Longtime NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver Surrenders to FBI

NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been an Albany fixture for 2+ decades. He was Speaker back when I was working in the legislature. And he's survived and thrived despite multiple scandals. But this is one scandal too far.

New York state assembly speaker surrenders to FBI http://t.co/pHWUMbR2jg

— TIME.com (@TIME) January 22, 2015

The Manhattan Democrat, who is the longest running Speaker in state history, is being charged with corruption over payments from one law firm (he is of counsel with another firm too).

I've been saying for years that the legislature should stop being a part time gig; they pay full time wages ($79,500, plus perks on position). Yet, they allow members to work elsewhere - like law firms, and can serve up conflicts of interest in no time. Eliminate the outside work, and you eliminate a major source of conflicts of interest.

Silver has stood against those reforms for years, in part because he benefited from the status quo arrangement. According to the NYT:

While it is legal for lawmakers to hold outside jobs, investigators said Mr. Silver failed to list the payments from the firm, Goldberg & Iryami, on his annual financial disclosure filings with the state.

In the past, Mr. Silver has been criticized for his outside law practice, a lucrative career that supplements the $121,000 he earns as speaker.

In 2013, Mr. Silver earned at least $650,000 in legal income, including work for the personal injury law firm, Weitz & Luxenberg, according to his most recent financial disclosure filing.

But what he does to earn that income has long been a mystery in Albany, and Mr. Silver has refused to provide details about his work.

He also managed to survive threats to his speakership when there were multiple sexual harassment/sexual assault cases that his office bungled/fumbled/buried. These include the Michael Boxley matter (who was one of his top staffers), investigations into whether other Assembly members engaged in sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct, including Micah Kellner, Vito Lopez, and secret settlements to silence the scandals. Silver admits that he shouldn't have used public money to fund the Lopez settlement.

The Assembly has paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements over these and other sexual harassment cases involving members and staffers. That doesn't count the boatload of money spent on legal fees.

Silver's actions in those cases should have been grounds for his caucus to send him packing, but he used divide and conquer to split the caucus from picking a replacement.

But he couldn't outrun federal prosecutor Preet Bharara. He's managed to do more to roll up corruption in Albany than Gov. Cuomo's defanged Moreland Commission. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I suspect there's lots more to come.

Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue

I learned about the execution style killing of two NYPD officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, in Brooklyn while at a family gathering, and it is heartbreaking to learn under any circumstances.

These officers were doing their jobs, trying to reduce crime in a high-crime area of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn they weren't even from the local precinct but  rather called in from other parts of the city to help. The man who killed them had an agenda that had nothing to do with protests or protesters; he had a lengthy criminal record and had shot and nearly killed his girlfriend before coming up to NYC to engage in more mayhem.

But NYPD supporters who ignore all that ails the Department and that there are bad officers in their midst, will try everything to link the killer to the protests. The PBA's Pat Lynch and others will try and blame the Mayor for the killings, claiming that the Mayor doesn't support the officers wholeheartedly and without reservations.

The problem is that there's no truth to the matter asserted. The Mayor does support the police. He also doesn't want anyone to tolerate criminal behavior by the police. He wants justice applied evenly and fairly. He has to warn his son (who is black) that police might not respect him or treat him properly because of the color of his skin, even if he does nothing wrong. That's not disrespecting the police; that's stating an objective fact. Police in NYC, and nationally, do engage in racial profiling and they do stop blacks far more often than whites when adjusting for per capita.

Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue. It's originally found in the Old Testament. It's a call for justice and to follow the law.

It's not just an empty slogan.

I've been referring to this belief quite frequently in the past several months, if only because it's become abundantly clear that there are some people who don't think that justice applies to everyone.

Some people believe that law enforcement is immune from being responsible for their actions that result in the death of unarmed people and particularly unarmed black men and children. This belief extends to the police and prosecutors who are supposed to uphold the law.

When the police and prosecutors fail to do their jobs properly, that harms everyone - it's a breach of the social compact that the police have with us. And they have to be responsible for their actions as well.

It's pitiful that the police boosters are trying to pin blame on people like Al Sharpton or Mayor DeBlasio for the shooting of the two cops; we don't hear these same voices blaming right wingers like Rush or Hannity when white supremacists and sovereign citizens use the same rhetoric and vitriol in stalking and targeting law enforcement. There, those people are categorized as lone wolfs and not representative of everyone else.

Personal responsibility.

It cuts both ways. It is ultimately the responsibility of the shooters and criminals who carry out these acts. It is also the responsibility for everyone to call out those who use extreme rhetoric.

Justice demands it.

The need to seek justice for those who are killed at the hands of police is not mutually exclusive with the need respect or to mourn their losses in such horrible circumstances. The NYPD has done heroic things, such as running into the burning WTC before it came crashing down on 9/11, and they've killed unarmed black men including Sean Bell, Eric Garner, and Amadou Diallo. They've sodomized Abner Louima, and the fight for justice continues. Good cops shouldn't stand to see their ranks sullied by those who violate the social compact, and yet that's exactly the message we get from their union leadership who blames the assassination on the mayor who represents an entire city, and not just a police union.

Justice demands it.

Cross posted at LGF.

Turning the Screws; Prosecutors Looking at Indicting Gov. Christie's Inner Circle

Esquire Magazine is reporting that the federal prosecutor in New Jersey, Paul Fishman, is preparing to indict four of Gov. Chris Christie's inner circle over their actions relating to Bridgegate.
The indictments are pending against Bill Baroni and David Wildstein, who were at the Port Authority, Bridget Kelly and Bill Stepien, who were in the governor's office.

You could see the writing on the wall now for months, but Fishman is actually looking at getting evidence of wrongdoing by Christie himself.

Fishman’s challenge is to nail down specific criminal charges on several fronts -- the diversion of Port Authority money to fund New Jersey road and bridge projects; the four-day rush-hour closures of George Washington Bridge lanes in Ft. Lee; and a web of real-estate deals spun by David Samson, long a Christie crony, when he chaired the PA’s Board of Commissioners as Christie’s appointee. (One such deal, a stalled office-tower development in Hoboken, New Jersey, is central to a claim that Christie’s lieutenant governor told the town’s mayor that the state would withhold Hurricane Sandy relief aid from Hoboken if the mayor didn’t sign off on the development project.)

Whatever Christie says or does -- and whatever potential donors or Jimmy Fallon and his viewers think -- the question that truly matters is whether Fishman’s pursuit leads to the governor himself. Christie’s Port appointees -- not only Samson, but former PA Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni and his oddball sidekick David Wildstein -- all face near-certain indictment and are being pressed to hand up Christie, as is the governor’s former chief counsel, Charlie McKenna.

Wildstein, portrayed as the mastermind behind Ft. Lee’s traffic problems, has made proffers to Fishman’s investigators -- hoping to trade information to the prosecutor in exchange for gentler legal treatment -- but Fishman has cut no deals with anyone so far, and the looming indictments have encouraged Christie’s PA appointees to sing. “Don’t underestimate what Wildstein has on Christie,” says one source. “And Wildstein and Baroni have both turned on Samson. If Samson doesn't give Fishman Christie, Samson is toast.”

Bridgegate opened a window into the inner workings at the Port Authority and the New Jersey governor's office, and the back-room deals that exceeded the authority of the bistate agency to fund projects outside its scope.

In particular, I'm talking about the Pulaski Skyway reconstruction. It was a much needed project, but Gov. Christie didn't want to use state money (which would have required increasing taxes/fees in the state to cover the empty transportation trust fund). So, his office concocted a rationale for using the former ARC tunnel funds that the Port Authority had set aside to use on the skyway reconstruction.

So, the indictments are all pending, but the question is who will crack first. My bet is still on Bridget Kelly, who was the only one of the four to actually be fired. The rest were "retired" and allowed to resign with full benefits. That would lead to a whole lot of resentment against the Governor.

But there's an additional wrinkle, and that's David Samson, who was also at the Port Authority. Samson is the big fish that would lead to Christie himself. If Samson turn's on Christie, then that would likely lead to indictments against Christie himself.

Of course, it's rather ironic that Fishman is Christie's successor at the federal prosecutor's office, and that Christie used similar actions to indict corrupt politicians while federal prosecutor.

One Way To Reduce Gun Crime - Solve Nonfatal Shootings

Gun control and the right to bear arms has been on the minds of many since the Newtown massacre and the murder of two firefighters responding to a fire outside Rochester, New York. There are some things that can be done without even addressing the issue of gun control. One of them involves better law enforcement investigation of nonfatal shooting crimes.

A startling amount of them go unsolved for one reason or another.

If someone is murdered in NJ for example, 65% of the cases are closed as solved. For nonfatal shootings, the percentage plummets to 21%. Figure that many of the nonfatal shooting perps go on to commit other crimes.

A more concerted effort to solve the nonfatal gun crimes could have a significant effect on the crime rates and firearms incidents statewide. Heck, many police departments don't even track that kind of information.

It's an area ripe for reform and concentration of effort.

"You’ve got dozens and dozens, if not scores, of dangerous people who commit heinous crimes, who walk away and who are not held to account, and that has all kinds of implications for public safety in those towns," said Eugene O’Donnell, John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor in Manhattan, and a former assistant district attorney. He said failure to track nonfatal shootings underscores "the medieval approach that police have to crime statistics. You would think that this would be a barometer of the safety climate and the police would be on top of it."

While trying to gather information for this story, The Star-Ledger found few police departments track nonfatal shootings or the number of those cases solved. In some places, like Jersey City, the data was readily available. But most agencies needed several months to compile the statistics because the incidents first had to be identified then organized.

Because the category is not tracked as closely as homicides, experts said many law enforcement agencies may not comprehend the full extent of the problem. That would be a mistake, said Wayne Fisher, a professor at the Rutgers University Police Institute and its former director. The low closure rates in New Jersey, he said, can pose a serious threat to the public.

"What’s left on the street is both the firearm and the person that’s willing to use the firearm," Fisher said. "Let’s face it, an offender who is willing to shoot a gun at another person is an obvious threat to the public safety, whether or not that bullet, misses, injures, or takes the life of the intended victim."

Earlier this month, a 19-year-old Newark man was shot multiple times while driving through the city’s South Ward, an attack for which he remains hospitalized and barely conscious, investigators said.

Police have not identified a suspect, and no witness has stepped forward. The teen’s passenger, who was the intended target, has barely spoken to police, and the victim has been unable to communicate.

If police were forced to take a better look at nonfatal shootings and devote more resources to those crimes, they could not only bring down the crime rates, but close those cases and bring the criminals behind them to justice.

There are serious roadblocks to overcome, notably because many of these crimes go unsolved because of a lack of witnesses or other evidence that can be used to track down those responsible.

It will also involve spending more money on investigations, including crime labs and technologies that some police departments can ill afford in the current economic climate. Yet, focusing on these particular crimes could pay dividends in the long run and improve public safety considerably.

The Harassment Scandal That Threatens To Take Down NYS Democratic Leadership

Over the past couple of weeks, a growing scandal in the New York State Assembly has meant that Assemblyman Vito Lopez lost his chairmanship of the powerful Housing Committee over revelations that he harassed multiple women over a period of years. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver stripped Lopez of his chairmanship, but then it was revealed that Silver authorized the payment of a $100k settlement to two women over additional harassment claims.

Then, there's word that NYS Attorney General Eric Schneiderman signed off on the settlements, which used taxpayer funds, despite claims that Schneiderman's office had not given Speaker Silver guidance.

Speaker Silver admits that he and his office screwed up the handling of Lopez's case.

We have a couple of interrelated issues: (1) the criminal/civil liabilities of Lopez for carrying out harassment in his office, which included suggesting to female staffers that they ought to wear more revealing clothes or go braless; (2) Speaker Silver's handling of the cases and not making the issues public; (3) AG Schneiderman's handling of the case from his office.

It's an issue that threatens to overshadow the convention this week. Censure isn't enough, and a more thorough house cleaning needs to occur, including the Speaker himself:

Mr. Silver announced on Aug. 24 that he was censuring Mr. Lopez, 71, after a bipartisan Assembly ethics committee found credible evidence that Mr. Lopez had groped, kissed and verbally harassed two female employees. Mr. Lopez was also stripped of his chairmanship of the Assembly’s housing committee.

Over the next few days, reports emerged that Mr. Silver had signed off on a $135,000 secret settlement of claims against Mr. Lopez brought by two other women, and that the previous claims were not referred to the Assembly’s ethics committee. Mr. Lopez subsequently said he would not seek another term as chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party but has refused calls to resign his Assembly seat.

“The only time I ever had a conversation with him was about 10 minutes before I issued the letter stripping him of his chairmanship, and then I had a subsequent conversation with him last week and I asked him to resign,” Mr. Silver said. “He obviously didn’t agree with me, but he didn’t say much. He just indicated that he couldn’t — that he wasn’t going to.”

In statements last week, Mr. Silver, the Legislature’s most powerful Democrat, acknowledged mistakes in his handling of the alleged harassment incidents.

“Ultimately, I’m the speaker and I’m responsible, and clearly mistakes were made,” he said on Monday.

Mr. Silver said he first heard about claims made against Mr. Lopez in January. The first two women who brought claims were represented by a team of lawyers that included Gloria Allred, the prominent Los Angeles attorney. They initially sought $1.2 million.

Mr. Silver said his legal staff acted in good faith, explaining that they were trying to avoid costly litigation and to accede to the wishes of the alleged victims.

“What was demanded was tremendously more than what the case was ultimately settled for,” he said, “and the judgment of settling the case was that we will save the state money on potential liabilities here, in addition to the fact that the assemblyman agreed to pay a sum for his own actions.”

Trying to settle the matter makes sense since the costs of litigation could have been far higher, but the failure to refer the matter to the ethics committee was a massive failure on the Speaker's part.

To have the AG lie and obfuscate about his role in signing off on the deal is unforgivable.

This is hardly the first time that Silver has come under fire for botching the handling of harassment or sex abuse in the Assembly; his own staffer was convicted of sexual assault and his office attempted to cover up the details.

For far too long, the state legislature has operated under the Bear Mountain Compact, which is an unwritten rule that what happens in Albany stays in Albany. It created a permissive attitude where legislators can act as they please and ethics and the law were meant for everyone else, but optional for those who enact the law.

Two separate investigations are underway: one by the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) and another by the Staten Island district attorney who is filling in for the recused Brooklyn prosecutor. Among those allegedly harassed is current NYC City Councilwoman Diana Reyna, who was one of Lopez's staffers.

The JCOPE is hamstrung by the fact that Silver gets to appoint some of its members, and they can limit their investigation rather than going after all the malfeasance involved - meaning that Silver could skate by on his own handling of the growing scandal.

The sad thing is that Silver will win reelection handily (and retain his speakership) and so too will Lopez. While Lopez said that he would not seek reelection past this November, he's going to win handily. Far too many constituents ignore massive problems with the candidates they elect - including criminal behavior. For the legislature to clean up its act, voters have to demand changes. Legislators aren't going to do it to themselves.

Silver's called for Lopez to resign, though Lopez has rebuffed the call thus far. Some Democrats are calling for Lopez to resign immediately, including New York Senator Chuck Schumer (who originally hails from Brooklyn). Those calls need to come hard and fast, and the Assembly Democrats ought to be considering a new speaker but Silver's lasted as long as he has as speaker because he's the consummate professional politicial - dividing and conquering potential alternatives to his speaker's position.

More Details Emerge About Anarchist Plot At Fort Stewart

New details have emerged about that Fort Stewart terror plot involving anarchists. It turns out that one of the four soldiers was a suspect in his wife's death before he went and murdered two other people who were "loose ends" that needed to be taken care of before they could carry out their wider plots - to capture an ammo dump, commit mass murder, and assassinate the president.

Isaac Aguigui funded the anarchist militia FEAR, or Forever Enduring Always Ready, with up to $500,000 in life insurance benefits he collected after his wife's death in July 2011, prosecutors said.

Aguigui and three other soldiers stationed at Fort Stewart in southeastern Georgia near Savannah have since been charged with murder and other offenses stemming from the December 5, 2011, shooting deaths of a former soldier and his teenage girlfriend.

Aguigui, 21, and two others were scheduled to appear in court in Long County, Georgia, for a hearing on Thursday. A third co-defendant reached a plea deal with prosecutors on Monday.

The accused militia members had plotted to assassinate President Barack Obama and to attack their Army base and a dam in Aguigui's home state of Washington, Assistant County District Attorney Isabel Pauley said during those proceedings.

They also discussed poisoning the apple crop in Washington state and had purchased $87,000 worth of weapons to carry out their planned attacks, she said.

Prosecutors said the group crossed the line from conspiracy to actual violence when they killed Michael Roark, 19, and Tiffany York, 17, whose bodies were found in a wooded area near the base, in a bid to keep them from exposing the militia.

One of the four charged has already rolled on the other three - taking a plea deal for voluntary manslaughter and avoiding the death penalty as long as he continues cooperating.

Penn State University Priorities Askew

Penn State, which continues reeling from the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal, has decided that it will no longer play Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline at football games.

School officials say that the decision has come after a few years of deliberations about the use of the song and suggestive lyrics.

On Monday, it was revealed that Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” — a Beaver Stadium staple — will not be on the playlist when Penn State opens its season Saturday against Ohio U.

While the school denied the song’s removal had anything to do with the lyrics, “touching me, touching you,” it’s hard to imagine the powers that be at Penn State just decided the song had run its course.

“Sweet Caroline has been brought up in recent years as to whether or not it should remain a part of the playlist,” Greg J. Myford, Penn State’s associate athletic director of business relations & communications, said in a statement. “We hear from fans each year on whether or not we should continue it, given that it happens to be played in so many other professional and collegiate venues and has no real origination here at Penn State.”

It’s nice to see the school has its priorities straight.

The university considered removing the song from regular rotation in recent years? That means that Penn State devoted more attention to the playing of a song that has widespread airplay at sports events around the country - including as a mainstay of Boston Red Sox games - than it did to making sure that Sandusky's alleged sex abuse of minors was properly investigated and handled by law enforcement.

Penn State is more concerned about how it is viewed than in doing the right thing to protect the community.

The song has nothing to do with the scandal, and yet it has everything to do with how poorly school officials have handled the fiasco. It's an innocent bystander hit by the fallout, and the school's excuse rings hollow.

Penn State put more thought into removing the song from a playlist than it ever gave to Sandusky's abuse.

That's a sad state of affairs.

Developing: Multiple Casualties From Shooting Outside Empire State Building

Shortly after 9:00 AM local time, multiple reports came in indicating that there was a shooting in the vicinity of the Empire State Building. It appears that there are at least six injuries, and at least one person killed besides the shooter. The NYPD and FDNY are on the scene, which has been secured.

The reports indicate that the shooter may have been recently fired from a business that operates in the building.

Police apparently shot the gunman, but not before the gunman killed at least one person. Several others have been taken to area hospitals. The area around the Empire State Building has been closed to traffic as the investigation continues.

At least four of those injured were shot. There were about 10 injured.

The victims were apparently targeted by the gunman. In one instance, a witness claims to have seen the gunman walk up to one of the victims and shot them point blank in the head.

UPDATE:
More details emerging, including several potential motives:

The investigation into the matter was in its earliest stages, and the official said he was unsure of the details and circumstances that led to the shooting.

Two law enforcement officials said investigators have concluded that the shooting had no connection to terrorism and that it appeared to stem from a domestic dispute of some kind. A third said it may have been sparked by a robbery or dispute in the street.

One woman said that she had just come out of a dentist’s office near the Empire State Building when the shooting happened.

“Suddenly I heard two shots or three shots, boom boom boom, and I saw two guys, they go to the floor,” said the woman, who would only give her first name, Monica. “I was really afraid.”

Andrew Pellenberg, 23, and a friend, both from New Jersey, were thinking about visiting the Empire State Building. “We heard 10 to 15 gunshots, and it was all in a 30-second span,” Mr. Pellenberg said.

Several of the victims were treated at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. The wounded were taken to Bellevue Hospital and St. Luke’s Roosevelt, with the more seriously injured going to Bellevue, the official said.

Todd Akin's Comments Symptomatic of Bigger Problems For GOP

GOP officials are trying their hardest to try and contain the fallout from the reprehensible comments made by Missouri Congressman Todd Akin who is seeking a US Senate seat in a race against Claire McCaskill. Even Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his vice president nominee Paul Ryan called on Akin to quit the campaign. Akin has refused thus far, and he missed the deadline to withdraw without requiring court approval (or to pay the costs for redoing the ballots).

The problem for the GOP is that his comments weren't merely a misstatement or ill-conceived (as Akin himself put it on his own website - awkwardly at that). They are symptomatic of a much larger problem for the GOP. You've got Republicans who support restricting abortion to only those cases of forcible rape - or restricting federal funding for all abortions, including in cases of rape or incest.

Then, you've got social conservatives claiming that their claims that women can't get pregnant from rape and base it on research carried out by the Nazis during World War II (where they took prisoners and subjected them to gas chambers to see if stress affected ovulation).

The misogyny runs deep with Republicans. It's not just Akin. There's Kansas state Rep. Pete DeGraaf who suggested women should plan ahead for rape the way he keeps a spare tire. Indiana state Rep. Eric Turner said some women might fake being raped in order to get free abortions.

Then, there's the litany of attempts to impose onerous and invasive ultrasound procedures that would have the effect of reducing the number of abortions and abortion providers, including Virginia. Moreover, such requirements might constitute state-imposed rape on such women because the procedure isn't medically required or indicated.

Or the series of personhood amendments being propagated by Republicans across the nation that would give an embryo rights that would necessarily limit the rights of women to control their own bodies. Moreover, those same personhood amendments could seriously restrict access to in-vitro fertilization and other similar techniques, to say nothing of embroyonic stem cell research.

But perhaps the biggest sign that Akin isn't an isolated case is that Akin claims that the fallout from his comments has led to a big increase in campaign contributions although it should be noted that he bested his modest goal of $10,000:

“Donations are pouring in. Thank you for standing up against the liberal elite,” Mr. Akin wrote on Twitter last night.

A counted on Mr. Akin’s website said, as of this writing, Mr. Akin had raised $10,638 since beginning a “still standing” campaign following his remarks. On Twitter last night, Mr. Akin said his goal was hitting “$10k to fight the liberal elite.” He also posted a series of messages blaming the “liberal elite” for driving a “a lot of negativity” his way and for pushing around and otherwise intimidating those in the pro-life movement.

I'm not surprised by that.

The true tragedy is that the race for the Missouri Senate seat is as close as it is even with the furor about Akin's comments. Akin may still win the contest against McCaskill. That's troublesome in its own right and shows just how deep support for the belief system that Akin revealed in last Sunday's interview truly goes.

Nor am I surprised when Kirk Cameron comes out in support of Akin. Cameron went on CNN to defend Akin:

One defender? Kirk Cameron. The child-star-turned-evangelist was on CNN this morning discussing the remarks, and Cameron encouraged people to watch the whole video (which you can here) and then said, “[Akin] is clearly a pro-life advocate and I respect him. He said that he misspoke and that he misphrased something and that he apologized.”

Rep. Akin released a statement after the interview saying he “misspoke,” but hasn’t backed away from his remarks. Despite calls on Akin to get out of the Missouri Senate race, so far he’s staying in.

“I’m the kind of person that believes that I would like to be evaluated by my entire career and my entire life, not two words that I would misspeak and then later apologize for,” Cameron told CNN. “So he’s in a tough spot.”

The problem is that Akin didn't misspeak. He said exactly what he thought. He said precisely what his ultimate intentions are. He didn't misphrase anything. Akin said exactly what he thought. He believes that there is such a thing as legitimate rape - and his prior history about trying to impose restrictions for forcible rape are proof that this is part of what Akin actually believes. It goes to the belief that some women who are victims are rape deserved what they got - it's a combination of slut shaming, treating women as second class citizens who can't be trusted with control over their own bodies, and is misogynistic at its core.

Cameron's comments are echoed by other religious leaders, including Bryan Fischer.

In other words, if we go by what Akin has said and done over his entire political career - these words that Akin claims was a misspeak aren't. Akin meant exactly what he said. He cowrote legislation that would create the nonsensical category of forcible rape along with Ryan (but which didn't get passed because of the furor it created).

Cameron is right in one respect though- Akin is in a tough spot, along with the rest of the GOP that has wholly subsumed the social conservative agenda.

UPDATE:
Lest anyone think that I'm not sourcing my materials, here's links to the following as referenced above:

The link showing Ryan and Akin's attempt to create a category of forcible rape (and there's a new report indicating a separate attempt by Ryan to include forcible rape in a second piece of legislation).

Bryan Fischer said that Akin's comments were right.

And here's where Akin and others got that trope about how rape victims can't get pregnant (Seattle Post going into the history).

Here's where Gawker recorded Akin's awkward website attempts to try and generate campaign contributions from this mess.

Standard Chartered Agrees To $340 Million Fine From NYS Regulator

Federal and state regulations prohibit certain kinds of conduct by banks. That includes money laundering and dealing with Iran. Standard Chartered violated both ends of that - they not only engaged in money laundering deals with Iran, but lied to regulators and sought to cover up their activities.

Benjamin M. Lawsky, New York Superintendent of Financial Services, claimed that Standard Chartered engaged in $250 billion of money laundering. There was much hand wringing, including from federal regulators who didn't necessarily like the idea of the state regulator jumping on Standard Chartered.

The bank steadfastly refused and rejected the claims.

That is, right up until the moment that the bank agreed to settle the case with New York for a civil fine of $340 million.

In addition to the civil penalty, Lawsky said the bank agreed to an outside monitor for at least two years to check on controls on money-laundering at its New York branch.

Lawsky's aggressive stance heightened his public profile just months after the Department of Financial Services, the agency he heads, was created out of the state's banking and insurance regulators.

Within minutes of the announcement, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo lauded the "effectiveness and leadership" of the new agency.

"New York needed a tough and fair regulator for the banking and insurance industries to protect consumers and investors," Cuomo said.

But Lawsky has also drawn fire by jumping ahead of a two-year probe into Standard Chartered by the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the Justice Department, and New York prosecutors.

"It's very unfortunate this wasn't done as a global state and federal settlement," said Ed Wilson, a former senior attorney at the U.S. Treasury Department.

As negotiations with Lawsky progressed last week and this week, the bank held separate talks with other authorities. It had hoped to land a deal on both fronts, but Lawsky's solo announcement Tuesday made clear that had not happened.

Underscoring a continuing divide with Lawsky, the other authorities issued short statements saying they would continue to work together.

"Treasury will continue working with our state and federal partners to hold Standard Chartered accountable for any sanctionable activity that may have occurred," the Treasury Department said.

Lawsky says that the bank agreed that the conduct at issue involved transactions of at least $250 billion, even if the bank claims that it amounted to $14 million.

In his announcement on Tuesday, Lawsky said the bank had "agreed that the conduct at issue involved transactions of at least $250 billion." But he gave no details on what protections the deal gave Standard Chartered.

Standard Chartered believes that it limited its liability further by entering the deal, but what I'd like to know is where all this money is going to go. The money is being collected by the NYS DFS, and that potentially represents a windfall to the state. I'd like to see an accounting of these funds.

At the same time, there's still the potential for the Treasury Department to impose its own penalties against the bank. That could result in a comparable sum but it also highlights that banking and financial regulators have a long way to go before they can claim to have gotten these kinds of transactions to stop.

NCAA Imposes $60 Million "Fine" And Other Penalties on Penn State

The NCAA has imposed a $60 million penalty and vacated all of the school's wins from 1998 to 2011. The $60 million is going to found a fund to compensate victims; the $60 million isn't in addition to whatever settlements come against the school or its officials.

Let that sink in a moment.

Penn State's fine is equal to one year's revenues from the football program.

The schools wins are vacated from 1998 to 2011.

The punishment also included the loss of some scholarships over four years and the vacating of all of the team’s victories from 1998 to 2011, but stopped short of forcing the university to shut down the football team for a season or more, the so-called death penalty. Still, the penalties are serious enough that it is expected to take Penn State’s football program, one of the most successful in the country, years before it will be able to return to the sport’s top echelon.

The postseason ban and the scholarship restrictions essentially prevent the program from fielding a team that can be competitive in the Big Ten. The N.C.A.A. will also allow Penn State players to transfer to another university, where they can play immediately, inviting the possibility of a mass exodus. Penn State will lose 10 initial scholarships and 20 total scholarships each year for a four-year period.

In announcing the penalties, Mark Emmert, the N.C.A.A. president, called the case the most painful “chapter in the history of intercollegiate athletics,” and said it could be argued that the punishment was “greater than any other seen in N.C.A.A. history.” He said Penn State accepted the penalties when they were presented to the university.

The N.C.A.A.'s penalty is the latest action to stem from the scandal involving Sandusky, who was convicted last month of being a serial pedophile. The release of a grand jury report detailing Sandusky’s actions last November led to the firing of the head coach, Joe Paterno; the removal of the university’s president, Graham B. Spanier; and charges against two other top university officials.

Emmert said that no punishment the N.C.A.A. could impose would change the damage done by Sandusky’s acts, but “the culture, actions and inactions that allowed them to be victimized will not be tolerated in collegiate athletics.”

Ed Ray, the president of Oregon State and chairman of the N.C.A.A.'s executive committee, said the case, and the sanctions imposed, represented a declaration by university presidents and chancellors that “this has to stop.” By that he meant a win at all costs mentality with respect to intercollegiate sports.

And all of this is because Penn State officials thought that protecting the football program and the university's reputation was more important than protecting innocent kids.

Now, the program is hit with the stigma of condoning the abuse. And it still is insufficient.

Sorry, but they deserved to have the football program canned altogether. The school's officials actively engaged in a coverup of sexual abuse and it was institutionalized by those in the athletic department and from top school officials. $60 million is a huge sum, but one that isn't going to miss a beat with a school's endowment the size of Penn State ($1.8 billion systemwide). Losing scholarships, bowl appearances, etc., will hurt, but it's not going to rectify the way that the school completely abrogated its responsibilities to the community.

People need to learn that there are serious consequences for condoning sexual abuse. A fine isn't going to cut it in my book.

As for the students in the football program, they should be allowed to transfer to other schools with no penalization; they were bystanders to the failures and had no way to know that they were going to a program that was as debased as Penn State was. Let them transfer to other programs with no loss of scholarships or eligibility. This isn't on them.

Oh, and I still see that the Paterno family questions the Freeh report's conclusions about Joe P. Sorry, but I have no sympathy for them or Paterno's legacy. He knew, or had reason to know of the abuse, and did nothing - and worse, let Sandusky continue to play a role in the sports program and work with kids.

The school finally took down the statue honoring Paterno over the weekend. That's little more than a symbolic gesture and cold consolation to those who were abused.

UPDATE:
The NCAA decision also allows football players to transfer at no loss of eligibility or loss of scholarship. That's good for the students, but the university should have seen even greater penalties. The football program should have been disbanded. The university institutionalized the failings that allowed Sandusky to commit his abuse and didn't do enough to protect innocents.

The scandal will eventually fade and the program will eventually return in full form.

Heck, a 1950s point shaving scandal at a bunch of NYC area colleges had longer lasting results:

While Kentucky was forced to cancel one season of play (1952-53), it was the only program that was not permanently hobbled by the scandal. To date, Bradley is the only other affected school to have appeared in a final major media poll. However, none of the programs would suffer more than CCNY and LIU. Following the discovery of several other irregularities, CCNY deemphasized its athletic program and dropped down to what is now Division III. LIU shut down its entire athletic program from 1951 to 1957, and didn't return to Division I until the 1980s.

Penn State should have at least done the same as LIU, or the NCAA should have imposed a similar fate.

Horrific: Massacre At Colorado Movie Theater; 12+ Killed

It's absolutely horrific to learn of the news this morning about the massacre in Aurora, Colorado overnight at a showing of the Batman movie. At least 12 people were killed when the gunman stormed into a movie theater during the showing of the Dark Knight Rises. Dozens more were injured. A suspect is now in custody and has been identified as James Holmes, 24, and that he was a former student at the University of Colorado.

Authorities recovered four guns -- a rifle similar to an AR-15, a shotgun and two Glock handguns, a senior official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms familiar with the investigation told CNN. It was unclear how many of the weapons were fired, the official said.

After the suspect told police there was a bomb at his apartment, officers went there and found a "very sophisticated" booby trap inside, Aurora police Chief Dan Oates told reporters. However, the senior ATF official said no explosives were found.

Some kind of device, either a smoke bomb or tear gas, was activated before Holmes opened fire.

People (particularly those on twitter) need to take a step back from their keyboards and think about what they're writing.

1. A paucity of information means that your first impressions may end up being completely wrong.
2. The discussions about gun control or concealed carry wait while investigators figure out what's going on here. They're dealing with what's an apparently still active crime scene at the guy's apartment; it's apparently booby trapped in a manner that may take some time to disable.
3. The guy apparently withdrew from medical school last month; could have been a 4th year.
4. Political affiliation may have absolutely nothing to do with the heinous crimes committed. Or not.
5. Mental status may have something to do with it. Or not.

There's more to worry about now than the political fallout at the moment; there's a whole bunch of people who are sitting in hospitals around Aurora and Denver - they were spending an evening hoping to be entertained by a new movie and instead are facing a life and death struggle after being shot. Our thoughts and prayers should be with them, their loved ones, and their families and friends.

The politics of firearms, gun control, mental health, etc. can wait. Of course, since we're into instant gratification, everyone will now proceed to figure out the guy's motivations, make claims that wont hold up to scrutiny, or otherwise make calls for this action or that.

It seems that some folks have already made up their minds about the events - one person tweeted that this is the reason to expand concealed carry, as though having one more person with a firearm in a chaotic situation would have saved the day. The eyewitness accounts seem to indicate that the guy started firing on the crowds and they didn't know whether this was part of the movie or not since they were in the midst of a battle scene on screen. By the time they realized this was all to horrifyingly real, the crowds began to rush out.

Witnesses reported that bullets came through the walls into adjacent movie theaters, which means that even if there were other people at the movie theater carrying firearms under concealed carry, it wouldn't have mattered to someone in the adjacent theaters if bullets were flying in different directions. The shooter wouldn't have been in that particular theater. It was chaos as people didn't seem to realize the deadly events transpiring in their midst.

I've also seen reports that among those injured were kids as young as 3 months. That's just nuts on so many levels. Other Twitters are wondering why 6 year olds were at a midnight showing of Batman.

Also, I can't tell just how many people were shot and how many were injured just trying to get out of there, but at least 20 of the injured were shot:

Of the wounded, at least 20 were being treated at the University of Colorado Hospital, said spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery. All of the wounded suffered from gunshot wounds, which ranged from minor to critical, she said.

"They're arriving by police, by ambulance. Some are walking in," she said.
The victims being treated there ranged in age from 3 months to 45, the hospital said.

Denver Health Center had six patients from the shooting, one of them in critical condition, five in fair, said Shelly Davis, house supervisor.
Swedish Health Center spokeswoman Nicole Williams said her hospital was treating three people, two of them in critical and one in fair condition. A fourth patient was on the way, she said.

Parker Adventist Hospital was treating two people for minor injuries, according to a spokeswoman.

Hundreds of police officers descended on the theater, and the FBI has joined the investigation.

My thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by today's events.

While this is going over in Colorado, closer to home, police in Paramus NJ arrested a guy on a warrant from a neighboring town - and found a significant stash of weapons:

Police entered the house and found Eng, 43, asleep in his bedroom with a fully loaded 9 mm handgun under his pillow and two other handguns on his nightstand, Brock said.

On their way in, officers found two bags of high-capacity, fully loaded firearm magazines and hundreds of rounds of ammunition by the front door, police said. In the kitchen, they found three military-style ammunition boxes that contained thousands of rounds of ammunition, Brock said.

Police ultimately recovered a total of five long-barrel firearms, three handguns and 3,500 rounds of ammunition. A 90-round capacity “drum” magazine was also seized, along with assorted firearms equipment including scopes, ammunition cans, holsters and rifle stocks, Brock said.

Before acting on a warrant out of Bogota, the Paramus police had learned that Eng might have weapons in his home. He also had stated in court that if the police came to his house, there would be “two dead Paramus cops,” Brock said.

The suspect was released on $65,000 bail, despite the threats to his now ex-wife, the threat about police, and the weapons cache he had. I'd say that was far too low considering his history, but police should be commended for carrying out the arrest without a loss of life and averting a potential massacre close to home.

Penn State Report On Sandusky Finds Repeatedly Concealing Key Information

The report by the Special Investigator (the law firm headed by former FBI Director Louis Freeh) hired by Penn State to look into the Jerry Sandusky abuse of children on campus has been released (full report here) and it appears that the university is in trouble.

Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State. The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized. Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley never demonstrated, through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky’s victims until after Sandusky’s arrest.

In critical written correspondence that we uncovered on March 20th of this year, we see evidence of their proposed plan of action in February 2001 that included reporting allegations about Sandusky to the authorities. After Mr. Curley consulted with Mr. Paterno, however, they changed the plan and decided not to make a report to the authorities. Their failure to protect the February 9, 2001 child victim, or make attempts to identify him, created a dangerous situation for other unknown, unsuspecting young boys who were lured to the Penn State campus and football games by Sandusky and victimized repeatedly by him.

Further, they exposed this child to additional harm by alerting Sandusky, who was the only one who knew the child’s identity, about what McQueary saw in the shower on the night of February 9, 2001. The stated reasons by Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley for not taking action to identify the victim and for not reporting Sandusky to the police or Child Welfare are:

(1) Through counsel, Messrs. Curley and Schultz have stated that the “humane” thing to do in 2001 was to carefully and responsibly assess the best way to handle vague but troubling allegations.

(2) Mr. Paterno said that “I didn’t know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was. So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.”

(3) Mr. Spanier told the Special Investigative Counsel that he was never told by anyone that the February 2001 incident in the shower involved the sexual abuse of a child but only “horsing around.” He further stated that he never asked what “horsing around” by Sandusky entailed.

Taking into account the available witness statements and evidence, it is more reasonable to conclude that, in order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at Penn State University – Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley – repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse from the authorities, the Board of Trustees, Penn State community, and the public at large.

They concealed all kinds of critical information on a repeated basis, and held Spanier, Schultz, Curry, and Paterno responsible for ongoing failures to protect against Sandusky's child abuse, essentially empowering Sandusky to continue abusing children.

If you don't think that this report will play heavily in potential civil suits for those cases that might not have passed the statute of limitations, you haven't been paying attention. The University is likely going to have to pay out multi-million dollar settlements with those who were abused, because the investigation shows that those key officials knew, or had reason to know of the abuse, and did nothing to stop it.

DNA Evidence Links Unsolved Murder To OWS Subway Protest? UPDATE: Lab Error?

The NYPD made a rather startling announcement last night. They indicated that DNA evidence gathered at the crime scene for the 2004 murder of Sarah Fox matches DNA found on a chain used by OWS pranksters in a March 2012 stunt to lock open gates for subway stations so that commuters could go through for free.

Officials have linked forensic evidence from the 2004 murder scene of a 21-year-old Juilliard student to the scene of a recent Occupy Wall Street subway protest, NBC 4 New York has learned.

DNA evidence from the scene of Sarah Fox's murder in Inwood Hill Park eight years ago has been connected to DNA from a chain left in a subway station by Occupy protesters in March, NBC 4 New York first reported Tuesday.

Fox was found nude and strangled in the park in May 2004, days after she disappeared during a daytime jog. Investigators recovered her pink CD player in the woods just yards from her body.

Sources said Tuesday the DNA found on the CD player matches DNA found on a chain left by Occupy Wall Street protesters at the Beverly Road subway station in East Flatbush on March 28, 2012.

That Wednesday morning, protesters chained open emergency gates and taped up turnstiles in eight subway stations and posted fliers encouraging riders to enter for free.

A "communique" posted online later that day by the "Rank and File Initiative" described the act as a protest against service cuts, fare hikes and transit employees' working conditions.

It was attributed to "teams of activists, many from Occupy Wall Street... with rank and file workers from the Transport Workers Union Local 100 and the Amalgamated Transit Union."

No one was arrested in the March subway protest incidents. Police are continuing to investigate, and are now working to try to identify the source of the DNA found in common with the chain and the CD player.

There's any number of ways that the DNA could be a match. The same person that murdered Fox could have been among those providing the chains used to chain open the subway entrance or could have been among those who actually chained it open. It could be a transit worker or someone else entirely - such as someone who came into contact with the chains as they walked through.

Some people will attempt to link the murder to OWS, but without having the suspect in custody, there's no way to know for sure. It will depend on where the DNA was obtained from the chain - to rule out inadvertent contact with the chain such as someone passing through at one of the affected stations.

If it is found that someone involved with OWS was involved in this murder, it would be yet another black eye on the group, which had protested at Zuccotti Park for months and which sparked similar protests nationally.

UPDATE:
Well, there was another possibility that I hadn't considered before, but which is now a more likely scenario - lab error.

The DNA that investigators initially believed was recovered from skin cells on the slain woman’s portable compact disc player and from the chain found after the March protest came from a laboratory supervisor at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the person briefed on the matter said.

“The O.C.M.E. tainted the samples and it was the O.C.M.E. supervisor’s whose DNA was on both,” the person said.

But Ellen S. Borakove, a spokeswoman for the Medical Examiner's Office, said, “We’ve excluded all medical examiner personnel.” She added that the office was still working on the test.

The Medical Examiner’s Office maintains a database of employees’ DNA for the purpose of eliminating such errors.

Second Suspect in Bergen County Synagogue Attacks Plotted To Murder Local Officials

A second suspect in a string of anti Semitic attacks across Bergen County, Aakash Dalal, has been charged in relation to a plot to kill local officials, including the Bergen County prosecutor in the original case.

A man accused of trying to firebomb New Jersey synagogues is expected to be in court Friday to face new charges that he allegedly plotted to kill an assistant Bergen County prosecutor working on the case.

Aakash Dalal, 20, is charged with conspiring to kill Assistant Prosecutor Martin Delaney.

Since May, the FBI has been investigating Dalal after learning that he wanted to get a gun and kill Delaney once he was released from jail, officials said.

On Wednesday, investigators executed a search warrant on Dalal’s cell and found evidence of the plot, prosecutors said. They also found a list of “enemies” the suspect kept that included Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli, according to authorities.

Dalal was due to be released from the Bergen County Jail this week after posting $1 million bail.

Dalal was charged in a attacks along with Anthony Graziano including an attack on a Rutherford congregation and its rabbi, who lived in the building. Prosecutors consider Dalal to be the teacher, with Graziano in the role of student.

The judge increased the bail on Dalal to $3 million from $1 million in light of the new charges. That's after an appellate court had reduced the bail from $2.5 million, believing that the original bail amount was excessive.

Prosecutors have said Dalal encouraged and advised Graziano, who is accused of firebombing a Rutherford synagogue and setting fire to a Paramus synagogue in January. Dalal and Graziano also have been accused of spray-painting anti-Semitic graffiti at synagogues in Hackensack and Maywood in December.

The most serious attack came on Jan. 11, when Graziano allegedly hurled several Molotov cocktails into the living quarters of a Rutherford synagogue where a rabbi, his wife and five children were sleeping. The rabbi suffered burns on his hand, but no one else was injured.

Neturei Karta Behind Anti-Semitic Vandalism At Yad Vashem

Israeli authorities have arrested four people in connection with anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled at Yad Vashem and other locations around Israel. The four people arrested are members of Neturei Karta, which refuses to recognize the state of Israel and often sides with the likes of Ahmadinejad and other anti-Israel types worldwide.

Four suspects from Jerusalem, Bnei Brak and Ashdod are under arrest on suspicion of spray-painting hate slogans on the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, Ammunition Hill and other landmark monuments over the last couple months, police announced Tuesday morning.

The arrests were carried out by the elite central unit of the Judea and Samaria district. Police searched the homes of suspects and seized large amounts of texts condemning Zionism, Israel, and PLO flags, as well as paint. Texts suspected to be incitement to hatred were also found on computers.

The suspects confessed to spray painting the graffiti at Yad Vashem, which shocked the country and deeply upset Holocaust survivors. They also confessed to spray painting graffiti at Ammunition Hill on Remembrance Day as well as vandalizing memorials throughout the Jordan Valley.

Jerry Sandusky Found Guilty on 45 of 48 Counts of Abuse

It's a fitting end to Jerry Sandusky's trial. After weeks of hearing from a number of his victims, a jury took just about three days to find him guilty on 45 of 48 charges. He will now spend the rest of his life in prison. The minimum sentence based on Pennsylvania law and the charges is 60 years, which means that the 68 year old Sandusky will never be released from prison. Sentencing, which will be in 90 days, could present a sentence in the hundreds of years if imposed consecutively. Either way, it will be cold comfort to his victims, which now includes his own adopted son:

A jury in Centre County Court convicted Sandusky, 68, of sexually assaulting 10 boys, all of them children from disadvantaged homes whom Sandusky, using his access to the university’s vaunted football program, had befriended and then repeatedly violated. The jury, seven women and five men, more than half with ties to Penn State, returned a verdict on the second day of deliberation.

Sandusky stood stoically as the jury foreman read off the verdicts on the 48 counts against him. The foreman said guilty 45 times. Many of the charges, which include rape and sodomy, carry significant prison terms, and it seems likely that Sandusky will spend the rest of his life behind bars. Sandusky was taken into custody after the verdicts were read.

The case against Sandusky, even before his trial, had exacted an enormous toll. Joe Paterno, the university’s famed head coach who had been alerted to at least one of Sandusky’s attacks on a boy, was fired, went into a kind of exile and was dead of cancer within months. The university’s longtime president, Graham B. Spanier, was dismissed as well, and Penn State officials, alumni and students were forced to confront the possibility that the interests of big-time college sports had trumped concern for the welfare of vulnerable children.

Sandusky, who had been Paterno’s longtime defensive coordinator, had also founded a charity, the Second Mile, to work with troubled youths. In a trial that lasted two weeks, prosecutors asserted that Sandusky had used the charity as his private hunting ground, scouting for potential victims. He gave them gifts and money, invited them to his home, took them to Penn State football games, showered with them at the university’s football building and slept with them in hotel rooms on the road.

Eight men testified during the trial, offering graphic accounts of repeated assaults by Sandusky — on the Penn State campus, in hotel rooms and in the basement of Sandusky’s home. It was painful testimony, the men telling their horrifying stories in public for the first time. Some wept. Others said, with anger and relief both, that they wanted to move on at last.

In one of the case’s final startling chapters, this coming after the case had gone to the jury on Thursday, another man came forward to assert that Sandusky had molested him: it was one of Sandusky’s adopted children, Matt, who said he had offered to testify at the trial.

Matt Sandusky had been one of his father's defenders until the turn of events. He had apparently contacted prosecutors and offered up that Jerry had abused him. Had Jerry gone on the stand to testify in his own defense, Matt would have been called as a rebuttal witness, and it would have been devastating to Jerry's defense, which was predicated on sowing doubt in the jury's eyes that the alleged victims were part of a conspiracy.

The conspiracy theory didn't work out, and I expect that others who had been abused by Sandusky will now come forward.

The guilty verdict isn't the end of things for Penn State either. This will affect the criminal and potential civil cases against the university, especially in light of another Pennsylvania case decided yesterday. That case, involving a Roman Catholic Church official, Msgr. William J. Lynn, who was found guilty of covering up abuse cases in the church, may inform as to the next steps against the university. Penn State officials are on the hook for perjury charges and failing to alert law enforcement to Sandusky's actions. With its deep pockets, the University will rightfully take a big hit because of its actions and inaction in dealing with Sandusky's abuse.

Just imagine had the university and law enforcement dealt with Sandusky with the first reports of abuse came in; how many kids would have been spared abuse? The University knowingly allowed a child predator to not only work at the university, but they allowed him all manner of privileges because of the football program where he worked.

That cannot be tolerated, and I hope that the victims get a measure of satisfaction, although nothing can take away the pain, shame, and grief that Sandusky wrought.

Sandusky was taken into custody after the verdicts were read. The case against Sandusky, even before his trial, had exacted an enormous toll. Joe Paterno, the university’s famed head coach who had been alerted to at least one of Sandusky’s attacks on a boy, was fired, went into a kind of exile and was dead of cancer within months.

The university’s longtime president, Graham B. Spanier, was dismissed as well, and Penn State officials, alumni and students were forced to confront the possibility that the interests of big-time college sports had trumped concern for the welfare of vulnerable children. Sandusky, who had been Paterno’s longtime defensive coordinator, had also founded a charity, the Second Mile, to work with troubled youths. In a trial that lasted two weeks, prosecutors asserted that Sandusky had used the charity as his private hunting ground, scouting for potential victims. He gave them gifts and money, invited them to his home, took them to Penn State football games, showered with them at the university’s football building and slept with them in hotel rooms on the road. Eight men testified during the trial, offering graphic accounts of repeated assaults by Sandusky — on the Penn State campus, in hotel rooms and in the basement of Sandusky’s home. It was painful testimony, the men telling their horrifying stories in public for the first time. Some wept. Others said, with anger and relief both, that they wanted to move on at last. In one of the case’s final startling chapters, this coming after the case had gone to the jury on Thursday, another man came forward to assert that Sandusky had molested him: it was one of Sandusky’s adopted children, Matt, who said he had offered to testify at the trial.

Matt Sandusky had been one of his father's defenders until the turn of events. He had apparently contacted prosecutors and offered up that Jerry had abused him. Had Jerry gone on the stand to testify in his own defense, Matt would have been called as a rebuttal witness, and it would have been devastating to Jerry's defense, which was predicated on sowing doubt in the jury's eyes that the alleged victims were part of a conspiracy. The conspiracy theory didn't work out, and I expect that others who had been abused by Sandusky will now come forward. The guilty verdict isn't the end of things for Penn State either. This will affect the criminal and potential civil cases against the university, especially in light of another Pennsylvania case decided yesterday. That case, involving a Roman Catholic Church official, Msgr. William J. Lynn, who was found guilty of covering up abuse cases in the church, may inform as to the next steps against the university. Penn State officials are on the hook for perjury charges and failing to alert law enforcement to Sandusky's actions.

With its deep pockets, the University will rightfully take a big hit because of its actions and inaction in dealing with Sandusky's abuse. Just imagine had the university and law enforcement dealt with Sandusky with the first reports of abuse came in; how many kids would have been spared abuse? The University knowingly allowed a child predator to not only work at the university, but they allowed him all manner of privileges because of the football program where he worked. That cannot be tolerated, and I hope that the victims get a measure of satisfaction, although nothing can take away the pain, shame, and grief that Sandusky wrought.

UPDATE: Here's the breakdown of the 48 charges, and the 3 charges on which he was found not guilty.

Turmoil In Pakistan: Supreme Court Ousts Prime Minister Gilani

Pakistan's political situation has been anything but serene since Pervez Musharaf lost power. Yousuf Raza Gilani was elected Prime Minister but he's run afoul of the Supreme Court once again for failing to investigate and prosecute claims of corruption against Asif Ali Zardari, the country's president.

Today, the court essentially booted him from office.

Local television news stations said leaders of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party were huddled in an emergency meeting and seemed poised to accept the court’s decision and nominate a different leader to the prime minister’s spot, diffusing some of the tension.

“Yousuf Raza Gilani has been disqualified from the membership of parliament from April 26, which is the date of his conviction, and he has also ceased to be the prime minister of Pakistan,” Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry read from the court order, according to reports by Geo news and other television channels.

“The election commission shall issue a notice of disqualification and the president is also required to take all necessary steps to ensure the continuation of democratic process in the country.”

But the Associated Press quoted Fawad Chaudhry, an aide to Gilani, saying that Gilani would continue his duties and only the parliament could disqualify the prime minister.

Legal experts were debating whether the disqualification could render moot Gilani’s legislative activity since April 26, including passage of Pakistan’s budget. Some said the court’s decision probably would invalidate at least some of Gilani’s actions over the past eight weeks.

“The prime minister should have left his office back in April, when he was convicted for contempt of court, but he decided to stick to his slot illegally,” retired judge Wajihuddin Ahmed told Geo TV. He said that he thought Gilani’s “day-to-day government affairs” work would likely stand but that other official acts could be declared invalid.

Gilani’s conviction stemmed from his adamant refusal to pursue money-laundering and kickback cases brought by Swiss authorities against Zardari; he faced up to six months in prison but was never sentenced.

This also throws the US-Pakistan relationship into limbo as well as counter terrorism efforts in the frontier provinces. The PPP will try to maintain a veneer of normalcy but this is anything but normal.

All the political turmoil adds to an unstable political and economic situation, including power shortages and riots, and ongoing terrorism in the frontier provinces. The government has been ineffective to resolve any of the issues confronting it.

Stop and Frisk Hasn't Reduced NYC Shootings

Despite the soaring number of stop and frisk encounters by the New York Police Department, the number of shooting has continued at the same level as before stop and frisk became official NYPD policy.

While the NYPD was stopping and frisking a record 685,724 people last year, 1,821 people were victims of gunfire, according to NYPD and city statistics. That's virtually the same number as in 2002, Bloomberg's first year in office, when 1,892 people were shot, but just 97,296 people were frisked.

The year before, there were 1,845 shootings with a similar number of frisks.

"If you have a flat-line situation with shootings, and the stops are this high, you are throwing everyone up against the wall and you are losing the community, then you have to reassess," a former top NYPD official told "On the Inside."

There's a couple of points to address. If the number of shootings has remained constant during the past decade, but stop and frisk has increased exponentially, something is wrong with that policy since it was intended to get guns off the street. While proponents might argue that the number of shootings might have been even higher had stop and frisk not been in place, the numbers don't exactly bear this out as other reports have indicated that the number of guns recovered during stop and frisks is exceedingly and shockingly low.

Indeed, the number of guns recovered during stop and frisk has gone from 1 in 266 stops to 1 in 3,000. Doing the math, that works out to roughly 228 guns recovered in 2011 as compared to 365 recovered in 2003.

It's also interesting that the number of shootings has remained constant even as the number of murders has remained at or near historic lows. That could be attributed to better life-saving techniques or that there was more random and non-lethal gunfire (firing in the air and random people were struck in a non-fatal manner for instance). This points to the fact that the NYPD has gotten lucky with the low murder rates, considering that the gunfire hasn't decreased.

And that brings me back to stop and frisk. If the policy isn't getting guns off the streets (and a gun-buyback program might accomplish more without totally isolating a community and creating more problems for community policing efforts), then something needs to be done to refocus efforts on those criminal elements bringing the guns into the city. Stop and frisk isn't working and it is taking valuable resources away from other more vital services at a time when the NYPD is being pulled in multiple directions (think continuing counterterrorism work) with an ever more limited budget.

Bloomberg Supports Cuomo's Call To Revise New York Marijuana Possession Laws

Arrests for marijuana possession are among the top crimes caught under the NYPD's Stop and Frisk policy. That policy has been under attack for its disproportionate focus on minorities throughout the city.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has now floated a proposal to reduce the penalty for possession of a joint to a violation, essentially decriminalizing the possession of amounts under 25 grams.

Mr. Bloomberg, whose administration had previously defended low-level marijuana arrests as a way to deter more serious crime, said in a statement that the governor’s proposal “strikes the right balance” in part because it would still allow the police to arrest people who were smoking marijuana in public.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, plans to hold a news conference at the Capitol on Monday to announce his plans to seek the change in state law. Administration officials said the governor would seek to downgrade the possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana in public view from a misdemeanor to a violation, with a maximum fine of $100 for first-time offenders.

Mr. Bloomberg said his police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, would attend the governor’s news conference “to show our support for his proposal.”

“We look forward to working with legislative leaders to help pass a bill before the end of session,” the mayor said, referring to this year’s legislative session in Albany, which is scheduled to conclude in three weeks.

In his statement, the mayor noted that last September, Mr. Kelly issued a memorandum to officers clarifying that they were not to arrest people who take small amounts of marijuana out of their pockets after being stopped by the police.

Mr. Bloomberg said that the governor’s proposal was “consistent with the commissioner’s directive.”

Bloomberg's changed stance increases the chances that the proposal may gain traction in the state. Reducing the penalties would also reduce the number of people who would be brought into the criminal justice system and reduce costs over the long haul - though that has the potential to be offset by an increase in crime. Expect Republicans to focus on the potential for higher crime, though they may also see the reduced costs for incarceration and processing of low-level drug crimes. Even Gov. Chris Christie in New Jersey has called for revision of drug crime penalties to reflect the fact that the state can't afford to incarcerate low-level drug offenders.