Another approach: execute within ten years or have an automatic reprieve to life without parole.

No excuses. If someone can't be put to death within ten years, then something is wrong with the process. Maybe the death penalty is effectively reserved for the worst of the worst -- like serial killers.

Then the people who can afford 10 years worth of legal fees have an advantage, yes?

People on death row usually have the costs of legal representation at no cost.  Many prisons have an informal legal system of people who know their way through the law books... that sort of legal advice comes with no charge.

Maybe the problem is that too many people get sentenced to death. Maybe it should reasonably be limited to those who commit the most repugnant of crimes -- serial killers, family-annihilators, people who commit murders in furtherance of rackets, wartime traitors...

In case anyone is curious -- all metric units except for time and temperature have their basis in the speed of light. One meter is measured as something close to the distance that light travels in something close to 1/3000000 of a second.  The speed of light in a vacuum is as absolute as anything can be.

To make things really difficult, try using Planck units which almost all have large positive or negative exponents.

I guess it's really just about fundraising and local party establishment loyalty.

...Some of it could be that people owe favors to that politician. People know the politician better than people in other states do.

It is hard top predict who will vote, especially in populations whose prior behavior in voting is ill-known. Models may have assumed that the electorate would be much like that of 2008 (more D-friendly than justified, but generally right) or that the electorate would look much like that of 2010 (much more R-friendly than justified).

It all reduces to what narrative one wishes to believe.

Another approach: execute within ten years or have an automatic reprieve to life without parole.

No excuses. If someone can't be put to death within ten years, then something is wrong with the process. Maybe the death penalty is effectively reserved for the worst of the worst -- like serial killers.

So here're mah picks:

Richmond, Virginia for the Democrats.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the Republicans.

If Rick Snyder and his coterie of semi-fascists can hold Michigan, then Detroit is a marvelous choice. After all, Ronald Reagan had his 1980 convention there. Detroit also has some of the biggest gambling outside of Las Vegas and some of the sleaziest nightlife in America. Whores do better with Republicans than with Democrats, and Detroit certainly has them. Maybe the Democrats prefer to take spouses and children along, which makes a huge difference. Detroit is the lions' den of political liberalism... and I don't refer to the futile Detroit Lions, arguably the most mismanaged professional sports team in the Big 4. Such would be an in-your-face choice for Republicans.

Of course that is a big "if". If that fails... any big city in Ohio will have to do.

Swing states are obvious -- Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. "In-your-face" choices for Democrats, though, could be Atlanta, Birmingham, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, Phoenix, and San Antonio. Right-wingers are even more entrenched in the South -- but their entrenchment comes with corruption, incompetence, and neglect of those on the political outside the 'local standard'.

Well, the right wing "feed the rich first" argument has been failing, and for good reason. I only hope what follows in the next generation is the next American labor movement, which will be a lovely thing. But I won't hold my breath on that - Americans are still pretty tame and gullible on that front.

But -- the moneyed elites and their stooges remain extremely militant. When threatened they have traditionally turned to the thugs as enforcers:

http://newdeal.feri.org/nation/na37145p166.htm

It's worth noting that many of the "respectable" institutions of our time were willing enforcers for the tycoons and big land owners of the time. That's before I talk of the KKK, Father Coughlin, and the American Mercury which remain disgraced.  With an executive elite taking on the characteristics of a self-selecting aristocracy (it always happens -- just look at the nomenklatura of the old Soviet Union, the supposed "workers' and peasants' state") we can expect much the same as in the 1930s.   

The economic elites have no constraint except formal law, sentimentality,  or personal conscience -- all of which are easily compromised with extreme egoism. The elites can always fund think tanks, start magazines and journals, and (at times) inspire politicized militias.  They invariably have multiple layers of bagmen between themselves and anyone who does the more blue-collar dirty work (bombings, blackmail, and murders) because they must always present themselves as the 'better people'. They gladly corrupt the legal system for their immediate gain and the preservation of class privilege for which the rest of humanity pays in abysmal wages, dictatorial government, and catastrophic wars.

The English System will never die in canned expressions (give him an inch and he will take a mile; a pound of flesh) and in units of time (seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years will survive). It will be used indefinitely in such mundane activities as cooking with the "teaspoons", "pinches", "dashes", etc. Sports with solid rules will officially use "yards" in football and define the length of basepaths as 90 feet and the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate as "sixty feet and six inches". Real estate interests will use acres and square feet indefinitely because the legal measurements were originally English measurements. Nobody wants to make a mess of title insurance.

As it is, apothecaries' measures died about as druggists quit calling themselves apothecaries. Science and medicine have effectively gone metric. Engineering would do so wisely except for doltish customers who insist upon using English measurements.     

No worse than pro-choice people making the argument that being raped is like you home being broken into, so you have a right to kill what is in your home against your will.

Yes that is an actual argument I have heard variations of at several times.

Well if someone says you have a right to kill an intruder in your home even if they aren't threatening your life I don't see how they can turn around and say you can't kill an intruder in your uterus.  I don't think that is comparing your home being broken into to rape.  It's just asking why one life can be so casually taken while one claims to believe "life is precious."  Same thing with the death penalty.  Right wingers treat life very cheaply in a lot of circumstances and then when it comes to a woman who has been brutally raped they tell her to just suck it up and deal with it.  Very strange place to draw the line.

Rape is above all else a horrific crime. It may also be the start of an unwelcome pregnancy. How one deals with the unwelcome pregnancy (abort it, carry the baby to term and accept it as one's own as if a blessing from God, or carry the baby to term and put the baby up for adoption) is a personal decision that I could never make. If terminating the pregnancy for reasons of the life or health (including reproductive and mental) is an issue, then such is the same as if the pregnancy were started voluntarily.

We need to make very clear that rape is a crime, and that no male has  the right to force himself upon a female even if he considers himself "God's gift to women". I suspect that many rapists so think themselves -- that she will enjoy him enough that it isn't rape. 

The Hard Right is hypocritical in the extreme on abortion. It calls itself "pro-life", but it seems freakishly "pro-death" on war, environmental destruction, access to firearms,  and capital punishment.

[60% or higher maroon (70% saturation)55-59% medium red (50% saturation)50-54% pink (30% saturation)45-49% orange -- Obama ahead (30% saturation)]

[http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/iowa/

45% approval, 49% disapproval. No details, so this is preliminary.



60% or higher maroon (70% saturation)
55-59% medium red (50% saturation)
50-54% pink (30% saturation)
45-49% orange -- Obama ahead (30% saturation)
45-49% yellow -- exact tie (30% saturation)
45-49% aqua -- Obama behind (20% saturation)
44% blue (20% saturation)
40-44% blue (50% saturation)
under 40% deep blue (70% saturation)



The President isn't hurting the chances of a Democratic successor as the nominee of 2016.




[/quote]
[/quote]
[/quote]

Has anyone contemplated just why Jews might have "disproportionate" influence on American culture?

This is a forum that loves demographics and history. So what are the demographic characteristics and historical events associated with many (if not most) American Jews that would lead to Jews  (as a group) having seemingly "disproportionate" influence?

(Hint: the history of anti-Semitism is very much related to the answer to the above question.)

Jews used to dominate the movie business -- at least when the studio bosses were largely Jews in the 1930s. The studio bosses endorsed the Hays code which was good for business. Those studio bosses sacrificed some creative freedom for scriptwriters in return for offering sanitized films that didn't offend multitudes. Movies sympathetic to Christian traditions were OK -- those studio bosses saw something like The Song of Bernadotte profitable but harmless.  One strict rule was to not offend any religious sensibility. When the studio-boss Jews needed allies among Christians for anti-Nazi during World War II propaganda they got it. That is a powerful contribution to American culture.

Jews may be smarter than the average -- probably a culture that respects learning as few other religious traditions do stimulates intellectual ability. I figure that the more that a Jew knew about Jewish traditions, the more loyal one was likely to be to Judaism, which is the opposite that I could say of some other religious traditions in which ignorance is bliss. Those who envy Jews would be wise to ask themselves not so much what dirty tricks Judaism allows but instead why Jews are so disproportionately represented in law, medicine, academia, and creative activities.   

How much does the site really matter? Do even a few people change their mind because one party or the other came to town? In a better world, we'd abolish the conventions altogether. Have one national primary for each party, hopefully on the same day to minimize costs, and move on to the general.

Republican National Convention

1976 -- Kansas City MO (lost state, close election)
1980 -- Detroit MI (won state in a landslide)
1984 -- Dallas TX (won state in a landslide election)
1988 -- New Orleans (won state in a landslide)
1992 -- Houston TX (won state in a landslide election)*
1996 -- San Diego CA (lost state in a landslide)
2000 -- Philadelphia PA (lost state in a close election)
2004 -- New York NY (lost state in a close election)
2008 -- Minneapolis MN (badly lost state in a near-landslide)
2012 -- Tampa FL (barely lost state in a close election)

Democratic conventions:

1976 -- New York NY (won state by 4% in a close election)
1980 -- New York NY (lost state in landslide)
1984 -- San Francisco CA (lost state in a landslide)
1988 -- Atlanta GA (lost state in a landslide)
1992 -- New York NY (won state in a close election)
1996 -- Chicago IL (won state in a landslide)
2000 -- Los Angeles CA (won state in a the closest Presidential election ever)
2004 -- Boston MA (won in a close election)*
2008 -- Denver CO (barely won state in what looked like a close election but turned into a landslide)
2012 -- Charlotte NC (barely lost state in a close election)

*Favorite Son nominee, which matters far more.

...Only twice did the choice of a convention site (1976, 2008) have any imaginable effect upon the ultimate result of the election, perhaps flipping a state that the other Party usually won.  Detroit in 1980 was a daring choice for Republicans because Detroit is strong-union, welfare-state liberalism -- but Michigan usually went for Republican Presidential nominees before 1992 except in D blowouts. Michigan might have gone D in a close election in 1976 due to the reversal of the Favorite Son effect.

So if anyone thinks that the Democrats can win Indiana by having their 2016 Convention in Indianapolis or that the Republicans can win Michigan by holding their 2016 Convention in   Detroit -- a convention is worth far less than having a favorite son as President.  Quality of the nominee as a candidate and relevance of the nominee to the concerns of the time will matter far more.  

I'm not sure Snyder belongs in the same category as Corbett and Scott, who are already significantly down against their likely opponents, Allyson Schwartz and Charlie Crist; Snyder is tying his likely opponent, Mark Schauer. Obviously that's pretty bad in a lean-blue state like Michigan, where most of the undecideds probably lean Schauer, but it's easy to predict that Snyder will be better-funded and have an incumbent advantage. And, of course, we're still in the first half of 2013 -- the election is eighteen months away, things can and will shift. It's more likely than not that of the six people I've listed here, someone won't even be the nominee (I think the most likely eventual not-candidate is Corbett, but I could be wrong). But at the extremely early moment, FL and PA look like likely Democratic victories whereas MI seems like more of a coin-flip race. Snyder is more vulnerable than other Class of 2010 Republicn Governors such as Kasich/Walker, but he's not on the Corbett/Scott level; he's between the two.

Rick Snyder is tying an opponent known well in one Congressional district. Mark Schauer came close to winning re-election in an R-leaning district in a great year for Republicans (2010), and that is where he starts. Schauer can defeat a weak or compromised campaigner in a normal year for partisan identity in an even bailiwick, and Michigan is Lean D statewide. That is where he starts, and get a union-powered GOTV drive behind him and the large African-American vote in Greater Detroit (of course there will be overlap on those), and an intelligent Democrat can easily defeat an unpopular Republican. Think of Mark Schauer as the mirror image of John Kasich in 2010.

Snyder was doing fine until he stepped on the wrong toes -- the long-powerful unions of Michigan -- after promising that he would not do so.  Snyder will have deep-pocket support from out-of-state interests that want Michigan to be a cheap-labor state, but that won't be enough. Snyder sabotaged his chance of winning re-election by signing the Duty-to-be-Underpaid laws and a rigorous anti-abortion law. Had he vetoed it he would be at the least a strong VP candidate.  One cannot govern Michigan as if it were Oklahoma and succeed politically. Turning it into a haven for Hard Right politics will take far more than four years.   

I have met Mark Schauer, and he is much like Barack Obama in one aspect: the more that one gets to know him, the more one likes him. 

[60% or higher maroon (70% saturation)55-59% medium red (50% saturation)50-54% pink (30% saturation)45-49% orange -- Obama ahead (30% saturation)]

PPP, North Carolina

President Obama’s approval rating has dipped substantially, to 45% positive and 53% negative.

60% or higher maroon (70% saturation)
55-59% medium red (50% saturation)
50-54% pink (30% saturation)
45-49% orange -- Obama ahead (30% saturation)
45-49% yellow -- exact tie (30% saturation)
45-49% aqua -- Obama behind (20% saturation)
44% blue (20% saturation)
40-44% blue (50% saturation)
under 40% deep blue (70% saturation)



The President isn't hurting the chances of a Democratic successor as the nominee of 2016.




[/quote]
[/quote]

[60% or higher maroon (70% saturation)55-59% medium red (50% saturation)50-54% pink (30% saturation)45-49% orange -- Obama ahead (30% saturation)]

President Barack Obama has a 50% approval rating in Minnesota to a 47% disapproval rating and 3% of voters who aren’t sure.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_MN_52113.pdf

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar receives impressive reviews from Minnesota voters. She enjoys an
approval rating of 61%, with only 28% disapproving of her performance and 11% unsure. Former Senator Norm Coleman is seen negatively by a narrow margin. 37% have a favorable opinion of Coleman to 39% who do not. 24% have no opinion about their former senator.

Minnesota voters support universal background checks on gun sales by pretty much the
same margin as voters in other states PPP has tested. 74% of Minnesotans support
requiring background checks on all gun sales, including at gun shows and over the internet. 24% oppose the measure, and 5% are not sure. Majorities of Democrats (95%),
Independents (71%) and Republicans (52%) support expanded background check
requirements.




60% or higher maroon (70% saturation)
55-59% medium red (50% saturation)
50-54% pink (30% saturation)
45-49% orange -- Obama ahead (30% saturation)
45-49% yellow -- exact tie (30% saturation)
45-49% aqua -- Obama behind (20% saturation)
44% blue (20% saturation)
40-44% blue (50% saturation)
under 40% deep blue (70% saturation)



The President isn't hurting the chances of a Democratic successor as the nominee of 2016.




[/quote]

states with a good chance of gay marriage by the end of 2016 (current in red, new in green):

Republican pols are getting very unpopular in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Quinnipiac just showed a large margin of support for same-sex marriage in Virginia.



Anti-gay sentiment used to be an effective tool for Republicans. It is becoming a Frankenstein's monster. 

Denial of American Miscegnation has been one of the cornerstones of many, many schools of American history.

...and at what point do "white" genes that define any 'racial' difference in intelligence overpower those of "black" genes? Dark skin color is a dominant trait, but as we all know, skin is not where IQ lies.

The raw truth is that about everyone descended from African slaves in America is some part white. On Who Do You Think You Are the retired football star Emmett Smith was surprised that he was just under one-eighth white, and the genealogist told him upon showing the results of the DNA test that African-Americans were almost never less "white" than he.

As far as race and IQ are concerned I would post a couple of simple maps/graphs

Hard to take a test if you can't read:



oh and this map is similar too i'm sure it's a coincidence though and i really doubt there's any proven correlation between childhood malaria and lifetime educational achievement or anything

Good one. The ethnic mixture in the USA is closer to that of Brazil than to those of Argentina and Uruguay, yet the US is closer to either Argentina or Uruguay in the  'IQ' measure. (OK, American blacks may be "whiter" than Brazilian blacks, but that shouldn't be much of a problem).

Illiteracy and malaria closely relate to the weakness of the public sector. If one is a black American one is highly unlikely to be illiterate or ever get malaria in childhood. Although people may have some idea that constraining the public sector is a good idea, constraining it to the point that people go illiterate or die of infectious (but preventable) diseases is a horrible idea. Illiteracy obviously cuts into the ability of people to learn -- and effective education increases intellectual growth. I can't say that malaria retards leaning as much as does exposure to lead, but I would suppose that a political order that can't fund effective sanitation can't fund education well.   

Do the Democrats hold any statewide office in Alabama anymore?

I don't think so, at least not statewide elective office.  I believe that there are only two left in the Deep South--Senator Landrieu of Louisiana and the Mississippi Attorney General.

Bill Nelson

Florida =/ Deep South.

Florida may not look like the rest of America, but it may be the closest state to a microcosm of America in politics.

[Clinton]

Virginia, Quinnipiac. Clinton overpowers Rubio and Ryan -- nothing on Christie.

Wisconsin, Marquette University Law School.

https://law.marquette.edu/poll/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/MLSP16Toplines.pdf

Clinton 49%
Ryan 44%

Clinton 47%
Christie 40%

Clinton 50%
Walker 42%

Clinton 51%
Rubio 35%

Clinton vs. Rubio





Clinton vs. Ryan



Clinton vs. Christie

I bet that if all three of these were happening to a Republican administration, every Democrat on this forum would be chanting "death to the GOP".  Instead, since it's a Democratic administration, every Democrat is shrugging it off as no big deal.

In fact, people are acting like it's acceptable and encouraged to target a group based on political ideology.  There was indeed a crime committed and heads should roll and the very people who targeted conservative groups because they are conservative should be thrown into the slammer.

There would have to be other stuff going on. An IRS investigation of tax-exempt status  of a group that claims to be for "social welfare" or "education" (the latter would have been more plausible) yet  overwhelmingly takes one side of a partisan divide in its activities is hardly oppression in itself. When someone abuses a legal classification, others with power have the right to deny the expected consequences of a fraudulent self-identification.

Political protests and demonstrations are not tax-exempt activities. Organization of them (and the TEA Party leadership did exactly that) even for non-partisan purposes are not tax-exempt. Most TEA Party groups were effective fronts for the Republican Party. They were effective in 2010 but not later.   

http://www.washingtonpost.com/virginians-changing-views-of-gay-marriage/2013/05/14/883b5f14-bd0e-11e2-9b09-1638acc3942e_graphic.html

Capital Insights/Washington Post -- Virginia.

"Should it be legal or  illegal for gay couples to get married?"

56% legal, 33% illegal

A similar response in 2011 was 46% in favor, 43% opposed.

I was not going back to January or earlier, but there are few polls to that effect from January. This thread does not go back that far. The Kansas poll is technically of civil unions, but the language all but recognizes the right of same-sex marriage. Still, it does not say marriage. To be sure the WaPo poll in Virginia says nothing about lesbians getting married, but close enough.

Republican state legislators are out of touch with voters in Virginia as in Michigan. I see a rapid shift in attitudes in Virginia. At the very time in which Americans are getting more intolerant of spousal abuse and especially child sexual abuse (I strongly endorse this trend) they increasingly accept of homosexuality. 

If I am a Republican activist, I recognize the futility of exploiting anti-homophobic sentiment in political campaigns except in the Deep and Mountain South, and I wouldn't trust even the LDS hierarchy in Arizona, Idaho, Utah, or Wyoming. The LDS hierarchy can always have some 'revelation' that homosexuality is less a personal choice than is drinking coffee or using cancerweed products. 



For support and legality of same-sex marriage.

White -- same-sex marriage legal or has at the least been enacted. No further distinction.

Green -- same-sex marriage not legal, but more popular than unpopular

70% or higher -- deep green (90% saturation)
60.1 - 70.0%  -- dark green  (70% saturation)
55.1 - 60.0%  -- medium green (50% saturation)
50.0 - 55.0% --  light green (30% saturation)
below 49.9% but positive  -- aqua (20% saturation)

tie -- yellow

45.0 - 49.9% but negative -- salmon (30% saturation)
40.0 - 44.9%  -- medium red (50% red)
35.0 - 39.9%  -- maroon (70% red)
under 35% -- deep red  (90% saturation)
[/quote]

The President just gave what by all accounts was the most useless say nothing Presidential statement in history.

Considering that wish-fulfillment of the GOP would be that this President resign in disgrace while condemning his own Party and allowing the GOP to become the Leading Force in American Political Life (I hope that we all know what that formulation means -- hint: visions of hammer-and-sickles should go through your head, if for methods of government but not for the economic agenda)... I am not surprised at this.

The GOP hates the IRS and would prefer that taxes be the responsibility of the common man instead of economic elites who owe nothing to anyone but are entitled to everything. Barack Obama is very cautious, perhaps because he is not good at making split-second decisions based upon contradictory information (really, nobody does that well).  Investigating the media for security breaches? We  still have a war in Afghanistan and we still have terrorists to deal with -- as shown in Libya, where a post-Qaddafi government had yet to establish effective control of the entire country.

 

What would have to happen in Michigan for the amendment to be repealed?  Would the legislature have to act, or can the people petition for it?

The current state legislature owes too much to the Religious Right to act upon a pro-gay sentiment of any kind. If Michigan voters turn on the Republican-dominated state legislature and vote out a now-unpopular Governor  in 2014, a Democratic Governor and State legislature could either enact same-sex marriage or offer it in a referendum on the pretext of economic necessity. It would be good for Michigan business, including tourism.

But so long as the GOP-dominated legislature can get away with legislating as if Michigan were Oklahoma, same-sex marriage and any assertion of rights of homosexuals is out of the question. Count on Republicans stirring up anti-gay sentiment in 2014.

from February:

North Carolina (PPP)

Q18 Do you think same-sex marriage should be
allowed in North Carolina, or not?
It should be allowed ........................................ 38%
It should not .................................................... 54%
Not sure  9%

Alaska (PPP)

Q5 Do you think same-sex marriage should be
allowed in Alaska, or not?
It should be allowed ........................................ 43%
It should not .................................................... 51%
Not sure  6%

and an obscure university poll from Virginia late in March (46-47 split)

I am not going back to January or earlier.



For support and legality of same-sex marriage.

White -- same-sex marriage legal or has at the least been enacted. No further distinction.

Green -- same-sex marriage not legal, but more popular than unpopular

70% or higher -- deep green (90% saturation)
60.1 - 70.0%  -- dark green  (70% saturation)
55.1 - 60.0%  -- medium green (50% saturation)
50.0 - 55.0% --  light green (30% saturation)
below 49.9% but positive  -- aqua (20% saturation)

tie -- yellow

45.0 - 49.9% but negative -- medium red (50% saturation)
40.0 - 44.9%  -- maroon (70% red)
under 40% -- deep red  (90% saturation)