By Stewart Tongue

YNOT – Despite an overhaul in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s internal operating procedures and internet filters, agency employees just don’t seem to be able to curtail their “porn addictions.” Now comes news that the federal securities watchdog’s staff also has engaged in gross misuse of public funds for home viewing, as well.

Oh — and sexual shenanigans that provoke ethical questions seem to be rampant in the upper echelons.

According to a 43-page investigative report about the misuse of government resources, SEC Interim Inspector General Jon Rymer discovered that departments within the SEC have purchased millions of dollars of unnecessary electronic hardware including iPads and other devices for personal use at home. The new finding comes on the heels of several other inappropriate uses of government time and money by staffers who have a penchant for porn.

The internal SEC computer network recently logged more than 16,000 access denials in a one-month period for internet websites classified by the commission’s internet filter as either “sex” or “pornography.” One staffer’s penchant for shemale sex videos filled the database with requests to download content from sites including LadyboyX.com, LadyboyJuice.com and TrannyTit.com.

The latest news exposes sex and corruption involving high-ranking SEC officials. According Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, former SEC Inspector General David Kotz — during whose tenure the IG’s office investigated the SEC’s alleged mishandling of the Stanford Financial and Pequot Capital Management scandals — was sleeping with his successor before he abruptly resigned in January. In addition, according to Taibbi, Kotz may have been having a simultaneous affair with a female lawyer representing a key group of Stanford victims.

Perhaps if SEC staffers and officials watched porn at home on their own time, paid for their own recreational iPads and refrained from having sex with everyone around them who is affiliated with one side or another of a pending legal action, things like the Bernard Madoff case would be discovered prior to many billions of dollars in losses by taxpayers.

And right-wingers call porn corrupt?