US Border Patrol Chief Retiring as Illegals Surge Chaos Continues

Wire Editor
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US Border Patrol Chief Retiring as Illegals Surge Chaos Continues

(Headline USA) The head of the U.S. Border Patrol announced that he’s retiring, after overseeing the Biden administration’s chaotic overturning of a Trump-era policy designed to clamp down on illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border following the end of Title 42 coronavirus pandemic restrictions.

Chief Raul Ortiz said Tuesday in a note to staff that was obtained by The Associated Press that he will leave June 30. It’s unclear who will replace him.

“I leave at ease, knowing we have a tremendous uniformed and professional workforce, strong relationships with our union partners, and outstanding leaders who will continue to tirelessly advocate for you each day,” Ortiz said in the note.

Ortiz managed the Border Patrol and its roughly 20,000 agents through the COVID-19 pandemic and Title 42 emergency health restrictions that began in March 2020 and allowed agents to quickly return migrants over the southern border. Biden scrapped the policy and the results have been a chaotic and deadly disaster.

Ortiz took over as chief in August 2021, following the ouster of Rodney Scott, who enthusiastically embraced then-President Donald Trump’s policies, including his plan to build a border wall. Ortiz was a career official who slowly climbed the ranks over his 30-year career, and he was Scott’s top deputy at the time he became the leader, but he kept focused more on pushing the Biden agenda and stayed away from more charged issues like the border wall.

On Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas praised Ortiz as a great leader who was deeply committed to the well-being of his agents.

“Selecting him to lead the Border Patrol was among the most important decisions I have made,” he said. “Chief Ortiz agreed to postpone his retirement several times since, and the Border Patrol, the department and our country have been all the better for it.”

The Border Patrol, a part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, has been been under a constant spotlight for years as the number of illegal crossings reached record highs. Its job is to manage migrants who cross the border illegally, taking many into custody. But the type of people crossing the border has shifted over the years to include families. Agents often wade into the Rio Grande to rescue drowning migrants and search for children dumped alone by smugglers along the 1,951-mile border.

Almost from the start of his tenure, Ortiz faced extraordinary frustration within his ranks as illegal crossings reached the highest levels ever recorded. Ortiz acknowledged at a meeting with agents in Laredo, Texas, in January 2022 that morale was at an “all-time low” after an agent complained about “doing nothing” but releasing migrants in the U.S. to pursue their cases in immigration court, according to leaked video published in the Washington Examiner. At another meeting in Yuma, Arizona, an agent turned his back on Mayorkas.

But changes to border policy saw the number of illegal crossings begin to decline, including a policy to return to Mexico 30,000 Haitians, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Cubans per month, as the Biden administration put into place restrictions that also allowed 30,000 of those groups to come to the U.S. legally as long as they fly, have background checks and bring a sponsor.

In his message to staff, Ortiz said that the leadership would continue to advocate for agents. “Please know I will always champion this agency, its mission, and the people who make the Border Patrol everything that it is,” he wrote.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Pentagon Lost More Than $85M Worth of F-35 Parts, Audit Finds

Ken Silva
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Pentagon Lost More Than $85M Worth of F-35 Parts, Audit Finds

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Government Accountability Office has found that the Pentagon lost more than 1 million parts over the last five years from its floundering F-35 program, which continues to experience skyrocketing costs and production delays.

“Since May 2018, one F-35 prime contractor incurred losses of over 1 million spare parts totaling over $85 million,” the GAO said in a May 23 audit.

The GAO said the full quantity and value of the missing parts may be “significantly higher” than the 1 million estimate.

That’s because the dollar values of the lost F-35 parts only include what the contractor paid for the assets. This does not include the transportation and overhead costs paid by the Pentagon, according to the GAO.

The GAO attributed the losses to the Pentagon being unable to properly account for the “unique supply chain” of the F-35—an advanced fighter jet designed for stealth and speed.

According to the GAO, the Pentagon pooled its F-35 parts for contractors around the world to access. This is designed to remove logistical barriers “and provide economies of scale” for program participants, the GAO said.

“Rather than owning the spare parts for their aircraft, all program participants have access to the shared global spares pool, which DOD owns,” the GAO explained. “The global spares pool consists of both consumable and repairable spare parts used to maintain or improve the F-35 aircraft.”

The contractors had been responsible for tracking the parts in the pool until 2012, when that responsibility was moved to the Pentagon. But the Pentagon wasn’t prepared for this, according to the GAO.

That lack of preparation has apparently resulted in more than 1 million lost parts.

Meanwhile, the cost of the F-35 program continues to skyrocket. Another, separate GAO report from May 30 said that the F-35 program’s total procurement costs have increased by $13.4 billion since the last cost estimate in 2019.

“This is, in part, due to DOD spreading out aircraft purchases and adding years to its delivery schedule,” the GAO said. “Contractors also continue to have challenges with delivering aircraft and engines on time, but they are working to address these issues.”

The total cost of the F-35 program is now estimated to be roughly $1.7 trillion. This includes the delivery of 215 F-35s to the Air Force over the next three decades.

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

Hundreds Visit Missouri’s ‘Miracle Nun’ Whose Body Shows Little Decay Since 2019 Death

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Hundreds Visit Missouri’s ‘Miracle Nun’ Whose Body Shows Little Decay Since 2019 Death

(Headline USA) Hundreds of people flocked to a small town in Missouri this week and last to see a nun whose body has barely decomposed since 2019. Some say it’s a sign of holiness in Catholicism, while others say the lack of decomposition may not be as rare as people think.

Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster was exhumed in April, according to a statement from the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, in Gower, Missouri.

The nuns had been preparing for the addition of a St. Joseph shrine, and that involved “the reinterment of the remains of our beloved foundress, Sister Wilhelmina,” the statement said.

When they exhumed Lancaster, they were told to expect only bones, since she had been buried in a simple wooden coffin without any embalming four years ago.

Instead, they discovered an intact body and “a perfectly preserved religious habit,” the statement said. The nuns hadn’t meant to publicize the discovery, but someone posted a private email publicly and “the news began to spread like wildfire.”

Volunteers and local law enforcement have helped to manage the crowds in the town of roughly 1,800 people, as people have visited from all over the country to see and touch Lancaster’s body.

“It was pretty amazing,” said Samuel Dawson, who is Catholic and visited from Kansas City with his son last week. “It was very peaceful. Just very reverent.”

Dawson said there were a few hundred people when he visited and that he saw many out-of-state cars.

Visitors were allowed to touch her, Dawson said, adding that the nuns “wanted to make her accessible to the public … because in real life, she was always accessible to people.”

The monastery said in a statement that Lancaster’s body will be placed in a glass shrine in their church on Monday. Visitors will still be able to see her body and take dirt from her grave, but they won’t be able to touch her.

The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph also released a statement.

“The condition of the remains of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster has understandably generated widespread interest and raised important questions,” the diocese said. “At the same time, it is important to protect the integrity of the mortal remains of Sister Wilhelmina to allow for a thorough investigation.”

“Incorruptibility has been verified in the past, but it is very rare. There is a well-established process to pursue the cause for sainthood, but that has not been initiated in this case yet,” the diocese added.

The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, also said that Lancaster has not yet reached the required minimum of five years since death for the sainthood process to begin.

Rebecca George, an anthropology instructor at Western Carolina University in North Carolina, said the body’s lack of decomposition might not be as rare as people are expecting.

George said the “mummification” of un-embalmed bodies is common at the university’s facility and the bodies could stay preserved for many years, if allowed to.

Coffins and clothing also help to preserve bodies, she said.

“Typically, when we bury people, we don’t exhume them. We don’t get to look at them a couple years out,” George said. “With 100 years, there might be nothing left. But when you’ve got just a few years out, this is not unexpected.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Amazon Leftist Snowflakes Stage Walkout over Company’s Return-to-Office Mandate

Wire Editor
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Amazon Leftist Snowflakes Stage Walkout over Company’s Return-to-Office Mandate

(Headline USA) Using climate alarmism as an excuse to avoid returning to in-person work, a group of corporate Amazon workers is planning a walkout at the company’s Seattle headquarters Wednesday.

The lunchtime protest comes a week after Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting and a month after a policy took effect requiring workers to return to the office three days per week. Protesters were also bemoaning the company’s recent round of layoffs.

“We respect our employees’ rights to express their opinions,” the company said in a statement.

As of Wednesday morning, more than 1,900 employees had pledged to walk out around the world, with about 900 in Seattle, according to Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a climate change advocacy group founded by Amazon workers. While some plan to gather at the Amazon Spheres — a four-story structure in downtown Seattle that from the outside looks like three connected glass orbs — others will participate remotely.

Some employees have complained that Amazon has been slow to address its impact on climate change. Amazon, which relies on fossil fuels to power the planes, trucks and vans that ship packages all over the world, has an enormous carbon footprint. Amazon workers have been vocal in criticizing some of the company’s practices.

In an annual statement to investors, Amazon said it aims to deploy 100,000 electric delivery vehicles by 2030 and reach net-zero carbon by 2040. But walkout organizers contend the company must do more and commit to zero emissions by 2030.

“While we all would like to get there tomorrow, for companies like ours who consume a lot of power, and have very substantial transportation, packaging, and physical building assets, it’ll take time to accomplish,” Brad Glasser, an Amazon spokesperson, said in a statement.

Glasser said there has also been a good energy on the company’s South Lake Union campus and at its other urban centers since more employees returned to the office. More than 20,000 workers, however, signed a petition urging Amazon to reconsider the return-to-office mandate.

“As it pertains to the specific topics this group of employees is raising,” Glasser said, “we’ve explained our thinking in different forums over the past few months and will continue to do so.”

In a February memo, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company made its decision to return corporate employees to the office at least three days a week after observing what worked during the pandemic. Among other things, he said senior leadership watched how staff performed and talked to leaders at other companies. He said they concluded employees tended to be more engaged in person and collaborate more easily.

In a note asking Amazon employees to pledge their participation in the walkout, organizers said Amazon “must return autonomy to its teams, who know their employees and customers best, to make the best decision on remote, in-person, or hybrid work, and to its employees to choose a team which enables them to work the way they work best.”

The walkout follows widespread cost-cutting at Amazon, where layoffs have affected workers in advertising, human resources, gaming, stores, devices and Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing division. The company has cut 27,000 jobs since November.

Like other tech companies, including Facebook parent Meta and Google parent Alphabet, Amazon ramped up hiring during the pandemic to meet the demand from homebound Americans who were increasingly shopping online during the hysteria that surrounded the virus.

Amazon’s workforce, in warehouses and offices, doubled to more than 1.6 million people in about two years. But demand slowed as the worst of the pandemic eased. The company began pausing or canceling its warehouse expansion plans last year.

Amid growing anxiety over the potential for a recession, Amazon in the past few months shut down a subsidiary that’s been selling fabrics for nearly 30 years, shuttered Amazon Care, its hybrid virtual, in-home care service, and closed Amazon Smile, a philanthropic program.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Researchers Retract over 300 COVID-Era Medical Papers for Errors, Ethical Concerns

Molly Bruns
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Researchers Retract over 300 COVID-Era Medical Papers for Errors, Ethical Concerns

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Watchdog group Retraction Watch reported that at least 330 medical research papers related to COVID-19 faced retraction due to ethical or scientific shortcomings since the pandemic began.

According to the Daily Caller, many of the papers published via smaller, less influential outlets retracted their articles; however, publications such as the Lancet and Science have also retracted peer reviewed studies.

The papers covered everything from alternative COVID-19 treatments such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine—both of which many scientists lambasted as ineffective or even dangerous—to alternatives to the vaccine.

Researchers also covered false COVID side effects in many of the articles. One article from the University of Manchester claimed hearing loss was a side effect of the virus. The researchers behind the article backtracked their original assertions.

“There was an urgent need for this carefully conducted clinical and diagnostic study to investigate the long-term effects of Covid-19 on the auditory system,” said Professor of audiology at University of Manchester, Kevin Munro. “Many previous studies were published rapidly during the pandemic but lacked good scientific rigor.”

Another retracted paper studied the spread of the Omicron variant in South Africa. Researchers quickly pulled the study after social media users pointed out some flaws in the methodology.

Several of the retractions had to do with social science. One retracted paper that attempted to study the spread of vaccine “misinformation” on social media had an inadequate sample size and insufficient search terms.

“[They] will, of course, be withdrawn when it is found that ethical guidelines have been breached,” said Gunnveig Grødeland, a senior researcher at the Institute of Immunology at the University of Oslo.

Though many of the papers cut against the elite-approved COVID narrative, one paper faced retraction for claiming the majority of COVID deaths were due to other preexisting conditions.

Studies about the effectiveness of masking and other COVID-related control efforts pushed by government officials are under intense scrutiny. Some second looks even revealed that masking and other measures put people in more danger than was necessary.

Host of ‘The View’ Claims GOP Women Protect the Patriarchy by ‘Falling in Line’ w/ Their Husbands

Robert Jonathan
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Host of ‘The View’ Claims GOP Women Protect the Patriarchy by ‘Falling in Line’ w/ Their Husbands

(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) One of the far-left co-hosts of the ABC daytime talk show The View has implied that white women who trend Republican have no agency and that they are merely tools of the so-called patriarchy.

The anti-GOP panelists were reacting to a Washington Post article about a presumably representative group of Pennsylvania women who have not turned against former President Donald Trump despite his personal baggage such as the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit.

“If the election were held today between Trump and President Biden, most of the women said they’d vote for Trump, citing a visceral dislike of Biden and economic woes as the reasons driving their vote,” the Post article noted.

During the discussion on The View, Sunny Hostin launched into a diatribe that first alluded to white women who owned slaves in the Antebellum south, along with some studies and a book that she supposedly read.

“I think that women, white women in particular, want to protect this patriarchy here, because it’s to their benefit. They want to make sure their husbands do well. They want to make sure their sons do well. They want to make sure their children do well. And they want to make sure they do well,” Hostin asserted.

She added that “Most of the women in some of these studies are married white women. And they do fall in line with what their husbands are doing, what their husbands are voting.”

Colleague Alyssa Farah Griffin, who worked in the Trump administration but now is a vocal foe of the 45th president as are all the regulars on The View stage, then asked how Hostin explains female voter support for Bill Clinton or Andrew Cuomo, both of whom were engulfed in scandals.

Hostin replied that those voters backed the Democrat duo for policy reasons, but that was somehow not the case for Trump supporters.

“I think with white female Republicans, you have a Republican Party that is taking away your health right to decide for yourself,” Hostin, a lawyer, insisted, without evidence.

Citing comments in the Post article from a Trump voter that were very unfavorable about Trump’s personal foibles, Griffin, however, seemed to admit that the former-POTUS was a far superior steward of the economy than his successor in office.

“My family are these people where if your 401(k) went down by 25% when Biden came into office, money sometimes comes first.”

Co-host Sara Haines also seemed to disagree with Hostin in a roundabout, convoluted way.

While claiming that a cohort single-issue voters only wanted a pro-life Supreme Court, Haines asserted that “I don’t think groups are monolithic…I think we are a complicated nation with a lot of differences which makes this country really magical, and I wouldn’t project what keeps me up at night on everyone else.”

Hostin’s commentary on the Tuesday episode of the long-running TV program is not the first time that she smeared woman on the basis of race.

In the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections, she argued that white, Republican suburban women voting for the GOP is “almost like roaches voting for Raid.”

South Africa’s Black Majority Reinstates Apartheid for Whites

Corine Gatti
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South Africa’s Black Majority Reinstates Apartheid for Whites

(Corine Gatti, Headline USA) South Africa’s governing African National Congress has proposed amendments to the Employment Equity Act that would force whites out of jobs because of their race, causing many to flee the country.

ANC’s affirmative action and black economic empowerment policies were created to promote black economic empowerment and addressed the inequalities created by the apartheid in 1994.

Then, companies were only permitted to employ a few white people in management positions, largely reserved for black citizens. If passed, the new amendments would obstruct whites from working in these positions, and possibly from finding employment across the board, the Gateway Pundit reported.

The latest amendments to the Employment Equity Act are unconstitutional and racist said John Steenhuisen, the leader of the chief opposition party, the Democratic Alliance. He likened the proposed policies to apartheid and called them an extension of the ruling party’s practice of cadre deployment, where party loyalty was valued over skill when it comes to job appointments.

In an interview with The Epoch Times, the 47-year-old condemned the policy as a form of social engineering that unfairly targets non-black individuals. Steenhuisen was frustrated by the corrupt jobs-for-pals schemes and failed job creation policies of the ANC.

“The latest apartheid-like policy from the ANC is nothing but a ban on giving work to people who the ANC says are not black enough,” said Steenhuisen who was working to unseat the ruling African National Congress in next year’s national elections in what he referred to as the latest “apartheid-like policy” from the ANC.

Dirk Hermann, 50, is a South African labor executive and head of Solidarity, a trade union that operates in South Africa, has seen firsthand the impact of this exodus, as his colleagues and friends left in droves, frustrated by the corrupt jobs-for-pals schemes and failed job creation policies of the ANC.

“Our research shows that it’s not only skilled white South Africans leaving the country but also Indian, colored [mixed race] and black citizens,” Hermann told The Epoch Times. 

Hermann said it is unacceptable for the government to use race to control the workplace.

The latest amendments to the Employment Equity Act could push millions of more white citizens who emigrated to countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in search of better job opportunities.

GOP Rep. Chris Stewart Planning to Resign Due to Wife’s Illness

Jacob Bruns
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GOP Rep. Chris Stewart Planning to Resign Due to Wife’s Illness

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah., has announced his plans to resign from his post to care for his wife during an undisclosed illness, the Washington Times reported.

Stewart, who has served six terms as a Republican in the House, announced that he would leave office by the end of the year, thereby vacating his place on both the House Appropriations and Intelligence committees.

The news was first broken by the anonymous source speaking to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Gov. Spencer Cox will have to call a special election under Utah law to fill the vacancy in a region that includes Salt Lake City and much of the western side of the state, which has only four congressional districts total.

Fortunately for Republicans in the House, Stewart defeated Democratic challenger Nick Mitchell by more than 30 percentage points in last year’s election.

Nonetheless, his absence will further narrow the nine-seat margin of embattled House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., at least until the special election concludes.

Stewart’s resignation also could shake up politics in the state of Utah, where Stewart was widely favored to challenge or replace Sen. Mitt Romney, who comes up for re-election next year.

Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah—who likewise vacated his seat early, in 2017, to become a Fox News contributor—said that Stewart will undoubtedly be missed in the halls of Congress.

“There is not a finer person than Chris Stewart,” Chaffetz told the Tribune Tuesday. “He serves with integrity and patriotism.”

Stewart’s congressional office did not respond for comment.

AOC Parody Account Explodes after She Complains about It

Molly Bruns
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AOC Parody Account Explodes after She Complains about It

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-N.Y., responded to a parody account of herself, launching a myriad of complaints against it and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who retweeted some of the parody’s posts.

“FYI there’s a fake account on here impersonating me and going viral. The Twitter CEO has engaged it, boosting visibility,” Ocasio–Cortez tweeted.

“It is releasing false policy statements and gaining spread,” she continued. “I’m assessing with my team how to move forward. In the meantime, be careful of what you see.”

According to the Post Millennial, the parody account, known as “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Press Release (parody),” gained over 190,000 followers since AOC tweeted about it. The account now has 260,900 followers.

The account responded to AOC’s tweet in a clear jest: “I can’t believe someone would do that to us,” it joked.

The clearly marked parody account stirred up some controversy, particularly after AOC claimed it was releasing “policy statements.”

A minority of users expressed the view that it was in poor taste to allow the parody to continue.

The account made fun of several of AOC’s policy positions—particularly some of the more ridiculous stunts she’s pulled, such as her fake photo shoot at the southern border.

“Feeling cute, might go to the southern border for another photo shoot,” said one post.

Several posts took aim at her environmental policies, decrying cow farts as “racist,” clarifying that she would stop complaining about cow farts if they produced “fat-free, organic almond milk.”

“I went to the beach this morning and the water was really low. I went back this evening and the water was really high,” another tweet read. “This is 100% proof that global warming is real.”

The account even got Elon Musk’s attention when it poked fun at AOC’s interactions with him.

Other Twitter users got in on the fun, making memes and quipping on the clever posts.

Despite her threat to take action, it is unlikely that the socialist lawmaker will have any particular recourse available.

A previous defamation lawsuit by then-Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., failed in the courts, despite Nunes’s claims that the accounts—one of which parodied his mother—had resulted in genuine harm on his family. Since then, parody accounts of public figures have proliferated.

Ocasio–Cortez also has had challenges of her own with Twitter-related censorship. In 2019, she was forced to unblock members of the public who sued arguing that she had violated their First Amendment right to petition the government.

Clinton Tax-Fraud Case Resurrected by Durham Report

Jacob Bruns
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Clinton Tax-Fraud Case Resurrected by Durham Report

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) After the Durham Report unveiled major failures to properly investigate the Clinton Foundation, a U.S. Tax Court judge has decided to revitalize a whistleblower case alleging IRS improprieties involving the foundation’s finances, Just the News reported.

Tax Court Judge David Gustafson has already denied IRS requests to drop the investigation against the Clinton’s charity—widely suspected to be a de-facto slush fund and influence-peddling operation.

But special counsel John Durham’s final report, released earlier in May after a four-year-long investigation, gave Gustafson the justification he needed to issue a recent ruling that the investigation proceed.

In the ruling, Gustafson gave John Moynihan, a whistleblower and former federal agent, and Larry Doyle, a corporate tax compliance expert, until the end of June to update their accusations against the IRS. The agency will then have until July 28 to respond.

The duo testified in front of a House committee in 2018 that the Clinton Foundation acted effectively as a foreign lobbyist by accepting donations from foreigners to influence U.S. policy while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of State during the Obama administration.

The foundation “began acting as an agent of foreign governments early in its life and throughout its existence,” Moynihan said to the House committee, noting also that the Clinton Foundation took the liberty of operating in a way beyond the scope of a 501(c)3 tax-deductible charity.

“As such, the foundation should’ve registered under FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act],” Moynihan” continued. “Ultimately, the foundation and its auditors conceded in formal submissions that it did operate as a [foreign] agent; therefore, the foundation is not entitled to its 501(c)3 tax-exempt privileges as outlined in IRS 170 (c)2.”

But since that time, the IRS has attempted to drop the case, and little progress has been made in the investigation.

Gustafson’s determination to pursue the case comes in the wake of the Durham Report, which revealed that the Clinton Foundation was used as a way for foreigners to contribute to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign while garnering future influence should she have won the election.

“Beginning in late 2014, before Clinton formally declared her presidential candidacy, the FBI learned from a well-placed [source] that a foreign government was planning to send an individual to contribute to Clinton’s anticipated presidential campaign, as a way to gain influence with her should she win the presidency,” Durham wrote.

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