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Today's
Stories
October
30, 2007
David
Price
Pilfered Scholarship Devastates Gen.
Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Manual
October
29, 2007
Lisa
Hajjar
Inside Israel's Military Courts
Joe
DeRaymond
The Politics of Lethal Injections
Patrick
Cockburn
The High Stakes in Iraqi Kurdistan
Isabella
Kenfield /
Roger Burbach
Corporate Murder in Brazil
Fred
Gardner
The Frivolous Investigation of Dr. Sterner
Farzana
Versey
Caricaturing Islam
Stephen
Fleischman
The Greening of the Oligarchy
Marcelle
Cendrars
The Congressional Rip Cord
Eamonn
McCann
Dan Keating, the Last of the Republican Irreconcilables
Martha
Rosenberg
For Halloween, Ann Coulter Dresses as .... Ann Coulter!
Website
of the Day
Campaign 2008
October
27 / 28, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
So Much for Islamo-Fascism Awareness
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Dam That Isn't There
James
Bovard
Breaking Down an Innocent Man: The FBI's Right to Threaten Torture
Ralph
Nader
Beyond the Rule of Law
M.
Reza Pirbhai
The Wahhabis are Coming, the Wahhabis are Coming!
Robert
Sandels
Pay the Invaders! Cuba, Claims and Confiscations
Jacob
G. Hornberger
Ruling By Decree
Missy
Beattie
The Arsonists in the West Wing
John
Ross
U.S. Eyes on Oaxaca
Robert
Fantina
Condi Rice, the Imperial Cheerleader
Ron
Jacobs
Labor at the Crossroads
Ali
Moayedian
In Search of Logic About Iran
David
Michael Green
What If We Had a President Who Didn't Give a Damn About Terrorism?
Poets
Basement
Block, Davies and Ford
Website
of the Day
Bring 'Em Home: a Music Video
October
26, 2007
Brian
Cloughley
Revenging Bloodshed
Saul
Landau
Portrait of Rudy
Ahmad
Al-Akras
Getting Justice in the HLF Case
Franklin
Lamb
Does "Loving" Lebanon Mean Never Having to Say You're
Sorry?
Mike
Whitney
Murdoch's Cuckoo's Nest
Dave
Lindorff
Home of the Brave? Reducing US Casualties By Killing More Civilians
Alan
Farago
A Castro Behind Every Bush
Yifat
Susskind
Conscripting Feminism into the War on Terror
Website
of the Day
Dead Life in a Political Prison
October 25, 2007
Jeffrey
St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Iraq's Environmental Crisis
Manuel
Garcia, Jr.
Homes of the Crash Test Dummies
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Fraudulent War on Terror
Col.
Dan Smith
The Politics of Paranoia: Jane Harman's War on the First Amendment
Alan
Farago
The Way to Paradise?
Chris
Kutalik
The Lesson of the Chrysler Rebels
Brian
McKinlay
John Howard and the Curse of Bush
Cindy
Sheehan
Pete, Nancy, George and WW III
Website
of the Day
Support the America's Program!
October
24, 2007
Natalie
Washington-Weik
White Fantasies About Race-Based
Intelligence
Andy
Worthington
The Guantánamo Suicides
Michael
Birmingham
What Happened in Nahr Al Bared?
Corporate
Crime Reporter
The Nuclear Democrats
Tariq
Ali
Bush's Cuba Detour
Farzana
Versey
Imagining Serfdom in a Scarf
Dave
Zirin
White Noise
James
Murren
What "Support Our Troops" Means
Todd
Chretien
Looking Reality in the Face
Martha
Rosenberg
What Came First, the Chicken or
the Cage?
Website
of the Day
Hillary Clinton on Nuclear Power
October
23, 2007
Ralph
Nader
Bush's Catastrophic Rhetoric
Lawrence
R. Velvel
Goldsmith Stands Convicted--By His Own Mouth: How a Harvard Law
Professor Justified Rendition at the Bush Justice Dept.
Vijay
Prashad
The Nuke Deal is Dead
Bonnie
Bricker /
Adil E. Shamoo
The True Cost of War for Oil
Dave
Lindorff
Christopher Dodd's Make or Break Moment
Mike
Whitney
The Big Squeeze
Farzana
Versey
Race with the Devil
Stanley
Heller /
Ben George
Something New from the Antiwar Movement
Marcelle
Cendrars
You Too Can Confront the Holy Executive
Regan
Boychuk
Burma and Haiti: Comparing the Media Response
Website
of the Day
King Corn
October
22, 2007
Ishmael
Reed
Should Blacks Go Green?
Marjorie
Cohn
Mukasey and the Constitution: Another Loyal Bushie
Rannie
Amiri
Is There a Method to Bush's Middle East Madness?
Diane
Farsetta
Time to Pay for Payola: the FCC and Pundit-for-Hire Armstrong
Williams
Todd
Alan Price
Renewing No Child Left Behind: A Hurricane Katrina Aimed at Public
Education
Robert
Jensen
The Quagmire of Masculinity
Stephen
Lendman
The UAW Leadership Sells Out Its Workers
Jemima
Khan
The Kleptocrat in an Hermes Headscarf
Sunsara
Taylor
David Horowitz Can't Handle the Truth
Binoy
Kampmark
No Ideas, Please: the Australian Elections
Website
of the Day
Support the Center for International Policy
October
20 / 21, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Man Who Builds Hillaryworld
Tariq
Ali
A Massacre Foretold
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Greetings from Echo Park
Andy
Worthington
The Shame of Diego Garcia
Mike
Whitney
Housing Flameout
Daniel
Wolff
Play It As It Lays
David
Rosen
Deviants on Parade: Folsom St. Fair and America's 4th Sexual
Revolution
Saul
Landau
David and Goliath in Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
COINTELPRO and the Panthers
Robert
Fantina
The Strange Love of Mitt Romney and Bob Jones
David
Heleniak
Erring on the Side of Hidden Harm
Joe
Allen
Hoffa Brown-Nosing at UPS
Prairie
Miller
Lions for Lambs
Poets'
Basement
Gibbons, Holt and Buknatski
Website
of the Weekend
Crash!
October
19, 2007
John
Ross
Che's Mexican Legacy
Sheldon
Rampton
Shared Values Revisited: a Case Study in the Limits of Propaganda
Rahul
Mahajan
A Tale of Two Atrocities: Blackwater and Haditha
Devra
Davis
Deadly Secrets: Chemical Pollution and Cancer
Christopher
Brauchli
Blasphemous Science
Wadner
Pierre
Haiti After the Deluge
Bill
Quigley
Jailed for Justice
Website
of the Day
Textbook Sticker Shock
October
18, 2007
Saree
Makdisi
Academic Freedom is at Risk
Meg
Dwyer
What I Learned from 9/11: Who Wouldn't Want Us Dead?
Alevtina
Rea
Sketches of Russian Life
Norman
Solomon
The United States of Violence
Kristoffer
Larsson
Something is Rotten in Sweden
Harvey
Wasserman
Nukes are Back and So are We
Website
of the Day
Eve Ensler: "A Filibuster Would Stop This War"
October
17, 2007
Steve
Niva
Counter-Insurgency, American-Style
Andy
Worthington
The Case of Mohamed Jawad
Alan
Farago
The Credit Shock
Russell
Mokhiber
The New Billionaire-Criminal Class
Sharon
Smith
Democrats, AWOL When It Mattered
Mike
Whitney
Time for the Banks to Face the Hangman
Robert
Fantina
Iraq, Iran and the US: Business as Usual
Chris
Irwin
Where Have All the Rednecks Gone?
Website
of the Day
Sex Ed at Oral Roberts University
October
16, 2007
Peter
Linebaugh
Doris Lessing and the Dynamite
Prize
Paul
Findley
Follow the Leader: The Open Secret About the Israel Lobby
Robert
Bryce
Inconvenient Corrections: Al Gore's Wacky Facts
Uri
Avnery
The Mother of All Pretexts
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Iraqi Genocide
Ray
McGovern
What Did Nancy Pelosi Know About NSA Spying and When Did She
Know It?
Norman
Solomon
The Pro-War Undertow of the Blackwater Scandal
Martha
Rosenberg
The Curse of Cymbalta
William
S. Lind
Out of the Frying Pan
Joel
S. Hirschborn
Time to Boycott Voting
Website
of the Day
Pipeline Through Paradise: Big Oil's Arctic Play
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October
30, 2007
The Preppie Killer
Could Spend More Time in Prison for a Cocaine Bust Than for the
Murder of Jennifer Rubin
The
Twisted Logic of Drug Laws
By ANTHONY PAPA
Robert Chambers served 15 years in prison
for the notorious murder of Jennifer Levin in 1986. He claimed
that he accidentally strangled Levin during rough sex. Despite
his horrific crime, Chambers was allowed to plead guilty to first
degree manslaughter and was sentenced to 5 to 15 years. Now,
21 years later, Chambers has been arrested for selling cocaine
to undercover officers and faces top felony counts that can mean
life in prison. As the case unfolds, it is apparent that Chambers,
along with his girlfriend Shawn Kovell, who was also arrested,
are both heavily addicted to drugs. They were described as "crack
heads" by detectives who searched their disheveled upper-eastside
apartment. Despite significant evidence against him, Chambers
has pleaded not guilty to charges that can land him sentences
of 15 to 30 years on each count under the Rockefeller Drug Laws.
Those who remember the details of his 1986 case will have no
sympathy for Chambers. He ended the life of an 18-year-old girl
and caused tremendous grief for her family. Chambers also has
a history of drug addiction. While in prison, he served additional
time for smuggling and selling drugs. A year after his release
in 2003, he was again arrested while driving with a suspended
license and officers found drug residue in his car. He pled guilty
and served 100 days on a misdemeanor charge.
I am not advocating for Chambers despite the fact that he has
a severe drug addiction. I am instead pointing out the that the
most outrageous fact of this case is that Chambers faces more
time now for a drug offense under the Rockefeller Drug Laws than
he did for taking Levin's life. There is something very wrong
with this equation. There are literally thousands of nonviolent
Rockefeller offenders serving longer sentences than people who
commit rape or murder. For example, Ashley O'Donoghue is serving
a 7-to- 21 year sentence for a B felony. Many of them are first-time,
nonviolent offenders who made mistakes in their lives and are
sitting in prison despite two minor reforms made by the legislature
in 2004 and 2005. Of the one thousand people eligible for relief,
only about 350 individuals have been freed to date.
Governor Spitzer recently put together a panel to study the disparity
of sentencing guidelines in New York State. One of the issues
they were to study is the Rockefeller Drug Laws. In its recently
released preliminary report, the commission failed to address
the issue of Rockefeller Drug Law reform. Denise O'Donnell, state
commissioner of criminal justice services and chairwoman of the
Commission on Sentencing Reform, said the issue would be addressed
next time. The final report is due in March of 2008.
The evidence is in. The issue does not need any more studies.
It needs political will and action. The panel must consider the
families of those incarcerated, those rotting away in prison,
and the precious tax dollars being wasted on its archaic sentencing
structure. There are hundreds of nonviolent Rockefeller offenders
in prison serving longer sentences than those of convicted murderers
for what is essentially a moral crime. Something is fundamentally
wrong with a system that advocates serving more time for a nonviolent
drug offense then for a hideous crime committed by a sociopath
like Robert Chambers. This problem needs to be fixed now-not
"next time."
Anthony Papa is the author of 15
Years to Life: How I Painted My Way to Freedom and Communications
Specialist for Drug Policy
Alliance. He can be reached at: anthonypapa123@yahoo.com
Papa's artwork can be viewed
at: www.15yearstolife.com/art1.htm
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