He believes the 2000 presidential election was stolen. Hijacked. That&#8217;s just the way the Rev. Al Sharpton feels about it.</p><p>This time around, Sharpton hopes to help prevent another debacle &#8212; remember the Florida presidential vote in 2000? &#8212; from occurring again.</p><p>As the leader of the National Action Network, Sharpton has launched the &#8220;Not This Time&#8221; campaign, an effort to mobilize volunteers who will be stationed near polling sites in cities across the country, serving as independent monitors of the voting process and making sure the election goes down fairly.</p><p>Sharpton made an appearance Wednesday night at Metropolitan Community College-Penn Valley, where he pushed his campaign, signed up a few new volunteers and passionately encouraged voters to each take five other people to the polls on Election Day.</p><p>Before he addressed those issues, Sharpton criticized the idea of a $700 billion bailout for the nation&#8217;s ailing financial sector.</p><p>&#8220;Now we have bailouts being proposed in Washington to bail out the people who put us in the problem,&#8221; Sharpton said. &#8220;And they haven&#8217;t put in the legislation anything to bail out the people victimized by the problem. Any bailout that doesn&#8217;t freeze the foreclosures on mortgages of people that were victims of the scheme of those that were greedy in the first place is nothing short of investing in the problem.&#8221;</p><p>Sharpton said that women who are white or black, who are poor, who have children and who survive by relying on government assistance are considered welfare queens.</p><p>&#8220;But if you&#8217;re a billionaire driven by greed and you&#8217;ve tricked people into mortgages that you can&#8217;t back them up, you suddenly become a bailout applicant,&#8221; Sharpton said. &#8220;What&#8217;s the difference between a bailout and a welfare queen, other than the fact that one has needs and the other has greed?&#8221;</p><p>Sharpton said the &#8220;Not This Time&#8221; campaign would try to verify whether people are properly registered and assist those who aren&#8217;t.</p><p>&#8220;This is nonpartisan,&#8221; Sharpton said. &#8220;But everybody in America knows who I&#8217;m supporting. Register and vote your own consciences. You must vote. And it must be protected.&#8221;</p><p>&#8226;&#8226;&#8226;</p><p>When a judge says that the very prison system he must send criminals to no longer works, you take notice.</p><p>Gregory Gillis, a Jackson County associate circuit court judge, was on a panel that featured former pro football star Jim Brown Wednesday night at the Gem Theater. Gillis told the audience that there are 2 million people incarcerated in prisons across the country, and 67 percent of that number are African-Americans, and to a lesser extent, Latino.</p><p>&#8220;That should give you an idea of what we&#8217;re up against,&#8221; Gillis said. &#8220;The traditional approaches that we&#8217;ve taken to deal with crime and punishment in this country are not working.&#8221;</p><p>After stints in prison, many parolees are being released without the necessary skills to be able to succeed in life, Gillis said.</p><p>&#8220;It would certainly be my pleasure to not have to be continually faced with young men and in some instances young women who come back before me, time and time again because there is a missing link in our community,&#8221; Gillis said. &#8220;There are people out there who can be a critical part in young peoples&#8217; lives.&#8221;</p><p>&#8226;&#8226;&#8226;</p><p>It started a few years ago after the daughter of an employee of Turner Construction Co. died of sudden infant death syndrome.</p><p>Every year since the baby&#8217;s tragic death in 2004, Turner Construction has held a golf tournament to raise money to benefit SIDS Resources. The Turner Invitational Golf Tournament, held earlier this week the Nicklaus Golf Club at LionsGate in Overland Park, drew 144 players, a sellout.</p><p>Over the last four years, Turner Construction has raised more than $140,000 to fight SIDS.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a great cause,&#8221; said Tracey Vaeth, the marketing manager for Turner Construction. &#8220;But it&#8217;s a sad cause. And I&#8217;m a new mother. And it was a tragedy when it happened to our co-worker.&#8221;