CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Ethics Watchdog Calls For FBI to Investigate Rep. Richardson. “A leading watchdog group is touting new evidence of alleged ethics violations by Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) and calling for a criminal investigation. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is accusing Richardson of habitually threatening her congressional staff with their jobs if they didn’t work on her campaign, and has asked the FBI to investigate.”

Richardson, InstaPundit readers may recall, is also the housing-crisis poster child:

First Rep. Laura Richardson was having problems making house payments, defaulting six times over eight years.

Then after a bank foreclosed on her Sacramento house and sold it at auction in May, the Long Beach Democrat made such a stink that Washington Mutual, in an unusual move, grabbed it back and returned it to her.

This week, in the latest chapter in the housing saga, the Code Enforcement Department in Sacramento declared her home a “public nuisance.” The city has threatened to fine her as much as $5,000 a month if she doesn’t fix it up.

Neighbors in the upper-middle-class neighborhood complain that the sprinklers are never turned on and the grass and plants are dead or dying. The gate is broken, and windows are covered with brown paper.

“I would call it an eyesore,” said Peter Thomsen, a retired bank executive who lives nearby.

The city action was prompted by police action. Police were twice called to investigate reports of a suspicious person in or around the house, perhaps a homeless man squatting there. Officers called the Code Enforcement Department, which boarded up a broken door.

The country’s in the very best of hands.