If urgent security measures aren’t immediately applied the U.S. will likely suffer a nuclear or biological terrorist attack because the current administration has not devoted sufficient resources to such threats.

A bipartisan congressional commission created after the 2001 terrorist attacks warns that nuclear and biological terrorism threats are growing and that bioterrorists might soon create synthetic versions of killers such as Ebola or germs genetically modified to resist vaccines and antibiotics.

Charged with investigating weapons of mass destruction, the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism conducted a six-month investigation before publishing an alarming report which will be released at a press conference this week.

It reveals that the U.S. has promoted the proliferation of domestic labs holding virulent pathogens without implementing adequate safeguards to prevent deadly germs from being stolen or accidentally released. The number of such "high-containment" labs in the United States has actually tripled since 2001.

Commission investigators conclude that if the world’s nations, not just the U.S., don’t take immediate steps to prevent a nuclear or biological terrorist attack such an incident is likely within the next five years.

"Unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013," the report states in the opening sentence of the executive summary.

A rapper serving a lengthy prison sentence for smuggling cocaine, an embezzler and a tax evader are among those thankful for presidential pardons and commutations this week while a pair of U.S. Border Patrol agents spend another Thanksgiving in prison for intercepting an illegal immigrant drug smuggler. 

Once again President George W. Bush has pardoned or reduced the sentences of serious criminals while the veteran federal agents— Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean—rot in jail for doing their job. The men intercepted a van loaded with drugs while guarding the Mexican border near El Paso in 2005. The admitted drug smuggler, an illegal alien named Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, tried to flee and one of the agents shot him in the buttocks though he still got away.

Ramos and Compean were subsequently convicted on charges of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm and violating the drug smuggler's civil rights. The agents were sentenced to 11 and 12-year prison terms, outraging dozens of lawmakers from both parties who have pushed for pardons. 

This week marks the second time that Bush announces a list of pardons and commutations that, incredibly enough, excludes the agents. Last year the list featured 14 serious criminals, among them several drug dealers and a man convicted for bombing a coal mine.

An additional 14 convicts received the coveted presidential pardons and commutations this week, just in time to spend Thanksgiving at home with family. Among them is a rap artist serving a 14-year prison sentence after getting busted at Newark International Airport with a briefcase containing $1.4 million worth of cocaine.

Also off the hook is an income tax evader, a bank embezzler, a couple of unrelated men convicted for distribution of marijuana and cocaine and a woman who aided and abetted theft of government property. The entire list is available from the Justice Department.  

The new director of the White House Domestic Policy Council was a top congressional aide who unlawfully obstructed a federal judge’s confirmation in order to influence a high-profile affirmative action case.

Barack Obama’s pick (Melody Barnes) to head the highly influential office masterminded the scandalous scheme while she served as Senator Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel on the Judiciary Committee in 2002. Barnes successfully delayed the confirmation of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominee to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to influence the court’s ruling on an affirmative action case involving University of Michigan law school students.

In memos obtained by the media, Barnes directs Senator Kennedy to hold off on any 6th Circuit nominee until the University of Michigan case regarding the constitutionality of affirmative action in higher education is decided. Recognizing the impropriety of a delay for that purpose, one of the memos states that if a new judge with conservative views is confirmed before the case is decided, that new judge will be able to review the case and vote on it.

The judge, Julia Gibbons, was eventually confirmed a few months after the court ruled 5-4 to uphold Michigan’s affirmative action program. At the time Judicial Watch filed an ethics complaint with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics against Kennedy. 

The detailed complaint offers a timeline of the unlawful events and points out that the veteran Massachusetts Democrat and his agents deliberately manipulated both the judicial confirmation and legal processes to achieve a partisan political goal. 

Now the woman who orchestrated the illegal and unethical plot will serve as the next president’s top adviser in a wide range of crucial issues, including education, health, criminal justice and labor. The Domestic Policy Council was created by executive order in 1993 and officially includes the cabinet secretaries and administrators of key federal agencies that affect domestic issues. 

A Connecticut judge charged with drunken driving was taped in an epithet-laced rage during her arrest and authorities have refused a newspaper’s public records request of the official police video recording. 

The Hartford judge, E. Curtissa Cofield, was arrested last month when her fancy imported sports car struck the patrol car of a Connecticut State Trooper parked on the right shoulder of a highway. The state cruiser was protecting a construction zone and the intoxicated judge slammed her car into it. 

During the arrest, Judge Cofield, who is black, used demeaning racial epithets towards the arresting officer and warned that she was a state judge. She is also captured on the police video calling a state police sergeant named Dwight Washington “Negro Washington.” 

Although authorities have refused the newspaper’s Freedom of Information Act request for the tape, a columnist who is a lawyer and former state legislator, evidently saw it and wrote about it in a story published a few days ago. The paper is appealing the record denial to the state Freedom of Information Commission.

Judge Cofield had a court appearance in Manchester this week where she applied for a pretrial alcohol education program for first-time offenders. The presiding judge, who has received dozens of support letters on Cofield’s behalf, decided to delay a decision until December 8. Legal experts speculate he wants to see the now famous tape of the irate jurist. 

A former prosecutor, Judge Cofield was appointed to the bench in 1991 and was assigned to Superior Court in Manchester for four years before moving to Hartford’s community court. Ironically, she heard cases involving drunken driving charges. 

Four of the ailing financial institutions that received taxpayer bailout money—including a giant bank that got $300 billion this week—paid Bill Clinton millions of dollars to deliver his coveted speeches.

A news agency reports that Hillary Clinton’s Senate financial disclosure statements reveal that Bill got $2.1 million from major banks that later fell into a financial crisis. Among them are two that received federal bailout money, one that collapsed and another that filed for bankruptcy a few months ago.

The troubled institutions never the less had the funds to pay the former president hefty sums to deliver speeches. Citigroup, which just received its outrageous $300 billion government infusion, paid Clinton $700,000. Goldman Sachs paid him nearly $1 million, Leman Brothers $300,000 and Merrill Lynch $175,000. 

Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September and Goldman Sachs, the reputable investment firm, got a substantial chunk—$10 billion—of the massive federal bailout. 

Since leaving the White House, Clinton has made tens of millions of dollars delivering speeches around the world. In the last few years alone he made an astounding $52 million. Just last week the National Bank of Kuwait paid big bucks for one of his prized deliveries.

Less than a month after the notoriously corrupt mayor of Michigan’s largest city went to jail for perjury, the politician who replaced him faces the same serious charge. 

New Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel, who replaced convicted felon Kwame Kilpatrick, lied on a sworn statement that he had no unpaid campaign fees or outstanding campaign finance reports when he filed papers to run for mayor earlier this year. Cockrel actually owed more than $40,000 and Michigan’s attorney general has launched a perjury investigation. 

Michigan’s campaign finance law requires payment of all outstanding fines before running for public office and candidates must sign affidavits swearing compliance. The fines levied against Cockrel were connected with late reporting of campaign contributions.

It appears that perhaps the city’s new leader is following the disgraceful footsteps of its previous scandal-plagued mayor. Charged with nearly a dozen felonies, Kilpatrick is in jail for obstructing justice by lying under oath at a police whistleblower trial to cover an extra marital affair with a city staffer. 

The trial centered on cops that had been wrongfully fired for asking questions that could have exposed the mayor’s undercover romance and Kilpatrick ended up orchestrating a secret city deal to pay the officers nearly $9 million for their troubles. Details of the scandalous settlement were only made public after a local newspaper filed a public records lawsuit.

Kilpatrick subsequently got charged with two additional felonies for assaulting a sheriff’s detective trying to serve a subpoena on one of his shady friends. The irate mayor pushed the detective and attacked him and his partner with profanity and racial remarks. Kilpatrick later violated the terms of his bond. 

Under Barack Obama’s new attorney general the Justice Department will likely halt an Arizona sheriff’s crackdown on illegal immigration by claiming it constitutes racial profiling, according to legal experts and a mayor who offers illegal aliens sanctuary.

The high-profile arrests by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department were actually requested by numerous business owners and city leaders desperate to remedy the illegal immigration crisis that has overwhelmed their border state. In the absence of federal enforcement, the department has stepped in to rid the area of dozens of illegal immigrants—some violent criminals—who should have been deported long ago.

The sheriff’s department also restored much-needed law and order in a Phoenix business district (36th & Thomas) rife with solicitation, trespassing, loitering and public health ordinance violations long ignored by the city’s police department simply because the perpetrators were illegal immigrants. 

But illegal alien advocates and Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon have cried racism and ordered the FBI and Justice Department to investigate Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio for violating the civil rights of illegal aliens during arrests. In April Mayor Gordon wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking the Department of Justice to investigate “discriminatory harassment” and “improper” stops, searches and arrests by Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies who patrol the metropolitan area. 

No action has been taken by the feds and deputies have continued their effort to curb illegal immigration. That is highly likely to change under soon-to-be Attorney General Eric Holder, who investigated numerous local police departments for racial profiling while he helped run Bill Clinton’s Justice Department. 

Legal experts assure that Holder will scrutinize Arpaio’s crackdowns and probably launch a racial profiling investigation that could bring them to an end. Mayor Gordon, whose demand was blown off by Attorney General Mukasey, is ecstatic that the incoming administration will probably support his illegal immigrant sanctuary city. “The ball for civil rights has started rolling,” according to the mayor. 

Local governments and school districts throughout a state that prides itself on having among the nation’s best open records laws often violate public requests even though its Constitution requires access with minimal restrictions.

Cities, counties, school districts and sheriff departments throughout Florida regularly fail comply with the state’s renowned Sunshine Law, which guarantees every person the right to inspect or copy any public record and access to government proceedings at both the state and local levels. The Florida law is so sacred that Governor Charlie Crist created a special Office of Open Government to assure full and expeditious compliance in all cases.  

But an audit conducted by the state’s Society of Newspaper Editors reveals that more than 43% of public offices fail to comply with the law. They include sheriff’s departments and school districts in rural and big counties alike as well as county administrative offices with employees that challenge requests because they are clueless about the law.  

Dozens of volunteers—many undercover journalists—conducted public records requests at hundreds of universities, county offices, school districts and sheriff’s offices in one month. Many were brushed off or erroneously told that they had to speak to the superintendent, administrator or sheriff to obtain the information. Other cases were wrongfully delayed or ignored all together. 

While these blatant violations may seem unusual in a state well known for its transparency laws, this sort of thing is rampant in the federal government which is notorious for blowing off or severely delaying public records requests. In fact, most government agencies routinely fail to disclose information requested under a 1967 law (Freedom of Information Act—FOIA), that gives people the power to request information from federal government files.