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Several citizens have called upon the Mockingbird to investigate several ongoing issues with the Yellow Springs Public Schools System and The Yellow Springs Police Department. Multiple leads have been given and multiple documents have been leaked by multiple people. This has lead our staff on a long series of public records requests to verify claims and construct a narrative around what has now become a widening group of stories. These stories seem to show an expanding pattern of flailing behind covering and arrogant obfuscations.

Earlier this month The Mockingbird reported on two alleged incidents of sexual assault by a student in the Yellow Springs Schools system on at least one other student. This story, set against a backdrop of poor record keeping by the YSPD and the

There has been much talk of Russian interference with the 2016 general election in order to put Putin's finger on the scale for Trump. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been called in front of Congress to answer questions about how Cambridge Analytica got away with mining and using all that data. What the mainstream media, while focusing on Facebook, has failed to amplify is the role of several intelligence community connected firms in the election and what retired spies are involved. Cambridge Analytica did not act alone, they had partners and those partners had connections.

It is hard to determine the truth as to what happened when president Trump ordered a “one-off” military strike on Syria with “smart. Very smart.” missiles. There are conflicting reports on the actual targets of the strikes and these reports vary by source country. As it stands, the United States, the UK and France participated in the strike. The United States, Russia, Iran, and Turkey have military forces operating in Syria along with non-state actors that include two different versions of a Free Syrian Army, Kurdish forces from the YGP, Kurdish forces from Iraq and Hezbollah.

When Andy Ginther unveiled his infrastructure capital improvement plan for 2018 last week he failed to mention how it would enable the police to hear and see everything you see and do on any street in the city. While the only direct surveillance cost listed in the promotional material is $1 million to be spent on a gunfire detection system the amount is much greater. An additional $5 million for police is hidden in the electricity budget for 2018 with an additional $1.7 million to be spent on yet more capital improvements by FY 2022.

The unproven concept that Russian intelligence directly attack American election systems in 2016 keeps being repeated as fact in the media. The details are either shallow or classified. One person, Air Force Veteran and private contractor Reality Winner, remains held without bail still awaiting trial for leaking a single memo on the subject to The Intercept.

The Trump administration has instructed it's DHS personnel to build a database of journalists and “media influencers.” Presumably since the President equates “fake news” with “said bad stuff about the me” this database will be used to retaliate either through direct punishment or denial of access or both. The Free Speech and Freedom of the Press implications are obvious and are being discussed, but not with the details of implementation. Those details do not make the implications more palatable to anyone who lacks a totalitarian heart.

Google loves to tout it's “Don’t Be Evil” motto. Which is why it got itself into an internal revolt this week when 3,100 employees signed a letter to it's CEO Sundar Pichai objecting to Google's participation in Project Maven, which is an AI program using recognition software applied to surveillance footage for the Department of Defense.

Yesterday, April 3rd, The president tweeted about a new, controversial and possibly unconstitutional plan. There was also an avalanche of stories about teenagers snorting condoms. Both are tales of immature minds doing dangerous things as both can be expected to try to do. One of is worthy of logistical examination because it effects innocent people and the other is the hand of the mighty god Darwin in action.

Robert Muller's investigation moves slowly forward, getting guilty pleas and closing in ever so slowly on Donald Trump. In all the allegations, many crimes have been uncovered, and many more will be. Muller, even with his ability to compel testimony and seize documents, has yet to uncover actually effective Russian interference with the 2016 General Election. He is also not the only one with eyes on the events.