The New Republic

If Americans weren’t such ignoramuses, what would they think about income redistribution? I’m putting it a bit more rudely, but that’s basically the question addressed in a new study (“How Elastic Are Preferences For Redistribution? Evidence From Randomized Survey Experiments”) by Ilyana Kuziemko of Columbia's graduate school of business; Michael I. READ MORE >>

It’s election night, November 2, 2010, and Jeb Bush is all alone on stage at Marco Rubio’s victory rally. As supporters and photographers await the arrival of the new conservative star, Bush takes his substantial six-foot-three-inch frame a few steps toward the audience, clapping and cajoling them to join him in a chant: “Mar-co! Mar-co! Mar-co!” He moves stage left, where the cameras are waiting, still alone, still chanting, like a helicopter parent cheering from the sidelines. READ MORE >>

The Huffington Post reported Saturday that Ashley Judd is planning to announce her candidacy for Senate at the end of April, setting up what would be the most intriguing Senate race of the cycle. As a media-savvy actress with nationwide name recognition—and all the free publicity and fundraising power that entails—Judd might seem a formidable general-election foe for embattled Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. READ MORE >>

This is a weird moment in American politics. The sequester has just chopped $43 billion out of this year's defense budget and Republicans are pretending not to care. READ MORE >>

As political theatre, Senator Rand Paul's marathon, 13-hour filibuster to protest the Obama administration's dreadful drone policy was gripping. While filibusters have become commonplace these days, they usually only involve a simple notice that one intends to filibuster, which then puts the onus on the other side to round up the 60 votes for "cloture" to end the threat. READ MORE >>

Last night, Barack Obama bowed to establishment convention and had what must have been a torturous dinner with twelve Republican senators. READ MORE >>

Senator Rand Paul got a lot of chuckles—some admiring, some less so—for his bona fide talking filibuster Wednesday on the Senate floor, refusing to allow a vote on John Brennan's nomination to head the CIA unless he got a written guarantee from Attorney General Eric Holder that the government would not turn armed drones on Americans on U.S. soil. READ MORE >>

We all know how difficult it is these days to find moments of bipartisan comity in our polarized capital. Heck, even the good folks at Fix the Debt seem to have faded from the scene. So it was gratifying indeed to attend an event Tuesday night that stood as a beacon of all that Washington once was and could yet be, if we could only learn to get along again: Lanny Davis's book party. READ MORE >>

Paul Ryan is about to unveil a new proposal for how the government should spend its money. According to multiple media accounts, it will look a lot like the budget plans he's produced before, the ones that famously called for radically downsizing the government. The main difference? The cuts in this proposal will be even bigger. READ MORE >>

I have a confession to 
make: I'm a big fan of John Boehner. One of his very few, it turns out. The White House complains that Boehner's near-total ignorance of policy makes him impossible to negotiate with, and that it's pointless to deal with him anyway, since he exerts zero control over his members. Pundits deride him as strategically inept, constantly backing himself into corners from which there's no obvious escape. READ MORE >>