<p>-</p>
<p>I don’t know . . . my cultural bias might tell me that a felon would be more likely to vote Dino Rossi. Certainly all the mobsters would have wanted him (including dead mobsters) and any felons or domestic abusers out there who wanted to by firearms at will. ;)</p>
<p>carry on . . .</p>
<p>saintfan, you are a troublemaker. Are you my mother? 
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<p>Of course, those mobsters, felons and domestic abusers can easily buy their guns at gunshows, with no background check and even felons get their carry rights back after five years. So probably not a voting issue for them in WA.
Don’t know why I didn’t vote for Rossi, such a nice guy…and Christine spent hundreds of millions of state dollars rewarding her major contributors, public sector unions and the tribes. Bad timing, giving paybacks right before the recession. We could have used that money for things we now can’t afford, like improved mental health capabilities. All psychiatric beds full, no money left to fund more.</p>
<p>But wait! Can those packing felons vote?! I am actually kidding now. It was just low hanging fruit. I neither know nor care on a Saturday night . . . just doing exciting things like filling in my 2015 wall calendar. :-B </p>
<p>Really, they can. They just need to pay the fine and reregister, and not be in community custody or prison. It is often legal for a felon to vote, probably easier than in most states.</p>
<p>Right now I’m just trying not to eat more Christmas chocolate, and watching my muffin top grow. This time of the year is very difficult. Hopefully the doorbell will ring, and our friends will help me finish up this dang chocolate!!</p>
<p>DH just turned on the FSU game which brings to mind the thought that if Mike Brown had 4.3 speed to get away instead of lumbering down the street in his socks he probably actually wouldn’t have had to run at all. He could have stolen cigarillos, crab legs and all kinds of things and probably gotten a ride back home and a pat on the back. </p>
<p>Hey there’s motivation to stop eating chocolate and start exercising right there. Faster getaway, less chance for confrontation with the cops.</p>
<p>Thank God, there’s the doorbell. Rescue from gluttony!</p>
<p>Not saying it means anything, because my mom dealt was conversant on a lot of this, but you do seem to know a lot about how a felon can vote their conscience, bd. </p>
<p>As to the subject of adjusting whatever stop, arrest, incarceration rate data that’s been used to back up whatever views that’ve been expressed, that New Jersey study that the feds told the state to conduct seems to suggests that race should be added as a normative factor. Here’s the NYT’s explanation of it, along with the acknowledgement that the feds asked for it not to be released:
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/nyregion/study-suggests-racial-gap-in-speeding-in-new-jersey.html”>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/nyregion/study-suggests-racial-gap-in-speeding-in-new-jersey.html</a>
My belief, not supported by anything other than life, is that the poor and less educated bend the rules more often than those who have more to lose for doing so. Does that translate into a little contempt for authority, and a greater likelihood that a confrontation with a cop, never a good thing, is going to turn bad?</p>
<p>Maybe it translates into helping the poor and less educated get less poor and more educated? Just a thought.</p>
<p>“Not saying it means anything, because my mom dealt was conversant on a lot of this, but you do seem to know a lot about how a felon can vote their conscience, bd.”</p>
<p>Hmmm, makes you wonder, doesn’t it, cat?</p>
<p>Though if it makes you feel better, I suspect I get job related criminal background checks done on me every year, whether I’m informed of it or not. I do admit, I did steal a little bit when I was a teenager. Though, oddly, the time I got caught was while stealing a record of “The Lord’s Prayer”. Though apparently there must be no hope for me, as I’m still an agnostic.</p>
<p>I actually know a bit about the felon voting issue, because we used to be involved with a local organization called JusticeWorks. which registers people who used to be incarcerated to vote, and on topic to this thread, works to prevent racism in the criminal justice system as it pertains to African Americans.</p>
<p>So nope, it’s not because I’m a felon!</p>
<p>My mother told me more than once I’d be one, bd. I think I’ll remind her of that when I see her today.</p>
<p>This is the sort of analysis I think would have been presented at a trial over the Michael Brown shooting.</p>
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</p>
<p><a href=“The audio recording of the Michael Brown shooting proves Darren Wilson's story is false”>The audio recording of the Michael Brown shooting proves Darren Wilson's story is false;
<p>Well, that’s certainly enough for me. If a writer of a blog on the Daily Kos says it could have happened this way, he must be right. Forget any of the evidence scrutinized by the grand jury for three months, this guy knows the truth.</p>
<p>busdriver, please try to understand the point. The grand jury was only presented with one version of the sequence of events–one designed to favor Darren Wilson. So neither the grand jury nor the public got to hear any alternate story that might have better fit with the evidence and witness reports. </p>
<p>No they heard from Dr Baden who was hired by the family and his fraudulent assistant, too. Had they known about this blogger they probably would have let him come as well. It’s over.</p>
<p>it has nothing to do with “this blogger”. It has to do with the fact that the audio evidence doesn’t match officer Wilson’s story. The blogger was simply doing the work the prosecutor should have been doing, but clearly didn’t. </p>
<p>Again–because as so many of these recent cases show–the prosecutor didn’t WANT to indict a member of the law enforcement community with which he has a close and symbiotic relationship.</p>
<p>All of you who have accepted the GJ findings as correct “based on the evidence”–does this major inconsistency bother you at all?</p>
<p>Nope.</p>
<p>Why not? And isn’t that sort of an admission of bias then, since you KNOW the prosecutor had no intention of getting an indictment? Why WOULDN’T you want to know everything before passing judgment?</p>