Rudy Giuliani Served Indictment at His 80th Birthday Party
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani was served with a fresh indictment, from Arizona, during his 80th birthday party, in Palm Beach.
According to witnesses who spoke to The New York Post, the former New York mayor’s birthday party, which was being held at a friend’s house, was stormed “like it was Normandy,” at around 11pm on Friday night.
As many as 200 people had been at the party at its height, including Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, but the number had dropped to about 75 when two officials from Arizona’s attorney general’s office entered the party and served Giuliani papers alleging his part, along with 17 others, in a plan to overturn the 2020 election. The charges include fraud, forgery and conspiracy.
After receiving the indictment, Giuliani left the party.
“While crime in Arizona is at an all-time high the Arizona Secretary of State’s office felt it was a good use of resources to send multiple agents across the country to storm an 80th birthday party like it was Normandy,” said Caroline Wren, a GOP consultant and host of the party.
“It’s unfortunate that they chose to barge up and startle guests during a celebration of this man’s 80th birthday,” Ted Goodman, one of Giuliani’s political advisors, told The Post.
“They could’ve shown a little more respect for the man who comforted the nation following September 11th and who stands up for law enforcement and the men and women in blue.”
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Boeing Whistleblower’s Death Ruled a Suicide by Police
A former Boeing manager who was found dead in South Carolina after giving extensive testimony against the scandal-ridden company, killed himself, according to a police investigation.
John Barnett, 62, of Louisiana, was found dead in a car outside a Holiday Inn, on 9 March, of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was in Charleston, South Carolina answering questions for depositions as part of a whistleblower complaint. A hearing had been scheduled for June.
Barnett is not the only whistleblower to have died after speaking out against Boeing. On April 30, Joshua Dean, 45, died of a sudden illness in hospital. He had been fired from his quality-auditing role at Spirit Aerosystems, which produces parts for Boeing’s 737 Max planes, after questioning standards at Spirit’s factory in Wichita, Kansas.
“I think they were sending out a message to anybody else. If you are too loud, we will silence you,” Dean told NPR.
?#BREAKING: Passengers onboard the terrifying midair door blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight were told by the FBI that they may be victims of a crime
⁰?#UnitedStates | #USA ⁰⁰All 171 Passengers aboard the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9, which experienced a midair door… pic.twitter.com/GctCwBGOyL— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) March 22, 2024
John Barnett worked for Boeing for decades and was a quality-control manager for the company when he retired in 2017.
Following his retirement, he spoke repeatedly to journalists to raise concerns about safety practices at the aviation giant, including discovering metal shavings near wiring for flight controls, which could potentially have severed it, and defects with a quarter of the oxygen systems on Boeing’s 787 planes.
“John was deeply concerned about the safety of the aircraft and flying public, and had identified some serious defects that he felt were not adequately addressed,” Rodney Barnett said in a family statement a few days after his brother’s death.
“He said that Boeing had a culture of concealment and was putting profits over safety.”
The family also alleged that John Barnett had faced a “hostile work environment at Boeing” because of his concerns about the safety of their planes, and that this caused him to suffer from “PTSD and anxiety attacks” which directly led to his death.
Boeing has come under enormous scrutiny and financial pressure in recent months after ongoing problems with its planes, which have included parts falling off at high altitude.
In January, for example, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282—a Boeing 737 Max 9—shed a door plug at 16,000 feet on a flight from Oregon to California. The plane was able to land safely, but in response the FFA ground 171 Max 9s and six of the flight’s passengers sued the airline.
Other planes have skidded off runways, lost wheels in flight or suffered severe engine problems.
Multiple whistleblowers have come forward to allege malpractice.
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America’s Dairy Cow Replacement Inventory Collapses to Two-Decade Low
The nation’s food supply chain remains under stress. We’ve been sounding the alarm on America’s beef cattle supply dwindling to the lowest levels in over half a century.
Now, Bloomberg reports that dairy farms are pivoting breeding programs toward beef-on-dairy hybrids, capitalizing on the low beef herds amid last year’s crushing milk glut. However, this comes with mounting risks as the nation’s dairy herd begins to crack.
Hybrid calves are produced by artificially inseminating a dairy cow with semen from a beef bull. This has created a massive upside for struggling dairy farmers battered by volatile milk prices and an unforgiving glut in recent years. Midwest farmers last year were forced to dump tens of thousands of gallons of milk down the drain.
“Milk prices are up and down and so farmers are always looking for a way to offset costs to be as efficient as possible,” said Amy Penterman, the owner of Dutch Dairy, which breeds approximately 70% of its 900-cow milking herd for beef.
Penterman explained the new revenue stream is “rewarding because the beef supply has diminished over the last few years. We’re able to add that extra supply into the market to keep the cost down for our consumers.”
The latest USDA data shows the nation’s beef cattle herd plunged to its lowest level since 1951, primarily due to persistent droughts across the Midwest, surging diesel and feed costs, and high interest rates. Higher costs have forced ranchers to cull an increasing number of beef cows.
On Wednesday, Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King told the audience at the BMO Global Farm to Market Conference in Toronto that he’s still uncertain when US ranchers will rebuild beef herds meaningfully.
One major problem with dairy farms pivoting towards beef-on-dairy hybrids to capitalize on soaring beef prices is the collapse of the replacement dairy cow inventory.
Data from the USDA already shows that the number of available replacement cows for dairy herds in January 2024 plunged to lows not seen since 2004.
Rabobank’s Lucas Fuess warned that if milk prices were to jump, low inventories and higher prices for replacement cows could cause farmers to experience severe margin compression.
Nate Donnay, the director of dairy market insight at StoneX Financial, said the number of replacement dairy cows is already “down to the minimum level” needed to maintain the dairy herd.
“Ten years from now, the beef herd’s probably going to get too big again and prices will be terrible and maybe they don’t want these dairy animals anymore,” Donnay said, adding, “But for the next couple of years, that demand for dairy animals into the beef herd is probably going to stay strong.”
Yet another rolling disaster for the nation’s food supply chain.
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25-Year-Old Bank of America Analyst Dies Suddenly of Cardiac Arrest While Playing Soccer at Industry Event
A credit trader from Bank of America who was just 25 years old died suddenly on Thursday night while playing soccer at an industry event, a report by Yahoo/Bloomberg on Friday confirmed.
The credit portfolio and algorithmic trader, Adnan Deumic, reportedly “collapsed of a suspected cardiac arrest” and did not respond to medical treatment, including CPR, the writeup says.
The bank commented: “The death of our teammate is a tragedy, and we are shocked by the sudden loss of a popular, young colleague. We are committed to providing our full support to Adnan’s family, his friends and to our many employees grieving his loss.”
Working out of Bank of America’s London office, the trader was “active in sports”, the report says, noting that he was a native of Sweden and also played ice hockey.
The recent death marks the second loss of a young employee in the firm’s Wall Street divisions. Leo Lukenas, an investment banking associate in New York, passed away earlier this month.
It is unclear if work contributed to Lukenas’ death, and Bank of America is not formally investigating it, Bloomberg reported. The bank stated it is focused on supporting the family and the team, who are devastated.
As the article notes, this incident has sparked discussions within the industry about the demanding, long hours in investment banking. We’re sure there one other topic that it isn’t sparking discussions about…
As has been reported, it is still uncertain what contributed to Lukenas’ death, and Bank of America is not formally investigating it.
The company’s said its focus “doing whatever we can to help and support the family and our team who are devastated,” it commented.
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“He Was High as a Kite”: Trump Says He’ll Demand a Drug Test for Biden Debate
Donald Trump said he would demand a drug test on Joe Biden as a condition for debating him, at a GOP dinner in St Paul, Minnesota on Friday.
“I’m gonna demand a drug test,” Trump said, to rapturous applause from the audience of donors at the annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner, as he discussed his upcoming televised debates with President Biden.
“I don’t want him coming in like the State of the Union. He was high as a kite!
“I said, ‘Is that Joe up there, at Beautiful Row?’ And by the end of the evening he’s like, ‘Wow!’ He was exhausted, right?
“No, we’re gonna demand a drug test.”
Trump: I want to debate this guy but I’m going to demand a drug test pic.twitter.com/X9NCGloqoU
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 18, 2024
Two debates between President Biden and former president Trump have been set for 27 June and 10 September. The first will be hosted by CNN in Atlanta, and will be fronted by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. The second will be hosted by ABC, with the location and hosts being undisclosed at this time.
In response to the announcement of the debates, President Biden said on Twitter, “Anywhere, any time, any place.”
Meanwhile, Trump posted on Truth Social, “I am ready and willing to debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September.” He called Biden “the worst debater” he has ever debated.
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The Wall Street Journal Wonders Why West Virginia Opposes Mass Immigration
Paul Kiernan has an article in the Wall Street Journal about West Virginia. Why is the state against mass immigration?
Well, we know the WSJ has long championed mass immigration, and this piece gives us an idea of how mass immigration boosters think and the arguments they make.
The title of the article is, “Desperate for Workers but Dead Set Against Migrant Labor: The West Virginia Dilemma.”
The original article is here but you can read the whole thing for free here.
Here’s how Kiernan explains West Virginia’s so-called “dilemma”:
West Virginia shares a demographic dilemma afflicting many parts of the country: an aging population and unfilled jobs. Decades of migration out of Appalachia have left West Virginia older, less educated and less able to work than other parts of the U.S. Its labor-force participation rate—the share of the 16-and-older population either working or looking for work—was 55.2% in March, the second-lowest in the country.
Some other states, including Maine, Indiana and Utah, have sought immigrants to shore up their workforces. But while West Virginia represents one extreme in its labor needs, it represents another in its resistance to immigration.
Why is the solution always mass immigration?
Why doesn’t the article suggest other solutions, such as investment, education or vocational training to keep young West Virginians in the state, rather than bringing in foreigners?
An aging population is not the end of the world, especially with new technology. Japan, for example, develops robots to help care for the elderly.
The article says only 55.2% of the state’s population is working or looking for work. How about mobilizing part of the other 45% and encouraging them to work?
The WSJ is puzzled that West Virginia is fighting illegal immigration:
“Sanctuary cities” have been banned in the state.
The state’s National Guard has been deployed to the Texas-Mexico border.
Bills in the legislature have been introduced to make businesses screen potential workers to make sure they’re legal, to “punish companies for transporting migrants who are deportable under U.S. law,” to give the state authority to remove “inspected unauthorized aliens” (who entered illegally but the federal government allows to work) and to give Texas money for fencing on its border with Mexico.
Moore Capito, running for governor, ran a TV ad in which “he blocks a van of migrants from entering the state.”
The WSJ’s response?
There is little evidence that many recent immigrants—either those who entered the country legally or those who didn’t—have had any inclination to go to West Virginia, the only state with fewer residents than it had in 1940. The portion of its population that is foreign-born is 1.8%, the lowest of any state.
Don’t worry, the state has a cheap labor lobby wanting to change that.
Steve Roberts, president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, says that “We should avoid sending messages, either overtly or through our actions, that this is not a good place to come if you’re willing to work.” Roberts says manual laborers are needed to “do the work that some of us have just gotten too old to do.”
So work to keep young people in the state!
Local historians said the state has long been wary of outsiders, not just from other countries but from other states. “West Virginians don’t want immigration—of any kind,” said Stephen Smoot, editor of the Pendleton Times newspaper. There is even antipathy toward “come-heres” from nearby metropolitan areas who move in and look down their noses at locals, Smoot said.
Well, what do you expect?
“There’s a quality of life that comes from living in a sparsely populated area,” said Smoot. “You don’t have the irritations of constant human contact.”
Yes, some people like to live in sparsely-populated areas. They don’t want urban sprawl everywhere.
The state of West Virginia is famous for its scenery and outdoor recreational activities, which are also sources of income.
West Virginia is right to not promote foreign immigration into the state.
Instead, they can work on solving the state’s problems with the currently-existing population.
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