The Larry Kane Report

Although the shock over the Penn State scandal has yet to wear off,  there is one hopeful element coming out of all the bad news. It’s the reality of change, real change.

One has to believe that institutions all over America are currently reviewing their informational policies about the reporting of potential or active sex crimes. You’ve got to believe that every public institution,  at every level, would be currently assessing how to make people more aware of the situations surrounding them. The Penn State situation emerged because it was revealed at a high-profile university. A similar suspected crime exposed at a business, a community center, a school or a religious institution, would have made big news as well. But an episode at revered and respected Penn State made it very quickly a story of unusually high interest. The high-profile nature of the case also brings with it a bigger mandate for change everywhere.

Now, as prosecutors continue their investigation, as the school conducts its own, it’s important for all of us to pause and think about the incidents that happen all the time, and are never reported, leaving the attackers to wander in freedom, and the victims to harbor and hold these unspeakable and damaging memories for decades.

It also time for the government to launch a nationwide campaign , a campaign of child safety, that daringly offers the tell-tale signs of abuse, and urges people to report what they know. It is better for suspicions to be checked out, than to travel blindly down the road of devastation and ruin for the children of America. Homeland Security says , “If you see something, say something.” We need a similar campaign for child safety and we need it now.

Lawmakers in Pa. would be wise to take Governor Corbett’s advice and draft legislation to toughen laws and accentuate the responsibility of people who witness or are suspicious of this type of criminal behavior.

As far as Penn State: This could have happened anywhere. But the fact the charges were suppressed and remained secret until a few years ago, is such a shame. It was just such a common sense call that the failures in decision-making defy any semblance of rational thinking.

A young State Representative, with more people skills than politicians with decades more experience, has dramatically changed the landscape of local politics, along with his running mate, barely known before this election. Josh Shapiro and Leslie Richards’ one-two punch in the Montgomery County Commissioners race was decisive and in many ways, shocking.

Beating back the most popular Republican of the past decade, Bruce Castor, who finished third. Shapiro and Richards take control of Montgomery County government for the Democrats. It’s the first time the Democrats take control in over a hundred years. Castor was forecast to take one of the top two positions. But he finished third! Richards , a Whitemarsh Supervisor, was hardly known in the rest of the county at the beginning of the year.

Shapiro has used his extraordinary skills in the last 5 years to build alliances with Republicans and Democrats.

What surprised me about the contest was the strength that the two Democrats showed in heavily Republican sections of the third largest county in Pennsylvania.

The race was the most expensive ever for a County  Commission seat, and it may speak volumes about Republican Presidential challenges next year in the third largest county in Pa.

FUMO AND THE LAW -

Vince Fumo is coming back this week to face a sentencing hearing, a hearing requested by prosecutors who want him to stay in jail longer than his current term, under which he gets out in the Spring of 2013,  I’ve always had great respect for the U.S. Attorneys office here. Prosecutors work hard to make sure that lawbreakers are brought to justice, but this case is very odd. It appears something is wrong . Why are prosecutors so obsessed with Fumo that they captured his emails to show he was unrepentant, which might be true? Why are the prosecutors so obsessed with Fumo that they have spent valuable time on the taxpayer’s dime to   keep the former political power in prison for many more years? With the area and the country riddled by fraud and corruption, how could the U.S. Attorney let his office spend so much time on Fumo? Is his release a clear and present danger for all of us?

Some of my colleagues in local journalism are stunned by the obsession with Fumo, and the way the prosecutors played out this story in media.

I ask these questions because the U.S. Justice Department has more immediate issues, troubling issues that face Americans, the drugs, the organized crime, the gun violations that threaten us every day, much more important than demanding a hearing for a convicted felon who has already fallen very far. Just the cost of transporting him here, and the cost of reopening the sentencing phase of the case, seems like a waste.

Vince Fumo has himself to blame for wrecking his career by breaking the law, but what’s behind the zeal of the prosecutors? Do they know something we don’t know?  The U.S. Attorneys Office in Philadelphia has long prided itself on not playing out cases before they get to open court.

Whatever the legal arguments, which is not my specialty,  the question remains: why are the prosecutors so obsessed with Vince Fumo? Didn’t they win the case?

CLASH OF TITANS?

Of all the elections coming up on Tuesday, I stay fascinated by the contest featuring Josh Shapiro and Leslie Richards against Republicans Bruce Castor and Jenny Brown for control of the Montgomery County Commission. Why? Well, first of all the election comes at a time when the GOP is split hard in Montco, after decades and decades of control. Castor is a fascinating and sometimes controversial personality iced out of government control when fellow Republican Jim Matthews forged an alliance Democrat Joe Hoeffel. Then, there is Shapiro. The State representative has become a forced to be reckoned with, and this is a big moment for him. But there’s such an irony about this election. With Castor and Shapiro expected to finish in the top two, it is the running mates that will decide who gets the power. It’s hard to say whether Leslie Richards, a Whitemarsh Supervisor or Jenny Brown, the Lower Merion Commissioner., will get the third spot. But they hold the key. The race will cost 3 million dollars, the most expensive County Commission race in Pennsylvania history.

There are several investigations underway into how Gadhafi died. While that is proper protocol, the death of the butcher is welcome news. It is ironic that the butcher. the mastermind of Lockerbie, The Berlin disco attacks, and the bloody siege of Misrata, was put on display in a meat locker. What an appropriate end for the butcher.

The really sad part of the Gadhafi legacy is how complicit the United Nations , France and the United Kingdom were in his reign of terror until the revolution began earlier this year. Doing profitable business with the madman was shameful. Even our own government bought into the efforts by the butcher to legitimize his cruel regime back in 2004. The United Nations has been especially sympathetic with the Gadhafi murderers until it looked like he might fall. Like the gathering storm in Iran. much of the world allowed the butcher to kill and torture.

It was Ronald Reagan who first stood up to the butcher with a missile attack following the disco attack. It was Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who pushed the U.N. and the Nato Alliance to use air power to help break the deadlock in the early Spring.

My hope is that other dictators watch the video of the butcher’s end and look in the mirror.

NEWS ON THE NEWS -

The news business is changing so fast . What’s the future: pocket news (that phone in your pocket, digitized newspapers, late and local web sites, or something that has not even been invented. These subjects are the backdrop for my Voice of Reason show at 9:30 tonight on the Comcast Network. The lineup is special: Daily News Editor Larry Platt, Comcast Digital Executive Todd Berman, and Philly broadcast legend Paul Gluck, now a professor and the head of Temple University’s new TV station. If you enjoy a great debate on the future of news, this program is for you. And you’ll find out the real reason the Daily News dropped its Saturday edition.