Ed Kilgore

In the autumn, the hifi in my head always plays a lot of Fairport Convention. Just ran across a video of the band doing a French TV session in 1968, before Sandy Denny arrived (Judy Dyble was the female voice, but appears here on recorder), and also before original drummer Martin Lamble was killed in […]

Sorry to keep harping on this, but I remain shocked there’s been almost no discussion of the budget deal. Paul announced he’d filibuster it, but never mentioned it again. Cruz and Kasich denounced it without going into detail. Nobody else had to say a word. Amazing. Quick gives Huck another shot on Medicare, and repeats […]

Quick does some “quick” research, finds Trump denunciation of Zuckerberg on H1-B visas on Trump web-site. Trump handles total squelch reasonably well. Rubio follow-up: decides to go wonky on legal immigration, wants “merit-based” priority system unlike the one that let his own family in. Quintanilla to Trump: Would you feel better if your own employees […]

Harwood asks Rubio about H1-B visas. Rubio handles it pretty smoothly, gets in call for vocational education. Quick asks Trump about criticism of Zuckerberg on immigration, which he denies. Trump suddenly attacks Super-PACs. Rubio get his prepared line off: Democrats have ultimate Super-PAC, the MSM! Says Benghazi! hearing huge defeat for HRC. Santelli (ugh!) asks […]

And we’re back. Quick goes right at Trump on bankruptices, calls it “broken promise,” Trump does his usual nothing-to-see-here number. Jim Cramer comes in and asks Carson if he favors price controls on pharmaceuticals. Carson blames small business regulations. Huh. C Cramer asks Christie as former prosecutors why GM execs not prosecuting for faulty switch. […]

What with all the references to Coors beer, the University of Colorado’s admissions standards, and the results of the 2012 Colorado Republican Caucuses in the undercard debate, wonder if CNBC will just hold a lightning round of battleground state pandering right off the bat? Would add some efficiency to the proceedings. I had to turn […]

So we’ve had another “undercard” debate, this one limited to four candidates. To me the surprise was the CNBC moderators, who for the most part behaved like you’d have expected Fox News moderators to behave in the first debate, conducting an internal conservative-to-conservative conversation with a heavy emphasis on corporate taxes. Or maybe I’m just […]

Looking forward to a good long snooze tonight with Nancy LeTourneau handling tomorrow’s blogging until Debate Time. Here are some remains of the day: * Washington Examiner‘s Phillip Klein trashes the budget deal as “utter capitulation.” But I’ve yet to hear any conservative predict it will be defeated in Congress. * John Harwood under attack […]

Of all the things I’ve read about the significance of the Synod on Family Life that just concluded at the Vatican with some rather watery formulae, a piece at the National Catholic Reporter by veteran Vatican-watcher Robert Mickens makes the most sense: In [a] two-pronged process, Francis intended his first synod gathering (last year) to […]

monkeyz_uncle/Flickr One of the more ridiculous and cynical features of this whole surprise budget deal is Paul Ryan’s expressions of horror and anger. Aside from the fact that the Republican House leadership is not about to blindside their hand-picked Speaker on something this big, there’s the little issue that Ryan’s staff helped draft a big […]