Towson consultant, USAID official plead
guilty in bribery scheme involving $550M
Posted By: earlybird, 5/18/2025 11:40:28 AM
A former U.S. Agency for International Development official admitted in federal court this week that he accepted bribes from a Towson-based consultant and other contractors to steer agency decisions on $552.5 million’s worth of government contracts. Roderick Watson, who worked as a contracting officer for USAID, admitted to manipulating the federal agency’s procurement process for over a dozen contracts while accepting a stream of bribes in a decadelong conspiracy, according to court filings unsealed Wednesday. Watson and Walter Barnes III, the founder of the Towson-based consulting firm that won many of those contracts, both pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.
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At a time when democratic politics are dominated by battles between liberal cosmopolitans and populist nationalists, Romania’s presidential election on May 18th seemed to come straight from central casting. George Simion of the hard-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (aur), a maga-backed rabble-rouser who built his party on resentment of the political establishment, faced off against Nicusor Dan (pictured), a Paris-trained mathematician and mayor of Bucharest, the capital. Mr Simion had won the election’s first round two weeks earlier with 41% of the vote to Mr Dan’s 21%. (snip). A win for Mr Simion would add to the ranks of populist leaders who are fracturing the bloc.
Nicușor Dan was the pro-EU, pro-war and pro-NATO Romanian presidential candidate supported by Brussels.
When Nicușor Dan came in second place in the first round of elections, CTH noted he was very likely to succeed because the stakes are just too high for the European Union. The largest NATO military base in Europe is being built in Romania.
There was simply no way the collective assembly of the Intelligence Community, the military industrial complex, the pro-Ukraine elements, the anti-Russia NATO/EU alliance were going to allow defeat. As expected, Dan won.
The car bombing outside a California fertility clinic that killed one person and injured four others appears to have been driven by anti-natalist ideology, according to two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the incident.
The suspect, identified by authorities as Guy Edward Bartkus, is believed to have detonated the explosive in Saturday's attack, which claimed his own life.
Investigators are focusing on social media posts made by the suspect, including a 30-minute audio recording, which they say support anti-natalist views. While the posts and the recording are still being verified, officials believe they reflect the ideology behind the bombing. Anti-natalism refers to the belief that no one should have children.
A former U.S. Agency for International Development official admitted in federal court this week that he accepted bribes from a Towson-based consultant and other contractors to steer agency decisions on $552.5 million’s worth of government contracts. Roderick Watson, who worked as a contracting officer for USAID, admitted to manipulating the federal agency’s procurement process for over a dozen contracts while accepting a stream of bribes in a decadelong conspiracy, according to court filings unsealed Wednesday. Watson and Walter Barnes III, the founder of the Towson-based consulting firm that won many of those contracts, both pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.
When the Department of Government Efficiency showed up at a small USAID-linked federal agency called the African Development Foundation in March, its management locked the doors and refused to let auditors in. Its board sued to stop DOGE, and was lauded by the Left for objecting to granting “access to USADF systems including financial records, payment and human resources systems.”But the objection, several former employees told The Daily Wire, might not have been on principled grounds, but rather because those records amounted to a crime scene.
The African Development Foundation’s employees have been sounding the alarm for years about self-dealing, cruelty, and anti-white discrimination.
Former FBI Director James Comey appeared to call for the assassination of President Donald Trump in a social media post Thursday, but his outburst is just one in a long line of far-left lunatics whose extreme rhetoric has laid the groundwork for violence — and assassination attempts — against conservative political figures.
(snip)
As Ed Martin, former acting U.S. attorney for D.C., put it: “From Schumer Whirlwind to Comey 86 you get Butler or worse … their plan is killing: they are a clear and present danger.”
In 2020, then-Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., threatened Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, should Roe v. Wade be overturned.
There has been a lot of discussion about who was running the Biden administration against the backdrop of numerous revelations about his cognitive incapacity while in office. However, one key point keeps being overlooked about the DOJ during his tenure.Merrick Garland was not selected to be Joe Biden’s Attorney General because the crew in control of the events wanted Merrick Garland as Attorney General. Garland was removed from his position as DC Circuit Court Justice in order to make room for Ketanji Brown-Jackson to take Garland’s place, get Senate confirmed and then await the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Bryer. {GO DEEP}
At first blush the question seems curious, but when you further think about it the question becomes rather important. If Joe Biden was not cognitively aware of what was happening around the office of the president, then who exactly was controlling the use of his signature via the auto-pen?
In a functioning democracy with a purposefully curious media, the fourth estate would be demanding a congressional investigation to get the answers and context for who was really carrying out the agenda of the Biden administration. (snip),President Trump:
…”Whoever had control of the “AUTOPEN” is looking to be a bigger and bigger scandal
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, R-Ind., launched an investigation into the University of Notre Dame on Thursday, citing potential civil rights violations stemming from its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) regime.
Citing publicly available documentation, as well as the school’s 2023 Strategic Framework, Rokita sent a letter to Rev. Robert A. Dowd, Notre Dame’s president, suggesting the school might be violating state and federal civil rights laws because it “may be governed by University policies that treat individuals — including students, prospective students, faculty, staff, and job applicants — differently based on the individuals’ race or ethnicity; employ race in a negative manner; or utilize racial stereotyping,” according to the letter.
Axios obtained the audio of former President Biden’s October 2023 interviews with special counsel Robert Hur. In the first segment below, recorded on the first day of interviews, former President Biden was questioned about where he kept documents. (snip)
As the tapes reveal, Joe Biden was not in any capacity to be in office. The question remains, who was running the country? Listen: The State Dept was being run by Tony Blinken, Victoria Nuland and Samantha Power. The Clinton and Obama networks, along with their allies in congress and in various political organizations, were being paid and financed through various NGOs and stood up non-profits
The Supreme Court attempted to split the baby between executive “national security” power and the dynamic use of the “Alien Enemies Act” today with a ruling that temporarily blocks the Trump administration from deporting criminal alien gang members under the UEA until the criminals are afforded some undefined amount of time to appeal their repatriation status. Essentially, this is a stall and punt routine. [READ RULING HERE] (snip)Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a separate opinion concurring in the decision. But Kavanaugh wrote that he’d prefer to have the Supreme Court dig into the legality of Trump’s Alien Enemies Act invocation right away, without waiting
The Supreme Court on May 16 agreed to block the government from deporting some alleged Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act.
“The application for an injunction pending further proceedings is granted,” the court said in an unsigned order.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.The court also acknowledged it may have to schedule an oral argument in the case known as A.A.R.P. and W.M.M. v. Trump at some point in the future after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit revisits the case. A.A.R.P. and W.M.M. are the initials of two of the
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Although the event occurred earlier in the month, video of Hillary Clinton’s appearance at a Newmark Civic Life Series talk at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan is hitting the internet and going viral. The former first lady thinks the importance of having children is overrated and that a renewed focus on family life would somehow be going “backward.”
Her voice drips with contempt as she talks about President Trump, Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance extolling the virtues of big families and having babies. It’s truly appalling stuff:
…this very blatant effort to basically send a message most exemplified by Vance and Musk, and others, that,
Joe Biden Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer
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Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer that is “characterized by a Gleason score of 9,” his office revealed in a statement Sunday.
(Snip) “Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms,” the press release said. “On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone. While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management.”
“The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians,” the statement added.
He missed the boat on this one.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Sunday bizarrely suggested that DOGE cuts to the US Coast Guard could have been partly to blame for a Mexican tall ship’s deadly collision with the Brooklyn Bridge.
“We know there has been meddling by the Trump administration into USCG staffing, and we need to know how this might have impacted the events of last night — from a command, communication and local coordination level,” the embattled Dem said in a press release.
“There are indications that this service [Vehicle Traffic System] may not be fully or adequately functional in light of a hiring freeze,” he said —
Representative James Clyburn (D-SC) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he believed former President Joe Biden would have been able to perform the duties required for the job another four years.
Host Jake Tapper said, “With what we’ve seen from President Biden both in that audio, but also throughout 2023, 2024, especially on the debate stage do you think that Joe Biden really would have been able to perform as president all the way through January 2029, when he would have been when he would be 86?”
Clyburn said, “Yes. I thought that back then. I still think that, but I don’t know that.
First, my sympathies for the Biden family. I’ve been there.
Now, here’s my puzzlement. Prostate cancer is notoriously slow-growing. Although prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths among men (second to only lung cancer), that’s not because it’s so deadly, but because it’s so common. It’s a fact that more men die with prostate cancer than of it.
Of those who die, the typical mechanism of death is by the cancer cells metastasizing to other organs and/or to the bones. It takes years for that to happen – typically something like 5-10 years even without treatment, and even longer with treatment.
Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer
Biden was seen last week by doctors after urinary symptoms and a prostate nodule was found. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, with the cancer cells having spread to the bone.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management," his office said.
Prostate cancers are given a score called a Gleason score that measures, on a scale of 1 to 10, how the cancerous cells look compared with normal cells. Biden’s office said his score was 9 ...
Comey: Don’t Regret ‘Innocent’ 86
47 Post — It Was ‘Clever,’ Artistic
Political View Point 32 replies
47 Post — It Was ‘Clever,’ Artistic
Political View Point 32 replies
Former FBI Director James Comey said Monday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that he did not regret his “86 47” social media post because it was “clever” and an artistic political point of view that he admired.
Host Nicolle Wallace said, “Take me back to the walk on the beach.”
Comey said, “We were walking on the beach. We went to the beach to prepare for this week, which was the launch of my book and to think about the book and to prepare to answer questions about it. And we were walking back towards the road and we saw in the sand someone had arranged shells with numbers.
During an appearance on FNC’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino discussed the details surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s death.
According to Bongino, Epstein committed suicide. “You said Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide,” host Maria Bartiromo said. “People don’t believe it.” (snip) Bongino added, “He killed himself. Again, you want me to — I have seen the whole file. He killed himself.”
According to a new report from the Los Angeles Times, Kamala Harris will spend her summer deciding between three options for her political future.
The first and most obvious option would be to retire from politics, which seems unlikely given her ego. Harris’s second option is a third attempt at running for president. According to the report, the third option is a run for California governor.
The report states, “According to several who’ve spoken with Harris, she is genuinely undecided, torn between concern and affection for her home state and an undimmed desire to be president.”
Honest Abe. Old Hickory. Tippecanoe (and Tyler too). Silent Cal. The Gipper.
Been some iconic nicknames for U.S. presidents.
Should Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz ever reach the big-boy seat in the Oval Office, he should probably invest in a better nickname, because his current one doesn’t exactly convey an inspirational sense of wisdom, majesty, courage, or purpose.
I looked it up: There were roughly 300 news articles — from mainstream, legitimate news outlets — that referred to Tim Walz as “Tampon Tim.”
Those outlets included NPR, Time Magazine, CBS News, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, People Magazine, Bloomberg, The Daily Beast, HuffPost, The Washington Post, USA Today, TMZ,
Former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke said former President Joe Biden “failed this country” by seeking reelection in 2024.
Speaking on the Pod Save America podcast, O’Rourke said, “We might very well lose the greatest country that this world has ever known,” he said, blasting Biden for clinging to power and ignoring widespread voter dissatisfaction. “It’s not just you and me, but our kids and grandkids… who might have to pay the price for this.”
On Sunday, news broke that former President Joe Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 and metastasis to the bone. The announcement, made by Biden’s office, detailed that the diagnosis followed the discovery of a prostate nodule after worsening urinary symptoms a week prior. While the statement emphasized that the cancer is hormone-sensitive, offering hope for effective management, the timing and context of this revelation raise serious questions about transparency and political motivations.
The key question I have is this: Did Joe Biden’s inner circle know about this diagnosis last year?
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More USAID illegal activity...Barnes ad previously been suspended by USAID. Changed company name, but still signing as Chairman. From another article, Barnes's company contracted for work in Ukraine.