And Herman Cain says racism is in the past...

Disenfranchisement of the Formerly Incarcerated Remains Serious Problem in Alabama

November 14, 2011

The State of Alabama continues to deny the right to vote to citizens who have served and completed sentences for felony convictions. Alabama's disenfranchisement rate of one in 14 residents is triple the national average.
Mass incarceration has a disproportionate effect on the voting power of poor and minority communities. According to a 2006 report, Alabama denies the right to vote to more than 250,000 citizens who have been convicted of felonies.
The majority of disenfranchised Alabamians are African American. Though comprising only 26% of the state’s total population at the time of the 2008 presidential election, African Americans made up 70% of all disenfranchised persons in Alabama.
Currently, 180,000 African Americans in Alabama are excluded from the franchise. EJI estimates that without significant reform the percentage of all black men in Alabama facing disenfranchisement could increase from about 30% today to 40% by 2020.

• New York Times: Who Gets to Vote? [1]

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Source URL: http://eji.org/eji/node/579

Links:
[1] http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/who-gets-to-vote/

ON the Left! No, No - on the right! Herman has attackers everywhere

Didn't Herman Cain just say the other day this is all an orchestrat

­ed attack from the REPUBLICAN camp of Rick Perry and yet today in his press conference­, he claimed it was the "Democrati­c Machine" now against him? Which is it Herman? "Trouble to left of me, trouble to the right... here I am, stuck in the middle with you".

Herman Cain is through...or at least he should be

Wow - I called it over two months ago that Herman Cain would not last. I think I got it right. 9-9-9 is a mathematical impossibility and a joke. His lack of statesmanship and knowledge of foreign anything - should be a deal-killer. But where there's smoke, there is usually fire. 4 women and probably more. I think you can stick a fork in Mr. Cain - he's done. And if he isn't done now, because the Repugnicans want to keep pretending they aren't racists - well, he should be.  My bet is that he was a token candidate anyway, to pull attention away from all the racist crapola they've launched in Obama's direction since early 2008.
 We need real election reform that prevents the PACs, SuperPACs etc from giving money to these jokers. That would end the circus and maybe restore some respect for the electoral process. I won't vote Republican, but if you are, then Buddy Roemer is the only one who is running an honest race the way it should be.

So true...

By elevating the children of farmers and janitors as well as lawyers and stockbrokers, we’ve created what seems like the most capable, hardworking, high-I.Q. elite in all of human history.

And for the last 10 years, we’ve watched this same elite lead us off a cliff — mostly by being too smart for its own good. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/opinion/sunday/douthat-our-reckless-meritocracy.html?src=me&ref=general