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Re “The Tragedy of Fox News,” by Bret Stephens (column, April 26):

We’ve heard this plea before: If only there were a rational, honest, center-right party or news source!

Mr. Stephens and similar lamenters don’t indicate what such a party’s positions would be, other than general shifts to more liberal democratic ideals.

The fact is, the agendas of these center-right Republicans have already won the day. We live in a country dominated by their policies, which today’s Democrats either acquiesce to or try vainly to mitigate, while occasionally passing a measure that’s inadequate to solve a problem.

So the wealth gap steadily increases; the rich continue to evade fair taxation; the prospects of the poor continue to worsen; the judicial system incarcerates disproportionate numbers of minorities; military-style weapons continue to proliferate, resulting in an absurd rate of mass shootings; debt handicaps the young and the poor; and the list goes on.

Today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced it approved licensing for Holtec International’s controversial consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in southeastern New Mexico’s Lea County, not far from the Texas border. The facility is designed to store high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants across the U.S. But NRC approval notwithstanding, a recently enacted New Mexico State law and multiple federal court challenges may yet block the project.

Holtec’s Bid to Enter the Nuclear Waste Storage Business

Recent developments in Washington relating to Ukraine and the Middle East remind me that there is a big difference between maintaining secrecy when a situation warrants it and lying over issues where there is no compelling reason to do so beyond political expediency. Having spent more than twenty years in American intelligence agencies where secrecy was the operative norm, I would illustrate that difference as follows: a legitimate secret would be something like not revealing information that would place people or vital national interests in jeopardy, while a lie would be committing a crime and fabricating a narrative that would deny or obfuscate that anything dire had actually taken place. When it comes to lying, I am, of course, referring to the bizarre behavior by the United States government, most particularly ever since 9/11, to commit war crimes and then come up with reasons for its foreign and national security policies to have taken a singular aggressive and coercive turn not justified by reality or by any real threat.

Khader Adnan was not a ‘terrorist’ with ‘Israeli blood on his hands,’ as pro-Israeli propagandists have been repeating in the news and on social media. 

If the former Palestinian prisoner, who died in his Israeli prison cell following 87 days of an uninterrupted hunger strike was, indeed, directly involved in armed resistance, the story would have had a completely different ending. 

Armed Palestinian resistors are either assassinated or detained and tried by Israeli military courts to spend prolonged sentences in Israeli prisons, following brief trials that lack any fairness or due process.

ALBANY, NY (May 5, 2023) - The Museum of Political Corruption proudly announces that Anna Wolfe, Investigative Reporter for Mississippi Today has been named the 2023 winner of Museum’s Nellie Bly Award for Investigative Reporting. Anna Wolfe’s tenacious reporting has resulted in her exposing the biggest case of fraud in Mississippi government history.

The case involved Mississippi state officials’ mishandling of millions in federal funds intended to assist struggling families. Those involved have pleaded guilty and investigations by the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office are ongoing.

“I started reporting on Mississippi’s welfare system with a simple but often overlooked question: What is the poorest, yet most federally funded state in the nation doing to solve poverty? Who knew getting the answer would require the very kind of innovative, dogged and brave reporting that Nellie Bly championed. I’m certainly honored to receive this award in her name,” offered Wolfe.

Wolfe is the 7 th annual recipient of the award. Previous “Nellie” winners include Jerry Mitchell, Alex Gibney, Jane Mayer, Megan Twohey, Jodi Kantor, Jim Heaney, and Susanne Craig.

A succession of events starting in Barcelona, Spain, in February, and followed in Liège, Belgium, and Oslo, Norway, in April sent a strong message to Israel: The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) is alive and well. 

 In Barcelona, the city's Mayor canceled a twinning agreement with the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. The decision was not an impulsive one, although Ada Colau is well-known for her principled positions on many issues. It was, however, an outcome of a fully democratic process, initiated by a proposal submitted by left-wing parties at the city council.