The famously corrupt world body with a multi billion-dollar annual budget largely funded by the U.S. has drastically scaled back on fraud investigations, leaving numerous confirmed cases of theft and waste up in the air and allowing many more to continue unchallenged.

Long known as a severely mismanaged cesspool of malfeasance, the scandal-plagued United Nations created a special task force last year to help its joke of an anti-corruption unit tackle the monumental task of cleaning up widespread fraud, especially within its procurement department. The new permanent and highly touted investigative unit has turned out to be an even bigger joke than the task force, which was created in 2006.  

Although incidents of corruption have increased, the investigation division has dramatically dropped the number of cases opened, pursued or completed, according to a news report published this week. The media probe examined U.N. documents, audits and electronic mail along with dozens of interviews with current and former U.N. diplomats and officials. 

It reveals that, over the past year, not a single significant fraud or corruption case has been completed by the new U.N. unit, compared to an average of 150 cases a year probed by the existing task force. The new unit also practically dismantled its office by eliminating qualified staff and other crucial resources and halting existing investigations in at least five major cases in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa. 

This clearly indicates that the U.N. wants to continue covering up its crooked way of doing business. In the last few years alone, hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts have been tainted by fraud, corruption and mismanagement at the world body which annually receives billions of U.S. tax dollars. In fact, the U.S. is the co-founder and leading financial supporter of the U.N. 

The American dollars keep pouring in even though high-ranking U.N. officials have been criminally convicted for bribery and fraud and more than a dozen others have been exposed for soliciting bribes and rigging bids in the last few years alone. Among the biggest U.N. scandals is the $64 billion oil-for-food program that allowed Iraq to sell oil through the U.N. so that the proceeds could be used to purchase "humanitarian" goods for the Iraqi people. Instead, thousands of companies paid Saddam Hussein illegal surcharges and kickbacks as U.N. officials stood by. 

Incredibly, U.N. officials have the audacity to claim that the investigations division is “doing a very good job” and is “continuing the good work.” As the detailed news report points out, the U.N.’s track record over the past year alone suggests otherwise.

Utah has proudly become the nation’s first state to offer a special class of driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants who will be ineligible to obtain the cards when new federal security standards kick in.

Another illegal alien sanctuary state (Wisconsin) considered offering the same benefit but the measure, inserted into budget legislation, was killed at the last minute over the summer. Until this month Utah was one of four states—including Hawaii, New Mexico and Washington—that allowed illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses simply by not requiring proof of legal residency. Maryland ended the practice just last spring by denying licenses to motorists who can’t prove they’re in the country legally.

To protect illegal immigrant drivers when a national identification law (Real ID Act) takes effect, Utah actually created a two-tier system that assures undocumented aliens will get a special license valid only in the state. Motorists who are legal residents or citizens will receive a “regular” driver’s license and illegal aliens will get a driving privilege card, which can’t be used as identification at places such as airports.

Never the less, the cards will be recognized statewide as an official identification that brings with it driving privileges. The state’s Department of Public Safety issued an urgent bulletin warning Utah residents that, for the first time, evidence of identity, legal/lawful presence and a valid Social Security number will be required to obtain a regular driver’s license in order to meet the new federal standards. Imagine that. 

The director of Utah’s Driver License Division complained that the big change has caused a lot of confusion and will require the agency to “check all kinds of identification.” Latino rights advocates thanked Utah lawmakers for making the Beehive State the only to officially allow undocumented immigrants to drive and say they’ve been assured that no information will be shared with federal immigration authorities. 

Utah has long protected illegal immigrants and provided them with endless public benefits, including discounted tuition at public colleges and universities. Two of the state’s largest cities—Salt Lake City and Provo—have official sanctuary policies that forbid public employees or law enforcement officers from inquiring about a resident’s immigration status.

The policy inevitably led to the recent murder of a Utah sheriff’s deputy who was gunned down by an illegal immigrant with an extensive criminal record and multiple deportation orders. The Mexican illegal had several felony convictions and had been deported three times yet remained in the U.S. undetected because he lived in a sanctuary state. He shot the officer, a mother of two, during a traffic stop in west central Utah last week.

A veteran attorney in a Kentucky county prosecutor’s office claims she was fired for reporting that her boss, an elected official, illegally pressured lawyers in the department to donate money to his political campaign and party. 

Jefferson County Attorney Mike O'Connell used the "fear [of] his wrath" to pressure assistant prosecutors to donate to his political campaign and Democrats, according to a lawsuit filed this week by the fired prosecutor (Glenda Bradshaw). A former Jefferson County director of criminal prosecutions, Bradshaw says her boss “kept track of who did or did not contribute to his campaign” and “was known to summon the campaign contribution list if he was going to take employment action within his office."

She also claims in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed this week that O’Connell created a hostile work environment, discriminated against her because of her gender and retaliated against her for the actions she took. Before getting fired Bradshaw was a prosecutor for nearly 25 years, 16 of them at the county attorney’s office.

A former district and circuit court judge, O’Connell was appointed Jefferson County Attorney last summer as a replacement for the prosecutor who received a judicial appointment. He has been preparing his campaign to run for a full term in the May Democratic primary and has raised a chunk of cash from employees in the county attorney’s office he runs, according to state election finance records. 

It’s perfectly legal for employees to contribute to a public official’s election campaign as long as the donations are voluntary and not in any way coerced. O’Connell says he fired Bradshaw for failing to enforce a policy designed to track Louisville Metro Police officers who failed to appear in court and therefore neglecting to report the absences to the department. 

O’Connell implemented the system after a local newspaper published a series revealing that more than 600 felony defendants were freed in one year alone because officers failed to appear for district court hearings. Initially prosecutors kept a close watch on the absent cops, but eventually they “weren’t keeping score,” O’Connell said, adding that is what ultimately resulted in Bradshaw’s termination.

Regardless of what version the public believes, this sort of turmoil and legal drama among top prosecutors is certain to have a negative impact in Kentucky’s most populous county. After all, the public pays their salary to put away the bad guys not fight each other.

Once again highlighting how dangerously incompetent the nation's airline security system is, a passenger with tuberculosis took a 2,600-mile flight on a commercial plane even though his name appeared on a Homeland Security “do-not-board” list.

Authorities evidently realized that the visibly ill man had violated their security system after the flight, which originated in Philadelphia, landed at its San Francisco destination more than five hours later. The man was then detained and whisked away to a local hospital after federal health officials were notified. 

The damage had been done, however. Hundreds of unsuspecting passengers were needlessly exposed to the highly contagious fatal disease that primarily affects the lungs and can spread to the kidneys and spinal column. The infected male passenger slipped through even though he appeared on a do-not-board list submitted to both the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

He was noticeably ill, according to news reports, and government investigators are working to determine how he made it through security checkpoints and onto the flight. Imagine if the TB-infected passenger was a terrorist, who like the Nigerian Christmas Day bomber, boarded a flight even though his name appeared on one of those infamous government no-fly lists. 

This incident is simply the latest of many illustrating how vulnerable the nation’s transportation system is, especially aviation. The TSA was created after the 2001 terrorist attacks to secure the system but instead the 43,000-member Homeland Security agency is best known for its perpetual blunders despite getting billions of dollars from Congress to complete its mission.

Airplanes remain extremely vulnerable to terrorist attacks, according to various Homeland Security Inspector General probes, because the TSA fails to ensure the security of cargo packages transported on passenger planes and agency workers who handle cargo don’t receive the required background checks or training.

Dozens of other security failures have been documented over the years in other crucial areas nationwide, including TSA workers at three major airports missing hundreds of fake bombs during a covert exercise to determine if suspicious items could be smuggled into secure areas. Just a few weeks ago the TSA gave security badges to a dozen illegal immigrants who had presented fake Social Security numbers and other bogus documents to work in sensitive areas of a busy U.S. airport.

An army of U.S. lawmakers, their spouses and congressional staffers racked up an exorbitant tab to attend the laughable United Nations climate summit in Denmark last month and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was in charge of the invite list, doesn’t want Americans to know how much they dished out for the lavish jaunt.

Madam Speaker, who uses the U.S. military as her personal airlines, handpicked the lawmakers who attended the world conference which failed miserably to deliver a so-called global climate deal. Twenty federal legislators made the trip, but the number of Congress-related attendees was more than 100 when spouses and staffers are added. 

The information, which Pelosi has worked hard to keep secret, was made public this week by a major news outlet that has been digging around since the not-so-prestigious or influential U.S. delegation returned. It included House Tax Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (a member of Judicial Watch’s 2009 “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians”) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Getting details about the trip was like trying to get the keys to Ft. Knox, according to the news report.

In all, the congressional delegation used at least three military jets (ironically, spitting out enough climate-stunting carbon dioxide to fill 10,000 Olympic swimming pools) which cost taxpayers around $168,000 in flight time alone. Dozens of other legislators and their staff paid up to $2,000 each to fly commercial. 

U.S. taxpayers also financed 321 nights at a five-star Copenhagen hotel and tens of thousands of dollars worth of meals, drinks and fancy snacks. One Republican senator, Oklahoma’s James Inhofe, said attendance among his colleagues was high because “it’s the biggest party of the year.” He added that the worst thing that happened in Denmark is that they “ran out of caviar.”

None of the climate-conscious U.S. lawmakers seemed bothered that they spent so much money to attend an event that didn’t even come close to meeting its goal of convincing the world to curb greenhouse gas emissions. After all, the money didn’t come out of their pockets but rather from American taxpayers. And the party, it seems, was fantastic. 

In the never ending list of examples of fraud and abuse in President Obama’s massive stimulus program, tens of millions of taxpayer dollars are going to large corporations with documented histories of criminal practices in one state alone.

Several big—and no doubt politically connected—firms in California are raking in lucrative government stimulus contracts despite previous pollution violations, criminal probes and allegations of fraud, according to a local newspaper investigation. The businesses are all doing work in a relatively concentrated area of southern California, despite their shady pasts.

In Ventura County, airplane and defense contractor Boeing got a $16 million stimulus contract for environmental monitoring at the same county site (Simi Valley) where the company was fined for polluting a creek with chromium, dioxin, lead and mercury. A construction company facing three federal criminal probes for fraud got a $6.4 million stimulus deal to repair roads in three counties and a Denver-based firm that dished out $3 million to settle a lawsuit over operating rodent-infested buildings littered with safety hazards got $13 million to rehabilitate a housing complex in Los Angeles.

These are just a few recent examples of the pervasive corruption in the monstrous $787 billion stimulus that Obama promised would jumpstart the economy and put Americans back to work. Instead, unemployment is at an all-time high and tens of billions of dollars have been lost to waste, fraud and abuse. Much of the wasteful spending was documented early on in a lengthy congressional report (A Second Opinion on the Stimulus) that reviews the first few thousand projects. 

Among them is a $3 million turtle crossing in northern Florida, the $10 million renovation of an abandoned train station that has been shut for three decades and 10,000 dead people getting Social Security stimulus checks. Nearly $16 million went to repair dozens of seldom-used bridges in rural areas of Wisconsin, $2 million to a nonprofit that bungled a federal low-income housing program and $1 million to build a guardrail around a nonexistent Oklahoma lake.

Just last month Hillary Clinton’s longtime confidant and chief campaign strategist got $6 million in federal stimulus funds to save three jobs at his global public relations firm. A cut of the money went to one of Obama’s top Florida advisers, a Cuban-American lobbyist who pushed hard for the president in Dade County’s traditionally Republican Hispanic market.

A few months ago the Department of Defense awarded $30 million in federal stimulus contracts to half a dozen companies under criminal investigation for defrauding the government. The six firms actually got the lucrative Pentagon deals while they were under federal criminal investigation for cheating the government. 

In a case that resembles many others nationwide, an illegal immigrant who recently murdered a Utah law enforcement officer has an extensive criminal record and multiple deportation orders yet remained in the U.S. undetected. 

The tragic incident accentuates the lingering weaknesses in the federal immigration enforcement system and lack of collaboration by local municipalities that protect illegal aliens with official sanctuary policies and other less formal don’t-ask-don’t tell practices. 

This time the victim was Millard County Sheriff Deputy Josie Greathouse Fox, a 37-year-old wife and mother of two. Roberto Miramontes Roman, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, shot the small-town law enforcement officer in west central Utah during a traffic stop last week. Roman has an extensive criminal record, including guilty pleas to charges ranging from third-degree felony drug possession to receiving stolen property and various weapons counts.  

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials say Roman has been deported three times. He was first deported in 1998 after a criminal conviction in Utah and arrested twice when attempting to re-enter the country illegally in Arizona and California. Roman was convicted on federal immigration charges in Arizona and served time in a federal prison.

He made no secret about his violent tendencies and even set up a page on a popular internet social networking site to advertise his various firearms, including a pair of handguns and an AK-47 semiautomatic assault rifle. Roman was pictured holding the guns and claiming that he was feeling “crazy” and “ready for whatever is next.”

The murderer’s family claims he’s not really an illegal immigrant, but rather a local guy who happened to be born in Mexico. Roman’s parents came to Utah illegally with their five children about three decades ago and sincerely consider their Mexican children Utahans because they were raised there, albeit illegally. 

Despite a substantial criminal record, Roman’s illegal immigrant mother, who still lives in Utah with the rest of the undocumented family, claims her beloved son would never murder a cop, especially since she “never saw him kill a jackrabbit.” By the time he was 20 Roman, who came to Utah at the age of 7, had already been convicted on drug charges. His life went downhill from there.

Numerous other illegal immigrants with criminal records have remained in the U.S. to commit heinous crimes similar to this. In the last few years alone illegal immigrants with extensive rap sheets have murdered law enforcement officers in Arizona and Texas and countless others have killed or otherwise victimized innocent civilians throughout the nation, including California, Maryland and New Jersey. In all of the cases, states or local municipalities offer illegal aliens protection in the form of sanctuary. 

The federal judge who made headlines in 2008 for liberating more than a dozen Guantanamo Muslim terrorists in the U.S. has ordered the release of an admitted Al-Qaeda operative because the jihadist’s confessions were tainted by torture.

The self-professed Yemeni terrorist, Saeed Mohammed Saleh Hatim, has been incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay military prison since 2002. He was an Al-Qaeda operative in Afghanistan who supported Taliban fighters near Bagram, among others. His admissions to U.S. military interrogators closely parallel those of other young Yemeni men recruited by Al-Qaeda to wage jihad, according to military officials.  

Hatim trained at the al-Farouq terrorist camp, stayed in Al-Qaeda safe houses and fought against U.S. and coalition forces at the Battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the government’s complaint. He was captured near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in 2002 and subsequently taken to the military prison in Cuba. 

This week U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina in Washington D.C. ordered Hatim be freed, ruling that the terrorist’s confession is unreliable because he now claims it was obtained under torture. “The government’s allegations rest almost entirely upon admissions made by the petitioner—admissions that the petitioner contends he made only because he had previously been tortured while in U.S. custody,” Urbina wrote in his 31-page decision.  

The judge further points out that Hatim claims that he was held for six months at a U.S. military base in Kandahar and severely mistreated, repeatedly beaten, kicked in the knees and blindfolded. Only after he was threatened with rape, the judge writes, did Hatim confess to being a member of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The terrorist made an identical confession two years later out of fear that he would be punished for changing his story, the opinion says. 

This is the same Clinton-appointed judge who in late 2008 ordered the release of 17 Chinese Muslim Uighur prisoners captured in Afghanistan. The jihadists couldn’t be repatriated to their home country because Beijing considered them terrorists and would torture them and Judge Urbina, determined to liberate them, released them in the United States. 

The Chinese Muslims had trained at camps sponsored by the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, a terrorist organization, and military and intelligence officials deemed them a national security threat. The judge insisted they be brought to his chambers in order to liberate them on his courthouse steps and ordered immigration officials to neither question nor detain the group.