur-coiffed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene yelled “liar” Tuesday night, among the loudest in an abrupt chorus of boos, the oldest President to ever deliver a State of the Union address didn’t miss a beat. He smiled and went far afield from his script as GOP lawmakers tried to reject his claims that Republicans were ready to gut social entitlement programs.

“Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right? We’ve got unanimity?” he asked. “Apparently it’s not going to be a problem,” he deadpanned at another moment.

The striking exchange, and Biden’s ease in handling it in front of an audience of millions, illustrated why the Democratic establishment isn’t yet ready to toss their 80-year-old standard-bearer overboard.

Despite a halting, vamped opening to Tuesday’s State of the Union speech—a Super Bowl joke? Why?— Biden proved himself plenty capable of holding his own when his Republican hecklers started to stalk him. In fact, he actually demonstrated how he might be able to troll them into their own self-own status in real time. Give Biden acrimony, he’ll toss back accomplishments. Throw him hostility, he’ll offer hope.

“As my football coach used to say, ‘Lots of luck in your senior year,’” he deadpanned at one point, mocking lawmakers who seemed to think high school was the same as the big leagues of Congress.

Biden baited Greene’s fellow Republicans into pledges of fealty to Social Security. When others pummeled him on the U.S.-Mexican dotted line—”secure the border”—Biden taunted them with an offer to work on comprehensive immigration reform. And when Republicans tried to lay blame at the ongoing drug addiction and overdose crisis at Biden’s feet, he simply asked Republicans if they’d work with him to combat it.

For as much as Democrats are gritting their teeth and girding for the worst when it comes to Biden’s likely 2024 campaign, Tuesday night’s State of the Union gave them reason to hold onto optimism. It wasn’t a robust reason, but it was sufficient. Biden showed he can keep his ground in the face of Republican attack; in fact, he seemed to delight in the heckling that came from the floor of the House. For every “liar”—and worse—that rose from the floor, Biden seemed ready with the rejoinder of his first-term economic record. For every peel of stage laughter coming from his physical left and his political right, Biden stood ready to offer some undeniably impressive facts. And for every protest to his trolling suggestion that Republicans were ready to ditch Social Security, Biden had a taunt right in the margins of his heavy black binder.

Biden’s third joint address to Congress set the tone not just for the next year but also his still-unannounced re-election campaign. Biden laid the trap of bipartisan collaboration as well as anyone in recent memory but also set the timer on some partisan timebombs.

Biden is convinced that he is the only Democrat in the land who can block Donald Trump’s return to the White House and is increasingly itchy to make his 2024 re-election bid real. He has effectively frozen the field of would-be challengers, resetting the nominating calendar in such a way that renders challengers as also-rans. He has never been a strong fundraiser or nurturer of outside moneybags, but the deep-pocketed allies are nonetheless ready to bankroll his efforts to stay in the gig that he has chased since his 20s.

So it’s worth considering Tuesday night’s State of the Union as the prologue to Biden’s next chapter, perhaps the final eighth volume in his Robert Caro-esque chronicle. (For the record, not that I’d write it: the first volume would be the first Senate race; Volume II: his Senate term ahead of the 1988 race; III: his return to the Senate; IV: the 2008 primary: V: his time as Vice President; VI: his time as a free radical from 2016-20; and VII: the last two years, leading us to the present.) Biden holds dear to him the spirit of Irish poets, in that the specter of legacy is always just barely off-stage and always above it. Biden wants wins, and his speech—and the interruptions to it—suggest a measure of confrontation is going to define it.

That said, Republicans weren’t entirely sure that the interludes of heckling and hectoring were useful to their side. In fact, plenty of Republicans groaned in the chamber and groused privately that the likes of Greene managed to make the speech into an interactive experience not terribly dissimilar to the British Parliament’s tradition of P.M. Questions. In public, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy shushed his caucus a number of times as they chucked invectives at Biden. More quietly—but still in view of the public—Utah Sen. Mitt Romney tried to silence a GOP House member who has proven plenty shameful to the brand. Romney—who in 2008 and 2012 thought he would do well to be giving a State of the Union himself as President—told Rep. George Santos that he was an embarrassment. Biden seemed to share that assessment, opting to see Santos and deny him a handshake on the aisle.

Again, Biden mightn’t be the most optimal nominee-in-waiting Democrats have ever had on deck, but he’s hardly the most problematic. And that, right there, is why Tuesday night’s State of the Union leaves a whole of the Democratic Party’s top donor roster less dour than they began their week. It’s also why the ragtag Republican contenders hoping to see a slow, doddering commander in chief ready to be put out to pasture were standing at the starting line with empty hands.

George Santos grabbed an aisle seat at the State of the Union. Not everyone was eager to shake his hand.

Insider

George Santos grabbed an aisle seat at the State of the Union. Not everyone was eager to shake his hand.

Nicole Gaudiano,Bryan Metzger and Warren Rojas – February 7, 2023

Republican Rep. George Santos of New York at the State of the Union address on February 7, 2023.
Republican Rep. George Santos of New York at the State of the Union address on February 7, 2023.Jacquelyn Martin-Pool/Getty Images
  • Embattled Rep. George Santos grabbed a premier center aisle seat ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address.
  • That seating put him in a prime position to shake some hands.
  • But he soon discovered that not everyone, including some Republicans, was interested in seeing him.

Republican Rep. George Santos of New York grabbed a seat on the center aisle ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, putting him in a prime position to shake some hands.

Seated beside Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Santos soon discovered that not everyone — including some Republicans — was interested in seeing him.

As they began to enter the chamber around 8:30 pm, several senators customarily shook hands with the scandal-plagued Long Island congressman, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Whip John Thune, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, and even a couple of Democrats: Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Dick Durbin of Illinois.

But several senators were visibly uninterested, particularly Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah.

Other dignitaries who passed by Santos also passed over him, even as they shook hands with Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, seated on the other side of him. Among them was Vice President Kamala Harris.

Santos sat just in front of Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee and behind Rep. Trent Kelly of Mississippi.

Aside from reserved places for leadership, seats in the House chamber are not assigned to members of Congress during the State of the Union Address. Seats are reserved for senators as a group in the front of the chamber and House members sit behind them. House members can claim preferred spots during the day but they have to camp out there to reserve them for the entirety of the speech.

Many Republicans have spent the last month avoiding Santos, who is at the center of a media circus sparked by myriad lies on his resume and investigations of his campaign finances, and who has faced calls to resign from members not just within his own party, but from his home state delegation.

Many of those who spoke recently with Insider’s Bryan Metzger made it clear they wanted nothing to do with Santos.

But as Metzger noted, the congressman who initially sat by himself during his first days in office eventually found a “receptive crowd” among the chamber’s right-wing lawmakers.

Photos of Santos from earlier this session show him sitting between Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and fellow freshman Andy Ogles of Tennessee or with Rep. Pat Fallon of Texas, who told Metzger that Santos seems like a “nice guy.” Greene appears to have known Santos at least since 2020.

During the House speaker vote fight, Insider spotted Santos hanging out by Kevin McCarthy tormentors Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

In recent weeks, Insider has watched Santos roam around the chamber during votes. Sometimes that entails standing alone along the back wall as members weigh in on pending bills, while on at least one occasion he spent about 10 minutes chatting up fellow freshman GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida.

GOP on GOP: Romney scolds Santos, ‘You don’t belong here’

Associated Press

GOP on GOP: Romney scolds Santos, ‘You don’t belong here’

Lisa Mascaro and Mary Clare Jalonick – February 8, 2023

Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and other Republicans gather in the House Chamber before President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Ind-Ariz., center, speaks with Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, left, and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., right, and others, before President Joe Biden arrives to deliver his State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep.George Santos, R-N.Y., lower center, and other Republicans, gather in the House Chamber before President Joe Biden arrives to deliver his State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., talks with people before President Joe Biden arrives to deliver the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., sits as other Republicans stand as President Joe Biden talks about American manufacturing during the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, leave after President Joe Biden delivered the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Rep. George Santos positioned himself in a prime location for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address — an uncomfortably prominent place for the embattled new lawmaker who faces multiple investigations and has acknowledged embellishing and even lying about his life story.

Santos’ presence at the center aisle to see and be seen with the arrivals was met with a stern rebuke from a fellow Republican, Sen. Mitt Romney.

“You don’t belong here,” the Utah Republican scolded Santos as he entered the House chamber and spotted the New York Republican on the aisle.

Words were exchanged, it was reported, though Romney said later he did not hear it all.

“He shouldn’t be in Congress, and they are going to go through the process and hopefully get him out,” Romney told reporters afterward, his office confirmed. “But he shouldn’t be there, and if he had any shame at all he wouldn’t be there.”

The exchange was an unusual lashing by the more reserved Romney, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2012, but shows the discomfort Santos is bringing among traditional conservatives critical of the rightward drift of more extremist elements of the GOP.

Santos retorted with a tweet: “Hey @MittRomney just a reminder that you will NEVER be PRESIDENT!”

The arrival of Santos has been a problem for the Republicans since he won a New York congressional seat, which helped to deliver the party a slim majority, once his personal story began to unravel.

Santos has acknowledged fabricating, and at times lying, about parts of his education, work experience and even his family’s own religion and history.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met privately with the congressman last week amid a swirl of potential investigations on and off Capitol Hill. Santos announced he would step aside from his committee assignments ahead of an expected House Ethics Committee probe.

McCarthy said Tuesday the situation with Santos would work its way through the House Ethics Committee. Fellow New York Republicans have called for Santos to resign from Congress. Santos faces other investigations beyond Congress.

Other Republicans heard the exchange and one Republican lawmaker who was told about it said there was widespread displeasure that Santos had situated himself in such a prominent spot. The lawmaker requested anonymity to discuss what others said about the subject.

The center aisle basically gave Santos the chance to seize the limelight by greeting the president and other prominent officials as they entered the House chamber and made their way down the aisle.

As senators entered the House in a line, it was then that Romney spotted Santos and delivered his message.

“I didn’t expect that he’d be standing there, trying to shake hands with every senator and the president of the United States,” Romney told reporters later.

Romney said that given the investigations, Santos “should be sitting the back row and staying quiet, instead of parading in front of the president and people coming into the room.”

But Santos, as is often the case, had his moment, becoming for a time the face of the GOP.

Mitt Romney calls George Santos ‘a sick puppy’ after Biden State of the Union

USA Today

Mitt Romney calls George Santos ‘a sick puppy’ after Biden State of the Union

Candy Woodall, USA TODAY – February 8, 2023

WASHINGTON—Utah Sen. Mitt Romney at the State of the Union address joined the growing number of Republicans who have said embattled freshman Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., shouldn’t be in Congress.

“If he had any shame at all, he wouldn’t be there,” Romney told reporters after the address.

Santos has admitted to embellishing parts of his personal and professional resume, but Romney said they are lies, not embellishments. To embellish, he said, is to say you got an A instead of an A-. “Lying is saying you graduated from a college you didn’t even attend.”

Santos lied that he graduated from college and was a volleyball star, a Wall Street resume that did not exist, his ancestry and more. He is facing the most legal scrutiny, at the local and federal levels, for his campaign finances.

State of the Union takeaways: Blue-collar Joe, GOP boos and a 2024 preview

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-UT, and Krsten Sinema, I-Ariz., listen to President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address from the House chamber of the United States Capitol in Washington.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-UT, and Krsten Sinema, I-Ariz., listen to President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address from the House chamber of the United States Capitol in Washington.

As Romney entered the House chamber Tuesday night, he told Santos he didn’t belong in Congress.

“I didn’t expect that he’d be standing there (in an aisle seat) trying to shake hands with every senator and the president of the United States,” Romney said to reporters after the State of the Union. Given the investigations facing him, including a House Ethics complaint, “he should be sitting in the back row and staying quiet instead of parading in front of the president and people coming into the room.”

The senator described Santos as “a sick puppy” for his lies.

“He shouldn’t be in Congress, and they’re going to go through the process and hopefully get him out,” Romney said. “But he shouldn’t be there and if he had any shame at all, he wouldn’t be there.”

State of the Union live updates: Biden tells Americans economy roaring back, spars with GOP over debt

Heckles, spats and deflection: The biggest moments you missed from Biden’s State of the Union

Candy Woodall is a Congress reporter for USA TODAY. 

‘Daily Show’ Guest Chelsea Handler Is ‘Sexually Attracted’ To This GOP Lawmaker

HuffPost

‘Daily Show’ Guest Chelsea Handler Is ‘Sexually Attracted’ To This GOP Lawmaker


Ed Mazza – February 8, 2023

Comic Chelsea Handler made a surprising confession on “The Daily Show” on Wednesday night: She’s got the hots for Republican Sen. Mitt Romney.

Romney got into a spat with Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), the lawmaker busted in a plethora of lies and now facing investigations and calls to resign, on Tuesday night just before the State of the Union address.

Those standing nearby reported that the Utah senator told Santos he ought to be embarrassed showing up and called him an “ass” to his face.

Handler rolled the footage, then made her confession.

“I would like to go on the record tonight and say that I am sexually attracted to Mitt Romney,” she declared. “It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last time. I don’t even care that he’s a Republican or a Mormon. In fact, since he’s a Mormon, he’ll be open to another wife, and if not he’s a Republican, so he’ll be open to having an affair. Problem solved.”

See more in her Wednesday night monologue: