Despite getting hundreds of millions of tax dollars to fulfill its mission, the federal agency created after 9/11 to secure the nation’s transportation system continues to leave airplanes extremely vulnerable to another terrorist attack.

In the latest of numerous reports documenting the perpetual blunders of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General reveals that the agency is failing to ensure the security of boxed cargo on passenger planes. This leaves airplanes at risk for a terrorist attack, according to the inspector general.  

The report, made public this week by a national newspaper, lists repeated problems with the TSA’s program to prevent terrorists from sneaking bombs into any of the tens of thousands of cargo packages transported daily in the bellies of passenger planes. Investigators easily slipped into “secure” warehouses where cargo is stored prior to being loaded on airplanes without ever being challenged by security personnel. 

Additionally, the probe found that workers who handle the cargo had not received the required background checks or training, further adding to the security crisis. Simply put, air cargo is extremely vulnerable and the TSA has not been effective in making airlines and freight companies comply with security rules, according to investigators. 

This is hardly earth-shattering news though it’s quite disturbing. A few years ago a separate Homeland Security Inspector General report revealed similar problems in the TSA’s dismal air cargo security system and numerous other investigations have exposed dozens of security failures in other crucial areas. Serious lapses have occurred nationwide and, in 2007, TSA workers at three major airports missed hundreds of fake bombs during a covert exercise conducted to see if suspicious items could be smuggled into secure areas. 

The problems continue even though Congress has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the 43,000-member agency created after the 2001 terrorist attacks mainly to protect airlines. The TSA tells a much different story however, of an effective agency that guarantees airline passenger safety with a “robust layered security regime.” Indeed laughable.  

A New York congresswoman has for the third time introduced legislation to grant special U.S. residency to more than a dozen illegal immigrants whose undocumented relatives were killed in the 2001 World Trade Center terrorist attacks. 

Democrat Carolyn Maloney, who has represented New York’s 14th district in the U.S. House since 1992, wants Congress to pass a law that will grant permanent U.S. residency to the illegal aliens spouses and children of workers—also illegal immigrants—killed in the 9/11 attacks. The measure has twice been introduced by Maloney and defeated in the House. 

But the veteran lawmaker is determined to get the bill passed this congressional session and assures it’s quickly gaining bipartisan support. The 14 illegal immigrants who would get green cards were married or are the foreign-born kids of undocumented employees at the World Trade Center’s restaurant, Windows on the World.  

All of the illegal immigrants have received hefty payments—ranging from $875,000 to $4.1 million—from the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund but live in fear of being deported, according to a sob story published in the local newspaper this week. The piece further points out that, because the illegal aliens don’t have proper identification, they can’t get a driver’s licenses, jobs or a place at school. 

Another huge inconvenience presented by living in the U.S. illegally is that the undocumented immigrants can’t travel to their home countries because they won’t be able to return to their adopted nation. All 14 have in the past been granted a temporary immigrants’ parole that expired and made them deportable. 

Some lawmakers are logically concerned about passing a special law for a particular group of people who have violated U.S. statutes. An Iowa congressman asks: “Why should these families be treated any different than the families of illegal immigrants who die in accidents or by natural causes while in the United States?” 

The federal lawmaker who chairs the powerful committee that oversees the U.S. Department of Justice has long been under investigation by the agency, creating a dangerous conflict of interest that for years has been ignored. 

For three years the Justice Department has been scrutinizing the shady finances of West Virginia Congressman Alan Mollohan while he has headed the crucial House Appropriations subcommittee that controls its $65 billion budget, according to a news report published this week. That means the influential Democrat, who has represented West Virginia’s first district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1983, has oversight over the agency that’s probing him. 

For a legislator to wield such control over the entity that is investigating his conduct—as well as contractors he’s helped as a lawmaker—may seem absurd to most, though evidently not the nation’s leaders who have allowed it to go on for years. Mollohan’s probe has focused on his highly questionable finances and nonprofits he created in his district then helped fund.

The congressman’s assets skyrocketed in value from $562,000 to at least $6.3 million during a four-year span alone. During the same period, Mollohan steered a quarter of a million dollars in federal funds (via earmarks) to charities whose leaders were investors with him. A few years ago a federal grand jury in West Virginia launched an investigation into the suspicious deals and he spent more than $157,000 in legal fees. 

Mollohan’s troubles forced him to give up his seat on the House Ethics Committee, which is somewhat of a joke. However, he refuses to relinquish the important committee chairmanship and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi supports him by dismissing the ongoing probe. 

"Quite frankly, I think the Justice Department is looking into every member of Congress,” Pelosi said a few years ago referring to Mollohan. “I always say to everybody, 'You're now going to get a free review of your family tree, past, present and future, imagined and otherwise.' " 

Perpetually in denial about his deplorable actions, the Republican governor who used taxpayer resources to rendezvous with a mistress in South America is dismissing a state panel’s charges that he violated dozens of ethics laws as merely “technical questions.”

For months South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has been under investigation by the State Ethics Commission for using state planes to take personal trips, paying for overseas hunting expeditions with campaign funds and flying first class instead of coach on official travel. The two-term governor, a married father of four young boys, made global headlines in August when he vanished for a week to visit his mistress in Argentina.  

The new ethics charges have inevitably led state legislators to begin impeachment proceedings. In a 17-page complaint, the commission alleges that that Sanford violated 37 state ethics laws, including using state aircraft for personal travel nine times, flying first class 18 times even though state law requires officials to use the most economical fare and improperly spending campaign money on personal matters on 10 occasions. 

The disgraced governor is scheduled to appear before the commission early next year to present a defense against the charges. Of interesting note is that the three-member Ethics Commission, which will ultimately decide if Sanford is guilty, is appointed by the governor. The possibilities are that he could be cleared of wrongdoing or fined up to $74,000. Additionally, the attorney general is deciding whether or not to file criminal charges. 

The investigation was initiated by Sanford’s mysterious disappearance a few months ago, which earned worldwide media attention because the governor was incommunicado for several days. His staff and sate officials said they had not heard from him and could not reach him for days. When the media started pressing for answers, his staff guessed that he was on an Appalachian Trail hike. 

It turns out that Sanford, chair of the Republican Governor’s Association, was in Buenos Aires with his mistress who he later referred to as his soul mate. The governor subsequently admitted that he had been unfaithful to his wife for nearly two decades with a variety of women.  

A special council created by the governor of Massachusetts to help illegal immigrants integrate into society has come up with more than 100 recommendations, including a costly idea that was solidly rejected by the legislature a few years ago.

Among the suggestions offered by Governor Deval Patrick’s advisory council are granting illegal immigrants driver’s licenses and discounted, in-state tuition at public colleges. In 2006 the Massachusetts legislature rejected a measure that would have given the heavily reduced tuition perk to illegal aliens who had graduated from a state high school. 

In all, the governor’s council offered 131 policy recommendations—labeled New Americans Agenda—to help better integrate immigrants and refugees into the civic and economic life of the Commonwealth. The policy suggestions cover civil rights, education, employment and workforce development, access to state services and housing assistance.  

No word yet on which of the measures the governor will adopt but it’s safe to say that he fully plans to implement several. After all, Patrick created the council with great fanfare last year and the promise of developing and delivering a series of policies that emphasize the “positive integration” of illegal aliens into the state’s economic and civic life. 

A renowned illegal immigrant advocate who was in charge of civil rights in Bill Clinton’s Justice Department, Patrick killed a policy designed to curb illegal immigration in Massachusetts upon becoming governor in 2007. The measure allowed local law enforcement officers in the state to detain illegal aliens.

Patrick has repeatedly come under fire for many of his costly leftwing policies, including spending $430,000 to give welfare recipients free cars as an incentive to find work. The Democratic governor has also worked to reverse a longtime state law that allows employers broad access to the criminal records of potential employees because it discriminates against convicted felons and unfairly prevents them from landing jobs and leading productive lives. 

A big-state attorney general well known for running a fraud-infested federal agency as a member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet has taken tens of thousands of dollars from law firms representing clients being investigated or charged by his office. 

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Clinton’s Housing and Urban Development Secretary, has evidently continued his old boss’s tradition of corruption as the Empire State’s top law enforcement officer. A national news outlet reports that a chunk of the $18 million Cuomo has raised in the last few years came from lawyers across the nation with cases before his office.  

The cash keeps pouring in because Cuomo is running for New York governor next year and his already bulging campaign coffers are swelling by the week. So far, close to $1 million has come from major law firms defending notable individuals or companies in legal actions against Cuomo’s office. 

The New York law firm representing American International’s (AIG) chief executive in a fraud case against the state gave Cuomo $35,000 this year, the attorneys defending computer manufacturer Dell in a deceptive advertising case donated $18,000 to the attorney general and a California law firm defending a Philadelphia-based life insurer in a major fraud case against the state gave $7,500. Countless others gave a few thousand here and few thousand there. 

The attorney general claims the donations are perfectly ethical because he makes sure the contributors sign a statement saying they have no matter pending with him personally. The laughable measure conveniently doesn’t extend to “attorneys representing persons or entities with matters before the NYS Attorney General’s office.” In other words, Cuomo’s subordinates in the agency he heads.  

Cuomo is just keeping alive a tradition at the attorney general’s office. Eliot Spitzer, who went on to become governor, also took tens of thousands of dollars in donations from those with cases before his office when he was New York Attorney General. Spitzer was forced to resign as governor in 2008 when he got caught in a major hooker scandal.  

Cuomo has some serious political baggage of his own. As Clinton’s Housing Secretary, inept and corrupt investors for years cheated loan programs aimed at turning rundown buildings into affordable housing, leaving taxpayers with a $250 million cleanup bill. Cuomo knew about the fraud for years yet took no action, according to congressional records and a HUD Inspector General report.

Days after a devout Muslim terrorized a U.S. Army base in Texas several news reports remind that two key Homeland Security posts are occupied by equally devout Muslims, one of them a former Los Angeles deputy mayor who eliminated a crucial program that tracked terrorist activities in the city.  

Earlier this year President Obama appointed Arif Alikhan to be the nation’s Assistant Secretary for Policy Development at the Department of Homeland Security and Kareem Shora to the agency’s influential advisory council, which provides recommendations and advice directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security.

Alikhan, who leads a Homeland Security team responsible for developing policy issues to secure the country against terrorism, has referred to the renowned terrorist organization Hezbollah as a “liberation movement” and was responsible for killing a Los Angeles Police project that monitored terrorist activities in the city’s notoriously radical mosques. The defunct Muslim terror tracking plan was designed to identify hotbeds of extremism in an area where several locals offered the September 11 hijackers support.  

Shora was the head of a well-known Arab organization whose officials refer to anti-U.S. jihadists as heroes. As executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Shora had close ties to radical Ivy League professor Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian terror supporter who has reportedly worked on behalf of the extremist Palestine Liberation Organization.

An Israeli newspaper criticizes Obama for reaching out to Muslims by appointing them to key security posts amid charges he wrongly ignored internal Muslim terror. The passage undoubtedly refers to the Muslim, al Qaeda wannabe Army major (Nidal Malik Hasan) who went on a murderous rampage at Ft. Hood as he chanted "Allahu Akbar!" ("God is great!") in Arabic.

Days after the massacre, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was most concerned about preventing a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States. She vowed that her agency is working hard with groups across the U.S. to deflect any retaliation against Muslims for one man’s fury.

Although its illegal to use federal money to pay for abortions, the gargantuan healthcare bill presented this week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans in the government-run insurance plan.

The much-ballyhooed 2,074-page bill (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) that will start being debated this weekend in the U.S. Senate includes a monthly abortion premium charged to all enrollees in the government-operated health plan. The $848 billion overhaul package is being touted by Reid as a measure that will “save lives” even though it covers a procedure that ends them.

Since most people don’t have the stomach to sort through the cumbersome bill, a Republican lawmaker had his staff do it and highlight the contentious abortion coverage Democrats included in the measure. It begins on line seven of page 118, section 1303. Under “Voluntary Choice of Coverage of Abortion Services” it states that the nation’s Health and Human Services Secretary (ardent pro-abortion advocate Kathleen Sebelius) is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run health plan. It also requires at least one public insurance plan offered in the exchange to cover abortion (line 13 of page 120). 

A section titled “Actuarial Value of Optional Service Coverage” on page 122 (line 11, section 1303) says the abortion premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account and the federal funds will then be used to pay for abortion services. A Health Benefits Commissioner will assess the monthly premiums that will be used for abortions in the public plan and for those offered through an affordability credit to purchase coverage through the exchange. 

The heated abortion issue almost derailed the House bill, which passed by a narrow margin only after an amendment was inserted banning federal funds for the procedure. Evidently Reid and his clan didn’t learn a thing from that close call. Their bill also lets private companies that get government funds offer plans that include abortion coverage. 

Since 1996 the U.S. government has banned (Hyde Amendment) the use of federal dollars to pay for abortions, though some states use local resources to fund the procedure. The federal ban applies to government health programs for the disabled and elderly (Medicare) and the poor (Medicaid). A separate provision, known as the Smith Amendment, prohibits federal funding of abortion under the federal employees’ health benefits plan.