The New York Times Magazine today focuses on juvenile sex offenders, asking where is the line that divides a kid between being a sex offender and merely having boundary issues -- and questioning the wisdom of lifetime community notification laws for juveniles convicted of sex offenses.

It's a ten page feature article, but here are some highlights:

Community notification makes people feel protected — who wouldn’t want to know if a sex offender lives next door? But studies have yet to prove that the law does, in fact, improve public safety. Meanwhile, when applied to youths, the laws undercut a central tenet of the juvenile justice system. Since juvenile courts were created more than 100 years ago, youths’ records have, with exceptions in some states, been sealed and kept out of the public’s hands. The theory is that children are less responsible for their actions, and thus less blameworthy, than adults and more amenable to rehabilitation. But by publishing their photographs and addresses on the Internet, community notification suggests that juveniles with sex offenses are in a separate, distinct category from other adolescents in the juvenile justice system — more fixed in their traits and more dangerous to the public. It suggests, in other words, that they are more like adult sex offenders than they are like kids.

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There are so many things wrong with this prosecution and conviction, I'm not sure where to begin.

A jury in Lake County [IL.] weighed in ... Saturday, finding a Deerfield couple guilty of allowing their son's friends to drink in their basement one night last October. Two teenage guests were killed in a car crash shortly after leaving the Deerfield home of Jeffrey and Sara Hutsell.

The jury of seven women and five men deliberated seven hours before reaching its decision at about 7:40 p.m. They also convicted the Hutsells of one count of endangerment of a child and one count of obstruction of justice for lying to police officers on the night of the accident. The jury acquitted the couple of another obstruction charge for destroying evidence. The Hutsells showed no emotion as the verdicts were read.

Why should the parents be accountable for the intentional actions of other peoples' kids? One kid, age 18, drove drunk after leaving the party, killing himself and his passenger. Teenagers don't live in a vacuum. They know you aren't supposed to drink and drive. If you have to blame someone, why not blame the driver's parents who gave him the car to drive and didn't teach him better or monitor his activity to ensure he wouldn't abuse the privilege?

As the lawyer for the convicted mom told the jury,

"Did they provide alcohol? No.," .... "Did they come down and drink with them? No. Did they bring them chips and salsa? No."

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The New York Times re-examines Rudy Giuliani's strained relations with the African-American community during his tenure as Mayor.

By 1997, Mr. Giuliani’s job approval rating in the black community stood at 42 percent, according to a New York Times poll.

But within these victories lay the seed of a problem. Even as crime dropped by 60 percent, officers with the street crime unit stopped and frisked 16 black males for every one who was arrested, according to a report by the state attorney general. Then came three terrible episodes that raised a pointed question for black New Yorkers: Was crime reduction worth any cost?

And here's Rudy in Iowa, when asked about increasing federal support for HIV medication, answering by referring to 9/11 and terrorists:

"My general experience has been that the federal government works best when it helps and assists and encourages and sets guidelines… on a state-by-state, locality-by-locality basis. It's no different from the way I look at homeland security. Maybe having been mayor of the city, I know that your first defense against terrorist attack is that local police station, or that local firehouse."

"I'm gonna knock you out
Mama said knock you out"

This kept popping into my head today while writing about the Government asking the Court to impose the maximum sentence on Joe Nacchio.

Cockfighting is legal in Puerto Rico. And now the broadcast of cockfights over the Internet is a First Amendment issue here:

The change in the focus of the debate -- from live fights to video depictions of them -- has expanded the argument over cockfighting's cruelty into one that involves the First Amendment and, its defenders say, cockfighting's cultural significance in other countries.

. . . At the heart of the dispute is a law signed by President Bill Clinton that makes it illegal to create, sell or possess a depiction of animal cruelty with the intention of selling the depiction -- across state lines or internationally -- for commercial gain. . .. In signing the law, Clinton said it was important that the law not be construed so broadly as to "chill protected speech." Toward that end, the law offers an exception for depictions of animal cruelty that have "serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical or artistic value." But the law does not spell out which depictions qualify.

The company's Miami lawyer, David Markus, dismisses the child pornography comparison, instead comparing cockfighting to bullfighting, hunting and fishing. . . .

I do see bullfighting on the Spanish cable stations beamed here and it is not clear to me how bullfighting is more acceptable than cockfighting. Indeed, it is arguably worse as the bull does not naturally fight men whereas cocks do fight each other, and to the death sometimes.

If you haven't seen the photo of Romney holding up a sign that said "Obama Osama," you can see it here. Now you can read, via Eric Kleefeld, the worst excuse of the day:

Election Central contacted Romney spokesman Kevin Madden for comment, asking if it was appropriate for the candidate to hold the sign up with the woman. "The governor stopped briefly for a picture with a supporter who just happened to be holding their own sign with an alliterative play on words," Madden said, via e-mail. "I don’t think it was equating or comparing anyone."

Say whaaaaat? So there is today's worst excuse of the day.

In an editorial for tomorrow's paper, the NYTimes Editorial Board writes:

The next question is how Congress will enforce its right to obtain information, and it is on that point that the administration is said to have made its latest disturbing claim. If Congress holds White House officials in contempt, the next step should be that the United States attorney for the District of Columbia brings the matter to a grand jury. But according to a Washington Post report, the administration is saying that its claim of executive privilege means that the United States attorney would be ordered not to go forward with the case.

. . . The White House’s extreme position could lead to a constitutional crisis. If the executive branch refused to follow the law, Congress could use its own inherent contempt powers, in which it would level the charges itself and hold a trial. The much more reasonable route for everyone would be to proceed through the courts.

. . . Congress should use all of the tools at its disposal to pursue its investigations. It is not only a matter of getting to the bottom of some possibly serious government misconduct. It is about preserving the checks and balances that are a vital part of American democracy.

I agree with this editorial. And implicit in the times' last graf is that IF the Bush Administration blocks a judicial remedy, then the Congress must proceed to inherent contempt proceedings. That is also the conclusion I have reached as well.

Many folks seem to not have a good grounding on defunding and the lessons that the Iran-contra scandal provides for how defunding works. This post reviews Iran-Contra and how Congress' decision to defund the Contras triggered the Reagan Administration's illegal actions.

The Iran-Contra scandal relates to illegal Reagan Administration efforts to fund the contras in Nicaragua after the Congress passed legislation defunding Us efforts to support them:

The Reagan administration's most serious foreign policy problem surfaced near the end of the president's second term. In 1987 Americans learned that the administration had secretly sold arms to Iran in an attempt to win freedom for American hostages held in Lebanon by radical organizations controlled by Iran's Khomeini government. Investigation also revealed that funds from the arms sales had been diverted to the Nicaraguan contras during a period when Congress had prohibited such military aid.

(Emphasis supplied.) The question related to defunding that this raises is why would the Reagan Administration have to direct the secret sale of missiles to Iran (and seek donations from private indiviudals, the Sultan of Brunei, Saudi Arabia and missiles from Israel) to fund the contras if defunding legislation (the Boland Amendment) was not effective to cut off US government funding to the contras? The answer is obvious - because the defunding measure WAS effective. More.

In line with this. Frank Askin explains:

[U]nder historic and undisturbed law, Congress can enforce its own orders against recalcitrant witnesses without involving the executive branch and without leaving open the possibility of presidential pardon. And a Supreme Court majority would find it hard to object in the face of . . . entrenched legal principles.

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Impeachniks will say anything to forward their preferred approach. Here KagroX goes fraudster (a species of activist that ignores all facts and insists all elections are stolen by electronic means)and proposes that the Bush Administration will not be stymied by NOT funding the Iraq Debacle based on well, nothing. In essence, KagroX proposes that Bush will enact his own funding despite the fact that every Bush official, up to and including Bush himself, has stated in unequivocal terms that the Congress can end the war by not funding it. The theory of the Unitary Executive and its proponents, including the likes of John Yoo, says this. But those inconvenient facts are not addressed by impeachniks. And let me be clear, impeachment proponents are NOT impeachniks. Impeachment proponents can be honest advocates for a constitutional remedy and still respect the facts. ImpeachNIKS, like Kagro, do not respect the facts. They are like fraudsters. They are different than impeachment proponents. For example, Bruce Fein, impeachment proponent, not impeachNIK, said:

BRUCE FEIN: . . . [W]e do find this peculiarity that Congress is giving up powers voluntarily. Because there's nothing right now, Bill, that would prevent Congress from the immediate shutting down all of George Bush's and Dick Cheney's illegal programs. Simply saying there's no money to collect foreign intelligence-

BILL MOYERS: The power of the purse-

BRUCE FEIN: --the power of the purse. That is an absolute power. And yet Congress shies from it. . .

An inconvenient statement by an impeachment proponent for the impeachniks. More.

I spent a long time on the phone yesterday with reporter Sara Burnett of the Rocky Mountain News discussing the upcoming July 26th sentencing of former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio from a legal perspective.

Here's her new article on how much time he is likely to get and the extent of the forfeiture the Judge will impose.

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Chris Bowers at Open Left today writes about why progressive bloggers aren't endorsing individual candidates in the Democratic presidential primary contest.

Personally, I am not endorsing an individual candidate because there's more than one in the current race I'd be happy to see get the nomination.

I also think a few of those running for President would make good vice-presidential running mates.

That being said, I have not shied away from opining that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are my faves so far, while Big Tent Democrat has expressed a preference for Chris Dodd.