Former Senator and Democrat Vice Presidential Nominee Joe Lieberman, Dead at 82

Former Connecticut senator and Democrat vice presidential nominee, Joe Lieberman, has passed away, according to numerous sources. He was 82 years old.

Joseph I. Lieberman, the doggedly independent four-term U.S. senator from Connecticut who was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, becoming the first Jewish candidate on the national ticket of a major party, died March 27 in New York City. He was 82.

Mr. Lieberman viewed himself as a centrist Democrat, solidly in his party’s mainstream with his support of abortion rights, environmental protection, gay rights and gun control. But he was also unafraid to stray from Democratic orthodoxy, most notably in his consistently hawkish stands on foreign policy.

“I have not always fit comfortably into conventional political boxes,” Mr. Lieberman said near the end of his Senate career, an understatement that tiptoed around the anger his maverick ways stoked among many liberals.

In retirement, Mr. Lieberman co-chaired No Labels, an organization founded to encourage bipartisanship, and he missed no opportunity to reiterate the plea he made in his 2012 farewell Senate speech.

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Nickelodeon Network Was Reportedly Infiltrated by Child Predators

In an exclusive report released Wednesday, the UK's Daily Mail reveals that the publication has reviewed court records of several sexual predators who had "infiltrated" the children's cable television network Nickelodeon. At least five were convicted child molesters, while two others were accused of sexual abuse.

Nickelodeon employed or worked with five child molesters as well as two others accused of pedophilia, court records show. Child safety activists claim the channel was infiltrated by predators who saw the power it gave them as a way to get close to their victims. Two of the offenders were highlighted in a new HBO documentary about alleged child abuse at the channel. But legal records show that convicted and accused pedophiles' prior involvement with the channel was far more extensive.

Molesters include Jason Handy, a Nickelodeon production assistant who had sexual contact with a nine-year-old girl; and Ezell Channel, hired as a production assistant at the cable channel after a child sex offense conviction, then arrested for sexually assaulting an underage teen at the studio.

Marty Weiss, a talent manager who placed clients on top Nickelodeon shows, was later convicted for 'lewd acts' with a 12-year-old male client.

Gabe Hoffman, a child safety activist, previously exposed child molesters who worked at Nickelodeon and other Hollywood studios in his 2014 documentary An Open Secret. 'Convicted pedophiles still get hired in Hollywood today,' he said. 'Sex offenders worked with children at Nickelodeon, and unless the industry makes changes, more children in Hollywood will end up getting abused.'

This doesn't seem like a difficult problem to deal with, at least in large part; most of the pedophiles and sexual predators named in this report had previous convictions--something that should have been revealed by the simple expedient of a background check. Most of them were also likely on the local sex offender registry. This isn't rocket science; these people shouldn't be all that hard to screen out, and yet, we keep seeing these stories.

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