Everyone’s talking about this exchange from last night’s CNN/Tea Party Express debate (I assume the CNN/MoveOn debate is next week), where the crowd cheers the prospect of allowing an uninsured man to die. And I’ll get to that in a moment. But perhaps just as rotten was when the crowd booed Ron Paul, who’s supposed [...]

Tim Pawlenty, the former two-term governor of Minnesota, has ended his campaign for President after a disappointing third-place finish at the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa. Pawlenty wound up a distant third behind the winner, Michele Bachmann, and Ron Paul. Pawlenty’s candidacy was very much predicated on winning Iowa, a neighboring state to Minnesota. He [...]

Mitt Romney and Ron Paul had an interesting exchange in last night’s Republican Presidential debate. Mitt Romney appeared to say that it’s time to bring the troops home from Afghanistan, but he then hedged to the familiar refrain of having to base the decision on conditions on the ground and the advice of the generals. [...]

Tonight at 8pm ET, seven Republican Presidential aspirants will debate at St. Anselm’s College in Manchester, New Hampshire. CNN will carry the debate live. The seven participants include everyone who is currently announced as a candidate for President, as well as a couple others who have not formally announced. Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, [...]

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Tonight in Greenville, South Carolina, five rivals for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination meet in the first debate of the campaign. I use the term “rivals” fairly loosely – I think the Matt Taibbi description of “Loony-ass Insurgents vs. Waffling Bores” applies a bit better. Most of the candidates [...]

While we were all glued to the set this weekend for more information about Gabby Giffords, Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist’s organization, put out a new pledge related to the debt limit. Typically, Norquist is a supply-sider; he just wants to cut off revenue through taxes, and figures the spending cuts will take care [...]

Noted monetary economist Sarah Palin has decided to weigh in, through her speechwriter, on the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program. And while her speechwriter shouldn’t be taken seriously, what the speechwriter is having her say should be, so to speak. I’m deeply concerned about the Federal Reserve’s plans to buy up anywhere from $600 billion [...]

One of the negatives of writing a news blog is that I occasionally have to acknowledge the existence of Sarah Palin. Most of the “big boyz” are writing about this nondescript video she put out about “mama grizzlies,” sure to be the newest term of art for female conservative candidates and a marketing buzzword on [...]

The benefit of this Rand Paul escapade is that his sincerely held views are on full display, and thus the ideology of the “liberty” movement gets a serious airing for the first time. But it’s not like anyone should be surprised by these views. Paul’s father said almost verbatim the same thing on Meet the [...]

Ron Paul has backed off his intense initial criticism of the Sanders compromise on the audit the Fed amendment, saying that he supports passage of a measure that ensures “their sins of the past would be revealed and Americans would know more about who got bailed out by the Fed and under what terms.” He [...]

I am inclined to 100% agree with Dean Baker’s assessment of the audit the Fed compromise hammered out yesterday. To cope with the economic crisis, the Fed created 13 different special lending facilities. At their peak last year, these facilities had lent out more than $2 trillion. The Fed has only disclosed aggregate data about [...]