Ed Kilgore

Gage Skidmore/Flickr By far the most unintentionally funny moment of last night’s Republican presidential debate was this rap from Marco Rubio, the Working Man’s Friend: “For the life of me, I don’t don’t know why we stigmatize vocational education,” he said in answer to how he would counter Democrats’ free or subsidized college education proposals. […]

Gage Skidmore/Flickr The Republican presidential candidates finally got the debate they wanted last night from Fox Business: questions that let them largely repeat their talking points, and choose their internal controversies, which largely followed the familiar grooves of Trump versus the field (with the exception of Ted Cruz) on immigration and Paul versus the field […]

For Veterans Day, let’s get things started with “Far Away Coast” from the Dropkick Murphys.

As noted briefly yesterday, I’m going to take some vacation next week, and won’t be blogging Monday, Tuesday or Thursday. I will handle the Veterans’ Day Lite Blogging duties, and will be back for a full Friday. Nancy LeTourneau and Martin Longman will more than adequately sub for me. Maybe a weekday change of pace […]

So already people are choosing up largely partisan sides and battling over the accuracy and significance of Politico‘s discovery that Dr. Ben Carson’s proximity to what he’s described in one of his books as the “offer” of a “full scholarship” to West Point isn’t exactly accurate. Now that the Carson campaign is hotly denying that […]

I guess there are some people in some places who will be upset by the President’s decision, announced today, to deny the Keystone XL Pipeline project a license. But gotta say, the air’s been leaking from that balloon for so long that I’m not sure how many folks will actually hear it pop. The first […]

Sorry, another work call and another delayed lunch. But hey, it’s Friday. Here are some slightly warmed-over midday news/views treats: * Obama rejects XL Keystone Pipeline permit. More about that later. * National uninsured rate hits new low under Obamacare. * Local writer named Ed Kilgore gets interviewed at local NPR station about his new […]

It’s no secret Dr. Ben Carson is undergoing something of a vetting right now (though so far it has not extended to the fact that his entire world view is, to use a technical term, crazy). And some people think they may have found a silver bullet (the story is from Politico‘s Kyle Cheney, who […]

A lot of people probably chuckled at the story from Bradenton Beach, Florida, which elected its next mayor by drawing cards. Two candidates tied in the election, and Florida State Law (as you might figure from that anarchic commonwealth) requires that ties be broken “by lot” (and not, as in a more famous case, by […]

When I heard about a project being spear-headed by the American Federation of Teachers to pull together a partnership of public and non-profit entities to use schools as the fulcrum to turn around entrenched poverty in McDowell County, West Virginia, I thought of those iconic images of John and Bobby Kennedy campaigning in Coal Country […]