Day: July 11, 2013
GOP Is Out to Create a Black Democratic Party in the South
In private discussions, Republicans in the South talk explicitly about their goal of turning the Democratic Party into a black party, and in many Southern states they have succeeded. African-American legislators make up the majority of state House and Senate Democratic caucuses in most of the Southern states.
— Thomas Edsall, writing in the New York Times Opinionator Blog.
Majority of Virgina Voters Now Favors Same-Sex Marriage
55%
Of voters in Virginia favor same-sex marriage in their state while 41% oppose it, a new Human Rights Campaign poll finds. The survey shows how views “have shifted in its favor seven years after voters easily passed an amendment to the state constitution that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.”
Republican Lawmakers Apparently Have Come to Hate Lawmaking
One of the novel developments in conservative thought during the Obama years is a burgeoning hatred not merely for government but for lawmaking. Before the Obama era, the ends of crafting laws divided the parties, but the means did not. The process of corralling votes, placating hold-outs, and hammering out compromises was not something either side especially loved — you’ve heard the classic line about watching the sausage get made — but also not something that one side disliked more than the other. But a hatred for lawmaking has emerged in the Obama years, first as a Republican tactic, and then as an apparently genuine belief system.
— Jonathan Chait, writing in New York Magazine.
On with QE!
Ben Bernanke said “highly accommodative monetary policy” is pleasing,
And the Fed’s still printing money to keep the economy from freezing.
While support for it is wavering,
And some are calling for tapering,
It looks like there’s no end in sight for quantitative easing.
