Jump to content

New GOP Congressman's entire resume is faked

Orale

By Orale
in Cloak Room

 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 2.1k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Popular Posts

956 Worldwide
956 Worldwide

Mitt Romney cares about the United States. He has different ideas about the way she should be governed, but he wants what is best for the country. He believes in things like respect for the office of

Js1
Js1

He’s Canadian. He goes to another Congress. You don’t know him. 

Chuckie Finster
Chuckie Finster

New York Democratic Party oppo research team this morning.

Posted Images

SydneyCarton

SydneyCarton 47929

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, TexasHooch said:

It was Mormon-ish.

I'm not surprised he's now an expert in Mormonism. 

Out of curiosity, what exactly would be considered "Mormon" behavior? Is he suggesting Romey was hopped up on caffeine from Coca-Cola? Because if he's suggesting that being mean to gays is Anti-Mormon, well, this guy doesn't know the history of Mormonism very well...

Asking him that would have been a great follow-up, but I can't fault the reporter because Santos has perfected the art of sprinting away from reporters. I wonder if at some point that fat fuck might lose some fucking weight. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Satchel

Satchel 6908

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, TexasHooch said:

It was Mormon-ish.

I realize the popular position is to be critical of shame as a useful and beneficial emotion. But in the case of the nation in general and Santos in particular, we might all be helped by not reflexively dismissing how shame could be good for us.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • Popular Post
SydneyCarton

SydneyCarton 47929

Posted
  • Popular Post
Posted
2 minutes ago, Satchel said:

I realize the popular position is to be critical of shame as a useful and beneficial emotion. But in the case of the nation in general and Santos in particular, we might all be helped by not reflexively dismissing how shame could be good for us.

Popular with who? This country is turbofucked because shame has gone by the wayside. People used to be ostracized from communities for their bullshit and embarrassing behavior, and the internet created an echo chamber where there is no shame, of it's easy to avoid. Jesus we're now a society where about 40% of the population views being educated and intelligent as undesirable traits. We need more shame. 

  • Hook 'Em 14
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Satchel

Satchel 6908

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

Popular with who? This country is turbofucked because shame has gone by the wayside. People used to be ostracized from communities for their bullshit and embarrassing behavior, and the internet created an echo chamber where there is no shame, of it's easy to avoid. Jesus we're now a society where about 40% of the population views being educated and intelligent as undesirable traits. We need more shame. 

It’s pretty clear, shame is so 80’s. Trump mainstreamed shamelessness, and Santos made it live for us since is election to Congress.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Foosters

Foosters 17746

Posted
Posted

This fucking guy

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/09/santos-charged-theft-2017-dog-breeders-00082091

Quote

Rep. George Santos was charged with theft in Pennsylvania’s Amish Country in 2017 after a series of bad checks were written in his name to dog breeders, according to the court and a lawyer friend who helped him address the charge.

Just days after $15,125 in checks were made out for “puppies,” according to the memo lines, Santos held an adoption event at a Staten Island pet store with his animal rescue charity Friends of Pets United, according to the store’s Instagram account and a person who attended the event.

 

Quote

The New York Times reported this week that Santos had an unusual request for the pet store owner Daniel Avissato after an adoption event at Pet Oasis. He asked Avissato to make a check with the proceeds out to his name instead of the name of the charity. Avissato said he refused, but later noticed — when he looked at his bank records — that the check had been changed to the way Santos wanted it, according to the Times.

 

  • Haha 5
  • Rage+1 1
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mrs Whiggins

Mrs Whiggins 13049

Posted
Posted

At this point I am wondering if perhaps Mr. Santos and Mr. Musk ought to get together and have a television show. Instead of those other reality shows that focus on private businesses like bars and restaurants or product pitches, the duo could travel to small towns across America and 'fix' the town's government. (I mean neither are doing anything of consequence right now anyway--they're just tweeting (Musk) and appearing on television (Santos) for the most part). After firing most of the staff but leaving elected administration in place, citizens could see that sometimes the government you don't see is the machinery that actually gets things done and that lying and grifting and creating bureaucratic obstacles to overcome problems is a pretty sorry use for your tax dollars. But this is idiocracy and something tells me it would be a huge hit for the wrong reasons and leave no one the wiser while the two Gilderoy Lockharts take to the highway.

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Chad Fuck

Chad Fuck 17577

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

At this point I am wondering if perhaps Mr. Santos and Mr. Musk ought to get together and have a television show. Instead of those other reality shows that focus on private businesses like bars and restaurants or product pitches, the duo could travel to small towns across America and 'fix' the town's government. (I mean neither are doing anything of consequence right now anyway--they're just tweeting (Musk) and appearing on television (Santos) for the most part). After firing most of the staff but leaving elected administration in place, citizens could see that sometimes the government you don't see is the machinery that actually gets things done and that lying and grifting and creating bureaucratic obstacles to overcome problems is a pretty sorry use for your tax dollars. But this is idiocracy and something tells me it would be a huge hit for the wrong reasons and leave no one the wiser while the two Gilderoy Lockharts take to the highway.

I'm thinking it would be more like this...

monorail-simpsons.gif

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
TexasHooch

TexasHooch 5117

Posted
Posted
Quote

Pathological lying lacks classification per the DSM‐5 or the ICD‐10. The DSM‐5, however, notes that deception is a symptom of antisocial personality disorder and is used as a means of external incentive (i.e., malingering) and when undertaking a sick role (i.e., factitious disorder). Lying also appears in the DSM-V as a symptom or diagnostic criteria in narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, conduct disorder, gambling disorder, and oppositional disorder.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-red-light-district/202110/10-facts-about-pathological-lying#:~:text=Pathological lying lacks classification per,(i.e.%2C factitious disorder).

  • Hook 'Em 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
GenXer

GenXer 2788

Posted
Posted
34 minutes ago, TexasHooch said:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-red-light-district/202110/10-facts-about-pathological-lying#:~:text=Pathological lying lacks classification per,(i.e.%2C factitious disorder).

I’m guessing antisocial personality disorder

Per the Mayo Clinic site

Antisocial personality disorder signs and symptoms may include:

Disregard for right and wrong - brazen lying

Persistent lying or deceit to exploit others - ummm, yeah

Being callous, cynical and disrespectful of others - hasn’t exhibited this to my knowledge 

Using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or personal pleasure - heard a few people here say he’s charming 

Arrogance, a sense of superiority and being extremely opinionated - hasn’t exhibited this to my knowledge 

Recurring problems with the law, including criminal behavior - ponzi scheme, theft in brazil, stealing money from the veteran with the dying dog

Repeatedly violating the rights of others through intimidation and dishonesty - haven’t seen him intimidate anyone, yet

Impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead - brazen lying 

Hostility, significant irritability, agitation, aggression or violence - hasn’t exhibited this to my knowledge. This personality disorder also includes psychopaths

Lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others - ponzi scheme, theft

Unnecessary risk-taking or dangerous behavior with no regard for the safety of self or others - brazen lying

Poor or abusive relationships - I remember he said he had a boyfriend weeks ago but that guy just kinda disappeared

Failure to consider the negative consequences of behavior or learn from them - pretty much all the lying, theft he’s done for years

Being consistently irresponsible and repeatedly failing to fulfill work or financial obligations - ponzi scheme fits into this

Sociopaths and psychopaths are also categorized as antisocial personalities. There are degrees of antisocial behavior along a spectrum. 

People with borderline personality disorder exhibit extreme anger. I haven’t seen this with Santos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Bullneck

Bullneck 19023

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, TexasHooch said:

 

I'm not sure who to believe here.

1 hour ago, Red Five said:

Just blows me away that he's still there, voting on things, making little speeches, representing America. Oh he's under an ethics investigation. Any reason that investigation has lasted longer than about 30 months?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
aggie08

aggie08 21438

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, AnTiM said:

I am unable to believe that a majority of his fellow party office holders apparently see nothing wrong with his lying ass remaining in office.

Yeah, dude, don't get your hopes up. He is the GOP. Lie, lie, lie, culture war, culture war, culture war. Maybe he's a little too up front about it, but he's not that much different from the rest of them.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
smuggs

smuggs 9342

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

Beyond the easy armchair diagnosis of "pathological liar", what are the psychiatric disorders for which this is common?  The guy is clearly ill.

 

Licensed to ill? However I am increasingly concerned that he is, in fact, not licensed at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 52354

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

At this point I am wondering if perhaps Mr. Santos and Mr. Musk ought to get together and have a television show. Instead of those other reality shows that focus on private businesses like bars and restaurants or product pitches, the duo could travel to small towns across America and 'fix' the town's government. (I mean neither are doing anything of consequence right now anyway--they're just tweeting (Musk) and appearing on television (Santos) for the most part). After firing most of the staff but leaving elected administration in place, citizens could see that sometimes the government you don't see is the machinery that actually gets things done and that lying and grifting and creating bureaucratic obstacles to overcome problems is a pretty sorry use for your tax dollars. But this is idiocracy and something tells me it would be a huge hit for the wrong reasons and leave no one the wiser while the two Gilderoy Lockharts take to the highway.

Santos’ show is like when Kramer pilfered the merv griffin set. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Francisco 2.0

Francisco 2.0 32347

Posted
Posted

Meanwhile, another has some issues with her backstory:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/10/anna-paulina-luna-republican-biography/

 

Quote

Twelve years before she was elected as the first Mexican American woman to represent Florida in Congress, Anna Paulina Luna was serving at Whiteman Air Force Base in Warrensburg, Mo., where friends said she described herself as alternately Middle Eastern, Jewish or Eastern European. Known then by her given last name of Mayerhofer, Luna sported designer clothing and expressed support for then-President Barack Obama.

 

Quote

By the time she ran for Congress as a Republican, she had changed her last name to Luna in what she said was an homage to her mother’s family. A staunch advocate for gun rights, she cited on the campaign trail a harrowing childhood that left her “battle hardened.” She said she and her mother had little extended family as she grew up in “low-income” neighborhoods in Southern California with a father in and out of incarceration. She said she experienced a traumatizing “home invasion” when she was serving in the Air Force in Missouri.

 

Quote

Luna’s sharp turn to the right, her account of an isolated and impoverished childhood, and her embrace of her Hispanic heritage have come as a surprise to some friends and family who knew her before her ascent to the U.S. House this year. A cousin who grew up with Luna said she was regularly included in family gatherings. Her roommate in Missouri had no recollection of the “home invasion” Luna detailed, describing instead a break-in at their shared apartment when they were not home, an incident confirmed by police records. And three years before her first congressional bid as a conservative, Luna registered to vote as a Democrat in Washington state, voting records show.

 

Spoiler

“She would really change who she was based on what fit the situation best at the time,” said the roommate, Brittany Brooks, who lived with Luna for six months and was a close friend during her military service.

Luna’s congressional office did not provide answers to a detailed list of questions about her biography from The Post. When approached in person on Capitol Hill last week, Luna claimed she had not received any inquiry from The Post and declined to comment further. On Friday, Luna’s communications director, Edie Heipel, emailed The Post calling the questions “bizarre” and stating “our office will not be responding to you any further.”

Luna’s persona as a hard-line conservative who overcame steep personal odds helped her flip Florida’s newly redistricted 13th Congressional seat red last year, riding the support of former president Donald Trump to victory over Democratic candidate Eric Lynn. She is part of a new class of House Republicans that includes many elected to public office for the first time, including Rep. George Santos (N.Y.), whose fabrications about his biography emerged after his election.

During her first week in Congress, Luna was part of a small group of Republicans who refused to elect Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as House speaker, before earning major concessions and eventually switching her vote.

Central to Luna’s political identity is a dramatic life story laid out on her campaign website featuring disturbing experiences that left her with “an armor” that prepared her to fight for the American Dream, as she has described it. She says she survived an armed robbery by age 9 and that her grandmother “died of HIV/AIDS contracted from heroin use.” She has asserted at times that her grandmother’s husband and brothers died that way, too.

In text messages and emails to The Post, Luna’s mother, Monica Luna, affirmed her daughter’s accounts of those incidents.

“Anna’s story is layered and complex because my story is layered and complex because it took me a very long time to get stabilized after a difficult childhood of my own, and then naively getting involved in relationships that were not good for me,” Monica Luna wrote.

‘Broken home mentality’


Luna was born Anna Paulina Mayerhofer in 1989 in Santa Ana, Calif. Her father, George Mayerhofer, was a drug addict, according to Luna and other family members, and he and Luna’s mother never married. In campaign literature and in speaking engagements, Luna has routinely said her mother single-handedly raised her with “no family to rely on.”

“That broken home mentality really did provide me with a lot of insight as to what things work and what other things don’t work, especially when it comes to policy,” Luna said on her podcast in 2021. She has also said she and her mother lacked “a strong extended network of people” that could help care for them.

“I remember those struggles growing up,” Luna said.

Luna lived as a child in various apartments and homes in the Orange County cities of Irvine, Aliso Viejo and Santa Ana as well as the city of Los Angeles, according to public records. Luna also spent time in Tustin and Victorville while visiting her father, Monica Luna said.

Monica Luna said she was the only source of meaningful financial support for the family and had to rely on welfare assistance for periods of time, especially as she was putting herself through college at the University of California at Irvine, and UCLA School of Law.

“Anna had a life that looked like one thing but in reality, there was a side that people didn’t know about,” Monica Luna wrote.

To get scoops, sharp political analysis and accountability journalism in your inbox each morning, sign up for The Early 202.

Other relatives have different recollections, saying Luna and her mother were supported by an extended family.

“The whole family kind of raised her — my dad was a part of her life when she was younger and we all kind of coddled her,” said Nicole Mayerhofer, a first cousin who is three years younger than Luna. She shared with The Post photos of the two girls growing up together and into early adulthood, including a snapshot from a family birthday party when they were young. “She was always a part of everything, all these family gatherings and activities.”

Luna’s paternal grandfather, Heinrich Mayerhofer, would pick her up from day care when Monica Luna was studying, according to Nicole Mayerhofer’s mother, Jolanta.

“She had everything. What she needed and more,” said Jolanta Mayerhofer. “And not only did Monica provide for her, but my father-in-law did, too.” Another family member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their privacy, also said relatives were involved in Luna’s life.

For her part, Monica Luna disputed the accounts of Luna’s cousin and aunt, saying Luna “barely spent any time with them in her entire life,” and called it a “complete fabrication” that Luna’s grandfather provided for her daughter.

Luna’s biography on her campaign website says that throughout her childhood and teenage years, her father “spent time in and out of incarceration,” and that her communication with him during this time was “through letters to jail and collect calls.”

The Post was not able to locate any public records of felony charges or prison sentences for George Mayerhofer in California, where Luna lived at the time. A spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections said they had no records that he served time in state facilities.

George Mayerhofer died in a car accident in Walton County, Fla., last year, according to a statement Luna posted on Twitter.

According to Monica Luna and Jolanta Mayerhofer, George Mayerhofer had several short stints in jail for not paying child support. Monica Luna said he also spent at least one year in jail for a drug-related charge. And she said he served time in Orange County. A spokesperson for the Orange County Corrections Department and the Santa Ana jail told The Post they had no records of incarceration for George Mayerhofer.

In 1997, when Luna was around 8, her mother married a man who was a sales manager, according to the Orange County Register. At the time, Monica Luna worked as an elementary school teacher in the Santa Ana school district, where she was employed from 1997 to 2000, according to her résumé.

During that marriage, Monica Luna served as vice president of the MOMS Club of Aliso Viejo North, an “international organization to support stay-at-home moms,” according to a 2004 Orange County Register article about a toy drive Monica Luna organized for children placed in foster homes.

The article noted that Monica Luna’s then-15-year-old daughter, Anna, helped pack boxes of donations for the drive at their home in Aliso Viejo.

“People should remember that we are fortunate and have so many blessings,” Anna Luna told the reporter. “Taking care of foster children, now that is so cool.”

A break-in


Luna ultimately decided to leave Los Angeles in 2009 when she was 19 and enlist in the Air Force, according to an account she gave on a 2021 podcast.

“She saw how much I struggled and how much I worried about student loans that she joined the Air Force to try to build a life for herself,” Monica Luna told The Post in a text.

At Missouri’s Whiteman Air Force Base, where Luna served as an airfield operations manager, some of her peers thought she came from a well-off family — she wore designer clothing and mentioned at times having nannies as a child, according to two former friends. They recalled her talking about her aspiration of being a Maxim magazine model.

According to a biography of Luna on the website of Turning Point USA, the conservative nonprofit where she worked, she “modeled professionally as a means of paying for expenses that the GI bill did not cover.”

Luna — whose mother’s family is Mexican American and paternal grandmother was born in Hidalgo, Mexico — now describes herself as Hispanic and uses the Spanish pronunciation of her first name. But fellow service members say Luna did not publicly describe herself as Hispanic at the time and referred to herself using the English pronunciation.

“At Whiteman, we had different organizations for different groups and we did have an active Hispanic population on base — she wasn’t part of that,” said Katie West, who served at the same time as Luna at Whiteman Air Force Base. “I know that for sure because I had a lot of friends who were part of that. She’s kind of leaning into that now but that was news to me.”

Those who knew her at the time said Luna was largely apolitical, but they said she expressed support for Obama, who was president at the time. Brooks, her roommate, described her as “liberal.”

At the time, the two women were living in an off-base apartment in Warrensburg. Pictures and social media posts reviewed by The Post show Brooks and Luna shimmering in gowns at a gala, taking sneaky photos of each other napping in the back of a car, and posting on Facebook about their inside jokes and best friend status.

In a 2019 clip from a speaking engagement posted to Luna’s YouTube channel, Luna said that when she was stationed at Whiteman she experienced a “home invasion” at 4 a.m., saying that her landlord broke in to the apartment.

“Had my friend Jeremy not been there to protect me, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be standing right here in front of you guys right now,” Luna added. “[My landlord] was not breaking into my house at 4 a.m. to see how I was doing.”

But Brooks said in an interview that she was not aware of such an early-morning incident taking place. Rather, she said, there was a daytime break-in that occurred when Luna wasn’t home.

A report from the Warrensburg Police Department obtained by The Post describes the July 2010 episode as a “burglary not in progress.”

The incident occurred after Brooks and Luna reported to their landlord that they kept “finding the rear door to the residence standing open,” according to the police report. In response, the landlord changed the locks on the apartment and had deadbolts and latches installed, the report said.

But the women continued to find the door standing open and unlocked, prompting them to temporarily stay elsewhere for several days, the report said. One day, Luna came by the apartment and sprinkled baby powder on the floor in front of the doors before leaving.

Brooks, who is the only person named in the police report, returned later to check on the apartment and then called the police to report that “someone had gained entry into her residence,” according to the report.

When the police arrived, Brooks showed them “what appeared to be a heavy tread left boot print in the powder exiting the premises,” according to the police report.

Brooks, who is now a lawyer working with veterans at a legal aid clinic in Florida, told police that while nothing was missing from the residence, “her desk drawers had been opened and gone through” and “there was also a used condom lying on the floor that Brooks advised was not from her.”

The landlord’s name was redacted from the police report, and no suspect was ever arrested or charged in the case, according to police records.

Luna has described how the “enduring trauma” of the break-in followed her when she moved to Florida.

Anna Paulina Luna throws a coming-out party for new MAGA generation

“When I was stationed in Missouri, I had someone that broke into my house,” Luna told reporters at her victory party on election night. “I didn’t have a firearm. It wasn’t until I got stationed in Florida that I got my concealed carry. So I have lived in circumstances and in states where gun control was pushed.”

Brooks said that at the time of the break-in, both she and Luna had guns in the apartment that were given to them by Brooks’s father.

Becoming Luna


Luna spent six years in the military, where she met her husband, Andrew Gamberzky, an Air Force Special Operations veteran who was wounded during his second combat deployment. During her time in the military, she trained at Lackland and Keesler Air Force bases before she was assigned to Whiteman Air Force Base and then Hurlburt Field, according to a spokesperson for the Air Force.

She graduated from the University of West Florida in 2017 with a degree in biology. Throughout college and after leaving the Air Force, she worked at times as a model, a cocktail waitress at a gentleman’s club and an Instagram influencer, Luna has said. For a period of time, she owned property in Washington state, according to public records. She registered to vote as a Democrat there in Aug. 2017.

Luna’s rise to political prominence began in 2018 after online statements she made on human trafficking and the Second Amendment caught the attention of Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA.

Kirk brought Luna on as the group’s director of Hispanic engagement in August of that year, a position that served as a launchpad for her unsuccessful bid for Congress against Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) in 2020.

It was around that time Luna began to embrace her Hispanic heritage publicly.

When Luna first registered to vote in Okaloosa County, Fla., in 2015, she identified herself as “White, not of Hispanic origin.” But she marked her ethnicity as Hispanic when she updated her registration in 2019.

That same year, at age 29, she filed a petition in Washington state requesting to change her name to Luna. In the petition, which was reviewed by the Tampa Bay Times, Luna wrote that she wanted “to represent my Hispanic heritage and have the same last name as my mother.”

Monica Luna told The Post that Luna was her mother’s family name, and that she herself recently took steps to make Luna legally part of her name, as well. She disputed the idea that her daughter only recently started identifying with her Mexican ancestry.

“Anna has never not identified as being Hispanic as far as I know,” she wrote in an email, saying Luna’s father spoke Spanish around her when she was a child.

“Anna can check both boxes,” she added. “She’s bicultural and biracial. It’s not easy to figure out what box to choose.”

“I am extremely proud of Anna for not only remembering, but embracing and identifying with her cultural heritage. I hope she encourages others to do the same,” Monica Luna added. “It would have been a lot easier for her to deny it; she certainly has been attacked again, and again because of it.”

Luna also stated on the campaign trail and in an interview with Jewish Insider in November that while she identifies as Christian, she was “raised as a Messianic Jew by her father.” Messianic Jews identify as Jewish and say they believe that Jesus is the Messiah. “I am also a small fraction Ashkenazi,” she added, referring to Jews whose ancestors lived in Central or Eastern Europe.

Luna’s mother said her father was a “Christian that embraced the Messianic faith.”

“He eventually got clean and started attending a messianic Jewish church in Orange County. He brought Anna to services and she buried him to Jewish customs,” Monica Luna wrote in a text.

However, three members of Luna’s extended family said that her father was Catholic, and that they were not aware of him practicing any form of Judaism while Luna was growing up.

George Mayerhofer’s father, Heinrich Mayerhofer, immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1954 and identified as Roman Catholic, according to an immigration record reviewed by The Post.

According to several family members, Heinrich Mayerhofer, who died in 2003, served in the armed forces of Nazi Germany when he was a teenager in the 1940s.

One of his sons, Edward Mayerhofer — Luna’s uncle — provided The Post what he said was a portrait of Heinrich Mayerhofer dressed in a uniform as a young soldier in Germany. Experts from the Simon Wiesenthal Center who reviewed the photo confirmed the uniform was consistent with that of a member of the Wehrmacht, which was the armed forces of Nazi Germany.

Jolanta Mayerhofer, Edward’s wife, said Heinrich Mayerhofer — who went by Henry — told her he had no choice but to serve the Nazi regime during the war.

“It hurt for him to talk about it,” she said. “He said, ‘You getting the letter, you need to show up, otherwise your life is over. … He did not like it, but that’s what life was.”

Monica Luna said she had never heard that Luna’s grandfather had Nazi ties. She noted that Luna is estranged from Edward Mayerhofer, who is the brother of Luna’s father and publicly raised inconsistencies in Luna’s biography on social media during her first bid for Congress. In response, Luna filed a request for a stalking injunction against him in 2020.

Luna has not publicly discussed Heinrich Mayerhofer, although she has noted her maternal great-grandfather Antonio Luna’s service in World War II on social media, tweeting in 2020 that he “was at D-Day.” Another great-grandfather, William Todd — the son of an American adventurer and a native of Colima, Mexico — also served during World War II with Arizona’s 158th Infantry Regiment team, according to a 1952 article in the Arizona Daily Star.

Nicole Mayerhofer, Luna’s cousin, and other family members said it was well known in the family that Heinrich Mayerhofer served in the German army in World War II. She said her grandfather at times spoke of his experiences in the war.

“Yes, [my grandfather] did grow up that way but when he decided to come to America and live here, even though he tried to remember where he came from, he was accepting of people of different races and religions — he was not antisemitic,” Nicole Mayerhofer said.

The relationship between the cousins deteriorated in 2020 after Luna filed the stalking injunction against Nicole Mayerhofer’s father, according to Nicole.

Since her election to Congress, Luna has drawn attention for declining to attend a White House reception for new House members because of the event’s covid-19 protocols, arguing in favor of allowing House members to carry firearms to committee meetings and accusing a reporter of sexually harassing her after he asked her questions while she left her office in the U.S. Capitol in January.

The new House Freedom Caucus member has compared Democrats’ approach to human trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border to human rights abuses in China, called on the United States to stop sending tanks to Ukraine and suggested criminalizing taxation.

Luna has also promised to tackle the issue of censorship, balance the budget and launch a veterans coalition, while sharing motivational messages about her journey to Washington along the way.

“I always tell people that you have two options in life: you can either choose to be the victor or the victim,” Luna said in an interview last year, shortly before Election Day. “I chose to be a victor.”

 

 

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
WhatTheBuck

WhatTheBuck 28719

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, AnTiM said:

I am unable to believe that a majority of his fellow party office holders apparently see nothing wrong with his lying ass remaining in office.

Considering it’s the party of Trump, I find it perfectly understandable. It’s to be expected. The ones like Romney who speak out against him are the outliers.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 52354

Posted
Posted

So that Luna person’s mother was on welfare while enrolled at UCI and UCLA, and presumably on financial assistance at those institutions?  Or maybe this was back when it was “free” for residents, using the taxes collected?

sounds like those things worked for her mother, and that using tax money from the public to help raise people up is in fact in the public interest. Those things don’t sound like conservative ideals- they sound like the opposite. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Beau Vine

Beau Vine 54012

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, AnTiM said:

I am unable to believe that a majority of his fellow party office holders apparently see nothing wrong with his lying ass remaining in office.

Seriously?  He's like the GOP default model now:

Quote

Twelve years before she was elected as the first Mexican American woman to represent Florida in Congress, Anna Paulina Luna was serving at Whiteman Air Force Base in Warrensburg, Mo., where friends said she described herself as alternately Middle Eastern, Jewish or Eastern European. Known then by her given last name of Mayerhofer, Luna sported designer clothing and expressed support for then-President Barack Obama.

By the time she ran for Congress as a Republican, she had changed her last name to Luna in what she said was an homage to her mother’s family. A staunch advocate for gun rights, she cited on the campaign trail a harrowing childhood that left her “battle hardened.” She said she and her mother had little extended family as she grew up in “low-income” neighborhoods in Southern California with a father in and out of incarceration. She said she experienced a traumatizing “home invasion” when she was serving in the Air Force in Missouri.

Luna’s sharp turn to the right, her account of an isolated and impoverished childhood, and her embrace of her Hispanic heritage have come as a surprise to some friends and family who knew her before her ascent to the U.S. House this year. A cousin who grew up with Luna said she was regularly included in family gatherings. Her roommate in Missouri had no recollection of the “home invasion” Luna detailed, describing instead a break-in at their shared apartment when they were not home, an incident confirmed by police records. And three years before her first congressional bid as a conservative, Luna registered to vote as a Democrat in Washington state, voting records show.

ADVERTISING


“She would really change who she was based on what fit the situation best at the time,” said the roommate, Brittany Brooks, who lived with Luna for six months and was a close friend during her military service.

Luna’s congressional office did not provide answers to a detailed list of questions about her biography from The Post. When approached in person on Capitol Hill last week, Luna claimed she had not received any inquiry from The Post and declined to comment further. On Friday, Luna’s communications director, Edie Heipel, emailed The Post calling the questions “bizarre” and stating “our office will not be responding to you any further.”


Luna in the House Committee on Oversight and Reform during a hearing on Feb. 1. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Luna’s persona as a hard-line conservative who overcame steep personal odds helped her flip Florida’s newly redistricted 13th Congressional seat red last year, riding the support of former president Donald Trump to victory over Democratic candidate Eric Lynn. She is part of a new class of House Republicans that includes many elected to public office for the first time, including Rep. George Santos (N.Y.), whose fabrications about his biography emerged after his election.


During her first week in Congress, Luna was part of a small group of Republicans who refused to elect Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as House speaker, before earning major concessions and eventually switching her vote.

Central to Luna’s political identity is a dramatic life story laid out on her campaign website featuring disturbing experiences that left her with “an armor” that prepared her to fight for the American Dream, as she has described it. She says she survived an armed robbery by age 9 and that her grandmother “died of HIV/AIDS contracted from heroin use.” She has asserted at times that her grandmother’s husband and brothers died that way, too.

In text messages and emails to The Post, Luna’s mother, Monica Luna, affirmed her daughter’s accounts of those incidents.

“Anna’s story is layered and complex because my story is layered and complex because it took me a very long time to get stabilized after a difficult childhood of my own, and then naively getting involved in relationships that were not good for me,” Monica Luna wrote.

‘Broken home mentality’
Luna was born Anna Paulina Mayerhofer in 1989 in Santa Ana, Calif. Her father, George Mayerhofer, was a drug addict, according to Luna and other family members, and he and Luna’s mother never married. In campaign literature and in speaking engagements, Luna has routinely said her mother single-handedly raised her with “no family to rely on.”


“That broken home mentality really did provide me with a lot of insight as to what things work and what other things don’t work, especially when it comes to policy,” Luna said on her podcast in 2021. She has also said she and her mother lacked “a strong extended network of people” that could help care for them.

“I remember those struggles growing up,” Luna said.

Luna lived as a child in various apartments and homes in the Orange County cities of Irvine, Aliso Viejo and Santa Ana as well as the city of Los Angeles, according to public records. Luna also spent time in Tustin and Victorville while visiting her father, Monica Luna said.

Monica Luna said she was the only source of meaningful financial support for the family and had to rely on welfare assistance for periods of time, especially as she was putting herself through college at the University of California at Irvine, and UCLA School of Law.


“Anna had a life that looked like one thing but in reality, there was a side that people didn’t know about,” Monica Luna wrote.

To get scoops, sharp political analysis and accountability journalism in your inbox each morning, sign up for The Early 202.

Other relatives have different recollections, saying Luna and her mother were supported by an extended family.

“The whole family kind of raised her — my dad was a part of her life when she was younger and we all kind of coddled her,” said Nicole Mayerhofer, a first cousin who is three years younger than Luna. She shared with The Post photos of the two girls growing up together and into early adulthood, including a snapshot from a family birthday party when they were young. “She was always a part of everything, all these family gatherings and activities.”


Luna, right, and her cousin Nicole Mayerhofer pose in matching outfits. (Courtesy of Nicole Mayerhofer)

Nicole Mayerhofer and Anna Paulina Luna pictured together in Fort Walton, Fla., in 2013. (Courtesy of Nicole Mayerhofer)
Luna’s paternal grandfather, Heinrich Mayerhofer, would pick her up from day care when Monica Luna was studying, according to Nicole Mayerhofer’s mother, Jolanta.


“She had everything. What she needed and more,” said Jolanta Mayerhofer. “And not only did Monica provide for her, but my father-in-law did, too.” Another family member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their privacy, also said relatives were involved in Luna’s life.

For her part, Monica Luna disputed the accounts of Luna’s cousin and aunt, saying Luna “barely spent any time with them in her entire life,” and called it a “complete fabrication” that Luna’s grandfather provided for her daughter.

Luna’s biography on her campaign website says that throughout her childhood and teenage years, her father “spent time in and out of incarceration,” and that her communication with him during this time was “through letters to jail and collect calls.”


Luna asks about federal covid relief funds
2:00
During a Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing on Feb. 1, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) asked about federal covid relief funds. (Video: The Washington Post)
The Post was not able to locate any public records of felony charges or prison sentences for George Mayerhofer in California, where Luna lived at the time. A spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections said they had no records that he served time in state facilities.


George Mayerhofer died in a car accident in Walton County, Fla., last year, according to a statement Luna posted on Twitter.

According to Monica Luna and Jolanta Mayerhofer, George Mayerhofer had several short stints in jail for not paying child support. Monica Luna said he also spent at least one year in jail for a drug-related charge. And she said he served time in Orange County. A spokesperson for the Orange County Corrections Department and the Santa Ana jail told The Post they had no records of incarceration for George Mayerhofer.


Luna, center, celebrates her birthday surrounded by her paternal grandparents, her father, aunt, uncle and cousins. (Courtesy of Nicole Mayerhofer)
In 1997, when Luna was around 8, her mother married a man who was a sales manager, according to the Orange County Register. At the time, Monica Luna worked as an elementary school teacher in the Santa Ana school district, where she was employed from 1997 to 2000, according to her résumé.


During that marriage, Monica Luna served as vice president of the MOMS Club of Aliso Viejo North, an “international organization to support stay-at-home moms,” according to a 2004 Orange County Register article about a toy drive Monica Luna organized for children placed in foster homes.

The article noted that Monica Luna’s then-15-year-old daughter, Anna, helped pack boxes of donations for the drive at their home in Aliso Viejo.

“People should remember that we are fortunate and have so many blessings,” Anna Luna told the reporter. “Taking care of foster children, now that is so cool.”

A break-in
Luna ultimately decided to leave Los Angeles in 2009 when she was 19 and enlist in the Air Force, according to an account she gave on a 2021 podcast.

“She saw how much I struggled and how much I worried about student loans that she joined the Air Force to try to build a life for herself,” Monica Luna told The Post in a text.


At Missouri’s Whiteman Air Force Base, where Luna served as an airfield operations manager, some of her peers thought she came from a well-off family — she wore designer clothing and mentioned at times having nannies as a child, according to two former friends. They recalled her talking about her aspiration of being a Maxim magazine model.

According to a biography of Luna on the website of Turning Point USA, the conservative nonprofit where she worked, she “modeled professionally as a means of paying for expenses that the GI bill did not cover.”

 

“At Whiteman, we had different organizations for different groups and we did have an active Hispanic population on base — she wasn’t part of that,” said Katie West, who served at the same time as Luna at Whiteman Air Force Base. “I know that for sure because I had a lot of friends who were part of that. She’s kind of leaning into that now but that was news to me.”

Those who knew her at the time said Luna was largely apolitical, but they said she expressed support for Obama, who was president at the time. Brooks, her roommate, described her as “liberal.”

At the time, the two women were living in an off-base apartment in Warrensburg. Pictures and social media posts reviewed by The Post show Brooks and Luna shimmering in gowns at a gala, taking sneaky photos of each other napping in the back of a car, and posting on Facebook about their inside jokes and best friend status.

In a 2019 clip from a speaking engagement posted to Luna’s YouTube channel, Luna said that when she was stationed at Whiteman she experienced a “home invasion” at 4 a.m., saying that her landlord broke in to the apartment.

“Had my friend Jeremy not been there to protect me, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be standing right here in front of you guys right now,” Luna added. “[My landlord] was not breaking into my house at 4 a.m. to see how I was doing.”

But Brooks said in an interview that she was not aware of such an early-morning incident taking place. Rather, she said, there was a daytime break-in that occurred when Luna wasn’t home.

A report from the Warrensburg Police Department obtained by The Post describes the July 2010 episode as a “burglary not in progress.”

The incident occurred after Brooks and Luna reported to their landlord that they kept “finding the rear door to the residence standing open,” according to the police report. In response, the landlord changed the locks on the apartment and had deadbolts and latches installed, the report said.

But the women continued to find the door standing open and unlocked, prompting them to temporarily stay elsewhere for several days, the report said. One day, Luna came by the apartment and sprinkled baby powder on the floor in front of the doors before leaving.

 

When the police arrived, Brooks showed them “what appeared to be a heavy tread left boot print in the powder exiting the premises,” according to the police report.

Brooks, who is now a lawyer working with veterans at a legal aid clinic in Florida, told police that while nothing was missing from the residence, “her desk drawers had been opened and gone through” and “there was also a used condom lying on the floor that Brooks advised was not from her.”

The landlord’s name was redacted from the police report, and no suspect was ever arrested or charged in the case, according to police records.

Luna has described how the “enduring trauma” of the break-in followed her when she moved to Florida.

Anna Paulina Luna throws a coming-out party for new MAGA generation

“When I was stationed in Missouri, I had someone that broke into my house,” Luna told reporters at her victory party on election night. “I didn’t have a firearm. It wasn’t until I got stationed in Florida that I got my concealed carry. So I have lived in circumstances and in states where gun control was pushed.”

Brooks said that at the time of the break-in, both she and Luna had guns in the apartment that were given to them by Brooks’s father.

Becoming Luna
Luna spent six years in the military, where she met her husband, Andrew Gamberzky, an Air Force Special Operations veteran who was wounded during his second combat deployment. During her time in the military, she trained at Lackland and Keesler Air Force bases before she was assigned to Whiteman Air Force Base and then Hurlburt Field, according to a spokesperson for the Air Force.

She graduated from the University of West Florida in 2017 with a degree in biology. Throughout college and after leaving the Air Force, she worked at times as a model, a cocktail waitress at a gentleman’s club and an Instagram influencer, Luna has said. For a period of time, she owned property in Washington state, according to public records. She registered to vote as a Democrat there in Aug. 2017.

Luna’s rise to political prominence began in 2018 after online statements she made on human trafficking and the Second Amendment caught the attention of Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA.

 

It was around that time Luna began to embrace her Hispanic heritage publicly.

When Luna first registered to vote in Okaloosa County, Fla., in 2015, she identified herself as “White, not of Hispanic origin.” But she marked her ethnicity as Hispanic when she updated her registration in 2019.

That same year, at age 29, she filed a petition in Washington state requesting to change her name to Luna. In the petition, which was reviewed by the Tampa Bay Times, Luna wrote that she wanted “to represent my Hispanic heritage and have the same last name as my mother.”

Monica Luna told The Post that Luna was her mother’s family name, and that she herself recently took steps to make Luna legally part of her name, as well. She disputed the idea that her daughter only recently started identifying with her Mexican ancestry.

“Anna has never not identified as being Hispanic as far as I know,” she wrote in an email, saying Luna’s father spoke Spanish around her when she was a child.

“Anna can check both boxes,” she added. “She’s bicultural and biracial. It’s not easy to figure out what box to choose.”

“I am extremely proud of Anna for not only remembering, but embracing and identifying with her cultural heritage. I hope she encourages others to do the same,” Monica Luna added. “It would have been a lot easier for her to deny it; she certainly has been attacked again, and again because of it.”


Luna also stated on the campaign trail and in an interview with Jewish Insider in November that while she identifies as Christian, she was “raised as a Messianic Jew by her father.” Messianic Jews identify as Jewish and say they believe that Jesus is the Messiah. “I am also a small fraction Ashkenazi,” she added, referring to Jews whose ancestors lived in Central or Eastern Europe.

Luna’s mother said her father was a “Christian that embraced the Messianic faith.”

“He eventually got clean and started attending a messianic Jewish church in Orange County. He brought Anna to services and she buried him to Jewish customs,” Monica Luna wrote in a text.

However, three members of Luna’s extended family said that her father was Catholic, and that they were not aware of him practicing any form of Judaism while Luna was growing up.

George Mayerhofer’s father, Heinrich Mayerhofer, immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1954 and identified as Roman Catholic, according to an immigration record reviewed by The Post.

According to several family members, Heinrich Mayerhofer, who died in 2003, served in the armed forces of Nazi Germany when he was a teenager in the 1940s.

One of his sons, Edward Mayerhofer — Luna’s uncle — provided The Post what he said was a portrait of Heinrich Mayerhofer dressed in a uniform as a young soldier in Germany. Experts from the Simon Wiesenthal Center who reviewed the photo confirmed the uniform was consistent with that of a member of the Wehrmacht, which was the armed forces of Nazi Germany.


Heinrich Mayerhofer was Luna’s paternal grandfather. (Courtesy of Edward Mayerhofer)
Jolanta Mayerhofer, Edward’s wife, said Heinrich Mayerhofer — who went by Henry — told her he had no choice but to serve the Nazi regime during the war.

“It hurt for him to talk about it,” she said. “He said, ‘You getting the letter, you need to show up, otherwise your life is over. … He did not like it, but that’s what life was.”

Monica Luna said she had never heard that Luna’s grandfather had Nazi ties. She noted that Luna is estranged from Edward Mayerhofer, who is the brother of Luna’s father and publicly raised inconsistencies in Luna’s biography on social media during her first bid for Congress. In response, Luna filed a request for a stalking injunction against him in 2020.

Luna has not publicly discussed Heinrich Mayerhofer, although she has noted her maternal great-grandfather Antonio Luna’s service in World War II on social media, tweeting in 2020 that he “was at D-Day.” Another great-grandfather, William Todd — the son of an American adventurer and a native of Colima, Mexico — also served during World War II with Arizona’s 158th Infantry Regiment team, according to a 1952 article in the Arizona Daily Star.

Nicole Mayerhofer, Luna’s cousin, and other family members said it was well known in the family that Heinrich Mayerhofer served in the German army in World War II. She said her grandfather at times spoke of his experiences in the war.

“Yes, [my grandfather] did grow up that way but when he decided to come to America and live here, even though he tried to remember where he came from, he was accepting of people of different races and religions — he was not antisemitic,” Nicole Mayerhofer said.

The relationship between the cousins deteriorated in 2020 after Luna filed the stalking injunction against Nicole Mayerhofer’s father, according to Nicole.

Since her election to Congress, Luna has drawn attention for declining to attend a White House reception for new House members because of the event’s covid-19 protocols, arguing in favor of allowing House members to carry firearms to committee meetings and accusing a reporter of sexually harassing her after he asked her questions while she left her office in the U.S. Capitol in January.


Luna arrives as newly elected members of the 118th Congress. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The new House Freedom Caucus member has compared Democrats’ approach to human trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border to human rights abuses in China, called on the United States to stop sending tanks to Ukraine and suggested criminalizing taxation.

Luna has also promised to tackle the issue of censorship, balance the budget and launch a veterans coalition, while sharing motivational messages about her journey to Washington along the way.

“I always tell people that you have two options in life: you can either choose to be the victor or the victim,” Luna said in an interview last year, shortly before Election Day. “I chose to be a victor.”

 

  • Rage+1 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
TexasHooch

TexasHooch 5117

Posted
Posted

This new batch of politicians reminds me of aspiring WWE wrestlers.  It doesn't really matter who you really are or where you came from.  Pick a persona that you think will resonate, choose heel or hero, settle in on some tag lines and one liners for the camera, and generate as much attention as you can early(good or bad).  

  • Rage+1 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing


Football ... Basketball ... Baseball ... Other Sports ... Futbol ... 🤫995🤫 ... Gambling ... Movies & TV ... Music ... Hobbies ... Lulz ... Food & Travel ... Daily Texan ... Business and Markets ... Cloak Room ... Help ... For Sale ... Board Discussion ... Subscribe!... Donate!... Advertise... COOKIE MONSTER!

×
×
  • Create New...