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.
Bill would expand federal role in transmission
A permitting reform bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last week would, in most cases, prevent the revocation or suspension of previously issued federal permits for energy projects, and strengthen the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's authority to site transmission lines.
The bill, named the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act deals with energy system permitting, power grid and transmission expansion and data center cost allocations.
Under permitting, the bill would reduce the authority states have under the Clean Water Act to block gas pipeline applications, shorten deadlines and impose a 150-day limit for judicial challenges to projects, and restrict federal interference and protect permits once they have been issued.
The bill also expands the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) permitting authority for transmission infrastructure, mandates inter regional grid planning and cost sharing and requires modern grid-enhancing technology and virtual power plant market access.
On Sunday the UK Greens adopted a motion asserting that Zionism is a form of racism, defining the ideology as “an ethnonationalist political project.”
Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, was immediately banned by the Israeli government from entering the nation after the motion was passed.
As you might expect, Israel apologists are presently churning out hasbara trying to spin the new Green Party policy as an evil attack on Jews and arguing that Zionism is actually a perfectly lovely and normal thing that we should all support.
“Zionism is just the belief that Jews deserve a homeland and self-determination,” they’ll claim, often adding a suggestion that the real racists are those who would oppose such a reasonable position.
October 4 has a special meaning to me. On this day, 49 years ago, I came to America.
What I enjoy most about living here is the freedom of speech. I have been writing about Palestine and Islam for more than 40 years. Because I disagree with some aspects of our government's foreign policy, I have sometimes been accused of being anti-American or ungrateful.
But disagreeing with my government is my right as an American.
I did not inherit my citizenship. I worked hard to earn it.
The truth is, if I were to say some of the things I say here overseas, I might not see the sun again. For that freedom, I am grateful.
That said, I also love Reuben sandwiches, Italian pasta salad, pineapple upside-down cake—and I love the United States Postal Service.
The next time you put a letter in the mailbox, take a moment to look at the stamp.
It may be only a little square of paper, but sometimes a postage stamp can tell us something about who we are as Americans.
There is something dangerous happening to American democracy, and it does not always look like voter suppression.
Sometimes it looks like a spreadsheet.
Sometimes it looks like a computer algorithm.
Sometimes it looks like a letter telling you that your voter registration needs to be verified.
Sometimes it looks like nothing at all.
And that may be the most dangerous part.
Edward Ward hosts the Jim Crow Reloaded series.
In the United States, we are only one-month away from the midterm elections. Elections haven’t been going all that well for us on the big cycles in recent years, so we may have to relish some good news before the election with the full recognition that it may be a mirage. But this could really be different this time. When in Oklahoma recently for one of his pre-midterms rallies with Republicans, Trump said, “I feel a little foolish saying ‘Go out and vote, go out and vote,’ but they’re going to win in a landslide.” When Trump is even admitting to a cloudburst of reality, then maybe thinking control of the US Congress and victories in Senate and governor’s races in deep red America has the pendulum swinging our way. Maybe the polls are right for a change.
This week based on the respective Sienna College / New York Times poll, the Times’ reporters wrote this startling paragraph:
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PROTECTING THE MID-TERMS
Are the polls accurate?
Will the Billionaire Tsunami Drown us All?
THE GRASSROOTS EFFECT @ usgrassroots.org
Trusted Messengers, Trusted Messages
Although the temper tantrums of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu dominated mass media coverage of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, which opened in September 2026, the event also included the announcement of a far more significant matter: a campaign to address the problem of worldwide economic inequality.
On September 24, standing in for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Ronald Lamola, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, told General Assembly delegates that “the promise of democracy and international cooperation wanes when we cannot demonstrate that they can address inequality and insecurity.” Thus, “together with Brazil, Norway, and Spain, South Africa calls on this Assembly to throw its weight behind the establishment” of an International Panel on Inequality (IPI). Based on the model of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPI would research inequality within and between countries and develop policies to close the widening gap between the rich and the poor.