Dramatic video footage from Ventura County, California, shows an anti-ICE protester discharging what appears to be a weapon at federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation in an agricultural zone. The nature of the weapon remains unconfirmed.

“A protester was seen apparently firing some kind of weapon at federal agents during the immigration raid at a farm near Camarillo on Thursday. It’s unknown if anyone was injured in the chaos,” local media outlet ABC7 wrote in a post on X.

ABC7 released additional details about the immigration raid and the resulting violent clash between protesters and federal agents:

The operation was taking place at a farm along Laguna Road near Camarillo. AIR7 was over the scene surrounded by fields as federal agents formed a line across the street.

At one point, a group of protesters were seen facing off with agents, some of whom threw smoke canisters towards the growing crowd.

. . .

During the chaotic moments, AIR7 captured one of the people gathered at the demonstration allegedly firing a gun towards federal agents. This happened after the agents fired smoke canisters at the crowd. There were no reports of any injuries.

A protester was seen apparently firing some kind of weapon at federal agents during the immigration raid at a farm near Camarillo on Thursday. It’s unknown if anyone was injured in the chaos. https://t.co/tZBT2XnVEH pic.twitter.com/p4YZ3qkHnM

— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) July 10, 2025

The incident follows the recent arrest of ten individuals in Texas accused of orchestrating a “planned ambush” on an ICE detention facility during the Fourth of July weekend.

The back-to-back events suggest a continued escalation in coordinated anti-ICE activity nationwide. What began as low-intensity demonstrations is turning increasingly violent—especially with the recent use of firearms—and should be closely monitored.

This surge in violence coincides with inflammatory anti-ICE rhetoric from Democratic figures, including NYC mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, who declared, “We have to stand up and fight back.”

Democrat leader Zohran Mamdani doubles down on anti-ICE rhetoric: “we have to stand up and fight back.”

ICE agents were brutally attacked during the LA riots and are seeing a 500% increase in assaults.

Democrats are inciting more violence against our law enforcement officers. pic.twitter.com/TiSImCNAPU

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 29, 2025

Last month, a top far-left city official in southeast Los Angeles County called for Mexican gangs to mobilize against ICE agents. 

“Get Your F**king Members In Order”: L.A. Official Calls For Mexican Gangs To Mobilize Against ICE Agents https://t.co/lim3BAg83o

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 24, 2025

Tom Homan, President Trump’s border czar, stated on Fox News earlier this week: “The attack on ICE officers… is up nearly 700% now… We have Senators, we have Congresspeople that compare ICE to the Nazis… The rhetoric has to stop or it’s a matter of time before one of the ICE officers goes down.”

.@RealTomHoman: “The attack on ICE officers… is up nearly 700% now… We have Senators, we have Congresspeople that compare ICE to the Nazis… The rhetoric has to stop or it’s a matter of time before one of the ICE officers goes down.” pic.twitter.com/dkPVYqeG4N

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 7, 2025

Yet Democrats have yet to denounce the violence and continue with dangerous anti-ICE rhetoric. 

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The moral rot of unlimited debt looks “free” but it’s unaffordable in the end.

We like to think we’re special and this moment in history is special, but alas, we’re still running Wetware 1.0 which was coded between 300,000 and 60,000 years ago, when the last “out of Africa” migration finally got traction. Since then, the code has been tweaked a bit here and there (adults can now digest dairy products, etc.), but we’re running the old code, and so we make the same mistakes and follow the same emotional pathways as individuals and as groups.

Which leads us to our current predicament, which is not unique: we’re living on debt, “money” borrowed from the future, a future we’re assuming will be so over-supplied with energy and other goodies that we’ll be able to pay all the interest we’re piling up with ease.

All the charts below are shouting “parabolic,” as in crazy-unsustainable increases. There’s the federal debt, $36 trillion, up 4X from the 2008 spot of bother, there’s TCMDO, total public and private debt (McMansions, university degrees and SUVs all paid for with debt), student loans from zero to $1.5 trillion, Medicare and Medicaid, now 1/3 of the federal budget, and so on.

How did we get here? Let’s start with what’s not taught in Econ 101: primary surplus. Every economy–from households to empires, meaning this is scale-invariant–generates a surplus from its production of goods and services, or it runs a deficit, meaning it has to get more money from somewhere to support its consumption.

The question then becomes, how is the primary surplus being spent? (Or put another way, how is it being distributed across the economy and society?) There are only three options: 1) consume it, 2) invest it and 3) save it / hoard it.

Without making a conscious choice, the US has chosen to “invest” most of its primary surplus in moral rot, unproductive frauds, skims, scams, monopolies, cartels, regulatory capture, grift and graft.

This is the problem with giving an irresponsible teenager a no-limit Platinum credit card with an easily ignored admonishment to “stick to a tight budget, pay the balance off every month.” Uh, right.

Since the US can borrow unlimited trillions on its credit card, we can “afford” to burn our surplus on grift, graft, inefficiency, cronyism, profiteering, etc. Since our surplus was squandered on moral rot, we have to borrow trillions to pay for what the citizenry wants and what politicians must promise to get re-elected.

Wetware 1.0: we like windfalls and free stuff, and so every program becomes a “third rail” politically: touch it and you don’t get re-elected. But if you borrow a few “free” trillions a year, you get re-elected.

We love windfalls and free stuff and hate hard choices, but that’s all we have now. 

We have three choices in how we deal with our dependence on parabolic debt to sustain our profligate lifestyle:

1. Run the debt up to the point that nobody is dumb enough to lend us more, and then default on the debt / go bankrupt. All our creditors are wiped out.

The problem here is all debt is an asset to the wealthy entity that owns it as an income stream. Since the wealthy run the status quo in a manner that serves their interests, they’re unlikely to be thrilled with debt jubilees that zero out their assets and income or messy defaults that end up doing the same thing.

So nix that option. The wealthy want to keep their wealth and income streams, and since they own US Treasuries, they’re not going to approve defaulting on that debt.

2. Inflate the debt away with sustained high inflation. So we borrowed $1 when $1 bought a lot of stuff, and now we’ve inflated everything so it takes $10 to buy what $1 bought back then. Now we can pay back the $1 with a fraction of the earnings it took back when we borrowed it.

We’ve already taken that step–what once cost $1 now costs $10. So the next step is to do another 10X reduction in the debt via inflation.

In previous eras, authorities reduced the silver content of coinage to near-zero, effectively devaluing the money, i.e. inflating away the debt. What cost one mostly-silver denarius in the good old days soon cost 100 devalued denarius.

This looks like some pretty easy hocus-pocus to pull off, but there’s a catch: Catch-19, which is devaluing the money devalues trust in the leadership, social contract and the future, all of which leaves the economy and society a hollowed-out shell awaiting a stiff breeze to push the whole system off the cliff.

The problem here is inflation is distributed asymmetrically, along with the primary surplus. The wealthy, powerful elites skim off the surplus, and they’re equally adept at distributing the “inflation tax” to the middle and working classes, which soon meld into a single class, the impoverished.

A funny thing about Wetware 1.0 is we’re hard-wired to take note of rampant unfairness and eventually we respond in a destabilizing fashion, for example, uprisings, revolts, revolutions, etc.

3. The third option is to root out all the moral rot that’s consuming the economy’s surplus and our future, scrap all the programs designed in the bygone eras of 50+ years ago (defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, higher education, etc.) and start from scratch with new programs whose expenses are limited to what the economy generates as surplus.

In other words, go Cold Turkey on our addiction to living on debt.

Yes, I know: ain’t gonna happen, because the moral rot is too deep, it’s now normalized to the point that we don’t even recognize the reality that there’s nothing left but a flimsy facade we paint with gaudy colors to hide the rot.

Everyone assumes the empire is forever and can endlessly fund any amount of grift and graft with borrowed money. But this is a self-serving fantasy, not reality. Every empire of debt implodes.

These charts are merely facts. If we find them depressing, that response says something about our refusal to be accountable and responsible for our choices. Who’s going to cut up the unlimited Platinum card?

The federal government’s Platinum card balance:

The US economy’s Platinum card balance:

Student loans Platinum card balance:

Medicare, which has an unlimited Platinum card:

Medicaid, which also has an unlimited Platinum card, though this is obscured by phony “reforms”:

There are only three options, none easy, and not making a choice is a greased slide to collapse. The moral rot of unlimited debt looks “free” but it’s unaffordable in the end.

*  *  *

Check out my new book Ultra-Processed Life and my new fiction/novels page.

Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Subscribe to my Substack for free

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) posted on X Wednesday, exposing how Communist billionaire Neville Roy Singham—who operates a dark-money NGO network allegedly tied to funding anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles and resides in China with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—has suddenly vanished. 

“Neville Singham— the billionaire communist with ties to the CCP, who funded the LA riots and used immigration & Mexicans as a Trojan horse for communism— is hiding from our letter requesting testimony,” Rep. Luna wrote on X. 

She said, “This poses an issue for delivering subpoena,” adding, “Therefore, if he decides to hide in CHINA,  we will now be asking the State Dept. and Treasury to freeze his assets/visa.” 

“Singham is literally hiding,” she emphasized. 

Neville Singham— the billionaire communist with ties to the CCP, who funded the LA riots and used immigration & Mexicans as a Trojan horse for communism— is hiding from our letter requesting testimony. This poses an issue for delivering subpoena.

Therefore, if he decides to… https://t.co/sZtVzfEA9Q

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) July 9, 2025

In June, U.S. Congressional Republicans, led by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), launched a formal investigation into Singham’s dark money networks and the political affiliations… 

Singham is suspected of funding far-left color revolutions in the U.S. with alleged ties to the CCP. The Oversight Committee’s inquiry focuses on Singham’s possible role as a proxy in CCP propaganda operations and his potential legal exposure under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. 

Here is a picture of Neville Singham, a Maoist with an office & home in Shanghai attending CCP’s “International Image Renovation Forum.” He has a Chinese name too. He’s dark money is tie to funding Party for Socialism and Liberation which is behind anti-ICE riots. ⁦ pic.twitter.com/zTzt4qGHkI

— Lily Tang Williams (@Lily4Liberty) June 12, 2025

“Nonprofits have become the main vehicle for subverting America and destabilizing society. There is seemingly no enforcement in this sector for criminal activity, money laundering, or as seen with the Neville Roy Singham network, acting on behalf of foreign interests. America cannot continue on this path where a tax-exempt nonprofit can promote a protest, have partner nonprofits cosponsor it, yet none of these entities are held responsible for any damages,” stated Jason Curtis Anderson from One City Rising.

If we can actually freeze his assets … this will be a massive improvement for our country.

We should also look into the Magnitsky Act for Soros. Given the very real deaths and human abuses his NGOs have caused, he may qualify.

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) July 9, 2025

Commenting on Luna’s X post, DataRepublican wrote, “If we can actually freeze his assets … this will be a massive improvement for our country. We should also look into the Magnitsky Act for Soros. Given the very real deaths and human abuses his NGOs have caused, he may qualify.” 

The xAI team revealed its latest development plans following the launch of Grok 4, as founder Elon Musk shared bold predictions about artificial intelligence.

During a Thursday livestream on X, the xAI team said the first public release of Grok 4 is based on the company’s sixth foundation model.

“In some ways it’s a little terrifying, but the growth of intelligence here is remarkable,” Musk quipped on the livestream.

“It only gets better from here.”

A seventh version is currently in training and expected to be completed “in a few weeks,” with improvements focused on “weakness on the vision side.”

As CoinTelegraph’s Adrian Zmudzinski reports, the update is significant in light of Musk’s broader plans. During the livestream, he said that Grok will be able to interact with the real world through Tesla’s Optimus robot.

Musk, who also leads electric vehicle and robotics company Tesla, added that Grok will be integrated into Tesla cars “next week at the latest,” according to a post on X.

This, Musk said, would allow Grok to test whether its theories are valid in the real world, an approach that suggests the chatbot may evolve beyond text-based output and into scientific experimentation.

Source: xAI

New physics, new technology

Musk said that he expects Grok to “discover new technologies that are actually useful no later than next year and maybe by the end of this year.” He added:

“It might discover new physics next year. And within two years, I’d say almost certainly.“

Musk is no stranger to making grandiose statements concerning AI. Last month, he said xAI will retrain Grok on a new knowledge base free of “garbage” and “uncorrected data,” even suggesting the AI would rewrite history in the process.

During the livestream, Musk also said that AI will lead to “an economy that is thousands of times bigger than our current economy, or maybe millions of times.” He went as far as to reference the Kardashev civilization classification scale:

“[With AI] we will get to most of the way, like 80%, 90% of Kardashev 1, and then hopefully, if civilization doesn’t self-annihilate, and then Kardashev 2.”

The Kardashev scale measures a civilization’s advancement based on its energy use, proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964.

Type one uses all the energy from its planet, Type two captures energy from its star, and Type three harnesses energy from its entire galaxy.

Programming AI and new capital

The xAI team also hinted at an upcoming programming AI model that was already trained. The new model is purportedly “both fast and smart” and expected to be released in a few weeks.

The news follows xAI securing $10 billion in fresh capital earlier this month, as it doubles down on its challenge to OpenAI, intensifying the race to dominate the AI landscape.

In late May, the firm also “agreed in principle“ to integrate its AI chatbot Grok across Telegram in a $300 million deal.

Authored by Larry Kudlow via RealClearPolitics.com,

Both Kevins Will End the Fed’s Deep State

There’s a great story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today, called “Two Kevins Battle to Be Next Fed Chair in Trump’s Apprentice-Style Contest.”

The two Kevins are a former Federal Reserve governor, Kevin Warsh, and the director of the National Economic Council in the Trump White House, Kevin Hassett.

They are both very dear friends of mine, going back a long while. And they are both brilliant people.

I doubt seriously that they’re battling each other, but I do think they’re at the top of President Trump’s list for Fed chairman, at least for now.

Here’s a key point, though: the Fed is in need of perestroika.

In other words, the Fed has to be cleansed of its Deep State dislike of all things Donald Trump, and frankly its Deep State bureaucratic groupthink of deadwood economists with models that haven’t worked in 50 years — who are now advising Chairman Jay Powell to fight Mr. Trump and his economic growth agenda.

The next Fed chairman has to go toe-to-toe with the hundreds of Fed economists who are spurring Mr. Powell on in his fight against Mr. Trump’s tariff and reciprocity fair trade policies. Also, against Mr. Trump’s tax-cut policies.

Economic growth does not cause inflation. Tariffs do not cause inflation.

As per the recent paper by the Council of Economic Advisers chairman, Stephen Miran, and even the interview by the Chicago Fed president, Austan Goolsbee, where he acknowledged the real-world fact that exporters and American companies will eat the tariffs, not consumers.

Of course, the Board of Governors has to be changed, and that will come over time.

Importantly, however, presidents of the regional reserve banks have got to be rotated out. The vast majority of them are Obama-Biden lefties who are heavily biased against Mr. Trump.

All this has to be changed: the chairman, the board, the regional reserve bank presidents, and the bulk of the Fed staff economists.

I myself started my career at the New York Fed — and am proud of it. I even had a chance to work with the great Paul Volcker.

But the Fed, over the past 50 years or so, has atrophied into a self-serving, central-planning Deep State that is essentially ignoring and opposing the wishes of the 80 million people who voted for Mr. Trump for president.

It’s time to end the Fed’s deep state.

Mark Epstein, brother of the late Jeffrey Epstein, dismissed a bombshell memo from the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation that declares the disgraced financier’s 2019 death a suicide, accusing the government of covering up the truth.

The joint DOJ-FBI memo claimed an “exhaustive review” of evidence from Epstein’s death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City definitively ruled out murder.

“After a thorough investigation, FBI investigators concluded that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019,” the memo reads.

The agencies also brazenly denied the existence of a “client list” tied to Epstein, directly contradicting earlier remarks by Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi had previously suggested on Fox News that such a list was “sitting on my desk” for review, igniting speculation about Epstein’s possible blackmailing of globalist elites.

“Every time they say something or try to do something to quash that he most likely was murdered, they put their foot further in their mouth,” Mark Epstein said in an interview with NewsNation host Chris Cuomo. “When Kash Patel came out with that statement, I laughed at how stupid it was.”

The memo has sparked outrage among President Donald Trump’s fiercest supporters, with Laura Loomer leading the charge against Bondi, demanding the Trump official resign from the DOJ.

“How come Blondi didn’t sign her name to her own memo about the Epstein Files? She needs to resign. This is going to suppress the vote in 2026,” Loomer wrote on X. “The American people and MAGA base will not tolerate being lied to. I hope President Trump fires Pam Blondi if she lacks the SHAME to resign. I called for her resignation the day of Binder Gate.”

Tucker Carlson joined the fray, warning Trump that the memo’s release was a “very dangerous” move that could incite a “revolution.” Carlson called the government’s handling of the Epstein case unprecedented. “That is so crazy. This is like-, this is honestly one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen in my entire life. And I just think it’s very dangerous to play around with this stuff,” Carlson said. “Like, very dangerous. I don’t want a revolution, but if you wanted a revolution this is how you would act.”

On Tuesday, Trump himself brushed off questions about Epstein during an exchange with reporters. “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years,” Trump said, while taking questions during a Cabinet meeting. “You’re asking – we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things, and are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable. I mean, I can’t believe you’re asking a question on Epstein at a time like this, where we’re having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration.”

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Among a batch of letters that President Donald Trump sent out to several U.S. trading partners on July 9 was one issued to Brazil threatening to impose a 50 percent tariff on its exports to the United States.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday a copy of his letter sent to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in which he accused the nation of becoming an “international disgrace” due to the ongoing trial of its former president, Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally.

Sometimes referred to as the “Trump of the Tropics,” Bolsonaro is currently on trial for charges stemming from an alleged plot to overturn Brazil’s 2022 election results. Prosecutors allege that Bolsonaro and several associates were attempting a coup d’état, including an alleged plan to assassinate da Silva.

Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing and any involvement in the alleged coup plot.

In his letter, Trump called Bolsonaro’s trial a “witch hunt” and said it should end immediately.

“Due in part to Brazil’s insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans … starting on August 1, 2025, we will charge Brazil a Tariff of 50% on any and all Brazilian products sent into the United States,” Trump wrote.

He also cited Brazil’s nontariff trade barriers in his decision to impose the new tariff rate.

“There will be no Tariff if Brazil, or companies within your Country, decide to build or manufacture product within the United States and, in fact, we will do everything possible to get approvals quickly, professionally, and routinely—in other words, in a matter of weeks,” Trump added.

Lula responded to Trump’s letter, saying in a statement that “any unilateral tariff increases will be addressed in accordance with Brazil’s Economic Reciprocity Law.”

The law allows trade, investment, and intellectual property agreements to be suspended for countries that harm Brazil’s competitiveness.

He defended the country’s legal system and said the United States has had a trade surplus of $410 billion with Brazil over the past 15 years.

“Brazil is a sovereign nation with independent institutions and will not accept any form of tutelage,” Lula said.

While the other 21 countries that Trump sent letters to this week were set to return to April’s reciprocal tariff levels, Brazil was not, as it instead received only the 10 percent baseline tariff that was imposed on all U.S. trading partners.

Brazil also does not have a trade deficit with the United States like the other 21 nations, as America ran a $7.4 billion trade surplus with Brazil in 2024. That means the United States exports more products to Brazil than it imports.

However, Brazil, along with the other BRICS nations—Russia, India, China, and South Africa—may see an additional 10 percent tariff after Trump threatened BRICS members with higher levies on Tuesday, accusing the group of trying to replace the U.S. dollar as the leading currency for international trade.

The other nations that received tariff letters on Wednesday are Iraq, Libya, Algeria, Brunei, Moldova, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. Some will see rates as high as 30 percent on their imports into the United States, with the new rates set to go into effect Aug. 1, absent trade negotiations with the Trump administration.

Trump had initially set 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday as the deadline for U.S. trading partners to cut deals with his administration or see tariffs as high as those imposed in early April.

Prior to the countries that received tariff letters on Wednesday, Trump had sent similar two-page letters on Monday to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Laos, Burma (also known as Myanmar), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tunisia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Serbia, Cambodia, and Thailand.

South Africa was included in the BRICS announcement.

More letters could be issued soon, Trump said in an earlier Truth Social post.

Lily Zhou contributed to this report.

After a soft 3Y and a stellar 10Y auction, moments ago the Treasury concluded its weekly issuance of coupon paper with a 30Y auction that came in smack in the middle.

The auction, a reopening of 29Year-10Month cusip UK2, priced at a high yield of 4.889%, up modestly from 8.44% in June and the highest long-end auction since January’s 4.913%, which was a record for the tenor (for now). It also stopped through the When Issued 4.890% by 0.1basis point, the second consecutive stop though.

The bid to cover was 2.383, down from 2.430 in June but in the recent range; indeed it priced just below the six-auction average of 2.399.

The internals were also average, with Indirects awarded 59.8%, down from 65.2% in June, and below the recent average of 63.0%. And with Dealers taking just 12.8%, the recent trend of near record Directs continued, as they took down 27.4% today, the highest since October 2011, and the third highest on record.

Overall, this was a mediocre, forgettable auction, with yields on the verge of hitting record highs…

… yet one which certainly took advantage of today’s bid across the curve despite yet another markewide meltup.

Shares of Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO), the company behind the widely used FICO credit score, dropped earlier this week after a federal agency approved the use of its biggest competitor, VantageScore, for mortgage underwriting, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) will now allow lenders to choose between FICO 10T and VantageScore 4.0 when issuing loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together back nearly half of all new U.S. mortgages.

Previously, only FICO scores were accepted. A prior proposal to require both FICO and VantageScore for each loan faced resistance from lenders over costs and complexity. The FHFA ultimately reversed course, with Director Bill Pulte saying in social media posts that the change is aimed at improving credit access, especially for renters and rural borrowers.

VantageScore CEO Silvio Tavares called the update “long overdue.” Unlike older FICO models, VantageScore 4.0 factors in alternative data like rent, utility, and telecom payments. FICO responded by saying it “welcomes competition on a level playing field,” noting that its newer models also use such data when available.

Despite the policy shift, analysts say FICO’s dominance in the mortgage market—where its models are used in over 90% of lending decisions—isn’t likely to vanish quickly. “This is a win for VantageScore, but we don’t see it as an immediate risk to FICO,” said TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg.

He noted that lenders may still prefer FICO, even at higher cost, due to limited experience with VantageScore and concerns over potential buybacks from Fannie or Freddie.

The Journal writes that Seiberg also suggested that the FHFA’s move may have inadvertently helped FICO by avoiding a mandatory dual-score requirement, which might have increased lender familiarity with its competitor. “[FHFA Director] Pulte may end up safeguarding FICO’s dominant position,” he wrote.

Still, increased competition could chip away at FICO’s pricing power. The company charges credit bureaus $4.95 per score pull today, up from just 60 cents in 2018. “The implicit assumption now is that FICO’s pricing power isn’t the same because there is actual competition,” said Autonomous Research analyst Kelsey Zhu.

FICO shares plunged as much as 19% during the day on Tuesday before recovering late in the session to close down nearly 9%.

Heading into Thursday’s cash session shares were down about 11% over the last 5 days.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge on Thursday has barred the Trump administration from enforcing the president’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship, coming weeks after the Supreme Court restricted the capacity of judges to issue nationwide injunctions.

U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante announced his decision after an hour-long hearing and said a written order will follow. The order will include a seven-day stay to allow for appeal, he said.

“That’s irreparable harm, citizenship alone,” he said in court, according to reporters in the courtroom, referring to American citizenship. “It is the greatest privilege that exists in the world.”

President Donald Trump in January issued the order ending automatic birthright citizenship to individuals born in the United States to parents who are illegal immigrants.

Multiple federal judges have issued injunctions against the order since it was issued, while the Supreme Court invalidated those previous court orders by ruling that lower courts cannot issue sweeping orders that block orders nationwide.

At issue is the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which says that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

The lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs, had argued that the executive order violates the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment and runs afoul of decades of jurisprudence over how to handle birthright citizenship.

But lawyers for the Trump administration have argued that under that text, the United States can deny citizenship to children born of illegal immigrant women due to the line, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

“Prior misimpressions of the citizenship clause have created a perverse incentive for illegal immigration that has negatively impacted this country’s sovereignty, national security, and economic stability,” government lawyers said in court papers filed earlier this year, arguing on behalf of the Trump administration.

The lawyers added, “The Constitution does not harbor a windfall clause granting American citizenship to … the children of those who have circumvented (or outright defied) federal immigration laws.”

The Trump administration and the president himself have argued that the 14th Amendment citizenship clause pertained to former black slaves soon after the Civil War, when the amendment was ratified.

Thirty years later, Wong Kim Ark, a man born in the United States to Chinese parents, was refused re-entry into the country after traveling overseas. His suit led to the Supreme Court ruling that the amendment gives citizenship to anyone born in the United States, no matter their parents’ legal status.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a pregnant woman, two parents, and their infants. It’s among numerous cases challenging Trump’s January order denying citizenship to those born to parents living in the United States illegally or temporarily. The plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and others.

In its complaint, the American Civil Liberties Union wrote for the plaintiffs that “the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment specifically enshrined this principle in our Constitution’s text to ensure that no one—not even the President—could deny children born in America their rightful place as citizens.”

“They did so with full knowledge and intent that this would protect the children of immigrants, including those facing discrimination and exclusion,” lawyers for the group said.

Last month, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that federal judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions, although the nine justices didn’t rule on the merits of Trump’s birthright citizenship order.

With the decision, the birthright citizenship cases were returned to lower courts, where judges will have to decide how to amend their orders to comply with the high court ruling. Enforcement of the policy can’t take place for another 30 days, the Supreme Court wrote.

After the court issued its ruling, Trump told reporters at the White House in late June that he would go ahead and pursue his policy agenda and said he has a “whole list” compiled.

The list includes policies on “birthright citizenship, ending sanctuary city funding, suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary funding, stopping federal taxpayers from paying for transgender surgeries, and numerous other priorities of the American people,” he said.