“Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians”

[Warph]

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2011 list of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians."  

The list, in alphabetical order, includes:
Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
Former Senator John Ensign (R-NV)
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
Attorney General Eric
Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
President Barack Obama
Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)
Rep. David Rivera (R-FL)
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
Rep. Don Young (R-AK)


Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:
Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC)
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA)
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius

[Warph]

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius : What did Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius discuss during all of those secret Obamacare meetings she held with Vice President Biden and Big Labor leaders? Obamacare waivers would be an excellent guess.

In September 2011, HHS announced an arbitrary cut-off to waiver applications, which had skyrocketed to 1,472 unions and companies seeking to get out from underneath the Obama administration's healthcare overhaul. At the time of the cut-off, approximately 50% of the waivers granted covered employees of unions, even though union workers represent about 12% of the total workforce!

From the beginning, HHS has kept these waivers shrouded in secrecy. Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against HHS on December 30, 2010, and yet the agency refuses to explain to the American people how decisions were made regarding which organizations received or did not receive a waiver.

While HHS was disproportionately doling out waivers to unions, JW also obtained documents from HHS that provide new details on a massive, taxpayer-funded, multimedia campaign designed to promote Obamacare. The total cost of this campaign, which notably targets Obama's electoral coalition, could reach as much as $200 million over the next five years.

And this is how HHS describes the key to success for this campaign: "Health and program-related messages are processed by the target audience according to a particular reality, which he or she experiences. Attitudes, feelings, values, needs, desires, behaviors and beliefs all play a part in the individual's decision to accept information and make a behavioral change." In other words, the Obama administration is paying hired guns a lot of your money to manipulate American taxpayers into "accepting" the Obama way and "changing" their behavior.

This is certainly what HHS was trying to do with a series of three Medicare television advertisements featuring actor Andy Griffith. As Judicial Watch uncovered through FOIA, the Obama administration spent $3,184,000 in taxpayer funds to produce and air the advertisements on national television in September and October 2010. According to FactCheck.org, a project of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, the advertisements intentionally misinformed the American people.

And then there's healthcare rationing. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS), which is under the auspices of HHS, proposed that Provenge, a Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for prostate cancer, be placed under a controversial "review." After enormous public scrutiny, CMS relented and recommended the potentially lifesaving drug be covered by insurance. According to a Judicial Watch investigation, while the Obama administration claimed the cost of Provenge had nothing to do with their review process, records obtained by JW suggest otherwise. (Medicare, the FDA, and private companies are legally prohibited from denying approval of a medical treatment based solely on cost.)

And then there is Sebelius's war on the Catholic Church and other "conservative" religious organizations. Sebelius's HHS has written Obamacare regulations to punish long-held religious views that don't comport with liberal ideology and would force hundreds of religious institutions to drop insurance coverage or risk running afoul of Sebelius's pro-abortion Obamacare regulatory scheme.

The constitutionality of Obamacare may ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. But in the meantime, Kathleen Sebelius has turned HHS into a political machine, using underhanded tactics to stack the deck in favor of Obamacare, while greasing Big Labor and other Obama political campaign allies.


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Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA): Rep. Maxine Waters is one of the most senior and one of the most outspoken members of Congress. She is also one of the most corrupt.

In August 2010, an investigative subcommittee of the House Ethics Committee charged Rep. Waters with three counts of violating House rules and ethics regulations in connection with her use of power and influence on behalf of OneUnited Bank. She was expected to face an ethics trial in late 2010, but the committee delayed the trial indefinitely on November 29, 2010, citing newly discovered documentary evidence that may impact proceedings.

The delay apparently has less to do with evidence and more to do with infighting on the panel. Ultimately, an outside counsel was retained and a recommendation was expected by January 2, 2012. However, the Committee announced that the Waters probe will be extended until July 31, 2012.

According to The Associated Press, the charges currently under the House Ethics Committee microscope "focus on whether Waters broke the rules in requesting federal help [bailout money] for a bank where her husband owned stock and had served on the board of directors." At the time she requested the help, Waters neglected to tell Treasury officials about her financial ties to OneUnited Bank.

Without intervention by Waters (and a big assist from her co-conspirator Rep. Barney Frank), OneUnited was an extremely unlikely candidate for Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funding. The Treasury Department indicated that it would only provide bailout funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending. However, Judicial Watch uncovered documents detailing the deplorable financial condition of OneUnited at the time of the cash infusion. In fact, just prior to the bailout, OneUnited received a "less than satisfactory rating."

Aside from OneUnited, there was yet another scandal with Waters' fingerprints all over it.

According to The Washington Times: "A lobbyist known as one of California's most successful power brokers while serving as a legislative leader in that state paid Rep. Maxine Waters' husband $15,000 in consulting fees at a time she was co-sponsoring legislation that would help save the real-estate finance business of one of the lobbyist's best-paying clients..."

"Real-estate finance businesses," such as the one helped by Waters' influence, were labeled a "scam" by the IRS in a 2006 report.

Despite all of her ethical woes, Maxine Waters seeks to take over the retiring Barney Frank's position as the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. It is quite obvious that Rep. Waters has neither the integrity nor the ethics necessary to hold such a position of public trust.