Republicans want to use the tax issue as a election tactic, and that’s really the substance of these remarks in the Washington Post claiming that taxes will go up if President Obama wins a second term. But there is some reality behind them. If Obama wins, the Senate will have already passed a bill to [...]

Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan will begin running ads in the race for his House district in Wisconsin, a potential sign of uneasiness about his re-election, which will probably be interpreted more broadly as a lack of confidence in Mitt Romney’s chances in the Presidential election. Contracts formalized Tuesday with at least one Milwaukee [...]

Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan has twisted the knife just a bit more in an attempt to draw out President Obama on the Chicago Teachers Union strike, now entering its second day. He told a fundraiser in Portland, OR yesterday that he endorsed the position in the strike of the former chief of staff of [...]

Liberal analysts have called out their own side on a misleading claim about the cost to seniors of the Ryan-envisioned premium support plan for Medicare. The real answer is that nobody knows how much this will cost seniors. The initial Ryan budget, which would have ended traditional Medicare entirely and given a voucher to seniors [...]

The political media has tried over the past couple days to distill the race down to one question – “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” – because if all the complexities of American politics can be answered with a simple yes/no question, it makes things much easier on everyone. This week [...]

The only real notable element of Mitt Romney’s post-convention performance today was that he accidentally referred to the United States as a company, i.e. a person. But in anticipation of his visit to the Gulf Coast for some photo-ops with victims of Hurricane Isaac, Senate Democrats are using unusual vigor to hold House Republicans, mainly [...]

Mitt Romney’s 45-minute convention speech devoted about 250 words to his prescriptions for the economy, his main rationale for wanting to become President. And those prescriptions are the same stew of low taxes, more trade deals, education vouchers, drill-baby-drill, and budget-balancing that every Republican Presidential candidate promises in their speeches. Even when they end up [...]

I’ve already made myself clear about our glorious post-fact universe, and I don’t really think these examples of the traditional media supposedly meeting their obligations relative to Paul Ryan’s convention speech fit the bill. These examples come from the segregated “fact-check” organizations and the opinion pages of the large newspapers and media outlets. The facts [...]

Here’s an important point from Matt Yglesias that I think most people here would agree with. He riffs off a line from Paul Ryan’s convention speech – “None of us have to settle for the best this administration offers — a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country [...]

Last night, I considered firing up my Commodore 64 (yes, that’s what I use, what else is out there?) and documenting all the lies in Paul Ryan’s RNC convention speech. I could join TPM and The New Republic and The Daily Beast and Huffington Post and Wonkbook and probably half a dozen more. I could [...]

The Republican National Convention has been gaveled into order, and an already-hoarse RNC Chair Reince Priebus has begun the proceedings. The first day will include the roll call to formally nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for President and Vice President. What may have been an uncomfortable floor fight over the seating of delegates appears [...]