"There's not a penny to be cut — the cupboard is bare". Here’s one tiny example out of tens of thousands of what’s going on every day across the country and the world

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Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) said on Thursday that there was only $50 million in waste in total at USAID

Daily Wire

Three government contractors and a USAID official have pleaded guilty to a scheme involving paying bribes in order to steer more than half a billion dollars in foreign aid contracts, the Department of Justice said Friday.

Roderick Watson, a USAID contracting officer, admitted to steering money to multiple companies in exchange for more than $1 million in bribes.

“Watson exploited his position at USAID to line his pockets with bribes in exchange for more than $550 million in contracts,” Guy Ficco of IRS Criminal Investigation said in a statement. “While he helped three company owners and presidents bypass the fair bidding process, he was showered with cash and lavish gifts.”

The scheme was possible because of the federal government’s racial “set-aside” laws known as 8(a) contracting, which allow contracting officers to give contracts to companies owned by minorities, women, or veterans without the usual competitive process.

Walter Barnes III, the founder of a Baltimore-area company predicated on taking advantage of those laws, admitted to paying bribes, including a country-club wedding, cash, and a trip to Martha’s Vineyard.

Barnes’s company is called Vistant, previously known as PM Consulting Group. It was awarded contracts on the pretense that it was “disadvantaged” because Barnes is black, even as it took in tens of millions of dollars. Barnes used a public defender in his court case, drawing a rebuke from the judge that he presumably had ample resources to pay for his own lawyer.

Also pleading guilty was Darryl Britt, the founder of 8(a) contracting firm Apprio Inc., which is received $271 million in federal contracts since 2004. Both companies also admitted criminal liability.

Beginning in 2013, Britt — a member of Carnegie Mellon University’s Business Board of Advisers — bribed Watson to award contracts to Apprio. When an 8(a) firm becomes too large, it “graduates” from its “disadvantaged” status. But minority contracting laws are notoriously exploited, with minority-owned firms existing simply to win contracts, then subcontracting out the work to other firms. That is often done openly, and above board, with “joint ventures.”

That’s what happened in this case once Apprio could no longer receive contracts without competition. Beginning in 2018, it enlisted Barnes to have sole-source contracts be awarded to his company, Vistant, which would then subcontract to Apprio.

To obscure the money trail, bribes would often be passed through Paul Anthony Young, a friend of Barnes’ in Maryland who was president of another subcontractor, and who also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official.

Between 2013 and 2023, Britt, Barnes, and Young “bribed [Watson], a public official, repeatedly—in fact, through hundreds of monthly payments and other things of value, including laptops, cellular phones, jobs for relatives, and other gifts and favors” in exchange for “USAID contracts valued at hundreds of millions of dollars,” a statement of facts accompanying Britt’s plea deal said.

That included a $25.5 million contract for “professional management” awarded in late 2018 to Vistant, which was subcontracted out to the other companies. Initially, Britt said to give “only cash to you know who,” but eventually, Young put the USAID contracting officer on the payroll of a company.

On March 28, 2018, Watson put in paperwork for a “sole source, noncompetitive contract” to Vistant. The next day, Young spent $3,000 renting a suite for Watson to watch the Washington Wizards play basketball, according to court filings.

Minority-owned “disadvantaged” businesses typically can only get contracts under $4 million without competition, but in June 2018, Watson sought an exception from the Small Business Administration to award a contract north of $20 million.

In August, Watson grumbled that he could make much more money as an 8(a) contractor than he could as a government employee. Young encouraged him to start a firm, but Watson said he wanted to wait until he was more “thoroughly entrenched with [US]AID and now the State Department” so he could use his connections to get contracts.

The contracts totaled $544 million between 2013 and 2022, according to Barnes’ plea agreement. They began with a $4.8 million “staffing contract” in 2013 and a $37 million “institutional support” contract in 2014 and escalated to a $95 million contract for “technical support” in 2022. The awarded contracts amounted to $257 million, plus there were three potential contracts totaling $287 million near the end of the scheme that were not ultimately awarded.

Two USAID contracts awarded to Apprio, for $4.4 million and $1.8 million, are listed in spending records as for “education/training-lectures.” A $30 million USAID contract to Vistant is listed as “for the innovation design and advisory services team to obtain access to specialized buy-in support to a variety of technical design firms through the management of a PMO.” A $25 million contract is listed as simply “to obtain professional management services from an 8(a) small business contractor.”

A mark of how minority set-aside contractors routinely game the system is how small companies receive contracts for widely divergent fields of work — a sign that they are simply having others do it or hiring staff afterwards with little knowledge of the subject area. Apprio’s contracts with government agencies range from developing websites to medical care to human resources to “ebola efforts.”

Other USAID contracts to Vistant include a $15 million contract “to help protect cyberspace and communications network domains to block the spread of insecure information.” A $28 million USAID contract was for “lab institutional contractor – mega bridge contract,” and a $40 million contract was for “creation of the PDEX award.” A $204,000 contract was for a “senior advisor to the Belarus country director.”

The Trump administration shuttered USAID following concerns that much of its foreign aid was wasted or diverted to politically connected Americans. That contention was met by outrage on the part of Democrat lawmakers, who stormed its office and called it a conspiracy theory. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) said on Thursday that there was only $50 million in waste in total at USAID

The Department of Justice said that Apprio should have to pay a $52 million penalty and Vistant should have to pay $86 million, but that the companies did not have the funds to pay. It agreed to accept $500,000 from Apprio and $100,000 from Vistant, and to defer criminal prosecution of both companies. USAID official Watson faces up to 15 years in prison, while the company owners face up to five years in prison.

Pussy Hat Brigade

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Meowist Revolution: Cat Ladies Cosplay as Cat-Ladies to End M’ICE in ‘No Kings’ Sidewalk Parade

The ‘No Kings’ protests brought out the crazies of the Democrat Party on Saturday. The rallies were littered with cosplaying lefties. One of the more bizarre sightings was cat ladies as costumed cat-ladies doing a sidewalk parade against illegal alien deportations.

Winebox Nancy once denounced our open borders, but that was gallons and gallons ago

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“you really expect me to remember that?”

Burning Madoff has answered the question posed in the previous post and come up with a winner

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Oh, the irony: a spoiled, woke shrew bashes the “one-percenters” while bemoaning her and her friends’ loss of cheap domestic and farm laborers. I’ll pose a new question: is their anyone as blind to their own self-righteousness and hypocrisy as a liberal?

I’ll concede first place to ol’ BM, but this one of the 5’1”, (now former) DNC member Randi Weingarten hopping up and down trying to be seen over her podium is pretty good. As an aside, if the Democrats succeed in purging all the Jews from their ranks, who will be left (so to speak)?

Somewhere, there must be a sane liberal; I just haven't encountered one in the past decade(s)

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AND …

While the Little People were protesting kings yesterday, their rulers were whooping it up in the Hamptons

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Private jets and limousines — battery powered, doubtless —, everybody who is anybody was off at the billionaire’s wedding

Former Clinton aide Huma Abedin, Alex Soros marry in swank Hamptons wedding packed with Dem heavyweights

Former top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin and Alex Soros, son of billionaire left-wing donor George Soros, married in a lavish wedding in New York on Saturday that reportedly drew attendance from high-profile Democrats stretching from former Vice President Kamala Harris to former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. 

The couple married in Water Mill, N.Y., at a Soros family estate on Saturday, according to the New York Times, which reported the swank Hamptons wedding drew private jets, fleets of black SUVs "and Clinton aides galore in a rare concentration of wealth and power." 

Democrat heavyweights including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Harris – as well as her husband Doug Emhoff – and Pelosi attended the wedding, the New York Times reported. Other celebrities and high-profile attendees included Vogue's Anna Wintour, socialite Nicky Hilton Rothschild, and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, the outlet reported, citing attendees. 

Soros, 39, is the chairman of the Open Society Foundations, which is a massive $25 billion nonprofit founded by George Soros, 94, and helps bankroll left-wing causes and politicians across the country. Abedin, 48, is the former longtime aide to Hillary Clinton and often called the former secretary of state's "second daughter." Abedin was previously married to disgraced former New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner. 

The wedding included a live performance from Boyz II Men, the vocal harmony group behind hits such as 1991's "Motownphilly," according to the Times, as well as toasts from Hillary Clinton, Wintour, and the Albanian prime minister. Abedin wore two custom wedding dresses over the course of the day, Vogue reported. 

While Democrat elites and other guests enjoyed the celebrations in the Hamptons, which the NYT described as “something of a political royal wedding,” liberals and left-wingers took to the streets Saturday to partake in the anti-Trump “No Kings” protests, which were organized in part by the Soros-funded activist group Indivisible.

How old were the cancel election* crowds yesterday? Depends.

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“From Myanus to the sea, our maids and gardeners must be free! (Or PAID no higher than minimum wage)”

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BONUS MATERIAL: HARTFORD

Goodness, I hope none of the Greenwich Invisible ladies and their spouses were there

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CNN — 

Thousands of activists from around the world are expected to descend on Egypt on Thursday for a “Global March to Gaza,” a movement aiming to break the Israeli blockade that has pushed the territory to the brink of famine.

Some 4,000 volunteers from over 80 countries will join the protest, according to organizers. They will land in Cairo, take buses to the city of Arish in northern Sinai, and then march around 30 miles through the desert peninsula to the Egyptian side of the Gaza border at Rafah. Organizers told CNN the activists will sleep in tents along the route and are expected to arrive at the border on Friday but do not plan to enter the war-ravaged enclave.

It is coordinating with activists and individuals from 50 countries who are flying into the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on June 12, so that they can all march to Rafah together.

Some of those activists are affiliated with an umbrella of grassroots organisations, including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Codepink Women for Peace in the United States and Jewish Voice for Labour in the United Kingdom.

So how’d it go? Let’s just say they received a warm — hot, actually — welcome. It really is no mystery why no Middle Eastern country will allow s Palestinians in

'It's So Beautiful!' WATCH: Western 'March to Gaza' Leftists Mess Around in Egypt & Find Out in Real Time

(Those are civilians, including the woman beating them with her shoe)

UPDATE: They should be grateful they didn’t reach Gaza:

Hamas Kills 8 Workers For U.S.-Backed Gaza Aid Program In Bus Attack, Others Feared Kidnapped

The attack comes as Hamas continued to threaten aid workers and civilians receiving food from the U.S.-backed program.