From a New York Times editorial today titled “The House Eyes the Swamp:”

Self-investigation has never been a signature virtue of Congress. So taxpayers should closely monitor the House ethics committee’s inquiry into the lucrative relationships between defense appropriators and military contractors.

The committee finally confirmed the inquiry — not yet a full-blown investigation — into suspicions that members and staffers earmarked hundreds of millions in defense contracts for favored companies in return for tens of millions in political donations. In a separate matter, the ethics committee opened an inquiry into whether Caribbean trips taken by Representative Charles Rangel and four other lawmakers violated House gift rules. It is encouraging to see such curiosity from the traditionally somnolent panel.

We too are glad that the Ethics Committee is looking into these matters, especially since we are the source of the allegations about the Rangel-led Caribbean junket. But it will take more than “curiosity” to deal with the current wave of corruption in Congress.

From OneNewsNow today:

The head of an ethics watchdog organization is skeptical of the claim by Congressman John Conyers (D-Michigan) that he didn't know his wife was taking political bribes.

Monica Conyers has resigned from her post on the Detroit City Council after admitting she took cash bribes in exchange for her vote on a lucrative city contract. Conyers is the wife of powerful Democratic Congressman John Conyers, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee.

While prosecutors say Congressman Conyers knew nothing of what his wife was doing, Ken Boehm of the National Legal and Policy Center, thinks otherwise.

NLPC research is referenced in a new book titled Pay to Play: How Rod Blagojevich Turned Political Corruption Into a National Sideshow. Its by Elizabeth Brackett, a longtime correspondent for The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer and a winner of the Peabody Award for political coverage.

In February, NLPC released a study showing that interests owned or affiliated with Illinois race track owner John Johnston contributed more than $343,000 to Blagojevich’s campaign committee during 2002-2007. This total was $183,000 more than alleged in previous news accounts.  Johnson owns Balmoral Park and Maywood Park, two Chicago-area harness racing tracks.

In a June 30 letter to the White House, Wal-Mart endorsed Obama's health care plan. The letter was jointly signed by Andrew Stern, boss of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and John Podesta, who led the Obama transition team and is chief executive of the Soros-funded Center for American Progress.

Although the move was unexpected to some, it was no surprise to NLPC. In a Special Report published in 2006 and updated in 2008, I chronicled the company's move to the Left in a futile campaign to placate liberal critics like Wal-Mart Watch, funded by SEIU. On major issues except for "card check," Wal-Mart has become a powerful tool of liberal activist groups.

NLPC President Peter Flaherty debates Wal-Mart's embrace of Obama health care with Nancy Skinner, talk show host; Julie Roginsky, Comprehensive Communications Group; and Dana Milbank, Washington Post; and CNBC host Dennis Kneale.

Click here for Special Report on Wal-Mart referenced during the discussion.

From literally day one, the Obama administration has made clear its intent to back off from investigating corruption within organized labor. At least one member of the House of Representatives has expressed concern over this direction in policy. On June 23, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued a press release highlighting his objection to the ongoing rollback of union financial reporting requirements by the Department of Labor (DOL). His intent was to publicize a letter he'd sent the previous day to Denise Boucher, director of the department's Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS).

Last night, we received this email under the subject line “Innaccurate (sic) Statement in Story Post” from Matt Mazonkey, Communications Director for Rep. John Murtha:

In a 06/29/09 post (PMA Client Sues Because it Didn’t Get Earmark; More Evidence of Pay-to-Play?), John Carlisle inaccurately stated that "Magliochetti (sic) served as an aide to Murtha."

Magliochetti (sic) served as a staff analyst for the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Murtha was never Chairman or Ranking Member while Magliochetti (sic) worked for the subcommittee. In fact, Magliochetti (sic) worked for Chairman Bill Chappel and full committee chairman Jamie Whitten.

Please correct this mistake.

Since Murtha’s office seized on such a tiny and debatable “mistake,” I thought it would be fun to call Mazonkey to see how far he would go in trying to distance his boss from Paul Magliocchetti, the former principal of the PMA Group lobbying firm that collapsed shortly after being raided by the FBI.

Alexander Comisar reported in Roll Call on June 23:

The PMA Group, the lobbying titan that closed its doors in March after an FBI raid, has filed more than a dozen lawsuits against former clients for failure to pay outstanding debts. Now, one company has responded with a $3 million countersuit that alleges PMA cheated it out of an earmark it was expecting to receive. PMA’s lawyer called the complaint absurd and said the firm has filed a formal response with the court.

Though uncomfortably close, it was a victory for liberty. By a 5-4 margin, the U.S. Supreme Court today in Ricci v. DeStefano overturned a Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that defended a local government race-based job promotion policy. The City of New Haven, Connecticut, the High Court said, erred when it scrapped the results of a written exam designed for promoting local firefighters because the highest scorers did not include any blacks. The ruling is especially noteworthy because it rebukes Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote the circuit court decision. Whether the case will be used to bar race-based quotas in the future, however, is less certain.

John Bresnahan reports in Politico today:

Already embroiled in an ethics probe now entering its tenth month, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, received more bad news Wednesday night as the House ethics committee announced it would look into Caribbean trips taken by the veteran lawmaker and four other Democrats.

In a statement released late Wednesday night, Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Jo Bonner (R-Ala.), the chairwoman and ranking member of the ethics committee, announced that the panel had voted to create a four-member investigative subcommittee to determine whether the trips violated House gift rules.

Click here to download a one-page pdf of the Commitee's statement. NLPC exposed this Citigroup-funded junket to the sunny island of St. Maarten that took place the weekend after the election in 2008. I attended in order to document violations of House Rules that prohibit corporate sponsorship of travel and hospitality.