Thieves And Idiots

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."               – H.L. Mencken, 1880-1956

As we look out at both the financial landscape and the political landscape in America, there are times we seriously doubt the wisdom of editor, writer, and satirist H.L. Mencken.

Right now, Americans appear to be collectively dumber than ever before. We've got a major party candidate for President who has a record of near constant lying, American job destruction, and benefiting from corporate welfare. We're also dealing with the continuation of the U.S. banking scandals on Wall Street, and a worldwide scandal in the Libor rate-fixing controversy. Americans seem to have no idea of who has really been screwing them, economically. What's worse, they don't seem to care.

It's not as though Americans trust bankers or really trust anyone on Wall Street these days. A recent Gallup poll found Americans' faith in banks and Wall Street is at a record low right now. In short, Americans just want to toss all the bankers in jail, and throw away the keys - something we frankly can't disagree with.

The problem with that - outside of the pure unethical nature of it - is that until the people wake up to what's been done to them, and who did it, they can't possibly begin to fix the system.

Mitt Romney's issues with releasing his tax returns are a perfect example. Mr. Romney is statistically likely to be one of the people tagged by the Tax Justice Network's study released last weekend. That study said that the wealthiest people in the world have likely hidden away between $21 and $32 Trillion in untaxed global assets. To put it bluntly, the richest people in the world are stealing tax revenue from the rest of us in ways that are unprecedented.

Yet, in a different USA Today/Gallup Poll released on Monday, nearly two-thirds of Americans currently think Mitt Romney's experience as the head of vulture turnover firm Bain Capital would cause him to make good economic decisions, not bad ones. So… stealing from Americans and giving to one's self is now good fiscal policy, according to the majority of Americans in that poll.

In another banking scandal that originated on Wall Street, the municipal bond-rigging scandal that Matt Taibbi reported recently outlines how private banks have been ripping off municipalities for trillions of dollars that taxpayers will likely never see again. As Taibbi noted, while there may be a lot of complicated words and math, the bank actions boil down to little more than mafia-style thuggery.

Finally, the Libor rate-fixing scandal that so few people seem to actually understand involves - you guessed it - banks from all over the world, lying and stealing from each other. Since they've all lied and stolen so much, and then built our world economies on the backs of those lies, our entire world economy has - once again - been put on the brink of collapse.

There has been some minor pressure to arrest the bankers and corporate criminals responsible for these disasters. However, the fact that little more than four years after Wall Street criminals almost destroyed the world economy, one of them is now running for President - competitively - seems to prove that Americans may indeed be far more stupid than H.L. Mencken ever imagined.

Maybe a better strategy would be to throw the American public in jail, and let the bankers wipe each other out.

Aftermath... Again.

For the last three days, the topic of conversation that dominated the media was not what it should have been.

Yes, the act of terror that killed twelve and wounded seventy last Friday in a suburb of Denver, Colorado, was intensely painful to our country. We are deeply sympathetic to those affected, and overwhelmingly glad that nobody our staff members knew was killed or injured in the attack in Aurora.

Still, the discussion in the media hasn't been what it should be.

There have been stories about the booby traps the shooter left behind, stories of the President's visit with the families, and of the life stories of the victims. There was the seemingly obligatory call to not politicize the horrific event - and the failure by members of both the legitimate and not-so-legitimate media to do so.

What hasn't been seen or heard almost anywhere this weekend was what many in politics on the left - and even Rupert Murdoch on the right - agreed there needs to be: a truly adult conversation about sane gun control in America.

Few Americans want to admit that the lack of conversation in that vein is because lobbying organizations like the National Rifle Association effectively own our elected representatives. As Rep. Carolyn McCarthy - whose husband and son were killed in a senseless 1993 shooting − has noted too many times, due to the power of the NRA's pocketbook, most politicians simply don't have the backbone to do what needs to be done.

What's made it worse is that the NRA has also invested billions of dollars in propaganda to convince Americans that gun control and the violence in our society are unrelated - even though stacks of data higher than you can imagine say otherwise.

That combination of actions by the gun lobby means that even though New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg plans to reintroduce gun control legislation, it's almost certain to die on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

The cowardice of our elected officials does not change the facts.

One of those facts is that the Assault Weapons Ban, that the Republican Congress and the Bush Administration let die in 2004, might have saved some of those victims in Colorado. While it's true that the semi-automatic assault rifle of the shooter jammed, if he had not had the rifle, it's likely he would have been able to shoot fewer people.

Another fact is that concealed weapons would not have helped those in the theatre, as yet another shooting in New York over the weekend proved, where a police officer shot and killed his own son in a dark hotel room.

The conversation Americans need to be having - MUST have, if they're going to have any credibility on this issue - is the following.

Why are guns in America - especially assault weapons designed to kill human beings - easier to get access to than mental health care? Restricting the worst weapons - and making it more difficult to acquire all other weapons - won't stop every act of terror. Vastly improving mental health care also won't prevent every outbreak of mass violence.

Both, however, would significantly lessen the body count. So why do we allow a lobbying organization to prevent us from doing either?

That's the discussion we need to have.

Friday Funday: The Wind Up... And The Pitch.

It's another Friday, and as usual, we could easily talk about the news items of the day. The shooting at the Colorado movie theater, (which we just heard about as we published today) will certainly generate more words and less action, from pundits and politicians alike, who will try to use this latest horrible event to justify their particular world views. The sheer arrogance of Ann Romney will also be a topic for some today, as she tried to wave off the demands of "you people" - the American media and the American people - for the disclosure of her husband's tax returns, as though we were her servants.

We could also talk about Mitt Romney's desperate need to take President Obama's recent comments out of context, though we already did that a bit in our link section on Thursday. We could even talk about the heat and the crops, or the lack of action on the part of Congress to do anything to help our farmers - but we also already tackled some of those issues this week, too.

It's Friday, though, and for many reasons, we always try to turn to more positive things, to remind us that not all of life is fighting, tragedy, and disaster. One of those things is one of our favorite pastimes… paying attention to baseball.

For some of our staff, this year's Major League Baseball season has been nothing short of embarrassing. For others, the home team is not only winning, but leading their league strongly, and giving our staff thoughts of the fall classic in Washington, DC.

Sadly, our favorite minor league team, the Lincoln Saltdogs, is struggling this year, to put it mildly.

Some people we know would say that we should throw in the towel already, that we should toss our sporting allegiances to the side and utter the time worn phrase, "Maybe next year." Other fans are already dreaming of forcing the coaches and players from our favorite losing teams to be the targets in a dunk tank game.

Truthfully, we just smile and laugh at both groups.

When all else fails, when the days are insanely hot and the nights not nearly as cool as we'd like, we still enjoy watching baseball in the summertime - though we have to admit sometimes we prefer to catch a few matchups from the air-conditioned comfort of our homes.

To be honest, on days like these, we even prefer watching games that don't involve any of our favorite teams.

Baseball, for all the scandals the sport has faced, for all the posturing some players still display, is at its heart, the same game that we've been watching (and less often these days, playing) since we were kids. It's still a bat, and a ball, and some base markers, with a bunch of friends. It's still a group of people playing a simple game, with simple, honorable rules.

When people make a solid hit or a great catch, we don't ask whether they're Democratic or Republican. Even if they're on the other team, we can respect their work and their effort. We say, "Great hit," or "Nice catch."

That doesn't mean we don't sometimes want to bean certain individuals that have earned our distain.

In general, though, enjoying baseball as a spectator is one of the few things these days that we can enjoy where politics doesn't usually impede. It's a moment in our busy work schedule where we can unwind - and sometimes, even breathe.

With that in mind, we're pitching you an idea today. We hope this weekend, you take some time to follow our lead and indulge a little bit in whatever unwinds your springs. Take some time. Relax.

We're willing to bet you've earned it. We know we have.