Life Among The Stupid Is So Satisfying Sometimes

You’ve heard me say it before, but it’s true. When you’re in my profession, the stupid provide some of your best fodder. But in this case I’m not talking about normal, run of the mill stupid, or even hereditary stupid, like the entire Trump family, minus Mary, I’m talking about criminal stupidity.

Did you ever hear of a second story man named Richard Morrison? Unless you’re at least my age if not older, I almost guarantee that the name means nothing to you. But for a long time in Chicago he was the gold standard for criminal stupidity.

Morrison got caught one night committing a burglary. But when he started talking to his public defender, he spilled a harrowing tale. Morrison got caught on a solo burglary. But normally, in his regular job, Morrison did not work solo. In his regular job Morrison would break into an empty building and carry valuable stuff to the back. But he didn’t just load up his trunk, he was also loading up the trunks of Chicago police patrol cars, with the cops on duty. The Chicago press christened Morrison as The Babbling Burglar. The ring included cops from three different districts, and almost cost Dick Daley his mayoralty. This is the gold medal of criminal stupidity. Morrison had the best cover in the world, and had to go out on his own.

One more. In my home town of Cicero, a man named Roger Traynes was seriously bummed. He desperately needed a beer, but all of the stores were closed at two in the morning. So he broke into the back of a closed convenience store, went out front, drank seven tall boys from the reefer, and promptly passed out on the floor. The owner found him sprawled out when he went in to open, and promptly called the cops. That was his last beer for several years.

And that is the exalted level of criminal stupidity currently playing home to New York Republican House member George Santos. In almost everything he does, Santos shows himself to be one of the most blatantly stupid and inept con men of all time. And then he commits the cardinal sin of brathering about it in an effort to create an excuse.

For starters, the stupidity started early. Santos was only 16 years old when he kited a series of checks for more than $1900 on luxury clothing and jewelry from an elderly man who happened to be a friend of the family. The local South American police have never closed the case, and want the US to ship Santos down so they can have a little chat with him.

Santos also conned a disabled, decorated Navy war vet to set up and operate a Go Fund Me page to raise money for the vet’s cancer stricken service dog. The vet claims that Santos stole the money, more than $5000. Santos denied it, but it was his name and information on the Go Fund Me account, and he made the withdrawal.

I love this one. Santos is accused in the indictments of illegally collecting state unemployment benefits during Covid, before e was elected, while he was busy collecting some $120,000 as the alleged President of a Florida boiler shop operation that is being investigated as a Ponzi scheme.

But this one is my favorites, and one he will go down on if he does on nothing else. I already know that every one of my readers are responsible citizens, with checking accounts, many active for a decade or more.

And so I have a question for each and every one of you. In all of the time you’ve had a checking account, how many times have you written a check for the exact amount of $199.99, or swiped your debit card for that amount? We’ve had our checking account for some 20 years now, and I honestly can’t remember a single debit or check for $199.99.

And yet the George Santos campaign made that exact expenditure and listed it on their FEC filing forms more than 3000 times in less than a year! And that number is uber significant  because $200 is the cut off point where you have to provide receipts for those expenditures. Which is like the Santos campaign not reporting expenditures of some $50,000 until prodded, and then simply deleting those expenditures from the form.

My friends, this is the kind of sh*t that a federal prosecutor loves. For the simple reason that I alluded to earlier in my example of how many of us have cut checks for $199.99. Nobody does that, just like nobody charitable sets up a Go Fund Me page for a disabled vet’s dying dog, only only to have the vet claim that he robbed him of the funds. Criminal stupidity of the highest order.

But criminal stupidity reaches its zenith simple because Santos just won’t STFU! Santos needed a mentor, like Mark Meadows who, when the sh*t got deep, crawled into a hole and let his lawyers do the talking. And in reality it isn’t the fact that Santos denies the charges, it’s the fact that he keeps publicly making up lame, bullsh*t excuses that can be played in court and then easily refuted by the prosecution.

Whenever I look at George Santos, I can’t help but think about the movie Ruthless People. In the movie actor Bill Pullman plays a total idiot who’s trying to help Danny DeVito’s mistress rip him off. He gets caught in a police sting, with dozens of officers in the street and on the roofs. When told, Freeze! We’re the police!, Pullman hollers back. Oh Yeah? Prove it! The detective turns to his partner and says, This has to be the stupidest man alive. Maybe we should shoot him. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s George Santos perfectly portrayed.