The outlaw mayor of an upscale Louisiana town, previously indicted for perjury and caught driving drunk on a causeway, has pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges for using public funds as his personal piggy bank and taking hefty bribes from city contractors. 

Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price has been under state and federal investigation for more than a year and finally resigned a few days ago amid mounting evidence of his longtime criminal behavior. For nearly three decades the disgraced lawmaker has served publicly in the wealthy bedroom community of about 11,000 that sits across a lake from New Orleans. 

Prosecutors say Price accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of lavish vacations from various firms with lucrative city contracts and regularly dipped into the town’s coffers to pay for an array of personal expenses, including large gambling debts, fine wine, clothes and groceries for his family. He also illegally used campaign funds to pay for similar personal items. 

A state audit blasted the mayor last year for racking up $9,000 of personal expenses on a city credit card and improperly accepting valuable gifts—including trips on a private jet to California and Canada—from companies that do business with the city. A Mexican cruise, worth $3,000, was among the personal items the mayor charged taxpayers, auditors found.

As part of a plea deal with prosecutors this week, the crooked mayor pleaded guilty to tax evasion and depriving citizens of honest services. He will be sentenced early next year and faces more than two decades in prison although he probably will get a shorter sentence. Price's story certainly illustrates that you need not be a high-profile legislator to commit major fraud.   

Months after the Colorado Legislature rejected a measure to grant illegal immigrants discounted tuition at public colleges and universities, Democrats continue working on a soon-to-be-introduced bill to make it happen.

In April Colorado lawmakers killed—for the fourth time—a proposal that would have allowed illegal aliens to pay lower in-state tuition at the state’s 30 public colleges and universities. It was a contentious plan that was debated on the Senate floor for more than three hours before lawmakers, including several Democrats, finally defeated it.  

This week a group of Colorado Democrats reveal they’ve been ardently working behind the scenes to tweak the defeated law so that it passes. Their plan centers on the creation of a special tuition category for illegal immigrants that attempts to disguise the taxpayer-financed perk granted to the state’s legal residents.

Since illegal immigrants don’t qualify for the subsidy given to the children of parents who pay state taxes, tens of millions of dollars will be allocated for the new illegal alien tuition class. That way, the law’s sponsors say, illegal immigrants don’t have to pay the much higher out-of-state fees. Either way it’s presented, the money comes from U.S. taxpayers. 

One of the law’s sponsors, Senator Paula Sandoval, says the third tuition rate is a compromise that will avoid the pitfalls of four previous failed attempts at passing legislation. The House sponsor, Denver Representative Joe Miklosi, says the measure will “empower” the state’s undocumented high school graduates. 

Ten states—including California, Texas, Utah, Kansas, Washington and New York—have laws granting illegal immigrants discounted college tuition and a few—Georgia, Oklahoma and Arizona—have recently created policies banning the perk. The practice was successfully challenged by a group of out-of-state students in California who argued that the state’s college system violated the law by charging them higher tuition and fees than undocumented immigrants. A California appellate court ruled in favor of the American students and the case is pending before the sate Supreme Court.

Billions of dollars designated to buy essential supplies for U.S. troops in the Middle East will instead finance controversial projects like an institute to honor a scandalous late senator who let his mistress drown in a car he recklessly drove off a bridge. 

Indeed, $20 million in crucial defense money will be used to launch the Edward Kennedy Institute in Massachusetts. The money will come from a Pentagon account that largely pays for training, fuel and ammunition for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a news report published this week. 

The shoddy Kennedy Institute deal is simply one of 778 such earmarks inserted by U.S. Senators in a defense spending bill loaded with questionable pet projects. In all, $2.6 billion were diverted to fund the deals that will largely benefit the financial supporters of the lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, who recently passed the $636 billion measure. 

Twenty million dollars will go to a Hawaiian space system operated by a company that’s a major donor of the senator (Democrat Daniel Inouye) who requested the earmark and $25 million will go to a new World War II museum at the University of New Orleans. President Obama supported the pork-infested legislation even though he repeatedly vowed to battle the special interests that have severely inflated military spending in the past. Remember his laughable “If Congress sends me a defense bill loaded with a bunch of pork I will veto it” promise?

Popular as the late Kennedy remains among his party’s leaders, it’s tough to justify defense dollars for a so-called civic educational center in his name. Hawaii’s Inouye and veteran Massachusetts Senator John Kerry inserted the earmark for the Kennedy project, which they claim will showcase the “senator’s ability to make a difference.”

Kennedy certainly made a huge difference in Mary Jo Kopechne’s family. The 28-year-old Democratic campaign worker drowned in the back seat of Kennedy’s sinking car after he drove it off a bridge and into a pond in Chappaquiddick, east of Martha’s Vineyard. The two had been drinking at a party and Kennedy had an expired license so he fled the scene, escaping the tragic accident unscathed, and let his mistress drown. Incredibly, his political career subsequently flourished. 

Public corruption is so widespread in Florida that the governor has petitioned the state’s Supreme Court to impanel a special grand jury to investigate the crisis, which includes a recently indicted Republican fundraiser with close ties to him and other prominent legislators.

Governor Charlie Crist, who will leave after one term to run for the U.S. Senate, wants the grand jury to aggressively probe criminal activity among public officials amid a multitude of scandals throughout the Sunshine State that he claims are cultivating a “culture of corruption.” 

Public officials have abused their powers gained by virtue of their position, the governor says in his five-page petition for a grand jury, which points to a recent rash of crimes committed by local and state public servants while acting in their official capacity. Among the offenses are bribery, extortion, murder, prostitution, burglary, racketeering and crimes involving narcotics. There is also bid tampering, falsifying records, money laundering and an array of computer-related crimes. 

Since taking office in 2007, Crist has removed 30 public officials from office for wrongdoing. Just a few weeks ago three politicians in a south Florida county were charged with corruption and money laundering in unrelated cases. A week later, a prominent south Florida Republican donor who served on Crist’s gubernatorial transition team got indicted for operating a fraudulent fundraising and lobbying scheme. 

Several miles north in Palm Beach County, five lawmakers were recently prosecuted for corruption, including a powerful veteran county commissioner who admitted abusing her position to enrich herself. The epidemic led a grand jury to determine that the area is facing a crisis of trust in public governance with a reputation so deteriorated it’s derisively referred to as “Corruption County.”

The governor has also been embroiled in his share of scandals, including accepting tainted money from an indicted Jordanian businessman (Ala'a al-Ali) and a crooked defense contractor (Harry Sargeant) who violated contribution limits, billing the financially strapped state $430,000 for a first-class European tour and refusing to disclose the influential donors who pay for his many private jet rides around the country.

A few months ago, Florida’s Supreme Court ruled that Crist violated the state Constitution when he refused to fill an appeals court vacancy because all the candidates recommended by the Judicial Nominating Commission were white. Crist demanded that the commission, made up of a group of lawyers mostly appointed by him, nominate more minorities before filling the post.   

If President Obama keeps his promise of giving the nation’s 12 million illegal aliens amnesty it will encourage more Mexicans to enter the United States, according to residents of the struggling Latin American country who are undoubtedly rooting for the commander-in-chief’s plan.

The majority of illegal immigrants in the U.S. are from Mexico therefore the president’s reprieve project will greatly affect that nation. Two-thirds of Mexicans say they know someone living in the United States and around one-third have an immediate member of their household or close relative living in the U.S. 

A majority of those residing south of the border say legalizing their undocumented countrymen will inspire more Mexicans to head north, according to a recent survey conducted by an internationally known polling and market research company. A vast majority of Mexicans with a relative in the United States said a legalization program would make people they know more likely to go to America illegally.

The results of the survey were made public this week by a research organization dedicated to studying the economic, social, fiscal and demographic impacts of immigration in the U.S. It reveals that nearly one-third of Mexican residents (nearly 40 million people) would like to live in the U.S. and if there was an amnesty a large number would come illegally with the hope of qualifying for a future exoneration. 

An amnesty, therefore, would stimulate more illegal immigration which is the last thing this country needs. Furthermore, rewarding those who have violated our nation’s laws with coveted U.S. residency and possibly citizenship demeans the system, especially for those who follow the appropriate steps to come lawfully. 

It’s bad enough that U.S. taxpayers annually dish out billions of dollars to educate, medically treat and incarcerate illegal aliens who are, in many cases, depleting local governments. Los Angeles County alone spends more than $1 billion a year, including $48 million a month in welfare costs, to provide services for illegal aliens. The crisis is hardly limited to border states, which have traditionally been the most impacted. Georgia’s skyrocketing illegal population costs taxpayers nearly $2 billion a year.

The famously unscrupulous government agency responsible for protecting public health and safety will waste millions of tax dollars to further examine a common household chemical that’s already been deemed unsafe in hundreds of scientific studies and banned in several states.

To appease the chemical’s manufacturer the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is delaying issuing a negative report by essentially disregarding the results of nearly 1,000 reputable scientific studies that have collectively concluded it presents a public health risk. Used to make hard, clear plastic Bisphenol A, or BPA, has recently been banned in cities and states across the nation based on the research.

Study after study has determined that BPA causes cell changes that lead to breast and prostate cancer yet the FDA has conveniently utilized a pair of studies—paid for by BPA manufacturers—to rule that the chemical is safe. Bombarded with the more dependable research contradicting BPA’s safety, the agency is further stalling on banning it by investing $7 million to conduct its own probe. 

A group of insulted scientific experts who have thoroughly examined BPA have written a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg accusing the agency of stalling at the risk of public health. Spending significant time and money on a very well researched chemical is disturbing, the scientists write, pointing out that there are significant flaws in the government’s plans.

The FDA has been embroiled in similar scandals over the years by failing to enforce federal laws because doing so would negatively affect the profits of the wealthy companies that pay the agency hundreds of millions of dollars in “fees.” The deplorable negligence was even the subject of a congressional investigation that determined the FDA allows companies that annually pay it more than $400 million in fees to compromise public safety.

A recent example involves a controversial FDA-approved cervical cancer vaccine (Gardasil) linked to the deaths of dozens of girls and adverse reactions in thousands more. Pharmaceutical giant Merck manufactures Gardasil and the FDA has gone out of its way to cater to the powerful drug company by expediting expanded approval of the vaccine, which has been promoted as a sort of miracle shot that can prevent certain strains of cervical cancer caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV). 

Judicial Watch has extensively investigated the contentious vaccine, obtained government files on adverse effects through public records requests and published a special in-depth report on the matter. Click here to view Judicial Watch’s work related to Gardasil. 

Nearly two years after Arizona enacted the nation’s toughest law against those who hire illegal immigrants no businesses have been prosecuted even though the state is estimated to have nearly half a million undocumented workers.

The landmark measure allows the state to severely punish—even revoke the license—of businesses caught hiring illegal aliens and requires them to verify workers’ legal status. The law caused a ruckus among business owners and so-called Latino rights groups that claim racial discrimination, but has survived several legal challenges at the state and federal level. 

The problem, however, is that no employers have been punished because the sanctions law is virtually impossible to enforce. For starters, it doesn’t give county prosecutors charged with pursuing violators civil subpoena power to examine personnel records that could help prove illegal aliens were knowingly hired. 

This sort of subpoena power is granted to other administrative agencies that enforce similar statutes, the frustrated prosecutors in Arizona’s 15 counties say. Without it, authorities are forced to rely on the voluntary disclosure of crucial personnel records by the very businesses being investigated. Not surprisingly, all the accused have opted not to cooperate. 

As a result dozens of investigations throughout the state have been shut because authorities can’t access crucial data that could prove wrongdoing. In Yavapai County for instance, crippled investigators have been forced to close 20 of their 23 probes into businesses that they say employ illegal immigrants. 

In Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest, none of the 22 businesses that have been caught hiring illegal aliens have been punished, even though more than 300 employees have been arrested for identity theft and using fake identification to work. In most of those cases the sheriff’s department obtained warrants to raid the companies because criminal wrongdoing, such as identity theft, was alleged. 

Nearly a decade after Middle Eastern terrorists overstayed their visas to plot the deadliest attack in U.S. history the government has failed miserably to implement a crucial security program that assures foreign visitors leave the country when they’re supposed to.

Congressional investigators disclosed the inexcusable negligence in a lengthy report last year and a recent example—a Jordanian who tried to blow up a Texas high rise—proves little progress has been made to protect the nation from violent foreigners. The Jordanian (Hosam Maher Husein Smadi) who vowed jihad against Americans and tried to blow up a Dallas skyscraper last month, had overstayed his tourist visa as did several of the September 11 hijackers. 

To prevent these sorts of infiltrations, the government created a costly but highly inadequate system (U.S. Visitor and Immigration Status Indicator Technology or US VISIT) to track the arrival and departure of foreign visitors. Billions of dollars later, the program is riddled with major flaws that allow possibly millions of foreigners to annually remain in the country when their visa expires. 

Last year nearly 3 million visitors on temporary visas checked into the U.S. but never checked out, according to a news report that quotes immigration authorities. Although officials openly admit they aren’t certain how many actually left, they estimate that about 200,000 probably stayed unbeknownst to the government, like Smadi and some of the September 11 terrorists.

Smadi, an Osama bin Laden loyal who came to the U.S. to wage jihad (holy war), was also aided by local governments that protect illegal aliens. He got an official identification card in the renowned sanctuary state of California and lived and worked in a little Texas town called Italy, located in Ellis county about 45 miles south of Dallas. The county sheriff had previously arrested Smadi but the department has a don’t-ask-don’t-tell immigration policy so he just paid a small fine and continued plotting his terrorist attack.

With a notoriously flawed system like US Visit there’s no telling how many Samdis are currently living in the country plotting jihad against Americans. After all, it seems that little has changed security-wise since the 9/11 hijackers pulled it off.