Gov. Cuomo orders voting rights restored for parolees
ALBANY — New York state will restore the voting rights of parolees under an executive order issued Wednesday by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo that will impact as many as 35,000 New Yorkers who have served time for felonies.
The move adds New York to a list of more than a dozen states and the District of Columbia that give convicted felons the right to vote once they have completed their prison sentences. Republicans immediately slammed the move as bad public policy and potentially illegal, since Cuomo chose to circumvent the Legislature.
Cuomo said the voting prohibition disproportionately impacts minorities, noting that nearly three-fourths of those currently on parole in New York are black or Latino. He said giving people back the right to vote can be one way of helping them re-establish ties to their communities as law-abiding citizens.
“It is unconscionable to deny voting rights to New Yorkers who have paid their debt and have re-entered society,” Cuomo said. “This reform will reduce disenfranchisement and will help restore justice and fairness to our democratic process. Withholding or delaying voting rights diminishes our democracy.”
More: http://poststar.com/news/state-and-regional/gov-cuomo-orders-voting-rights-restored-for-parolees/article_f53a7a0b-6ee1-5a10-adb5-d236b3a635b6.html
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In Vermont and Maine - and Puerto Rico - convicted felons can vote while they're still in prison. Given the incarceration rate in this country, it's long past time for a federal law. 
Most states disenfranchise felons. Maine and Vermont allow inmates to vote from prison.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/states-rethink-prisoner-voting-rights-incarceration-rates-rise-n850406
I went to summer camp there for several years. And the friends from Vermont who I grew up with have all turned out to be fellow liberals. My friend's parents were huge Eugene McCarthy supporters - which I didn't get at the time, but I do now. 
It is beautiful here in the Northeast, but the winters, especially this year, can be brutal. Just last month (March!) we had four nor'easters - really fierce snowstorms - in three weeks and just last weekend there was a nasty ice storm. Summers are usually ideal, we get a lot of tourists in these parts, especially near the lakes, but they're way too short.
I've never been to New Mexico, but I did visit Arizona - my grandmother spent winters in Florence and it was like a different planet to me! Not only was the landscape so different - we have mostly woods and lakes and mountains in these parts - but the weather was amazing! My grandmother was quite friendly with her neighbors and I remember the wife of the couple next door venturing out in a winter coat when it went down to 70! 
But you must have experienced New York winters living in Utica. I'm a graduate of Hamilton College in Clinton and winters there are arguably tougher than here in the Northeast. 
In January of 1969 when I went to work for Mohawk Airlines (and does that date me!) I did my training in Utica. the other young women in my class were from Binghamton, Rochester, and two were from Long Island. None of them had any clue what winter was really like north of the Mohawk River. All of them were completely flabbergasted by the amount of snow they were seeing. Me? It felt familiar and comfortable. Keep in mind that at that point I'd spent six years in Tucson, and this was wonderful to me. When I was seven my parents bought land a built a home north of Utica, just outside of Holland Patent. You might feel like googling it. Very small town.
And while I claim I'm not at all intimidated by winter (since then I spent a couple of years in Minneapolis, so I think my claim is a good one) I really love living in northern New Mexico. People here think they have hard winters and they haven't a clue. We get very little snow (it doesn't help that we've been mostly in drought conditions in recent years) but more to the point it doesn't get very cold. I've spent too many years in places where twenty below zero is quite common to get worked up over what they get here.
And I mean it when I say if you ever think of visiting here please PM me.
That was before my grandmother discovered Arizona and we flew out of Albany to spend Christmas with her in Florida. It was a prop plane and I got scared, LOL. And I was a psych major at Hamilton and senior year we each worked with a phobic "patient" and mine was a lovely lady who was agoraphobic (couldn't leave her house) in Rome, NY, who had previously been a flight attendant for Mohawk. BTW, she did very well.
So you obviously do know snow! And it really is lovely - with the white coating the trees - but having to drive in it - or living with it day after day is something else. Digging out has been a nightmare and there have been numerous times this past winter that it just wasn't worth it. This winter has been even worse than others I remember. We have had record cold - periods of 20 below - all over the area. My dog refused to go out and I didn't blame him. This is the first week that I didn't bundle up in my down coat and dress in layers.
And you're right - people in the Southwest do not understand real cold. I actually loved my visit to Arizona (I was in high school) and if I revisited anywhere, that would be my choice since it was so different to me - and I can definitely understand not choosing to live anywhere else. Of course there are disadvantages no matter where you live, but after the winter we've had, I'd choose the Southwest in a heartbeat!
on Mohawk Airlines, we may well have crossed paths! 
Mohawk was the airline I remember the first time we flew out of Albany - and then didn't it change to Allegheny? We made that trip three separate times during that period - Albany to Florida - and that's what I remember. And they were very nice to me, I've never been an enthusiastic flyer... 
In April of 1972 we were absorbed into Allegheny. I continued to work the ticket counter at DCA until August, 1979.
I was in junior high through ninth grade when we made those trips. And I graduated in 1971.
And there's pretty much zero hope we'd recognize each other, even if your paths did cross back then. 
Yeah, I've hardly changed at all! 
Though it's gotten lighter and lighter, like when I was really little, but I have a guy for that.
