TheNextReport

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...

“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....

The war in Iraq came to an official close yesterday... just in time for Christmas. An odd coincidence, isn't it? In the wake of this needless production of cannon fodder for an entirely unnecessary war, America smugly finds a way to reaffirm its faith in its religious beliefs, support its calcified politics and cheer on the people who lead us oblivious to their human responsibilities. As the soldiers come home on crutches, splints and in caskets, august members of the House of Representatives demonstrated their concern for their fellow citizens last week by proposing a cutback in unemployment benefits and the institution of drug testing of the unemployed as part of a deal to preserve the payroll tax cut. You have to hand it to the GOP mandarins -- when it comes to disdain for the "common man" they are in a league of their own. Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions has been pushing a new amendment that would make it more difficult for people to receive food stamps...