Poll: Demo vote in swing states shows dramatic rise

Swing voters trust Obama more on Medicare

Voters who control the 105 electoral votes in swing states are eager to respond to the challenge of selecting the next President, a poll shows. 

Tepid voter enthusiasm in the 12 swing states most likely to decide the presidential race has risen by large percentages, more especially among Democratic voters, according to a recent Gallup poll.

A pollsters' quiz given in the third week of this month showed an overall increase of 13 points among those who indicated they are very enthusiastic about voting in the November election.

Froma tepid 46 percent gauged in June, that rating grew by 20 points among Democrats, 18points among Independents, and 9 points among Republicans.(click here for a full report)

In other matters, polls show that voters trust President Obama more by a wide margin to protect their prospects of receiving medical care under the Medicare plan when they reach retirement age than they do Governor Romney.

In the swing states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin, 50 percent indicated they trust the President more than do the 44 percent who indicated they prefer Mr. Romney. Nationally, 51 percent prefer Mr. Obama to shepherd their needs for elderly health care over the 43 percent who chose Mr. Romney's brand of stewardship.

Peremptory strike of black woman was for cause

School zone drug case jury seated

Waco – A drug charge of cocaine with intent to deliver within 1,000 feet of a school zone could net a 20-year-old black man a sentence of as little as 5 years on probation, life, or 99 years in the penitentiary.

Ulis Alexander and a co-defendant whose case was severed and tried earlier had more than 4 grams of the drug and less than 200 grams when narcotics officers arrested them.

As members of the venire struggled to answer whether they could judge Mr. Alexander solely on the evidence and testimony to be presented, one woman said, “It's really hard because you are asking us to answer based on a hypothetical situation...I mean, 4 grams. I'm not even sure I know exactly how much that is...”

Prosecutor Gabrielle Massey replied, “It's as much as there is in a packet of Sweet'n Low. One packet is 1 gram, so 4 grams is 4 packets of Sweet'n Low. Two hundred grams is two hundred packets of Sweet'n Low.”

Life, the woman replied, is too much. Even 10 years, she reasoned, is too much.

Ms. Massey repeatedly instructed the prospective jurors to answer based on their feelings. “Just as we sit here, right now,” could they be open to rendering a verdict and a sentence based solely on the evidence and testimony presented.

She then asked if there was anyone on the panel who would “have a problem” with assessing the young man's punishment at life.

“Life!” exclaimed a woman.

Another woman blurted, “We don't even know if they had weapons...”

A young white man answered by saying, “I think life would be too much for any drug charge.”

“Not with just intent. If somebody got hurt, then yes, but not unless someone got hurt,” a lady said.

More than a dozen persons adamantly stated that they could not consider a life sentence for possession of cocaine with intent to deliver it within 1,000 feet of a school zone – in this case, a day care center.

A female teacher said, “It's really hard because I teach 18-year-olds and we have a 20-year-old in front of us. They do stupid stuff all the time.”

Asked to choose between a sentence that emphasizes punishment as the first choice, one that causes deterrence in the mind of a convicted offender, or is aimed at rehabilitation, an overwhelming majority indicated they would prefer to rehabilitate an offender as their number one choice.

Row by row, most of the venire seated for examination said, “Three” when asked to choose from a list displayed on a screen.

Defense attorney Jack Hurley cautioned the jurors the standard of proof is much higher in a criminal case.

“The only guideline you have is if it's beyond a reasonable doubt and much more than just clear and convincing.”

He asked a professional photographer if sometimes even photographic evidence leaves room for a reasonable doubt.

The man answered yes, and that he agrees that in some cases it requires expert interpretation of photographic evidence to arrive at proof beyond a reasonable doubt when viewing a photographic document such as the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination.

If we had a saxophone, big baritone...etc. (click)

He was eventually chosen to serve on the jury.

A young black woman told prosecutors that she could not consider handing down a sentence at “the higher end” of the range of punishment called for by the law's enhancement paragraphs as to location of the offense within 1,000 feet of a school.

The judge and the attorneys questioned her in the privacy of the judge's chambers.

When the final count came, she was not chosen to serve on an evenly balanced jury of 6 men and 6 women.

Whilethe jurors were out on break, Judge Matt Johnson held a “Batson”hearing on a motion by defense counsel, so called because of aSupreme Court holding in Batson v. Kentucky.(click here for a report on Batson v. Kentucky)

In that case, a Louisville prosecutor struck all black veniremen from the panel in a burglary case involving a black defendant. Mr. Batson appealed, and the U.S. Supreme Court held that when prospective jurors of color are stricken without cause, the attorney who made the peremptory challenge must give a reason.

Ms. Massey and her co-counsel said a criminal records check revealed that the young woman had served a probation term for the offense of injury to a child, though she was not convicted.

At the time of the Batson decision, Chief Justice Warren Burger dissented, saying the holding would force those who make peremptory strikes to justify their actions, thus nullifying the entire concept of peremptory strikes of proposed veniremen and turning all such challenges to those of cause.

Presentation of evidence and testimony will begin on Wednesday morning at 9 a.m.

TALK AT ME, SUGAR BLUE...(click)

Half million dollars to cover final 2012 CEC jail bill

Waco – McLennan County Budget Director Adam Harry will request nearly a half million additional dollars to pay for “outside care” of prisoners by CEC, Inc., at the Jack Harwell Detention Center.

The private corporation houses prisoners of the McLennan County Sheriff's Office in the lockup that was built with nearly $50 million in revenue bonds on the speculation that there was money to be made by keeping federal and state prisoners for a fee.

The revenue bonds were issued without the approval of voters.

Instead, McLennan County has already spent $2,622,985 to pay CEC, Inc., to house its own prisoners who overcrowd the county lockup on Highway 6 at the rate of $45.50 per prisoner per day.

The final “budget amendment request” of fiscal year 2012, which ends on September 30, comes to $426,654 for a total budget paid to CEC of $3,049,639 in fiscal year 2012, according to the court's Tuesday agenda.

As readers may see, the additional funds were cobbled together from such items as salaries of regular deputies in the office's various divisions, workers compensation, FICA taxes, and administrative personnel.

Budget Justification is listed as “August 2012 – Prisoner population has increased above expectation at the time the budget was prepared.”

The more than 300 beds at the downtown courthouse jail are still unoccupied while the building is renovated and repaired.

"Fried Chicken and Coffee" published 'Innings'

Rusty Barnes of Emerson College – yes, that Emerson – Boston, published a story I wrote named “Innings” about a courthouse war in his blogazine, “Fried Chicken andCoffee.”(click)

It's all about being a redneck and having the gumption to own the fact, write about it – make it sing.

Yes.

He's an alternative publisher, a professor of creative writing, and a co-founder of many publications, the most famous of which is “NightTrain.”(click) If you think I'm happy, you're right

A short excerpt from the story:

The boss was a boozer from Chicago, Kansas City - points mid and west – an old time Hearst man with ties to liquor, guns, women - and cars, flashy, fast, long, low-slung cars.

All the stuff no well-rounded man of the world would think of leaving home without.

The war was carried out in the courtrooms, the council chambers, schools,hospitals and personnel offices – all the places where small town prairie dwellers meet, greet, and then haul off and kick the shins of the competition in a good-natured exercise of the American dream.(click)

Second place is first loser, and the prize for that lackluster performance is a set of steak knives.

Ouch.

But the old Yankee knew a story when he saw one, and the idea was to sell newspapers.

“Anybody accuses you of just trying to sell newspapers, you agree with them most heartily. Tell them 'Thank you, sir,' and urge them to write that down.”

A part of Mr. Barnes' biography:

The great dirty or not so-dirty secret of my past, is that I grew up in the north­ern­most por­tion of the Appalachian Regional Com­mis­sion des­ig­nated 'Appalachian' area, north-central Penn­syl­va­nia. The stereo­type, or more prop­erly, the arche­type, of the Appalachian region cen­ters around the Kentucky/West Vir­ginia por­tions of the ARC's des­ig­nated area, but the eco­nomic dif­fi­cul­ties and many of the same issues and sim­i­lar­i­ties con­tin­ued into that Bradford/Tioga county area in Penn­syl­va­nia, where I spent the first 24 years of my life. I played in cricks where all the rocks shone orange with runoff, where no fish lived, though the coal indus­try was dead by the time I was old enough to know what it had been and how it had caused the dam­age, and the lum­ber indus­try gone too, fifty or seventy-five years before. What was left to me and my friends was sim­ply grow­ing up and find­ing a way out, via the armed forces, via col­lege, via just shit­ting and get­ting, if you could, the 'brain-drain' typ­i­cal of rural Appalachia. You stay and become part of the scenery, or you never go back. Case in point, my father's fam­ily has lived, with three or four excep­tions, in the same three-county area for 230 years.

Waco journalists suddenly all-in for social media

Six Shooter Junction – A week on the square watching Buddy get his showed The Legendary a new wrinkle.

For the first time in remembrance, these folks are wide awake, just like N'Yawk, L.A., Paris, London, Rome – and, oh, yes, Okeechobee.

Suddenly, the TV hounds, news scribblers, on-air talent, and beat men are tweeting, twittering, facebooking and e-mailing with wild abandon, trying to be first on the street with the latest development in crime, passion, politics and the courts.

The Trib's dude under the dome still strolls into the judges' chambers, but now he makes like a pool reporter and reports to the rest of the tribe what's coming off – once he's got it on his tablet, twitted, tweeting, and winging its way through cyberspace.

Ditto the tellies and talking heads, the politico scoopers and all those telephone talkers multifaxing the latest po-leece deals on wheels, spills, chills and other bleeds-it-leads cut and shoot jazz like that.

Such a deal.

Looks like Buffet's boys from Omaha came down with a little something to shake up a little dust.

You wear it well, Six Shooter-ites.

But, wait, there's more. District Attorney Abel Reyna has inaugurated a new Facebook page to keep people updated on his activities. He said he was upset when the newspaper folks trumpeted the misinformation that he would be spending the week at a conference in South Padre Island. He was even more upset when he was unable to achieve a correction of the matter, so...

T'is a refreshing change from waiting for your biological clocks to be wrong twice a day while we all wait for Miz Polly and Paw Paw Prunellins to dee-cide if it's gon' be all right for the folks to know what is next, put the official stamp of approval on there, and release the information in a timely fashion.

And all the little birdies on Jay-Bird Street.

I am sincere.

With gratitude,

- The Legendary

Gallup: Poor are not impressed with partisan politics

Half below poverty line are 'Independents'

 Respondents' poverty status is based on Gallup's best estimate of those in poverty according to the most recent U.S. census poverty thresholds, which are from 2011 -- hence, the use of 2011 Gallup data for this analysis. The government's income thresholds for poverty vary significantly according to age of householder, number of related adults in the household aged 18 years or older, and number of related children in the home younger than age 18. Gallup thus made a determination of individual respondents' poverty status based on their annual household income in conjunction with their position on these demographic characteristics. In addition to household income, Gallup's categorization of respondents in poverty uses marital status to account for number of related adults in the household aged 18 or older and includes number of children in the home younger than age 18.

As a point of comparison for those in poverty, 27% of all Americans nationally identified as Republicans in 2011, 30% as Democrats, and 37% as independents. These levels of partisanship were unchanged in the first six months of 2012, with 27% of adults identifying as Republicans, 30% as Democrats, and 36% as independents -- revealing that the party ID of those in poverty is likely similar this year as well.

Adding Republican and Democratic leaners to the respective party groups produces the same result. Those in poverty are twice as likely as those who aren't to be pure independents -- 23% vs. 12%. And those in poverty are much less likely to identify as Republicans or lean Republican and slightly more likely to identify as Democrats or lean Democratic.

The relatively high percentage of those in poverty who are political independents suggests that these individuals are less likely than average to be engaged in the political process.

Majority of Those in Poverty Approved of Obama in 2011

The majority of Americans in poverty approved of President Barack Obama in 2011, compared with 45% approval among those not in poverty. But those in poverty were almost twice as likely as those not in poverty to have no opinion of the job the president was doing, underscoring that Americans who are in poverty are less likely in general to be engaged in politics.

George Carlin on euphemistic nonsense phrases

Move over, PTSD - here comes 'QE3'