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.
Yair “Little Bibi” Netanyahu, the eldest of the two sons of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—Israel’s “Crime Minister,” as some of his critics call him—was reportedly “urgently” evacuated from Miami after what was described as a “significant threat.” Oh, the irony.
On August 29–30, 2026, Al Jazeera reported that Israel’s Shin Bet security service confirmed that Yair Netanyahu was urgently evacuated from Miami to Israel because of what it called a “significant threat” to harm him. Benjamin Netanyahu had complained a couple of days earlier that Iran had a plan to kill one of his sons. Days later, Israeli media reported that the threat was Iran-linked. However, Shin Bet has not publicly released details about the specific plot, suspects, or evidence.
I wonder why.
Why is there apparently no similar threat to Bibi’s other son, who lives quietly in England? Little Bibi had to leave Miami immediately, reportedly without even having time to pack his belongings? It reminds me of the old sailor returning home after a year at sea, only to be greeted by his pregnant wife.
This essay examines whether political mechanisms historically associated with fascism are necessarily dependent upon secular nationalism, or whether analogous mechanisms can emerge within a religious revolutionary state. The Islamic Republic of Iran provides a particularly important case because its political order combines theocratic authority, revolutionary ideology, institutionalized coercion, restricted political competition, militarized power, and extensive regulation of society. The question is not whether Iran is simply another version of Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany. The more consequential question is whether political structures and mechanisms historically associated with fascism can be reproduced under a radically different ideological foundation.
Criticism of the Islamic Republic's authoritarian political structure should not be interpreted as an endorsement of American hegemony or Israeli military policy. Conversely, opposition to American or Israeli power does not require political or moral justification of the Iranian state. These are analytically separate questions.
The US has joined the UK in adding the activist group Palestine Action to its list of designated terrorist organizations.
The UK proscribing Palestine Action was already arguably the most insane attack on free speech in recent western history, and now it’s the official position of the US government as well. Western support for Israel is poisoning our entire civilization.
The US has also made the unprecedented move of adding the Italian tech support collective Autistici/Inventati to its list of banned terrorist groups, not because they’ve been accused of any crimes, but explicitly because the company allows people to communicate with each other while staying “anonymous, untraceable, and beyond the reach of the law.” Americans are now strictly forbidden from any transactions with the banned company.
In this dystopia, mass surveillance is now so normalized that you can be designated a terrorist for helping people avoid being surveilled.
❖
Last Monday the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director (DCI) John Ratcliffe and his retinue boarded a US Air Force C-17 Globemaster transport plane at Joint Base Andrews airfield in Maryland, stopped presumably to refuel at the Riga airport in NATO member Latvia, and then flew on to land at Vnukovo International Airport, one of the four airports that serve the Russian capitol Moscow. The plane touched down on Tuesday at 9 am local time. The trip had been unannounced and its purpose was somewhat of a mystery. Ratcliffe and company departed the airport security zone in a diplomatic motorcade of armored vehicles that either were being transported in the plane itself or drawn from the US Embassy and CIA Station’s own supply of administrative vehicles. One source speculates that the vehicles were being carried in the large transport aircraft because they were equipped with secure communications that would enable them to connect with Washington without the Russians having the ability to intercept what was being said.
Oh, cry me a river!
Rather than simply presenting the incident as evidence that Israelis are victims of irrational hostility, perhaps Bennett should use the opportunity to explain to his daughter why Israel has become the object of such intense anger and resentment in many parts of the world.
If I were advising Bennett, I would suggest that he tell his daughter and his other three children something like this:
Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) was named the top Jewish charitable organization of 2023 by The Jerusalem Post.
So, before you donate, ask yourself: What is your money helping to fund—and who ultimately pays the price?
After reading a powerful post on X by @LailaPalestini1 of Los Angeles, California, highlighting some of the human impact of supporting Israel, I was inspired to expand on the issues she raised and examine what donations to organizations such as FIDF can mean in practice.
https://x.com/LailaPalestini1/status/2093800096680800348?s=20
While we may not be able to stop the Trump administration and Congress from providing military and financial aid to Israel, we can influence businesses, charities, and private organizations through our choices.
According to FIDF, donations support programs intended to equip, strengthen, and empower IDF soldiers. But that raises an important question: