Next episode on Scum TV of Calvert-gate...

Here's a map of Calvert's properties. Click to enlarge.

From Roll Call:

The House ethics committee has declared that an earmark requested by Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) to build a commuter transit center near a handful of properties he owns would not be an impermissible financial conflict because any benefit to Calvert would be shared by other similarly situated landowners.

But there's no conflict there, mostly because any financial benefit Calvert achieved “would be experienced as a member of a class of landholders in the vicinity of the transit Center.”

From TPMmuckraker:

In other words, because Calvert's aren't the only buildings that might financially benefit from the transit center, there's no conflict. Or as the committee puts it in its own artfully contorted language: "We conclude that it is within your discretion for you to conclude that your properties do not constitute a financial interest in the earmark supporting the Corona Transit Center."

And it's yet another indication that the House ethics committee actually has a lower standard for wrongdoing than our criminal justice system, which is why far more lawmakers have come under federal investigation in the past several years than have been investigated by the ethics committee.