A Judge in Pennsylvania ruled today that the complete Voter ID law will not be implemented for the November 6th election!!! While poll workers may still ask to see ID, they can't force anyone to use a provisional ballot or tell someone to leave the voting precinct. They have to let people vote, so yay!
I hope Democrats in that state are preparing for poll-watching to make sure no one is intimidated at the polls. I can see ways this may still be a problem, but as long as the news gets around that people can vote without the ID in this particular election, then all should be well. What this means is that the large urban centers of PA won't be singled out for voter suppression, thank God!
Tuesday's decision is a sharp contrast to Simpson's ruling in August when he refused to issue an injunction and upheld the law. In that opinion, Simpson said the law "is a reasonable, non-discriminatory, non-severe burden when viewed in the broader context of the widespread use of photo ID in daily life."
He also said that opponents of the voter ID law "did an excellent job of 'putting a face' to those burdened by this new requirement," but he did not "have the luxury of deciding this issue based on my sympathy for the witnesses."
Opponents appealed his decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. After hearing arguments from both sides, the Supreme Court returned the case to Simpson and ordered him to "reassess" his ruling based on the availability of ID cards and in light of "expedited" efforts put forth by the Pennsylvania government.
Simpson's decision may not be the final word on this case. It can be appealed back to the state Supreme Court, which is next scheduled to meet Oct. 15 in Pittsburgh.
Most ordinary people think of election observers as people who come into third world countries to view elections to make sure the process is fair to all - like Jimmy Carter's UN group. In this country, the history of "Poll Watching" is much more dark, and was originally allowed by states that wanted to suppress the African American vote during the Jim Crow years after Reconstruction.
This year and true to form, the Republican Party wants to use Poll Watchers to intimidate voters in states like Ohio, where Secretary of State Husted is helping the cause by cutting out early voting on weeknights and weekends, prohibiting many minority voters from participating.
Rachel Maddow has done several great reports on "True the Vote," a group formed to allegedly combate "voter fraud" by placing watchers at polling places where they could signal officials if they saw something they thought was a "gotcha" moment.
To give you an idea of what True the Vote is all about, you have to see Their Official Website. It has nothing to do with wanting to make the process fair. It has everything to do with blocking voters from the polls.
Under "Latest News" here is just one article about Pennsylvania Voter ID filled with a sense of palpable disappointment that voters might actually get help in carrying out their right to vote:
The anti-ID crowd continues to have the wind taken out of its sails.
First, Pennsylvania plaintiff Viviette Applewhite gets a photo ID the day after the ACLU’s Voter ID challenge is shot down in court on grounds that the law disenfranchises no one. Now, PennDOT is rolling out its program to provide free voter identification cards to all Pennsylvania voters who can’t otherwise get a state photo ID
Yeah, that's a real bummer. It's too bad the State of Pennsylvania is helping more voters have a chance to vote. That spoils all the fun.
Here's the leader of True the Vote, Catherine Engelbrecht, speaking to her followers. She loves her some Voter ID Laws!!! Basically she is a vigilante bully who believes there is fraud where none actually exists, and she wants to make the process more difficult for everyone. She is an alarmist, and how dare she talk about "civil rights leaders" when some of them would roll in their graves at the thought of an all-white posse looking over an election. Her call for "Election Integrity" is a big dog whistle to the Tea Party because her goal is to favor the white vote over the minority vote.
But of course, there is still Ohio, with Tea Party sympathizer Jon Husted, the Secretary of State who is trying his best to do the one-man election body-block. Last week I posted this impassioned speech by State Senator Nina Turner on The Ed Show, expressing the outrage many feel towards Husted as he tries to rig the system against elderly and minority voters.
In a 15-page decision filed Aug. 27, Jonathan Allison concluded that Husted has the authority to remove Dennis Lieberman and Tom Ritchie Sr. from their posts.
“Furthermore, I believe the facts warrant removal and recommend that the secretary take such action,” Allison wrote.“It’s not justice when you already know the outcome of being put on trial,” he said. “A hearing examiner appointed by SOS Husted has agreed with his boss. This is not news.”
Husted spokesman Matt McClellan said the state’s chief elections official will make a decision Aug. 28 on whether to remove the two board members.
Lieberman and Ritchie were called to Columbus a week ago for a hearing in Husted’s office after they backed a motion to open Montgomery County’s early polls on weekends in the weeks before the Nov. 6 election, just days after Husted issued a directive ordering boards to adopt uniform weekday in-person early voting hours, with no Saturdays or Sundays.
. . . “We do not want to return to the long lines, the hours upon hours of waiting that took place in 2004 when J. Kenneth Blackwell was in Secretary Husted’s job,” Lieberman said. “Secretary Husted needs to follow Jennifer Brunner’s model in 2008 that led to a historic voter turnout and abandon Blackwell’s 2004 model that was a disaster and made Ohio a poster child for voter suppression.”
It turns out we have proof that Husted is all in cahoots with True the Vote - he was listed as a "featured speaker" for their Ohio State Summit Meeting, but after Rachel Maddow announced that on her show, he withdrew, to be replaced by Ohio State Senator Bill Seitz.
As Maddow reported, when True the Vote started in Harris County, Texas, the mainly white watchers showed up in African American precincts and intimidated registered voters. The group understood that they were intimidating people - but they seem to think that's okay. Hello Jim Crow!
Harris County, the biggest county in the state, is where a Tea Party group called the King Street Patriots launched an anti-voter fraud initiative called “True the Vote,” which recruited poll watchers and amped up fears over groups like the community organizing group ACORN.
Chad Dunn, a lawyer who is representing the Texas Democratic Party, told TPMMuckraker a number of witnesses have been interviewed by Civil Rights Division lawyers already. “We’ve gotten a number of reports — quite a few out of the Houston area — that poll watchers, King Street Patriot training poll watchers, are following a voter after they’ve checked them out and stand right behind them,” Dunn said. There’s at least a dozen reports that they could confirm with witnesses, he said. “Interestingly, it’s all in the polling places in Hispanic and African-American areas,” he added.
Terry O’Rourke, the first assistant in the Harris County Attorney’s office, told TPMMuckraker that there have been allegations of poll watchers talking to voters, which they are not allowed to do, as well as hovering over voters as they are waiting to vote. He said the complaints came from Kashmere Gardens, Moody Park, Sunnyside and other predominantly minority neighborhoods of the county.
Catherine Engelbrecht is the founder of both the King Street Patriots and True the Vote, in that order, and only months apart. Name and IRS status appear to be all that differentiates the two groups. The former, a 501c4, is a Tea Party group that lobbies for conservative issues, chiefly election reform; the latter is a 501c3 that takes a hands-on approach to making sure election reform is implemented—Dr. Jekyl and Dr. Jekyler.
The 2008 ACORN “scandal,” where ACORN was found with thousands of falsified voter registration forms, is partially what inspired Engelbrecht to form the King Street Patriots. Even though no fraudulent votes were cast, Engelbrecht’s King Street Patriots lionized the ACORN tale and used it as a mobilizing tool to recruit hundreds of volunteers for 2009 Election Day poll watching, mostly in black and Latino districts. . . .
. . . Only a handful of fraud cases were tried after the election, and none led to full convictions. Still, the King Street Patriots spun off as “True the Vote” and came out again for the 2010 elections—bulkier with more recruits, again at black and Latino polling places. A local Houston newscast noticed the bulge in poll observers and reported, “As the number of poll watchers have increased, so have the number of complaints.” A video True the Vote circulated at the time contained doctored photos of black people falsely pictured as advocating for voter fraud.
True the Vote’s lawyer Kelly Shackelford, of the Christian rightwing organization Liberty Institute, explained away the intimidation complaints this way: “Poll watchers show up for the first time and [the poll watchers are] a different color than them and they just don’t like that.”
This story keeps getting worse. I'm losing sleep over it because the whole thing is diabolical and shouldn't be happening in the United States.
The Voter ID Law was upheld yesterday by a Republican judge who saw no harm in disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters. The next thing to do is appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court which is deadlocked 3-3, Dem against Republicans. Time is of the essence, but there just seems to be no answer.
Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania Judge Robert Simpson issued an order on Wednesday saying there was no constitutional reason to stop the law from taking effect. In his opinion, however, he wrote that he had "sympathy" for the witnesses.
The coalition, however, seeks to appeal the law in the State Supreme Court, requesting that the court hear the case on an expedited basis because the election is less than three months away.
The ACLU of Pennsylvania, the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, the Advancement Project and the law firm of Arnold & Porter filed the appeal jointly.
"The fight in this case could go on after the election. Judge Simpson's ruling was on the request for a preliminary injunction. There could still be a hearing for a final injunction," said the ACLU of Pennsylvania in a statement.
On the same day as that ruling - no coincide - the State of Penn decided to drop a plan to allow online absentee voter registration.
A spokesman for the Department of State said county elections officials told the agency that implementing the new online initiatives as well as voter ID requirements was too much to handle less than three months before the election.
*sigh* I've lived half a century and I just can't believe this is happening in every presidential election.
Even before Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. released his decision, lawyers on both sides of the case had pledged to appeal the ruling.
A petition to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is expected within days, if not hours. More legal briefs and courtroom arguments are expected. Others have been eyeing a parallel challenge in federal court.
Simpson denied a request for a preliminary injunction blocking the state from implementing the law, which requires voters to show state-issued identification before casting ballots.
Opponents complained the new law will unfairly bar as many as 1 million Pennsylvanians from the polls. Supporters say it was necessary to cut down on election fraud.
Voting rights advocates plan to appeal the case to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which will likely issue its own ruling before the November election. There is currently an even 3-3 split between Democrats and Republicans on the Court; the 7th Justice, Republican Joan Orie Melvin, is under suspension because of an unrelated corruption scandal.
Since Simpson ruled to uphold the law, Democrats will need one crossover vote to win a majority and strike down the law. Chief Justice Ronald Castille, a moderate Republican from Philadelphia, is most likely to side with the Democrats.
The federal Justice Department is also looking into whether Pennsylvania’s voter ID complies with federal law.
Pennsylvania has a problem with their voter ID laws, but it's not because of rampant voter fraud as the Republicans want us to believe. In fact, as in most states, everyone agrees that voter fraud is almost non-existent. Yet state legislatures keeping passing laws forcing everyone to get a picture ID or lose their right to vote in the Presidential election this year. This will put the burden mainly on urban dwellers who use public transportation and therefore do not have a driver's license, as well as the elderly who have been voting for years, thank you very much, without a picture ID.
Unlike Florida and Texas, Pennsylvania is not a state covered by Section 5 of the Voters Rights Act which requires preclearance from the Justice Department before voting laws can be changed. Only states that had low voter turnout under 50% in the early 60s were required to follow the preclearance rule. So Pennsylvania will be a test state, and possibly ground-breaking for other "swing" states that might try to suppress the African American vote using Voter ID Laws.
The ACLU is taking the State of Pennsylvania to court, while the Feds are looking into whether the law will impede voting.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and other groups will spend the next week in Commonwealth Court trying to persuade a judge to grant a swift and immediate injunction. The Republican-controlled legislature passed the law four months ago with the stated purpose of discouraging election fraud.
*snip*
The ACLU is suing on behalf of 10 Pennsylvanians who do not have driver's licenses and who contend that the photo-ID requirement violates the state constitution, depriving them of their right to vote.
In legal papers filed last week, the civil liberties group says that those 10 are the tip of a human iceberg, that as many as a million or more Pennsylvania voters lack the types of photo ID that the law requires.
The ACLU included in its filing a surprising concession from state officials: a written stipulation that the state cannot pinpoint any instance of the kind of voter-impersonation fraud the new law aims to prevent.
The state stipulated that it is "not aware of any incidents of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania," and has "no direct knowledge of in-person voter fraud elsewhere." State officials also said they would offer no evidence that "in-person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absence of the photo ID law."
In a three-page letter sent to Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele on Monday, DOJ requested state data on registered voters as well as the state’s list of individuals with driver’s licenses and ID cards.
Additionally, DOJ requested information on the state’s efforts to educate voters about the new law as well as documents and records supporting a March 14 statement from the office of Gov. Tom Corbett (R) which claimed “99 percent of Pennsylvania’s already have acceptable photo IDs.” (The state’s own data did not support that figure.) Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez requested Pennsylvania send the information to federal authorities within 30 days.
Pennsylvania has said that over 750,000 voters lack an adequate form of voter ID, a number greater than President Obama’s margin of victory in the state in 2008. One top Republican even said the voter ID law would help Mitt Romney win the state. As TPM reported, the public relations firm contracted to educate the public about the new voter ID law is stacked with Republicans.
Good discussion of this story on Hardball yesterday:
The Big Ten Conference issued its own penalties Monday to Penn State, banning the school's football team from appearing in the Big Ten championship game for four years and stating the school won't receive any conference bowl revenue during that same span.
That revenue is estimated to total about $13 million, bringing the grand total Penn State has been fined to $73 million.
. . . "The accepted findings support the conclusion that our colleagues at Penn State, individuals that we have known and with whom we have worked for many years, have egregiously failed on many levels -- morally, ethically and potentially criminally," read the statement from the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors.
The NCAA slapped the Nittany Lions with sanctions that will reverberate through College Station for the next four years and beyond. They gutted the revenue earned this year from the Penn State football program, banned the team from bowl games for the next four years, and "vacated" all wins from 1998 through 2011, effectively destroying the legacy of Joe Paterno, who is no longer the "winningest coach in history."
So the football team survives and players can play the game, but the prestige is gone along with Joe Pa's statue, and that's fitting. Why should a team and a university have bragging rights when the so-called "ethical" leaders were nothing but apologists and enablers for a serial child molester?
I find all of it very satisfying, since it puts the priorities of the university back where they should have been in the first place.
Penn State will be banned from bowl games for four years. It will lose 20 scholarships a year for four years. It will pay a $60 million fine -- a year's average gross annual revenue for the football program. That money will be used to fund programs to prevent child abuse. Penn State can't pay that fine with academic money or by cutting other athletic scholarships.
And the Nittany Lions 109 wins between 1998 and 2011 have been vacated. Joe Paterno is no longer the winningest Div. I football coach of all time.
NCAA president Mark Emmert said the NCAA crafted the punishment as a consent decree, which the university has signed. No appeal is expected.
The penalties are meant to carry a message, Emmert says. Big sports he said, have become too big to fail, and in some cases, too big to question.
Penn State took down the statue of Joe Paterno this morning with little ceremony beyond the sound of jackhammers on a Sunday morning. They had the area cordoned off with barriers and blue tarps so little could be seen. The plaques of football players on the wall behind him were also removed, but his name will remain on the library. Now the town of College Station awaits tomorrow's announcement of possibly strict sanctions from the NCAA. For football fans and supporters of Paterno still in shock over the Sandusky scandal, it's hard to say which day will be the hardest.
By 7:45 a.m. this morning, jackhammers rattled behind a metal fence covered by a blue tarp. The statue was tied to a forklift. The fence shielded the statue, covered in clear plastic and protective packaging materials.
The statue was removed at 8:24 a.m. The forklift carried it into the stadium's Gate A as about a dozen workers followed.
A moment later, a man in the crowd started a "We are Penn State" chant. After it finished, another man yelled, "We love you, Joe."
An hour later, Penn State workers began removing lettering and plaques from the wall behind where the statue stood.
Many of those watching the removal stared in disbelief and at least one woman wept, while others expressed anger at the decision.
"I think it was an act of cowardice on the part of the university," Mary Trometter of Williamsport, who wore a shirt bearing Joe Paterno's image. She said she felt betrayed by university officials, saying they promised openness but said nothing about the decision until just before the removal work began.
. . . Derek Leonard, 31, a university construction project coordinator who grew up in the area, said the construction workers on the project told him it was like watching a funeral when the statue was lowered onto the truck and then rolled away. He didn't completely agree with the decision but worried more that the NCAA would shut down the football program.
"It's going to kill our town," he said.
Richard Hill, 67, West Chester, a Penn State alumnus, said, "If you punish the football program or Joe Paterno – they're tied together – this town is going to suffer. The revenue does an awful lot to keep this town viable and lively."
Colby Walk, 40, who grew up in the Penn State area, wondered why an NCAA punishment was necessary, given the criminal charges, officials fired or forced out, Paterno's death and now the statue's removal.
"It's kind like we already have the death penalty," he said, referring to the worry that the NCAA would shut down the Penn State football program.
The idea that Paterno paid no attention to the '98 incident "is completely contradicted by the evidence," Freeh said.
In addition to raising doubt about Paterno's statement that he was unaware of the assault, the report contains evidence suggesting the former coach was the key to a decision by top university officials to back away from alerting state authorities to a 2001 shower incident involving a boy.
Officials initially planned to alert the state Department of Public Welfare about the allegation, which would have triggered an official, outside investigation.
But according to e-mails made public in the Freeh report, Timothy Curley, the athletic department director now awaiting trial in the scandal, urged the university to abandon this plan "after talking it over with Joe."
*snip*
The report's sobering contents include a highly critical glimpse of the once-sacrosanct coach's behavior between 1998 and Sandusky's 2011 arrest. Investigators portrayed Paterno as an active participant in an administrative effort to "conceal critical facts" and preserve the reputation of the university's signature athletic program.
By doing so, the report says, Paterno, Spanier, Curley, and Schultz displayed "a striking lack of empathy" for Sandusky's victims.
*snip*
Freeh told the story of a Lasch Building janitor who had witnessed a "horrific" Sandusky assault but was afraid he might lose his job if he reported an incident involving the much-admired coach.
"He was afraid to take on the football program, and if that's the culture on the bottom [of the Penn State football food chain], then God help the culture on top," Freeh said.
. . . Emails uncovered by the Freeh team indicated that Mr. Spanier approved a plan to ask Mr. Sandusky to get "professional help" and that he was concerned about making the university "vulnerable" should Mr. Sandusky's behavior continue. Though he denied knowing that Mr. Schultz and Mr. Curley considered reporting the matter to the state Department of Public Welfare, notes from a meeting he attended indicate that was also discussed.
These things don't match up with Mr. Spanier's contention that what he knew about was just "horseplay," said Wes Oliver, a law professor at Duquesne University.
"Based on what we have, there's enough to circumstantially infer that he knew," he said. "If he thought it was just a ... shower after tee ball, you don't recommend a psychologist after that."
Mr. Oliver believes the report could lead to charges against Mr. Spanier for failing to report the matter to authorities or to investigate further. And he believes Mr. Paterno, were he still alive, might have also faced charges, since there's evidence in the emails that he influenced Mr. Curley to not go to DPW.
Jeff Fritz, the attorney for Victim 4, agreed the report lays out evidence that could be used to charge Mr. Spanier. "What is clear is they made a conscious decision to make the wrong decision," Mr. Fritz said. "These weren't mistakes. These were crimes that were committed."
Michael Boni, the attorney for an individual who has been identified only as Victim 1, said he views it as "an admission by Penn State that it's liable to the victims of this cover-up.
"The report makes crystal clear that those four made a conscious, overt decision to not report Sandusky's transgressions," he said. "By not doing it, they brought about a situation where my client and others were abused as a direct result of their action."
“The outrage belongs squarely at the feet of Penn State officials, including Paterno, whose family has defended him by proclaiming he didn’t even use email in 2001.
Such a defense actually bears further evidence Paterno had long overstayed his time at Penn State, was out of touch and had become a liability to the program, not to mention the safety of young boys who wanted nothing more than to be around a football program they idolized, only to have their childhoods reduced to haunting memories of horrendous abuse.
It’s also time for the NCAA to step in and take a look. If there ever was a case of ‘lack of institutional control,’ this would seem to be it.
A strong example still needs to be made in the land ironically known as ‘Happy Valley.’ When it comes to protecting kids, there is a far greater principle at stake than protecting a football program’s diminished legends.”
“Paterno apparently persuaded the group to go easy on old Jerry. The athletic director, Tim Curley, e-mailed the other Sheep, ‘If Sandusky is cooperative, we would work with him.’
Astounding. The Three Sheep, part of a huge flock of JoPa [sic] worshipers, decided that confronting Sandusky rather than turning him in ‘is a more humane and upfront way to handle this.’
Only Paterno knows why he wanted his Three Sheep to call off the dogs. Was it out of compassion for Sandusky, or out of concern that Paterno's program and his legacy might take a hit?
To at least four young victims of abuse, that distinction probably isn't important.
Please, can we never again mention how many wins Joe Paterno racked up or how many libraries he built? The meaningful numbers in his legacy will probably never be known.”
"Let's use a reasonable amount of skepticism here. A man with Paterno's power doesn't just relinquish control. Not with something like this. Not when the allegations against Sandusky were so awful and incomprehensible that they could level all those years of goodwill and honor Paterno had built.
Although Curley and Schultz are facing perjury charges, there is a sense now that maybe Paterno was let off the hook.
This is not to say that Paterno deserved to have formal charges filed against him, especially given that the authorities decided otherwise. But what's becoming abundantly clear is that Paterno's image was only what he wanted us to see.”
Paterno ran Penn State. We are Penn State? Forget it. Try I am Penn State. He listened to no one, answered to no one. In 2004, when Spanier and the head of the board of trustees reportedly went to Paterno’s house and said it was time for him to retire, he threw them out. The Penn State trains ran on Joe’s schedule in the ridiculous name of football. Yes, he did give $4 million to the school, and no one should ever argue against philanthropy, but charity also is never entirely altruistic: it burnished the avuncular JoePa image, a man above reproach who would never hide or conceal or obfuscate. But the world of Penn State football revolved around Paterno. It seemed inconceivable that in a matter involving someone who had been a loyal assistant coach for 30 years, Paterno would simply step aside and trust the judgment of others, or that others would make a judgment without his input.
It is totally unfair to say that Penn State officials did nothing. They did tell Sandusky he could no longer bring ‘guests’ on campus. There was no way of enforcing it of course, and the humaneness with Sandusky was so effective that he continued to sexually abuse children for another six years.
You can thank Curley for that. You can thank Schultz for that. You can thank Spanier for that. But most of all you can thank Paterno. He was the God of Happy Valley. People scurried and scrambled when he spoke, so you can bet it was he who was the primary driver behind the decision not to report Sandusky to authorities. It was he who on the basis of his own words in his grand jury testimony, gave the false impression that he had placed the matter in the hands of athletic director Curley and then walked away.
And thus ends the so-called legacy of Joe Paterno. The opinion of this blogger is that anyone who defends this man as "ethical" after this needs to read the report again, and then go read the testimony of Jerry Sandusky's victims. They could have been spared a world of pain and suffering, then-now-and in the future if Joe and Company had "done the right thing" and simply called police on Old Jer'. If they had acted like real men. Instead they covered up to be "humane" to their football buddy instead of the innocent children, and for that they deserve whatever they get here and hereafter.
Jerry Sandusky, twisted monster of Penn State University, the evil coach who raped an endless parade of young innocent boys and got away with it for years, is now in jail in Centre County, Pennsylvania, probably for the rest of his life. His enabling wife, Dottie "Sarge" Sandusky, will either be charged for her own crimes or simply lose everything she owns to countless civil lawsuits still to be filed by the victims. And to top it all off, their own adopted son has come forward to say that he was also molested by dear old Dad, and that son's damning testimony is the reason that Jerry couldn't testify on his own behalf during the trial.
Jerry Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse Friday night and faces spending the rest of his life in state prison. His attorney said he would appeal the verdict.
Sandusky's attorney, Joseph Amendola, asked Judge John Cleland to allow Sandusky to be released on house arrest, but Cleland summarily rejected the request, saying: "Bail is revoked. Mr. Sandusky is remanded to the custody of the sheriff."
. . . Several of the counts are so-called mandated felonies, meaning Cleland has no discretion in sentencing. NBC News reported that he faces a minimum of 60 years in prison.
It is Sandusky -- who sat in a wrinkled green suit and turned his chair and faced a 12-foot projection screen as McGettigan showed pictures of each of his accusers as boys.
One juror shook her head as the prosecutor explained the abuse that each allegedly endured.
All 16 -- 12 jurors and four alternates -- were listening intently, wide-eyed, as McGettigan and defense attorney Joe Amendola made their opening arguments in the historic child sex abuse case against the 68-year-old football great.
Sandusky’s wife, Dottie, and adopted son Matt, both left right before opening arguments when the judge ordered that all witnesses be sequestered.
Almost flush up to the jury box, and in a soft-spoken voice, McGettigan did a rundown of the 10 cases against Sandusky, calling it the “systematic behavior ... of a serial predatory pedophile.”
“Jerry loves kids so much that he does things none of us would ever dream of doing,” Amendola said. “The evidence will show these kids had problems. Over the years, Jerry dealt with hundreds of thousands of kids. There’s eight accusers.”
Almost immediately, Amendola attacked the case of Victim 2 -- the case in which assistant coach Mike McQueary says he witnessed Sandusky assaulting a young boy in the Penn State locker room showers in 2001.
Joe Paterno, athletic director Tim Curley, vice president Gary Schultz, McQueary’s father John, his friend, Dr. Jonathan Dranov all heard McQueary’s story and never called police.
“Not one of them said call the police,” he said. “Even after nothing happened (McQueary himself) never called the police.”
Amendola also told jurors that six of the eight men who will testify have civil attorneys.
“You saw those 8 photos, cute kids,” he said. “Why would they lie? Folks, I don’t know if any of you have been involved in family disputes over money. ... The evidence will show these young men had a financial interest in pursuing this case. All of these kids came from The Second Mile by recommendation and referrals ... because they had issues.” Showering naked with young boys -- that was part of a culture that Sandusky knew, Amendola said. Partly because of his history in sports, and partly because of the way he grew up.
Here's the latest cringe-worthy snafu: Cookiegate. This occurred when Mitt was out of his element, sitting an ordinary picnic table with regular Americans trying to have a conversation. It was too much for him, and he was so overwhelmed by normalcy and a lack of roast pheasant and caviar that he made fun of the cookies his guests had brought for him. It sounds as if he wanted to - dare we say it - fire someone. This is quite similar to the way Romney acted in Florida at a NASCAR race when he made fun of the cheap rain ponchos people were wearing. He just never misses a chance to make others feel inferior. It's just plain rude.
“I’m not sure about these cookies,” Mr. Romney said. “They don’t look like you made them,” he said turning to one of the women at the table. “Did you make those cookies? You didn’t, did you? No. No. They came from the local 7-Eleven bakery or wherever.”
The cookies, in fact, were donated from the popular Bethel Bakery around the corner from the community center, and once Mr. Romney’s comment was broadcast on local airwaves offended residents took to Facebook and Twitter to complain. The episode was inevitably called “CookieGate.” The bakery is offering a CookieGate special Wednesday and Thursday: free half dozen cookies with every dozen purchased.
“Initially, we were incensed that he would think that Bethel Bakery is comparable to the 7-Eleven,” said bakery owner John Walsh, a Republican. Mr. Walsh, whose parents opened the bakery in 1955, said he thinks the comment was made in jest and would like Gov. Romney to try the bakery’s offerings in the future. But some bitterness remained. “Let him eat cake next time,” Mr. Walsh said.
Congratulations to ace reporter Sara Ganim of The Patriot News in State College, Pennsylvania. She has won a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting thanks to her brilliant coverage of the Sandusky child-abuse scandal and subsequent cover-up at Penn State University. As a direct consequence of her reporting, legendary Nittany Lions coach Joe Paterno was fired, Jerry Sandusky is is now facing multiple child rape charges from several victims along with an investigation of the charity for boys that founded, Second Mile. Several Penn State employees have been charged with covering up the scandal and perjuring themselves to a Grand Jury.
Recently the scandal deepened when MSNBC reported allegations from as early as 1998 when a psychologist warned police that Sandusky was a pedophile. Despite a series of Grand Juries looking into the case, nothing happened with the investigation into Sandusky until last year when Ganim broke her stories.
For a distinguished example of reporting on significant issues of local concern, demonstrating originality and community expertise, using any available journalistic tool, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Sara Ganim and members of The Patriot-News Staff, Harrisburg, Penn., for courageously revealing and adeptly covering the explosive Penn State sex scandal involving former football coach Jerry Sandusky.
The night Paterno was fired, Ganim captured scenes and interviews on her cell phone and emailed them directly to the newsroom. “The copy desk watched them and translated quotes,” she told WOUB. “If I had gone with a notebook and pen, we would have never made deadline by the time I got them.”
Several news organizations have recognized Ganim’s watchdog reporting. The Baltimore Sun said
it’s “every bit comparable to the guts and drive of The Washington Post
in breaking the Watergate scandal.” Jason Fry and Kelly McBride, who
serve as ESPN’s ombuds through the Poynter Review Project, wrote:
“With the biggest staff of sports journalists in the world, ESPN should
have been leading the charge to ask tough questions and shed light on
this scandal. Instead, it was the tiny Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa.,
out in front of the journalism pack.”
