by Phi Smith DRUG WAR CHRONICLES: President Obama has commuted the sentences of more than a thousand federal drug war prisoners, but thousands more have applications in the pipeline. With an incoming Trump administration exceedingly unlikely to act on those petitions, scholars, activists, and at least one US congressman are calling on Obama to expedite […]
Lawmakers scared of the return of a vindicated and vindictive Kathleen Kane
NEWSLANC EDITOR: By impeaching former Attorney General Kathleen Kane, Pennsylvania lawmakers would disqualilfy her from returning to run for governor. They have good reason for concern.. HOUSE COMMITEE TABLES KANE IMPEACHMENT CAPITOL WIRE: State lawmakers have decided not to proceed with the impeachment of Pennsylvania’s former top prosecutor, but are leaving the option on the table […]
Will Rick Gray’s retirement be good for Lancaster City?
Article by LNP “Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray won’t seek re-election” can be very good news for the citizenry and their children and grandchildren. Or it may not be. Gray is a decent individual but fell sway to special interests and bad advisors when it came to real estate development and public works projects. He flipped […]
“Porngate” revisited
By Dick Miller WE,CONNECT.DOTS: Anyone who says PA Democratic Governor Tom Wolf and the solid Republican leadership of the state legislature do not get along must be mistaken. Depends on the circumstances. Just about everyone is determined to reduce the fallout from “porngate.” If possible, voters/taxpayers cannot learn of any other executive, legislative or […]
There’s a lot of worry that the incoming president will try to reinstate reefer madness in states where pot is already legal.
By Phillip Smith ALTERNET.ORG: The election of Donald Trump is sending chills down the spine of the nation’s nascent marijuana industry. Could he and a Republican Congress try to roll back the clock and force federal pot prohibition down the throats of states that have, via the popular vote, gone down the path toward legalization? […]
Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say
WASHINGTON POST: The flood of “fake news” this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation… “They want to essentially erode […]
Russian elations have turned to wariness
By Slava Tsukerman On November 17th Russian Federal News Agency informed Russians that then president Donald Trump is going to visit Russia that first thing after his inauguration. The statement was illustrated by the above picture. Thanks to President Elect Trump’s earlier statements praising Russian President Vladimir Putin, the news of Trump’s election victory triggered […]
Chronicle AM: ME Recount Possible, DEA Bans “Pink,” WI Welfare Drug Tests Start
by psmith DRUG WAR CHRONICLE: Cannabis cafes are coming, Maine legalization foes seek a recount, Massachusetts legislators are threatening to “improve” the legalization initiative, the DEA bans “pink,” and more. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte wants to get rid of habeas corpus as he wages lethal drug war. (Creative Commons/Wikimedia MarijuanaMarijuana Victories Will See Cannabis Cafes […]
Only state-run radio to broadcast nationally in Hungary from today
NOVEMBER 21, 2016 BY BENJAMIN NOVAK Hungary has reached another new milestone. As of Sunday, only four radio stations will broadcast nationally in Hungary, all of them state-run. Not since 1991 has radio been so one-sided, reports kreativ.hu. The broadcast frequency license of Class FM, a radio station previously owned by Fidesz oligarch-in-exile Lajos Simicska, formally expired on Sunday, […]
The never-ending PA budget
By Dick Miller WE CONNECT DOTS: Not so long ago (late July, early August) Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and the state legislature were patting themselves on the back for passage of the 2016-17 budget in normal time. Normal time compared to the 2015-16 budget which did not get resolved until February of this year. That […]
Mark Zuckerberg re Facebook’s efforts to weed out fake news
The below letter from Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, was released to the world wide media. A lot of you have asked what we’re doing about misinformation, so I wanted to give an update. The bottom line is: we take misinformation seriously. Our goal is to connect people with the stories they find […]
HIV Epidemic in Russia
By Slava Tsukerman One of the biggest news of this month in Russia was the publication of information about the growing HIV epidemic in Yekaterinburg (population of 1,349,772), the fourth-largest city in Russia and the administrative center of industrial Sverdlovsk region. Yekaterinburg is located in Ural mountains, on the border of Europe and Asia. Tatiana Savinova, the first deputy head of the city’s health […]
Facebook fake-news writer: ‘I think Donald Trump is in the White House because of me’
WASHINGTON POST: …Paul Horner, the 38-year-old impresario of a Facebook fake-news empire, has made his living off viral news hoaxes for several years. He has twice convinced the Internet that he’s British graffiti artist Banksy; he also published the very viral, very fake news of a Yelp vs. “South Park” lawsuit last year… You’ve been writing […]
How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News
BUZZ FEED: …Over the past year, the Macedonian town of Veles (population 45,000) has experienced a digital gold rush as locals launched at least 140 US politics websites. These sites have American-sounding domain names such as WorldPoliticus.com, TrumpVision365.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co, and USADailyPolitics.com. They almost all publish aggressively pro-Trump content aimed at conservatives and Trump supporters […]