Weekend Update - The Finger Edition

(Now with those silly-assed Olympics out of the way maybe dear god we can get back to the important thing on television: America's Got Talent.  They actually had the gumption to put the entire contest on hold for three weeks just when we were really getting into it.  I can't even remember who was in the final running.  Oh wait, I remember that kid who can street dance while contorting his body into odd shapes, kinda like watching a jaywalker getting hit by a car.  I think his name is Landau Eugene Murphy Jr.  With a name like that, he's got to be good; my apologies to the Smucker's people. There's also a magician who's quite awesome.  At any rate, let's get on with it NBC.  But I digress ...)

• Mitt Romney is a difficult man to care about.  He never says anything of substance, he has no real ideas or visions.  He's bland and dry like a piece of unbuttered cold toast.  And now there's something called Mitt Revulsion Syndrome (MRS).  News articles go unread, channels are changed, blogs are avoided (except for this one, of course) whenever there's a mention of The Plastic Man.  Even people on the Right find themselves longing for the cowboy-up bullshit of Dubya Bush.  Mark Morford sums all this up in "Mitt Romney vs. Dead Potted Plant."
• Come with me for a moment back to 1974.  Tricky Dick Nixon had just admitted that he was, after all, indeed "a crook" and resigned.  His vice-president, Gerald Ford, became President.  Gerald Ford had to pick his own vice-president and he chose Nelson Rockefeller.  Now Nelson, had to be confirmed by the Senate, and being one of the richest men in America at the time, he didn't want to release his tax returns to anyone, especially the MSM.  Evidently rich people don't want the common folk to see how they make their billions.  At any rate, eventually, before Nelson Rockefeller was confirmed as VP, he had to cough up SEVEN YEARS of tax returns.  Now then, here's my question:  Why hasn't the MSM jumped all over Mitt Romney, who has given congress the finger and has refused to turn over any of his tax returns?  With the exception of Rachel Maddow, where's the outrage?
• Here's a fact for you:  Seventy-five percent of Americans nearing retirement age in 2010 had less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts. The specter of downward mobility in retirement is a looming reality for both middle- and higher-income workers. Almost half of middle-class workers, 49 percent, will be poor or near poor in retirement, living on a food budget of about $5 a day. William Rivers Pitt writes "Beneath the Bottom of the Barrel." 
• And speaking of barrels, my nephew sent me a picture of a barrel of something labeled "Black Liquor," the other day.  I didn't know what exactly it was, but in spite of sounding delicious over rocks with a lemon twist, I could see by the picture it wasn't the type of thing you'd want in your mouth.  Turns out that "Black Liquor" is the Koch Brothers' moonshine.  Jim Hightower explains.
• We love Joe Biden.  We love Joe Biden because he says what he thinks, and sometimes what he thinks doesn't get through the political filter and shredder before it comes out of his mouth.  He did it again the other day.  Joe was speaking to an audience in southern Virginia containing a large number of black people.  He was pontificating on Mitt Romney when he said " ... he’s going to let the big banks write their own rules — unchain Wall Street."  And then he added the punchline: “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”  Kinda silly, and the Right is all over it, of course, but what if crafty old Joe is doing this on purpose?