Free Republic

.... Jay Paterno was on the field with his dad as an assistant coach at Penn State. Now he wants to be lieutenant governor. So when he sat down with KDKA political editor Jon Delano for his first TV interview since announcing, the basic question was--why? "Having had a career in education for two decades, education is an issue I fell very passionately about... I felt like a lot of different people talked about doing a lot of different things politically, and I looked at it and thought this is where I can do the most good for the most...

Longtime trustee and 1959 Penn State graduate Al Clemens resigned from the Board of Trustees during today’s meeting, citing wrong decisions and failed leadership over the last two years from himself and his colleagues. Clemens was a gubernatorial appointee, first appointed by Governor Tom Ridge in 1995. His term expired in 2012, but in absence of another appointment from Governor Tom Corbett, he has remained a member of the Board for the last two years. Previously outspoken about what he calls the questionable Freeh report, Clemens is also party to the Paterno-NCAA lawsuit aimed at reversing the NCAA sanctions. Here’s...

Students who arrive in State College on Saturday for the annual State Patty's Day drinking holiday will find the majority of downtown restaurants and taverns closed or dry, Penn State officials say. Damon Sims, Penn State's vice president for student affairs, said 33 of 35 downtown State College establishments, including all taverns and bottle shops, have agreed to accept monetary compensation offered by the university for a moratorium of the sale of alcohol Saturday.

A Penn State freshman from Moscow was arrested on charges including possessing weapons of mass destruction and risking a catastrophe after cops found a bomb and explosives-related materials in his apartment. Police say they found the bomb-making materials while investigating a suspected marijuana grow-op at the home of 18-year-old Vladislav Miftakhov, who allegedly told them he planned to "blow things up," CNN reports. Police say the teen, who is being held on $500,000 bail, later explained that he had bought the bomb-making materials on Amazon.com and planned to set off explosives in a field. His roommate says Miftakhov was a...

A Russian college student in Pennsylvania was charged with unlawful possession of 'weapons of mass destruction' and risking catastrophe on Friday, according to authorities. Penn State Altoona student Vladislav Miftakhov, 18, was arrested Friday after Altoona police found homemade bombs and bomb-making materials in his room while investigating a possible marijuana growing operation, according to a criminal complaint. Police also found marijuana plants but called backup when they discovered fuses attached to aluminum and plastic containers. After officers removed Miftakhov from a class and attained a search warrant, investigators discovered one pound each of atomized magnesium and Chinese potassium perchlorate...

One of the most egregious and well documented cases of news media dishonesty, libel, cowardice and greed along with official misconduct by the NCAA and others, will finally go on trial in a court of law where facts and rules of evidence, not media dishonesty,a mob mentality, distortions or ratings, web hits and newsstand sales at the expense of a man's reputation, will be the standard on which facts will be presented and judged. On Tuesday a judge ruled that the Paterno family's law suit against the NCAA can continue. The issue had always been, would the judge find that...

At some point, you almost have to wonder if maybe this isn't about James Franklin, that it's really about Penn State, that these schmucks would have had a problem with anybody we could've tabbed to coach our team, that they would've found some dirt on Al Golden or Mike Munchak or even Larry Johnson, that it's really a cause for their affronted wrath when we win a damn game or two, or threaten to become the national powerhouse we once were. This university can do no right, because then what would they have to write about? The only good...

Sportscaster Bob Costas among those featured in documentary — LEWISBURG — “The story is NOT over,” according to the filmmakers of 365 Days: A Year in Happy Valley. The upcoming documentary about the aftermath of the Sandusky scandal will have an exclusive showing at 2 p.m. at The Campus Theatre in Lewisburg on Saturday, Dec. 28. Tickets are $12 each and must be purchased in advance through 365daysthefilm.com. Veteran NBC sportscaster Bob Costas is among those interviewed in the film. Commenting on the Freeh report, Costas said that while the report might have contained some valuable information, Freeh then “assigned...

The lawyer for ex-Penn State president Graham Spanier is raising new questions over what she called contradictions raised by the grand jury testimony of Cynthia Baldwin, the university’s embattled former in-house lawyer. Baldwin approached the state Attorney General’s Office about an “off the record” discussion in exchange for a deal in which the information she provided was not to be used against her, according to documentation released Sunday by Spanier lawyer Elizabeth Ainslie. Baldwin signed the document, called a proffer letter, on Oct. 19, 2012, and a week later she went before a grand jury. In her testimony, Baldwin said...

Long, brutal radio interview between Slaten/Ziegler. Calls out the fools that believe the narrative. The evidence IS overwhelming. And it's on real Penn Stater's and Joe's side. Hate on haters. You believe, and support media lies.

BELLEFONTE, PA. A Pennsylvania judge said Tuesday he would decide later whether to allow a lawsuit against the NCAA filed by the family of longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and others to go forward. After hearing more than three hours of arguments, Judge John B. Leete said he planned to issue a written opinion but did not say when. A lawyer for college sports' governing body urged him to throw out the complaint. The lawsuit and the court are "a poor forum for the venting of frustration, and the NCAA should not be made the scapegoat for the...

Penn State has announced that it is paying $59.7 million to 26 young men to settle claims of child sexual abuse at the hands of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. The university said it had concluded negotiations that have lasted about a year. The school said 23 deals are fully signed and three are agreements in principle. The school faces six other claims, and the university says it believes some do not have merit while others may produce settlements.

◾Professors at campuses across the nation have been quick to lay blame for the government shutdown. And they are not blaming Barack Obama or the Democrats. University of Pennsylvania Associate Professor Anthea Butler claimed on twitter that racism against President Obama was responsible for the shutdown stating that a previous shutdown had taken place under the leadership of “fake black president Clinton” but this time Republicans have a “real black president to mess with.” ◾Assistant Professor Rachel Slocum at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse sent students in her geography class an email stating that “some of the data gathering assignment...

Love Stossel. Love Tyoka Jackson.

You all know him by now. John Ziegler — the iconoclastic, former talk radio hosting, ex-Christine Brennan dating filmmaker — is back for another round of 10 questions. Love him or hate him, there’s no question Ziegler has been one of the loudest outside voices on the Sandusky situation from the beginning and has a mini-movie and an online book to show for it. Enjoy. Onward State: There was a rather public disagreement between you and the PS4RS group recently where you decided to stop posting in its 10,000 member closed Facebook group. Can you explain what happened and discuss...

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A lawsuit against the NCAA by the family of late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and others is fatally flawed and should be thrown out, the organization said in a court filing Thursday. The filing in Centre County court said the suit contains "sundry misdirected complaints" and argued that the plaintiffs don't have standing to challenge the consent agreement between the NCAA and Penn State over the child molestation scandal involving ex-assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. "Plaintiffs resort to tortured interpretations of the NCAA bylaws and the case law in an effort to obscure two inescapable facts:...

The NCAA said Tuesday that it will reduce the unprecedented sanctions against Penn State's football program by gradually restoring scholarships starting next season. Officials did not rule out future modifications, such as reducing the four-year postseason ban. The announcement comes 14 months after NCAA president Mark Emmert levied the historic penalties in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. Penn State had faced a cap of 65 scholarships starting in 2014, but instead will have 75 scholarships in 2014, 80 in 2015 and the full allotment of 85 in 2016.

A Catholic priest in Pennsylvania has been charged with molesting a teenage boy after police said he was found in a car on a college campus with a 15-year-old who was wearing no pants, according to a police criminal complaint filed Friday in Lackawanna County. The Rev. W. Jeffrey Paulish was charged with one felony count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and one felony count of unlawful contact with a minor after Dunmore police say they found him and the boy on Thursday in a car on the Worthington Scranton campus of Penn State University, according to the complaint.

Investigators, including the FBI, are looking into a claim that missing former Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar was murdered by a former Hells Angel, according to Bellefonte police. "It's ongoing," Bellefonte police Detective Matthew Rickard said Thursday of the investigation into the claim. Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar as seen on March 31, 2005. Rickard said more interviews needed to be conducted, and he hadn't been briefed by the FBI as to the current status of the probe. Rickard said he couldn't comment on the details of the investigation but said the FBI, as well as the state...

By Eric Shultz | Collegian Staff Writer A key figure surrounding the departure of Emmanuil Kaidanov as Penn State fencing’s head coach came forward Wednesday afternoon with her side of the story — a misunderstanding involving medical tape mistaken for drugs.Junior Kane Gladnick speaks at the press conference in support of former Penn State Fencing Coach Emmanuil Kaidanov at the Ramada Inn on Wednesday, Sept 18, 2013. Surrounded by nine other Penn State fencers during a press conference at State College’s Ramada Inn, junior fencer Kane Gladnick described an incident she said ultimately led to Kaidanov’s firing after he followed...