TheNextReport

As we approached the 2012 election and the presidential candidates engaged in the theatrics of the debates, we entered an arena where substance doesn't matter. What truth there was was expressed in either meaningless platitudes or the frighteningly heartless calculations of budget cuts. In the midst of all the chatter about tax rates, the budget and the deficit, the fog began to clear and the vague outlines of a calculated plan appeared. It was a plan enclosed by a threat: to allow the dormant aristocracy of the United States to return to power. The threat that unless we cede the presidency to Mitt Romney and effectively allow the GOP to protect the wealthy, we will head right over the fiscal cliff into a national financial abyss. That attempt failed. Yet, the political perspective that presumably represents the middle class and the nation's poor was quickly put on the chopping block, offered as a bargaining chip as an artificially manufactured budget crisis threatened to der

Step right up ladies and gentlemen, step right up. Right here inside the big top, it's all here! A 20 percent tax cut and more take-home pay. Step right up to see the unbelievable! The massive deficit disappears by lowering taxes, closing nameless loopholes, while increasing the defense budget - and yes, you heard it right - you get more take-home pay! Come one come all, see 2 million jobs created out of thin air! Come on in folks for the thrills and chills as the bearded lady and other gender miracles step out of their binders and throw their support to the GOP and its square-jawed, smirky-faced standard bearer. That's right ladies and gents, come in and see Mitt-Boy, the fantastic deformed philanthropist who speaks out of two sides of his mouth at the same time. Watch him as he spouts empty moral platitudes, cutting taxes for the rich and and medical care for the poor. And that's not all, folks! Try a taste of Mitt's Magic elixir and watch as half of an entire nation

Democracy replaced by plutocracy. A simple plan--Congressional leadership decides on a non-cooperation policy, blocking legislation, denying the Executive the opportunity to govern; by the time of the next election the President is branded as a failure, bereft of leadership skills, unable to work with Congress to overcome gridlock. Sick of the logjam in Washington, with the fiscal cliff getting closer and closer, with disaster looming, they plug in the solution: appoint an imitation conservative candidate for president, a neo-robber baron disguised as a moderate who says he knows how to work with the political opposition. He will claim he knows how to fix things, that he knows how to finally get the country moving again, how he will reach across the aisle, unlike his predecessor; he will claim he represents 100 percent of the people, but behind closed doors the truth will emerge: he really has only the interests of the gentry at heart. What could be better! A well-heeled charlatan p

Note to the President's debate team: Don’t let Romney get away with confronting the President with questions designed to put him on the defensive. The Presidential debate has taken on a visceral life of its own. In the midst of all the facts and figures, all the charges and counter-charges, there is a gut reality. An example of this was demonstrated during the second debate. President Obama criticized the former Massachusetts governor for investing in companies that had outsourced jobs to China. Romney was well-trained and ready with a response. He tried to corner Obama about the President’s own pension fund having investments in China: "Let me give you some advice,” Romney said, “look at your pension.” The President’s advisers should be well advised: don’t let your adversary appear to succeed in elevating his stature by issuing confrontational questions then waiting for a response. The President did come back with a humorous rejoinder: "You know, I don’t look at my

Obstructionism and Democracy: two antithetical principles that amount to a deadlocked government. The GOP strategy from the beginning of Barack Obama's term has been one of non-cooperation, blocking nearly every key piece of legislation backed by the White House, so they can now say that if Obama is re-elected it will mean the continuation of gridlock in Washington. The oligarchy rises and democracy is strangled. Some call it politics -- I call it treason.

Who would have thunk it. What had been hyped as the most important presidential debate since Kennedy and Nixon came and went. By all accounts it was a triumph for Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor grabbed the ball, ran the court and performed an athletic slam dunk before anyone had realized what had happened. A bewildered Jim Lehrer, appearing like a refugee from an Alzheimer clinic, had lost control from the beginning and it all worked to Romney's advantage. Mr. Obama, the wizened professor, was left standing in the classroom with nobody to lecture. Once again the political party that doesn't believe in evolution, that doubts the truth of climate change, that wants to evacuate the Department of Education has proven itself to be more politically adept than its rival. It was clear from the start. Twenty minutes of tax talk had put the massive television audience nearly to sleep -- so much so, that it hadn't noticed how Mr. Romney, the born again conservative,

And now, it all hinges on the debates... or does it? I remember my return to the United States from France in 2004. The land of the free and home of the brave was still quaking from the aftershocks of 9/11. It was late summer and I was looking forward to the coming presidential debates between Massachusetts senator John Kerry and incumbent George W. Bush. The election loomed as a critical event, full of meaning for the destiny of the country and the world. Under W the country had gone off the rails. We had responded to the World Trade Center disaster -- attacks by a group of Saudi Arabian jihadis -- by launching a war against Iraq. Saddam Hussein's autocratic world was being destroyed by B-52s then summarily rebuilt by American companies taking advantage of no-bid contracts, companies with connections to the administration. The foreign and domestic policies of the United States were being held captive, led by a fraudulent dime-store cowboy with a patrician pedigree, the kind of

As the GOP is poised to repeal the Affordable Care Act (please don't call it Obamacare) the nation's senior citizens must be reminded that the proposed repeal will result in the elimination of a provision that enables them to purchase medications at a 50% discount. It will also end a provision that provides free health screenings, tests that could mean the difference between life and death for the elderly. Can the country's seniors really afford Romney/Ryan?

Psychopathology. Observing the furor of the nation's conservatives over the Supreme Court's ruling on the constitutionality of the Obama healthcare law, one takes comfort in remembering that the law should cover mental health services. In comparison with other parts of the world, the draconian, inequitable and inhumane health care system we have had until now is clearly insane. Speak to people who live in Europe where national single-payer healthcare is considered a right and you will hear expressions of utter disbelief that in the United States -- the richest country in the world -- a major political party and its candidate for president are fighting to preserve a system that grants privately owned, profit making insurance companies the primary right to make critical life and death decisions. Healthcare reformers need to do a better job at attacking the false premise promulgated by the GOP that "Obamacare" is socialized medicine, a "government takeover&quo

“I’m not familiar, precisely, with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was.” Mitt Romney Another articulate politician from the Republican Party explains his position on the issues. It happened at the end of last week in Jacksonville, Florida . Governor Romney had just finished repudiating a reported plan by Republican strategists and billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade Joe Ricketts, to run a $10-million super-pac advertising campaign linking President Obama once again to the outspoken Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright. In appearing to sneak up to the imaginary line separating substantive political discussion from a phenomenon known as “News Abuse,” Romney nevertheless stood by a statement made earlier in the year on a right-wing radio talk show asserting that Mr. Obama wanted to make America “a less Christian nation.” Governor Romney had just finished condemning the President for running a campaign based on personal attacks and the equivocation is hard

If there was any doubt about the cynicism and arrogance of the leadership of the Republican party, it was in plain sight last week in the congressional battle over the student loan interest rate. That rate, now 3.4 percent, is scheduled to increase to 6.8 percent at the beginning of July. Both Democrats and Republicans promised to intervene with legislation aimed at preventing the increase, but they soon began arguing about how it will be paid for. In a classic example of the moral bankruptcy of their politics, the GOP, led by Speaker of the House John Boehner, proposed that funds be taken from the Prevention and Public Health Fund -- the part of President Obama’s healthcare law that would support preventative medicine, such as mammogram screening and other procedures. Never mind that Republican leaders have called for the repeal of the entire healthcare law and have a motion to that effect before the Supreme Court. The leaders of the GOP, stung by previous charges that they had been

Goodnight Brother Helm, Wherever You Are It's a season of politics in America, a time when carnival barkers and blow-dried charlatans stroll The Great White Way; I desperately look for something real and all I can think about is The Band and the passing of Levon Helm. There are not many artists who can sum up what it really means to be an American. I knew that The Band's music was special the first time that I heard them. This was no ordinary rock n roll; no ordinary country music; this was no run-of-the-mill R&B; not your average cake-walkin dixieland, or ordinary Cajun fiddle tunes -- it was all of them, a unique expression of our American identity. And there in the middle of it all was Levon, the driv'n wheel, the beating heart, the dirt farmer at the plough, telling tales of minstrels and medicine men, of ordinary folks, speaking the truth. It is not surprising that what drew many to the sound of The Band was its spirituality,its gris-gris, born of days with D

Hoyt and the Goose The adjustments an American living in France must make to maintain a state of basic contentment can at first seem considerable. For example, getting used to the fact that stores, pharmacies, gas stations, post offices, banks, supermarkets, doctors offices and just about everything else are closed during lunch can seem impossible. Once it is understood, however, that lunch in France is not a meal but a form of universal worship, that the French table is in fact an altar, resigning oneself to the inaccessibility of certain necessities becomes possible. Sports is another matter. As with most American males, I am at times possessed by uncontrollable thoughts of baseball, football and basketball. Having grown up in New York in the 60s, various sports legends – from the Babe to the Mick, from Y.A. to Earl the Pearl, from A-Rod to Eli — composed a portable pantheon, a subconscious hall of fame transported from childhood to adulthood. The pre-occupation was in the genes.