Activists Sue Federal Authorities Over ICE Raids In Los Angeles

Authored by John Fredricks via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

At the site of the Bubble Bath Hand Car Wash in Torrance, immigration activists gathered on Wednesday morning to announce a lawsuit against the federal government, launched in the early hours of July 2, 2025.

An American flag waves above immigration activists in Torrance, Calif., on July 2, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

The suit, which alleges that immigration raids violate the Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of thousands of people, is being brought by multiple civil and immigration rights groups, according to officials with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation of Southern California, one of the plaintiffs.

Mohammad Tajsar, senior attorney with the ACLU Foundation, told reporters that the groups are suing the federal government “for their unlawful, immoral, and unconstitutional siege of the city of Los Angeles and its neighboring communities” in what he called a “landmark lawsuit.”

“If you are brown, (federal agents) will hunt you down,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has vehemently denied claims of racial profiling, calling it a “disgusting” smear tactic against law enforcement officers.

Mohammad Tajsar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, speaks in Torrance, Calif., on July 2, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Attorneys and immigration activists were joined by the relatives of several men detained by ICE agents while working on the premises of the car wash. Their last names were not given due to security concerns.

Since June 6, documented cases of arrests made by federal agents have sparked protests throughout the city, leading to arrests and property damage, according to Los Angeles Police Department officials.

Assaults on federal agents have also seen a heavy increase, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd M. Lyons, who reported that both officers and agents are already facing a 500 percent increase in assaults.

The lawsuit comes just two days after the Trump administration sued the City of Los Angeles on June 30 over its ‘sanctuary city' policies, alleging in federal court that the ordinance violates the Constitution by thwarting immigration enforcement.

ICE agents form a defensive perimeter near an operations center in Los Angeles on June 8, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

“The United States Constitution’s Supremacy Clause prohibits the city from picking and choosing which federal laws will be enforced and which will not,” United States Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli said in a statement on the lawsuit.

“The lawsuit holds the city of Los Angeles accountable for deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration law.'’

Hilda Solis, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said Tuesday that according to data cited by the Department of Homeland Security, between June 6 and 22, more than 1,600 individuals were detained or deported in Southern California.

“There have been no arrests of killers, rapists or drug dealers,” Mark Rosenbaum, senior special counsel for strategic litigation at legal services group Public Counsel, told reporters in the parking area of the Bubble Bath Hand Car Wash.

“One of the clearest patterns that have emerged in the raids in Southern California has been stops and interrogations ... on the basis of apparent race and ethnicity.”

Findings by Department of Homeland Security officials, detailed in a June 26 press release, challenged Rosenbaum’s allegation, stating that recent DHS operations in Los Angeles have “resulted in the arrest of criminal illegal aliens—with convictions ranging from murder, pedophilia, fentanyl trafficking, spousal abuse, sexual assault, and armed robbery.

Wednesday’s proposed class-action suit, brought in Los Angeles federal court, is seeking preliminary and permanent injunctions to stop further alleged violations of Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, according to attorneys for the plaintiffs.

City News Service contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/04/2025 - 16:45

Activists Sue Federal Authorities Over ICE Raids In Los Angeles

Authored by John Fredricks via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

At the site of the Bubble Bath Hand Car Wash in Torrance, immigration activists gathered on Wednesday morning to announce a lawsuit against the federal government, launched in the early hours of July 2, 2025.

An American flag waves above immigration activists in Torrance, Calif., on July 2, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

The suit, which alleges that immigration raids violate the Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of thousands of people, is being brought by multiple civil and immigration rights groups, according to officials with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation of Southern California, one of the plaintiffs.

Mohammad Tajsar, senior attorney with the ACLU Foundation, told reporters that the groups are suing the federal government “for their unlawful, immoral, and unconstitutional siege of the city of Los Angeles and its neighboring communities” in what he called a “landmark lawsuit.”

“If you are brown, (federal agents) will hunt you down,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has vehemently denied claims of racial profiling, calling it a “disgusting” smear tactic against law enforcement officers.

Mohammad Tajsar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, speaks in Torrance, Calif., on July 2, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Attorneys and immigration activists were joined by the relatives of several men detained by ICE agents while working on the premises of the car wash. Their last names were not given due to security concerns.

Since June 6, documented cases of arrests made by federal agents have sparked protests throughout the city, leading to arrests and property damage, according to Los Angeles Police Department officials.

Assaults on federal agents have also seen a heavy increase, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd M. Lyons, who reported that both officers and agents are already facing a 500 percent increase in assaults.

The lawsuit comes just two days after the Trump administration sued the City of Los Angeles on June 30 over its ‘sanctuary city' policies, alleging in federal court that the ordinance violates the Constitution by thwarting immigration enforcement.

ICE agents form a defensive perimeter near an operations center in Los Angeles on June 8, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

“The United States Constitution’s Supremacy Clause prohibits the city from picking and choosing which federal laws will be enforced and which will not,” United States Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli said in a statement on the lawsuit.

“The lawsuit holds the city of Los Angeles accountable for deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration law.'’

Hilda Solis, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said Tuesday that according to data cited by the Department of Homeland Security, between June 6 and 22, more than 1,600 individuals were detained or deported in Southern California.

“There have been no arrests of killers, rapists or drug dealers,” Mark Rosenbaum, senior special counsel for strategic litigation at legal services group Public Counsel, told reporters in the parking area of the Bubble Bath Hand Car Wash.

“One of the clearest patterns that have emerged in the raids in Southern California has been stops and interrogations ... on the basis of apparent race and ethnicity.”

Findings by Department of Homeland Security officials, detailed in a June 26 press release, challenged Rosenbaum’s allegation, stating that recent DHS operations in Los Angeles have “resulted in the arrest of criminal illegal aliens—with convictions ranging from murder, pedophilia, fentanyl trafficking, spousal abuse, sexual assault, and armed robbery.

Wednesday’s proposed class-action suit, brought in Los Angeles federal court, is seeking preliminary and permanent injunctions to stop further alleged violations of Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, according to attorneys for the plaintiffs.

City News Service contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/04/2025 - 16:45

"A Highly Kinetic Period" - Goldman's Hedge Fund Honcho Reflects On H1... & What Lies Ahead

The first half of 2025 was a highly kinetic period, to say the least, according to Goldman Sachs head of hedge fund coverage, Tony Pasquariello.

With a touch of distance from the screens this week, he went back and read a bunch of his recent notes, which served as a reminder of the immense narrative volatility along the path.

For example:

• US exceptionalism was a bright and shining consensus position at the start of the year...

• ...that gave way to the worst short-cycle selloff in domestic equities since the depths of COVID...

• ...only to see S&P close out H1’25 on the dead highs (and we’ve kept going).

What follows from here is a set of views that Pasquariello took away from the past six months -- with an eye towards the next six months...

MARKET DIRECTION:

- given all of the uncertainty and volatility, it’s hard to look back and NOT be a little impressed with how the US economy has performed.

- remember, in the toughest moments of April, many folks believed that a US recession was all but in the bag. 

- in practice, the risk management challenge was two-fold: calibrating huge changes to US political orthodoxy -- at the exact time as new and disruptive technologies were colliding. 

- if you flash forward to today -- with NDX nearly 40% off the lows -- Mr. Market has added another data point to this analog: periods of exceptionally high policy uncertainty usually give way to strong equity returns.

- the April shakeout also calls to mind this well-worn rule of thumb: within a structural bull market, if you want to be short US equities, your timing needs to be impeccable. 

- now, in trying to work out how the market recovered the highs, perhaps it’s simply because governments, corporates and households stayed on the gas.

- don’t take my word for it, simply look at the trajectory of US fiscal spending ... or the capex plans of the Magnificent Seven ... or US retail demand for stocks.

- looking forward, the bull case is this: the US economy is durable, financial conditions are easy and we’re witnessing a remarkable acceleration of applied innovation. 

- set against that, growth is apt to slow during the second half, risk/reward at this multiple isn’t alluring and global bond markets skate on thin ice (witness the UK again this week).

- in the end, it’s still a bull market, yet one that’s delivering less convexity and less consistency than before -- I wrote that earlier in the year, and I’m sticking with it.

- core positions that I believe in (and would marry as a composite): US technology / US power ... steeper global yield curves ... a (somewhat) weaker dollar ... and don’t fight the primary trend in gold. 

A SHORT SET OF THOUGHTS ON US TECH:

- I’ve long believed that this space offers elements of sword AND shield -- while there were some moments when both the sword and the shield had gone missing, NDX finished H1’25 up a very respectable 8%.

- if Q1 was marked by the swing from Stargate euphoria to DeepSeek disruption, Q2 was marked by remarkable earnings news and an unrelenting commitment to capex. 

- taken together, both champions and challengers were on the offensive, such that demand for compute was some form of insatiable ... I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

- in addition, while the sensation around AI is shifting in the press (namely the risk of impingement on jobs), the capex stories were a clear support for the market (which could only amplify the societal challenges).

- valuation: as Pete Callahan notes, NDX currently trades on a 28x P/E, roughly in line with its 5-year average; while not a tailwind, I don’t regard that as a headwind, either.

- what has clearly changed: in both 2023 and 2024, every stock in the Magnificent Seven rallied; at the halfway point this year, you had three up / three down / one flat.

Conclusion: stay in the pocket, particularly into the seasonal sweet spot that is July.

US VS ROW:

- lest it be said, after a very long (and very powerful) run, the US was NOT the best game in town. 

- with a hefty slice of humble pie, I have to give credit to European equites -- it was hard to make up a bullish story at the end of last year, but the fact set changed, and specific pockets totally shined (witness the DAX, the banks, the defense names). 

- so, whether it was the game change in European defense spending -- or the lightning strike that was DeepSeek -- there were a few fundamental inflections that played to the strengths of non-dollar markets.

- now the question is whether structural allocators of capital will sell their holdings of US equities and put the chips elsewhere -- again, I doubt it, and think the dollar bears the brunt of things for now.    

- in the context of that question, Brett Nelson highlighted a recent WSJ article that reminds us of a clear truth: over the past 50 years, Europe has created (from scratch) 14 companies with a market capitalization of more than $10bn; the US has created 241.

- I also found this week’s headline that AstraZeneca is considering a move of their listing from the UK to the US to be notable (when the headline hit, it was the single largest weight in the FTSE).

- in effect, this was the real story of the first half: it was a bull market for GLOBAL equity indices -- simply pull up a chart of MXWO -- where the US didn’t do all of the heavy lifting. 

THE OTHER BIG DYNAMICS IN THE GAME:

- The Fed: our call is now for sequential cuts in September / October / December ... then two more moves in March and June of next year ... taking the terminal rate down to 3-1/8%.

- on geopolitics, I’d argue that recent months underscore two long standing observations: (1) no one really knows anything; (2) markets have no moral conscience and tend to move on from things.

- the dollar: this was the joker in the pack, from consensus long to start the year to consensus short by the end of Q2; given the Fed is set to out-ease everyone, and given more pressure on USD hedge ratios, again I suspect the path of least resistance is to the downside.

- if there’s a bolt-on to the prior line, it’s that I find it really hard to pick other currencies that I actually want to own -- which, of course, leads one back to gold. 

- the deficit / debt sustainability: the first half was proof of how this variable comes in and out of market focus on a random cadence, leaving both bulls and bears with more questions than answers; I suspect it will be with us for a long while, and argues for steeper curves / more term premium.

- flows, positioning: it never ceases to amaze me how market technicals can hold so much sway at market inflection points; I can only assume that technical discipline will continue to matter in the second half (the current bias is favorable, thanks to retail and systematic strategies).

- a follow-on from the prior line: I’d keep a close eye on gross exposures -- which have been running very high, and saw a significant pressure test this week (e.g. the violent breakdown in the momentum factor).

- breadth: yes, this has been a narrow rally, but such is life in a top heavy index; said another way, I don’t buy the old wisdom that poor breadth means S&P is an unhealthy asset.  

- valuation: S&P trades on an objectively elevated multiple, yet that fact alone hasn’t stood in the way of progress, and I suspect the onus is now on earnings to carry the load. 

- bitcoin: brick-by-brick, I think it continues to achieve a modicum of respect as a long-term store-of-value (as much of the altcoin universe struggles).

- stablecoins: this theme came on like a wildfire, and I suspect it isn’t going to magically disappear anytime soon;.

- hedge funds: you know my bias, but the fact is both discretionary and systematic managers are performing well.

- the celebration of July 4th, I agree with this wisdom from the great Warren Buffett: “we’re always in the process of change, and we’ll always find all kinds of things to criticize in the country ... but the luckiest day in my life is the day I was born, because I was born in the United States.”

Finally, a chart for the road...

...one that invites as big a question as any right now. 

With thanks to Brett Nelson, this plots earnings growth of the US vs various cuts of ROW (12-month trailing EPS, expressed in local FX).

To my eye, it clearly demonstrates why US equities have outperformed so much in the post-GFC era (particularly post-COVID). 

Now the debate turns on whether that immense gap is set to converge, or not:

More here from Goldman Sachs Sales & Trading team available to pro subs.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/04/2025 - 16:00

"A Highly Kinetic Period" - Goldman's Hedge Fund Honcho Reflects On H1... & What Lies Ahead

The first half of 2025 was a highly kinetic period, to say the least, according to Goldman Sachs head of hedge fund coverage, Tony Pasquariello.

With a touch of distance from the screens this week, he went back and read a bunch of his recent notes, which served as a reminder of the immense narrative volatility along the path.

For example:

• US exceptionalism was a bright and shining consensus position at the start of the year...

• ...that gave way to the worst short-cycle selloff in domestic equities since the depths of COVID...

• ...only to see S&P close out H1’25 on the dead highs (and we’ve kept going).

What follows from here is a set of views that Pasquariello took away from the past six months -- with an eye towards the next six months...

MARKET DIRECTION:

- given all of the uncertainty and volatility, it’s hard to look back and NOT be a little impressed with how the US economy has performed.

- remember, in the toughest moments of April, many folks believed that a US recession was all but in the bag. 

- in practice, the risk management challenge was two-fold: calibrating huge changes to US political orthodoxy -- at the exact time as new and disruptive technologies were colliding. 

- if you flash forward to today -- with NDX nearly 40% off the lows -- Mr. Market has added another data point to this analog: periods of exceptionally high policy uncertainty usually give way to strong equity returns.

- the April shakeout also calls to mind this well-worn rule of thumb: within a structural bull market, if you want to be short US equities, your timing needs to be impeccable. 

- now, in trying to work out how the market recovered the highs, perhaps it’s simply because governments, corporates and households stayed on the gas.

- don’t take my word for it, simply look at the trajectory of US fiscal spending ... or the capex plans of the Magnificent Seven ... or US retail demand for stocks.

- looking forward, the bull case is this: the US economy is durable, financial conditions are easy and we’re witnessing a remarkable acceleration of applied innovation. 

- set against that, growth is apt to slow during the second half, risk/reward at this multiple isn’t alluring and global bond markets skate on thin ice (witness the UK again this week).

- in the end, it’s still a bull market, yet one that’s delivering less convexity and less consistency than before -- I wrote that earlier in the year, and I’m sticking with it.

- core positions that I believe in (and would marry as a composite): US technology / US power ... steeper global yield curves ... a (somewhat) weaker dollar ... and don’t fight the primary trend in gold. 

A SHORT SET OF THOUGHTS ON US TECH:

- I’ve long believed that this space offers elements of sword AND shield -- while there were some moments when both the sword and the shield had gone missing, NDX finished H1’25 up a very respectable 8%.

- if Q1 was marked by the swing from Stargate euphoria to DeepSeek disruption, Q2 was marked by remarkable earnings news and an unrelenting commitment to capex. 

- taken together, both champions and challengers were on the offensive, such that demand for compute was some form of insatiable ... I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

- in addition, while the sensation around AI is shifting in the press (namely the risk of impingement on jobs), the capex stories were a clear support for the market (which could only amplify the societal challenges).

- valuation: as Pete Callahan notes, NDX currently trades on a 28x P/E, roughly in line with its 5-year average; while not a tailwind, I don’t regard that as a headwind, either.

- what has clearly changed: in both 2023 and 2024, every stock in the Magnificent Seven rallied; at the halfway point this year, you had three up / three down / one flat.

Conclusion: stay in the pocket, particularly into the seasonal sweet spot that is July.

US VS ROW:

- lest it be said, after a very long (and very powerful) run, the US was NOT the best game in town. 

- with a hefty slice of humble pie, I have to give credit to European equites -- it was hard to make up a bullish story at the end of last year, but the fact set changed, and specific pockets totally shined (witness the DAX, the banks, the defense names). 

- so, whether it was the game change in European defense spending -- or the lightning strike that was DeepSeek -- there were a few fundamental inflections that played to the strengths of non-dollar markets.

- now the question is whether structural allocators of capital will sell their holdings of US equities and put the chips elsewhere -- again, I doubt it, and think the dollar bears the brunt of things for now.    

- in the context of that question, Brett Nelson highlighted a recent WSJ article that reminds us of a clear truth: over the past 50 years, Europe has created (from scratch) 14 companies with a market capitalization of more than $10bn; the US has created 241.

- I also found this week’s headline that AstraZeneca is considering a move of their listing from the UK to the US to be notable (when the headline hit, it was the single largest weight in the FTSE).

- in effect, this was the real story of the first half: it was a bull market for GLOBAL equity indices -- simply pull up a chart of MXWO -- where the US didn’t do all of the heavy lifting. 

THE OTHER BIG DYNAMICS IN THE GAME:

- The Fed: our call is now for sequential cuts in September / October / December ... then two more moves in March and June of next year ... taking the terminal rate down to 3-1/8%.

- on geopolitics, I’d argue that recent months underscore two long standing observations: (1) no one really knows anything; (2) markets have no moral conscience and tend to move on from things.

- the dollar: this was the joker in the pack, from consensus long to start the year to consensus short by the end of Q2; given the Fed is set to out-ease everyone, and given more pressure on USD hedge ratios, again I suspect the path of least resistance is to the downside.

- if there’s a bolt-on to the prior line, it’s that I find it really hard to pick other currencies that I actually want to own -- which, of course, leads one back to gold. 

- the deficit / debt sustainability: the first half was proof of how this variable comes in and out of market focus on a random cadence, leaving both bulls and bears with more questions than answers; I suspect it will be with us for a long while, and argues for steeper curves / more term premium.

- flows, positioning: it never ceases to amaze me how market technicals can hold so much sway at market inflection points; I can only assume that technical discipline will continue to matter in the second half (the current bias is favorable, thanks to retail and systematic strategies).

- a follow-on from the prior line: I’d keep a close eye on gross exposures -- which have been running very high, and saw a significant pressure test this week (e.g. the violent breakdown in the momentum factor).

- breadth: yes, this has been a narrow rally, but such is life in a top heavy index; said another way, I don’t buy the old wisdom that poor breadth means S&P is an unhealthy asset.  

- valuation: S&P trades on an objectively elevated multiple, yet that fact alone hasn’t stood in the way of progress, and I suspect the onus is now on earnings to carry the load. 

- bitcoin: brick-by-brick, I think it continues to achieve a modicum of respect as a long-term store-of-value (as much of the altcoin universe struggles).

- stablecoins: this theme came on like a wildfire, and I suspect it isn’t going to magically disappear anytime soon;.

- hedge funds: you know my bias, but the fact is both discretionary and systematic managers are performing well.

- the celebration of July 4th, I agree with this wisdom from the great Warren Buffett: “we’re always in the process of change, and we’ll always find all kinds of things to criticize in the country ... but the luckiest day in my life is the day I was born, because I was born in the United States.”

Finally, a chart for the road...

...one that invites as big a question as any right now. 

With thanks to Brett Nelson, this plots earnings growth of the US vs various cuts of ROW (12-month trailing EPS, expressed in local FX).

To my eye, it clearly demonstrates why US equities have outperformed so much in the post-GFC era (particularly post-COVID). 

Now the debate turns on whether that immense gap is set to converge, or not:

More here from Goldman Sachs Sales & Trading team available to pro subs.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/04/2025 - 16:00

Waste Of The Day: COVID Loans For 11-Year-Olds

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: A weekly allowance or a lemonade stand are great ways to teach young kids how to manage their money. A loan from the Small Business Administration is not. 

Yet according to the Department of Government Efficiency, the SBA issued 5,593 loans in 2020 and 2021 worth $312 million to businesses whose listed owners were 11 years old or younger. Either America’s children have suddenly become expert entrepreneurs or, more likely, another round of fraud from the Covid-19 pandemic has been uncovered. 

DOGE also claimed that the SBA gave 3,095 loans worth $333 million to borrowers who were listed as 115 years or older, bringing the total age-related fraud to $645 million. 

Key facts: An SBA spokesperson confirmed to the fact-checking site Snopes that "According to our preliminary analysis, SBA can confirm that over 5,500 loans, totaling about $312M, were distributed to businesses whose only listed owner was 11 years old or younger at the time of the disbursement." 

The White House did not offer additional context to Snopes or FOX News, and it’s unclear how the loans were actually used. Isabel Casillas Guzman, the SBA administrator at the time when the loans were paid, also did not return Snopes’ request for comment. 

Snopes noted that it’s possible the loans were paid to adult borrowers, but the recipients appear as children in the government database because of poor recordkeeping.

Either way, the mistake is serious. The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee recently claimed that at least $79 billion of fraud during the pandemic was “readily preventable,” but government officials were not verifying Social Security numbers before paying out loans. 

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.  

Background: Though DOGE provided taxpayers with a great service by announcing the potential fraud publicly, full transparency would require the government to release records showing the loans so DOGE’s claims can be independently verified. 

That’s a common theme with DOGE’s efforts to fight government waste. After DOGE announced it had cancelled 7 million active Social Security numbers for people 120 years or older, OpenTheBooks filed a Freedom of Information Act request for a list of Social Security disbursements by age group. The Social Security Administration claimed that no records exist. 

OpenTheBooks also analyzed every program cancelled by DOGE as of May 27 and found that the average person can only verify the dollar figures for 42% of the contracts and 27% of the grants. That doesn’t necessarily mean DOGE’s dollar figures are mistaken, but it means that public sites like USAspending.gov that record government spending data are insufficient for full transparency because they do not update in real time. 

Summary: Whether or not 11-year-olds actually received loans from the SBA, it’s clear that government recordkeeping and fraud prevention measures need a serious overhaul. 

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com 

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/04/2025 - 15:25

Waste Of The Day: COVID Loans For 11-Year-Olds

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: A weekly allowance or a lemonade stand are great ways to teach young kids how to manage their money. A loan from the Small Business Administration is not. 

Yet according to the Department of Government Efficiency, the SBA issued 5,593 loans in 2020 and 2021 worth $312 million to businesses whose listed owners were 11 years old or younger. Either America’s children have suddenly become expert entrepreneurs or, more likely, another round of fraud from the Covid-19 pandemic has been uncovered. 

DOGE also claimed that the SBA gave 3,095 loans worth $333 million to borrowers who were listed as 115 years or older, bringing the total age-related fraud to $645 million. 

Key facts: An SBA spokesperson confirmed to the fact-checking site Snopes that "According to our preliminary analysis, SBA can confirm that over 5,500 loans, totaling about $312M, were distributed to businesses whose only listed owner was 11 years old or younger at the time of the disbursement." 

The White House did not offer additional context to Snopes or FOX News, and it’s unclear how the loans were actually used. Isabel Casillas Guzman, the SBA administrator at the time when the loans were paid, also did not return Snopes’ request for comment. 

Snopes noted that it’s possible the loans were paid to adult borrowers, but the recipients appear as children in the government database because of poor recordkeeping.

Either way, the mistake is serious. The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee recently claimed that at least $79 billion of fraud during the pandemic was “readily preventable,” but government officials were not verifying Social Security numbers before paying out loans. 

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.  

Background: Though DOGE provided taxpayers with a great service by announcing the potential fraud publicly, full transparency would require the government to release records showing the loans so DOGE’s claims can be independently verified. 

That’s a common theme with DOGE’s efforts to fight government waste. After DOGE announced it had cancelled 7 million active Social Security numbers for people 120 years or older, OpenTheBooks filed a Freedom of Information Act request for a list of Social Security disbursements by age group. The Social Security Administration claimed that no records exist. 

OpenTheBooks also analyzed every program cancelled by DOGE as of May 27 and found that the average person can only verify the dollar figures for 42% of the contracts and 27% of the grants. That doesn’t necessarily mean DOGE’s dollar figures are mistaken, but it means that public sites like USAspending.gov that record government spending data are insufficient for full transparency because they do not update in real time. 

Summary: Whether or not 11-year-olds actually received loans from the SBA, it’s clear that government recordkeeping and fraud prevention measures need a serious overhaul. 

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com 

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/04/2025 - 15:25

The (Falling) Price Of A July 4th Cookout

This Independence Day, shoppers can expect to pay an average of $70.92 for a cookout for 10 people, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s (AFBF) annual Fourth of July market basket survey. This marks a 30 cent decline from last year, although it remains the second most expensive year since the survey began back in 2013.

Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the following chart just how much different ingredients for a typical Fourth of July menu will set people back this year.

You will find more infographics at Statista

According to AFBF analysts, while there have been price drops in the cost of items such as pork chops (-8.8 percent), chips (-2.1 percent) and hamburger buns (-2.6 percent), there have also been increases in the cost of beef (+4.4 percent), potato salad (+6.6 percent) and canned pork and beans (+8.2 percent).

“Inflation and lower availability of some food items continue to keep prices stubbornly high for America’s families,” said AFBF Associate Economist Samantha Ayoub.

“High prices don’t mean more money for farmers, however. Farmers are price takers, not price makers. Their share of the food retail dollar is just 15 percent. The cost of running their farm is up, from labor and transportation, to taxes.”

Among the factors influencing the increases are the fact fewer cattle are available for processing, while steel and aluminium tariffs have led to increased prices on canned goods. Egg prices remain elevated, however have come down from their peaks earlier this year as egg-laying chicken populations are starting to recover from avian influenza. Meanwhile, wheat prices are lower than they were several years ago, contributing to the slightly lower cost of hamburger buns.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/04/2025 - 14:50