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‘Absolutely nuts’: DHS secretary to review all contract, grant awards over $100k

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2 months ago

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Just ahead of the busiest time of the year for most agency acquisition shops, the Homeland Security Department is throwing in an extra layer of review for its procurement efforts.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is requiring her office to review and sign off on all contracts and awards over $100,000.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem issued a new contract award review policy.
(AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)

“All proposals for my consideration must include all relevant details, including any mission impact, dollar values, description of the supplies or services, any timeliness issues and a description of the proposed action,” Noem wrote in the memo obtained by Federal News Network. “Requests for approval of obligations above the $100,000 threshold must be submitted via memo through the Executive Secretary process. As with any request for secretarial approval, please allow a minimum of five days for front office review.”

Based on the last three fiscal years’ data, Noem’s office will have to approve more than 5,100 contract actions worth over 100,000.

“I think most, if not all sane and knowledgeable people would consider this policy absolutely nuts,” said Mark Borkowski, who served for 13 years as the assistant commissioner and chief acquisition officer at the Customs and Border Protection directorate before retiring in 2023. “I understand why someone would want to do this. I completely understand the rationale as we did something similar at CBP when I was there. This is as much an opportunity to audit contracts and figure out what is there and look for waste and redundancy. So I understand their motivation, but this will be  tremendous workload.”

Data from Deltek, a market research firm, found DHS spends between 45% and 47% of its procurement budget in the fourth quarter, which starts July 1.

Federal News Network asked DHS for more details about the decision, including how the Noem plans to ensure the approval process for contract and grant awards doesn’t create a backlog at a critical time of the year.

A DHS spokesperson said: “Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS is rooting out waste, fraud [and] abuse, and is reprioritizing appropriated dollars. Secretary Noem is delivering accountability to the U.S. taxpayer, which Washington bureaucrats have ignored for decades at the expense of American citizens.”

Noem said in her memo that this new guidance supersedes a previous directive calling for her approval for all spending over $25 million.

DHS policy is “bush league”

Borkowski said the memo opens the door to a lot of questions about the reviews needed when an office picks up an option under an existing contract or for task orders under indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) type contracts. He said CBP used a time-and-materials contracts to address contingency or emergency needs and questioned whether those, too, would need Secretary approval.

“There has to be some other agenda here. Is the intent to slow down and gum up the works or to stop things? There is no way the secretary will be able to review these contracts,” Borkowski said. “Who will be doing these reviews? The politicals? But they will also need experts in procurement and acquisition from across the agency so that means folks will be pulled away from supporting the mission at one of the busiest times of the year. I know procurement people are often stressed at end of fiscal year so I’d also be concerned what this will do to workload on folks who now have to be diverted to support this process.”

Another former DHS acquisition executive, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, called this memo “ridiculous” and “bush league.”

“The procurement system is purposely separated from political influence. By doing this she’s violating that principle,” the former executive said. “Is the secretary in the position to make technical and cost trade-off analysis? Does her staff have cost analysts to determine if the price is ‘right’ based on the requirement? Is she merely looking to see if the award is going to a company favorable to the administration? The mission need and estimated costs are always decided BEFORE the procurement.”

Both Borkowski and the other former executive said the five-day review period and the $100,000 floor threshold also are concerning.

Not only is $100,000 well below the Simplified Acquisition Threshold of $350,000, but many times these small buys are done using purchase cards, which means there is an immediate need for the product or service.

“Smart buying would suggest that low-dollar value items are purchased at economical quantities for the sake of efficiency and to save money. The fact that secretary would want to consider little thing like bulk printer paper buys, restocking rubber gloves at TSA check points or anything of this nature sounds like waste, fraud and abuse to me,” said the former executive. “The secretary and her staff should have far more important things to do with her time.”

5-day reviews critical

Borkowski said contracting officers can easily build in the five-day review requirement into their timeline so as not to impact the acquisition. But he’s skeptical that the secretary’s office can be relied upon to meet their own deadlines.

“If you can’t rely on the five day review, and I don’t believe you can, then I think you will have some serious issues getting contract actions through. Hopefully they find some way to come up with a waiver for contingencies and other urgent needs,” he said.

During his last few years at CBP, Borkowski said he initiated a similar review of service contracts after receiving criticism from oversight bodies like the Government Accountability Office.

“I was tasked to create a review process for service contracts and we met monthly. The first thing we did was collect list of contracts and there were thousands of them. We had to set threshold for what to review and we also looked those deemed high interest. We set a threshold of $2 million. If we went below that, there wasn’t enough hours in the day and would’ve shut the organization down waiting to review them. That was just CBP and just a subset of contracts,” he said. “I ran that and had others to help, and it was a lot of work. And I was just a component acquisition executive. This new effort is going to be an incredible amount of work, particularly if you go down to sec level.”

The post ‘Absolutely nuts’: DHS secretary to review all contract, grant awards over $100k first appeared on Federal News Network.

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Former AOC Campaign Organizer Arrested Over Terror Threats Against Jewish High School

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6 hours ago

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August 10, 2025

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Photo: Ståle Grut NRKbeta

A former campaign organizer for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been charged over alleged terror threats she made against a Jewish high school.

Iman Abdul, who previously worked as a youth organizer for AOC, was arrested on Friday for allegedly urging her 25,000 social media followers to “attack” the Leon M. Goldstein High School for the Sciences in Manhattan Beach.

“If anyone needs a public school in NYC to attack for whatever reason … Lexus driving Israhell (sic) loving Zionisits (sic) all attend here,” she wrote in a social media post, which has since been deleted.

“They’ve all gone on ‘Birthright,’” she added added, referencing a program that provides free 10-day trips to Israel for young Jews.

The post in question showed the location of the school on Google Maps so that her followers could locate it.

According to The New York Post, officers from the New York Police Department (NYPD) took Abdul into custody at her Brooklyn residence on Friday.

She was later charged with making her making terror threats, aggravated harassment, threatening mass harm, and endangering the welfare of children

In the summer of 2018, she was involved in the Democratic primary campaigns of progressive figures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and state Senator Julia Salazar, even serving as a paid canvasser for Salazar.

Abdul’s post was first flagged by the online campaign group StopAntisemitsm, who said she should be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

She later messaged the group directly, where she denied having made physical threats of violence.

“I never called for an attack on the school in the sense of mass organization or not even individual people attacking individuals, that’s literally stupid,” she wrote.

“I called for an attack on the school, the Zionist institution funded by our public dollars … we have every right to verbally attack the school.”

She has since deleted all her social media accounts and is expected in court at a later date.

The post Former AOC Campaign Organizer Arrested Over Terror Threats Against Jewish High School appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Jimmy Kimmel Blames ‘Repulsive’ Liberal Activists For Trump’s Return to Power (VIDEO)

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6 hours ago

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August 10, 2025

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Late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel has blamed “repulsive” liberal activists for enabling President Donald Trump’s return to power.

During an appearance on the Sarah Silverman Podcast on Thursday, Kimmel said without a shred of irony that “loud voices” had scared people away from the Democratic Party.

“I’s not the party. It’s not the majority,” Kimmel insisted. “ It’s the loud voices that scare people from saying what they believe and make you think twice about a joke or whatever.”

“You know, a lot of their points are valid, but a lot of them are also just repulsive, in that they repel people,” he continued.

“They go like, ‘Oh, you’re no fun. I don’t want to be around you.’ And I think that if you had to boil it down to one thing, that’s kind of what it is.”

It is not the first time that Kimmel, who is himself a committed left-wing activist, has accused humorless liberals of costing the Democrats the 2024 election.

“I think a lot of the outrage is completely manufactured, and it’s like, a lot of these people who are angry aren’t really angry,” Kimmel said back in April.

”I think these liberals who’ve done such a good job of viciously attacking comedians are a big part of the reason why Trump is the president right now.”

So Close, Yet So Far: Jimmy Kimmel Actually Nails 1 Reason Trump’s Winning

Following Trump’s victory last November, Kimmel choked up on air as he moaned about the “hard-working immigrants” who might be deported under the administration.

Last month, Kimmel had a social media meltdown after his fellow late-night comedian Stephen Colbert was canned by CBS.

“Love you, Stephen. Fuck you and all your Sheldons CBS,” he wrote at the time.

President Trump, meanwhile, warned that Kimmel may well be next on the chopping block.

“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” Trump wrote after hearing the news of Colbert’s firing. “His talent was even less than his ratings.”

“I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!” he continued.

The post Jimmy Kimmel Blames ‘Repulsive’ Liberal Activists For Trump’s Return to Power (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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National Security Advisers From Europe and Ukraine Hold Meeting Today in England, Hosted by UK Foreign Secretary Lammy and US Vice President Vance

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6 hours ago

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August 10, 2025

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UK’s Lammy and US Vice-President Vance will host the European and Ukrainian ‘allies’ for a meeting today.

As we have reported previously, Vice President JD Vance’s holiday in the UK is actually filled with relevant work pushing President Donald J. Trump’s foreign policy.

Today, a meeting of National Security Advisers from the US, UK, as well as European ‘allies’ and Ukrainians, is being held, hosted by Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Vance.

The meeting is taking place at Chevening, Secretary Lammy’s ‘official country residence’ in Kent where Vance is staying during his days in the UK.

Daily Mail reported:

“The aim of the meeting is to bring together advisors from the US, Europe and Ukraine – it is understood to have been requested by the US.

A Downing Street spokesperson said that Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelensky agreed the meeting would be a ‘vital forum to discuss progress towards securing a just and lasting peace’.

‘Both leaders welcomed President Trump’s desire to bring this barbaric war to an end and agreed that we must keep up the pressure on Putin to end his illegal war,’ the spokesperson added.”

This meeting follows the news that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a peace summit in Alaska on August 15.

“’The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska,’ Trump wrote. ‘Further details to follow. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’”

This stay by Vance highlights that Foreign Secretary Lammy has somehow managed to become closer to the Trump administration, having previously called the president a ‘Neo-Nazi sympathizing sociopath’.

Read more:

VP Vance Warns UK Foreign Secretary Lammy: Do NOT Go Down ‘Very Dark Path’ of Censorship

The post National Security Advisers From Europe and Ukraine Hold Meeting Today in England, Hosted by UK Foreign Secretary Lammy and US Vice President Vance appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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