In an appalling example of government negligence, the U.S. Census Bureau has hired hundreds of serious criminals to enter the homes of unsuspecting Americans to gather statistics for the 2010 count. 

The astounding information was made public this week in a detailed congressional report that reveals the troubled bureau failed to adequately conduct mandatory background checks for tens of thousands of census workers, clearing hundreds of violent criminals in the process. 

The congressional investigation questioned the U.S. Census Bureau’s readiness to conduct the upcoming decennial count since investigators had previously determined—in a separate probe last year—that severe information technology shortcomings made the 2010 census a high-risk operation. It turns out the agency’s employee screening department is quite lacking as well.

Congressional investigators found that more than 35,000 temporary census workers were hired without the proper criminal background check, which includes fingerprinting. That means that more than one-fifth of the canvassing workforce did not get properly processed or fully screened for employment eligibility, creating an obvious security risk.

More than 200 of those were subsequently determined to have criminal records yet were in constant contact with the public while canvassing for the ongoing 2010 census. Investigators say the criminal record checks were bungled because the bureau’s incompetent staff was poorly trained to conduct them.

This simply marks the latest of several scandals involving the embattled U.S. Census Bureau, which up until recently had a coveted partnership with a fraud-infested community group (ACORN) under criminal investigation nationwide. The bureau’s deputy director (Preston Jay Waite) created a ruckus earlier this year when he demanded federal agents cease immigration raids during the 2010 count so the government can get an accurate tally of people in the country illegally. 

A few days ago, the U.S. Census Bureau announced a costly and unprecedented effort to reach illegal immigrants by spending $26 million to send Spanish-language questionnaires directly to homes for the first time in the decennial count’s history. It will mark the first time that the government sends to entire regions census forms in a language other than English. 

Barack Obama is the latest member of an ignominious world club that includes a renowned Arab terrorist leader, a former U.S. president that justifies Palestinian violence and a leftwing Guatemalan martyr who fabricated war memoirs.

Indeed, the 44th president of the United States has been crowned with a Nobel Peace Prize, shocking even his closest aides who at first dismissed it as a bad joke. Obama joins the likes of radical Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchú (1992), Palestinian Liberation Organization and Fatah movement founder Yasser Arafat (1994) and the only U.S. president to schmooze with a Hamas leader in Syria, Jimmy Carter (2001). Even the ultra corrupt United Nations, long infested with bribed officials, and its former equally crooked leader (Kofi Annan) won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2001.

Officials of the international award, named after an industrialist and administered by a Swedish foundation, say Obama got it “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” Norwegian lawmakers, members of national governments, past winners and numerous university professors annually nominate candidates and the winner is announced in October. Obama was nominated just 12 days into his presidency. 

The last high-profile U.S. politician to get the award was Clinton Vice President Al Gore, who received it in 2007 for his infamous global warming crusade. One Nobel committee member said Gore, who couldn’t even win his home state in a failed run for the presidency, put climate change on the agenda like no other. Ironically, Gore publicly urged young people to engage in civil disobedience—in the name of saving the planet—shortly after receiving his so-called peace award. 

Obama’s unexpected accolade shocked even the traditionally liberal international community, which has collectively questioned any accomplishments worthy of such an honor. A highly regarded Australian peace foundation expert said Obama’s win came as a “massive shock” and one British newspaper claimed the absurd decision to award Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize. Islamic Hamas leaders say Obama doesn’t deserve the Nobel because he failed to give Palestinian people their legitimate right as he had promised. 

The Obama Administration refuses to disclose information about a controversial, multi million-dollar contract with a politically connected firm to redesign a website that lets the public track federal stimulus spending.

This constitutes yet another violation of the administration’s own transparency policy, which promises to offer the public unprecedented government openness and accountability. The president has repeatedly ignored his highly touted order, withholding information on everything from secretive transition meetings with special interests to a contentious decision not to criminally charge his governor friend in a bribery scheme that cost him a cabinet post. 

Now Obama is hiding the details of a suspicious $18 million contract to redesign his heavily promoted website (Recovery.gov), ironically created so that Americans can follow how federal stimulus dollars are spent. Remember when the president promised that Americans will be able to track “every dime” of the $787 billion stimulus? Recovery.gov is the tool that will assure the mission is completed.  

In July, the government hired a Maryland firm (Smartronix) that has received nearly $200 million worth of noncompetitive federal contracts, to redesign the Recovery.gov website. The enormous $18 million deal quickly drew scrutiny, especially because the company’s owners had donated large sums to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland. 

An investigative journalism organization filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain a copy of the redesign contract and the government’s response was anything but transparent. Nearly half of the pages are blacked out and completely illegible. The contract’s technical proposal, essentially the document’s main body, was redacted completely. The blackouts were defended by the Obama Administration as a prohibition against the release of propriety information. 

Defending the embattled chairman of the powerful House committee that writes the nation’s tax code, a fellow lawmaker claims many members of Congress hide their fortunes and don’t pay taxes like her good buddy Charles Rangel. 

They simply suffer from innocent lapses in judgment, according to California Democrat Maxine Waters, who insists Rangel should not step down as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee simply because he omitted nearly $1 million in assets on mandatory financial disclosure forms. Many members of Congress regularly fail to disclose this sort of stuff, according to Waters, who’s currently embroiled in a corruption probe and is tight with a convicted Black Panther cop murderer who fled to Cuba after a jailbreak.  

Rangel, a New York Democrat, omitted nearly $1 million in assets on federal disclosure statements, including tens of thousands of dollars in rental income on a Caribbean villa and eight years worth of rental income on a six-unit structure he owns in the Harlem district that he’s represented in the U.S. House for three decades. Democrats have solidly stood behind him, however.  

While justifying this sort of indefensible criminal behavior may seem unbelievable for a United States congresswoman, just consider the source; Waters is currently under investigation for bullying the Treasury Department to give her husband’s bank a $12 million federal bailout. The veteran legislator also holds a huge financial stake in the minority-owned bank and its executives have donated heavily to her political campaigns.

This sort of malfeasance is simply the norm for California’s most influential black lawmaker, who over the years has repeatedly abused her political clout to benefit her family financially. It’s not surprising, then, that Waters is shielding her good—and similarly crooked—friend from the fire, helping him fend off calls to resign from the committee that actually controls the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 

A Republican congressman (John Carter of Texas) who sponsored a failed measure to oust Rangel offers a bit of a reality check: “When the boss of the IRS, and the chairman of the House committee that controls the IRS, fail to pay their taxes and walk off without penalty, we have made a mockery of our tax system and the rule of law itself.” 

Weeks after federal lawmakers cut the public funding of a fraud-infested community group famous for advising prostitutes and pimps on how to skirt housing and tax laws, it received nearly $1 million in Homeland Security funds intended for fire departments. 

The unbelievable infusion of tax dollars into the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was revealed this week by a Washington D.C. newspaper that reports the money was allocated just three weeks after the House and Senate voted to cut the group’s funding amid a series of corruption scandals. 

The money, part of $35 million in federal allocations for fire districts nationwide, went to ACORN’s Louisiana headquarters and made up almost 80% of the firefighting grants earmarked for the state. Several more worthy agencies with reputable track records had applied for the money but lost their bid to ACORN even though the radical leftwing organization has no background in fire prevention.

Among them was a fire department in St. Tammany Parish, a community located about 24 miles north of New Orleans, that wanted to purchase smoke alarms for low-income families after a fire killed four children in a home. The chief, Charles Flynn, assures that ACORN possesses no fire safety or fire prevention expertise yet it got $1 million over many smaller and bigger departments that really need the money.

ACORN, which has received tens of millions of tax dollars over the years, refuses to explain how it will spend the fire grant. Based on its documented history of embezzlement, fraud and cooking the books, the cash will undoubtedly help sustain its now world-famous criminal enterprise rather than contribute to any sort of fire prevention.

The Chicago-based community group that helped Barack Obama get elected has for years been known for its fraudulent voter registration drives. In fact, a few months ago a high-ranking ACORN official in Nevada pleaded guilty to conspiracy for organizing a scheme that illegally paid workers to register new voters. The group is being investigated in several other states for its illegal registration drives during the 2008 presidential election.

In previous elections, ACORN has been busted for falsifying information to register new voters in numerous other states, including Wisconsin, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina and Colorado to name a few. In 2007 the group settled the largest case of voter fraud in the history of Washington State after seven workers were caught submitting about 2,000 fake registration forms.

More recently, ACORN was embroiled in a massive scandal after employees were videotaped advising prostitutes and pimps on how to skirt housing and tax laws. The tapes, recorded by a pair of undercover journalists, were broadcast worldwide and posted on the internet. They proved to be the final straw that pushed Obama to conveniently ditch the group he once worked for and cherished.  

ACORN’s multiple scandals have forced the U.S. Census Bureau to eliminate it as a community partner for the 2010 count, the Democratic-led Congress to slash its funding and California’s governor to demand an investigation of the group’s widespread fraud in his state. Yet, unbelievably ACORN continues to receive tax dollars.  

To follow Judicial Watch’s extensive and ongoing investigation of ACORN, including litigation and public records requests, click here.

A year after praising a successful Arizona sheriff’s immigration enforcement program the Department of Homeland Security has killed it amid complaints from politically-connected Latino advocates who accuse officers of racial discrimination. 

Known as 287(g), the federal program trains local police officers nationwide to enforce immigration laws. The partnership has been effective in drastically reducing violent crime in local communities and aiding in the deportation of thousands of criminal illegal aliens who would otherwise fall through the cracks.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department is the biggest law enforcement agency to participate in 287(g) and its immigration sweeps—requested by residents and business owners alike—quickly earned national attention. They have also cleaned up the sprawling Phoenix metropolitan area by restoring law and order in a large business district (36th & Thomas) rife with solicitation, trespassing, loitering and public health ordinance violations created by day laborers.

In dozens of cases Maricopa Sheriff’s deputies arrested violent illegal immigrants with criminal records who should have been deported long ago. Instead they were protected by officials in Phoenix, which has long offered illegal aliens sanctuary and forbids its police department from inquiring about suspects’ immigration status. 

It was actually Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon who first complained about racial profiling in the county sheriff’s operation and demanded an investigation from the Justice Department, accusing deputies of “discriminatory harassment” and “improper” stops, searches and arrests. Gordon further accused Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio of infringing on the civil rights of residents and putting their well-being at risk.

Within weeks, immigration rights groups joined the discrimination bandwagon and a federal civil rights investigation subsequently ensued. The Justice Department has even brought back deported illegal aliens to the U.S. to be witnesses against the Maricopa Sheriff’s Department. The feds claim they’re investigating serious allegations of discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures on the part of deputies and their elected leader Arpaio.

Stripping the Maricopa Sheriff’s Department of its immigration enforcement privileges is simply part of the Obama Administration’s larger effort to weaken the successful 287(g) program nationwide. To obtain details relating to the incomprehensible changes, Judicial Watch recently filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security because the agency has exceeded the deadline on a July public records request.  

Up until recently, Homeland Security officials praised the 287(g) program, especially Maricopa County’s operation. In fact, a 2008 federal audit determined that the sheriff’s immigration enforcement program was “excellent” and that the conduct and performance of deputies was professional and meeting the program’s requirements. The audit further said that Maricopa’s program had processed more than 15,000 illegal aliens, saving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “considerable resources.” 

In an effort to avoid incarcerating illegal immigrants and assure their humane treatment, the Department Homeland Security is creating an innovative system that detains those awaiting deportation based on flight risk and danger.

Illegal aliens determined to pose no true threat to the U.S. will be housed by the government in facilities like hotels and nursing homes rather than jails, according to a news report outlining the Obama Administration’s immigration detention overhaul. Other private facilities are also being considered and Homeland Security officials are asking the private sector for more ideas.

Nearly 400,000 illegal immigrants are currently incarcerated in local, state and federal prisons throughout the nation at a cost of about $2 billion. But Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, with a documented history of opposing immigration enforcement, vowed months ago to devise a plan that offers alternatives to traditional detention of a population she claims poses no threat to the country.

This week the former Arizona governor announced that she has kept her promise to immigration advocates who have long complained about the inhumane conditions in jails across the nation. Among the problems, they say, is the poor quality of medical treatment and illegal aliens’ inability to access basic services, such as telephones and attorneys. 

That will all improve by next fall, Napolitano says, because her agency will have a new system that ranks illegal aliens by flight risk and public danger. Immigrants will be detained based on those assessments, with a large number expected to be housed in less restrictive residential facilities, despite the obvious national security risks created by granting such violators virtual freedom.

The official who heads Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Homeland Security agency in charge of incarcerating illegal immigrants, says this will meet his goal of transforming the current operation into a “truly civil detention system” focused on safely and humanely holding people.  

President Obama’s humiliating failure to bring the 2016 Olympics to his hometown of Chicago cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars although the commander-in-chief won’t disclose the exact figures of the now world-famous Copenhagen fiasco.

Once again violating his own promise to run the most open and transparent administration in history, the president refuses to tell Americans how much they dished out for his shameful trip to the Danish capital. One news report estimates that Obama’s airplane ride alone cost nearly $2 million, which doesn’t even include a separate aircraft that transported the First Lady and her entourage days earlier or security for either the president or his beloved wife.

Based on the Pentagon’s $100,000-an-hour cost to fly Air Force One (the government plane that transports the president), Obama’s airfare alone cost more than $1.7 million, according to the report, which points out that a round-trip flight from Washington D.C. to Copenhagen is 17 hours. When you figure security for the president and his wife’s longer stay in Denmark, the tab could feasibly run into millions of dollars. 

It turned out to be a huge waste of public funds since Obama’s personal plea—and his stylish wife’s presence—carried no weight with the International Olympic Committee. His impassioned, last-minute pitch was flatly rejected when the IOC essentially slapped the leader of the free world in the face by eliminating Chicago in the first round of voting, before the host city (eventually Rio de Janeiro) was even selected. 

Four years and millions of dollars in planning came to an abrupt halt in the Windy City, where local leaders and politically-connected business owners were banking on Obama’s star power to bring the games home. 

Stunned media outlets worldwide called it everything from a “stunning humiliation” to a “kick in the pants for the president.” Chicago’s largest newspaper reports this week that the embarrassing finish has created political tension between the White House to Mayor Richard Daley's office. It’s also launched an effort to remove all the “2016” banners that were confidently plastered throughout the city.