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Apparently a full-scale House ethics investigation is moving forward.

The House Ethics Committee is moving toward a full-scale investigation of Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.), who has been under scrutiny for months over allegations that her staff engaged in banned political activities while on government time, according to several sources close to the matter.

Ethics Committee staffers have been digging into the claims against Richardson since last year as part of a “preliminary inquiry” by the panel, and they have been interviewing current and former Richardson aides. The investigators are looking into allegations that Richardson and some of her most senior staffers pressured other aides to work on her reelection campaign or be fired, according to these sources and news reports. Staffers on the congressional payroll are banned from working on political campaigns during official time, and no House resources can be used for campaign-related activities, according to House rules and federal statute.

If the Ethics Committee were to create an special investigative subcommittee to oversee the Richardson case, it would dramatically raise the legal and political stakes for the three-term California Democrat.

Richardson’s campaign committee is already hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, including more than $125,000 owed to three law firms, and she faces a potential three-way Democratic primary fight against Rep. Janice Hahn and California Assemblyman Isadore Hall in a newly redrawn congressional district.

Rep. Laura Richardson is probably already TOAST for re-election. Newly elected Rep. Janice Hahn will likely beat her in the newly drawn Congressional District – unless these CD’s are thrown out by a federal court.

Richardson has been in continual ethics trouble since she was elected in a special election in 2007.

A Sacramento home that Richardson bought that year went into foreclosure in 2008, the third home on which Richardson has missed mortgage payments. The bank that held the Sacramento mortgage, Washington Mutual, then sold the home to a real estate investor.But Washington Mutual later took the home back and returned it to Richardson and modified her mortgage. Following a lawsuit, Washington Mutual reached a settlement with the investor who had purchased the home.

The Office of Congressional Ethics and the House Ethics Committee both investigated the incident. The Ethics Committee ruled in July 2010 that Richardson “did not knowingly violate” any ethics rules in the case.

In November 2010, just four months after the mortgage controversy was resolved, the Los Angeles Wave, a community newspaper, reported that Ethics Committee staffers were looking into allegations that Richardson had forced her official staff to work for her reelection campaign while on official time or lose their jobs, a potential ethical and statutory violation.

Chris, re: Occupy Wall Street – everything will be REVEALED eventually….

A little too little and a little too late to help Texas Governor Rick Perry’s campaign for the Presidency.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry unveiled a sweeping economic agenda Monday, highlighted by a plan to level a voluntary 20 percent “flat tax” on all taxpayers who will accept it in place of what they’re paying now.

The plan, outlined in a Wall Street Journal op-ed column a day before the Texas governor was set to announce it in South Carolina, also calls for capping federal spending at 18 percent of the country’s GDP while allowing younger earners to privatize their Social Security accounts — a controversial proposal that echoes President George W. Bush’s failed 2005 attempt to overhaul the retirement program.

But the most significant feature of Perry’s plan is his call for a flat tax rate of 20 percent. Taxpayers who don’t want to pay a 20 percent flat income tax, he said, can keep their current rate.Current marginal income tax rates range from 10 percent to 35 percent, depending on taxpayers’ income.

Perry offers several proposals that appear designed to sweeten the offer — and to counter criticism that the flat tax is regressive, taking a proportionally bigger bite from smaller incomes. His plan would preserve popular deductions for mortgage interest and donations to charity for households earning less than $500,000 a year. It would increase the standard deduction to $12,500.

But Perry would eliminate other tax breaks. He argues that a streamed-down tax code (so simple, he says taxpayers can file on a postcard), along with spending cuts and entitlement changes, will stimulate the economy.

Perry’s proposal really won’t matter since he is carrying so much other baggage. Down in the polls, I really do not see how Perry can regain any type of momentum in the race for 2012 – even a Steve Forbes-like flat tax proposal.

According to the latest CNN Poll.

Although most Americans don’t trust Wall Street, that hasn’t translated into full support –or understanding– of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Despite large majorities who think that Wall Street bankers are greedy, overpaid and dishonest, four in ten don’t have an opinion about the weeks-long protests, according to a new CNN/ORC International poll released Monday.

Among those who have an opinion, the public is split on how they feel about Occupy Wall Street. Thirty-two percent of Americans say they have a favorable view of the movement that has spread from Wall Street to Chicago, and that even cropped up at the most recent CNN presidential debate in Las Vegas. Twenty-nine percent of the nation says they have an unfavorable view of Occupy Wall Street.

But opinions are clear about Wall Street itself. Eight in ten say Wall Street bankers are greedy, 77% say they’re overpaid, and two-thirds say Wall Street bankers are dishonest, a number that has gone up by a third in roughly two decades.

Over time, opinions about the financial center of the U.S. have gotten worse. In the 1990s, only 30% of the country said they had no trust at all in Wall Street to do what is best for the economy, 24 percentage points lower than now.

Pretty much what I would expect. Most Americans are too caught up in their own lives to involve themselves in a protest movement in which there are NO clear goals or objectives.

Although this “occupation” may last a while, eventually it will just flame out with NO real impact. What will have an impact will be the Presidential race for 2012 which starts in the first week of the New Year with the Iowa GOP Caucuses.

The entire poll is here (pdf).