Walking Dead

There are some things that look to be dead or maybe they just smell bad.

Hillary Clinton’s Campaign - Dead
Hopefully for the Democratic Party this dies tonight. Doing the political math, I don’t see any way can Hillary get the nomination?

Bruce Lunsford’s Campaign - Dead
Do not give money to this man. There is no way on God’s Green Earth that this DINO is going to beat Mitch McConnell. If Lunsford thought Ben Chandler was mean to him in the Governor’s race four years ago, then he is going to be stunned when his good buddy Mitch turns the dogs loose in this election.


Casino Gambling Amendment – Near Dead
If the so called Democratic Leadership in House of Representatives manages to get this thing to the Senate it will be a miracle. Put these guys in a paper bag and they would try to walk out the closed end. Assuming the bill gets to the Senate, I don’t see that Republican controlled body letting it go further. And if by some miracle, the amendment actually goes to the voters, I don’t see it passing.

Now I hope it gets to the voters for one simple reason. If this thing isn’t killed by the voters it will be back from the dead next session.


A Workable Budget - Near Dead
There are three things working against a common sense budget. First, the false promise of painless money from the casinos. Second, there is the inability of the legislature to do math and enact sensible tax policy. And third, David Williams, wanting to inflict as much pain on the Beshear administration as possible, will make the budget as lean as possible.


Democratic Party Leadership – Smells Bad
Jennifer Moore, Chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Party, picking up the lunch tab for twenty or so high rolling lobbyists. The Governor picks the Chairman of the Party. Looks like Beshear has a talent for picking individuals sensitive to the appearance of their actions.

Fluffy and Inconsistent

Sometimes being able to focus on the moment is a good thing for a politician. However, there needs to be a little consistency from moment to moment.

The Herald-Leader has a story on Kathy Stein’s bill to reduce over-crowding of our jails.

Misdemeanor criminals would see their jail sentences deeply cut under a bill filed this week by the chairwoman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, on Wednesday said she hasn't decided how aggressively she will push House Bill 513, which would reduce the maximum penalty for Class A misdemeanors from 12 to 6 months and for Class B misdemeanors from 90 to 30 days.

The cost of overcrowded jails and prisons is bankrupting the state, which lawmakers now realize as they struggle to pass a balanced budget, Stein said.

This is a good idea and should be supported. Let’s hope Stein aggressively pushes the bill. In the story is this comment by Attorney General Jack Conway.

Facing steep cuts, Attorney General Jack Conway said he's likely to kill a $400,000 program that provides crime victim advocates, and he might lay off some of his 230 employees. Conway said he is so poorly funded already that he has only one employee working part-time to enforce environmental laws.

Now on the same page of the paper we have Conway commenting on “cypersafety legislation”.

Besides the cybersafety legislation, Conway said, he will create an Internet crimes unit to investigate crimes committed online, from scams to solicitation of a minor. It is expected to be operational this spring.

Does anyone see a disconnect here? Conway is looking at possible layoffs and is creating a new unit at the same time. What other part of the office is going to be short staffed along with environmental law enforcement?

And while we’re on the topic of cyber crimes, Conway’s bill addresses the following areas:

The bill allows police to use specially trained or non-sworn personnel for online stings. It also prohibits registered sex offenders from using social-networking Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

Conway said the bill will allow Kentucky prosecutors to criminally charge sex offenders removed from such sites. Since last May, he said, MySpace has removed the profiles of 40,000 sex offenders, 350 of them from Kentucky.

The legislation also requires sex offenders to update their e-mail addresses and online identifiers with the state registry of sex offenders as they update their home addresses.

Other provisions of HB 367 call for amending Kentucky's stalking laws to include cyberstalking, clarifies that it is a crime for persons to transmit live sexually explicit images of themselves to minors over the Internet and allows police to seize personal property, such as a computer or car used in online sexual offenses against children.

The headline for the story refers to the bill as “Icing on the cake”, and that is exactly what it is. This bill is the fluff covering the cake; it’s not the main course. There are things Conway must do if he wants to be effective in fighting cyber crime the starting list is here.

This is a nice fluffy start, but I’m still waiting for the main course.

Window Dressing

I have to applaud the Attorneys General of 49 states for taking a stand on Internet safety for minors. However this was a first step more than a solution. The agreement was probably more about avoiding litigation than solving a problem. The agreement was a compromise where both the Attorneys General and MySpace could claim a win. Remember, perception is everything.

From News.com:

NEW YORK--A coalition of law enforcement authorities and representatives from social-networking site MySpace.com gathered Monday morning to unveil an extensive new plan for ensuring the safety of minors on the Internet……….

In the press conference, the attorneys general acknowledged that existing standards of law enforcement simply don't suffice in the rapidly changing climate of the Internet. "You're in an area where what you are looking at today will not be what you're looking at in six months," Cohen said. "There is an exponential change that goes on with each passing week and month, and you really do need to bring together the best minds and the best ideas."…….

The attorneys general confirmed in Monday's press conference that they wanted to avoid legal action against MySpace and social-networking sites in general. "Litigation is costly, time-consuming, (and) uncertain in its result," (Connecticut Attorney General Richard) Blumenthal said.

There was one dissenting voice, the Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

Statement of the Texas Attorney General:

“MySpace.com continues to resist implementing real reform measures, including age verification measures and filtering software, and instead offers window-dressing that offers no real protection to the millions of children and teenagers who use their networking sites and chat rooms,” said Attorney General Abbott.

As much as it pains me to agree with law enforcement in Texas and their hang ‘em high mentality, Abbott is correct, this is at best a start to solving the problem and at worst window-dressing.

Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, who assumed the office less than two weeks before the announcement of the agreement had this statement.

“New technology presents new challenges for parents, police officers and prosecutors,” Conway said. “I am heartened by the fact that MySpace has stepped up to the plate and will assist us in protecting Kentucky families.”

Conway, who ran on a platform of protecting Kentuckians from Internet crime, has yet to make good on his promise of creating an Internet Crimes and Fraud Division of the Office of the Attorney General.

Conway’s appointments thus far do not have a track record of dealing with or even understanding the technological issues relating to Internet Crime.

Conway’s appointments to key positions in his senior-level staff, at this point in time, are:

Dana Bynum Mayton as his Deputy Attorney General, Mayton was the former Secretary of the Revenue Cabinet and the vice president of governmental relations for the University of Louisville.

Bob Foster as the chief investigator of the Attorney General’s office, for the past five years, Foster served as the federal security director of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in Kentucky and was one of the FBI investigators on the "Operation Boptrot" scandal in the early 1990s.

Tad Thomas as director of Civil and Environmental Law, Thomas is a private attorney who specializes in civil litigation.

Allison Gardner Martin will serve as Conway’s communications director. Martin previously served as deputy communications director for Louisville Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson.

Jack Conway will have to do more than take an agreement negotiated by someone else and say “me too” if he wants to keep his campaign promise to do something about Internet Crime in Kentucky.