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The Obama administration’s investigation of major international banks for manipulation of the “London interbank offered rate,” or Libor, has been in the headlines lately, and that’s good news. The banks’ actions have cost savers and investors dearly; shaken anew confidence in our financial markets, and revealed once again pervasive corruption within our banking system.

The GOP, the party of exclusion – no gays seeking marriage allowed, also no Hispanics, no black people, no poor people who are on or ever were on welfare, and no women who are on or ever were on birth control ­– yeah, that private party spent last week taking sole credit for America's greatness, saying in speeches, announcing on signs and even chanting: We built it.

Republicans did it all,

In our current economic and political environment, we're letting top corporate executives expropriate our public 'property' for private gain. The resulting rewards, for both corporations and their CEOs, can be immense, as the recent Apple patent triumph over Samsung so amazingly demonstrates.

Written with Bernard A. Weisberger. Originally published at BillMoyers.Com.

We might wish the uproar from the convention halls of both parties these busy weeks were the wholesome clamor of delegates deliberating serious visions of how we should be governed for the next four years. It rises instead from scripted TV spectacles — grown-ups doing somersaults of make-believe — that will once again distract the public’s attention from the death rattle of American democracy brought on by an overdose of campaign cash.

No serious proposal to take the money out of politics, or even reduce its tightening grip on the body politic, will emerge from Tampa or Charlotte, so the sounds of celebration and merriment are merely prelude to a funeral cortege for America as a shared experience. A radical minority of the super-rich has gained ascendency over politics, buying the policies, laws, tax breaks, subsidies, and rules that consolidate a permanent state of vast inequality by which they can further help themselves to America’s wealth and resources.

On Wednesday, Jonathan Cohn asked if Paul Ryan's address was "The Most Dishonest Convention Speech ... Ever?" Now that Mitt Romney had his turn, I decided to answer the question.