Joette Katz, the new supervisor of the DCF is currently on trial for the 5 month old boy that died in the care of DCF. Child advocates are waiting to see if the new commissioner of Children and Families has the resolve to avoid the mistakes of some predecessors, who hastily removed children from their homes.

“What has happened in the past is this tendency that whenever there’s a problem the decision is to just automatically remove a child from their home,” said Jeanne Milstein, the state’s child advocate. “It’s sometimes been an overreaction by the agency.”

The agency has been under federal court supervision for two decades, following a class-action lawsuit filed by child advocates alleging that the state took children from their families too often, among other complaints. On any given day there are about 4,300 children in state custody and thousands more living at home being supervised by DCF.

Martha Stone, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said after Katz took office four months ago it was inevitable that a child would die during her tenure, as is the case with the leader of every child-protection agency. The challenge, Stone said, would be to stay focused on broader reforms.

“There will always be crisis. There will always be a death, unfortunately,” Stone said. “You have to keep your eyes on the prize.”  Funny, the prize for me would be to stop killing our future and ripping families apart, I am not sure what the surprise for her is.

In an interview Wednesday, Katz said the death will not deter her from implementing a sweeping package of changes for the agency, nor will it result in any immediate policy changes.

“I think in the past that’s been exactly the mistake, frankly,” Katz said. “A child dies and the next thing you know workers are getting thrown under the bus and 500 children get removed [from their homes] the next day because it’s a reaction to a tragedy. I think that’s the exact wrong way to behave.”

I am in utter shock how easily they worded that I mean geeze people all that happens are children dying and people losing their families and you are getting all in a tizzy about it.  Grow up, shit happens, baby dies, we need to keep our course they say!

Stone said a similar incident faced former DCF Commissioner Linda Rossi on her first few months on the job with the death of Baby Emily.  (Well that is words of wisdom Stone, my mom used to say all the time, if other people are jumping off a bridge in front of a train it is OK for you to as well, I mean why the hell not.  If other people can kill babies and get away with it, why can’t you, what a fair question.

“You cannot let tragedies derail you,” she said. “I don’t want to be glib and say there are going to be other [deaths]. You hope there is never a death of a child. But it’s like saying to a police officer you’re never going to have a homicide, or to a firefighter, you’re never going to have a fire. That’s not just reality, which is why it’s that much more important to have good policies in place.”

However this case does play out, one reality will always remain, said Sarah Eagan, a lawyer for the Center for Children’s advocacy.

“You can’t predict outcomes all the time. That’s the tragic reality,” she said. “In the end, you have to take your best evidence and be allowed to make your best decision in each case.”

Some last words of wisdom, if there are fire fighters there will be fires, if there are police there will be homicides, and if there is the DCF there will be baby deaths.  I wonder if these people actually believe or even think about what they are saying before they say it.  Well looks like another couple of years of surprises fires and baby deaths, yippee for all of us and to all,… no, this is wrong, I cant even joke about it.  You people are pathetic, and I wish you would hire a personal swimming guard so that as you say, you will drowned in your big private pools.

Source: http://www.ctmirror.org/story/12962/dcf

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As expected Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed a bill  that would have eliminated the business entity tax for 46,000 small businesses by creating a temporary tax on residents that earned Troubled Asset Relief Program bonuses.

“However well-intentioned, I cannot sign into law a bill that creates an instant budget deficit,” Rell said in a press release. “And while – like many people – I am outraged that any business that took a federal bailout would be paying out big bonuses to its executives, the law does not permit us to target individuals with punitive taxes.“

During the Senate floor debate on the bill, Sen. Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said the TARP bonus “surcharge” is entirely equitable because it provides relief for small businesses.

“This is a way of bringing attention to those businesses that need help in Connecticut,” Looney concluded.

But Rell assumed that the constitutionality of the surcharge or tax, which Attorney General Richard Blumenthal opined was “likely constitutional” would be challenged in court.

“Even if the TARP tax were to survive such a legal challenge, the court case would be long and expensive, adding to the burden on Connecticut’s already hard-pressed budget,” Rell said. “And given the state’s precarious financial condition, we would be taking chances we cannot afford to take if we were to spend the revenues from that tax until the court case was definitively resolved. All in all, this is simply not a bill I can support.”

Sen. President Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, the main proponent of the bill, said he is disappointed in the veto.

“I am disappointed that Gov. Rell has decided to veto a bill that offered immediate tax relief to more than 46,000 small businesses across Connecticut,” said Williams. “Small businesses account for the vast majority of new jobs in Connecticut and this initiative would have offered help where it is needed most. Our plan to compensate for the tax cut by implementing a temporary surcharge on large Wall Street bank bonuses was fair and legally sound.”

While opinions on the legality of the tax vary, it’s unlikely the Democrat-controlled General Assembly will be able to override the veto.

The House voted 89 to 49 and the Senate voted 21 to 14 on the legislation. In order to override a veto the House would need 101 votes and the Senate would need 24 votes.

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VERNON, CT

Minutes before he was sentenced to what could be the rest of his life behind bars, Craig Niles apologized to the girl whom he began sexually abusing when she was 10 years old.

“I don’t know how best to say how truly and deeply I am sorry for the harm I’ve done to the victim,” Niles, 61, said Friday at Superior Court.

The girl, now 13, looked on from the court gallery as he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Judge Terence A. Sullivan also ordered that he serve 15 years of special parole and register as a sex offender.

Niles pleaded guilty in January to impairing the morals of a child, promoting a minor in an obscene performance, employing a minor in an obscene performance, possession of child pornography and four counts of first-degree sexual assault. The victim, who had been placed in Niles’ Stafford home by a foster care agency, told investigators he used a webcam to stream a video of him abusing her to others over the Internet.

“It’s clear to me that you are and will always be a danger to children,” Sullivan said before sentencing Niles.

State police and FBI agents raided Niles’ West Stafford Road home in 2008, uncovering more than 50 videos of child pornography and more than 300 photographs of the victim, many of which were pornographic. Police began investigating after an officer in Suffolk County, N.Y., chatted with him online about child pornography.

The undercover officer pretended to be interested in sex with children, according to court documents, and he and Niles carried on an explicit conversation. Niles’ screen name was “KidsR4Sex.”

The abuse began when the girl was placed in Niles’ care. He told authorities he had long been attracted to children and started collecting child pornography in 1994, after a car accident left him with a spinal cord injury. Unable to work, he spent a lot of time online gleaning images of boys and girls.

Niles, who also was caring for two foster boys, claimed he told the state Department of Children and Families to place only young boys in his home because he feared that he couldn’t control himself with young girls, according to court papers.

He was not licensed by DCF but was approved as a foster parent by Dare Family Services, based in Somerville, Mass. The agency has an office in East Hartford.

During initial interviews with police, Niles minimized his conduct, contending that the girl was very affectionate and forward. “I felt that it was OK because she was initiating the contact,” he told authorities.

Much of the abuse occurred when Niles’ wife, a then-33-year-old woman from Thailand, was away from the home, or at night. Niles said he slept in a separate bedroom because he snored.

The girl was 10 and 11 years old when he sexually abused her, prosecutor Elizabeth C. Leaming said.

A wheelchair-bound Niles said Friday that a pre-sentence report read by the judge “understated the remorse” he felt for committing the crime.

His lawyer, David Channing, said Niles had come to terms with the matter and “admitted taking advantage of her.”

Sullivan said the 20-year sentence was appropriate.

“You suggested, if not implied … that because she was affectionate, she became a willing participant in sexual activity,” Sullivan told Niles. “That’s just beyond me. I don’t know how anyone could think in those terms.”

Copyright © 2010, The Hartford Courant

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The mission of the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) is to eliminate discrimination through civil and human rights law enforcement and to establish equal opportunity and justice for all persons within the state through advocacy and education.

ALERT!

All proceedings at the

Office of Public Hearings

are suspended until further notice.

Please contact 860-418-8770 for further information.

Good job CT we love you!!!

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Recently I have been trying to find what has happened to some of our nice D.C.F workers that were caught committing crimes.  Most workers like here, Mr. Gold is still working for the Department of Children and Families.  This is shocking to me, why should my taxes be used to pay a convicted felon?

What did Mr. Gold do?  Drive drunk like the commissioner?  Maybe Jay walk on a busy road?  No, he approached an ATM where a card had been left into it, and instead of removing the card and returning it to the bank or finding it’s rightful owner he decided to use it and withdraw some cash for himself.  Now of course he told police he was going to return the card and the cash, but just all seems suspect to me.  Gold who works for the DCF is actually a supervisor, one of the men and women the other workers are supposed to look up to, he should be a role model,  not a thief.

Thanks for taking that trip back into time with me, looks like the present, the past and my guess the future holds no change.  sad state of affairs if you ask me.

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If you remember in your high school writing classes the first sentence is supposed to drawer your reader in, and catch their attention so that they want to continue to read.  Here is the first few words of this article, I must say, mission accomplished!

If any state agency had monumentally failed in its mission

If only the DCF did their job as well as this writer, it would be a real agency protecting real children!

—————————————————–

Title: DCF COMMISSIONER SHOULD RESIGN OR BE FIRED IMMEDIATELY

After police were left on hold for over half an hour, trying to report abuse and neglect with 5 children living in filthy conditions, with drugs and bags of death laying around, ok not death but anyways.  The parents of these poor 5 children were arrested over a month ago, for drugs and abuse, and still the children were left to fend for themselves in the house.

Filth and danger, check.Illegal drugs within the reach of minors, check.  High and neglectful parents, check.  Children not removed from home, check.  DCF doing a satisfactory job…  Sure says the commissioner.

Well you know what, if I was asked to grade myself: A+.

So CT DCF’s agency’s commissioner decided he would investigate this situation and found that things could have been ‘better’ but all and all they did their job.

I must admit, I am glad to finally report for once that DCF is doing their job and everything is o

k.  Sure the kids were subjected to a garbage and drug infested living environment but DCF did their job and that is what makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Well then, DCF my hat is off to you!

Source: http://www.middletownpress.com/articles/2010/09/02/news/doc4c80244225caf698590856.txt

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We can’t expect the state Department of Children and Families to solve all of the ugly problems of poverty.

But CT DCF must protect children — even if it means removing them from their parents.

That’s what is at stake in an explosive parental neglect case in Torrington now under investigation by the state’s child advocate. CT DCF apparently dismissed warnings from police about a family in which children were in imminent danger. Making matters worse, CT DCF had apparently already concluded that Erica Shaw and Mark Johnson were unfit to be parents.

Torrington police were called to Shaw and Johnson’s apartment by a worried neighbor on July 11. Two days earlier, CT DCF had been in court seeking custody of their five children.

Yet on the night of July 11, DCF found little cause for concern when police called a CT DCF hot line — and were left on hold for 30 minutes — to complain about alarming conditions in the filthy apartment where they found no sign of Shaw or Johnson and an apparently inebriated babysitter.

A CT DCF social worker summoned by the police who visited the apartment early on the morning of July 12 allowed the five children — all 5 and under — to remain with Shaw.

Hours earlier, local police saw it differently.

“The home had empty alcohol bottles on the floor, open pill/narcotic containers lying in full accessibility to the children, marijuana on the floor, food throughout all the rooms, some of which was spoiled, in addition to dirty clothes piles in every corner of the home,” a newly released arrest warrant for Shaw says. “The children were all currently sleeping but appeared dirty, disheveled … and smelled of urine.”

Investigations by CT DCF and the state’s child advocate are now underway to determine how CT DCF came to leave the children with Shaw and Johnson — and why Torrington police were placed on hold for 30 minutes when they first called the hot line.

In this case, the children were not harmed. They are now in state custody.

We’ve heard a resounding silence from all the candidates for governor and lieutenant governor about this outrage. Although some of them have time to visit farms or go for bike rides, you would think they could make time to say something about protecting children.

Shaw and Johnson were arrested on July 13 and their children taken into state custody after an outraged judge learned about CT DCF’s failure to act. Shaw was arrested again on additional risk of injury charges this week.

New details raise more questions about DCF’s failure to act on the night of July 11.

Two days after CT DCF declined to remove the children, a CT DCF official told Torrington police that it had received 22 complaints about Shaw and Johnson. Six were substantiated for physical neglect.

“The family had multiple referrals for poor housing conditions, poor supervision of their children … and numerous other poor decision-making issues,” Torrington police concluded. Additionally, in April of this year, DCF found numerous problems on a visit to the home, including “unacceptable” sanitary conditions and children without supervision.

“The kids are always filthy, there is always spoiled food being fed to the kids, and the apartment is being used for drug sales,” police said a witness told them on the night of July 11.

“On Friday they are in court to get the kids removed. And then you get a hot line report. Talk about a red flag,” said Jeanne Milstein, the state’s child advocate.

Department spokesman Josh Howroyd told me that it isn’t easy to make “some difficult judgments on the spot.”

He’s right — except that making a mistake can have tragic consequences, as we’ve seen in recent years with CT DCF.

“One of the major questions is was that assessment taking into account all the circumstances that existed in the home?” Howroyd said.

The department’s own internal investigation will look at why the children were left in Shaw and Johnson’s care when CT DCF had already concluded that these parents were unfit.

“That is the question on everybody’s mind,” Howroyd told me. “”The real question is why weren’t they immediately removed when they got the call?”

We have been asking questions like this for years. Like the cops in Torrington on the night of July 11, we remain on hold.

Source: http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-green-dcf0723-20100723,0,1061179.column

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SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn. — Two South Windsor residents have been charged in connection with an investigation into the abuse of a 6-year-old child, police said.

Tyler Bliss, 25, and Kimberly Rohde, 22, were arrested after an investigation launched by the Department of Children and Families in May into the treatment of children at their home, police said.

Bliss was charged with third-degree assault and risk of injury to a minor. Rohde was charged with disorderly conduct and risk of injury to a minor.

South Windsor police said the living conditions in the couple’s home was considered unacceptable to CT DCF officials and the child reported being hit with a belt.

Source: http://www.wfsb.com/news/24223036/detail.html

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Washington, DC

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes:

1. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT): This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 “Ten Most Corrupt” list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him. In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat. In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against Dodd for undervaluing a property he owns in Ireland on his Senate Financial Disclosure forms. Judicial Watch’s complaint forced Dodd to amend the forms. However, press reports suggest the property to this day remains undervalued. Judicial Watch also alleges in the complaint that Dodd obtained a sweetheart deal for the property in exchange for his assistance in obtaining a presidential pardon (during the Clinton administration) and other favors for a long-time friend and business associate. The false financial disclosure forms were part of the cover-up. Dodd remains the head the Senate Banking Committee.

2. Senator John Ensign (R-NV): A number of scandals popped up in 2009 involving public officials who conducted illicit affairs, and then attempted to cover them up with hush payments and favors, an obvious abuse of power. The year’s worst offender might just be Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign. Ensign admitted in June to an extramarital affair with the wife of one of his staff members, who then allegedly obtained special favors from the Nevada Republican in exchange for his silence. According to The New York Times: “The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide…” The former staffer, Douglas Hampton, began to lobby Mr. Ensign’s office immediately upon leaving his congressional job, despite the fact that he was subject to a one-year lobbying ban. Ensign seems to have ignored the law and allowed Hampton lobbying access to his office as a payment for his silence about the affair. (These are potentially criminal offenses.) It looks as if Ensign misused his public office (and taxpayer resources) to cover up his sexual shenanigans.

3. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): Judicial Watch is investigating a $12 million TARP cash injection provided to the Boston-based OneUnited Bank at the urging of Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. As reported in the January 22, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal, the Treasury Department indicated it would only provide funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending. Not only was OneUnited Bank in massive financial turmoil, but it was also “under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives’ use.” Rep. Frank admitted he spoke to a “federal regulator,” and Treasury granted the funds. (The bank continues to flounder despite Frank’s intervention for federal dollars.) Moreover, Judicial Watch uncovered documents in 2009 that showed that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues, even as liberals led by Rep. Frank continued to block attempts to rein in the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs). For example, during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie, Rep. Frank stated: “I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury.” Frank received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 1989 and 2008. Frank also engaged in a relationship with a Fannie Mae Executive while serving on the House Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

4. Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner: In 2009, Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted that he failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes from 2001-2004 on his lucrative salary at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organization with 185 member countries that oversees the global financial system. (Did we mention Geithner now runs the IRS?) It wasn’t until President Obama tapped Geithner to head the Treasury Department that he paid back most of the money, although the IRS kindly waived the hefty penalties. In March 2009, Geithner also came under fire for his handling of the AIG bonus scandal, where the company used $165 million of its bailout funds to pay out executive bonuses, resulting in a massive public backlash. Of course as head of the New York Federal Reserve, Geithner helped craft the AIG deal in September 2008. However, when the AIG scandal broke, Geithner claimed he knew nothing of the bonuses until March 10, 2009. The timing is important. According to CNN: “Although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told congressional leaders on Tuesday that he learned of AIG’s impending $160 million bonus payments to members of its troubled financial-products unit on March 10, sources tell TIME that the New York Federal Reserve informed Treasury staff that the payments were imminent on Feb. 28. That is ten days before Treasury staffers say they first learned ‘full details’ of the bonus plan, and three days before the [Obama] Administration launched a new $30 billion infusion of cash for AIG.” Throw in another embarrassing disclosure in 2009 that Geithner employed “household help” ineligible to work in the United States, and it becomes clear why the Treasury Secretary has earned a spot on the “Ten Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington” list.

5. Attorney General Eric Holder: Tim Geithner can be sure he won’t be hounded about his tax-dodging by his colleague Eric Holder, US Attorney General. Judicial Watch strongly opposed Holder because of his terrible ethics record, which includes: obstructing an FBI investigation of the theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory; rejecting multiple requests for an independent counsel to investigate alleged fundraising abuses by then-Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton White House; undermining the criminal investigation of President Clinton by Kenneth Starr in the midst of the Lewinsky investigation; and planning the violent raid to seize then-six-year-old Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint in order to return him to Castro’s Cuba. Moreover, there is his soft record on terrorism. Holder bypassed Justice Department procedures to push through Bill Clinton’s scandalous presidential pardons and commutations, including for 16 members of FALN, a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group that orchestrated approximately 120 bombings in the United States, killing at least six people and permanently maiming dozens of others, including law enforcement officers. His record in the current administration is no better. As he did during the Clinton administration, Holder continues to ignore serious incidents of corruption that could impact his political bosses at the White House. For example, Holder has refused to investigate charges that the Obama political machine traded VIP access to the White House in exchange for campaign contributions – a scheme eerily similar to one hatched by Holder’s former boss, Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The Holder Justice Department also came under fire for dropping a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. On Election Day 2008, Black Panthers dressed in paramilitary garb threatened voters as they approached polling stations. Holder has also failed to initiate a comprehensive Justice investigation of the notorious organization ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which is closely tied to President Obama. There were allegedly more than 400,000 fraudulent ACORN voter registrations in the 2008 campaign. And then there were the journalist videos catching ACORN Housing workers advising undercover reporters on how to evade tax, immigration, and child prostitution laws. Holder’s controversial decisions on new rights for terrorists and his attacks on previous efforts to combat terrorism remind many of the fact that his former law firm has provided and continues to provide pro bono representation to terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Holder’s politicization of the Justice Department makes one long for the days of Alberto Gonzales.

6. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)/ Senator Roland Burris (D-IL): One of the most serious scandals of 2009 involved a scheme by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to sell President Obama’s then-vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. Two men caught smack dab in the middle of the scandal: Senator Roland Burris, who ultimately got the job, and Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, emissaries for Jesse Jackson Jr., named “Senate Candidate A” in the Blagojevich indictment, reportedly offered $1.5 million to Blagojevich during a fundraiser if he named Jackson Jr. to Obama’s seat. Three days later federal authorities arrested Blagojevich. Burris, for his part, apparently lied about his contacts with Blagojevich, who was arrested in December 2008 for trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat. According to Reuters: “Roland Burris came under fresh scrutiny…after disclosing he tried to raise money for the disgraced former Illinois governor who named him to the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama…In the latest of those admissions, Burris said he looked into mounting a fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich — later charged with trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat — at the same time he was expressing interest to the then-governor’s aides about his desire to be appointed.” Burris changed his story five times regarding his contacts with Blagojevich prior to the Illinois governor appointing him to the U.S. Senate. Three of those changing explanations came under oath.

7. President Barack Obama: During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to run an ethical and transparent administration. However, in his first year in office, the President has delivered corruption and secrecy, bringing Chicago-style political corruption to the White House. Consider just a few Obama administration “lowlights” from year one: Even before President Obama was sworn into office, he was interviewed by the FBI for a criminal investigation of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s scheme to sell the President’s former Senate seat to the highest bidder. (Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and slumlord Valerie Jarrett, both from Chicago, are also tangled up in the Blagojevich scandal.) Moreover, the Obama administration made the startling claim that the Privacy Act does not apply to the White House. The Obama White House believes it can violate the privacy rights of American citizens without any legal consequences or accountability. President Obama boldly proclaimed that “transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,” but his administration is addicted to secrecy, stonewalling far too many of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act requests and is refusing to make public White House visitor logs as federal law requires. The Obama administration turned the National Endowment of the Arts (as well as the agency that runs the AmeriCorps program) into propaganda machines, using tax dollars to persuade “artists” to promote the Obama agenda. According to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the idea emerged as a direct result of the Obama campaign and enjoyed White House approval and participation. President Obama has installed a record number of “czars” in positions of power. Too many of these individuals are leftist radicals who answer to no one but the president. And too many of the czars are not subject to Senate confirmation (which raises serious constitutional questions). Under the President’s bailout schemes, the federal government continues to appropriate or control — through fiat and threats — large sectors of the private economy, prompting conservative columnist George Will to write: “The administration’s central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.” Government-run healthcare and car companies, White House coercion, uninvestigated ACORN corruption, debasing his office to help Chicago cronies, attacks on conservative media and the private sector, unprecedented and dangerous new rights for terrorists, perks for campaign donors — this is Obama’s “ethics” record — and we haven’t even gotten through the first year of his presidency.

8. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): At the heart of the corruption problem in Washington is a sense of entitlement. Politicians believe laws and rules (even the U.S. Constitution) apply to the rest of us but not to them. Case in point: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her excessive and boorish demands for military travel. Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Pentagon in 2009 that suggest Pelosi has been treating the Air Force like her own personal airline. These documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, include internal Pentagon email correspondence detailing attempts by Pentagon staff to accommodate Pelosi’s numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker’s 11th hour cancellations and changes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also came under fire in April 2009, when she claimed she was never briefed about the CIA’s use of the waterboarding technique during terrorism investigations. The CIA produced a report documenting a briefing with Pelosi on September 4, 2002, that suggests otherwise. Judicial Watch also obtained documents, including a CIA Inspector General report, which further confirmed that Congress was fully briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques. Aside from her own personal transgressions, Nancy Pelosi has ignored serious incidents of corruption within her own party, including many of the individuals on this list. (See Rangel, Murtha, Jesse Jackson, Jr., etc.)

9. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the rest of the PMA Seven: Rep. John Murtha made headlines in 2009 for all the wrong reasons. The Pennsylvania congressman is under federal investigation for his corrupt relationship with the now-defunct defense lobbyist PMA Group. PMA, founded by a former Murtha associate, has been the congressman’s largest campaign contributor. Since 2002, Murtha has raised $1.7 million from PMA and its clients. And what did PMA and its clients receive from Murtha in return for their generosity? Earmarks — tens of millions of dollars in earmarks. In fact, even with all of the attention surrounding his alleged influence peddling, Murtha kept at it. Following an FBI raid of PMA’s offices earlier in 2009, Murtha continued to seek congressional earmarks for PMA clients, while also hitting them up for campaign contributions. According to The Hill, in April, “Murtha reported receiving contributions from three former PMA clients for whom he requested earmarks in the pending appropriations bills.” When it comes to the PMA scandal, Murtha is not alone. As many as six other Members of Congress are currently under scrutiny according to The Washington Post. They include: Peter J. Visclosky (D-IN.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-VA), Norm Dicks (D-WA.), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS.). Of course rather than investigate this serious scandal, according to Roll Call House Democrats circled the wagons, “cobbling together a defense to offer political cover to their rank and file.” The Washington Post also reported in 2009 that Murtha’s nephew received $4 million in Defense Department no-bid contracts: “Newly obtained documents…show Robert Murtha mentioning his influential family connection as leverage in his business dealings and holding unusual power with the military.”

10. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): Rangel, the man in charge of writing tax policy for the entire country, has yet to adequately explain how he could possibly “forget” to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income he earned from his off-shore rental property. He also faces allegations that he improperly used his influence to maintain ownership of highly coveted rent-controlled apartments in Harlem, and misused his congressional office to fundraise for his private Rangel Center by preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company in exchange for funding. On top of all that, Rangel recently amended his financial disclosure reports, which doubled his reported wealth. (He somehow “forgot” about $1 million in assets.) And what did he do when the House Ethics Committee started looking into all of this? He apparently resorted to making “campaign contributions” to dig his way out of trouble. According to WCBS TV, a New York CBS affiliate: “The reigning member of Congress’ top tax committee is apparently ‘wrangling’ other politicos to get him out of his own financial and tax troubles…Since ethics probes began last year the 79-year-old congressman has given campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him.” Charlie Rangel should not be allowed to remain in Congress, let alone serve as Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and he knows it. That’s why he felt the need to disburse campaign contributions to Ethics Committee members and other congressional colleagues.

Source: http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2009/dec/judicial-watch-announces-list-washington-s-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-2009