Fringeville Edition #40, November 05 2011

The LuLac blog ran a post today in which the Yonk blistered the GOP for “Greed Over People.”

The trigger for the post was the Democratic-controlled Senate’s inability to pass the infrastructure bill on Thursday night. The sticky point was a .7% tax increase on those who earn over a million dollars a year.

The bill failed, of course.

In fact, I believe it was designed to fail.

Why?

Because it is not "Greed Over People" we saw the other night. It's plain old "Politics over People."

In this case, Senator Reid & Co. had to know this bill would not pass (even though their party controls the Senate). It didn’t matter. They were playing politics and trying to score points against Republicans.

You see, it’s the game that matters in D.C. folks, and both parties are playing it. They find the third rail for the other side, include it in legislation, and blame the other party for not caring about working Americans when it crashes and burns.

It is an absolutely bass-ackwards way of doing things. It is politics first, people second. It's getting worse, and nothing is being accomplished.

Who benefits from all this bluster and posturing?

Certainly not mainstream America.

As to the "big two," America is changing right under their noses and their national leadership seems largely oblivious to it. Or, worse, they just don't care. After all, there are points to be scored in a game where political power wins and the American people lose.

How does that Bob Marley song go?

...Every day the bucket goes to the well...

But one day the bottom will drop out..."

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I ate my birthday meal and sat down to read the Grand Jury Findings of Fact against former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky. (Sandusky retired from Penn State in 1999)

My birthday meal almost came back up.

It is twenty-three pages of graphic documentation of alleged sexual activity with children by the former Nittany Lion assistant coach. (Sandusky was arrested on 40 criminal counts on Saturday and is out on $100,000 bail.)

As disturbing …no, horrifying …as the Grand Jury document is, it gets worse. Athletic director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, a vice president at the university, were charged with perjury based on their testimony to the Grand Jury.

The only person who seems to have done the right thing was head coach Joe Paterno. In March, 2002 a graduate assistant told Paterno he had witnessed Sandusky and a young boy in a shower. Paterno reported the incident to Athletic Director Curley. (Sandusky was no longer an employee of the university in 2002, but had access to all football facilities).

The Grand Jury found the graphic, stomach-turning testimony by the graduate assistant on that incident to be “extremely credible.”

But Curley told the Grand Jury the shower incident was just some “horsing around.”

Mr. Schultz indicated some private body parts might have been inadvertently grabbed while Sandusky was wrestling with the boy.

I can think of no honorable circumstances under which a grown man and a boy should wrestle in a shower and bump private body parts. But that’s not what the graduate assistant testified he saw, and what he says he saw I won’t repeat here. Feel free to read the testimony but do it on an empty stomach.

The University did not report the incident to the police. Instead, Sandusky was forbidden to bring young people onto the campus.

Meanwhile Penn State President Graham Spanier has publicly given his “unconditional support” for Curley and Schultz.

I did find an intriguing paragraph on page 16 of the finding:

“…Victim 4 remembers Sandusky being emotionally upset after having a meeting with Joe Paterno in which Paterno told Sandusky he would not be the next head coach at Penn State and which preceded Sandusky’s retirement. Sandusky told Victim 4 not to tell anyone about the meeting. That meeting occurred in May, 1999.”

A popular theory at the time was that Sandusky was next in line for Paterno’s job. It appears based on that paragraph that Paterno pulled out the rug on Sandusky. Only Sandusky and Paterno know why.

Sandusky left Penn State after the 1999 season to focus on his “Second Mile” charity program, designed to help troubled boys. It was boys from that program who were allegedly victimized.

I should also note that eight victims are listed in the finding, with the eighth victim’s identity being unknown. Some of these incidents took place before Sandusky retired in 1999. During an investigation in 1998, Sandusky admitted to showering with one victim and was advised by University Police Detective Ronald Shreffler “…not to shower with any child again.” 

Honest to gosh, you can't make stuff like this up.

An investigator for the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare was also present. Sandusky said he’d stop showering with kids.

You know what, folks? This is going to get one hell of a lot worse. This story is as bad as it gets.

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JimboBillyBob