George Zimmerman, rip off artist

Apparently, when the hero of the gun crazy crowd isn't busy murdering unarmed teenagers for inciting his personal terror of Skittles, or threatening women, he's taken up more artistic pursuits. Zimmerman's first painting fetched a cool 100K when he put up for auction at EBay this week.

And if that's not enough to gag you, he has fans:

A well-wisher expressed love and support for Zimmerman in a question posted on the eBay auction, telling him there were many people on his side, and the artist replied.

“Thank you so much for the words of kindness and support. I do know how many great Americans are still here, I run into at least 3-5 a day that go out of their way to tell me the same. Your Friend, GZ @therealGeorgeZ.”

Putting aside the disgust, gotta give the guy credit for figuring how to work his grift for the highest return possible. Feel a bit sorry for the winner of the auction though. As it turns out, Georgie's art work wasn't entirely original. Hilariously, it's a rip off of a Democratic Underground logo that was generated from a stock photo. [h/t Atrios]

Which reminded me of the plagiarized Breitbart tribute painting. What it is with crackpot cons and their proclivity to steal real artist's work?

All in the family

The family business is a time honored tradition in the United States, but when that business is politics, the grift is built in:

Thirty-two members of Congress dispensed more than $2 million in campaign funds to pay relatives' salaries during the 2012 election cycle, a USA TODAY analysis of the most recent campaign records shows.

Lawmakers have hired their children, spouses, aunts, parents and in-laws as consultants, accountants and record keepers, the examination shows. In some cases, multiple members of the family joined the payroll.

It's entirely possible that some of these family members are well qualified to do the work. Equally possible, that many of them aren't doing much of anything to draw those paychecks. The system invites cheating. On the bright side at least they're just fleecing the rubes who donate to them and not using the taxpayers' money to do it.

Also this is one of the few times that it's actually true -- both sides do it.