It marks the first time in U.S. history that a federal court considers whether the 13^th Amendment, which prohibits slavery between humans, applies to animals. In this case the plaintiffs are five orcas (Tilikum, Katina, Kasatka, Ulises and Corky) living in tanks at Sea World in San Diego California and Orlando Florida. They perform in daily shows at the parks on opposite coasts of the country.

But the whales’ attorneys from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) claim they are “incarcerated” and treated like slaves because they’re forced to live in tanks and perform in shows. This amounts to slavery, according to the orcas’ PETA lawyer, Jeff Kerr. “It’s a new frontier in civil rights,” Kerr said. “Slavery does not depend on the species of the slave any more than it depends on race, gender, or ethnicity. Coercion, degradation, and subjugation characterize slavery, and these orcas have endured all three.”

That’s a whale of a statement! Sea World’s attorney said PETA is wasting the court’s time since the case defies common sense and goes against 125 years of case law applied to the Constitution’s 13^th Amendment, which prohibits slavery only between humans. “Neither orcas nor any other animal were included in the ‘We the people’ … when the Constitution was adopted,” he told the judge.

Arguments went on for an hour and the judge didn’t indicate when he would rule, only that it would be at a later date. The whales’ attorney maintained a steady level of passion, calling it a historic day. “ For the first time in our nation’s history, a federal court heard arguments as to whether living, breathing, feeling beings have rights and can be enslaved simply because they happen to not have been born human. By any definition these orcas have been enslaved here.”

This may seem unbelievable to most Americans, that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can’t get its act together more than ten years after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. Incredibly, it’s true and the alarming details are outlined in a federal report published this week by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress.

It reveals that the DHS agency responsible for screening cargo, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), still lacks the ability to check 100% of the containers that enter the U.S. through seaports each day. Under the 9/11 Commission Act, all U.S-bound cargo containers must be scanned because they are vulnerable to threats from terrorists and could be used to smuggle nuclear and radiological materials.

To meet the goal, DHS has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on faulty systems that didn’t get the job done. In fact, the agency dropped more than $200 million on 1,400 radiation portal monitors that weren’t up to the task. Last summer the agency ended that brilliant program, which was a team effort between CBP and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office.

So, where does that leave cargo safety? Here’s what the GAO says: “Uncertainty persists over how DHS and CBP will fulfill the mandate for 100 percent scanning given that the feasibility remains unproven in light of the challenges CBP has faced implementing a pilot program for 100 percent scanning.” That’s really comforting.

Here is another interesting tidbit. The GAO reveals that several years ago it asked Homeland Security officials to perform an analysis to determine whether 100% scanning is even feasible, but the agency hasn’t bothered doing it. Congressional investigators have logically concluded that CBP is “no longer pursuing efforts to implement 100 percent scanning” by the mandatory July 2012 deadline.

The GAO’s findings could not have come at a worst time, on the heels of an international study on maritime trafficking that reveals weapons, drugs and banned missile are regularly smuggled aboard reputable ships owned by major companies in the U.S. and Europe. As an example it lists the case of weapons traffickers who evaded international embargoes on Iran and North Korea by hiding illegal goods in sealed shipping containers using a tactic pioneered by drug smugglers.

The shift is striking, according to the nonprofit university group that obtained government records outlining the drastic change. The New York-based nonpartisan research center, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), provides detailed information about the operation of hundreds of government agencies.  Immigration is one of many areas it researches.

This week TRAC revealed that during the first three months of fiscal year 2012, cases disposed of in the nation’s immigration courts showed a serious drop in deportation orders and an increase in the number of individuals allowed to stay in the U.S. That means that individuals were ordered removed in only half of the cases, the lowest rate in the past two decades.

An additional 14.0 percent received a “voluntary departure” order to leave the country, up slightly from 13.2 percent during the previous quarter, the records show.  Counting both removal and voluntary departure orders, slightly fewer than two out of every three cases (64.8 percent) in the first quarter of fiscal year 2012 ended in a deportation order, also a historic low.

The government records also show that, among individuals determined by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to have violated immigration laws, more than one in three (34.4 percent) were allowed to stay in the U.S. This also represented a historic high, which is illustrated in a chart that includes figures for the last several years.

Clearly, the Obama Administration’s stealth amnesty plan to suspend the deportations of most illegal aliens is in play here. The scandalous measure, which has led to a monstrous increase in the dismissal of deportations, was first reported by Texas’s largest newspaper in 2010. Shortly after the story broke, Judicial Watch requested records on the deportation suspensions from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

After DHS stonewalled the release of records for nearly a year, JW filed a lawsuit last spring. A few weeks ago the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a ruling criticizing the Obama DHS for failing to abide by FOIA law. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly chastised the agency for its inadequate explanations for withholding certain documents, ruling in part that the agency failed to provide sufficient factual context for much of the information withheld.

While on the combined subject of lying and illegal immigration, last month TRAC exposed DHS records that show the agency repeatedly lied to Congress, the American people and the media by drastically increasing the number of individuals that have been apprehended, deported or detained. Check that story out here.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announces its participation as a major sponsor of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), February 9-11, 2012, at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, 2660 Woodley Road, NW, Washington, DC. Judicial Watch is sponsoring the conference’s main event, the Ronald Reagan Banquet, which will feature a presentation by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and a speech by Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  Other major Judicial Watch activities include a major press conference on a new election integrity campaign, a panel on the constitutional issues of Obamacare and an educational seminar on the use of the Freedom of Information Act.

The following are details of Judicial Watch’s CPAC 2012 activities:

·     Thursday, February 9, 9:30 a.m., Virginia Ballroom:  Press conference event announcing an important effort to help protect the integrity of the 2012 elections.

·     Friday, February 10, 1:25 pm, Marriott Ballroom:  Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton will moderate a panel discussion, “Obamacare: Why It’s Unconstitutional and What Conservatives Need to Do.”  (The event immediately follows a scheduled presentation by Gov. Mitt Romney.)

·     Friday, 7:30 pm, Marriott Ballroom:  Judicial Watch will sponsor the premiere event at CPAC:  the Ronald Reagan Banquet.  Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is the scheduled keynoter for that special evening.  Judicial Watch and Victory Film Group will also release the teaser trailer for the upcoming documentary film directed by Stephen K. Bannon.

·     Saturday, 1:30 p.m., Taft meeting room:  Judicial Watch will teach a seminar on how conservatives can put the Freedom of Information Act to work to uncover government secrets.

“Americans are fed up with the unprecedented expansion of government power and secrecy we have seen over the last three years. With our participation in CPAC, Judicial Watch is proud to stand with thousands of other conservatives seeking to combat Washington corruption. We must fight for ethics, accountability and transparency in the White House and in Congress — that is our message for CPAC.  Judicial Watch is the largest and most active government watchdog in the nation.  Through our major sponsorship of CPAC, we look forward to educating more members of the grassroots about the bipartisan corruption enveloping our nation’s capital,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

About CPAC: Taking place in Washington, DC, each year, CPAC brings together nearly 10,000 attendees and all of the leading conservative organizations and speakers impacting conservative thought in the nation. Regularly seen on C-SPAN and other national news networks, CPAC has been the premiere event for any major elected official or public personality seeking to discuss issues of the day with conservatives. From presidents of the United States to college student leaders, CPAC has become the place to find our nation’s current and future leaders.

About Judicial Watch, Inc.: Judicial Watch is a conservative, nonpartisan educational foundation that promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. Through its educational endeavors, Judicial Watch advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people. The motto of Judicial Watch is “Because no one is above the law!” To this end, Judicial Watch uses the open records or freedom of information laws and other tools to investigate and uncover misconduct by government officials and litigation to hold to account politicians and public officials who engage in corrupt activities.  Judicial Watch does not endorse or oppose candidates for public office.

This increases their “vulnerability to many climate impacts,” according to a State Department assessment posted on a web site dedicated to releasing all sorts of interesting government documents. In this case the information is outlined in a Gender and Climate Change Fact Sheet complied by USAID, the government agency that provides economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide.

The fact sheet mostly focuses on women in developing countries such as Africa, Bangladesh, Mexico, Peru and Ecuador. “Development experts,” presumably working for the U.S. government agency found, for instance, that in Africa men have greater access to radios. This puts women at a disadvantage because they’re more likely to hear forecasts and early warnings when delivered through extension workers. This is deep stuff.

Here is another example of how global warming hurts poor women more than any other demographic; in many societies women have the primary responsibility for collecting water and firewood and climate change exacerbates resource scarcity, forcing women and girls to travel farther to collect the supplies. This increases threats to their safety and negatively impacts other areas such as farming productivity and child care.

Uncle Sam’s gender disparity assessment also found this; because women are already vulnerable to “under nutrition” and have less access to medical services, they will suffer more because “changing temperatures alter vectors for diseases like malaria, higher sea-surface temperatures are correlated with cholera epidemics and more frequent droughts and floods will worsen sanitation and hygiene.”

Among the recommendations to help remedy this crisis is to “involve women in vulnerability assessments” and “incorporate gender considerations into national climate change strategies and regulations.” The government fact sheet doesn’t elaborate on what exactly this means or, more importantly, how much this will cost U.S. taxpayers.

This is simply the latest of many government alerts on the ills of global warming since Barack Obama became president. In the last few years the administration has released alarming reports saying that global warming could lead to a worldwide increase in mental illness, cancer and even sexual dysfunction and that it will make food “dangerous.” This, of course, will add to the malnourishment of millions worldwide.

Just a few months ago the taxpayer-funded National Science Foundation revealed that global warming is much worse than previously imagined because the ocean actually masks the true rate of damage for periods as long as a decade. Under this theory, the crisis is way more severe than what it appears because the sea is storing the heat that damages the earth, making it appear as if there is a sort of hiatus in climate change when there really isn’t.

Only in government is this level of ineptness so common.  The case involves the late Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in the U.S. Senate. In 2008 he was convicted of seven felonies for hiding tens of thousands of dollars in gifts—including a major home renovation—from an oil company seeking lucrative government contracts and favorable legislation. That year Stevens made Judicial Watch’s list of Washington’s Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.

Months after the jury conviction, Attorney General Eric Holder asked the court to reverse it, saying that it could not be supported because of problems with the government’s prosecution. The government’s case seemed rock solid from the start. Before the trial started two oil company executives and a lobbyist—cooperating with federal investigators—had already pleaded guilty to bribery, conspiracy and federal corruption charges. The operators of the huge oil services company called VECO admitted paying nearly half a million dollars in bribes to various Alaska lawmakers.

But lawyers from the Department of Justice (DOJ) eventually admitted they improperly concealed evidence that could have helped the defense but was not turned over as required by law. A court-ordered investigation concluded that prosecutors had engaged in significant, widespread, and intentional misconduct. At one point the DOJ replaced the entire trial team amid allegations of wrongdoing.

 Now a mainstream newspaper reports that the government has spent nearly $1.8 million to defend the prosecutors who botched the Stevens case. The paper obtained the information from DOJ records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). U.S. taxpayers are picking up the tab to defend the federal lawyers from allegations that they broke the law involving Stevens, who died in a 2010 plane crash at the age of 86.   

The DOJ records show that the agency has paid about $1.6 million since 2009 to private attorneys representing the half-dozen prosecutors targeted by a court investigation into the matter. It also paid $208,000 to defend three prosecutors from a separate finding that they had committed civil contempt of court, the story says.

One U.S. Senator quoted in the article points out that taxpayers are losing twice. “First, the Justice Department committed serious legal errors and ethical missteps in its taxpayer-funded investigation and trial against Sen. Stevens,” said Iowa Chuck Grassley, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee.  “And second, this is an unseemly high amount of money being spent by the taxpayers to defend what appears to be egregious misconduct.”

As part of “Taliban reconciliation efforts,” the terrorists would be transferred to Qatar, a Middle Eastern Arab state where the militant Islamic group will soon open an office. The Obama Administration is selling the preposterous deal to Congress by saying that the prisoners won’t actually be released but rather transferred to the custody of the Qatari government and they will remain in jail.

While much of the mainstream media has ignored this unbelievable story, a bimonthly global magazine dedicated to covering politics and economics, published a piece this week on how the backdoor deal is going down. It includes details of how top Obama Administration officials briefed eight senior Senate leaders this week about the pending Taliban “transfer” from Gitmo to Qatar.

The classified briefing took place in the basement of the capitol building and none of the eight senators would discuss details, according to the magazine, but a few spoke before entering the secure briefing room. Michigan Senator Carl Levin revealed that the briefing was “about the ongoing Taliban reconciliation efforts.” The Democrat lawmaker questioned whether the Qataris can be trusted to keep the Taliban prisoners behind bars.  

Calling the deal “highly questionable,” Arizona Senator John McCain said he’s not confident that the Qataris will keep the Taliban prisoners locked up. The Republican lawmaker also noted that at least one of the prisoners was responsible for the deaths of several Americans. Reports have identified three of them as Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan and former army commander Mullah Fazl Akhund.

It’s not clear who the two others will be, though one thing is certain; the Obama Administration’s own Guantanamo review task force has determined that they are too dangerous to transfer. Additionally, U.S. intelligence assessments have concluded that the Taliban prisoners scheduled for transfer are too dangerous to be released.

The Taliban is a radical terrorist group that rules large parts of Afghanistan and enforces Sharia law, the authoritarian doctrine that inspires Islamists and their jihadism. Just last month the Taliban released a horrific video of the executions of 15 Pakistani soldiers that had been abducted weeks earlier. Incredibly, the Obama Administration believes the terrorist group is reformed and last month began engaging in “peace talks” with Taliban leaders.     

This appears to be part of the Obama Administration’s Muslim outreach effort, which includes hiring a special Homeland Security adviser (Mohamed Elibiary) who supports a radical Islamist theologian and renowned jihadist ideologue. The Obama Justice Department also created a special Muslim Engagement Advisory Group to foster greater communication, collaboration and a new level of respect between law enforcement and Muslim and Arab-American communities.

And, in 2010, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano held secret meetings with radical Arab, Muslim, Sikh and South Asian “community leaders.” Judicial Watch uncovered documents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that includes a list of the individuals who participated, including radical leaders such as Hezbollah supporter Imad Hamad and extremist Salam Al-Marayati, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Considering this cozy relationship, the new DHS terrorism report should come as no surprise. It compares terrorist attacks to “ordinary crime” in large, metropolitan areas which is why the nation’s terrorism “hot spots” are Manhattan, Los Angeles County, Miami-Dade County Florida, San Francisco County and Washington, D.C. As if to downplay the distinct difference between crashing a plane into a high-rise and a mugging, the DHS says “terrorism and ordinary crime occur in many of the same areas.”

It stresses that the “Ideological motivation” for terrorist attacks varies greatly. For instance, the brilliant DHS minds found that certain counties are prone to a particular type of terrorist attack, including extreme right-wing, ethno-nationalist/separatist and “religiously motivated,” though no specific religion is mentioned. The report does point out however, that “religiously motivated attacks occurred predominately in the 1980s.”

Terrorism is also linked to social economic status, poverty, residential instability and “ethnic heterogeneity,” a dramatic change in the urban landscape caused by massive numbers of immigrants. Because neighborhoods were “rapidly transformed into centers of diversity,” the result was not immediately positive and some turned to terrorism, the DHS report seems to indicate.

The only mention of Islam is buried deep in the 36-page document as an example of “those who seek to politicize religion” along with “Christian Reconstructionists” and those who seek to bring about Armageddon, such as Jewish Direct Action and Mormon extremists. The study was conducted by the DHS’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a team of social scientists that research the causes and human consequences of terrorism in the U.S.

The job is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous as illegal aliens use more remote paths to avoid stepped up enforcement along the vast U.S.-Mexico border, according to testimony delivered recently by the director of Arizona’s Department of Environmental Quality. The state official, Henry Darwin, recently testified before an Arizona Senate committee in charge of border security and other related matters.

Each year illegal immigrants leave behind an estimated 2,000 tons of trash—including soiled diapers, plastic bottles and abandoned vehicles—in public Arizona lands along the border, Darwin said, and it’s becoming tougher to clean up the huge mess. “These are dangerous areas,” Darwin told the panel. “These are known areas of illegal immigration, illegal drug trafficking.”

Getting cleanup crews and equipment to these increasingly remote portions of the desert is, not only tough, but also hazardous. Camp sites set up by illegal immigrants and drug smugglers are the most difficult to clean up, Darwin said, and rain often washes trash into drainages before state workers have a chance to clean it up.

The problem is so severe that the state created a special web site dedicated to trash along Arizona’s 370-mile border with Mexico. It includes pictures of southern border areas covered with piles of waste as well as alarming statistics. For instance, the thousands of tons of trash discarded by illegal immigrants annually is having a detrimental environmental impact and affecting the area’s human health and the economic wellbeing.

Listed examples include strewn trash and piles, illegal trails and paths, erosion and watershed degradation, damaged infrastructure and property and loss of vegetation and wildlife. There is also lots of vandalism, graffiti and damage to historical and archaeological sites. Adding insult to injury, taxpayers pick up the exorbitant tab to clean it up. This so-called “landfill fee” ranges from $37 to $49 per ton in southern Arizona and that doesn’t even include costs for materials, equipment, labor and transportation.

For years American taxpayers have financed never-ending cleanup efforts along the southern border. That’s because millions of pounds of trash and human waste are left by illegal immigrants who cross through federal and state parks during their trek from Mexico into the U.S. A few years ago the federal government invested $63 million to clean up 25 million pounds of trash in the country’s most prized national forests, including Arizona’s Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and California’s Cleveland National Forest.

The effort barely put a dent on the problem because federal officials say the trash piles up at a much faster rate than it can be cleaned up. This continues to “cause extraordinary damage to natural resources and facilities,” according to congressional testimony delivered a few years ago by a high-ranking U.S. Forest official.

The cash—more than $13.7 million—mostly flowed under the leadership of ousted Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, who lost reelection in 2010. During his tenure Fenty was embroiled in a variety of scandals, including the use of taxpayer-funded ads to promote a family business that donated big bucks to his political campaign and controversial trips to Dubai and China on taxpayer time. Judicial Watch obtained documents related to the questionable jaunts which were financed by the foreign governments while Fenty served as an elected official of a U.S. city.

During that time, a charity (Peaceoholics) headed by Fenty’s pal got lots of federal and local cash without being held accountable for how the funds were spent. Several local newspapers have reported on the scandal in the last few years, but this week the area’s mainstream paper published a lengthy exposé that should make most people cringe. It outlines how millions in federal and local funds have been poured into “affordable” housing projects that were never completed.

The scathing article apparently embarrassed some members of the D.C. Council, which has been napping throughout this scandal. One councilman, Michael A. Brown, issued a press release following the story expressing deep concern by “evidence that has been uncovered pointing to unethical behavior and possible criminal malfeasance.” Brown is calling for an “investigation” of a more recent $4.6 million that Peaceoholics got to transform distressed apartments for troubled young men.

Instead, the project became something of a spending free-for-all for developers and contractors who knew redevelopment money was out on the street and in the hands of a novice nonprofit with unchecked authority to spend it,” according to the news story. It goes on to say: “The project was overseen at the housing agency by a top manager with real estate interests of his own who, along with other housing officials, often failed to impose fundamental spending rules and regular oversight. Instead of competitive bidding, Peaceoholics did business with friends and associates. Work often wasn’t tracked or documented.”

As outrageous as this may seem, this sort of thing is par for the course in D.C.’s perpetually corrupt government, which has been rocked by a series of scandals in recent years. Last summer Mayor Vincent Gray, a veteran councilman, was the subject of a corruption investigation for paying a mayoral candidate to stay in the race and trash dethroned, then-Mayor Fenty.

After becoming mayor last January Gray came under fire for hiring an army of senior staffers with lucrative salaries while the city suffered through a painful $400 million budget shortfall. Among Gray’s highly-paid employees are the son of his chief of staff and the daughter of a close adviser.

Who could forget Mayor Marion Barry—elected to the D.C. Council four times since his drug conviction—starring in an FBI surveillance video smoking crack? Barry, who represents Ward 8, has since been in trouble for failing to pay his taxes, violating the terms of his probation and stalking a former girlfriend.