Paris Hilton should be released, says activist who previously slammed sheriff

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday June 14, 2007 · 5:04 AM PDT

2007/06/14 · 05:04

The Los Angeles Times analyzed two million prison records and concluded that Paris Hilton "will end up serving more time than 80% of other people in similar situations." I'll give you some material from the story after the jump, but first I think that you should look at what one of Sheriff Baca's toughest critics had to say after being informed of the facts in the case:

One of the most vocal critics, civil rights activist Najee Ali, said Wednesday that Hilton ought to be released if inmates sentenced for similar crimes were serving less time. He continued to criticize Baca's decision to cite medical problems for the release, but added that only dangerous offenders should serve their full sentences given the jail's need to limit overcrowding.

"Clearly, her violation is not as serious, so she should be released," said Ali, director of Project Islamic Hope. "The rules of fairness should be applied equally."

UPDATE: People are commenting without having read the diary. Please take the time to do that before making some howler of an error.

Jules Siegel

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday December 22, 2006 · 10:46 AM PST

2006/12/22 · 10:46

Hecklers, admirers bid farewell to Pinochet - CNN.com
QUICK VOTE
How will you remember Chile's General Pinochet?
Savior
Despot
Won't remember him"

Chilean journalist Jorge Fernando Garretón emailed, "Friends, the campaign to prevent a moral victory to Pinochet supporters is gaining in strength. Voting results have changed in the past two days since we became aware of the poll. Pinochet supporters have gained 1,556 votos this past 24 hours. We democrats have gained: 2,899 votos."

The current results are at 70% for Pinochet as a savior, 23% despot; and 7% won't remember him at all.

Why give them even this pathetic symbol of false victory? Click here to vote.

PRACTICAL ACTION UPDATE: Texas machines now flipping votes from Democrats to Republicans

Jules Siegel

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday October 31, 2006 · 7:35 AM PST

2006/10/31 · 07:35

What else is there to say but what it says here?

Jefferson County Voters Continue To Raise Concerns About Voting Machines
October 28,2006
[Excerpt]
Friday night, KFDM reported about people who had cast straight Democratic ticket ballots, but the touch-screen machines indicated they had voted a straight Republican ticket.
Some of those voters including Lamar University professor, Dr. Bruce Drury, believe the problem is a programming error.
Saturday, KFDM spoke to another voter who says it's not just happening with straight ticket voting, he says it's happening on individual races as well, Jerry Stopher told us when he voted for a Democrat, the Republican's name was highlighted.

Well, maybe there is a little more.

UPDATE: See very practical action alert below. ALSO: Important diary on the fraud vs. incompetence issues at TexasKaos and what to do about educating voters to overcome them. Read More

Princeton scientists create vote-stealing program for Diebold AccuVote-TS

Jules Siegel

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday September 13, 2006 · 2:46 PM PDT

2006/09/13 · 14:46

This is a press release, so let's give it some press, in full.

For immediate release: September 13, 2006
Media contact: Teresa Riordan, (609) 258-9754, triordan@princeton.edu; Steven Schultz, (609) 258-3617, sschultz@princeton.edu
Researchers reveal 'extremely serious' vulnerabilities in e-voting machines
In a paper published on the Web today, a group of Princeton computer scientists said they created demonstration vote-stealing software that can be installed within a minute on a common electronic voting machine. The software can fraudulently change vote counts without being detected.
"We have created and analyzed the code in the spirit of helping to guide public officials so that they can make wise decisions about how to secure elections," said Edward Felten, the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy, a new center at Princeton University that addresses crucial issues at the intersection of society and computer technology.
The paper appears on the Web site for the Center for Information Technology Policy.

Jules Siegel

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday July 04, 2006 · 4:58 AM PDT

2006/07/04 · 04:58

In widely distributed articles, Greg Palast claimed that the Mexican election would be a Florida-style fraud. Joshua Holland at Alternet was all over this yesterday:

Greg Palast's conspiracism isn't helpful
Joshua Holland at 11:50 AM on July 3, 2006.
The last thing anyone needs in what is shaping up to be a hyper-charged post-balloting environment is a bunch of conspiracy theories about the Mexican electoral institutions themselves.

I agree that it is possible that a fraud has occurred, but Palast's story is so historically inaccurate, that it really can't be taken seriously.

Ever-fiery Al Giordano has a much more cogent and reality-based report on what's going on in a discussion at U.S.-Style Post-Electoral Chaos Begins in Mexico. As might be expected, Al has already dismissed the election as fraudulent.

So what's really going on? Let's talk about that after the jump.
Read More

Why was Chris Floyd banned -- and what can be done about it?

Jules Siegel

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday June 05, 2006 · 6:53 AM PDT

2006/06/05 · 06:53

Yesterday, I learned that Chris Floyd had been banned from DailyKos.com. I did a little research and was unable to determine what exactly had happened, so I wrote the following letter to Kos, with copies to Jerome Armstrong, Armando, Plutonium Page, Jerome a Paris, and SusanG, whose email addresses I happened to have in my address book as a result of occasional correspondence in the past.

Now that I have finally received a response from Kos, I am posting it here, because I think that the incident raises issues that should be brought to the attention of the entire community.

If you agree with me, please recommend the diary. If you don't, please feel free to troll rate me in the comment that I am posting specifically in order to give you the opportunity to do so. I am also putting up a short poll, and I hope that you will vote.

To: Kos@dailykos.com
I'm copying this to several of the front pagers and/or prominent kossacks and Jerome Armstrong because I am baffled by the banning of Chris Floyd. I did a search on his diaries and comments I really haven't found anything that remotely justifies shutting him down.

Jules Siegel

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday February 16, 2006 · 7:18 AM PST

2006/02/16 · 07:18

According to Mark Finkelstein, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell observed that the beer remark was edited out of the Hume interview. I didn't watch the interview, so I can't verify this statement. Finkelstein's lame explanation that Hume did mention the remark in talking about the show leads me to believe that it's true.

Today Show Falsely Implies FNC Hid News of Cheney Beer NewsBusters.org
Here's how NBC White House reporter Kelly O'Donnell artfully chose her words:
"The official White House transcript of the interview shows Cheney said 'I had a beer at lunch.' Fox News did not show that particular clip during Brit Hume's program."

The New York Times mentions the beer remark as if it were part of the interview, but the Washington Post doesn't. Read More

Bush buried Social Security privatization in budget proposal

Jules Siegel

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday February 08, 2006 · 11:02 AM PST

2006/02/08 · 11:02

MSNBC Sleight of Hand
By Allan Sloan
Updated: 12:09 p.m. ET Feb. 8, 2006
[Excerpt]
Feb. 8, 2006 - Last year, even though Bush talked endlessly about the supposed joys of private accounts, he never proposed a specific plan to Congress and never put privatization costs in the budget. But this year, with no fanfare whatsoever, Bush stuck a big Social Security privatization plan in the federal budget proposal, which he sent to Congress on Monday.
His plan would let people set up private accounts starting in 2010 and would divert more than $700 billion of Social Security tax revenues to pay for them over the first seven years.

First independent "Crashing the Gate" review online now.

Jules Siegel

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday February 02, 2006 · 7:15 AM PST

2006/02/02 · 07:15

Crashing the Gate
Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics

By Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga
Foreword by Simon Rosenberg

Reviewed by Jules Siegel

"Now it's our party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back."
-- Eli Pariser, MoveOn PAC, December 9, 2004

"Crashing the Gate" is a manifesto aimed at fixing the structural defects that have caused the steady decline of Democratic power since Lyndon B. Johnson abdicated in 1968. Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas brilliantly exploited bleeding-edge technology to create a new kind of interactive political media that brought open source journalism to the ordinary Internet user. They helped convert the netroots (the digital equivalent of grassroots) into a $40 million ATM for the Howard Dean campaign. Read More

<i>Fooled Again</i> (Basic Books) claims 2004 was rigged [Poll]

Jules Siegel

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday January 20, 2006 · 4:34 AM PST

2006/01/20 · 04:34

I just finished reading "Crashing the Gate," a brilliant book that lays out what Democrats have to do to recapture the country politically. I agree fully with the strategies and tactics, but I wonder whether elections are relevant any more. Has the battle for democracy already been lost? Is the United States living under a new version of Stalinism that will eventually have to fall under the weight of its own incompetence and corruption?

These are really serious questions. Electronic vote rigging is not even mentioned in "Crashing the Gate" as far as I can tell from my first reading. I am going to back and make sure about that, but it is definitely not a prominent issue.

Despite the attacks on "fraudsters" here on Dailykos, the evidence keeps rolling in that 2004 was rigged. Following after the jump, are excerpts from two reviews of "Fooled Again" that highlight some of the evidence. I find it especially significant that this book was published by a division of Basic Books, the United States' pre-eminent establishment publishing company. Read More

Get out of Iraq so we can attack Iran --Scaife paper

Jules Siegel

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday January 19, 2006 · 7:05 PM PST

2006/01/19 · 19:05

[The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is owned by Richard Mellon Scaife. --JS]

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
The war in Iraq: Time to move on
[Excerpts]
We didn't agree with Jack Murtha in November when he called for an immediate withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq. The timing was not right. But the times have changed.
The nuclear saber-rattling of neighboring Iran is heading for a showdown. To meet that threat should diplomacy fail, the United States must begin the six- to nine-month logistical process of drawing down its Iraqi force and repositioning it to respond, if need be, to the Iranian threat.

Gore calls for special counsel on eavesdropping

Jules Siegel

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday January 16, 2006 · 12:42 PM PST

2006/01/16 · 12:42

Reuters Gore calls for special counsel on eavesdropping

By Tabassum Zakaria 29 minutes ago

[Excerpts]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Vice President Al Gore called on Monday for an independent counsel to investigate whether President George W. Bush broke the law in authorizing domestic eavesdropping without court approval.

"A special counsel should be immediately appointed by the attorney general to remedy the obvious conflict of interest that prevents him from investigating what many believe are serious violations of law by the president," Gore said in a speech to The American Constitution Society and The Liberty Coalition.

Newer
Older

RSS

Paris Hilton should be released, says activist who previously slammed sheriff

Let's fix this CNN online poll: 70% call Pinochet 'savior'

PRACTICAL ACTION UPDATE: Texas machines now flipping votes from Democrats to Republicans

Princeton scientists create vote-stealing program for Diebold AccuVote-TS

Understanding the Mexican election dispute

Why was Chris Floyd banned -- and what can be done about it?

Did Fox cut Cheney's beer confession from Hume interview?

Bush buried Social Security privatization in budget proposal

First independent "Crashing the Gate" review online now.

<i>Fooled Again</i> (Basic Books) claims 2004 was rigged [Poll]

Get out of Iraq so we can attack Iran --Scaife paper

Gore calls for special counsel on eavesdropping