Twenty Bucks, Same as in Town: R&R edition

Yesterday, Imani Gandy at Balloon Juice reminded us of something that had broken out on DKos a month ago yet (surprise, surprise!) didn't get any traction in the completely worthless MSM: Mitt Romney's and Bain Capital's role in a massive Medicare fraud scheme that resulted in a $35,300,000 criminal fine. The fact that this massive story had about as much legs as a South Park character isn't surprising (especially when compared to the nonstarter of a "scandal" regarding Solyndra) but that Romney and Ryan are lying off their uptight asses about Obama "stealing" $716,000,000,000 from Medicare and the abovementioned completely worthless MSM allow them to continue advancing these lies as if their version of the facts is a valid alternative to the facts themselves.

Postscript to our little sons and daughters of Edward R. Murrow: Willard made almost a cool half a million on Damon's Medicare fraud, while Bain made $7.4 million.

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Speaking of our completely worthless MSM, Digby's hardly making a revelation here but it bears repeating: The MSM's biggest failure these days, sez Digs, is their inability or unwillingness to push back against right wing nut jobs who're still hoarsely screaming about all of 10 cases of voter fraud going back about a decade. Yet, because of the mainstream media's perennial failure to expose this right wing lie that's being used to justify vote caging, over 80% of the American public actually believes voter fraud is a problem with nearly half believing it's a serious problem. And Republicans are even admitting that vote caging will help send Mitt Romney to the White House.

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Now, first consider the source. This is coming from Roger Stone, a pint-sized Republican scumbag and not-so-merry prankster who most infamously orchestrated the "Brooks Brothers" recount riot in Miami-Dade almost 12 years ago. And this allegation (and that's all it is at this point as Stone hasn't offered a shred of proof backing it up) tastes suspiciously like sour grapes. But keep in mind Stone is a Republican insider and has been for decades going back to Nixon's C.R.E.E.P. And The National Memo is currently running with a story that Ryan got on the GOP presidential ticket because last month the Koch Brothers bribed Mitt Romney with up to $100,000,000 in campaign contributions. Once again, consider the source. But if the MSM were worth its weight in falafel sticks, they'd be asking about this, you know, considering the MSM are infamous for digging up dirt on Democrats whether or not any exists.

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Since I militantly refuse to link to the Puffington Host ever again for a whole plantation's worth of reasons (specifically 315,000,000 of them), you'll have to go to Mormon Curtain to get to the original article about Helen Radkey's revelation that Paul Ryan's ancestors were on a Mormon list possibly designating them for posthumous baptism. Paul Ryan and his family are, as we all know, staunch Roman Catholics with roots in Ireland and this creepy necrophilic practice extends even into Mitt Romney's own family (Ann Romney's own atheist father, who loathed the Mormons with a passion, was nonetheless posthumously baptised by the cult).

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Speaking of cults, D r i f t g l a s s writes an open letter to The New Republic, using that cult classic "I Was a Teenage Libertarian" as a cultural jumping-off point.

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I thought he was too uptight for body art but Mitt Romney recently got a tattoo, according to Busted Knuckles.

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Jill Hussein at Brilliant at Breakfast says that Willard Rmoney's met his match in the Lying Olympics (aka the presidential election) and it's his running mate. Meanwhile, in non-Romney-Ryan news...

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In his latest "Reacharound Friday", the Rude One is considerably more generous than yours truly in assessing the actual musical talent of Pussy Riot, who are less punk rock musicians and more like performance artists posing as punkers. But, of course, as I myself had said the same day, it's not Pussy Riot's actual talent but what they represent that counts. And between their stunt in church last February and the gay pride protests taking place in Moscow, St. Petersburg and all over Russia, many dissidents are showing up Putin's totalitarian regime as just another tinpot dictatorship almost as repressive anything seen during Stalin. (As a personal aside, I don't know whether to give Charles Pierce a medal or a large-bore bullet for these execrable, rapid-fire puns on the Pussy Riot conviction.)

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