Ed Kilgore

So we’ll be hearing stories all weekend about the whos and wherefores and exactly-whens of John Boehner’s announcement that he’ll give up his Speakership and his House seat by the end of October. But the broad outlines are reasonably clear (per, among others, Politico‘s Sherman and French): * With the threat of a “no-confidence” vote […]

There were those who thought this might happen involuntarily. But instead, on the very brink of an epochal intra-GOP battle over the best strategy and tactics for pitching hissy fits over the Iran Nuke Deal and Planned Parenthood, Speaker John Boehner told his conference he’d be handing over his gavel and actually resigning his House […]

So it’s becoming more apparent every day that the Republican presidential candidate best positioned to become the Establishment savior against Donald Trump and the rest of the zero-experience sub-field is Marco Rubio, whose favorable/unfavorable ratings have been sterling all along, and who has avoided the constant gaffes being committed by the figure who overshadowed him […]

As the annual Values Voters Summit–for many years the leading Christian Right clambake and cattle call in the country, sponsored by the old-school-theocratic Family Research Council–gets underway in Washington today with eight Republican presidential candidates making appearances, much of the talk will be about strange hold that Donald Trump (who speaks at the event today) […]

So Jeb Bush tweeted out some sympathy for the victims of the horrendous tragedy among Hajj pilgrims in Saudi Arabia yesterday: Praying for the hundreds of innocent Muslims who suffered a tragic death in the stampede in Mecca during the Hajj pilgrimage. — Jeb Bush (@JebBush) September 24, 2015 Brian Beutler supplies the appropriate commentary: […]

Delta Blues guitarist and singer Roosevelt “Booba” Barnes was born on this day in 1936. Here he is performing “Ain’t Going to Worry About Tomorrow.”

Kevin Drum, bless him, closes the day with a chuckle by wondering why nobody’s talking about a wall to protect Californians from illegal border crossings via the Pacific Ocean? Here are some remains of the day: * Eight Senate Republicans defect on short-term continuing resolution that omits Planned Parenthood funding. Looks like it will be […]

As we steam into autumn and early-state presidential campaigns become real, it’s not a bad time to bookmark Josh Putnam’s essential Frontloading HQ site and begin paying attention to how states are going to allocate delegates, at least on the Republican side where strict proportionality is not the exclusive rule. Turns out there’s been a […]

Gage Skidmore/Flickr Regular readers know I enjoy expressing irreverent thoughts about The Party Decides, the 2008 tome by political scientists Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller that is often quoted like Holy Writ by academicians and even some journalists as the final work on presidential nominating contests. That’s not because I don’t […]

Not a big fan of how Empire used the criminal justice reform and #BlackLivesMatter movements in its second season debut, but I guess it was supposed to be ironic. Here are some more serious midday new/views treats: * Death toll in Hajj stampede in Saudi Arabia reaches 717; it’s the second such disaster in the […]