Free Press is committed to documenting the people taken by ICE

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.

Familiar tale gracefully blends feminism and fantasy

Feminism has a crucial role to play in modern life, but I sometimes wish it would leave our fairy tales alone. The results of its revisionist meddling are too often unconvincing and unsatisfying.

Remember last year’s Maleficent? It turned an age-old story on its head by revealing that the fairy (Angelina Jolie) who turned a princess into a “Sleeping Beauty” was not evil at all. No, she was merely wronged and misunderstood. Worst of all, we learned that the somnambulant princess could not be awakened by a kiss from the handsome prince, but only by a motherly peck from that same fairy.

How heartwarming. And how utterly unromantic.

Thank goodness Disney’s new live-action version of Cinderella doesn’t wear its feminism on its sleeve. It has nods to modern sensibilities, to be sure, but they’re handled with a lighter touch.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya: Does anyone still remember me?!

If we truly had a free media in the US, rather than one serving the interest of the only shithole in the Middle East, the story of Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, who was kidnapped by the IDF one year ago and has been since held in Israeli concentration camp would have been a front-page story.

Daniel Pearl and Etan Alexander were taken captives in Afghanistan (2002) and Gaza (2023) respectively. Their names became household names. Their stories were televised by US media and their pictures were front page stories. Sadly, Pearl did not make it, but Alexander was freed and came back home. Reason? There were both Jewish.

Israeli occupation forces detained Dr. Abu Safia on December 27 after they forcibly vacated the Kamal Adwan Hospital during a military operation in northern Gaza.

Dr. Abu Safiya is currently held in Ofer Prison, which is located near Ramallah in Israel. He was previously detained in notorious Sde Teiman military detention camp before being transferred to Ofer Prison, as reported by the Middle East Monitor.

Scams & Money Laundering in Southeast Asia


BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand seized more than $300 million in a new crackdown against international criminals allegedly laundering money through two banks in Bangkok from online scam centers in neighboring Cambodia and Myanmar, but the top suspects are still at large.

"The individuals involved are all scammers. Three or four who have been arrested are major players," Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul announced on December 3 after a nationwide investigation.

"The seized or frozen assets amount to more than 10 billion baht ($312.5 million)," Mr. Anutin said without naming the arrested people.

They were charged with "conspiracy, running a criminal association, public fraud, and money laundering," a summary of the police report said.

More than a dozen top suspects are still at large including "Yim Leak chairman of BIC Group, a major financial network in Cambodia, who was suspected of bringing criminal proceeds into Thailand for money laundering or business investment," it said.

Cash was allegedly laundered through fake "mule accounts" before reaching two of Thailand's biggest banks.

Happy Trumpmas

You Need to Understand the Supreme Court’s “Shadow Docket”

Supreme court

If you want to understand how the Supreme Court’s MAGA majority has undermined democracy, you need to understand the “shadow docket.”

The shadow docket — as the court’s emergency docket has come to be known — is one of the more dramatic and corrupt ways that MAGA-aligned justices are enabling President Trump to take away our freedoms.

Normally, the justices don’t hear a case until after lower courts have considered it fully and made a final decision. But a party to a case may describe it as so urgent that quick “relief” is needed from the Supreme Court, claiming that “irreparable harm” may occur while lower courts consider it.

That puts it on the emergency docket.

Since time is supposedly of the essence, the justices don’t hold oral arguments. And if they grant the “relief” and undo the lower court’s order, they often give us little if any explanation why. Lower court judges are left without much guidance on whether or how to use the decision to guide their own decisions.

With so little sunlight, no wonder the term “shadow docket” has stuck.

ICE out of Home Depot

Details about event

Sunday, December 7, 3:30pm
Whetstone Library, 3909 N. High St.
Register here

All over the country, ICE agents are targeting immigrants in and around Home Depot, attacking and terrorizing workers, customers, and surrounding communities. The raids are terrifying, chaotic, and sometimes deadly.

These atrocities are happening on Home Depot’s watch, on its properties, with its silence. The Home Depot company has not resisted or condemned these raids. It has not publicly demanded that the Administration stop assaulting and abducting people on and outside its properties. As far as we know, it hasn't even asked.

We will write postcards to Central Ohio Home Depot store managers and to Home Depot corporate leaders demanding an end to their complicity and promising not to shop at Home Depot until they stop allowing ICE to conduct raids on its properties.

Racist Douchenozzle

Viva Venezuela!

 

A very close friend of mine in southern California used to listen to Fox News pretty much non-stop. The Venezuelan Communists, according to Fox, were planning to invade the USA, he warned me. Hordes of savage Venezuelans were about to ravage the lovely coast of Southern California.

Was this before Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Taliban, and the wicked Iranians sacked California, I asked him? America’s enemies are everywhere, according to the alarmist far right. Today’s rightwing worrywarts are the children of the ‘reds under our beds’ crowd of the 1950’s.

But Venezuela? It’s a military pipsqueak and has barely enough money to feed itself. This nation is rich by nature but poor by government.

Venezuela does have one of the world’s largest reserves of heavy oil which needs specialized refineries to process. In happier days, Venezuela served as a basic oil supplier for US industry. But then the Venezuelans, led by their colorful Castro-inspired strongman, Hugo Chavez, came up with the heretical idea that the massive oil profits should be equally shared between Americans and Venezuelans.

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