Global
“Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled. I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.”
The words are those of Renee Good’s wife Becca. They cut to our heart – our humanity. She was shot in the face by an ICE agent, who then muttered: “Fuckin’ bitch.” The murder of this 37-year-old mom as she tried to drive around the ICE guys who stopped her is national news, of course. Almost everyone has seen at least one of the many videos of the incident and, you might say, the national dialogue about virtually anything else has been put on hold.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested, detained, deported, and/or imprisoned many people that it has unilaterally determined to be undesirables. At first, they claimed they would deport only criminals, but it has already gone beyond that. We at the Free Press consider every person who has been sent to the Tecoluca (El Salvador prison), Guantanamo naval base, or detained in other prisons throughout the country to be innocent until proven guilty. We will include students who have been expelled for protesting genocide. It appears the government will revoke Visa's to get rid of undesirable students. This article will be updated as long as is necessary.
‘Page Six Hollywood’ recently declared: “War of Open Letters Erupts Between Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine Factions in Hollywood.” Only a few years ago, a headline like this would have seemed unthinkable.
The article described an increasingly open struggle between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel forces within the entertainment industry. On one side are artists and other industry figures taking a clear stand against Israel’s genocide in Gaza; on the other are defenders of Israel attempting to deny that genocide in the face of irrefutable evidence.
Yet even this framing failed to tell the whole story. What is unfolding is far more consequential than a quarrel among celebrities or a “war of open letters.” It is part of a brewing cultural revolution in American society - one that has now reached the highest echelons of the country’s cultural establishment. And in that struggle, Israel is losing - and losing badly.
When a president grants clemency to a convicted soldier despite objections from the military leadership, the decision naturally raises questions about justice, accountability, and the meaning of mercy.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog's decision to pardon former IDF soldier Elor Azaria provides precisely such a moment. Azaria was convicted of manslaughter after shooting and killing Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, a wounded and incapacitated Palestinian in Hebron in 2016. Herzog's decision came despite opposition from senior military officials to shortening the consequences of Azaria's conviction.
That disagreement is significant. The military's position and the president's decision represent two different judgments about what should happen after a serious criminal conviction. Herzog's office cited factors including the passage of time, Azaria having completed his sentence, changed personal and family circumstances, and the remorse expressed in his clemency request.
But there is another side of the story that should not be forgotten: the person who died and the family who had to live with that loss.
On June 6, 2025, Donald Trump’s White House staff issued an upbeat statement proclaiming that what it called the “Trump Effect” was creating “higher pay for American workers.” The reality, though, is that Trump, during his second term in office, has deliberately reduced the wages of millions of workers and, despite substantial inflation, frozen the wages of millions more.
We then switch to “zombie reactors” and the great investigative reporter ROGER RAPOPORT’s scoop on the decimation of the expert labor force at Michigan’s Palisades nuke and the industry’s own insiders warning of a 1/20 chance of a major accident within 14 months of Palisades re-opening..
Solartopia Show co-host KEVIN KAMPS gives us the run-down on the insane Keystone Kops fiasco of trying to re-start shut nukes like TMI, Duane Arnold & Palisades.
Long Island legend KARL GROSSMAN explains that Holtec is a “nuclear outlaw” also at NY’s Indian Point reactor, where waste is being dumped.
Long-time activist MYLA RESON chimes in with thanks to former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan for helping California shut the damaged San Onofre atomic reactors…
...which now must happen at Diablo Canyon, Palisades et al..
Ihren Ausweis, bitte!”
Show me your papers!
You’ve seen it in a dozen World War II movies. Some menacing German officer in a Hugo Boss trench coat stops the family/spy/hero/refugee to demand citizenship papers.
And now, it’s baaack! Trump’s Executive Order 14399 requires Americans to “show me your citizenship papers” to vote.
But you can fight this Nazi-fication of our elections. Start by watching this 4-minute video from Palast Investigative Fund Fellow Edward Ward, second in our series Jim Crow Reloaded.
President Isaac Herzog recently granted Elor Azaria clemency, shortening the period before the remainder of his criminal record could be erased. He did so despite opposition from the military's chief of staff.
In March 2016, Azaria shot and killed 21-year-old Palestinian Abdulfattah al-Sharif in Hebron while al-Sharif was wounded and lying incapacitated on the ground.
Azaria, who was serving as an IDF medic, approached the wounded al-Sharif and fatally shot him in the head from a few feet away. A video of the shooting was published by B'Tselem and went viral on Israeli social media, sparking widespread controversy and renewed debate over Israel's characterization of the IDF as "the most moral army in the world."
