Drug War Chronicle By Phil Smith Elections have consequences, as Virginia voters are finding out. Two years ago, a Democratically-controlled Senate and House passed legislation legalizing marijuana, and the Democratic governor signed it into law. That law mandated that legal adult use sales commence by January 1, 2004, and left it to state lawmakers to […]
Asset Forfeiture Reform at the Statehouse 2023
Drug War Chronicle By Phil Smith Civil asset forfeiture — the police seizing cash or property from people without first obtaining a criminal conviction — rankles Americans’ sense of fundamental fairness, and legislators around the country have been picking up on that. According to the Institute for Justice, 37 states have reformed their civil forfeiture […]
Russians Are Helping Ukrainian Refugees
By Slava Tsukerman According to various sources, since the beginning of the war in February 24, 2022, seven to eight million Ukrainians have left the country. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that as of August 3, over 6 million Ukrainian refugees were recorded throughout Europe. The absolute leaders in receiving immigrants were […]
Five Marijuana Legalization Initiatives Were on the Ballot, Two Passed
Drug War Chronicle By Phil Smith Tuesday’s election brought decidedly mixed results for marijuana legalization advocates with three out of five state-level campaigns going down in defeat, according to unofficial results early Wednesday morning. Provided the results hold, Maryland and Missouri will become the 20th and 21st states to legalize marijuana, along with the District […]
Do Russians Really Believe Putin’s Politics Today?
by Slava Tsukerman After more than 8 months, the Russian war with Ukraine continues. The last weeks of Ukrainian successes in battles and Russian mobilization resulted in nearly a million young Russian men fleeing from the country. It seems all that should create disappointment in Putin’s politics for most Russians. Unexpectedly, statics tells the opposite. […]
REF: Charlie Smithgall is in ‘Cannon Heaven’
An LNP article reports the death of Charlie Smithgall, Lancaster’s long time pharmacist, former mayor, and a unique and unforgettable individual. I only got to know Charlie during his two attempts for re-election at which time I was a significant funder and a would be political adviser. Upon my arrival at his house, he would […]
Peace between Russia and Ukraine
Sep 22, 2022. – E-mail to friends Based on current conditions, the following is a deal I propose between Russia and Ukraine that would allow both to retain their dignity: 1). A hundred year lease to Russia for Crimea. 2). Russia having the right of passage by a designated land and rail route to Crimea. […]
Russians’ Attitude To The War With Ukraine
By Slava Tsukerman It is extremely difficult to learn what are Russians’ opinions today on political questions, as almost no Russian tells sociologists what they really think. Besides, the situation depends on the development of the war in Ukraine and it changes literally every hour. Still, combining questionable data presented by polls with rich material […]
Europe’s Largest Nuclear Power Plant Is On Fire
by Slava Tsukerman In the morning of August 7, 2022, the 4th power unit of the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, the Largest in Europe, now under Russian occupation, stopped working. It is on fire. It was disconnected from the network as a result of shelling carried out on August 6, afternoon. The website www.politico.eu […]
REF speaks: Is the “Atlantic” the “Fox News” of the left?
By Robert Field, Publisher Some weeks ago I discontinued my subscription to the “Atlantic”. This morning I heard Jeffrey Goldberg, its Editor in Chief, two times refer to Trump supports as “rabble”. I hardly consider almost half of the nation as “rabble”, defined at Google “as ordinary people, often regarded as socially inferior […]
Great news for NewsLanc and the history of Lancaster
Spread over the next few months, we will be adding to our NewsLanc web site the recently discovered articles that predated June, 2009 that were lost during the change over to the Word Press format . For any student or historian interested in Lancaster history, the early years of reporting on NewsLanc will be especially […]
Is the bar for proficiency now too high to encourage learning a musical instrument?
A couple of hundred years ago, only those living in major cities could hear professional performances of classical music. It was common for families and friends to gather in parlors to listen to amateurs perform music as best they could. The beauty of what they were playing transcended occasional mistakes, corrections, and misinterpretations. But in […]
Russians Find Historical Analogies With Their War In Ukraine
By Slava Tsukerman Founding historical analogies to the Russian aggression in Ukraine became one of the popular subjects in the Russian anti-Putin media lately. There are two types of analogies. The first type is analogies with previous events in Russian history, the second type is analogies with the activity of Nazi Germany. Speaking […]
REF speaks re arming teachers
Newslanc supports allowing specially trained school teachers to have access to guns, body armor and face shields in a secure classroom closet. Only trained volunteers would have access to the closets. I recall from our visits to Israel several decades ago that every adult from army age forward was required to keep a firearm in […]