For years now, Republicans have been saying they’re about to unveil their alternative to the Affordable Care Act, the “replace” in “repeal and replace.” And while every now and again one or a few of them comes out with a plan (of varying levels of seriousness), none of them get much support, and they quickly […]
Paul Waldman
Paul Waldman is a weekly columnist and senior writer for The American Prospect. He also writes for the Plum Line blog at The Washington Post and The Week and is the author of Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Real Problem With What Scott Walker Said About ISIS
View image | gettyimages.com Scott Walker is learning that when you want to play in the big leagues, things move pretty fast. And when you’re a governor without foreign policy experience, sometimes you can get a little tripped up trying to show how what you’ve done in your state prepares you for dealing with international […]
Posted inPaul Waldman
Photo of the Day, CPAC Edition
View image | gettyimages.com What’s that you say? There’s a biology teacher at your local high school trying to indoctrinate students into believing that the earth is 4.5 billion years old? Not to worry-AmericaMan is on his way! Good thing I wore the Sweatband of Liberty today!
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
John Boehner Can’t Bring Himself to Rip Off the Band-Aid
View image | gettyimages.com Mitch McConnell knows what John Boehner doesn’t, namely that when you have to do something painful, it’s best to get it over with quickly. Rip off the Band-aid, chop the zombie-bite-infected leg off with one blow, just do it and move on. But we’re a day away from a shutdown of […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Photo of the Day, Grumpy Speaker Edition
View image | gettyimages.com Speaker of the House John Boehner, showing his enthusiasm for the fact that he and his party have yet again bumbled into a shutdown crisis that they’re going to lose, just like all the others.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Republicans Pleased About the Return of Foreign Policy
Republican candidates are apparently encouraged by the fact that the world seems like a more dangerous place than it was a few months ago, even if it may not actually be a more dangerous place. Why is this encouraging? Because it allows them to get back on simpler, safer ground, as I explain in my […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Why Walker Is Surging and Bush Is Struggling in Iowa, in One Chart
A new poll of Iowa Republicans from Quinnipiac has some terrifically good news for flavor-of-the-month Scott Walker, and though I know you’re saying, “Who cares about a poll for an election that’s 11 months away?” this is a good opportunity to remind ourselves of just how unusual Iowa Republicans are. They have a terrible record […]
Posted inPaul Waldman
Photo of the Day, Bad to the Bone Edition
View image | gettyimages.com On the day I was born The nurses all gathered ’round And they gazed in wide wonder At the joy they had found The head nurse spoke up Said “leave this one alone” She could tell right away That I would change Senate rules to allow certain executive branch nominations to […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Why It’s a Good Thing GOP Debates Will Be Moderated by Conservatives
View image | gettyimages.com In August 2013, the RNC said it was considering having its 2016 presidential primary debates moderated not by some blow-dried, vacuous, allegedly-objective-but-actually-liberal TV news personalities, but by its own blow-dried, vacuous, openly conservative personalities. At the time, many liberals ridiculed the idea as yet another example of the closed right-wing information […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Bill O’Reilly Is Not Going Anywhere, You Far-Left Pinheads
View image | gettyimages.com Bill O’Reilly suffers from the same malady as Brian Williams: a tendency to embellish stories of the dangers and horrors he has faced as a journalist (though in O’Reilly’s case, his career as a journalist was brief, before he discovered his true calling). They may have had a slightly different motivation; […]
