Mitt proves his campaign stops DO go better with coke

Mitt Romney held a campaign event Monday evening at a Miami juice shop owned by a convicted cocaine trafficker, according to a report on the CBS News web site.

 Romney appeared at El Palacio de los Jugos, which is owned by Reinaldo Bermudez. Court records show that Bermudez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in 1999 and served three years in federal prison.

Stumping for now-elusive Florida votes after his pick of Paul Ryan as his running mate, Willard and Marco Rubio managed to pick the one juice joint in all of Miami belonging to a guy who can't even vote for either due to his felony conviction and Florida law.

And it wasn't just you regular old campaign stop either. The Romney campaign was actually memorializing the visit by filming a political campaign ad at the juice bar. Bermudez was busted for shipping nearly 500 pounds of coke concealed in containers filled with fish that were imported from Trinidad.

The two guys seem to have common ground in their affinity for tiny Caribbean islands: Romney has money hidden in Bermuda to avoid US taxes; Bermudez got busted for shipping cocaine from a nearby south Caribbean island. Guess campaigning is a lot more fun when you can swap stories of solidarity concerning your off-shore activities.

But it's all good, Bermudez notes.

"Here in Miami there are a lot people with money who have had problems with the law."

Romney's Bermuda Triangle

As reported by web site Crooks & Liars, Romney told an Iowa radio host that his finances are above-board and his assets held in a blind trust managed by a trustee.

"I don’t manage them. I don’t even know where they are. That trustee follows all U.S. laws. All the taxes are paid, as appropriate. All of them have been reported to the government. There’s nothing hidden there. If, for instance, you own shares in Renault or Fiat, you still have to disclose that in the United States,” Romney said. “So, you know, I understand the president’s going to try to do anything he can to divert attention from the fact that his jobs record is weak and he has no plan to make things better."

Conveniently, and indeed most fortunately, the Romney clan was able to scour the planet and locate their Caribbean stash just in time to trickle some down on son Tagg.

“The blind trust that the Romney camp cites to deflect questions about potential conflicts of interest? It invested $10 million in a hedge fund [called Solamere] co-founded by Tagg Romney. The trustee, Romney’s personal lawyer R. Bradford Malt (yes, that’s his actual name), explains his investing philosophy by saying that he ‘liked Solamere because of its diversified approach and because he knew the founders.’”

 Having dodged an ethics scandal by riding out the six year statute of limitations for failing to list the Sankaty holding on his Massachusetts disclosure form, Romney swiftly did some ass-covering by throwing it on his 2012 report. The account, picturesquely named for an historic Nantucket lighthouse, remains a mystery due to the campaign's lack of transparency.

Let me tell you, I know one guy who knows this whole "blind trust" charade is a fraud and is quite upset by it. Let him tell you in his own words ...