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.
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.
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.
Tony Rudy pleads guilty. More soon at TPMmuckraker.com.
More in this Rudy backgrounder at TPMm.
A very negative assessment from Judge Richard Posner of the 2004 intelligence reorganization and the “new bureaucracy” of a thousand under DNI John Negroponte.
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.
Here’s the summary of the charges Tony Rudy pled guilty to today. Tom DeLay has a new nickname, Representative #2.
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.