Good News for Trump: RFK Jr. Picks Leftist VP w/ Extreme Views on Abortion, Social Justice

Ben Sellers
-
0
Good News for Trump: RFK Jr. Picks Leftist VP w/ Extreme Views on Abortion, Social Justice

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Independent third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. formally announced his running mate Tuesday at a livestreamed event from Oakland, Calif.

The announcement laid to rest weeks of rumors, although speculation most recently has centered on his eventual pick: Nicole Shanahan, the former wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin.

Shanahan, who prominently bankrolled a Super Bowl ad for Kennedy, is likely to have a huge financial impact on his campaign—putting him further into contention in a race where he already promised to be a political spoiler on par with Reform Party candidate Ross Perot’s 1992 run, when the Texas billionaire’s double-digit support succeeded in electing then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton over incumbent President George H.W. Bush.

Many, however, wondered whether RFK Jr.’s presence would do more damage to the re-election effort of incumbent President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump.

Despite Kennedy’s long history as a Democrat—with whom he continues to align on many fundamental policy issues—he also has embraced a similar anti-Establishment sentiment to Trump on issues such as his outspoken vaccine skepticism and several beliefs about the corruption of the deep state that have been derided by mainstream media as “conspiracy theories.”

According to donor data from the Federal Election Commission, Shanahan has notably suppored politically vulnerable Democrats such as Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, Jared Golden of Maine and Sharice Davids of Kansas.

Despite claiming to be moderates, all three have typically voted lockstep with the far-left. According to the Heritage Foundation, Spanberger and Davids each have a voting score of 9% on conservative issues, while Golden’s is 28%. For context, “Squad” leader Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez has a score of 19%. Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders has a score of 34%.

Shanahan also has given to less “centrist” candidates including current President Joe Biden and failed 2016 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, as well as Marianne Williamson, the new-age guru who is challenging Biden in the Democrat primary.

More alarmingly, Shanahan has given money to Emily’s List—an extremist anti-life group that lent tacit support to the violent abortion riots following the overturning of Roe v. Wade—as well as the Win the ERA PAC, which seeks to enshrine the controversial so-called Equal Rights Amendment into the U.S. Constitution.

The 1972 measure is considered by some to be a back-door effort to codify abortion as the law of the land, and also would eliminate all gender distinctions between the two sexes, while also having major implications for the transgender and LGBT agendas.

Shanahan likewise has an alarming record on “social justice” initiatives, having given significant funding to current Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon and supported other efforts that were loosely linked to the “defund the police” movement.

Shanahan’s radical record is good news for the Trump campaign, which would have found itself in a significantly more vulnerable position had Kennedy picked one of the more conservative or libertarian choices from his list.

Those names include NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers and popular podcast host Mike Rowe as well as former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, were both floated as possibilities as well but declined consideration. Gabbard remains in consideration on former President Donald Trump’s shortlist for the GOP ticket.

At his announcement event on Tuesday, Kennedy said he would buck the partisan trend in Washington, D.C., by pledging to work across the aisle.

“I have witnessed an upwelling of optimism that I’ve never seen before. Something is stirring in us that says it doesn’t have to be this way, and so I’ve come here today to declare our independence from the tyrrany of corruption, which robs us of affordable lives, our belief in the future and our respect for each other,” he said in his speech.

“But to do that, I must first declare my own independence—independence from the Democratic Party, and from all other political parties,” he added.

However, the political scion—whose famous uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Sr., D-N.Y., were both assassinated within five years during the 1960s, when he was a child and teenager—said that it was not an easy decision to divorce himself from the Democrats, given his family’s longstanding historic and ongoing ties to the party.

Kennedy’s father was running as an outside candidate in the 1968 election to challenge incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey when he was shot and killed by a Palestinian radical while celebrating his victory in the California primary. The issue has notably arisen due to the Biden administration’s refusal to provide Secret Service protection for the younger Kennedy.

“It’s very painful for me to let go of the party of my uncles, my father, my grandfather and both of my great-grandfathers,” Kennedy said during the speech.

“But my sacrifice is nothing compared to the risk our founding fathers took when they signed the Declaration of Independence 247 years ago,” he continued. “They knew that if their revolution failed, every last one of them would be hanged. They chose to place everything on the line.”

Without the backing of a party, Kennedy faces an arduous task to get on the ballot, with varying rules across the 50 states. He’s picking a running mate now because about half of the states require him to designate one before he can apply for ballot access.

The requirement is already bedeviling Kennedy’s ballot access effort in Nevada, where Democratic Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said in a March 7 letter to independent candidates that they must nominate a vice-presidential candidate before collecting signatures.

The letter came days after Kennedy’s campaign announced he’d collected enough signatures in the state. If Aguilar’s opinion survives a likely legal challenge, Kennedy will have to start again in collecting just over 10,000 signatures in the state.

“This is the epitome of corruption,” said Paul Rossi, a Kennedy campaign lawyer, in a statement Monday, accusing Aguilar of doing the bidding of the Democratic National Committee.

Kennedy has secured access to the ballot in Utah. He and an allied super PAC, American Values 2024, say they’ve collected enough signatures to qualify in several other states, including swing states Arizona and Georgia, but election officials there have not yet signed off.

The DNC, meanwhile, is gearing up to take on Kennedy and other third-party options, including No Labels, a well-funded group working to recruit a centrist ticket.

That effort is overseen by veteran strategist Mary Beth Cahill, whose resume includes chief of staff to the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, another of RFK Jr.’s uncles.

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Financially Strained FBI Whistleblowers Turn against House GOP

Ken Silva
-
0
Financially Strained FBI Whistleblowers Turn against House GOP

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Throughout much of last year, the House Weaponization Subcommittee heard testimony from FBI whistleblowers about how the bureau’s Washington DC officials hid information from other field offices, threatened agents who questioned the government’s Jan. 6 official narrative, and committed other acts of malfeasance.

Congressional lawmakers also heard how the FBI retaliated against its whistleblowers by suspending them indefinitely without pay, and stripping their security clearances. A particularly shocking moment from the hearing came when one whistleblower, Garrett O’Boyle, advised his fellow agents against following his path.

“I would advise them not to do it … The FBI will crush you. This government will crush you and your family if you try to expose the truth about things they are doing that are wrong,” O’Boyle said last year. “We are all examples of that.”

 

Despite that, the House continues to approve spending bills that fully fund the FBI. Many Republicans even helped the bureau secure a new $300 million headquarters.

Meanwhile, some of the whistleblowers have been left destitute, including O’Boyle, who took to Twitter on Wednesday to express his displeasure at the situation.

“The @fbi claims I am an employee. Yet they have severed every connection an employer would have; including pay and healthcare. I just PAID THEM $3,397.43 for the transfer that never happened which they used to ‘financially devastate him,’” he said. “Thanks @Weaponization for all your help.”

O’Boyle further criticized the Weaponization committee for using him and other witnesses “just so you could fund what you claim to despise.”

The FBI whistleblower was particularly harsh in his criticism for House Speaker Mike Johnson.

“The worst part of it is that you claim to be a God fearing man. During this Easter season I admonish you to revisit John 12. Especially verses 42-43. You are, [Speaker Johnson], of the Pharisees at this point. Stop loving the fake glory you receive from man.”

He isn’t the only whistleblower the FBI has tried to financially ruined. As Headline USA reported in January, suspended FBI analyst Marcus Allen has been suspended for two years and counting with no pay.

Allen and O’Boyle both have lawsuits pending against the government for the retaliation they’ve faced.

The House GOP, for its part, has introduced legislation that would purportedly strengthen whistleblower protections. But another FBI whistleblower, Kyle Seraphin, blasted the bill as a publicity stunt.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Fulton Judge to Consider Dismissal of Fani’s Case Again as Leftist Media Turns

Jacob Bruns
-
0
Fulton Judge to Consider Dismissal of Fani’s Case Again as Leftist Media Turns

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) As Fulton County, Georga prosecutor Fani Willis’s credibility crumbles amidst her affair scandal, a Georgia judge is holding a Thursday hearing to consider dismissing the case against former President Donald Trump altogether, Raw Story reported Monday.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ordered a March 28 hearing on Monday wherein he will consider dropping the case against Trump and other defendants outright on the ground that their ability to speak freely is protected by the First Amendment.

In the filing that triggered the hearing, Trump attorney Steven Sadaw argued that, even if Trump’s election arguments were false, he still has a constitutional right to make them.

“Here, the indictment’s recitation of supposedly ‘false’ statements and facts, undisputed solely for purposes of a First Amendment-based general demurrer/motion to dismiss, show that the prosecution of President Trump is premised on content-based core political speech and expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment,” Sadow wrote.

According to a Salon report, however, Willis feels that there is nothing to worry about as she and her legal team are still working hard to inconvenience the 2024 Republican candidate as much as possible.

“While that was going on, we were writing responsive briefs, we were still doing the case in a way that it needed to be done. I don’t feel like we’ve been slowed down at all, she noted.

“I do think there are efforts to slow down this train, but the train is coming,” Willis said on Saturday, calling news coverage of her illicit affair “noise.”

“We’re going to continue to do our work,” she added.

Judge McAfee’s handling of the witch hunt case has so far been hit-and-miss. While he has agreed to hear Sadow’s First Amendment argument, he also let Willis off the hook after her affair was uncovered, so long as she fired her lover, Nathan Wade, who resigned in the wake of McAfee’s request.

On the other hand, early this month, McAfee dismissed some of the charges against Trump in the case that accuses the former president of a racketeering conspiracy for his efforts to challenge the 2020 election.

Biden’s Lie to Hur about Man Losing Penis May Come Back to Bite Him

Molly Bruns
-
0
Biden’s Lie to Hur about Man Losing Penis May Come Back to Bite Him

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) President Joe Biden’s alleged political origin story may turn out to be false and lying about it under oath may get the president into trouble, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Biden has been telling the story of how he got into politics for nearly two decades: working as a law clerk at high-level firm Prickett, Ward, Burt & Sanders, the young Biden defended a construction company against an employee who “lost part of his penis and one of his testicles” in a fire at work.

“I wrote this memo. And son of a b****, it prevailed,” Biden told Special Counsel Robert Hur in an investigatory interview. “And I looked over at that kid…and I thought, ‘son of a b****, I’m in the wrong business, I’m not made for this.'”

Biden claimed he made up an excuse to skip the firm’s celebratory luncheon, marched down to the public defenders office and applied for a job that very day, claiming it was “the only time [he] ever lied.”

There are no records indicating such a case existed in either the public record or from the Prickett law firm when Biden worked for them in 1968, as noted by the Free Beacon.

A similar case went through the firm when Biden was an undergraduate student at the University of Delaware.

Joseph Januszewski sued Catalytic Construction Company in 1964, after a fire on the job site left him disabled.

While his injuries were extensive, resulting in an amputated leg and leaving Januszewski wheelchair bound, there is no record of the incident directly effecting his genitalia.

They filed the suit in 1964, when Biden was a junior. A federal jury ruled in Januszewski’s favor four years later, when Biden attended Syracuse University for law school.

According to Biden’s memoir, he did not come to work for Prickett, Ward, Burt & Sanders until at least June of 1968, after the case had concluded.

The District Court of Delaware only keeps records dating back to 1974; the law firm has no existing records of the case.

“We are familiar with the passage in Mr. Biden’s autobiography discussing our firm and a civil action William Prickett and Mr. Biden worked on,” a spokesman for Prickett, Ward, Burt & Sanders said.

“Unfortunately we cannot confirm that the Januszewski matter is the one to which the autobiography refers. Any records from the case, and other matters the firm handled in the late 1960s, are well outside the time period of our records retention policy and have likely been destroyed.”

Killer Robot Funding Included in Army’s 2025 Budget

Ken Silva
-
0
Killer Robot Funding Included in Army’s 2025 Budget

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The robots are coming—or at least that’s what a recent article from Defense News indicates.

The publication reported Monday that the Army is seeking $33 for its 2025 budget to fund “human-machine integrated formations,” or H-MIF, which are essentially robots designed to do the work of humans.

According to Defense News, the Army demonstrated its H-MIF technologies at Fort Irwin, California—home to the National Training Center—in March for a large exercise known as Project Convergence. The military news outlet described what happened during the demonstration.

“Looking like a toy helicopter, a small black drone rose up over a cluster of adobe buildings in a quiet desert village, emitting a faint buzz …  Another followed,” Defense News reported.

“All at once, an overwhelming group of air- and ground-based machine fighters burst onto the scene. An ‘octocopter’ lumbered through the sky with precision munitions and other robots attached to its belly, dropping three 60mm mortar rounds on a roof and other small, hand-held, cylindrical ‘throwbots’ on the ground,” the outlet added.

“Robotic combat vehicles rolled into view, armed with .50-caliber and M240 machine guns, firing on enemy positions and providing cover for troops maneuvering into the village. Meanwhile, a four-legged dog robot stepped out from a thick cloud of smoke, giving the soldiers monitoring from afar another view.”

Officials are still reportedly working the bugs out of their H-MIF tech, but said the use of it in combat scenarios could be coming sooner than most people expect.

The Defense News article follows a December report from the Military Times, which said that efforts to incorporate robots in the military have reached a breakthrough, and are now being used in dangerous combat scenarios.

The Military Times reported that the Army’s MCOE Experimental Company, 1st Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment, 316th recently conducted an urban assault. Like Defense News, the Military Times described the situation in vivid detail.

“Instead of human soldiers rushing across open areas and bursting into buildings, robots took the lead … 20 soldiers with four robotic vehicles were able to cross the open terrain to reach the building. But first robots with smoke generators created a screen,” the publication reported.

“At the same time, robot vehicles with tethered drones jammed enemy signals and extended the soldiers’ network. Small drones dropped robotic ground vehicles with cameras atop buildings to scout the interior while even smaller aerial drones entered windows, scanning the inside of the structure and transmitting back a “blueprint” of the building to soldiers on the ground,” the publication added.

“Then robot “dogs” with cameras of their own, entered the building looking for hazards and seeking out enemy troops.”

In the meantime, members of Congress are proposing another way to address military recruitment shortfalls. Democratic U.S. Senators are pushing to allow illegal immigrants to serve in the armed forces in exchange for granting them citizenship.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

UK Amendable to Extraditing Julian Assange if U.S. Promises Not to Kill Him

Ken Silva
-
0
UK Amendable to Extraditing Julian Assange if U.S. Promises Not to Kill Him

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The UK High Court delayed Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s pending extradition to the U.S. on Tuesday, ruling that the U.S. government must provide several assurances about how he’ll be treated before shipping him to America.

The U.S. reportedly must guarantee by April 16 that Assange can raise a First Amendment defense when he stands trial for violating the Espionage Act, that he’ll have the same right as U.S. citizens, and that he’ll never face the death penalty. The charges that Assange violated the Espionage Act stem from him publishing leaked records about U.S. war crimes.

While some of Assange’s supporters saw Tuesday’s ruling as a partial victory, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson was flabbergasted that the UK is even considering extraditing Assange for what amounts to journalism.

“The fact that any of this is even in question is shocking. Biden is actually considering the death penalty for journalism? Yes, he is,” Carlson said. “Where are all the ‘liberals’ at CNN, NBC News and the Washington Post? Totally shameful.”

If the U.S. agrees to the UK’s conditions for extradition, Assange could immediately be put on a plane and shipped to America. Assange can ask the European Court of Human Rights to block his extradition, but supporters worry he could be put on a plane to the U.S. before that happens, because the British government has already signed an extradition order.

The 52-year-old Australian has been indicted on 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse over his website’s publication of a trove of classified U.S. documents almost 15 years ago. American prosecutors allege Assange encouraged and helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published, putting lives at risk. as been too ill to even attend court hearings.

A U.K. district court judge rejected the U.S. extradition request in 2021 on the grounds that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. Higher courts overturned that decision after getting assurances from the U.S. about his treatment. The British government signed an extradition order in June 2022.

If extradited, Assange faces a sentence of 175 years for exposing war crimes committed by the United States in the Afghan and Iraq wars.

Meanwhile, the FBI is reportedly still investigating Assange. Journalist James Ball wrote in Rolling Stone last July that Biden’s Justice Department and the FBI are pursing “vague threats and pressure tactics” to pressure British journalists to cooperate with their prosecution of Assange.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Bridge’s Collapse to Create Logistical Snarl, Devastate ‘Entire East Coast’

Editor 1
-
0
Bridge’s Collapse to Create Logistical Snarl, Devastate ‘Entire East Coast’

(Headline USA) The horrifying collapse of a bridge on a major interstate artery in Baltimore, which sent at least 10 cars plunging into the frigid water in the wee morning hours, will have serious ripple effects on both travel and supply chains, even as a busy travel weekend approaches for returning spring-breakers and those visiting family over Easter and Passover.

“Losing this bridge will devastate the entire area, as well as the entire East Coast,” state Sen. Johnny Ray Salling said.

A container ship lost power and rammed the Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday, causing the span to buckle into the Patapsco River below, and plunging a construction crew and several vehicles into the dangerously cold waters. Rescuers pulled out two people, but six others were missing.

The ship’s crew issued a mayday call moments before the crash took down the bridge, enabling authorities to limit vehicle traffic on the span, Maryland’s governor said.

The ship struck one of the bridge’s supports, causing the structure to collapse like a toy. It tumbled into the water in a matter of seconds—a shocking spectacle that was captured on video and posted on social media.

The vessel caught fire, and thick, black smoke billowed out of it.

With the ship barreling toward the bridge at “a very, very rapid speed,” authorities had just enough time to stop cars from coming over the bridge, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said.

“These people are heroes,” Moore said. “They saved lives last night.”

The crash happened long before the busy morning commute on the bridge that stretches 1.6 miles.

The six people still unaccounted for were part of a construction crew filling potholes on the bridge, said Paul Wiedefeld, the state’s transportation secretary said. One of those rescued was taken to a hospital, he said.

“Never would you think that you would see, physically see, the Key Bridge tumble down like that. It looked like something out of an action movie,” said Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, calling it “an unthinkable tragedy.”

The collapse is almost sure to create a logistical nightmare for months, if not years, along the East Coast, shutting down ship traffic at the Port of Baltimore and snarling cargo and commuter traffic.

Highway signs as far south as Virginia warned drivers of delays associated with the closure of the bridge.

Authorities said sonar had detected vehicles in the water, which is about 50 feet deep. The water temperature was about 47 degrees Fahrenheit before dawn Tuesday, according to a buoy that collects data for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Earlier, Kevin Cartwright, director of communications for the Baltimore Fire Department, told the Associated Press that several vehicles were on the bridge at the time of the collapse, including one the size of a tractor-trailer truck.

The bridge came down in the middle of night when traffic would be lighter than during the day when thousands of cars traverse the span.

As the sun rose Tuesday, jagged remnants of the bridge could be seen jutting up from the water’s surface. The on-ramp ended abruptly where the span once began.

Cartwright said that some cargo appeared to be dangling from the bridge, which spans the Patapsco River at the entrance to a busy harbor. The river leads to the Port of Baltimore, a major hub for shipping on the East Coast.

Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld said all vessel traffic into and out of the port would be suspended until further notice, though the facility was still open to trucks.

The governor declared a state of emergency and said he was working to get federal resources deployed. The FBI was on the scene, but said there was no credible information to suggest terrorism.

It was unclear whether Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has become notorious for his perennial absenteeism in time of crisis, had any plans to visit

Last year, the Port of Baltimore handled a record 52.3 million tons of foreign cargo worth $80 billion, according to the state. In addition to cargo, more than than 444,000 passengers cruised out of the port in 2023.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

New York City Police Officer Fatally Shot During Traffic Stop

Editor 1
-
0
New York City Police Officer Fatally Shot During Traffic Stop

(Headline USA) A New York City police officer was shot and killed Monday during a traffic stop, the city’s mayor said. It marked the first slaying of an NYPD officer in two years.

“We lost one of our sons today and it is extremely painful. It is extremely painful,” Mayor Eric Adams said, addressing reporters at the hospital where the officer died.

The shooting happened just before 5:50 p.m. in the Far Rockaway section of Queens, police said, after Officer Jonathan Diller and his partner encountered a vehicle illegally parked at a bus stop.

As they approached the vehicle, a man inside shot Diller below his bullet-proof vest, said Police Commissioner Edward Caban. Diller’s partner returned fire and wounded the suspected shooter, who was brought to an area hospital.

Diller was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center but could not be saved, officials said. He had been with the police department for three years, was married and had a young child, Caban tweeted.

“We struggle to find the words to express the tragedy of losing one of our own,” Caban wrote.

The police department’s chief of detectives, Joseph Kenny, said Diller and his partner had initially tried to order the vehicle’s driver and passenger out of the car, which was stopped on a busy but narrow street in a bustling commercial district.

“He was asked to leave the car,” Kenny said of the person who pulled the gun. “He was given a lawful order numerous times to step out of the car. He refused. And when the officers took him out of the car, rather than stepping out of the car, he shot our officer.”

Kenny said Diller “stayed in the fight” after being wounded and tried to disarm the shooter, whose name was not immediately released by police.

“The gun hit the ground. And as the perpetrator was still reaching for it, this cop was able to grab it, although he was still shot,” Kenny said.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene.

“It happened so fast,” one bystander, Melissa Morgan, 39, told the Daily News. “The police officer fell on the floor and the other officers dragged the two guys out of the car. I was running for cover.”

Another witness, Deon Peters, told the New York Post he saw Diller on the ground.

“He was moving, he was saying ‘I’m hit, I’m hit,’” Peters said.

The slaying was the first of an NYPD officer since 2022, when two officers, Wilbert Mora, 27, and Jason Rivera, 22, were ambushed in a Harlem apartment building after responding to a domestic disturbance call.

Adams, a former police captain, said he met with Diller’s grieving widow. He called the shooting a “senseless act of violence.”

“Can I say it any clearer? It is the good guys against the bad guys,” he said. “And these bad guys are violent. They carry guns. And the symbol of our public safety, which is that police uniform, they have a total disregard for.”

The shooting comes just weeks after a gang of illegal immigrants brutally beat police officers in Times Square in broad daylight, triggering widespread public outrage that was compounded by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision to release the assailants.

Attitudes of disrespect toward law enforcement have escalated since the 2020 “defund the police” movement under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, part of a nationwide push from radical leftists. Backlash against it helped elect Adams who, although still a Democrat, was formerly part of the NYPD community and ran on a pro-law-enforcement platform.

Nonetheless, Adams has been hamstrung by the surge of illegal immigrants, who have demanded considerable resources from the city budget while also adding to the overall criminal element.

The suspect in Diller’s murder, 34-year-old Guy Rivera, is not believed to be an illegal immigrant but does have four prior arrests, according to Fox News, underscoring the issue with Bragg’s soft-on-crime approach.

The driver of the vehicle, 41-year-old Lindy Jones, has at least 12 prior arrests. His last arrest was in April 2023 for a loaded firearm.

“This is what you call not a crime problem, a recidivist problem,” noted Adams. “Same bad people doing bad things to good people. Less than a year, he’s back on the streets with another gun.”

Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association of New York, expressed anger over the shooting.

“These attacks on New York City police officers have to end right now,” he said. “We have a family upstairs that’s devastated. We have police officers in this hallway who lost a brother. It has to end now.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Bidenflation, Supply-Chain Shortages Conspire to Ruin Easter-Egg Hunts

Editor 1
-
0
Bidenflation, Supply-Chain Shortages Conspire to Ruin Easter-Egg Hunts

(Headline USA) Egg prices are at near-historic highs in many parts of the world as the spring holidays approach, reflecting the ongoing scourge of President Joe Biden’s profligate spending, paired with a variety of other factors including a market scrambled by disease, high demand and growing costs for farmers.

It’s the second year in a row consumers have faced sticker shock ahead of Easter and Passover, both occasions in which eggs play prominent roles.

While global prices are lower than they were at this time last year, they remain elevated, said Nan-Dirk Mulder, a senior global specialist with Dutch financial firm RaboBank’s RaboResearch Food and Agribusiness division. Mulder doesn’t expect them to return to 2021 levels.

In the United States, the average price of a dozen eggs was $2.99 in February, down from $4.21 last year, according to government data. Still, that’s significantly more than the $1.59 cents per dozen consumers were paying in February 2021.

In Europe, egg prices are 10% to 15% lower than last year but still about double what they were in 2021, Mulder said.

Much of the current U.S. inflation crisis is the result of the devaluation of the dollar due to the government having increased its spending and printed more unbacked currency to offset it. That has led to what will likely be permanent increases, unless there is an active effort to pay down debt and then remove the surplus currency from “circulation”—although much of it in the modern era is simply generated electronically.

Other leftist policies hace also played a role in the cost increases. Under the Biden administration, the Environmental Protection Agency has imposed stricter regulations on things such as air quality and wastewater that may impact some poultry farms and deter them from operating at full capacity.

Multiple states, including California and Massachusetts, have passed cage bans for egg-laying hens since 2018; this year, bans are set to take effect in Washington, Oregon and Michigan.

Converting to cage-free facilities is a big investment for farmers, and consumers may not always realize that’s a factor in the higher prices they see at the grocery store, said Emily Metz, president of the American Egg Board, a marketing organization.

Moreover, recent mishaps at food production plants and the acquisition of agricultural land by Chinese investors have cut into U.S. food production increasingly, fueling some concern about the eventual possibility of shortages.

Another major culprit is avian flu. Outbreaks of the deadly respiratory disease were reported in Europe, Africa and Asia in 2020 and spread to North America in 2021. In 2022 alone, more than 131 million poultry worldwide died or were culled on affected farms, according to the World Health Organization.

Outbreaks are continuing. In December, the U.S. confirmed cases in 45 commercial flocks and 33 backyard flocks, affecting 11.4 million birds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In South Africa, egg prices soared after 40% of laying hens were killed late last year due to the respiratory disease, Mulder said. A tray of six eggs cost 25.48 South African rand ($1.34) last month, up 21% from February 2023.

Even when avian flu dissipates, it can take a long time for the egg market to settle. It takes a farm three to six months to replenish a flock, so during that time, egg supplies are lower and prices rise, Metz said.

If farms restock with too many chickens, it can drive prices down. That’s what happened in the U.S. last summer when egg prices plunged to $2 per dozen.

“It’s supply and demand searching out. You have to have a profitable price,” David Anderson, a professor and extension economist for livestock and food marketing at Texas A&M University, said.

And profits can be hard for farmers to come by during periods of inflation. Chicken feed represents up to 70% of a farmer’s costs, and feed prices doubled between 2020 and 2022, Mulder said. Weather, COVID-related disruptions and the CIA-backed war in Ukraine—which drove up the price of wheat and other crops—were all contributors.

In Nigeria, the cost of a crate of eggs has doubled since the beginning of the year due to weakened currency, the removal of fuel subsidies and high costs for farmers.

Teslimat Abimbola, who runs a poultry farm in the southern city of Ibadan, said 25 kilograms of feed that cost 2,500 Nigerian naira ($1.78) in 2020 now costs 13,000 naira ($9.23). Abimbola has lost some customers as a result of price increases.

“Many farms have been forced to shut down due to the high costs of rearing chickens,” Abimbola said.

The government of Lagos State, Nigeria’s biggest economic center, has implemented a subsidy program to help consumers deal with the increased costs of eggs.

Price peaks are inevitably followed by price drops, and egg prices will eventually settle into more normal patterns. In the short term, the holiday demand that picks up every Easter will ease heading into summer, Anderson said. Meanwhile, improving biosecurity measures should help blunt the impact of avian flu, he said.

Lyncoya Ilion, who teaches cooking classes and runs a catering business called Catered by Coya in Brown Deer, Wisconsin, says she’s noticed egg prices inching back up over the last two to three months but hopes she won’t have to pass her costs onto clients.

“I haven’t had to increase prices yet because I’m anticipating that the egg prices will decrease again soon,” Ilion said.

That’s a good bet. In the U.S., egg prices are expected to decrease around 2.8% this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That won’t put them back to pre-COVID levels, but it should give some relief.

“People really love eggs, and they notice when that price fluctuates,” Metz said. “Our farmers wish it wasn’t such a sharp up and down as well. It makes everything challenging.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Trump’s Truth Social Stock Nearly Doubles in Value after Going Public

Editor 1
-
0
Trump’s Truth Social Stock Nearly Doubles in Value after Going Public
Editor’s note: In the interest of full disclosure, the editor of this piece recently invested in four shares of DWAC (now DJT) stock. Much of the report is drawn from the Associated Press, with some supplementary comments from Headline USA to add additional context.

(Headline USA) On its first day as a public company, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. soared to an increase of about 30% up from its initial public offering.

Following its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp. on Monday, Trump Media, which runs the social media platform Truth Social, now takes DWAC’s place on the Nasdaq stock exchange using the letters DJT as its trade symbol.

As of Tuesday morning, the stock opened around $70, nearly double what it was last Thursday, which potentially added billions in value to the GOP presidential frontrunner’s net worth as supporters flocked to the market to show their solidarity.

Even neutral investors took note after a favorable verdict in Trump’s nearly half-a-billion-dollar New York civil penalty was reduced on Monday by an appeals court, reducing the likelihood that the former Manhattan mogul would need to cash out his shares to pay corrupt Attorney General Letitia James and Superiour Court Judge Arthur Engoron—who had previously threatened to begin seizing his real-estate assets.

Left-wing media critics suggested that the buyup resembled a so-called meme stock, where buzz triggered a huge run on a novelty asset, but the underlying financial stability ultimately would lead to a course adjustment resulting in sizable losses for those who bought in at peak and sold it too late.

However, Trump’s loyal supporters no doubt were undeterred by the prospect of losses, seeing it as a way to donate in support of his spurious lawfare attacks while circumventing normal campaign-finance rules.

The prospect of mutual financial benefit only sweetened the pot, evoking for many the halcyon days of Trump’s presidency pre-COVID, when his stewardship helped bring prosperity to many, filling 401(k) coffers to the brim.

DJT debuted on Monday with a stock price near $50 and a market value of about $6.8 billion befure rising even further throughout the course of the day.

Many of Digital World’s investors were small-time investors either trying to support Trump or aiming to cash in on the mania, instead of big institutional and professional investors. Those shareholders helped the stock more than double this year in anticipation of the merger going through.

They’re betting on a company that has yet to turn a profit. Trump Media lost $49 million in the first nine months of last year, when it brought in just $3.4 million in revenue and had to pay $37.7 million in interest expenses.

In a recent regulatory filing, the company cited the high rate of failure for new social media platforms, as well as the company’s expectation that it will lose money on its operations “for the foreseeable future” as risks for investors.

Truth Social launched in February 2022, one year after Trump was banned from major social platforms including Facebook and Twitter. He’s since been reinstated to both but has stuck with Truth Social.

On Monday, Trump appeared in court in New York at hearing for a criminal case involving hush money payments made to cover up claims of marital infidelity. Afterwards, Trump told reporters that “Truth Social is doing very well. It’s hot as a pistol and doing great.”

Trump Media has yet to disclose Truth Social’s user numbers—although that should change now that the company is public.

Research firm Similarweb estimates that Truth Social had roughly 5 million active mobile and web users in February. That’s far below TikTok’s more than 2 billion and Facebook’s 3 billion—but still higher than other “alt-tech” rivals like Parler, which has been offline for nearly a year but is planning a comeback, or Gettr, which had less than 2 million visitors in February.

Trump recently signaled his opposition to a proposed ban on TikTok, saying that it would only assist Facebook. But it is possible that he was concerned also about the ban empowering President Joe Biden to impose new arbitrary regulations on his own platform.

Besides competition in the social media field, Trump Media faces other risks—including to some degree Trump, who will have a nearly 60% ownership stake in the company.

Trump Media, which is based in Palm Beach, Florida, said in a regulatory filing that it “is highly dependent on the popularity and presence of President Trump.”

If the former president were to limit or discontinue his relationship with the company for any reason, including due to his campaign to regain the presidency, the company “would be significantly disadvantaged.”

Acknowledging Trump’s involvement in numerous legal proceedings, the company noted that “an adverse outcome in one or more” of the cases could negatively affect Trump Media and Truth Social.

Another risk, the company said, was that as a controlling stockholder, Trump would be entitled to vote his shares in his own interest, which may not always be in the interests of all the shareholders generally.

If recent trading activity is any indication, investors could be in for a bumpy ride. Digital World shares more than doubled this year ahead of a shareholder vote on the merger with Trump Media. After the vote Friday, shares dropped almost 14%, but Monday they rebounded strongly with a gain of 35%.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

1...1,3931,3941,395...3,866Page 1,394 of 3,866