Funny how people aren't that interested in politics until they go to prison... 35% of Americans aren't registered to vote. Only 57.5% of eligible voters actually vote. Among eligible voters, 25% identify as Republicans, 35% as Democrats, and 40% independents.

A mere 0.1% of the prison population are Nazis, but they account for 20% of prison murders. I'd rather be in prison with a Democrat than a Nazi if those were my only two choices.

Probably the main reason so many convicted felons are Democrats is that felons don't get to vote. Like voter ID laws, voter caging, poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and gerrymandering, non-violent drug felony convictions are just another tool used by social conservative elites to deny the vote to the poor and minorities.

Interestingly, Republican Rick Santorum argued for the restoration of voting rights for ex-offenders. On this point, he agrees with Pres. Obama.

As many as 10 percent of the minority population in the US is unable to vote, as a result of felon disfranchisement.

This is so, because there are disparities in arrest decisions. There are disparities in decisions to prosecute an arrestee for a felony or a misdemeanor. George Zimmerman, darling of the Right, was arrested for felony resisting an officer with violence in 2006; but because his dad is a retired Judge, he got to plead to a misdemeanor, and got no jail time. As soon as they charged him with murder in the Martin case, rather than negligent homicide (what the cops initially charged him with), I knew the prosecution's case was architected to result in acquittal; the non-vigorous prosecution proved me right--my high school mock trial team could have made mince meat of his defense.

Blacks convicted of the same crime as whites get longer sentences. 4 out of 5 convicted felons get no jail time at all, instead getting "alternative sentencing" like fines, probation, parole, halfway house, rehab; and there's racial disparity in these jail versus alternative sentencing decisions.

White collar criminals who actually go to jail have it worse than the media makes it seem. But most pay a fine and don't get any jail time. And much of this stuff never gets to the point of arrest or prosecution anyway.

55% of Federal prisoners got sentenced for drug felonies. 96% of Federal prisoners are there for non-violent offenses. We've spent $1T on the War on Drugs, and it's been a cataclysmic failure. http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/06/opinion/branson-end-war-on-dru...

Congress never outlawed drugs so much as they abused their power to regulate interstate commerce in order to authorize a drug scheduling system. The FDA decides the particulars of the drug schedule. As President, I would (1) grant a full pardon to all non-violent drug offenders, (2) abolish the FDA's drug scheduling system, (3) direct the Justice Dept. to deprioritize prosecution of non-violent drug offenders, (4) order the FBI and DEA to deprioritize all investigations into non-violent drug crimes.

I'd also prioritize crackdowns on white collar crime: fraud, embezzelment, tax evasion. There'd be big shift in the makeup of felons' Party affiliations after 4 years with me in the Whitehouse.

If someone was really going for the throat they would bring up the history and origin of the group a person self identified with. That leads to some scary thoughts with a lot of "we changed" yelling.