… where two hundred former Penn State football players have sent a letter to the school demanding the return of the Joe Paterno statue.

This is just the latest public eruption of the festering madness infecting the school, as Paterno cultists within the board of trustees itself continue an unfortunate propaganda campaign in a vain attempt to make decades of rapes un-happen. Such wild truther-ism has found traction in central Pennsylvania, enough to entice Donald Trump to court them at a recent campaign event. Indeed, a Public Policy Polling poll in the state finds strong correlation between those who support Trump and still venerate Paterno, indicating a special combination of white, male, angry and stupid — all too fertile ground for dangerous, willful ignorance…

This letter is a vile and direct affront to [Jerry] Sandusky’s victims, with these players attempting to use their standing within the football program as some kind of positive status, despite its complicity in harboring Sandusky for years. The playing days for the letter’s signatories spans from the 1950s through the 2010s, covering entirely Sandusky’s time on campus, which began in 1963.

These players don’t care that for nearly half a century, Penn State football incubated child rape. Joe Paterno was Penn State football, and it was okay with him that his program was being used by a serial predator to abet and shield violent crimes.

Rational people outside this troubled community will never understand the psychological pathology that continues to drive efforts to create a more palatable alternate history.

The writer takes the effing nuts route, which sounds right to UD, although she’d add, in the case of some of the signees, repeated concussions.

If you add stupid (“white, male, angry and stupid”), you end up with a tripartite etiology: psychosis; concussion; stupidity. It’s not clear that anyone’s mind could withstand that onslaught.

… using her expertise as an economist and her far-ranging speculative intelligence to improve the world, has been stabbed to death.

Molly Macauley, a vice president at the think tank Resources for the Future, was walking her dogs in the evening near her Baltimore home when she was attacked.

Her cv reveals a workaholic, a person profoundly committed to the care of the earth and environs (“No Free Launch: Analysis of Space Transportation Pricing”). An adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins, she was also (among many other responsibilities) on the board of advisors for the William & Mary public policy program.

Scott Pace, Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, said “her loss is a loss to all of us, whether family and friends, colleagues, or the community in which she lived.” In an email, Pace characterized her as “an incredibly intelligent, energetic, and caring person who brought both warmth and rigor to her profession and the space community. … She combined high personal standards with a willingness to mentor and care for others that is often too rare.”

… is over! (Trumper Warning)

The halcyon days of graduates like Michael Milken, David S. Brown, Robert Salsbury, Ira B. Sokolow, Bruce Lee Newberg, Raj Rajaratnam, Courtney Dupree, Craig Toll, Anil Kumar, Thomas Hardin, Rajiv Goel, Steven Cohen, and many more have given way to the dark days of Wharton grad Donald Trump.

Silent until now about their honor roll of distinguished alumni (known to all as “The Wharton Mafia”), Wharton folk have lately decided to go public.

A letter disinvesting themselves from Trump has gone out from Wharton grads past and present. They begin with a questionable assertion:

At the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, students are taught to represent the highest levels of respect and integrity. We are taught to embrace humility and diversity.

There must be a serious teacher quality problem at Wharton, because it’s really not getting through.

The letter goes on to express “deep disappointment” in Trump’s hateful arrogant ways, so at odds with sweet humble Wharton… It’s important, its co-authors say, to “speak out against” Trump… But where’s the letter speaking out about decades and decades of The Wharton Mafia?

Say what you will about Trump, no one’s claiming he’s going to jail anytime soon, which is where much of The Wharton Mafia went.

Rep. Mark Sanford, R-South Carolina, said Trump promised to protect several articles of the Constitution — including “Article XII,” even though the Constitution has seven articles.

“It was the normal stream of consciousness that’s long on hyperbole and short on facts,” Sanford told reporters after the meeting.

*******************

From out of some random mind particle
Comes the notion of Number Twelve Article.
That Scalia was strangled
And Vince Foster mangled
Come from the particle’s sparticle.

We haven’t seen a
personality like his.
Privileged bully.

***********

Mark Kirk, Senator, Illinois.

[Trumper Warning]

America’s first female president is definitely on the rag.

*************

(Headline source here.)

Wonderful writing, post-op, from Sarah Silverman.

The University of Tennessee gears up for another great season.

[Trumper Warning]

I’ve seen this guy hold his grandsons at a bris.

Frederick Seidel.

Now for her vice-presidential prediction:

Look for a Trump/Shkreli ticket.

Their synergy is highlighted here:

Perhaps the only accident that could hurt Trump’s numbers would be a hot mic that revealed him as thoughtful, empathetic, or even kind… [His] rise, in business and in politics, is based on exploiting others’ weakness.

But take heart: There’s still enough for the governor and his friends to fly to university football games on the public dime.

[Trumper Warning]

[Donald Trump] spoke to a near half-empty ballroom Friday during the keynote event of the Western Conservative Summit… [T]he event may not have been the best place for Trump to launch his Colorado campaign.

[C]onservatives are “not Trump’s audience,” said former state Republican chairman Ryan Call.

Here’s his audience. Invite these lads and get a full house.

Atta boy.

… hits the airwaves.

Photo by Joanna Soltan.

View from the house
in Summit.