Sally Kestin and Dana Williams are the Beavis and Butthead of the Sun Sentinel

 Beavis and Butthead are all grown up, got sex change operations, and found jobs at the Sun Sentinel. Well, maybe not, but the reporting of Kestin and Williams remind me of the episode where Beavis and Butthead work in a real estate office for a day. That's the only explanation for this turd that was recently passed off as investigative journalism.

Worst of all, their yellow journalism set off a panic in FloriDUH, causing the head of the state's sex offender program to resign and be replaced with a prosecutor with no psychology training. only in FloriDUH!

INVESTIGATION
“Sex Predators Unleashed,’’ an 8-month Sun Sentinel investigation published Aug. 18, found shocking failures in a Florida law meant to protect the public from repeat sex offenders. Rapists and pedophiles freed by the state went on to molest 460 children, rape 121 women and kill 14.Read the investigation.

RESPONSE
Reaction reached across Florida. Outraged readers wrote letters, with one calling the series “one of the most disturbing exposes I have ever read. ’’ Don Ryce, the father of the boy in whose memory the law was passed, said: “Something needs to be done. I want Jimmy's law to work the way it was supposed to work in the beginning." Read more.

RESULTS
The Florida Legislature immediately began working on wide-ranging reforms. The head of Florida’s Sexually Violent Predator Program (left) resigned, and the state tightened its sex predator screening procedures to emphasize public safety. Read more.

Sally Kestin

Dana Williams

Maxine Bernstein turns The Oregonian into the Weekly World News

There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. Ignorance is the lack of knowledge on a subject, mainly the result of inexperience or total lack of exposure on a topic. Stupidity is when you continue a pattern of beliefs or behavior after given extensive knowledge on the subject at hand.

When The Oregonian promoted an upcoming expose on sex offenders by offering a sneak preview of the story on Oregon Live, they were kind enough to put enough info out there to help people like me know exactly what the article is about. So a number of legal reformists, including myself, flooded Oregon Live (The Oregonian's website) with the facts.

It certainly got enough attention that Oregon Live posted an article just on the early comments. Again, not bad, and Maxi sounded receptive to the facts.

But in the end, she still went for shock value over facts by writing her poorly researched article "Sex Offenders in Oregon: State Fails to Track Hundreds." This fluff was an ad disguised as a news article. In addition to relying on a "per capita" rate to fool readers into thinking Oregon is a "sex offender haven," she boldly stated Oregon is one of the worst states for complying with the federal clusterfuck that is the Adam Walsh Act. (Of interesting note is the county with the highest per capita rate, Harney Co., has a population of less than 8000 people and 73 registrants in a land mass the size of Vermont).

This turd was followed by five anecdotal examples of failure to register cases that Maxi argues would not have happened if Oregon would adopt the "federal standards."

And yesterday, Maxi follows up with another anecdotal example on reservation land, and claiming, "That's because a loophole has kept his tribal sex offense record out of Oregon's criminal database." She glosses over the fact that the tribe is AWA compliant. So much for that federal guideline!

Maxi Bernstein is beyond the point of mere "ignorance." This kind of reporting is stupid. And Shiitake-worthy.

Lynna Lai's lies

Lynna Lai is featured here today because she takes her yellow journalism to the next level. It is bad enough Lai lies to the public by using the perennial buzzword "loophole" to describe a bad law that cannot be applied retroactively. The story is made worse when she targets one registrant and begins showing the man's registry poster to the neighbors for good measure.

There is no "loophole" when the law allows one to reside where he wants.

Cleveland Sucks.

http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/309760/3/Loophole-makes-it-easier-for-sex-offenders-to-live-close-to-schools

CLEVELAND -- In two weeks, kids will soon fill the sidewalks, heading back to school. Near Cleveland's Rickoff Elementary School, young students will walk by the home of registered sex offender who lives across the street.

Another registered sex offender, whose victim was also a juvenile, lives 2 houses away from the school.

Meanwhile in Columbia Station, in Lorain county, the newest resident on Fremont Drive, is not welcome here.

"Most of the neighbors are concerned. Most of us have young children," said Chris Candella. "He's a convicted sex offender and he's living directly next to a day care."

Joseph Lapinta, convicted of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, is now living right behind a day care -- a violation of the law.

Lapinta was defensive when asked about neighbors' concerns.

"I'm not a bad f------ guy, you know what I mean?" he said.

But Candella and his neighbors want him out of the neighborhood.

"He just keeps slipping through the system, and he's now living next door to us," he said.

Lapinta and other registered sex offenders slipping through a loophole in the law, banning sex offenders from living within 1000-feet of a school or day care. And there's not a thing that sheriff's deputies can do about it.

That's because the Ohio legislature made enforcement of the law -- up to civil courts.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine says it's up to neighbors or city officials to sue the sex offender, and ask a judge to order an eviction.

"I don't want anyone to think that there isn't a remedy," said DeWine. "There's teeth in the law in the sense that a lawsuit can be brought, the person can be evicted from that house."

However DeWine agreed that the lack of a criminal penalty for violations makes it easier for sex offenders to ignore the residency law.

Using the online Cuyahoga Sheriff's Office Sex Offender Registry, Channel 3 News analyzed the number of registered sex offenders living near Cleveland public schools. We found that 63 out of 70 pre-K through 8 schools had at least one registered sex offender living within 1000-feet of school property.

A total of 166 registered sex offenders are living very close to the city's elementary and middle schools. Most of them committed their crimes before the ban took effect in 2003, so the restrictions do not apply.

However, we found 28 registered sex offenders are clearly living in violation of the law.

One of them is Radames Gonzalez, who was convicted of gross sexual imposition of a girl under the age of 13. Gonzalez now lives near Cleveland's Orchard-Halle Elementary School on the city's west side.

"Oh, heck no!" exclaimed neighbor Perry Mitchell, a father of 6 girls. "I can tell you my kids won't be going across the street."

Whether in the city or the suburbs, it's up to citizens to be aware -- by using your sheriff's department's sex offender search website.

"We tell the community to use it as an investigative tool, " said Detective Katie Oleksiak from the sex offender unit of the Cuyahoga Sheriff's Office. "Whether it's for your neighborhood, to buying a house, to even dating, or a new neighbor."

Other states with similar residency restrictions for sex offenders are now considering attaching criminal penalties for violations. Such a bill is currently pending in the New York state legislature.

Jeanne Sager blatantly misquotes her own source on the Cafe Mom website

I generally leave the nominations for "Worst News Mutt" to real journalists or at least the more respected websites. I'm not really sure I'd put CafeMom up there as one of the better sites, but the blatant stupidity from Jeanne Sager at CafeMom is the reason this award was created.

The gist is this- a man who was very likely falsely accused (convicted during the time of the SRA witch hunts despite his accuser stating she was not molested) on the registry wins custody of his daughter because the mother is a psycho. Yet this reporter ignores her source material and writes the psycho mother should kidnap the kid.

http://thestir.cafemom.com/big_kid/157765/mom_who_lost_custody_of

Mom Who Lost Custody of Daughter to Sex Offender Should Just Kidnap Her
by Jeanne Sager 6 hours ago

Under normal circumstances, divorced parents should have to share custody with one another. It's what's best for the kids. But when a judge awards sole custody of a 6-year-old girl to a convicted sex offender, a man who went to prison for molesting a (different) 6-year-old girl, all bets are off.

I think I'd run far, far, far away (with my child, of course).

I wouldn't blame Lisa Knight, a mom whose ex-husband (and registered sex offender), Nicholas Elizondo, just took her to court over visitation with their 6-year-old daughter, if she did the same.

Elizondo, who lives in California, challenged Knight in an Oklahoma court recently, claiming she wasn't granting him his visits with the girl. The judge took his side.

And I'm not talking about forcing the visitation. The Oklahoma City judge (Knight and the little girl have resided in Oklahoma since the couple divorced in 2008 when she was pregnant) gave Elizondo full custody, despite the fact that a quick search of the California sex offender registry pulls up his name and lists a conviction for "lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age," despite the fact that Elizondo was convicted of sexually assaulting a 6-year-old stepdaughter back in the '90s.

FULL custody!

Of a child.

To a convicted pedophile!

Yeah, yeah, Dad served his time and he is the 6-year-old's biological father. But whose rights are more important here? Dad's or the little girl's?

Isn't that the point of custody hearings? To decide what is in a child's best interest?

It can't be "what's good for a child" to let a sex offender who is known to have hurt children take them home. That's the point of registries of these creeps; to let us know who shouldn't be around our kids so we can keep them apart.

Even putting a guy like this alone in the room with a 6-year-old girl is risking that child's well-being. If you were a mother who hired a sex offender to babysit your kid, you'd likely be looking at child endangerment charges (or worse).

So what's a mom to do when a sex offender gets custody?

Again, I'll admit it. I'd run. I'd take my child, and I'd skip town and never, ever come back.

I'd do anything to keep my child from a sex offender, even if that sex offender is her own father.

Because my child's right to be protected is more important than his to be a father.

What would you do if you were this mother? Would you follow the court's orders?

Bill O'Reilly calls pol a "villain" for opposing Jessica's Flaw

Can we ever find anything good about loudmouthed political pundit Bill O'Reilly? Of course not. His mouth is big enough to insert both his feet when he speaks. But he is here for blasting the Colorado legislature for rejecting the Mark Lunsford Act, aka "Jessica's Law." Colorado feels it is a bad law, and I agree. But O'Reilly has other ideas.

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22670788/political-accusations-fly-after-colorados-jessicas-law-dies

Political accusations fly after Colorado's "Jessica's Law" dies
POSTED:   02/26/2013 08:28:19 AM MST
UPDATED:   02/26/2013 11:41:39 PM MSTBy Lynn Bartels
The Denver Post
The death of a bill dealing with sexual predators who target kids has become a rallying cry for Republicans, who say their legislation would do more to make Colorado safe than gun bills passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature.

But Republicans aren't getting any getting support from Dave Kopel of the Independence Institute, an expert on Second Amendment issues who has studied prison sentences. He's critical of both the gun bills and the Republican measure known as "Jessica's Law."

"I don't think either of those are constructive steps toward public safety," he said.

And in a rare moment of unity, the Colorado District Attorneys' Council, Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Colorado Office of the Public Defender all agree Jessica's Law isn't necessary.

But Republicans have turned to social media and conservative talk shows to lament its assignment to the House's so-called "kill committee."

"You're not crazy there. Why aren't folks getting more upset about this?" Fox News' Bill O'Reilly asked the bill sponsor, Rep. Libby Szabo, R-Arvada, during his show Friday.

House Speaker Mark Ferrandino — described by O'Reilly as a "villain" — said not a single Coloradan testified in favor of Jessica's Law.

"What shocks me is for the two years Republicans had the majority, they didn't introduce this bill," said Ferrandino, a Denver Democrat who took over the speaker's post after Republicans lost the majority in the 2012 election. "This is all about politics and not good policy."

A nearly identical bill that died in 2009 in the Democratic-controlled legislature was used in attack ads against Democrats in the 2010 election.

Ferrandino added that after the O'Reilly show aired, he received nasty e-mails, including one that he said was from a viewer telling him he hoped Ferrandino's 14-month-old foster daughter gets raped.

House Bill 1149would have imposed a mandatory sentence of at least 25 years before parole on an offender who commits a sexual assault against a child.

It is named for Jessica Lunsford, a 9-year-oldwho was sexually assaulted and buried alive in Florida in 2005 by a career criminal who previously had been convicted of exposing himself to a 5-year-old girl. Her father came to Colorado from Florida to urge passage of the bill.

Szabo noted that Colorado is one of only five states that hasn't adopted some version of the law, and her bill would have been a tool prosecutors could have used when appropriate.

But Laurie Rose Kepros, the director of Sexual Offense Defense for the public defenders office, said Colorado's complicated and nuanced sentencing laws "already go beyond what Jessica's Law mandates."

"Jessica's Law is a 25-year sentence, and we have life sentences for all of the crimes covered under the bill," she said.

Both Szabo and the House minority leader, Republican Mark Waller of Colorado Springs, are upset that the bill was sent to the State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, best known as the committee where the majority party sends minority bills to die. Her bill died Feb. 13 on a party-line vote.

"That bill should have gone to the Judiciary Committee," Waller said. "I don't think State Affairs is the place to have a discussion about sentencing laws."

Waller said Ferrandino wanted to protect four Democrats on the Judiciary Committee who are in swing districts: Daniel Kagan of Cherry Hills Village, Pete Lee of Colorado Springs, Mike McLachlan of Durango and Brittany Pettersen of Lakewood.

Ferrandino pointed out that two attorneys sit on State Affairs, and one of them, Rep. Mike Foote, D-Lafayette, is a prosecutor.