Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) won't leave all the bamboozlement to Kaloogian?

A new elections complaints alleges (and pretty credibly) she said she had a degree she didn't; earlier one tagged her for bogus 'endorsement' by Ohio Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH).

Schmidt's response: Okay, maybe she never got the degree. But she took enough classes to get it.

The backstory here is that these elections complaints grow out of an inter-wingnut smackdown. The complainant is the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes, an outfit founded by Schmidt's past primary opponent Tom Brinkman.

God, you just can't make this stuff up.

Unless you're Howard Kaloogian, I guess.

Now a campaign website picture of Howard at Mount Ararat (where Noah docked the boat) in Armenia turns out to be a picture of Howard chillin' in front of Mount Palomar in California.

I guess it may be time to seriously ask whether "Howard Kaloogian" may actually be Tommy Flanagan, Jon Lovitz's classic 'would you believe' pathological liar character from the 1980s Saturday Night Live.

(ed.note: Okay, okay, this one's an April Fool's joke courtesy of the San Diego Union Tribune. But who could know the difference at this point?)

I'm no prude. And maybe I should be happy that social conservatives are getting more in touch with their bad selves. But when we were doing some due diligence today on congressional candidate Howard Kaloogian's 'endorsements' list (he'd already fibbed on a few), I couldn't help but notice that one of his endorsers is Gabrielle Reilly, who Kaloogian's site identifies as an "International Political Activist & Swimsuit Model."

Kaloogian's site links to this interview Reilly did with Kaloogian at her website.

I was curious to find out more. And when I clicked on the about page on her site I found this picture of Reilly lying on the ground holding her boobs with her shorts half pulled off.

I'm not sure if this was taken during their interview or not.

Here's her picture with the Norman Vincent Peale caption on her 'videos' page.

Not that I'm complaining or anything.

Perhaps Congress should be looking abroad for help on ethics reform.

Reuters: "Soccer referees in Nigeria can take bribes from clubs but should not allow them to influence their decisions on the field, a football official said on Friday."

Isn't this called the DeLay defense?

The guy who's got the most to fear from the Tony Rudy plea.

A lot of people talk about Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) being crooked or unethical. But considering the veritable lion's den of corruption, self-dealing and criminal conduct his office turns out to have been, I think the truth may turn out to be that he was something more like a paragon of virtue. It's just hard to figure out how else he could have worked day in and day out with so many of his key staffers and lieutenants being confessed felons without DeLay ever having gone over to the dark side, as his lawyers suggest.

As DeLay's lawyer Richard Cullen told a conference call of reporters today, "Tom DeLay was [not] aware of the wrongs that Mr. Rudy was committing. As long as people are telling the truth, Mr. DeLay has no fear about this investigation."

So run down the list.

Key DeLay-wired lobbyist Jack Abramoff -- convicted felon.

Michael Scanlon, former DeLay aide and spokesman -- convicted felon.

Tony Rudy, former DeLay deputy chief of staff -- convicted felon.

Ed Buckham, former DeLay Chief of Staff and pastor -- implicated in Rudy's plea, up front costs for lobby shop funded by Abramoff clients, helped funnel Russian oil-KGB money to DeLay, Inc.

Spokesman, Deputy Chief of Staff, Chief of Staff. A few aides here and a few aides there, and pretty soon you've got a whole org chart.

When you put it all in perspective and stop seeing through the distorted prism of the liberal media, you start to understand DeLay was a veritable Gandhi-with-the-virgins or the one good man in Sodom when it came to ethics.

They must be arguing she comes under "breach of the peace." US Constitution, Article 1, Section 6 ....

Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.

Now, one of the things that separates the US from a lot of other democracies is that legislators don't have broad immunity from prosecution. And that's a very good thing -- especially since there's little history of the more crass sort of police state political prosecutions in this country and thus little risk that outweighs the danger of allowing corruption to run unchecked. But, honestly, I didn't remember this passage in the constitution until TPM Reader SS sent it in. Setting aside the particulars of this case I'm curious whether there is much jurisprudence or case law on what this particular passage means.

If McKinney is guilty of battery or resisting arrest of something. My sense, from a constitutional perspective, is that the DC police should be handling it. Something doesn't feel right about the capitol police proceeding against a member of Congress in this fashion, both for substantive reasons and because of shenanigans by folks in the majority. Anyone out there have any insight on this?

Late Update: This legal analysis at Findlaw suggests that this passage does not apply to criminal infractions and is, for all intents and purposes, a dead letter.

Yet another phony Kaloogian photo?

I can see the merits of an immigration policy that lets in lots of immigrants and I can see the merits of one that lets in much fewer immigrants. But a guest worker program -- especially one that envisages large numbers of immigrants here to work on a semi-permanent basis with no prospect or ready access to a path to citizenship -- is wrong. We're not Kuwait and we're not Germany. It's bad for America to have a permanent class of residents who are here for their labor but who are permanently barred from becoming citizens. It's bad for our society. It's bad for the immigrants. And it's bad for citizens who have to compete for jobs against an inherently exploitable class of whatever amounts to 21st century coolie labor.

No surprise President Bush is big in favor of such a bad idea. Bad economics, bad civics, bad social policy.

Late Update: Nathan Newman makes a good subsidiary point. Guest worker programs come in two flavors, bad and really unbelievably bad. It's important to distinguish the two.

Here's the summary of the charges Tony Rudy pled guilty to today. Tom DeLay has a new nickname, Representative #2.

I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of Cynthia McKinney (D-GA). But an arrest warrant? This report says that Capitol Hill police plan to issue an arrest warrant for McKinney for striking a Capitol Hill police officer a couple days ago.

Now, that sounds pretty bad. And it ain't great. But my understanding of what happened provides some important context.

Members of Congress don't have to wait in line to go through the metal detectors on Capitol Hill. McKinney didn't go through the metal detector. But one of the capitol police officers didn't recognize McKinney as a member of Congress. He rushed toward her from behind and grabbed her by the arm. She in turn slugged or shoved him in the chest.

Another account suggests the police officer called for her to stop and she failed to heed the initial warnings.

I wasn't there. I haven't seen every account. But that's my understanding of what happened.

I'm really not sure McKinney is the only member of Congress who, grabbed from behind by a capitol police officer, might not have, in the heat of the moment, swung a punch or shoved. They're a proud bunch.

Again, I'm not defending it. I think McKinney is a bit of a hot-head. And she should be embarrassed by this and come in for her share of criticism. Moreover, from what I understand of the incident, the cop in question did just what he should have if he didn't know who McKinney was. But would the capitol hill police be putting out an arrest warrant for a more wired member of the body? I really don't think so.

If there's context I don't know, I'd like to learn more.

Late Update: Interesting, Justin Rood unearths a passage from a 2002 Slate profile which suggests that Capitol Hill police have a history of having a hard time remembering that McKinney is a member of Congress.

A very negative assessment from Judge Richard Posner of the 2004 intelligence reorganization and the "new bureaucracy" of a thousand under DNI John Negroponte.

Here's the charging document in the Rudy case.

Tony Rudy pleads guilty. More soon at TPMmuckraker.com.

More in this Rudy backgrounder at TPMm.

Scanlon's jilted fiance helped send Scanlon, Abramoff and presumably a slew of others to the slammer. That and more news of the day in today's Daily Muck.

Kaloogian crows to the moonbats.

The email the exposed bamboozler sent out to supporters Thursday evening ...

Friends:

Last night I wrote to you to give you a heads up on the fact that there was a growing attack on our campaign by the news media and liberal political activists.

And the good news is that despite their best efforts, their attacks are backfiring.

Here's the scoop...

Because they disagree with our support for Operation Iraqi Freedom, the liberal news media and left-wing political activists are trying to defeat us and have sunk to the petty level of attacking me because 1 photograph on my website was mislabeled. The photograph was from our "Voices of Soldiers" tour to Iraq where we went to support our troops fighting in the war against terrorism.

That 1 photograph in question was labeled "Baghdad, Iraq" when it was in fact from Istanbul, Turkey (where part of our delegation had a layover on their return home to the United States).

Once we realized the problem we took down the picture, accepted full responsibility, apologized and replaced the photograph with one properly taken of Baghdad.

Yet, like their efforts to smear President Bush with the last minute DUI story in 2000 or the bogus Dan Rather "Memogate" scandal of 2004 these attacks on my trip to Iraq are already backfiring.

In the past 24 hours my campaign website has been bombarded with our largest inflow of support in the form of campaign contributions that we have experienced the entire campaign.

I am asking that you help me continue to maintain this momentum, so I can respond to these attacks and take our message to the voters.

Please make a contribution to my campaign here:

http://www.kaloogian.com/contribute

[You can contribute any amount - $5, $50, $500, $5,000 or anywhere in between... all the way up to $6,300 per individual]

The American people have had enough of the liberal news media and their blatant smear campaigns against conservative candidates.

I want to thank you so much for standing by me and remaining committed in our campaign. We are going to achieve a great victory on April 11th and it will all be possible because of YOUR support.

With my heartfelt appreciation,

Howard Kaloogian Conservative Republican for Congress http://www.KaloogianForCongress.com

P.S. You may also mail in a contribution to support our campaign to our finance headquarters at this address:

Kaloogian For Congress P.O. Box 1863 Sacramento, CA 95812

Maybe send him some money so he can buy some genuine pictures.

This should be fun.

One of the nice things for Republicans in some of the open races this year is that they can bring in new blood, folks who aren't tainted by associations with Tom DeLay or Abramoff or whomever.

But that might not work out that well in Illinois' 6th District where Democrat Tammy Duckworth and Republican Peter Roskam are vying to replace the retiring Henry Hyde (R-IL).

Roskam used to work for DeLay. And even though his work on DeLay's staff was back in 1980s, DeLay seems to have been on hand to lend his old employee a helping hand much more recently.

Here's a clip from a January, 18 1998 piece in the Chicago Tribune ...

Word on Capitol Hill is that ideological conservative state Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Naperville) is getting behind-the-scenes help in his six-way Republican congressional primary battle from GOP House Whip Tom DeLay of Texas.

DeLay is the arch-conservative former pest-control service operator whose former profession and aggressive attacks on federal regulation of almost any type, including environmental laws, has earned him the nickname "The Exterminator."

A top aide to DeLay has been calling around to some big conservative backers suggesting they "take a look at" (i.e., send money to) Roskam, said a congressional source.

Of course, last April, as DeLay started swirling toward the court house, Roskam said he really never kept in touch. He told the Sun-Times he "not had any contact with [DeLay] essentially for 20 years."

On the other hand, five months later DeLay was co-hosting a Roskam fundraiser in DC.

So the whole thing is really sort of hard to keep track of.

Maybe someone can help me.

Okay, it seems like I really dropped the ball on my most recent Kaloogian post. But in my defense, the guy is ridiculous on so many different fronts it's just not that easy to keep up with all of them in real time.

As we mentioned this afternoon, Kaloogian's latest excuse for his Baghdad-Istanbul bamboozle is this (as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle) ...

The candidate said he hadn't recognized the error because "the military asked us to use our discretion and put things on the Internet that were nondescriptive ... (because) if we posted something that was easily identifiable, it could be a target."

Now, as an almost limitless number of TPM Readers have written in to point out, this is a rather self-defeating explanation.

Things are much calmer and safer in Baghdad than the Bush-hating press will tell you. But we can't actually show you any pictures because our military handlers told us that any place identified in a photograph in my dinky little campaign website runs a serious risk of being blown up.

Sounds like things are going great over there, doesn't it?

And however things are going in Baghdad, isn't this guy's status as a clown up to something like a moral certainty at this point?

Earlier this evening, the Associated Press ran a clarification to their story about Rep. Jim Ryun and his house purchase from the now-defunct U.S. Family Network.

"The Associated Press," they wrote, "should have credited the blog TPMmuckraker.com, which first reported the sale."

The reporting in question was by TPMmuckraker.com's Paul Kiel.

That was classy and we appreciate it.

We're in a period of often uncomfortable flux in the news business. And as the containers into which the news is poured and the structure of the industry itself both change, it's understandable that stuff like this happens. My point in flagging this yesterday was not to zing the particular reporter or news organization. I'm not in this business to rack up 'as first reported by' lines. But reporters and news outlets that do solid, enterprise journalism should be credited for their work. And we shouldn't lose sight of that even as the formats we write in change.