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No justice in pardon of jailed judge

Michael Conahan should be familiar with what goes into difficult decisions about crime and punishment and their effect on a person’s life. Conahan was a Temple-trained lawyer, who spent 13 years as a Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas judge. For four years, he was the county’s president judge — a position like the chief justice of a supreme court that adds administrative responsibility to the judicial load. He was called upon to weigh what was done, why, remorse and regret then deliver appropriate consequences. In 2009, he pleaded guilty to a scheme in which he and another ...

Trump’s fear factor a definite throwback

If they have any instinct for self-preservation, Iran and Hamas should be monitoring President-Elect Donald Trump’s communications closely these days. A couple of weeks ago, there was the Truth Social post promising “ALL HELL TO PAY” if Hamas didn’t release its hostages by Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. “Those responsible,” Trump noted, “will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.” He followed up during a press conference Monday. When asked what he meant by his prior threat, Trump left it ...

Build memories during Christmas break

As school buses complete their final rounds before Christmas break, the Juniata Valley prepares for an annual shift. Starting today, our streets and neighborhoods will buzz with children trading classrooms for play and homework for hot chocolate. This temporary transformation offers our community an opportunity. While parents juggle work schedules and holiday preparations, hundreds of young people will explore our town during daylight hours. Drivers, take note - slow down as kids are out and about. The following two weeks mark more than a pause from education. They create space for ...

Can Donald Trump put a stop to domestic spying?

During the course of an FBI written response to a Freedom of Information Act request asking about the trade names and suppliers of surveillance software the FBI had purchased, the government has yet again quietly acknowledged its antipathy to constitutional provisions that all of its employees have sworn to uphold. Since we are dealing with software used to spy on Americans in the U.S. and abroad, the constitutional right being transgressed is the right to privacy. This is the ancient natural right to be left alone, which the Supreme Court took 175 years to recognize as being ...

Don’t write off DOGE just yet

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy want to cut $2 trillion and make the government more efficient. It’s a high priority since the United States is barreling toward a fiscal crisis. Yet despite the mounting evidence of unsustainable spending and deficits, lots of people seem to believe that the goals of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, are dead on arrival. Why? Because these doubters believe that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are completely off-limits for cuts. This is nonsense. Spending on these three programs represents roughly half of 2025’s $7 trillion ...

The combined contracts of a few sports stars rival some state budgets

The top story of the past week had nothing to do with politics, the federal government, or wars abroad. For me, it was “the contract.” As an avid life-long New York Yankees fan, at first, I was crushed by the Yankees failure to land and keep the young phenom baseball superstar Juan Soto. He accepted a whopping $765 million contract that with bonuses could eclipse $800 million offered by the Yankees’ crosstown rivals, the New York Mets. The Mets won the baseball sweepstakes. Or did they? Only time will tell. This all sounds like sour grapes on my part. Yes, guilty as ...