https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/sessions-weed-not-as-bad-as-heroin-but-still-illegal/

While Attorney General Jeff Sessions may have been persuaded that marijuana is not as dangerous as heroin, those harboring hopes for federal concessions on weed legalization shouldn’t bank on his support.

Speaking at a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Sessions stated that the Obama-era guidelines on cannabis remain intact, meaning the drug is illegal on the federal level even though a number of states have voted to legalize it for recreational use.

"Our policy is the same, really, fundamentally as the Holder-Lynch policy, which is that the federal law remains in effect and a state can legalize marijuana for its law enforcement purposes but it still remains illegal with regard to federal purposes," Forbes reported Sessions as saying, referring to previous attorney generals and their policy.

***

“I realize this may be an unfashionable belief in a time of growing tolerance of drug use. But too many lives are at stake to worry about being fashionable,” he said in a speech on combating crime.

WASHINGTON — President Trump, breaking a tradition that stretches back nearly two decades, will not personally greet the eight American Nobel laureates this year before they travel to Sweden in December to receive their prizes.

Not all the honorees are disappointed.

Two American Nobel Prize winners, when contacted by STAT, indicated they would not have attended a White House event even if invited. Columbia biophysicist Joachim Frank, awarded a Nobel in chemistry for his work in microscopy, said in an email he was “very relieved” when he learned there was no chance of an encounter with the president.

“I will not put my foot into the White House as long as Trump, Pence, or Ryan (i.e., the possible succession of impeachments) will occupy it,” Frank said. “I cannot speak for the others; don’t know them personally yet, but I strongly believe that as thinking intelligent people they will have a similar attitude as I.”

https://www.statnews.com/2017/11/13/white-house-nobel-ceremony/?utm_content=buffer99f1b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter_organic

U.S. President Donald Trump skipped the plenary session of a summit of East and Southeast Asian leaders in Manila on Tuesday because of scheduling delays, but he said his marathon trip to the region had been a success.

Trump left for home from the Philippines after a lunch with the other leaders, as meetings were running about two hours behind schedule.

He told reporters on Air Force One that he had delivered his prepared remarks during the lunch instead of the summit meeting. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would attend the plenary session in his place, a senior White House official said.

Trump said his trip had resulted in at least $300 billion, possibly triple that figure, of deals being agreed. He did not elaborate.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/trump-skips-east-asia-summit-plenary-but-says-trip-was-a-success/

David Shuster ?Verified account
@DavidShuster

Trump jr. trading messages with Wikileaks is interesting, and COULD be material to the special counsel investigation. But @cnn @msnbc doing this 24/7 as BREAKING NEWS? Not complaining -- will only increase the appeal of fact based, straight news @i24NEWS_EN Still sad, though.
6:31 PM - 13 Nov 2017

https://twitter.com/DavidShuster/status/930246686051590144

Keith Olbermann ?Verified account
@KeithOlbermann

First, you should see your son, @DonaldJTrumpJr, because he just confessed to collaborating with Russian intermediaries to sabotage the election. Oh and he tweeted the evidence #HesNotBright



https://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/status/930262898903080960

Keith Olbermann? Verified account
@KeithOlbermann
Keith Olbermann Retweeted Donald Trump Jr.
This is conclusive proof of you colluding with a Russian-affiliated Computer Hacker on when and what to release to help a presidential campaign.

JESUS are you stupid

Donald Trump Jr. ?Verified account
@DonaldJTrumpJr

Here is the entire chain of messages with @wikileaks (with my whopping 3 responses) which one of the congressional committees has chosen to selectively leak. How ironic! 1/3



https://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/status/930233604453658625

The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. and Wikileaks

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-secret-correspondence-between-donald-trump-jr-and-wikileaks/545738/

Just before the stroke of midnight on September 20, 2016, at the height of last year’s presidential election, the Wikileaks Twitter account sent a private direct message to Donald Trump Jr., the Republican nominee’s oldest son and campaign surrogate. “A PAC run anti-Trump site putintrump.org is about to launch,” Wikileaks wrote. “The PAC is a recycled pro-Iraq war PAC. We have guessed the password. It is ‘putintrump.’ See ‘About’ for who is behind it. Any comments?” (The site, which has since become a joint project with Mother Jones, was founded by Rob Glaser, a tech entrepreneur, and was funded by Progress for USA Political Action Committee.)

The next morning, about 12 hours later, Trump Jr. responded to Wikileaks. “Off the record I don’t know who that is, but I’ll ask around,” he wrote on September 21, 2016. “Thanks.”

The messages, obtained by The Atlantic, were also turned over by Trump Jr.’s lawyers to congressional investigators. They are part of a long—and largely one-sided—correspondence between Wikileaks and the president’s son that continued until at least July 2017. The messages show Wikileaks, a radical transparency organization that the American intelligence community believes was chosen by the Russian government to disseminate the information it had hacked, actively soliciting Trump Jr.’s cooperation. Wikileaks made a series of increasingly bold requests, including asking for Trump's tax returns, urging the Trump campaign on Election Day to reject the results of the election as rigged, and requesting that the president-elect tell Australia to appoint Julian Assange ambassador to the United States.

“Over the last several months, we have worked cooperatively with each of the committees and have voluntarily turned over thousands of documents in response to their requests,” said Alan Futerfas, an attorney for Donald Trump Jr. “Putting aside the question as to why or by whom such documents, provided to Congress under promises of confidentiality, have been selectively leaked, we can say with confidence that we have no concerns about these documents and any questions raised about them have been easily answered in the appropriate forum.” Wikileaks did not respond to requests for comment.