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The guy who calls women reporters "Piggy"
Further

Quiet, Piggy

Whew. Last week was...a week. Enraging, astounding, often venomous, with flailing small dicktator energy all around. There were pigs, dogs, bonesaws, pedophiles, tumbling polls, charming Marxists, almost everything he's done declared illegal and defiant Democrats threatened with death for, um, defending the rule of law. Sen. Chris Murphy's message to those still complacent before the growing dangers posed by a cornered, venal, fascist loser: "Maybe now would be the time to pick a fucking side."

Over the last bungled weeks of a shambolic presidency that's transmuted America into ugly chaos, the wannabe king has suffered enough losses - electoral, legal, political, economic - some observers argue he's finally losing his mystifying "air of impenetrability," with polls showing him underwater on every issue, including immigration. As U.S. consumer sentiment falls over 7 points to record lows - thanks disastrous tariffs! - he has a lame 26% approval rating on the cost of living, 76% of Fox viewers say the economy is bad, and even cult members shopping for the holidays are reportedly starting to notice the dissonance between his gold ballroom and their unaffordable "groceries," even if he did invent the elegant word. Hell, they might even spot the idiocy of a guy who recently revealed he had an MRI, insisted it had "the best result," but when asked if it was for his brain raved, "I have no idea what they analyzed, but whatever they analyzed, they analyzed it well."

They've also finally noted his stonewalling on what is evidently, universally unpopular pedophilia, with 80% of voters blasting his handling of his dead bestie predator's files and the "wonderful secret" they shared. Even as Congress voted to release the Epstein files and Trump signed off on it, he continues whining it's "time to move on" from "a Hoax" that just deflects from his "Great Success (with) Affordability (where we are winning BIG!)" and "gaining Trillions of Dollars of Investment" and "stopping Transgender for Everyone." Hmm. A tad suspiciously, he then ordered his Dept. of Justice (sic) to newly investigate any creepy Democrat pedophiles though they already said there'd be no more investigations; asked about that disparity, a robotic Pam Bondi declaimed there is "Information...new information" but not to worry because they will "follow the law" with "maximum transparency," blankly repeating, def not from a script, "follow the law, maximum transparency," "follow the law...."

Finally, desperately cornered into "maximum transparency" after months of dissembling and deflection and lies, Trump has taken in stride his monumental failure to get his way and hide his crimes with the calm compliance of any vaguely responsible adult who knows he's doing the right thing. Just kidding. Because, "Nothing says 'I'm definitely not worried about the Epstein Files' like telling a female reporter, 'Quiet, Piggy,'" that's what he now famously did last week during a press gaggle on Air Force One en route from D.C. to Mar-A-Lago (again). Asked by Catherine Lucey, a senior Bloomberg reporter who's covered national politics for over 20 years, what Epstein meant when he said Trump "knew about the girls" - duh - he said, "I know nothing about that" but insisted on his "very bad relationship" with his longtime bestie. When Lucey began a very sensible follow-up question - "If there's nothing incriminating in the files..." he lost it. "Quiet! Quiet, piggy," he snarled, jabbing his stubby, rancid, little finger in her face.

It was, of course, "one more unforgivable thing in a list of 20,000 unforgivable things." It was the gazillionth loutish, repulsive, misogynist dross issuing from the vile anus mouth that's spewed, "be nice;" "fat pig," "keep your voice down," "not my type," "what a nasty question," "don't be threatening," "that's enough of you," "there was blood coming out of her eyes, out of her wherever," and, "they let you do it." Perhaps because it was more of the same or that no reporter stood up to it, the atrocity drew little mainstream coverage. But for many, revulsion at his aberrant, "aggressive sexism now seemingly uncontrollable by the man himself" took off. Among pols, Gavin Newsom and his take-no-prisoners press team were almost alone to speak up, loudly. Along with legit critiques - tariffs, ballrooms, gold crap, last month's 40,000 layoffs: "Cant. Stop. Winning" - there was the pig-faced builder of ballrooms, the Trump/Epstein "piggies," the "Good Night Little Piggy" and several other grotesqueries.

Speaking of: In the following days, there was also treacherous, sycophantic Press Barbie, aka Washington Rose, excusing the "hostile sexism" widely deemed not just a crass personal offense but "a political weapon (tied) to violence, a war on women that is ultimately part of the war on democracy." First, Karoline Leavitt tried out, "This reporter behaved in an inappropriate and unprofessional way towards her colleagues" - with, obviously, zero evidence. When that didn't fly, she turned to calling for us, his lucky minions, to celebrate the mad king's "frankness." We should respect "the president being frank and honest," she said, returning to the "frankness" theme three more times as "one of the many reasons the American people reelected him." Also, "fake news," calling it "like he sees it," and getting "frustrated with reporters when you lie about him" - which we bet is a lot like patriots getting "frustrated" when foul regime flunkies brazenly lie to them about fucking everything.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Lie, twist, embroider, digress, threaten, distort: Has there ever been a less "frank," more hideously two-faced, self-serving band of charlatans, fraudsters and crooks ostensibly running this nation? "Quiet, piggy" has, indeed, been said in various iterations to us all. Words have become hollow and weaponized, cudgels to deceive, subdue, silence enemies" - who, if they dare speak up, are pummeled by the full force of a vengeful regime. And so to six "seditious" Democratic lawmakers, all veterans, who had the chutzpah in this dark lawless time to urge members of the military to, gasp, obey the law. In last week's 90-second video, Senators Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly, and Reps Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio, Chrissy Houlahan, Jason Crow reminded service members they don't have to obey orders they believe break the law. "Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend the Constititution," they said. "Our laws are clear, you can refuse illegal orders."

Private Bonespurs, the abuser-in-chief in charge of words as weapons, went ballistic. "Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL," he thundered. "Their words cannot be allowed to stand - We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.” For moral support, he added 16 MAGA comments; one called for hanging the perps. Still fuming, he kept raging. Soon, "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP??" Then, just going for it, "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” He also re-posted another MAGA stable genius: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!” Ok. So the leader of the free speech, anti-cancel-culture party, whose frenzied campaign against potentially violent political speech after the shooting of angelic Charlie Kirk led to many hundreds of people losing their jobs for accurately critiquing Kirk's incendiary words, now accuses his opponents for encouraging political violence. Got it.

The Democratic veterans stood firm. "The president considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law," they said. "But this isn’t about any one of us. This is about who we are as Americans. This is a time for moral clarity." Sen.Chris Murphy concurred. "The President just called for Democratic members of Congress to be executed...If you're a person of influence in this country (who) hasn't picked a side, maybe now would be the time to pick a fucking side." On social media, people were aghast at the spectacle of a weak strongman spiraling down, like a cornered animal. "Good fucking Christ, what an absolute buffoon," said one. Also, "'Just following orders' is not a valid defense, and never will be." Heather Cox Richardson noted that, before 1866 midterms, Andrew Johnson called for his rivals to be hanged as traitors: "Voters were so profoundly moved by his words they gave his opponents a supermajority in Congress, and the nation got the 14th Amendment.”

Republicans, with their usual backbone, stayed silent. Reptilian Mike Johnson said Dear Leader was "just defining the crime of sedition" and any Democrat "behav(ing) in that kind of talk is to me just beyond the pale," MAGA-ese for, "You talkin' to me?" Press Barbie again defended her mob boss, shrieking Dems "conspired together" to urge the military to "defy the president's lawful (sic) orders" and we should be talking about them inciting violence. But the backlash shut her up. A day later, asked, "Does the president want to execute members of Congress?” she answered, "No." Headlines befitting the surreal timeline then dutifully reported, "Trump Does Not Want to Execute Members of Congress, White House Says." The same day, a judge declared National Guard deployment to DC an unlawful order, just like in Chicago and Portland; another, in a 233-page roast, said ICE use of force was also illegal, blasting mini-perp Greg Bovino as "evasive, violent and outright lying."

At the next "veritable Comicon for serial killers," the White House rolled out a blood-red carpet for Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Bonesaw as a giddy Trump proclaimed, "We’re more than meeting. We're honoring Saudi Arabia." Never mind his own first-term CIA found they ordered the grisly murder of WaPo writer Jamal Khashoggi: Cue a weird, gleeful, blindingly gold Oval Office meeting, a state dinner with Jewish or gay CEOs who'd be stoned or jailed by Saudis, a swap of U.S fighter jets for Saudi investment. It was jolly until ABC News' Mary Bruce rightly asked about the Saudis' role in 9/11, Khashoggi's murder, Trump's blood-soaked business deals. At her impudence, the mob boss who gets to decide who says what scowled. He smeared Khashoggi, cleared Bonesaw, inanely decreed "things happen," and went after Bruce. She was "insubordinate," "a terrible reporter" who shouldn't "embarrass our guest by asking him a terrible question.” Essentially, he told Bruce, "Quiet, piggy."

@thedailyshow

Trump’s playdate with Mohammed bin Salman took a handsy turn #DailyShow #Trump #MohammedbinSalman

It's unclear how productive the meeting will prove. At their last visit, the Saudis blithely played the idiot narcissist - SAD - with a mobile McDonald's truck; this time, headlines posited Bonesaw "got almost everything he wanted" from Trump, and pundits gravely noted, "We're still kind of waiting to see what all this actually means." Meanwhile, can-do House Republicans continue tackling vital issues of the day. After 10 months of mostly being on vacation and accomplishing virtually nothing but an Epstein vote they were forced into - and before breaking until December - they just passed a resolution, 285-98, denouncing the horrors of socialism. In a truly WTF move, they were helped by the votes of 86 cowardly Dems who evidently agreed with sponsor and Florida Rep. María Elvira Salazar that, "The Mamdani socialist agenda is seeping into our country like poison," aka we can't let them make our children live under Sharia law and count in Arabic numbers and let's all panic.

The next day, Trump met with Mamdani. It was not the expected fiery confrontation; rather, a savvy, charming Mamdani wrapped a star-struck Trump around his Democratic Socialist finger in a surreal scene that made MAGA heads - especially, presumably, Goebbels' bald one and J.D.s groveling one - explode. The newly gracious,Trump, a hollow, insecure, image-obsessed shell of a human ineluctably "drawn to the shine of respect in others' eyes" who "agrees with whoever's standing within 10 feet of him," pronounced Mamdani "a very rational person," a winner who will make "a great New York City mayor." Mamdani smiled. "What the hell is going on?" asked many. Also: "Trump having a man crush on Zohran was not on my Bingo card," "You can tell Mamdani spent a lot of time ferrying loose aunties around because I don't know how else you get that kind of composure," and, "We did the same thing to our dog - insult him but with a smile and friendly voice. He would wag his tail."

In a memorable moment, one far-right dreg of the White House press corps asked Mamdani if he still thinks Trump is a fascist. Carefully starting to answer, he's interrupted by Trump mildly saying, "That's okay, you can just say yes...I don't mind." "Okay, yes," said Mamdani, still smiling; Trump pats his arm. In all, argues Bruce Fanger, it's a case study in what happens when a bully can’t rely on fear, and a principled politician refuses the role of victim. Trump, argues Fanger, needs an emotional response to his abuse - fear, flattery, even anger. "Mamdani gave him nothing," he writes of "the calm of someone who refuses to let the other person set the emotional tempo." He speaks plainly, in a "civic language," about issues. Trump, awash in grievance, ego, delusion, nostalgia, "can't decode it...They aren’t having the same conversation, (or) even on the same continent." The lesson: "Trump is only powerful when the room fears him. Mamdani didn’t. Trump folded."

At least in that moment. Then he sprang back to vitriol, bluster, lies. At length, he blasted "THE TRAITORS THAT TOLD THE MILITARY TO DISOBEY MY ORDERS," raved about "prices sharply down," bragged about "THE HIGHEST NUMBERS OF MY 'POLITICAL CAREER.'" More numbers: Racking up thousands of conflicts of interest, often on lavish pointless trips abroad, he's spent $71 million on 99 fucking trips to his fucking properties and many millions more on a fucking marble bathroom and Gatsby party and cheesy patio and Oval Brothel and tacky ballroom to come, all amidst kidnappings of brown people, extrajudicial murders, endless abuses of power, vast obstruction of justice and rabidly working to strip food stamps as four of ten kids in the U.S. go to bed hungry. Now, after a fucking aerial tour of Joint Base Andrews' fucking three 18-hole golf courses, three putting greens, two private practice areas and driving range, he's decided to do "some fix-up" on them: "We’re going to do some work." A fucking shameless piggy. May he fall quiet soon.

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Two young manatee friends swim together
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Trump Proposal to Weaken Endangered Species Act Will 'Accelerate the Extinction Crisis,' Green Groups Warn

Environmentalists are sounding the alarm about a slate of new proposals from the Trump administration to weaken the Endangered Species Act, which they say will put more imperiled species in danger to line the pockets of the wealthy.

On Wednesday, the Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced that it would once again roll back several key provisions of the ESA. Many had been in place for decades before they were slashed during President Donald Trump's first term. They were then restored under former President Joe Biden.

"These revisions end years of legal confusion and regulatory overreach, delivering certainty to states, tribes, landowners, and businesses while ensuring conservation efforts remain grounded in sound science and common sense," said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a billionaire ally of the fossil fuel industry.

But some of the nation's leading environmental groups say the proposals will allow the government to flout science and approve new projects that will destroy the habitats of vulnerable creatures and accelerate the already worsening extinction crisis.

“The ESA is one of the world’s most powerful laws for conservation and is responsible for keeping 99% of listed species from extinction,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife.

The group said the changes "could accelerate the extinction crisis we face today." According to a 2023 investigation by the Montana Free Press, the ESA has prevented 291 species from going extinct since it was passed in 1973. At that point, around 40% of all animals and 34% of plants were considered at risk of extinction according to NatureServe, a nonprofit that collects conservation data.

“The ESA is only as effective as the regulations that implement it," Davenport said. “Rolling back these regulations risks reversing the ESA’s historic success and threatens the well-being of plant and animal species that pollinate our crops, generate medicine, keep our waterways clean, and support local economies.”

One of the rules being rolled back requires species to receive "blanket" protections when they are added to the list of threatened species. Instead of those blanket protections—which protect these newly-added species from killing, trapping, and other forms of harm—the FWS will instead create individual designations for each species.

According to Jackson Chiappinelli, a spokesperson for Earthjustice, some of the species that would lose protection under this rule would be the Florida manatee, California spotted owl, greater sage grouse, and monarch butterfly, which it said could remain unprotected for years after being listed.

Another major change would let the government consider "economic impacts" when deciding which habitats are required to be protected. In 1982, Congress modified the ESA to clarify that the secretary of the interior must make decisions "solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available," an amendment specifically intended to prevent economic factors from overawing environmental concerns.

The Interior Department said "the revised framework provides transparency and predictability for landowners and project proponents while maintaining the service’s authority to ensure that exclusions will not result in species extinction."

But Chiappinelli contends that the change would "violate the letter of the law" and warns that "the federal government could decide against protecting an endangered species after considering lost revenue from prohibiting a golf course or hotel development to be built where the species lives."

"If finalized, the rules would bias listing decisions with unreliable economic analyses, obstruct the ability to list new protected species, and make it easier to remove those now on the federal endangered or threatened list," said Ian Brickey, a spokesperson for the Sierra Club.

The proposed rules would also reduce the requirements for other federal agencies to consult with wildlife agencies to determine whether their actions could harm critical habitats. It also eliminates the requirement for agencies to "offset" habitat damage when approving new projects, such as logging or drilling, that harm protected species.

“Without rigorous consultations,” Davenport said, “projects could push species like the northern spotted owl and Cook Inlet beluga whale closer to extinction.”

The new proposals follow several efforts by the Trump administration to weaken protections for endangered species. Earlier this year, it proposed weakening the half-century-old definition of what counts as "harm" to endangered species to exclude habitat destruction.

The Department of Agriculture, meanwhile, has proposed rescinding the 2001 "Roadless Rule," which has shielded nearly 45 million acres of protected national forest from logging, oil and gas drilling, and road construction.

Amid the government shutdown, the administration announced its intent to lay off more than 2,000 Interior Department employees, including 143 from the FWS, though a federal judge blocked those layoffs.

It also attempted to sneak a provision into July's One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would have mandated the sale of millions of acres of public lands, but it was stripped out in the Senate following fierce backlash.

"The Trump administration is stopping at nothing in its quest to put corporate polluters over people, wildlife and the environment," said Loren Blackford, the Sierra Club's executive director. "These regulations attempt to undermine the implementation of one of America’s bedrock environmental laws, and they could seal the fate of animals that, without these protections, would disappear from the Earth."

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Trump holds a chart with economic data
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Think Tank Launches 'One-Stop Shop' for Economic Info to Fight Trump's War on Data

Amid President Donald Trump's efforts to conceal the harmful consequences of his economic policies by hiding key data and replacing economists who tell harsh truths with partisan yes-people, a leading US think tank on Monday announced a new digital dashboard "to provide an accountability check" against attempts to manipulate and mislead the public.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) says its new data accountability dashboard "serves as a one-stop shop" for economic data as federal statistic agencies (FSAs), once the "gold standard" for information, "face historically unprecedented threats from the Trump administration to their capacity and even their independence."

"This raises the specter of a future where FSA data cannot be relied upon to honestly report whether the US economy is experiencing dysfunction," EPI said.

In a bid to circumvent this, the EPI dashboard "displays a range of data not collected or disseminated by FSAs to shed some light on the economy during the pause in government data collection during the shutdown and—even more importantly—to provide an accountability check against efforts to manipulate FSA data in the future."

The federal statistical agencies (FSAs) that produce the gold standard economic data employers/investors/job seekers/workers/policymakers rely on to assess the health of the U.S. economy face unprecedented threats.We've pulled next-best data from non-FSA sources to help keep an eye on things. 1/

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— Economic Policy Institute (@epi.org) November 18, 2025 at 7:19 AM

As EPI senior economist Elise Gould explained in a statement: “The data collected by the federal statistical agencies are an incredibly valuable public good. While there would never be a good time to squander it, the absolute worst time to degrade data quality is when the economy is facing policy shocks that threaten to cause either a recession or an uptick of inflation."

"Given this urgency, we’re collecting all data we can to assess the economy’s health in this time when the gold standard data are under attack,” she added.

Trump's attempts to hide unfavorable economic data date back to his first administration, when he blocked or delayed economic analyses on the projected impacts of his tariffs. For example, half a dozen economists at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) quit en masse in April 2019, claiming they suffered retaliation for publishing reports that shed negative light on the president's trade and taxation policies.

In a related move that year, the USDA abruptly relocated its Economic Research Service main office from Washington, DC to Kansas City, Missouri, prompting another wave of resignations. ERS publications—including reports on farm income, rural economies, and trade impacts—dropped sharply, with key analyses delayed or blocked. Critics, including former agency officials, argued that the move to Kansas City was intended to conceal negative impacts of Trump's trade policies from the public.

During Trump's second administration, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick disbanded the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee (FESAC), a key body that worked under the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis to ensure that the federal government produces accurate data on economic indicators.

Trump also gutted the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Technical Advisory Committee, which had advised the Department of Labor about how economic changes can impact data collection. In August, Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, baselessly accusing her of manipulating economic data to harm him politically by publishing a jobs report showing weak employment growth.

Two weeks later, the president nominated EJ Antoni, a senior economist at the Heritage Foundation described as a "partisan bomb thrower" who helped write Project 2025, a blueprint for a far-right overhaul of the federal government, to replace McEntarfer. Antoni stunned critics with suggestions including eliminating federal monthly jobs reports, and with his overall lack of data management experience. His nomination was later withdrawn amid mounting controversy.

Additionally, the Trump administration has summarily fired dozens of independent agency leaders, required every federal agency to have a White House liaison, and required ostensibly independent agencies to submit draft regulations to the Office of Management and Budget—headed by Project 2025 architect Russell Vought—for review before publication.

As Common Dreams reported, an analysis published in September by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities detailed how the Trump administration's politicization of data, combined with funding cuts, is making it more difficult for experts to determine how the president's policies are impacting US households.

From ending tracking of the impacts of climate-driven extreme weather, to removing a study from the Department of Justice website that showed violent attacks by far-right extremists outpaced those committed by the left, to removing questions about gender identity from key crime surveys, the Trump administration's attacks on information transcend economic data.

"The assault on data, research, and facts is fundamental to Trump and his authoritarian regime," Liza Featherstone, a contributing editor at The New Republic, recently wrote. "He seems to understand that data provides the basis for arguments, and he does not want any arguments. He also understands that facts and knowledge can only be nourished and sustained by institutions and experts, so he is destroying those institutions and pink-slipping those experts."

"We must appreciate their importance and their stakes as well as he does, and remain as committed to the institutions, the data, the facts, and the experts as Trump is to their eradication," Featherstone added. "He has brought sincere zeal to their destruction, and we must bring an even greater passion to their restoration and renaissance. We will need it, as ours is the harder job."

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Sen. Lindsey Graham speaks to reporters
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'Just Corrupt': Lindsey Graham Blocks Repeal of Senate GOP Payout Provision

US Sen. Lindsey Graham on Thursday blocked an effort to repeal a provision allowing senators to reap potentially millions of dollars in taxpayer money by suing the Justice Department.

Shortly after the House voted 426-0 to repeal the provision, which Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) slipped into a government funding package that lawmakers approved earlier this month, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) requested unanimous consent for the Senate to follow suit.

Graham (R-SC), who recently described Medicaid funding as a "money laundering scheme," objected to Heinrich's request, blocking the bill's passage. The South Carolina senator has been vocal in his defense of the payout provision even as GOP lawmakers in the House have condemned it as abhorrent.

The provision empowers senators to sue the federal government for damages of at least $500,000 if investigators obtained their phone records or other data without notifying the targeted lawmakers. The language applies retroactively, making eligible Graham and other Republicans whose records the Justice Department obtained as part of its investigation into President Donald Trump's lawless attempt to subvert the results of the 2020 election.

Graham has openly vowed to take advantage of the provision, saying in an interview earlier this week that he intends to "sue the hell out of" the Justice Department for "tens of millions of dollars."

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said in response that Graham "may be upset, but he's not entitled to millions of taxpayer dollars."

"Republican senators' secret provision making themselves eligible multimillion-dollar payouts is just corrupt," said Beyer.

So far, despite mounting criticism from members of his own party, Thune appears bent on upholding the provision. The Republican senators positioned to benefit from the measure are Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said following the House repeal vote that "American taxpayers should not be forced to pay the bill for partisan payouts, least of all for Senate Republicans who were implicated in the insurrection that nearly toppled our democracy."

"Majority Leader Thune must bring this measure to a vote at once," said DeLauro. "The American people deserve to know on the record who supports taxpaye-funded payouts for Republican senators, and who does not. If they really do support this cash grab, they should own it."

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Protest in Chicago against ICE
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Prosecutors Abruptly Drop Charges Against Woman Shot by Border Patrol Agent in Chicago

Federal prosecutors on Thursday moved to drop criminal charges against Marimar Martinez, a woman who was shot multiple times by a US Border Patrol agent last month in Chicago's Brighton Park neighborhood.

As reported by local news station WTTW, prosecutors filed a one-page motion asking the court to dismiss the indictment against both Martinez and Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, who had been accused of assaulting a federal immigration officer by intentionally ramming their vehicle into the officer's car.

The US attorneys who filed the motion to dismiss offered no further explanation for their decision to drop the case.

In the indictment, prosecutors alleged that Martinez and Ruiz were part of a larger group of people in cars that was trailing immigration officers' vehicles as they conducted operations in Brighton Park.

Prosecutors said that the Border Patrol agent who shot Martinez had been acting in self-defense, and that he had only opened fire after Martinez's car collided with his vehicle.

However, recently uncovered text messages showed the Border Patrol agent apparently bragging about shooting Martinez, as he boasted that he "fired five rounds and she had seven holes" in a message sent to fellow agents.

An attorney representing Martinez claimed last month that he had seen body camera footage that directly undermined the US Department of Homeland Security's claims about how the shooting unfolded.

Gregory Pratt, an investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune, said the dismissal of the case was yet more evidence that the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement operations appear to be backfiring.

"This follows several dropped prosecutions against protesters," he wrote on Bluesky. "To say the immigration raids have been all around mess is an understatement."

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Sarah Hurwitz speaks
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Top Dem Speechwriter Says Young Jews' Empathy for Gaza Shows Holocaust Education Has Backfired

A speechwriter for prominent Democrats including former President Barack Obama and presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Kerry faced widespread outrage this week after video emerged of her blaming Holocaust education for young Jews' empathy for Palestinians in Gaza and revulsion at Israel's genocidal war there.

Earlier this week, Sarah Hurwitz—who was also a senior speechwriter for former First Lady Michelle Obama and other Democrats—spoke at the opening plenary of this year's Jewish Federations of North America general assembly in Washington, DC. The event featured speakers including Free Press staff writer Olivia Reingold, who implicitly attempted to absolve Israel from blame for the Gaza famine by noting that 12 of the at least 463 Palestinians who starved to death had preexisting health conditions.

"There have been huge shifts in America on how people think about Jews and Israel, and I think that is especially true of young people," Hurwitz said during the panel discussion, noting the rise of social media as a primary source of news and information.

"Today, we have social media," she added "Its algorithms are shaped by billions of people worldwide who don't really love Jews."

Hurwitz continued:

It's also this increasingly post-literate media. Less and less text, more and more videos, so you have TikTok just smashing our young peoples' brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza. And this is why so many of us can't have a sane conversation with younger Jews, because anything we try to say to them, they are hearing it through this wall of carnage. So I wanna give data and information and facts and arguments and they are just seeing in their minds carnage, and I sound obscene.

"I think, unfortunately, the very smart... bet we made on Holocaust education to serve as antisemitism education, in this new media environment, I think that is beginning to break down a little bit, because Holocaust education is absolutely essential," Hurwitz asserted.

"But I think it may be confusing some of our young people about antisemitism, because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews," she added, "...so when on TikTok all day long they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it's not surprising that they think, 'Oh, I know, the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel, you fight the big powerful people hurting the weak people.'"

Reaction to Hurwitz' remarks ranged from incredulity to anger.

"I am almost literally speechless," American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee nation legal director Jenin Younes said on X. "She's decrying the fact that kids' takeaway from Holocaust education has been that we must protect helpless people from powerful people killing them. The real lesson from the Holocaust, it seems, is that Israel must be able to commit genocide if it wants to."

Argentinian economist Maia Mindel also took to X, writing that it is "extremely grim that a substantial number of very influential people seem to think that the lesson from the Holocaust isn't 'mass murder of civilians based on their ancestry so your nation can take their land is wrong' but rather, 'Fuck you, got mine.'"

Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart wrote on X that "the level of condescension" in Hurwitz's commentary "is quite remarkable."

Writer Bryce Greene lamented: "We're at the point where Israels supporters are now claiming that the Holocaust was not bad because it was the powerful attacking the weak."

"No, that would be the wrong lesson from the Holocaust," he added. "According to them it was only bad because Jews were the victims. Real sick shit."

Independent journalist Ahmed Eldin said on X that "Zionism is so morally bankrupt it sees empathy as a design flaw."

Eldin wrote Wednesday on his Substack that "Hurwitz didn’t slip up—she said the quiet part out loud and exposed the Zionist project for exactly what it is."

"She even admitted that, amidst the carnage, she sounds 'obscene,'" he noted. "That admission, said almost accidentally, is the closest thing to honesty her worldview will allow: The problem is not the violence of Zionism itself, but the visibility of it. Zionism, as she inadvertently revealed, depends not on morality but on opacity. The ideology requires not less brutality, but simply fewer witnesses."

Moving on to Holocaust education, Eldin wrote:

According to Hurwitz, Holocaust curricula have “backfired” because they taught young people that “you fight the big powerful people hurting the weak people.” In her telling, this universal ethical principle—this most basic moral intuition—is the problem.

The implication is staggering: the “correct” lesson of the Holocaust, she seems to believe, is not “never again for anyone,” but “never question Israel.” What outrages her is not the suffering of Palestinians but the possibility that young people are recognizing it as suffering.

"A world that is witnessing and seeing Palestinians as human is a world in which Zionism cannot function," Eldin concluded. "A world that sees the violence cannot romanticize the ideology producing it. Once people witness the truth, the mythology cannot be resuscitated and the propaganda cannot be rehabilitated."

"Israel may be able to flatten Gaza’s buildings, but it cannot rebuild the ignorance it once relied upon," he added. "The truth is already out, the narrative collapse well underway, the mask irretrievably gone."

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