In December 2008, Jones-Kelley was forced to resign from her job.

Three years later, she’s baaaaack on the government payroll.

The Columbus Dispatch reports (h/t @icwhatudo):

A county agency has hired Ohio’s former social services director, who quit over a records check on the campaign figure known as “Joe the Plumber.”

Helen Jones-Kelley resigned in December 2008 as director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. That was after an investigation found she improperly used state computers to find personal information on Samuel J. Wurzelbacher of the Toledo area.

Jones-Kelley was hired yesterday to lead the Montgomery County Drug Addiction & Mental Health Services Board.

Perks.

***

Flashback October 2008:

If Joe the Plumber were Jawad the Suspected Terrorist, civil liberties activists would stampede the halls of Congress on his behalf. Liberal columnists would hyperventilate over the outrageous invasions of his privacy by Ohio state and local employees. The ACLU would demand the Big Brother snoopers’ heads. And Democrat leaders would convene immediate hearings and parade him around the Beltway as the new poster boy/victim of unlawful domestic spying.

But because peaceful American citizen Joe Wurzelbacher is an outspoken enemy of socialism, rather than an enemy of America, the defenders of privacy have responded to his plight with an impenetrable cone of silence.

After the last presidential debate, in which John McCain invoked Joe the Plumber’s anti-socialism shot heard ‘round the world, several taxpayer-subsidized employees in Ohio immediately rifled through government databases in search of damning information. The Columbus Dispatch identified Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, as one of the dirt-diggers. She also happens to be a Barack Obama supporter who contributed the maximum amount to his presidential campaign.

On Wednesday, Jones-Kelley admitted that the records checks on Joe that she approved were far more extensive than she first acknowledged. In addition to pawing through his child-support papers, the agency “also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes.”

Obama supporter Jones-Kelley argued that plumbing the plumber’s information was no big deal because the agency always checks up on citizens who come to public light. Democrat Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland quickly pooh-poohed the civil liberties infringements and denied any nefarious political motives.

If that doesn’t send a chill up your spine, maybe you don’t have a spine.

In addition to Jones-Kelley, investigators have uncovered at least three other suspicious uses of state computer systems to access Wurzelbacher’s data. A Toledo police clerk, Julie McConnell, has been charged with gross misconduct for accessing the Law Enforcement Automated Data System to retrieve Wurzelbacher’s address. She reportedly did it as a favor to a reporter. Authorities also say the Cuyahoga County social services office was compromised and an outside contractor with access to the state Attorney General’s test account similarly searched Joe’s data. Moreover, driver’s-license and vehicle-registration data about Wurzelbacher were obtained from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

I contacted the ACLU twice for comment this week about this rampant plundering of Joe the Plumber’s records. Like the Genesis song goes: No reply at all. (That was the same reply the ACLU gave me two months ago, when I asked if they had any reaction to the Chicago gangland tactics of a MoveOn spin-off group that announced it was trolling campaign finance databases and targeting conservative donors with warning letters in a thuggish attempt to depress Republican fundraising.)

For the last seven years, these left-wing privacy champs have lobbied on behalf of foreign enemy combatants. The ACLU fought unsuccessfully to kill the Bush administration’s post-9/11 effort to monitor terrorist communications in the U.S. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today went ballistic over the government’s bank surveillance program to trace terrorist financing.

All those papers fumed earlier this year when State Department contractors illegally sifted through the passport files of Barack Obama (and Hillary Clinton and John McCain). Obama mouthpiece Bill Burton intoned after the passport scandal: “Our government’s duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes.”

But when freelance members of the Obama Goon Squad take it upon themselves to do opposition research on The One’s citizen critics and rummage through government databases, where are all the privocrats when you need them? How safe will your state tax and IRS records be if Dear Leader is elected?

Welcome to Barack Obama’s America.

Ohio taxpayers are right in the middle of the civil rights lawsuit that Samuel Joseph — “Joe the Plumber” — Wurzelbacher has filed against three former state employees, charging that they illegally accessed his confidential information through state databases.

Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray’s office is defending former state employees Helen Jones-Kelley, Douglas Thompson and Fred Williams. All have denied wrongdoing and asked that the case, filed last March in U.S. District Court in Columbus, be dismissed.

Jones-Kelley was director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Williams was the department’s assistant director and Thompson the deputy director of child support when the “Joe the Plumber” controversy erupted during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Jones-Kelley and Thompson are from the Dayton area.

Jones-Kelley and Williams resigned and Thompson had his job “revoked” in the wake of a report from Inspector General Tom Charles that found confidential state databases with personal information on Wurzelbacher were improperly accessed.

Democrat Cordary says he’s just doing what the law tells him. But there are exceptions in the law to allow the AG discretion NOT to use taxpayers’ money to defend indefensible government employees who act “manifestly outside the scope of his official employment or official responsibilities, with malicious purpose, in bad faith or in a wanton or reckless manner.”

Which precisely described the partisan witch hunt against Wurzelbacher by the Ohio government snoops.

Ohio Republicans have it exactly right:

The two Republicans seeking their party’s nomination to run against Cordray next year disagreed.
“These people violated the privacy of an Ohio citizen and they did it, it would appear, to advance a partisan political campaign, and I think taxpayers will be shocked to find that their tax dollars are going to defend them,” said Mike DeWine of Cedarville, the former U.S. senator and Greene County prosecutor.

Added Delaware County Prosecutor David Yost: “It’s an outrageous use of taxpayer money to defend the invasion of a citizen’s privacy.”

Hat tip: Jesse Hathaway, who has more here.

Prosecutor Dave Yost weighs in further here and here.

A year ago tonight, “Joe the Plumber” entered America’s political consciousness.
Republican Sen. John McCain’s mention of the Toledo-area man during a presidential debate ultimately led to the downfall of an Ohio cabinet director for snooping in state computers for confidential information on “Joe.”

Nearly a year later, a former contractor for the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police has been charged with rummaging through a police computer network to retrieve personal information about Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher.

Brett A. Gerke, 52, of 2329 Woodcreek Place on the Far North Side, is charged with attempted unauthorized use of property, a first-degree misdemeanor.

Gerke entered a diversion program Oct. 2, which typically results in the dismissal of a criminal charge. He has not entered a plea.

Hat tip: JWF

This administration has no shame.

No shame at all.

USA Today reports that the Obama White House sheepishly disclosed today that Labor Secretary nominee Hilda Solis’s hubby has just paid up 16-year-old tax liens…yesterday. The disclosure comes just hours before the nomination vote. Hope, Change, Transparency!

The husband of President Obama’s Labor secretary nominee paid about $6,400 Wednesday to settle tax liens that had been outstanding for as long as 16 years against his business, the Obama administration told USA TODAY this afternoon.

The disclosure came shortly before a 2 p.m. meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which is scheduled to vote on Rep. Hilda Solis’ nomination as labor secretary.

Los Angeles County records showed 15 outstanding state and county tax liens against Sam Sayyad and his auto repair business, totaling $7,630. Two other liens worth $981 were released in 1999 after Sayyad repaid the taxes owed, according to county records.

Solis’ financial disclosures list Sayyad’s business, Sam’s Foreign and Domestic Auto Center, as one of the couple’s main assets, worth between $50,000 and $100,000. The disclosure form Solis filed after her nomination also lists bank accounts containing between $250,000 and $500,000.

Solis and Sayyad were unaware of the liens until USA TODAY asked about them Tuesday, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said. He said Sayyad paid about $6,400 to Los Angeles County on Wednesday to settle the liens, but he plans to appeal.

Now, compare the treatment Solis and her hubby will get for his 15 outstanding liens compared to how Joe Wurzelbacher’s one lien was splashed all over the front pages and nightly news.

***

Update: Senate session postponed (hat tip: Instapundit)…

“Today’s executive session was postponed to allow members additional time to review the documentation submitted in support of Representative Solis’s nomination to serve in the important position of Labor Secretary,” read a joint statement issued by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the panel’s chairman, and Mike Enzi (Wyoming), the committee’s ranking Republican. “There are no holds on her nomination and members on both sides of the aisle remain committed to giving her nomination the fair and thorough consideration that she deserves. We will continue to work together to move this nomination forward as soon as possible.”

More here.

***

Update: JD Johannes has an update on his initial reaction to JTP:

I hope this never gets lost in the translation: Joe is wonderful when he is relating the story of regular working people in a dire situation.

As a child-less bachelor who has spent the better part of the last few years in a war zone, the things that Joe picks up on would never occur to me. Which makes him better than I or others who ply the nuts and bolts combat reporting trade.

Joe the Plumber arrived in Sderot, Israel, and earlier in the day he spoke to the foreign press.

Boy, did he ever speak to them.

Via the Jerusalem Post, which also notes a Kassam rocket attack occurred Sunday afternoon during the visit:

Samuel Wurzelbacher of Ohio, aka Joe the Plumber, arrived in Sderot at noon Sunday to show local and foreign reporters how to do it right.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” he told foreign reporters.

“You should be patriotic, protect your family and children, not report like you have been doing for the past two weeks since this war has started,” he said.

Wurzelbacher, the man who stole the limelight from Republican presidential candidate John McCain during the American election campaign, has found a new job – as a correspondent for the Internet Web sites PJTV and Pajamas Media.

Armed with a camera and a temporary Government Press Office card, he got a taste of reality in Sderot, visiting a house hit by a Kassam rocket two weeks ago and experiencing a “Code Red” alert first-hand. He also observed and reported from the house where a Kassam landed on Sunday afternoon.

…”Do you think this is normal, the way you cover this conflict and give away information to your enemy?” he asked the journalists that gathered around him.

“It makes me sick to see the way you behave – you guys need to be protective of your homes, your children, your family.”

“I am angry,” he said, “and this is why I came here.”

PJTV’s Gaza Update is here. Stay tuned.

Wire photos of JTP in Sderot here.

Reuters adds this detail:

“Israel is being attacked and they’re defending themselves,” Wurzelbacher told reporters. His remarks were interrupted by an alert for an incoming rocket which sent him dashing to a concrete shelter. No one was hurt.

Soon after I filed the column, yet another example of damaged MSM credibility surfaced in the blogosphere. LGF and Bob Owens broke the story of CNN’s broadcast of suspicious Gaza footage featured two pro-Hamas doctors engaging in medical theater of jihad — by faking a bizarre form of CPR on a Palestinian boy who “died.” CNN, which heaped derision on JTP for taking on the role of reporter, has yanked the video. More on one of the jihadi apologist zealots, Dr. Mads Gilbert, at FNC.

Since the CNN cover-up continues, I’m including the damning video clip here:

I repeat: “Who says conservatives don’t do reporting?”

More details on JTP and PJTV here and here. And Howard Mortman rounds up some MSM reax here.

***
Who’s afraid of Joe the Journalist?
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2008

If a community organizer can be president and a Saturday Night Live comedian can be a U.S. senator, why can’t a plumber be a reporter?

Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe The Plumber, is headed to Israel to interview ordinary citizens about life in the crosshairs of jihad. He’ll be filing dispatches for conservative Internet video broadcasting site, PJTV.com (to which I also contribute). Predictably, the very idea of a non-credentialed public figure attempting to “do journalism” has catty elite journalists hacking up hairballs.

CNN television anchor Kyra Phillips sneered (in her most objective and professional manner, of course): “Oh, Lord, Joe The Plumber’s got a new gig. It’s got nothing to do with the pipes, it’s got everything to do with Gaza.” After catching her breath during a commercial break, she embellished her teleprompter lines with ad-libbed contempt (something only seasoned professional journalists have experience doing, you see): “Now Joe The Plumber wants to flush out the truth as a war correspondent. I know, there are just no words.”

Still not done trashing the Toledo, Ohio citizen who had the temerity to question Barack Obama’s redistributionist policies, Phillips piled on with more derisive words: “Hey, Joe, what do you know? No, seriously, what do you know?…[H]e says he hopes to air Israelis’ views on the Gaza offensive. Lord, help us. Just want to remind you that Joe the Plumber has no journalism experience. No war zone experience either. But he thinks he’s, quote, ‘pretty well protected by God.’ So, what’s Joe been smoking, drinking?”

What’s he smoking and drinking? Clearly not the same ideological Kool-Aid and liberal fumes that you and your snob colleagues imbibe and inhale, Ms. Phillips. The CNN anchor has some nerve questioning Joe The Plumber’s journalistic credibility when her own cable news network once hired former NYPD Blue actress with zero journalism experience Andrea Thompson to sit in an anchor chair like the one Ms. Phillips occupies.

As to the media hounds now braying at the idea of hiring celebrities for the sake of publicity, which network was it that hired foul-mouthed entertainer with no anchoring experience Kathy Griffin to co-anchor its New Year’s Eve coverage? Oh, yeah: CNN. Griffin teamed up with CNN star Anderson Cooper, whose resume includes stints as a child model, fill-in host for Live with Regis and Kelly, and reality show, “The Mole.”

Who’s afraid of Joe the Journalist? Unlike Ms. Phillips, I do not begrudge anyone an unconventional path to journalism. On the Internet, conservative bloggers with full-time day jobs have done incredible investigative work without a journalism school credit to their names. (See here.) So have independent war correspondents like Michael Totten (blogger) and Michael Yon (Special Forces veteran).

Groupthink, credential fetishism, and the Sorbonne mentality have turned national newsrooms into stale echo chambers. For all its self-aggrandizing paeans to “diversity,” mainstream American journalism remains one of the most intellectually and ideologically monochrome sectors of the public square.

Territorial liberal journalism gurus have attempted to de-legitimize unorthodox practitioners of their trade by redefining “journalism” based on content. If a conservative writer breaks news harmful to their presidential pick or contrary to their world view, it’s a “hit piece,” not investigative reporting. If a conservative website interviews newsmakers or provides original legislative analysis, it’s “propaganda,” not explanatory or expository journalism. Thus, the myth that conservatives don’t “do journalism” persists. By their definition, we never can.

Joe The Plumber’s new gig is an affront to the Fraternal Order of The Professional Journalist because it underscores hard truths: An Ivy League journalism degree does not a truth-teller make. International war broadcasting experience does not a truth-seeker make. Look at Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post fabulist Janet Cooke. Or New York Times fiction writer Jayson Blair. Or Boston Globe fabricators Patricia Smith and Mike Barnicle. Or former CBS News Captain Queeg Dan Rather.

Or closer to the action in Gaza, witness the veteran editors of Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj, who succeeded in peddling Photoshopped images of fake smoke billows and flares over Beirut in 2006 before bloggers blew the whistle.

Or consider the Hamas sympathizers at France 2. The international TV network was forced to apologize this week for its false story on Israel’s military operations. Independent French bloggers showed that France 2 used an old 2005 amateur video of Palestinian casualties from an accidental Hamas truck explosion and passed it off as current footage demonstrating the violence in Gaza. France 2 was the same professional media outlet that aired a bogus September 2000 report blaming the Israeli army for the shooting death of a Palestinian boy, Mohammed al-Dura.

Joe The Plumber-Turned-Reporter can’t do anymore to harm journalistic credibility than the “credible journalists” have already done.

Joe the Plumber is taking on a new job.

The Ohio man, who became famous during the U.S. presidential campaign after asking Barack Obama about his tax plan, is heading to Israel as a war correspondent for a conservative Web site called pjtv.com.

Dubbed “Joe the Plumber” by McCain’s campaign, Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher was held up as an example of an American worker who would be hurt economically by Obama’s election.

Wurzelbacher says he’ll spend 10 days covering the fighting and explaining why Israeli forces are mounting attacks against Hamas.

He tells WNWO-TV in Toledo that he wants “go over there and let their ‘Average Joes’ share their story.”

(link)

Predicting death wishes for Joe from the left side of the blogosphere in 3, 2, 1…

PJTV’s Gaza Update page is here.

Finally, something more than a slap on the wrist. Lead Ohio government snooper Helen Jones-Kelley resigned from her job and two of her cohorts were canned as a result of their plundering through Joe the Plumber’s records.

Good.

Glad to see some heads roll.

Before the news came down, Glenn Reynolds and I had a chance to chat with Joe Wurzelbacher for Pajamas TV. We talked about his book, JTPDS in the media, and the disgusting spectacle of pro-bailout Republicans like John McCain and George “Destroyed the market to save it” Bush. Watch here (free!).

Niekamp debunked the b.s. and now she’s revealing more about the snoopers’ attempts to cover their tracks:

The state worker who unwittingly ran an improper child-support check on the man known as Joe the Plumber told lawmakers today that a deputy director later “dictated” how she was supposed to cover it up.

Vanessa Niekamp, an administrator for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services’ Office of Child Support and a 15-year state employee, said that when Deputy Director Doug Thompson came into her office, “He appeared very upset, his neck was bright red, and he was shaking. He closed my door.”

Thompson told her she must write an e-mail to the agency’s information security officer, and then “dictated word for word” what she wrote, Niekamp said. He also reminded her that she could be fired at any time, she said.

…The checks came the day after Republican presidential nominee John McCain talked about Wurzelbacher in his final presidential debate Oct. 15 with Democrat Barack Obama.

The next day, Niekamp said, Assistant Deputy Director Carri Brown asked her to check the state child-support computer system for Wurzelbacher.

Brown “claimed that he had contacted our agency with a dispute about how much child support he owed,” Niekamp said.

…A week later, Thompson came to her office with a different explanation – that he, Jones-Kelley and assistant director Fred Williams had requested the check.

“Doug told me that the person Carri had asked me to look up was Joe the Plumber – the one who was talked about in the national news. He said he needed my help explaining something,” Niekamp said.

“Doug then told me I must write an e-mail to our agency’s information security officer to explain why the file had been accessed. He turned my computer screen so he could see it and dictated word for word what he wanted me to write. …

“He then told me that we needed to make sure that we answer questions about what happened the same way, so that our versions were not different from each other. Before he said that, he reminded me that I was an unclassified employee – which, as you may know, is someone who can be fired without cause.”

The Ohio inspector general has finally concludes the obvious. The question now is: Whose heads will roll? Who will be prosecuted? When will the governor apologize for whitewashing this civil liberties scandal?

The report:

A state agency director had no legitimate reasons to check state computer systems for confidential information on “Joe the Plumber,” according to a report released this afternoon by Ohio’s inspector general.

Helen Jones-Kelley, the suspended director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, “had no legitimate agency function or purpose to support her decision” to check on the newly minted political figure, the report states.

The investigation by the office of Inspector General Thomas P. Charles found that the reasons that Jones-Kelley offered for the checks “were not credible and they included contradictions, ambiguity, and inconsistencies.”

The report reached no conclusion on whether Jones-Kelley’s approval of the checks were politically motivated.

“However, the circumstances surrounding the unauthorized searches are exacerbated in light of the director’s sending and receiving e-mail related to a political activity through state resources,” the report said.

Duh!

Also named as improper snoopers: Assistant agency director Fred Williams and Doug Thompson, a deputy child-support director.

Charles said his report would be sent to the office of Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien for review.

Democrat Gov. Ted Strickland placed Jones-Kelley on paid leave Nov. 7 after e-mails requested by The Dispatch revealed she used her state e-mail account to help raise campaign funds for President-Elect Barack Obama.

The inspector general’s report found that the e-mails violated Strickland’s policy on political activity and constituted a “wrongful act” as an inappropriate use of state resources.

No more running and hiding.

Naturally, he’s playing the victim card and blaming the engineer for his unhinged outburst.

Maybe he can apply for a job with the state of Ohio.

He maintained that position even after it was revealed that snooper Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the state Department of Job and Family Services, was a max contributor to Barack Obama’s campaign.

He maintained that position even after a state whistleblower came forward, contradicted her supervisors, and said she was ordered to rummage through Joe The Plumber’s records.

And he maintains that position even after newspaper public records requests show that Jones-Kelley was
possibly using a state computer and e-mail account for political fundraising.

Gov. Strickland commented this afternoon that this was merely an isolated incident. Nothing to see here, move along:

“I don’t want to minimize what may have happened here,” Strickland told reporters today. “But worst-case scenario, there is no evidence of any systematic, wide-spread abuse of government resources.”

Strickland placed Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the state Department of Job and Family Services, on paid leave Friday after e-mails requested by The Dispatch showed that she possibly used a state computer and e-mail account for political fundraising. Strickland has asked Inspector General Thomas P. Charles to investigate.

Other members of Strickland’s administration did work for the Obama campaign, but when asked whether he’s checking into any other possible misuse of state resources, the governor replied, “I have no reason to believe that that would be necessary or called for.”

He’s got “no reason to believe” and every reason to cover up.

Well, it sure took them long enough, didn’t it?

Via Dayton Daily News (which you’ll notice fails to mention that Jones-Kelley is a max contributor to Obama’s campaign):

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and former head of that department in Montgomery County, has been placed on paid administrative leave by Gov. Ted Strickland.

Strickland said on Friday, Nov. 7, that he took the action “due to the possibility, as yet unconfirmed, that a state computer or state e-mail account was used to assist in political fund raising.”

“I have asked Inspector General Tom Charles to include this matter in his current, ongoing investigation,” Strickland said in a press release.

Strickland said he has asked Jan Allen, his cabinet secretary, to serve as acting director of the agency.

Charles already was investigating reports that a department computer was used to gather personal information about “Joe the Plumber” — Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher of suburban Toledo — after Wurzelbacher emerged as a key figure in the presidential race in Ohio. The information included whether he owed child support, which he said he didn’t.

You can run, lady, but you can’t hide.

***
The
Columbus Dispatch is on the ball, as it has been from the beginning:

Gov. Ted Strickland has placed the director of the Department of Job and Family Services on paid leave for possibly using a state computer and e-mail account for political fund raising.

The governor took the action against Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the state agency, late this afternoon.

Strickland said he asked Inspector General Thomas P. Charles to investigate the matter. He named Jan Allen, secretary of his cabinet, to serve as acting director of Job and Family Services.

The Dispatch filed a public-records request last week that requested any Jones-Kelley e-mails that mentioned Democrat Barack Obama, who won election as president on Tuesday. The newspaper was told it would receive those e-mails shortly.

Jones-Kelley contributed $2,500 this year to the Obama campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records.