The essence of the blowouts of 1964 and 1972 was that the losing candidate was cast as an extremist. That is always a possibility at some time. The losing Party usually recovers from that.
 

If I'm interpreting Torie's comments correctly here, he is absolutely right - Obama should be using this as an opportunity to get these organizations to start paying the taxes they should have been paying all along.

The taxes that they would have to pay are property taxes if they own property... and state sales taxes on the taxable items. But those is a small issue for deep-pockets activity. What these groups most cherish is the anonymity of their donors. If numerous 'local' TEA Party groups get funding from some Texas oil tycoon, and that tycoon calls the shorts from far away, then maybe the group isn't so grass-roots as it seems.

The Roman Empire died of economic and military failure.  The Roman Catholic Church survived because it need neither economic nor military success.

[green]

Selzer, Des Moines Register, Iowa: 54% approval, 36% disapproval. Possible VP selection in 2016?

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20130609/NEWS09/306090028/Iowa-Poll-Branstad-sees-high-approval-?Frontpage&nclick_check=1

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_MI_604.pdf  


tie white
1-3%       20% saturation
4-7%       40% saturation
8%-20%  60% saturation
over 20% 80% saturation

Behind, yellow the colors to green for Republicans  and orange for Democrats. Dark shades of orange are really brown.  Ties are yellow.


Qualification: The lowest level of saturation  (20%) now applies for any incumbent Governor whose positive margin of  approval is under 8% but whose approval rating is under 50%. The second-lowest level of saturation (40%) now applies to any Governor whose approval rating is under 50% but whose margin of difference is 8% or higher. No change applies to any Governor whose approval is lower than disapproval. A governor is not in a strong position until he has at least 50% approval. The rationale is to avoid giving a recently-elected Governor credit for a "honeymoon".


Governors who die, resign, are defeated in bids for re-election, retire at the end of their terms, or are impeached and removed from office will be whited out. Independent governor or no governor -- white.

60% of Alaska voters support background checks to just 35% opposed, including a 62/33 spread with independents

Alaska isn't 'one of those kooky Western states'. There are places where I wouldn't go in Alaska without packing iron because of some animals that I distrust. They look like giant dogs and don't behave as well. 

70% of Arizona voters support background checks to only 26% who are opposed to them.

Arizona may have kooky politics, but even it has limits.

70% of voters in the state  (Nevada) support background checks compared to just 24% who are opposed to them.

Definitely not in the West, but not out of line:

72% of Ohio voters support background checks, including 87% of Democrats, 73% of independents, and 56% of Republicans.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/04/more-backlash-against-senators-on-gun-vote.html#more



Red -- greater approval than disapproval

80% or higher, 80% saturation
70-79% approval, 70% saturation
60-69% approval, 60% saturation
50-59% approval, 50% saturation
40-49% approval, 40% saturation

Yellow -- exact tie

White -- districts of Maine and Nebraska (no distinction unless shown in a specific poll)

Blue  (saturation 70%) -- greater disapproval than approval

The reasons for the unconventional color scheme:

1. Blue and red are more easily distinguished in dark shades.
2. The issue probably helps Democrats more than Republicans.

New Hampshire, PPP in April

Q15 Would you support or oppose requiring
background checks on individuals who
purchase guns at gun shows?
Support .................. .75%
Oppose .................. .21%
Not sure ................. . 4%

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/04/hassan-riding-high-in-new-hampshire-safe-for-2014-re-election.html#more

Virginia, PPP  in May

Q11 Would you support or oppose requiring
background checks for all gun sales, including
gun shows and the Internet?
Support ........................................................... 77%
Oppose ........................................................... 16%
Not sure .......................................................... 6%

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/05/warner-solid-for-re-election.html#more

Minnesota, May, PPP

Q18 Would you support or oppose requiring
background checks for all gun sales, including
gun shows and the Internet?
Support ........................................................... 74%
Oppose ........................................................... 21%
Not sure .......................................................... 5%

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/05/franken-in-solid-position-for-reelection.html#more



Red -- greater approval than disapproval

80% or higher, 80% saturation
70-79% approval, 70% saturation
60-69% approval, 60% saturation
50-59% approval, 50% saturation
40-49% approval, 40% saturation

Yellow -- exact tie

White -- districts of Maine and Nebraska (no distinction unless shown in a specific poll)

Blue  (saturation 70%) -- greater disapproval than approval

The reasons for the unconventional color scheme:

1. Blue and red are more easily distinguished in dark shades.
2. The issue probably helps Democrats more than Republicans.

New Hampshire, PPP in April

Q15 Would you support or oppose requiring
background checks on individuals who
purchase guns at gun shows?
Support .................. .75%
Oppose .................. .21%
Not sure ................. . 4%

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/04/hassan-riding-high-in-new-hampshire-safe-for-2014-re-election.html#more

Virginia, PPP  in May

Q11 Would you support or oppose requiring
background checks for all gun sales, including
gun shows and the Internet?
Support ........................................................... 77%
Oppose ........................................................... 16%
Not sure .......................................................... 6%

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/05/warner-solid-for-re-election.html#more



Red -- greater approval than disapproval

80% or higher, 80% saturation
70-79% approval, 70% saturation
60-69% approval, 60% saturation
50-59% approval, 50% saturation
40-49% approval, 40% saturation

Yellow -- exact tie

White -- districts of Maine and Nebraska (no distinction unless shown in a specific poll)

Blue  (saturation 70%) -- greater disapproval than approval

The reasons for the unconventional color scheme:

1. Blue and red are more easily distinguished in dark shades.
2. The issue probably helps Democrats more than Republicans.

New PPP polls in Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee find that even in dark red states there's strong, bipartisan support for expanded background checks. And as we've found elsewhere, voters are unhappy with their Senators who voted against them.

In Georgia there's 71/22 support for them, in Tennessee it's 67/26, and in Arkansas it's 60/31. Female voters that the Republican Party really needs to reach out to if it's going to be successful moving forward are even more supportive of background checks. They favor them 81/12 in Georgia, 73/21 in Tennessee, and 67/25 in Arkansas.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/05/red-states-strongly-support-background-checks.html#more

In Louisiana 72% of voters say they favor background checks to only 20% who are opposed. ...

It's a similar story in North Carolina. There 73% of voters support background checks with only 22% opposed.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/05/hagan-landrieu-gun-voters-could-help-in-2014.html#more



Red -- greater approval than disapproval

80% or higher, 80% saturation
70-79% approval, 70% saturation
60-69% approval, 60% saturation
50-59% approval, 50% saturation
40-49% approval, 40% saturation

Yellow -- exact tie

White -- districts of Maine and Nebraska (no distinction unless shown in a specific poll)

Blue  (saturation 70%) -- greater disapproval than approval

The reasons for the unconventional color scheme:

1. Blue and red are more easily distinguished in dark shades.
2. The issue probably helps Democrats more than Republicans.

Blank map.



Statewide approval, background checks for the purchase of firearms and ammunition. Start with the most recent, Michigan:



Red -- greater approval than disapproval

80% or higher, 80% saturation
70-79% approval, 70% saturation
60-69% approval, 60% saturation
50-59% approval, 50% saturation
40-49% approval, 40% saturation

Yellow -- exact tie

White -- districts of Maine and Nebraska (no distinction unless shown in a specific poll)

Blue  (saturation 70%) -- greater disapproval than approval

The reasons for the unconventional color schemes:

1. Blue and red are more easily distinguished in dark shades.
2. The issue probably helps Democrats more than Republicans.

Romney wins -- the other is a bigger disaster. At least a Romney Presidency is only one term.

[Clinton]

If Hillary Clinton's the Democratic candidate for President at least for now it looks like the state will remain firmly in the blue column. The only Republican who even comes within single digits of her is Christie, who still trails 44-38. The other 3 trail by margins closer to Barack Obama's 16 point margin of victory in 2008 than his 9 point victory from last fall- Clinton is up 14 on Bush at 51/37, 17 on Rubio at 53/36, and 20 on Paul at 55/35.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/06/michigan-miscellany.html

Clinton vs. Rubio





Clinton vs. Ryan



Clinton vs. Christie

Religious authorities find Hell useful as a threat to heretics, dissidents, and backsliders. When persuasion fails, the appeal to fear emerges. So even if one escapes religious authorities (let us say Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition and ending up in Holland or Turkey) and the auto-da-fe one will still burn forever in Hell. 

I have used it -- but on someone standing for a consummate evil. A Nazi. I inverted the threat that  the saved would get to take delight in the torments of the damned. Figure that Hell is more a place of shame, regret, distrust, fear, and ugliness (think of a prison), and that part of the torment is that one gets to see those that one terribly wronged enjoying delights denied one indefinitely. A Holocaust perpetrator gets to see his Jewish victims in a paradise that he can only envy -- and that Paradise is undeniably Jewish. A Crusader who massacred a Muslim town gets to recognize -- too late -- that God is Allah, Mohammed is His Greatest Prophet, and that the Paradise denied him is undeniably Islamic.

But save Hell for the most egregious sinners.     

My take:

The Garden of Eden was a short-lived paradise that existed soon after the beginning of the retreat of the Pleistocene ice sheets when climates were changing. For a short time areas that are now parts of the Sahara or the Arabian Desert had delightful climates -- probably Mediterranean. Fruit and nut trees were plentiful enough to afford food to Man. Not quite fully forested, the paradise made hunting for small-to-medium game easy. There may have been no large, dangerous predators as threats. Flowing water (from a nearby higher elevation?) kept people from getting thirsty. A lake, creek, river, or perhaps a sea made fish easily available. Temperatures were warm enough all year that one could avoid the cold with minimal shelter. As the ice sheets slowly retreated toward the polar regions, so did the rain-bearing westerlies. The "Garden" vanished as the rains retreated northward, and people living there had to move or perish. Or perhaps it was inundated as the seas rose due to the melt of the glaciers.   

It's just that there were far more Tea Party groups appearing from seemingly nowhere than there were liberal-leaning groups. 

Science is amoral. Science could have told us what happens when a jetliner crashes into an iron-and-glass tower before 9/11. Indeed the plotters of the 9/11 attack used sophistic learning in science and engineering to figure that out. It takes morality to decide that crashing a jetliner nearly full of jet fuel into a tall building is horribly wrong.

Soviet and American scientists working on nuclear warheads and missiles were compartmentalized in their thinking on how to deliver a large and effective nuke to some place designated as a "tank factory", "army base", "missile assembly site", or "submarine dock". Those were obvious military targets in the sense that "theater district", "art museum", "architectural wonder", or "historical monument" weren't. 

What gave them cold feet about nuclear warfare? Our physicists got invited to their cities (or those of their allies) and got wined and dined in Moscow,  Leningrad, Prague, and Budapest.   Their scientists got invited to our cities (or those of our allies) and got wined and dined in New York, London, Paris, and Amsterdam. Both their scientists and ours came to the conclusion that the missiles that they were working on would be used against such places in a nuclear exchange and that destroying the Hermitage or the Louvre would be a monstrous deed. But our nuclear scientists and theirs lost much of their enthusiasm for nuclear warfare. Talkative as scientists are, they convinced non-scientists. But they were performing as moral actors making esthetic and humane decisions and not as scientists.   

The Hard Right peaked in 2010, and although it did things to consolidate an advantage for itself in subsequent elections (thus the Republicans could keep a House majority despite losing a majority of votes for House candidates in 2012), it has done nothing to erode the Obama coalition. Obama voters got a hard lesson in 2010 and are still getting one (Congress matters, too!). Obama voters on the whole remain wet behind the ears on the Machiavellian politics in play in America.  But they are learning, and they are going to lean how to beat Hard Right incumbents in R+3 to R+5 Congressional districts. (One way is to have candidates who well fit D+2 districts against incumbents well suited to R+20 districts. Extremists are always vulnerable).

If the Obama coalition holds, then Democrats are likely to make gains in the House, reverse many of the gubernatorial and state legislature gains of Republicans of 2010, and hold onto the US Senate (gains are unlikely because the Democrats have more Senate seats up for grabs in 2014). But note well -- 2014 will be a midterm election, and conservative parties tend to do well with a shrunken electorate in an election without a President unless mass discontent against that Party builds as in 2006. The Republicans offer no solutions to economic distress except even more distress for anyone not already rich, which is a losing proposition to all but economic elites.   By 2016 things could get extremely bleak for the Republicans because they have so many vulnerable Senators in moderate-to-liberal states.

The Republicans are able to harness increasing support among their key constituencies, but those constituencies are not growing. America is not becoming more Fundamentalist in religion. It is not getting whiter, either. Add to that, Americans have experience with a President who is definitely not white, and that he has not been a catastrophe. Barack Obama has shattered the glass ceiling for the Presidency that suggests that one almost must be a white Protestant male of English origin.  (JFK won because Nixon was physically ugly).

Republicans need to cut into the Obama coalition to win the Presidency in 2016. They will need to assuage some of the fears that many have that the Republican Party stands for nothing but wealth and privilege. It has played contempt for the intellect as far as it can go, and democrats have solutions that make use of learning of all kinds. They need to rebuild a coalition other than what they now have because with that they can win against only a very weak opponent for any office except in very safe seats.   


   

Many Republicans have made out the 75 groups to be some kind of heroic martyrs, but it seems pretty obvious that they shouldn't have gotten tax exempt status in the first place.  What am I missing here?

It's an issue of equal protection.  The government can't disproportionately go after one group in society even if that group is clearly in the wrong.  It should be equally tough on everyone.

Left-leaning organizations generally did not complain.

Putting yourself where you are unwelcome can be an element of a crime -- especially burglary, often the crime necessary for the commission of a crime that makes burglary a triviality. DNA often contradicts a perpetrator's contention that he was never in the place where a crime was committed.

Sure, there are innocent explanations at times.

What was so amazing was that Virgina which had not gone for a Democratic nominee since the 1964 so did in 2008, and unlike in 1964, not in a full landslide. Virginia was the one former Confederate state that did not go for Jimmy Carter in 1976. It never went for Bill Clinton, a very strong nominee.

Virginia is now a true border state between the North and South, and it has become increasingly "Northern" since the 1920s. It went for Hoover in 1928 and then went for the Democratic nominee in four consecutive Presidential elections. It then went clearly for Nixon in 1960. It was one of the weaker wins of LBJ. It was fairly close in 1976, but Carter still lost it.

Virginia has become more like a Northern State. It is increasingly urban. It is probably better educated than the average. That Obama won it in 2008 after it going to Dubya by about 8% twice suggests not only a nationwide shift but that the state itself has moved in ways different from some other states. 2012 confirms that a Republican nominee will have to be very effective to win it. It is near the national average.

 

Crime has no right to privacy. DNA evidence is used to identify offenders and missing persons much as fingerprints. Tracing a rapist or murderer to the scene of a crime that the suspect has no cause to have ever been in through fingerprints is well-accepted police practice. DNA? Same category of reliability.   

A suspect has the right to remain silent. Putting one's fingerprints or DNA where it is not welcome betrays that silence.

Do the crime, do the time.

Many of them never deserved tax-exempt status.

Tax-exempt status is a privilege, and not a right.

I suspect that people in Indonesia have a better understanding concerning what to do with food. Give somebody on Java a 75 cent lb of rice and he's good for a while. Not so much with Americans.

OK, Indonesia has less of a consumer-driven economy because it is far poorer. Most Americans wouldn't think of selling off their video-game arcade for $10 so that they could get a few pounds of beans or rice. 

People need more in America to keep their sanity in a culture that values nothing other than personal indulgence. We don't care about anyone other than ourselves, which is exactly what our corporate masters want. Maybe we have become a nation of back-stabbers and the most vulnerable in America get what we deserve. Eventually more of us become vulnerable and  we get the worst that plutocracy can do to us.   

Okay, my feelings on this are that it's depressing and disgusting but not really surprising and that if it were at all possible for me to live without advanced electronics I don't know if I would but I would certainly try.

Having said that...

There's a company called 'Palantir' that 'builds software that connects data, technologies, humans and environments', and it might be involved in an intelligence-gathering scandal? Palantir? Seriously?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies|Wikipedia article on Palantir

The company: http://www.palantir.com/platforms/

...I hope that we have not made a Mephistophelian bargain to get high technology. If we have, then it is back to printed books, cash transactions only,  land phone lines, CRT-based televisions, vinyl records, and paper calculations... and no computer... for me. I could return to the 1950s and do well.

Welcome to the New "East Germany", except that it has plutocracy instead of Marxism as its core ideology.

The Democrats will use images of President Obama where they help their nominee and not where such images hurt that nominee. Such is to be expected. If Democrats show any indication that they are winning back (Bill) Clinton-but-not-Obama voters they will change their campaign strategies accordingly depending on the bailiwick.  (This assumes that the President has near-50% approval ratings in the summer and late autumn of 2016).

Remember: all House districts will be in play, and if the difference between winning a House majority is an electoral win of 350 electoral votes instead of 400, guess what the Democrats will do? At some point a House member is worth more than an electoral vote. That is around 300 electoral votes.

Spelling bees are tests of linguistic fluency (including conventions of orthography of other languages) and cultural breadth. The hybrid vocabulary of English (Old Low German, Norse, Latin, Old French, and classical Greek) allows such near-synonyms as foretelling, prediction, and prophecy. Many of the trip-ups are on culinary items. Is there any surprise on that?