I will not detail the gruesome charges listed against Jerry Sandusky that caused the ouster of the 84 year old football coach, however, it is evident that he was in possession of information that could have been used to ensure that nothing like what Sandusky had been doing could happen again on his watch. That alone is enough for his firing, however, what looms even more troubling is the fact that Paterno and his family are “devastated” at the firing. Frankly speaking, I would have been devastated if he were retained.

As a coach, one of the responsibilities I hold most sacred is the safety and well-being of the children in my charge. If you read the testimony of the graduate assistants eye witness account of Sandusky having anal sex with his 10 year old victim, there can be no doubt that the sacred trust a coach is given by a child’s parents was violated. 

Why is that not seen? Why is that not the topic of media discussion?

I read and watched the student protesting Paterno’s firing and could not help but think – when does a game trump the worth of  a child? The answer of course is NEVER. But these students apparently aren’t being taught that. There is a amazing double standard at work in our society, where there is public and vociferous outrage over the firing of a man who did not see the need to call the police in the face of a criminal accusation, but not so much for the 8 young boys he abused over 15-years.

The students women and men alike were rioting in the street. Turning over cars, vandalizing property in support of at best a callous passing of the buck, and at worse a blatant organizational cover up.  To those supporting his continued employment at Penn State I tell you that Paterno was dismissed to late – at least for those 8 children who Sandusky was able to come into contact with because your hero didn’t follow through and call the authorities himself!

Paterno does not deserve this adulation. The report made public is 23-pages long, and nearly every page is more revolting than the last. The revelation of that report alone should have given “Joe Pop” the sense to know he needed to resign immediately. But no, he doesn’t prove himself the ethicist we were led to believe over his 46 year career. He decides to finish the season and retire. Stating that the Penn State’s Board of Trustees

“should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address.”

A statement spoken by a man who perceives himself above the authority that judges everyone else.  What greater matters can a Board of Trustees have then this? Nothing short of a murder.

I am not a court appointed judge.

I am not constrained by the letter of the law.

I have made my decision on this matter.

Jerry Sandusky was Joe Paterno’s heir to the throne – he resigned a year after police investigations of his relationship to “Victim 6″! He was then allowed to continue to work in a charity that catered to 5 – 15 year old boys – still given access to the school facilities and was again seen abusing a boy in 2002 under “Joe Pop’s” supposedly watchful eye. An eye which looked the other way after following the narrowest letter of  law.

You knew Joe . You heard the allegations – you are an institution in that valley, don’t tell me the King has no ears.

Good riddance Joe!

I hope the American public is really taking notice here. The lunatics running the asylum known as the GOP Tea Party are so willing to derail the country with their radical agenda, that they will prop up this gutter-snipe to the highest office in the land. I do not want to hear anything from anybody about his presumed innocence. Look at the evidence we can see. The women in opposition to Herman Cain’s innocence are willing to talk, they want to have their gag orders nullified, and the latest accuser is holding press conferences detailing his lechery.

He is unelectable GOP! More than 50% of the American electorate is female. Stick a fork in him! He’s a dead duck. 

Now whose going to play distraction for Mitt Romney?

Allow me to help you MSNBC. Patrick Buchanan is a racist. In fact, he is so racist he could probably run for Grand Wizard. If you don’t want to believe me, a cursory review of his latest work of fiction “Suicide Of A Superpower,”should literally “pull the cover off ” for you. If the titles of some of the chapters don’t give you pause, just review some of these choice musings spotlighted on TPM’s review “Twelve Pretty Racist Or Just Crazy Quotes From Pat Buchanan’s New Book”.

If you aren’t readers, here’s a gem that should stop anyone in their track from the chapter: Equality and Freedom:

“Not until the 1960s did courts begin to use the Fourteenth Amendment to impose a concept of equality that the authors of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, The Federalist Papers, and the Gettysburg Address never believed in. Before the 1960s, equality meant every citizen enjoyed the same constitutional rights and the equal protection of existing laws. Nothing in the Constitution or federal law mandated social, racial, or gender equality.”

Soak it in folks. That’s racism.

Apparently MSNBC management, forgot the reprehensible way Pat Buchanan addressed the race issue during the 2008 Presidential race, when Barack Obama made one of the most eloquent appeals to dialogue on the issue that we have heard.  I was so outraged by Buchanan’s reply to then Senator Obama’s call to conscience that I penned one of my posts especially for his benefit.  I think a reprise of that post is due, so here it is:

Dear Mr. Buchanan,

For a moment let me discuss the Black church experience in America.

It was our experience to be excluded from the American church. Ministers and lay leaders of the white Christian churches flatly refused to include us in their worshipful community.  It was our experience to be given an uneven gospel, a gospel that spoke half truths, a gospel that condone – no – promoted cattle slavery, a gospel that demanded fealty without reason and piety without the end being reward (since there remained a question of whether or not we had souls). It was our experience to be denied the truth that Jesus was of African descent and that many of the principals that defined his “Good News” were indelibly African; and it is this experience that taught us, it was this experience that gave root to the African-American preachers prophetic voice, his liberation, his theology.

This is the experience that caused James Baldwin to pen the words

“To be an Afro-American, or an American black, is to be in the situation, intolerably exaggerated, of all those who have ever found themselves part of a civilization which they could in no wise honorably defend – which they were compelled, indeed, endlessly to attack and condemn – and who yet spoke out of the most passionate love, hoping to make the kingdom new, to make it honorable and worthy of life.”

and it is this divine and prophetic voice that was voiced by Black America’s great theologian Howard Thurman, former Dean of the noted and historic Howard University Rankin Chapel, who explained the soul of the American Blacks Christian mission

“The disinherited man has a sense of gross injury. He finds it well-nigh impossible to forgive, because his injury is often gratuitous. It is not for something that he has done, an action resulting from a deliberate violation of another. He is penalized for what he is in the eyes and the standards of another. Somehow he must free himself of the will to retaliation that keeps alive his hatred.”

This, in essence is what the mission of the Black clergy and Black church has always been. To bridge the space between the sense of injury that is inherent in the African-American’s history and the desire to take an ultimately unrewarding vengeance.  It is to call men to

“let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! – Amos 5:24″

It is this truth that Sen. Obama has plied himself to, and Pat Buchanan has refused.

Today, I read the further spewing of Buchanan’s opinion of Rev. Wright and Sen. Obama, in his column “A Brief for Whitey”.  A treatise which served to abdicate white American culpability for any of the problems Sen. Obama discussed in his monumentally intelligent speech. Now, I never quote Buchanan, but I found this bit of his drivel so breathtaking I must share it, if only to express the level of ignorance many of the conservative media harbor.

“Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.”

Stunningly stupid, I know.  In a nutshell, it appears Buchanan thinks we should be praising the slave traders for delivering us like cattle to the auction blocks of Boston and Charleston – as if those slave traders had some good intention. Alas, this statement in more ways than one explains why Buchanan could not like most of us identify with Sen. Obama, or like many of us with Rev. Wright.  Buchanan like many Christians know only a partial gospel, and a incomplete Christian mission.

The unfortunate truth about Buchanan’s form of Christianity, is that it is without the balance of justice.

He wholly attributes the American church (white)  as the bastion of Christian salvation, a love centered, forgiving institution where redemption is free, but without the justice that its Bible requires. It is justice that Wright railed against the machine for, and not the justice that most Christians believe in.  Not the damning of a soul to a fire hell, not the shallow vengeance of a God to terrible to be loving. No, the justice that God (at least the true Christ) would see is the equity of all achieved, and by that equity the law of God fulfilled

“to love your neighbor as yourself”

That is the Black church’s message, that was what Rev. Wright wanted to convey – that is what Obama tried to articulate in his speech this week – that is what the ignorant racism of Pat Buchanan can’t see.

Maybe if he attended a couple of services at Trinity he’d see the LIGHT!

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors” – Luke 4: 18-19

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. I say it again — it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”  – Matthew 19: 23-24

I won’t go into all the man’s positions, but some highlights were his strong support of outlawing abortion even in the case of rape and incest; and if the mother’s life were in jeapordy – the family gets to decide then. His ideal vision of a Supreme Court Justice would be another Clarence Thomas (a position he reverentially espoused); and he refuses to be identified as African-American and only as Black American, because his origins are America. I guess his ancestors comes from Black Land….hmm, need to find that on the map.

That’s enough to disqualify Mr. Cain as a candidate for me, but the point I really have to scratch my head on is his economics. His 9-9-9 plan. I’m not an economist nor a mathematician, but of all the things the man touts this has got to be the biggest joke of all. His performance on Meet the Press, and it was a performance had to bring you to that conclusion. As he spoke about “sneak attacks” and hidden “invisible” taxes, while David Gregory quoted the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and even the shows own independent economic experts on the dubious nature of his 9-9-9 plan. The most agreed upon point being that it will increase the tax burden of the poor and middle-class!

Cain thinks that’s an acceptable outcome. Why? Because the only people who will incur more taxation are those who spend their income on “new goods”. Well…hello, who buys used milk?! Here are the facts: Poor people (meaning those making under $13K a year) don’t pay income taxes now. Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan if implemented would increase their taxes from 0% to a definite 9% and a probable 18% (9% Income tax + 9% National Sales tax). In actuality it will be a definite 18% because poor people spend the majority of their money on new goods! Food, clothing and gas! So working poor and those of you in poverty, make sure you shop at the Goodwill Grocery Store. Oh…what’s that? There is no such thing…sorry.

That’s ridiculous enough, but then it becomes preposterous when you hear him refuse to combine the new 9-9-9 tax structure with existing state tax constructs. There are only a few states that have no sales tax. The majority of the states do, at usually 6-7%. So the increased tax burden would be 25-26% for those in poverty and the working poor. I’m not a rocket scientist folks – but it looks like the majority of workers are going to pay more taxes.

Apparently Mr. Cain is either the worst mathematician to ever come out of Morehouse (the prestigious institution that gave us great men such as Martin Luther King, Julian Bond and Howard Thurman) or intellectually disingenuous.

For me he’s just a joke.