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According to a notice from the Federal Aviation Administration, former President Donald Trump’s Boeing 757 “clipped” an unoccupied private jet Sunday while taxiing after landing at West Palm Beach International Airport.
“AIRCRAFT TAXIING AND WINGLET STRUCK THE REAR ELEVATOR OF A PARKED VISTAJET,” the notice reads, as cited by WFLA (emphasis original).
The outlet noted that the FAA included the plane’s registration number, N757AF, which FAA records show belonging to DJT Operations I LLC.
The report indicated that any damage that might have occurred in the incident was as yet unknown, but that no one had been injured.
Also unknown was whether the former president himself was on his 757 at the time of the incident, but the FAA told the station that it was still investigating.
“A privately owned Boeing 757 landed safely at West Palm Beach International Airport around 1:20 a.m. local time on Sunday, May 12,” an FAA spokesperson told WFLA in a statement. “While taxiing, its winglet contacted a parked and unoccupied corporate jet.
“The incident occurred in an area of the airport where the FAA does not direct aircraft,” the statement added.
The news came out Tuesday amid what the Trump campaign must have seen as more positive reports of the former president’s polling ahead of November’s presidential election.
CNN, for example, Trump is leading President Joe Biden in three battleground states by such wide margins that a CNN analyst called the numbers “an absolute disaster” for Biden’s campaign.
CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said the latest polls showed Trump beating the president in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, and within the margin of error of polls conducted in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“Frankly, for the Joe Biden campaign, these numbers are an absolute disaster,” Enten said Monday. “The smallest lead is in Arizona for Donald Trump. He’s up 6. Look at this, 9 in Georgia.”
The New York Times/Siena College polls of 4,097 registered voters were conducted in the six battleground states from April 28 to May 9. (The Philadelphia Inquirer contributed to the Pennsylvania poll, the Times noted.)
The Nevada survey had the presumptive GOP nominee over Biden by 13 points.
The CNN reporter noted that Trump’s smaller leads in Pennsylvania (3 points) and Wisconsin (1 point) were within the margin of error.
However, Biden’s 1-point lead in Michigan was also within striking range for Trump.
“My goodness gracious. … That is a huge lead,” Enten said. “No Democrat has lost that state since [former Sen.] John Kerry lost it back in 2004.”
Here’s my deal on the NYT polling out this AM. The Sun Belt battlegrounds are an abject disaster for Biden, & NYT is not the first to show that.
The Great Lakes battlegrounds are something Biden’s campaign can work with. It leaves him a (narrow) path to 270 at this point pic.twitter.com/gkM7pppR3K
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) May 13, 2024
When asked why the former president was outperforming the incumbent so dramatically, Enten said it’s because “the Trump coalition is changing” and getting more racially diverse.
He pointed out that the Republican candidate has gained ground with nonwhite voters even though he has lost some traction among white voters.
“The sense that Mr. Biden would do little to improve the nation’s fortunes has helped erode his standing among young, Black and Hispanic voters, who usually represent the foundation of any Democratic path to the presidency,” The New York Times wrote Monday of its survey.
The left-leaning Times argued that the poll results suggest that Americans perceive a nation in turmoil under the Biden administration.
“The findings reveal widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the country and serious doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to deliver major improvements to American life,” the Times said. “Nearly 70 percent of voters say that the country’s political and economic systems need major changes — or even to be torn down entirely.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Trump’s Private Jet Involved in Incident with Another Plane at Florida Airport appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Hospitals are changing the way they operate — no pun intended — and it’s putting some patients’ health at risk.
It used to be common practice for hospitals and other medical facilities to calculate costs and send bills to patients after they’d completed the important part, i.e. treating the patient.
That’s less true today than it used to be, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Collecting payment in advance is more and more common at medical centers, and while that saves hospitals time and money collecting on bills later, it means that some patients don’t get the care they need when they need it, because they can’t come up with the cash up front.
“Those who can’t come up with the sums have been forced to put off procedures,” the Journal reported Thursday in an article titled “Hospitals Are Refusing to Do Surgeries Unless You Pay In Full First.”
The newspaper also noted that patients are sometimes overcharged, which puts them in the position of having to “fight” a large corporate entity to get a refund of the overpayment.
“Among the procedures that hospitals and surgery centers are seeking prepayments for are knee replacements, CT scans and births,” the Journal reported.
The report also noted that federal law requires hospitals to provide medical treatment in emergency situations. Of course, what a hospital considers an emergency may differ from how the term might be defined by someone experiencing severe pain.
“We need those patients who are able to pay to do so,” Leslie Taylor, a spokeswoman for University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which owns one general hospital in Arkansas, told the Journal.
That hospital has in the past rescheduled some patients’ procedures until after they pay up, although they say they only do so with the approval of doctors.
Health care consulting company Kodiak Solutions told the Journal that 23 percent of patient bills are now being paid before treatment is provided, up from 20 percent only two years ago.
That may not seem like a huge increase, but considering that about half of American adults say they don’t have more than $500 available to pay for sudden medical issues, according to the Journal, it’s a trend that could cause serious problems for many.
The Journal spotlighted two cases of people affected by pay-in-advance policies, both of which had happy endings.
The first was that of Heather Miconi, whose daughter needed adenoid and tonsil surgery to help her breathe — not an emergency, but obviously important.
Miconi already works three jobs and has a high-deductible insurance policy, so she needed $2,000 to pay for the procedure in advance. She had to start a GoFundMe to raise the funds.
The good news in Miconi’s case is that the fundraiser has already brought in nearly $10,000. Miconi wrote on the site that she’ll use the extra to pay down medical bills that have been accumulating interest since her daughter’s 2021 hospitalization.
“This has lifted a huge burden from our lives and I am forever grateful,” she wrote.
The other example cited by the Journal was that of Blake Young, who needed a heart screening last November. He paid $3,600 in advance, only to find out later that he’d been overcharged by almost 200 percent, and the hospital owed him $2,546.
It took Young over six months to get his money back, and he had to involve the Better Business Bureau to do it.
The hospital, CHI Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee, did eventually offer Young an apology — and, eventually, a check.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post More Hospitals Beginning to Demand Payment Upfront Before Administering Patient Treatments appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Coming this summer to a city near you: taxpayer-funded identification cards for thousands of illegal immigrants.
Well, maybe to a city near you; Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials insist that some aspects of the plan are “pre-decisional,” and though both Atlanta and Houston have been named as possible locations, things are still subject to change.
The source who told Fox News that went unnamed in the report, but Fox called him or her “familiar with the program,” and I’m very willing to believe that the source is at least a federal government employee. Only a professional bureaucrat would use a term like “pre-decisonal.”
Fox said that ICE was able to confirm that the program was headed for a limited roll-out in “three or four locations in the U.S.” that would issue cards to about 10,000 illegals.
People have been talking about the “ICE Secure Docket Card” for a couple of years, and now the talk is slated to become reality, but ICE says the card will not be an official form of federal ID, according to Fox, and that it will “indicate it is for use by DHS agencies” on the card itself.
Again, only a government bureaucrat could claim — presumably with a straight face — that a card issued to someone by an agency of the federal government on the basis of who the individual is should not be considered “an official form of federal identification.”
To quote the philosopher Douglas Powers (more commonly known as Dr. Evil): Riiiiiiight.
That is, however, what the agency claimed, at least according to Fox.
“While the specifics of the card and pilot are under development, it is important to note the secure card will not be an official form of federal identification,” Fox quoted the agency as saying.
“The secure card will indicate it is for use by DHS agencies and would be provided only after national security background checks have been performed,” the ICE statement added.
Here’s the part that makes sense: Illegal aliens are often given documents when they’re released from custody, such as information about when to appear in court for a hearing about their immigration status. Those documents are on paper, and therefore can get damaged or lost.
ICE Secure Docket Cards can presumably get lost as well — at least, I haven’t seen anyone proposing that they be glued to the recipients’ forearms or anything — but at least they’re less likely to be damaged.
Instead of having to secure and protect their personal paperwork, cardholders will be able to use the card to access information specific to them — specific, that is, to their identity.
“Moving to a secure card will save the agency millions, free up resources and ensure information is quickly accessible to DHS officials while reducing the agency’s FOIA backlog,” the ICE spokesperson told Fox. “For provisionally released noncitizens, the digital modernization will provide ongoing access to important immigration documents through the secure card and connected portal.”
“Provisionally released noncitizens,” of course, means illegals. Just in case you’re not fluent in bureaucrat.
Guess what else the “not an official form of federal identification” cards will be used for, though, according to Fox?
“It would also allow for an easier verification of identity through DHS systems via officials,” Fox reported. But it’s not an official federal ID, oh, no. It’s just an ID used by federal officials, which, obviously, is something completely different.
You can decide for yourself how much of that double-speak you want to believe, of course, but personally, I’m withholding judgment.
I guess you could say I’m pre-decisional.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Biden Admin Planning to Roll Out ID Cards for Illegal Immigrants This Summer: 10,000 Cards in First-Round Issue Across US appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
On Friday, the social media director for the Miss USA organization, Claudia Michelle, stepped down, announcing her decision in a post to Instagram.
Three days later, the reigning Miss USA, Noelia Voigt, also posted on Instagram that she had resigned from the title of Miss USA 2023, citing her mental health.
Two days after that, UmaSofia Srivastava, who had been crowned Miss Teen USA 2023, also announced on Instagram that she was giving up her title.
What, one might ask, is going on at Miss USA?
According to the New York Post, a source who knows all three said they had coordinated their resignations.
“The decision was not easy. Noelia and UmaSofia are extremely dedicated people who worked incredibly hard for the pageant. The decisions were not taken lightly. They all decided to do this together,” the insider reportedly told the Post.
“They are afraid of speaking out more at this time because of the organization,” the anonymous source added. “They don’t want this to have any lasting harmful effect on their futures.”
Details about what, specifically, was at the root of the problem at Miss USA were somewhat sparse, and almost universally sourced anonymously, making their verification all but impossible.
Michelle, however, hinted at serious dysfunction at the highest levels of the organization.
Michelle, who said in her post that she had not signed a non-disclosure agreement as had Voigt and Srivastava and was therefore more free to speak openly, wrote of Voigt that she’d seen a “decline in her mental health” while working closely with her at the organization, and that she’d also “seen firsthand the disrespect towards Uma and her family.”
She said both title-holders had been “threatened” by the organization’s “social media rules and guidelines” — rules and guidelines that Michelle herself, as social media director for Miss USA, hadn’t even seen.
“I feel the way current management speaks about their titleholders is unprofessional and inappropriate; I disavow workplace toxicity and bullying of any kind,” she wrote.
“This toxic atmosphere is a serious concern,” a source close to the situation reportedly confirmed to the Post. “There is an urgent need for intervention at the leadership level.”
You can read their statements regarding their resignations below.
“How have we not prioritized mental health among title holders in light of what happened to Cheslie Kryst?” Dani Walker, a former Miss Montana and pageant coach, asked in a YouTube video posted Wednesday, speaking of a former Miss USA who committed suicide in 2022. “For me there is no valid excuse as to why Noelia should be resigning because of her mental health.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Miss USA and Miss Teen USA Resign Their Titles Within Two Days of Each Other Amid Reports of ‘Toxic Atmosphere’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Another day, another piece of bad election-year news for proponents of Bidenomics.
The Department of Labor on Thursday released its weekly report of seasonally adjusted data on new unemployment claims through May 4, reporting a total of 231,000 jobless claims.
That number was both up from the previous week’s 209,000 and higher than the 214,000 claims Dow Jones had anticipated, according to CNBC.
In fact, it was the highest number since August, spurring CNBC to label the report “a potential sign that an otherwise robust labor market is changing.”
Continuing jobless claims were up 17,00o from the week prior, while the four-week moving average of claims also showed an increase, up 4,750 week-to-week.
“Weekly jobless claims are one of the timeliest indicators of when the economy is starting to undergo serious deterioration, and the magnitude of new layoffs this week looks worrisome,” Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS, told CNBC.
“One week does not a trend make, but we can no longer be sure that calm seas lie ahead for the US economy if today’s weekly jobless claims are any indication,” he added.
Nonfarm payrolls were expected to rise by 240,000 in April, but only increased by 175,000, the report also said — the smallest month-to-month rise since October.
Not all the news was bad, however. The unemployment rate “inched up” from 3.8 to 3.9 percent, for example, meaning that it has stayed below 4 percent for over two years — “the longest such streak since the 1960s,” according to The Associated Press.
Also, as Reuters noted, a slowing labor market makes additional interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve somewhat more likely.
The outlet reported that a “handful of economists” expect to see the first rate cut in July, but most don’t think the Fed will act before September.
Some of the numbers should probably be taken with a grain of salt at this time of year, according to one expert who talked with Reuters.
“Given that the varied timing of school spring breaks, and holidays like Easter and Passover, makes the seasonal adjustment process very complicated, we often see volatile readings in the seasonally adjusted data around this time of year,” JP Morgan economist Daniel Silver told the outlet.
Over 10,000 of the new claims came from New York alone, prompting speculation that much of that volume could be attributed to Citigroup employees who had been laid off in January but paid 90 days of severance finally becoming eligible for unemployment insurance benefits in April.
Reuters noted that California, Illinois, Indiana and Texas also saw large increases in new unemployment claims, but only one state — Iowa — saw claims drop by more than 1,000.
Stocks initially fell after the report, but by late morning had more than rebounded. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up nearly half a point by about 11:30.
The AP said strong consumer spending was responsible for preventing a recession and keeping American jobs “plentiful.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Weekly Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Shoot Up to ‘Worrisome’ Level appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The House on Tuesday passed a bill designed to ensure that any new energy efficiency standards promulgated by the U.S. Department of Energy be based on available technology and economic reality, according to a media release from the bill’s sponsor.
Rep. Debbie Lesko’s office said that the bill passed with bi-partisan support.
“I am saddened that we would need such a bill,” Lesko said in the release. “However, as we have experienced under this administration, the Department of Energy has unleashed an avalanche of new regulations for household products, including stoves, dishwashers, washing machines, showers, toilets, water heaters, air conditioners, heat pumps, and furnaces.
“No government bureaucrat should EVER scheme to take away Americans’ appliances in the name of a radical environmental agenda, yet that is exactly what we have seen under the Biden Administration,” she added (emphasis original).
Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington spoke in support of the bill from the House floor, calling the “rush to green agenda” by the Biden administration “out of touch” with the priorities of everyday Americans.
The Biden administration is waging war on American energy, and this war is making its way into Americans’ homes.
The administration is doubling down on unaffordable appliance mandates—which is why we’re leading on H.R. 6921. Watch: pic.twitter.com/Y8oYpDZNJe
— CathyMcMorrisRodgers (@cathymcmorris) May 7, 2024
The intent of the bill is to tweak the way in which the DOE creates new regulations or modifies or revokes existing ones as they apply to consumer products like household appliances, but specifically excludes vehicles, according to a summary of the bill on the official congressional website.
According to a summary of the bill, if enacted, it would grant the DOE the authority to “grant a petition to revoke or amend energy conservation standards if it finds that the standards (1) result in additional costs to consumers, (2) do not result in significant conservation of energy or water, (3) are not technologically feasible, and (4) result in a product (e.g., gas stoves) not being commercially available in the United States to all consumers.”
It also would require all new or modified regulations to be ” technologically feasible and economically justified,” according to the summary.
The website listed 10 cosponsors of the bill, all of whom are Republicans.
Interested readers can read the bill in its entirety below.
H. R. 6192 by The Western Journal on Scribd
According to the U.S. House Clerk’s Office, 205 Republicans voted to pass the bill along with seven Democrats. All 195 votes against the bill were from Democrats.
Of those listed as “Not Voting” on the bill, 11 were Democrats and 12 were Republicans.
The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate, although passage seems unlikely given the Senate’s refusal to take up similar bills in the past, such as Lesko’s Save Our Gas Stoves Act, passed by the House in 2023.
According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would require no significant additional federal government spending.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post House Passes Bill That Forces Biden Administration to Keep Its ‘Hands Off Our Home Appliances’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
ABC News president Kim Godwin has tendered her resignation in a move that surprised a number of mainstream media insiders.
There will undoubtedly be some who are sad to see the first black woman to lead a broadcast television news division leave the position — but former President Donald Trump is apparently not among them.
Nor are most of her former staff, according to CNN.
Trump posted to Truth Social just over an hour after The Wall Street Journal broke the story on Godwin’s departure.
“Happy to report that Kim Godwin, Head of ABC, has resigned,” Trump wrote. “Could it be the unfair reporting on EVERYTHING TRUMP? In any event, GOOD RIDDANCE!” (emphasis original).
“Hopefully somebody else will be able to control George Slopadopolous and the rest of the Fake News Thugs over at ABC? Best wishes Kim!” he added.
The former president’s hypothesis notwithstanding, Godwin was known to be a controversial figure at ABC. CNN remarked that the “embattled” Godwin’s “polarizing leadership led to plummeting employee morale,” according to unnamed staffers.
CNN also reported that her departure — or at least its timing — came as something of a surprise. Her Sunday evening memo to staff announcing what the outlet referred to as her “abrupt” resignation was said to have “rocked” the newsroom.
Last week, CNN reported that Debra OConnell, who had been put over Godwin and the news division by parent company Disney in February, was “conducting a review of her performance and had voiced dissatisfaction in private conversations with the state of affairs” at ABC News.
More than 24 staffers and “others close to the network” — who requested anonymity because they had not been authorized to speak with CNN — said Godwin had had a crushing effect on morale in the organization she led.
“Godwin, staffers told CNN, made several profound errors, including employing a hands-off approach to managing, not developing a strategic vision for the newsroom, eliminating the heads of the talent-relations division and appointing an inner-circle that alienated staffers, among a stream of other complaints,” the outlet reported.
In addition, Axios reported that it had heard from other unnamed sources that “the main sentiment felt by staff was that Godwin was more focused on promoting herself as a leader rather than invest time with ABC News’ staff and show teams.”
Godwin’s resignation was apparently effective immediately, as OConnell said she will take charge of the newsroom “for the time being,” according to The Associated Press.
For her part, Godwin claimed to have made the decision on her own to part ways not only with ABC News, but with the entire industry.
“I have decided to retire from broadcast journalism,” the 60-year-old Godwin said in an email to the ABC News staff, according to CNN.
“I have been fortunate and blessed enough to have done almost every job there is in this business,” she added. “But after considerable reflection, I’m certain it’s the right one for me as I look to the future and prioritize what’s most important for me and my family.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post ABC News President Suddenly Quits Amid Internal Backlash – Trump Celebrates appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Vaunce News 