TheNextReport

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