Category: Government, Policy, & Politics

The more white voters support a policy, the more likely it is to be enacted. The more black voters support a policy, the less likely it is to be achieved.

The story is similar for several other groups. The more that women, the poor, or Hispanics support a federal policy, the less likely the policy is to be enacted. Strikingly, as women move from universal opposition to a proposal to universal support, its odds of adoption plummet from 75 percent to 10 percent.

Source: The False Promise of Black Political Representation – The Atlantic

Political dysfunction is doing serious damage to U.S. economic power.

Source: America’s Self-Inflicted Wounds – The Atlantic

 

“As long as one of our major parties is opposed to essentially all trade agreements, and the other is resistant to funding international organizations, the U.S. will not be in a position to shape the global economic system.”

— former U.S. treasury secretary Larry Summers

Last week, our newly re-elected Prime Minister, David Cameron, said something quite remarkable in a speech outlining his new government’s legislative plans for the next five years.

“For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens ‘as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone’.”

Think about it for a moment. This is the leader of a nominally democratic country saying that merely obeying the law is not sufficient

Source: Thoughtcrime – Charlie’s Diary

Texas’ GOP governor is sending the Texas State Guard to monitor a military training exercise after right-wing militia alleged it’s just a cover for the president’s plan to put Texas under martial law.

Source: Texas Governor Deploys State Guard To Stave Off Obama Takeover : It’s All Politics : NPR

 

“I am horrified that I have to choose between the possibility that my Governor actually believes this stuff and the possibility that my Governor doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to those who do.”

— former Texas state representative Todd Smith

The right wing finds a new target for its ire.

Why are conservatives more hostile to Muslims and Islam today than they were in the terrifying aftermath of 9/11? And why have American Muslims, who in 2000 mostly voted Republican, apparently replaced gays and feminists as the right’s chief culture-war foe?

Sadly, McCarthyism is not the only precedent in American history for this type of demonization: hyper-nationalist politicians went after German Americans during World War I and Japanese Americans during World War II. Similarly, today, with conservatives frustrated by America’s failed wars in the Middle East and the increasing unassailability of their traditional domestic foes, they are turning on American Muslims for the simplest of political reasons: because they can.

Source: The New Enemy Within – The Atlantic