Category: Sex

How is Penn State Like the Catholic Church?

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Their attempts to cover up child rape are so heinous that even the hiring of the hactackular Louis Freeh to run the investigation cannot mitigate the truth:

The independent panel investigating Pennsylvania State University’s role in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal has determined that the school’s top leaders, including legendary football coach Joe Paterno, tried to cover up the abuse for 14 years.

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who led the investigation, outlined the findings of the panel’s 162-page report in prepared remarks released in advance of a 10 a.m. news conference in Philadelphia.

The report is available at www.philly.com/freeh

“The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized,” Freeh said.

Naming Paterno, former Penn State President Graham Spanier, former Athletic Director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, a university vice president once in charge of the campus police, Freeh said they “never demonstrated, through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky’s victims until after Sandusky’s arrest.”

To state the obvious, if this had been curling, or for that matter college Baseball, they would have turned this matter over to the police over a decade ago.

There is no better case to be made that big ticket athletic programs are a corrupt and corrupting influence on higher education, and they need to be excised from higher education, either by the schools themselves, or by the IRS pulling tax exempt status from these programs.

And On a Related Note

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4 Heredim have been charged by the Brooklyn DA with covering up child abuse within the community:

The Brooklyn district attorney, facing a wave of public criticism about his handling of sexual abuse allegations in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, on Thursday charged four men with attempting to silence an accuser by offering her and her boyfriend a $500,000 bribe, and threatening her boyfriend’s business.

The district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, alleged that the men were part of an effort to protect a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community, Nechemya Weberman, who has been accused of 88 counts of sexual misconduct, including oral sex with a child younger than 13 years old. The charges all involve one girl, now 17, who was referred by her school to get counseling by Mr. Weberman, and then alleged she was abused by him during therapy sessions.

The charges are the first time in at least two decades that Mr. Hynes has charged Hasidic Jews with intimidation of a witness in a sexual abuse case, even though victims, their advocates and prosecutors say intimidation has long been a major obstacle to prosecution of abuse among the ultra-Orthodox. In recent weeks, Mr. Hynes has been saying that the intimidation of witnesses in the ultra-Orthodox community is worse than in the world of organized crime.

“I’m hoping that this will be a message to those who are intimidated that they should come forward and help us,” Mr. Hynes said at a news conference. “No one can engage in this kind of conduct and feel free that, based on prior experience, nothing can happen to them.”

Prosecutors charged Abraham Rubin, 48, of Williamsburg with bribery, witness tampering and coercion. They said that he had been recorded offering the accuser’s boyfriend the money, and he suggested that the young couple could flee to Israel to avoid testifying. He also offered to provide them with a lawyer who could help them avoid cooperating with prosecutors.

Prosecutors also charged three brothers, Jacob, Joseph and Hertzka Berger, with coercion, saying they threatened and then removed the kosher certification of a restaurant run by the accuser’s boyfriend. The brothers are sons of a local rabbi who issues kosher certifications to stores.

Good.

I will note that, much like the previous post, it is very likely that this will lead to senior Rabbinic authorities in the region.

Finally!

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Monsignor William Lynn, assistant to the late Cardinal Bevilacqua of Piliadelphis, has been convicted of child endangerment for covering up child abuse:

Msgr. William J. Lynn, a former cardinal’s aide, was found guilty Friday of endangering children, becoming the first senior official of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States convicted of covering up sexual abuses by priests under his supervision.

The 12-member jury acquitted Monsignor Lynn, of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, of conspiracy and a second count of endangerment after a trial that prosecutors and victims rights groups called a turning point in the abuse scandals that have shaken the Catholic Church.

The single guilty verdict was widely seen as a victory for the district attorney’s office, which has been investigating the archdiocese aggressively since 2002, and it was hailed by victim advocates who have argued for years that senior church officials should be held accountable for concealing evidence and transferring predatory priests to unwary parishes.

Monsignor Lynn, 61, sat impassively as the jury foreman announced the verdicts, but relatives behind him were in tears. Judge M. Teresa Sarmina of the Common Pleas Court revoked his bail, and the monsignor stood up, removed his clerical jacket and was led by sheriff’s deputies to a holding cell area. His conviction, on the 13th day of deliberations, could result in a prison term of three-and-a-half to seven years; sentencing is set for Aug. 13.

The trial sent a sobering message to church officials and others overseeing children around the country. “I think that bishops and chancery officials understand that they will no longer get a pass on these types of crimes,” said Nicholas P. Cafardi, a professor of law at Duquesne University, a canon lawyer and frequent church adviser. “Priests who sexually abuse youngsters and the chancery officials who enabled it can expect criminal prosecution.”

Here’s hoping that his conviction will encourage other priests to roll on those involved in the coverup.

It’s fairly likely that the path will lead directly to Rome.

Good.

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About a week and a half ago, I blogged about how the black hat orthodox community in Brooklyn has been engaging in a systematic program of intimidation and harassment against people who report allegations of the child abuse to the police.

I called them despicable and evil, and I said that I hoped that the Brooklyn DA would go after these instances of intimidation.

Well, my wish has been granted, Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes is opening up a criminal investigation into these allegations:

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, is setting up a panel of prosecutors and investigators to crack down on witness intimidation in child sexual abuse cases in the borough’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

Speaking on NY1 on Thursday night, Mr. Hynes said he was asking the panel to “come up with some alternatives to break down this wall of intimidation.”

He criticized elements in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community over their treatment of sexual abuse victims.

“The level of intimidation is not found nearly as much in organized crime,” he said. “It’s extraordinary just how relentless these people can be.”

“There is no concern for the victim in parts of these communities,” he added. “Everything is for the abuser, and that’s the horrible thing that we have to deal with.”

It was a shift in tone for Mr. Hynes, who in the past has praised ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders for helping to fight crime in their neighborhoods.

Hopefully, this is real, and not a task force for appearances sake only.

Nothing will change though, until we start seeing the senior rabbis behind this behavior, those with big names and many disciples, are brought up on formal charges.

Payback is Sometimes a Bastard Too

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There was a sex scandal in Minnesota, where the leader of the state Senate (a Republican, hoocoodanode) was found to have slept with an aide.

The aide was fired, and the (married) Senate Leader resigned.

The twist was that the leader who  resigned was one Amy Koch.  It was a woman.

In any case, the staffer who was fired has now filed suit, and he is threatening to out other state lawmakers who are f%$#ing around:

The saga continues over former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch’s (R) “inappropriate relationship” with a subordinate staffer. Michael Brodkorb, who served as Koch’s executive assistant and communications director, claims that he was fired after the relationship was discovered because of his gender. He also says he has proof that other female staffers who had relationships with legislators were allowed to keep their jobs.

Brodkorb is now preparing to sue the Minnesota Senate, alleging wrongful termination and discrimination. Documents outlining the basis of the case confirm the relationship between Brodkorb and Koch. Rumors swirled in December that Koch’s “inappropriate relationship” was with him, but it wasn’t confirmed at the time. It continues:

“Brodkorb has evidence that similarly situated female legislative employees, from both political parties, were not terminated from their employment positions despite intimate relationships with male legislators. It is clear that Mr. Brodkorb was terminated based on his gender. He intends to depose all of the female legislative staff employees who participated in intimate relationships, as well as the legislators who were party to those intimate relationships, in support of his claims of gender discrimination.”

Heh.

Please, call his bluff. I want him to spill the beans.

Yes, Mr. Frothy Mixture is Nuts

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Charles Blow looks at Rick Santorum’s public statements and discovers that what drives him is his revulsion directed towards the sexual revolution of the 1960s:

Rick Santorum wants to bring sexy back … to the 1950s, when he was born.

That is because Santorum seems to have an unhealthy fixation with, and passionate disdain for, the 1960s and the sexual freedoms that followed.

To fully understand Santorum’s strident rejection of the 1960s, it’s instructive to recall a speech and question-and-answer session he gave in 2008 to a course on religion and politics at the Oxford Center for Religion and Public Life in Washington.

The speech was interesting, but the answers he gave to the questions that followed were truly illuminating.

In response to a question about the kinds of words he had heard “attached to religion and politics” during his years in the Senate, Santorum ventured off onto sex:

“It comes down to sex. That’s what it’s all about. It comes down to freedom, and it comes down to sex. If you have anything to do with any of the sexual issues, and if you are on the wrong side of being able to do all of the sexual freedoms you want, you are a bad guy. And you’re dangerous because you are going to limit my freedom in an area that’s the most central to me. And that’s the way it’s looked at.”

………

But let’s not let facts slow us down. Santorum, predictably, deflected back to sex:

“Woodstock is the great American orgy. This is who the Democratic Party has become. They have become the party of Woodstock. They prey upon our most basic primal lusts, and that’s sex. And the whole abortion culture, it’s not about life. It’s about sexual freedom. That’s what it’s about. Homosexuality. It’s about sexual freedom. All of the things are about sexual freedom, and they hate to be called on them. They try to somehow or other tie this to the founding fathers’ vision of liberty, which is bizarre. It’s ridiculous. That’s at the core of why you are attacked.”

The next question was: “Do you see any possibility for a party of Christian reform, or an influx of Christian ideas into this [Democratic] party?”

Santorum’s answer included what? That’s right: Sex!

Blow (heh) is implying that Santorum has an unhealthy fixation about sex.

I’ll be more specific. I think that Santorum is indicative of a strain of Republican thought that I saw a lot of when I was in the SGA Senate working alongside future Abramhoff : basically, they are really pissed, because they weren’t getting any during the sexual revolution.

I understand how it feels.  Not only was I a war-gaming/Dungeons & Dragons geek in high school, I founded the Woodrow Wilson High School war gaming club.

I was as likely to get laid in high school as I was to fly to the moon.

The thing is, I got over it, and not end up with a sociopathic need to tell women what to do with their bodies.

Mr Santorum, not so much.

Signs of the Apocalypse: Rush Limbaugh Edition

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He has apologized for calling a 30-year old contraception advocate and law student a slut, and suggesting that she should post sex tapes to the internet:

US radio host Rush Limbaugh has apologised for calling a law student a “slut” for her views on contraception.

In comments on his radio show earlier this week, Mr Limbaugh suggested Sandra Fluke’s testimony to a US congressional committee made her “a prostitute”.

In a statement released on his website, Mr Limbaugh apologised to Ms Fluke “for the insulting word choices” and said he “did not mean a personal attack”.

I think it had more to do with something like a dozen of his sponsors dropping his white, flabby, pimpled ass.

Too Extreme For Pat Buchanan????? Seriously!?!?!?!

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You know, when Pat Buchanan is telling you that you are being too radical, you have a problem:

But it seems that some Republicans think their party has gone too far. Yesterday, Virginia legislators backed away from a “personhood” measure and the state’s conservative governor removed his support for an extreme ultrasound bill. Even Pat Buchanan, a leader on social issues within the party and a former GOP presidential candidate, this morning warned that Republicans like Rick Santorum are overreaching in their opposition to contraception.

On C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, Buchanan described the debate over contraception as “beyond the political realm”:

I think if you get down into where [Santorum’s] been discussing it on the merits and demerits of contraception…that’s a moral issue. […] We talked about that in college endlessly, but I think you move into an area where people don’t understand yet and where it’s beyond the political realm. And I think that’s where Santorum has gone and gotten himself. He’s gotten himself tied up in some of these arguments, and I don’t think he’s handled them with clarity.

(emphasis original)

Yes, that is Pat “It probably sounded better in the original German” Buchanan saying that this culture war sh%$ is a bit over the top.

We live in strange times.

Quote of the Day

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A lawyer for Mr. Strauss-Kahn appeared to confirm that he had attended the events, saying that his client would not have been aware if the women who entertained him were prostitutes.

“He could easily not have known, because as you can imagine, at these kinds of parties you’re not always dressed, and I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman,” the lawyer, Henri Leclerc, told a French radio station, Europe 1, in December.

—Dominique Strauss-Kahn lawyer

The rich REALLY are not like you and me.

H/t Brad Delong.

Why Yes, Republicans are F%$#ing Nuts

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The latest target of their mishugas? Why it’s the Girl Scouts of America:

Next time you buy a box of Tagalongs, you might be helping to fund an abortion.

Or, at least, that’s what one Republican lawmaker in Indiana might have you believe. State Rep. Bob Morris (R) wants to kill a resolution honoring the Girl Scouts because they are a “radicalized organization” that promotes “homosexual lifestyles” and funds Planned Parenthood.

In a letter to his fellow Republicans on Saturday, Morris said he would refuse to support a resolution celebrating 100 years of the organization because “after talking to some well-informed constituents, I did a small amount of web-based research, and what I found is disturbing.”

The letter, obtained by the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, says that the Girl Scouts of America and the World Association of Girl Guides “have entered into a close strategic affiliation with Planned Parenthood,” though “you will not find evidence of this on the GSA/WAGGGS website—in fact, the websites of these two organizations explicitly deny funding Planned Parenthood.”

Seriously, when did those guys with newspapers wrapped around their feet and standing on street corners screaming obscenities at passers by become the Republican Party mainstream?

Republicans the Party of Values

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What a surprise. We have an Arizona sheriff being accused of corruption after he threatened to deport his gay lover in order to force his silence:

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu — who became the face of Arizona border security nationally after he started stridently opposing illegal immigration — threatened his Mexican ex-lover with deportation when the man refused to promise never to disclose their years-long relationship, the former boyfriend and his lawyer tell New Times.

The latest of the alleged threats were made through Babeu’s personal attorney, who’s also running the sheriff’s campaign for Congress in District 4, the ex-lover says.

He says lawyer Chris DeRose demanded he sign an agreement that he would never breathe a word about the affair. But Jose (New Times is withholding his last name because Babeu and his attorney have challenged his legal status) refused.

This guy first came to prominence when one of his deputies fabricated a story about being shot at by illegal aliens, and Babeu went on a self promotional media tour.

BTW, until this all blew up, he was one of Mitt Romney’s campaign co-chairmen in Arizona.

Meh

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I just watched the Nightline interview with Marianne Gingrich, Newt’s 2nd wife, where she alleges that Newt, when caught in the affair, asked her to have an open marriage, and bedded future 3rd wife Callista in her (Marianne’s) bed:

Newt Gingrich lacks the moral character to serve as President, his second ex-wife Marianne told ABC News, saying his campaign positions on the sanctity of marriage and the importance of family values do not square with what she saw during their 18 years of marriage.

In her first television interview since the 1999 divorce, to be broadcast tonight on Nightline, Marianne Gingrich, a self-described conservative Republican, said she is coming forward now so voters can know what she knows about Gingrich.

In her most provocative comments, the ex-Mrs. Gingrich said Newt sought an “open marriage” arrangement so he could have a mistress and a wife.

I was hoping for a bit more. 

This is basically old news, and it wasn’t particularly squicky.

About the only thing that surprised me was that Gingrich wasn’t even man enough to deny it himself.  He peddled his daughters (by his first wife) to ABC to issue the denials.

In the short term, I expect it to help him in South Carolina, because the ‘wingers there will assume that it is an artifact of some sort of liberal conspiracy, as opposed to Newt just being a contemptible hypocrite.

I Don’t Want to Start Any Blasphemous Rumours…*

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Because the one of the Vatican’s child safety coordinator has just been sentenced to jail for downloading child pr0n:

He was arrested after uploading images of pre-pubescent boys on to the Ning social networking website.

Police officers who traced him to his home in Plymouth, Devon, found more than 4,000 child porn images, mainly of boys aged 10 to 12, on his church-supplied computer and a memory stick when they raided the house in Penrose Road.

The court heard that 4,389 images were found on the laptop and memory stick.

The majority, 3,721, were at Level One, the lowest level for abusive images.

But there were 120 at Level Four, which includes scenes of child rape, and 12 at Level Five, which can include scenes of torture and sadism.

Jarvis, who the court heard claimed he was abused as a child, was sentenced at the city’s crown court after admitted 12 counts of making, possessing and distributing indecent images at a previous magistrates’ court hearing.

You know, notwithstanding the assertions of people like ……… You know ……… the Pope that it’s all an aberrations and caused by our wicked society.

I think that a bit of self examination is order here, because lashing out at the rest of the world over this seems to be just a bit delusional.

H/t Americablog.

*The refrain from the Depeche Mode song Blasphemous Rumors is, “I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours, But I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor, And when I die I expect to find Him laughing.”

What Dan Savage Says…

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I don’t know how I missed this.

It is positively brilliant:

Bachmann and her ilk believe that woman who have sex—along with men who fail to purchase health insurance—deserve to die horrible deaths. That’s why they hate the HPV vaccine, that’s why they fought its introduction, that’s why they tell lies about it now. Because they want women to die.

Read the rest. It’s short.

It’s also true.

The majority of the people who who seek to criminalize abortion want to punish women for having sex, and anything that resembles freedom in their personal, in any way they can.

It’s an unalloyed evil that these folks see The Handmaiden’s Tale as a blueprint Rather than a warning.

Yeah, I Believe Him

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Newt is pledging not to commit adultery for the 4th time:

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich this week signed a pledge to uphold conservative values from the Iowa-based group The Family Leader and vowed to restrict federal dollars from paying for abortion overseas, uphold the Defense of Marriage Act and stay true to his wife, Callista.

“I will also oppose any judicial, bureaucratic, or legislative effort to define marriage in any manner other than as between one man and one woman,” Gingrich wrote in a letter to The Family Leader announcing his support of the group’s pledge. “I also pledge to uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others.”

That would actually be the fourth time Gingrich has taken a no-adultery pledge. He took the first one in 1962 when he married Jackie Battley, and then again in 1981 when he married Marianne Ginther and made a third one to Callista Bisek (now Gingrich) in 2000.

Gingrich, whose first two marriages ended because he was having an affair a woman who would later become his wife, addressed his history of infidelity at the ABC News/Yahoo! Republican debate on Saturday, where he said that he has sought forgiveness for his mistakes.

So the big lies were:

  1. I’ll respect you in the morning.
  2. The cheque is in the mail.
  3. I will not come in your mouth. 

And we can now add #4:

  1. This time, Newt is serious about his marital vows.