Santos expelled from Congress: The U.S. House of Representatives voted this morning to expel New York Republican Congressman George Santos. The vote was 311 in favor and 114 against. A two-thirds vote was needed in order for the resolution to expel Santos to pass. Santos was required to be out of his office on Capitol Hill by the end of the business day. This was the third attempt to oust Santos. The House Ethics Committee investigated and concluded that Santos had not only committed ethical violations but engaged in enough possibly criminal behavior for it to recommend that the Justice Department consider filing additional criminal charges against him. He already is facing 23 federal criminal charges.
Cease-fire ends: The cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war ended today with Israeli jets attacking targets in Gaza. Palestinian rockets were fired at Israel although no significant damage was reported. Israeli aircraft also dropped leaflets over parts of Gaza again warning people to move to the southern part of Gaza in order to avoid being in areas targeted by the Israeli military. It’s estimated that Hamas and other militant groups still hold about 100 hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that Israel still has three goals: eliminating Hamas, freeing the hostages and making sure that Gaza never again is a refuge for people who want to wipe out Israel.
Israel had Hamas attack plans: The New York Times reports that Israel knew about the Hamas plan to attack Israel, which was carried out on Oct. 7, about a year before the attack took place. The Times says that Israeli intelligence had obtained the 40-page detailed battle plan that Hamas wound up following on Oct. 7 but did not take action. The Times reported that an intelligence officer was told by a supervisor not to worry about it. It also was reported that Israeli intelligence discovered that Hamas was rehearsing the attack about six weeks before it happened but no action was taken.
National Christmas Tree: President and Mrs. Biden last night took part in the lighting of the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse, which is just south of the White House. Strong winds had knocked the tree over on Tuesday and National Park Service personnel righted it and replaced a cable holding the tree upright that had failed. They also added more support cables and concrete blocks to stabilize the 40-foot Norway Spruce.
Fake Facebook accounts: Meta, the company that owns Facebook, says it has eliminated a network of 4,800 fake accounts that originated in China that was designed to divide Americans before the 2024 Presidential Election. Meta says that the fake Facebook sites were made to look like they belonged to ordinary Americans but carried divisive political content, including material lifted from Elon Musk’s site X, formerly known as Twitter. At the same time, a Meta spokesperson said that the company still will allow material that promotes the falsehood of the 2020 Presidential Election having been stolen to appear on Facebook.
Trump’s lies: CNN reported this morning that it has fact checked a dozen of Donald Trump’s campaign speeches from October and November and found they contained 102 false claims. These included a claim that there were no terrorist attacks in the U.S. during his time in the White House. CNN found that Trump also falsely claimed that he did get Mexico to pay for construction of his border wall. CNN also found that Trump claimed to have created 1.3 million manufacturing jobs during his time in the White House when the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs actually fell by 170,000 during his presidency.
