The Jerry Sandusky Trial

For the past three days I have been covering the Jerry Sandusky trial. He is the former assistant Penn State football coach with 52 charges of sexual child abuse.

If you want to know the details, here are a couple of articles that give a fair synopsis of what is going on:

Accusers say they were lured by attention, gifts 
Alleged Sandusky victim details abuse

It is difficult for me to want to share anything from the trial because reading through the testimony from the alleged victims has been a grueling process. No one wants to hear the details of sexual abuse, but nonetheless, here are the basics:

• 10 alleged victims have come forward -- abused as boys (10-13), they are now men (18-25), some married with children
• Jerry Sandusky knew the alleged victims through a non-profit he founded
• Penn State has records of reports that Sandusky was involved with these boys, but covered it up and did not take action
• Jerry Sandusky continues to say he isn’t guilty

There are pros and cons to our legal system. For one, we know it will be a fair trial for the victims and for Jerry Sandusky. Unfortunately, a fair trial often means a long trial. That means you will hear about the case for another 3-4 weeks.

That said, let's move on from the graphic details of what these alleged victims are sharing and talk about what we can learn from horrific moments like this trial. Here are my questions for you:

1)      How do you protect your kids, family, nieces, and nephews from incidents like this?
2)      Is this a problem in our society that keeps you up at night or do you choose to ignore it (because of its horrific nature)?
3)      What about Jerry Sandusky’s wife? What do you think her roll has been?
4)      How could you step in and make a difference as a wife or mother or roll model in this situation? To prevent it, to solve the problem, or to interfere if you were aware something like this was going on?

As Close As You Can Get

CNN conducts what they call a "poll of polls" where they take an average of all of the national polls released on a specific subject. Here is the latest poll of polls released 1) five months before the election and 2) right after the May unemployment numbers were released (only 69,000 jobs were added during the month for the entire country).

CNN Poll of Polls
June 3-9
Registered Voters' Choice for President

Obama  45%
Romney  45%

Nothing more to say about those numbers. Get ready for a crazy summer and fall.

The polls: Fox News (June 3-5), Monmouth University (June 4-6) and the Gallup daily tracking poll (June 3-9).

VEEPstakes

It is almost a sure bet Mitt Romney will be running against President Obama on the November ballot, but who will be running with Romney?

Friday, June 8, a group of conservative republicans in Chicago filled out a “straw poll” to decide who they would pick for the Romney's VP.

straw poll = a poll that doesn’t have binding results, meant to bring up discussion/conversation about a topic

So, let’s start our own discussion.

Here is the list of potential Vice President candidates (in no particular order) they included in this straw poll:

1. Sen. Kelly Ayotte
2. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann
3. Gov. Sam Brownback
4. Former Gov. Jeb Bush
5. Businessman Herman Cain
6. Gov. Chris Christie
7. Gov. Mitch Daniels
8. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich
9. Gov. Nikki Haley
10. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee
11. Gov. Bobby Jindal
12. Sen. Ron Johnson
13. Gov. John Kasich
14. Gov. Susana Martinez
15. Gov. Bob McDonnell
16. Sen. Rand Paul
17. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty
18. Gov. Rick Perry
19. Sen. Rob Portman
20. Sen. Marco Rubio
21. Congressman Paul Ryan
22. Former Sen. Rick Santorum
23. Gov. Scott Walker
24. Other:

Mitt Romney is the one who will make the final decision and he doesn’t have to stick to the above list, but people sure like to guess and talk about it.

Be a part of the MOTUS straw poll and leave a comment.

1)      Who would you like to see chosen as the Republican nominee for Vice President?
2)      How many people on this list do you even know?
3)      Which name(s) do you not recognize or want to know more about? (Don’t feel bad, the official straw poll that was passed around in Chicago had a misspelled name, so apparently it is common.)

MOTUSing: Four women are on this list. Last presidential election season was the first time a female represented the Republican party on the ballot during the general election. The Democratic party has yet to have a female on a presidential ballot. They were close with Hillary Clinton, which may still be a possibility in 2016.