KEN CALVERT, CAUGHT WITH A HOOKER, CAUGHT IN A REAL ESTATE EARMARK SCAM, SLATED FOR HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

In southern California there's an old joke about leaving L.A. and driving south "behind the Orange Curtain," a reference to the authoritarian nightmare that was post WWII Eastern Europe (behind the Iron Curtain). In the 60s and 70s Orange County could be written off as the "Bavaria of America" and compared to the Soviet satellites but politically a lot has changed since then. In fact one of Orange County's congressional districts-- formerly held by GOP nutcase "B-1 Bob" Dornan is now safe Democratic territory where Democrat Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (CA-47) gets 60% of the vote and where Kerry beat Bush 56%-41%.

Change has been a lot slower in CA-44. This district, sprawling through the endless suburbs of southern Orange County and western Riverside County is improving... but more slowly. Ask anyone in the district what the biggest problem is and they'll all be reading out of the same hymn book: development and the problems that come with development from overtaxed public services (like education), runaway local taxes, traffic, crushing corruption... And the 44th CD has been represented in Congress by a greasy former real estate speculator as sleazy as the day is long (or, in summer, short), Ken Calvert. A gross little porky-pig lookalike, he was once arrested-- as a congressman-- with a prostitute giving him head in his car. (Yes, yes-- he's as much for Republican "family values" as the rest of them and, like most of them, flatly refuses to honor his word to step down after 6 terms.)

Even as a Congressman, Calvert is always on the make for a quick buck. His latest trick, a fave of many Republicans (they must all use the same financial advisor-- and ethics advisor), is buying cheap land and then using GOP crime boss Jerry Lewis to get dodgey earmarks secretly added to bills that directly increase the value of the property. House Speaker Denny Hastert was just caught with a $2 million dollar profit at this game, as were several Republicrook California congressmen, Gary Miller and Calvert.

But now Calvert is going for the really big bucks. Enough of the grubby and unseemly real estate deals that have been making him richer and richer. The chiseling far right extremist wants a shot at Lewis' uber-lucrative House Appropriations Committee, which oversees a trillion dollars annually. If anyone has proven unworthy of the kind of trust needed for a position like that, Calvert is the one. Now being investigated for his dubious connections to the endless scandals swirling around his former close colleague Randy "Duke" Cunningham, as well as Thomas Kontogiannis, Brent Wilkes, Jerry Lewis and the crooked GOP lobbying firm run by Bill Lowery, Calvert wants to clean up before the Republicans lose national power in November. Ironically the seat almost has Calvert's name on it. Before he was found guilty of accepting bribes, it was Cunningam's seat and after that Tom DeLay grabbed it for a brief by highly lucrative few months before his criminal behavior forced him to resign from Congress.

Last December and January I did a couple of posts about a little trip to Saudi Arabia arranged for Calvert and Duke Cunningham by Thomas Kontogiannis that seemed to go beyond just garden variety Republican culture of corruption greed and avarice, straying into the territory defined in the Constitution as treason. But neither this, his real estate swindling nor anything else seems likely to stop Calvert's obsession with getting his hands on the Appropriations Committee seat.

Unless he's indicted before that it is unlikely that anything will stop him-- including the district's Republican-leaning voters. The district gave Bush nearly 60% of its vote in 2004 (6% more than in 2000) and in 2004 Calvert beat Louis Vanderberg 62%-35%. Calvert spent $687,000 and Vandenberg spent $6,196. In November Vandenberg is running against Calvert again. I just spoke with him on the phone for 15 minutes.

He's incredibly knowledgeable and completely immersed in all the contemporary historical and political currents our country is going through now. He has no intention of trying to raise the $300,000 required by the DCCC before they were get involved in a congressional race. In fact, like so many Americans, Vandenberg feels certain that the corrupting influence of money on our political system is so corrosive that it undermines all the premises of representative democracy. Laughing, he told me if he wins, he'll thank Calvert. He says he's running so that in the future of someone asks him what he did to try to prevent what is being done to our country now by the Bush Regime, he'll have a good answer. Damn! He'd make an amazing congressman!


UPDATE: CLICK ON THE IMAGE-- BUT ONLY IF YOU'RE OVER 18 YEARS OLD