Despite compelling and passionate testimony by House Republicans, the federal hate crimes bill, HR 1913, passed today in the House of Representatives by a vote of 249 to 175.
In what Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R, VA) called "an atrocity," the House Rules Committee on Tuesday imposed a "closed rule" on debate and amendments, limiting debate to 120 minutes. However, contest of the rule was permitted between both sides for one hour, giving Republicans a preliminary opportunity to lay out objections to the hate bill. They failed in their attempt to lengthen the debate, and the original 120 minutes of debate ensued.
Here are highlights of the Republican opposition:
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R, NC) said HR 1913 will open a new category of "thought crimes" in America, moving us "down a slippery slope" to loss of freedom. She said such has happened under hate laws in Canada and Europe.
Rep. Trent Franks (R, AZ) warned HR 1913 will end equality in America, giving special rights to federally favored groups such as homosexuals.
Rep. Roy Blount (R, MO) echoed Foxx's admonition that hate laws have taken away free speech in Canada and Europe.
Rep. Steve King (R, IA) repeated the warning of his amendment in Judiciary last week, saying pedophiles and many other deviants will obtain special rights and protection under HR 1913.
Rep. Mary Fallin (R, OK) referenced loss of free speech in Canada and Great Britain but also how the "Philly 11" Christians were persecuted under Pennsylvania's hate law.
Rep. Foxx returned, saying a federal hate law would preempt the 10th Amendment which delegates most law enforcement to the states. She said the claim that Matt Sheppard was murdered because he was a homosexual was a "hoax;" he was killed, she said as the victim of a robbery.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R, TX) charged HR 1913 will divide America into groups of more favored versus less. He again cited USC Title 18, Section 2a, the foundation of HR 1913, which says anyone who through speech "induces" commission of a violent hate crime "will be tried as a principal" alongside the active offender. He said there is no "epidemic" of hate in America.
Rep. King cited the American Psychiatric Association which lists 547 different kinds of paraphilia, or sexual deviancies. King said all of these would merit special federal protection under the class "sexual orientation" enshrined in HR 1913.
Rep. Foxx testified, "This bill itself will spread fear and intimidation." She was referring primarily to Christian/conservative critics of homosexuality, Islam, illegal immigrants, etc. Such critics from the pulpit or airwaves would be increasingly silenced under the hate law's chill on free speech.
Rep. Hastings (D, FL), a proponent of the hate bill, brazenly agreed that HR 1913 would give a galaxy of sexual perverts special protection. He said that under hate bill protection they will not "live in fear because of who they are."
One particularly striking argument was made by Rep. Randy Forbes (R, VA). He said if Miss California had slapped the homosexual judge who derided her on the stage (and across the internet) under HR 1913 she could be indicted as a "violent hate criminal," facing a possible 10 years in prison. But, Forbes said, if the homosexual judge had slapped her, she would have had no special protection under HR 1913. His act would have been simple assault, a misdemeanor.
The testimony of Rep. Todd Akins (R, MO) was also unique. He said HR 1913 would actually increase hate in America. He said the American people, including young people, recognizing that they are now second-class citizens, with homosexuals receiving special federal rights, can only resent (hate?) those who have rights and privileges above them. He also said that with the legal system already backed up, the federal hate law will create havoc within our legal system, requiring judges to also become "psychologists," divining motives of offenders.
Rep. Mike Pence (R, IN) said the FBI statistics show that, far from hate crimes increasing, they have steadily declined over the past 10 years. There is also no evidence that states are lax in hate law enforcement.
Democrat testimony concluded with a special entry, followed by CSPAN camera, of Rep. Barney Frank (D, MA). He pooh-poohed the arrest of the Philly 11 Christians in 2004, saying that, although it was unjust, Republicans were irresponsible in not pointing out that the Christians were acquitted. Fortunately, Rep. Gohmert had the last word, indicating that the very fact that persons can and have been arrested for speech under state laws has a chilling effect on free speech.
Gohmert tried to send the hate bill back to Judiciary for amendments but was overridden.
It is now time for all who love freedom to turn their full attention to defeat of the hate bill in the Senate, where Sen. Edward Kennedy just yesterday introduced his federal hate bill, S. 909, which is certain to be moving rapidly to a vote.
Call 1-877-851-6437 toll free or 1-202-225-3121 toll. Names of Senate Judiciary members are posted
Tell all members of the Senate: "Please don't vote for the pedophile-protecting federal hate crimes bill, S. 909. Please insist on Judiciary hearings to debate this very dangerous, freedom-threatening legislation."
Among the myriad JFK assassination controversies, none more cleanly divides Warren Commission supporter from skeptic than the “Single Bullet Theory.” The brainchild of a former Warren Commission lawyer, Mr. Arlen Specter, now the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, the theory is the sine qua non of the Warren Commission’s case that with but three shots, including one that missed, Lee Harvey Oswald had single handedly altered the course of history.
Mr. Specter’s hypothesis was not one that immediately leapt to mind from the original evidence and the circumstances of the shooting. It was, rather, born of necessity, if one sees as a necessity the keeping of Oswald standing alone in the dock. The theory had to contend with the considerable evidence there was suggesting that more than one shooter was involved.
For example, because the two victims in Dealey Plaza, President Kennedy and Governor John Connally, had suffered so many wounds – eight in all, it had originally seemed as if more than two slugs from the supposed “sniper’s nest” would have been necessary to explain all the damage. In addition, a home movie taken by a bystander, Abraham Zapruder, showed that too little time had elapsed between the apparent shots that hit both men in the back for Oswald to have fired, reacquired his target, and fired again. The Single Bullet Theory neatly solved both problems. It posited that a single, nearly whole bullet that was later recovered had caused all seven of the non-fatal wounds sustained by both men.
But the bullet that was recovered had one strikingly peculiar feature: it had survived all the damage it had apparently caused virtually unscathed itself. The shell’s near-pristine appearance, which prompted some to call it the “magic bullet,” left many skeptics wondering whether the bullet in evidence had really done what the Commission had said it had done. Additional skepticism was generated by the fact the bullet was not found in or around either victim. It was found instead on a stretcher at the hospital where the victims were treated.
Mr. Specter’s idea was that, after passing completely through JFK and Governor Connally, the bullet had fallen out of the Governor’s clothes and onto a stretcher at Parkland Hospital. But it was never unequivocally established that either victim had ever lain on the stretcher where the bullet was discovered.[2]Nevertheless, studies done at the FBI Laboratory seemed to unquestionably link the missile to Oswald’s rifle, and the FBI sent the Warren Commission a memo on July 7, 1964 detailing how it had run down the bullet’s chain of possession, which looked pretty solid. According to the FBI, the two hospital employees who discovered the bullet originally identified it as the same bullet six months later in an FBI interview
That a bullet, fired from Oswald’s weapon and later identified by hospital witnesses, had immediately turned up on a stretcher in the hospital where the victims were treated struck some as perhaps a little too convenient. Suspicions it had been planted ensued. But apart from its peculiar provenance, there was little reason in 1964 to doubt the bullet’s bona fides. But then in 1967, one of the authors reported that one of the two hospital employees who had found the bullet, Parkland personnel director O.P. Wright, had told him that the bullet he saw and held on the day of the assassination did not look like the bullet that later turned up in FBI evidence. That claim was in direct conflict with an FBI memo of July 7, 1964, which said that Wright had told an FBI agent that the bullet did look like the shell he’d held on the day of the murder.
For thirty years, the conflict lay undisturbed and unresolved. Finally, in the mid 1990s, the authors brought this conflict to the attention of the Assassinations Records Review Board, a federal body charged with opening the abundant, still-secret files concerning the Kennedy assassination. A search through newly declassified files led to the discovery of new information on this question. It turns out that the FBI’s own, once-secret files tend to undermine the position the FBI took publicly in its July, 1964 memo to the Warren Commission, and they tend to support co-author Josiah Thompson. Thompson got a further boost when a retired FBI agent, in a recorded telephone interview and in a face-to-face meeting, flatly denied what the FBI had written about him to the Warren Commission in 1964.
A Bullet is Found at Parkland Hospital
The story begins in a ground floor elevator lobby at the Dallas hospital where JFK and John Connelly were taken immediately after being shot. According to the Warren Commission, Parkland Hospital senior engineer, Mr. Darrell C. Tomlinson, was moving some wheeled stretchers when he bumped a stretcher “against the wall and a bullet rolled out.” He called for help and was joined by Mr. O.P. Wright, Parkland’s personnel director. After examining the bullet together, Mr. Wright passed it along to one of the U.S. Secret Service agents who were prowling the hospital, Special Agent Richard Johnsen.
Johnsen then carried the bullet back to Washington, D. C. and handed it to James Rowley, the chief of the Secret Service. Rowley, in turn, gave the bullet to FBI agent Elmer Lee Todd, who carried it to agent Robert Frazier in the FBI’s Crime Lab. Without exploring the fact that the HSCA discovered that there may have been another witness who was apparently with Tomlinson when the bullet was found, what concerns us here is whether the bullet currently in evidence, Commission Exhibit #399, is the same bullet Tomlinson found originally.
The early history of the bullet, Commission Exhibit #399, is laid out in Warren Commission Exhibit #2011. This exhibit consists of a 3-page, July 7, 1964 FBI letterhead memorandum that was written to the Warren Commission in response to a Commission request that the Bureau trace “various items of physical evidence,” among them #399. #2011 relates that, in chasing down the bullet’s chain of possession, FBI agent Bardwell Odum took #399 to Darrell Tomlinson and O.P. Wright on June 12, 1964. The memo asserts that both men told Agent Odum that the bullet “appears to be the same one” they found on the day of the assassination, but that neither could “positively identify” it.
Positive identification” of a piece of evidence by a witness means that the witness is certain that an object later presented in evidence is the same one that was originally found. The most common way to establish positive identification is for a witness to place his initials on a piece of evidence upon first finding it. The presence of such initials is of great help later when investigators try to prove a link through an unbroken chain of possession between the object in evidence and a crime.
Understandably, neither Tomlinson nor Wright inscribed his initials on the stretcher bullet. But that both witnesses told FBI Agent Odum, so soon after the murder, that CE 399 looked like the bullet they had found on a stretcher was compelling reason to suppose that it was indeed the same one.
However, CE #2011 included other information that raised questions about the bullet. As first noted by author Ray Marcus, it also states that on June 24, 1964, FBI agent Todd, who received the bullet from Rowley, the head of the Secret Service, returned with presumably the same bullet to get Secret Service agents Johnsen and Rowley to identify it. #2011 reports that both Johnsen and Rowley advised Todd that they “could not identify this bullet as the one” they saw on the day of the assassination. # 2011 contains no comment about the failure being merely one of not “positively identifying” the shell that, otherwise, “appeared to be the same” bullet they had originally handled.
Thus, in #2011 the FBI reported that both Tomlinson and Wright said #399 resembled the Parkland bullet, but that neither of the Secret Service Agents could identify it. FBI Agent Todd originally received the bullet from Rowley on 11/22/63 and it was he who then returned on 6/24/64 with supposedly the same bullet for Rowley and Johnsen to identify. Given the importance of this case, one imagines that by the time Todd returned, they would have had at least a passing acquaintance. Had it truly been the same bullet, one might have expected one or both agents to tell Todd it looked like the same bullet, even if neither could “positively identify” it by an inscribed initial. After all, neither Tomlinson nor Wright had inscribed their initials on the bullet, and yet #2011 says that they said they saw a resemblance.
And there the conflicted story sat, until one of the current authors published a book in 1967.
Two Different Accounts from One Witness
Six Seconds in Dallas reported on an interview with O.P. Wright in November 1966. Before any photos were shown or he was asked for any description of #399, Wright said: “That bullet had a pointed tip.”
“Pointed tip?” Thompson asked.
“Yeah, I’ll show you. It was like this one here,” he said, reaching into his desk and pulling out the .30 caliber bullet pictured in Six Seconds.”
As Thompson described it in 1967, “I then showed him photographs of CE’s 399, 572 (the two ballistics comparison rounds from Oswald’s rifle) (sic), and 606 (revolver bullets) (sic), and he rejected all of these as resembling the bullet Tomlinson found on the stretcher. Half an hour later in the presence of two witnesses, he once again rejected the picture of 399 as resembling the bullet found on the stretcher.”
Thus in 1964 the Warren Commission, or rather the FBI, claimed that Wright believed the original bullet resembled #399. In 1967, Wright denied there was a resemblance. Recent FBI releases prompted by the JFK Review Board support author Thompson’s 1967 report.
A declassified 6/20/64 FBI AIRTEL memorandum from the FBI office in Dallas (“SAC, Dallas” – i.e., Special Agent in Charge, Gordon Shanklin) to J. Edgar Hoover contains the statement, “For information WFO (FBI Washington Field Office), neither DARRELL C. TOMLINSON [sic], who found bullet at Parkland Hospital, Dallas, nor O. P. WRIGHT, Personnel Officer, Parkland Hospital, who obtained bullet from TOMLINSON and gave to Special Service, at Dallas 11/22/63, can identify bullet … .”
Whereas the FBI had claimed in CE #2011 that Tomlinson and Wright had told Agent Odum on June 12, 1964 that CE #399 “appears to be the same” bullet they found on the day of the assassination, nowhere in this previously classified memo, which was written before CE #2011, is there any corroboration that either of the Parkland employees saw a resemblance. Nor is FBI agent Odum’s name mentioned anywhere in the once-secret file, whether in connection with #399, or with Tomlinson or with Wright.
A declassified record, however, offers some corroboration for what CE 2011 reported about Secret Service Agents Johnsen and Rowley. A memo from the FBI’s Dallas field office dated 6/24/64 reported that, “ON JUNE TWENTYFOUR INSTANT RICHARD E. JOHNSEN, AND JAMES ROWLEY, CHIEF … ADVISED SA ELMER LEE TODD, WFO, THAT THEY WERE UNABLE TO INDENTIFY RIFLE BULLET C ONE (# 399, which, before the Warren Commission had logged in as #399, was called “C ONE”), BY INSPECTION (capitals in original).
Convinced that we had overlooked some relevant files, we cast about for additional corroboration of what was in CE # 2011. There should, for example, have been some original “302s ” – the raw FBI field reports from the Agent Odum’s interviews with Tomlinson and Wright on June 12, 1964. There should also have been one from Agent Todd’s interviews with Secret Service Agents Johnsen and Rowley on June 24, 1964. Perhaps somewhere in those, we thought, we would find Agent Odum reporting that Wright had detected a resemblance between the bullets. And perhaps we’d also find out whether Tomlinson, Wright, Johnsen or Rowley had supplied the Bureau with any additional descriptive details about the bullet.
In early 1998, we asked a research associate, Ms. Cathy Cunningham, to scour the National Archives for any additional files that might shed light on this story. She looked but found none. We contacted the JFK Review Board’s T. Jeremy Gunn for help. On May 18, 1998, the Review Board’s Eileen Sullivan, writing on Gunn’s behalf, answered, saying: “[W]e have attempted, unsuccessfully, to find any additional records that would account for the problem you suggest.” Undaunted, one of us wrote the FBI directly, and was referred to the National Archives, and so then wrote Mr. Steve Tilley at the National Archives.
On Mr. Tilley’s behalf, Mr. Stuart Culy, an archivist at the National Archives, made a search. On July 16, 1999, Mr. Culy wrote that he searched for the FBI records within the HSCA files as well as in the FBI records, all without success. He was able to determine, however, that the serial numbers on the FBI documents ran “concurrently, with no gaps, which indicated that no material is missing from these files.” In other words, the earliest and apparently the only FBI report said nothing about either Tomlinson or Wright seeing a similarity between the bullet found at the hospital and the bullet later in evidence, CE #399. Nor did agent Bardwell Odum’s name show up in any of the files.
[editor's note: Dr. Aguilar followed up in 2005 with the National Archives, asking them in letters dated March 2and March 7to search for any FBI "302" reports that would have been generated from CE399 being shown to those who handled it. On March 17, 2005 David Mengel of NARA wrote backreporting that additional searches had not uncovered any such reports.]
Stymied, author Aguilar turned to his co-author. “What does Odum have to say about it?” Thompson asked.
“Odum? How the hell do I know? Is he still alive?”
“I’ll find out,” he promised.
Less than an hour later, Thompson had located Mr. Bardwell Odum’s home address and phone number. Aguilar phoned him on September 12, 2002. He was still alive and well and living in a suburb of Dallas. The 82-year old was alert and quick-witted on the phone and he regaled Aguilar with fond memories of his service in the Bureau. Finally, the Kennedy case came up and Odum agreed to help interpret some of the conflicts in the records. Two weeks after mailing Odum the relevant files – CE # 2011, the three-page FBI memo dated July 7, 1964, and the “FBI AIRTEL” memo dated June 12, 1964, Aguilar called him back.
Mr. Odum told Aguilar, “I didn’t show it [#399] to anybody at Parkland. I didn’t have any bullet … I don’t think I ever saw it even.” Unwilling to leave it at that, both authors paid Mr. Odum a visit in his Dallas home on November 21, 2002. The same alert, friendly man on the phone greeted us warmly and led us to a comfortable family room. To ensure no misunderstanding, we laid out before Mr. Odum all the relevant documents and read aloud from them.
Again, Mr. Odum said that he had never had any bullet related to the Kennedy assassination in his possession, whether during the FBI’s investigation in 1964 or at any other time. Asked whether he might have forgotten the episode, Mr. Odum remarked that he doubted he would have ever forgotten investigating so important a piece of evidence. But even if he had done the work, and later forgotten about it, he said he would certainly have turned in a “302” report covering something that important. Odum’s sensible comment had the ring of truth. For not only was Odum’s name absent from the FBI’s once secret files, it was also it difficult to imagine a motive for him to besmirch the reputation of the agency he had worked for and admired.
Thus, the July 1964 FBI memo that became Commission Exhibit #2011 claims that Tomlinson and Wright said they saw a resemblance between #399 and the bullet they picked up on the day JFK died. However, the FBI agent who is supposed to have gotten that admission, Bardwell Odum, and the Bureau’s own once-secret records, don’t back up #2011. Those records say only that neither Tomlinson nor Wright was able to identify the bullet in question, a comment that leaves the impression they saw no resemblance. That impression is strengthened by the fact that Wright told one of the authors in 1966 the bullets were dissimilar. Thus, Thompson’s surprising discovery about Wright, which might have been dismissed in favor of the earlier FBI evidence in #2011, now finds at least some support in an even earlier, suppressed FBI memo, and the living memory of a key, former FBI agent provides further, indirect corroboration.
Missing 302s?
But the newly declassified FBI memos from June 1964 lead to another unexplained mystery. Neither are the 302 reports that would have been written by the agents who investigated #399’s chain of possession in both Dallas and Washington. The authors were tempted to wonder if the June memos were but expedient fabrications, with absolutely no 302s whatsoever backing them up.
But a declassified routing slip turned up by John Hunt seems to prove that the FBI did in fact act on the Commission’s formal request, as outlined in # 2011, to run down #399s chain of possession. The routing slip discloses that the bullet was sent from Washington to Dallas on 6/2/64 and returned to Washington on 6/22/64. Then on 6/24/64, it was checked out to FBI Agent Todd. What transpired during these episodes? If the Bureau went to these lengths, it seems quite likely that Bardwell Odum, or some other agent in Dallas, would have submitted one or more 302s on what was found, and so would Agent Elmer Todd in Washington. But there are none in the files. The trail ends here with an unexplained, and perhaps important, gap left in the record.
Besides this unexplained gap, another interesting question remains: If the FBI did in fact adjust Tomlinson and Wright’s testimonies with a bogus claim of bullet similarity, why didn’t it also adjust Johnsen and Rowley’s? While it is unlikely a certain answer to this question will ever be found, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the FBI authors of #2011 would have been more reluctant to embroider the official statements of the head of the Secret Service in Washington than they would the comments of a couple of hospital employees in Dallas.
Summary
In a memo to the Warren Commission [C. E. #2011] concerning its investigation of the chain of possession of C.E. #399, the FBI reported that two Parkland Hospital eyewitnesses, Darrell Tomlinson and O. P. Wright, said C.E. #399 resembled the bullet they discovered on the day JFK died. But the FBI agent who is supposed to have interviewed both men and the Bureau’s own suppressed records contradict the FBI’s public memo. Agent Odum denied his role, and the FBI’s earliest, suppressed files say only that neither Tomlinson nor Wright was able to identify the bullet in question. This suppressed file implies the hospital witnesses saw no resemblance, which is precisely what Wright told one of the authors in 1967.
What we are left with is the FBI having reported a solid chain of possession for #399 to the Warren Commission. But the links in the FBI’s chain appear to be anything but solid. Bardwell Odum, one of the key links, says he was never in the chain at all and the FBI’s own, suppressed records tend to back him up. Inexplicably, the chain also lacks other important links: FBI 302s, reports from the agents in the field who, there is ample reason to suppose, did actually trace #399 in Dallas and in Washington. Suppressed FBI records and recent investigations thus suggest that not only is the FBI’s file incomplete, but also that one of the authors may have been right when he reported in 1967 that the bullet found in Dallas did not look like a bullet that could have come from Oswald’s rifle.
On this, the 39th anniversary of Earth Day, it is only fitting to speak of one of its founders, Ira Einhorn.
You won't find Ira Einhorn's name listed in any of the Earth Day promotional literature, as the organizers have taken great pains to distance themselves from this man, at least since he became better known for composting his girlfriend in a trunk in his closet for a couple of years in the late 1970s.
Earth Day organizers and publicists don't want to have anything to do with Ira these days. Since he was convicted of murder, he hasn't been very useful to them. But that wasn't always the case. In 1970, during the first Earth Day event, which was televized throughout the globe, Ira Einhorn was on stage as master of ceremonies.
Or so he claims, and it seems likely that he was.
A friend and contemporary of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, and acquaintance of authors Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg, Timothy Leary, Alvin Toffler, and Isaac Asimov, Einhorn held the floor for a half hour, during the first Earth Day celebration, in Philadelphia, kissing Edmund Muskie on the lips before surrendering the microphone to the Senator from Maine. There is no evidence that Muskie rejected his advances, or that anyone associated with the event had ever voiced any disagreement with Einhorn's place as a key organizer until after his arrest for the murder of Holly Maddux.
Ira Einhorn knew all of the right people. Executives from Sun Oil and AT&T showered him with support, financial and otherwise. Ira Einhorn was the man who could make Earth Day happen as, it seems, he did, denials notwithstanding.
Due in large part to his influence, Einhorn escaped punishment for his crime for a quarter of a century.
After bludgeoning his girlfriend of five years to death, fracturing her skull in a dozen places, Ira stuffed her body into a trunk, which he packed into a closet where it remained until discovered by the police nearly two years later.
When Holly Maddux disappeared in the fall of 1977, Einhorn was named as a suspect by the girl's parents, who knew that Einhorn had threatened their daughter with violence. Yet, after briefly questioning him, while the body of his murdered girlfriend lie decomposing in a trunk stored in a closet of his apartment, police accepted his denial of any knowledge of her whereabouts.
When she failed to reappear, the murdered girl's parents hired an investigator who very quickly came up with sufficient evidence for a warrant to search Einhorn's apartment. A downstairs neighbor told of a liquid leaking from Einhorn's apartment into the kitchen below, describing it as being dark in color and smelling of putrefaction. He also testified to hearing a scream, as well as "several sharp thuds", at the time of Holly's disappearance.
When the private investigator presented this evidence to the police, they finally obtained a search warrant, which was served on March 29, 1978.
The battered and partly mummified body of Holly Maddux was found in a trunk in a bedroom closet, packed in styrofoam, newspaper, and air fresheners.
Arrested, Einhorn's attorney was considering a run for the Senate. His name was Arlen Spector, of Pennsylvania. The darling of New Age society, politicians, Ivy League professors, and corporate executives alike, Einhorn had no shortage of friends during his bail hearing. With his great love for the earth, surely Ira would not have murdered anyone. Released on a mere $40,000 bail, of which he had to pay only ten percent, Einhorn fled to Sweden, remaining as a fugitive in Europe until 1997, when he was found living in France under another name.
While a fugitive, Einhorn was convicted in absentia in 1993, and sentenced to life in prison. The government of France, however, refused to extradite Einhorn unless the death penalty was taken off the table and he was promised a new trial. Eventually, this was agreed upon. Ira Einhorn, the founder of Earth Day, was once again convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Today, we celebrate Earth Day, sacrosanct, proclaimed by none other than our Republican President George Bush, and every president since 1975, when President Ford first proclaimed and urged observance of Earth Day on the March equinox.
We're living in a time where wacky is in, and life doesn't mean very much.
While it is likely that Einhorn's violent history is not shared by other Earth Day founders, the observance is nevertheless bizarre.
Underlying the themes of Earth Day is a call for mankind to align itself with nature, and against itself, enlisting human beings to take part in a battle that seeks to place humanity under the control of an enlightened elite, one that values the interests of nature above that of people.
The process of our destruction is termed sustainable development, a destructive scheme that is in direct opposition to Christianity, which holds that man is to have dominion over nature, which is given to us for our use.
Ira Einhorn took the life of one woman, while the movement that he had a hand in founding seeks to steal the life from all of us.
WASHINGTON – Veteran Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched parties Tuesday with a suddenness that seemed to stun the Senate, a moderate's defection that pushed Democrats to within a vote of the 60 needed to overcome filibusters and enact President Barack Obama's top legislative priorities.
Specter, 79 and seeking a sixth term in 2010, conceded bluntly that his chances of winning a Pennsylvania Republican primary next year were bleak in a party grown increasingly conservative. But he cast his decision as one of principle, rather than fueled by political ambition as spurned GOP leaders alleged.
"I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy and more in line with the philosophy of the Democratic Party," he said at a news conference. He added, "I am not prepared to have my 29 year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate."
Not long after Specter met privately with Republican senators to explain his decision, the party's leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell, said the switch posed a "threat to the country." The issue, he said, "really relates to ... whether or not in the United States of America our people want the majority party to have whatever it wants, without restraint, without a check or balance."
As a result of last fall's elections, Democrats control the White House and have a large majority in the House. Specter's switch leaves them with 59 Senate seats. Democrat Al Franken is ahead in a marathon recount in Minnesota. If he ultimately defeats Republican Norm Coleman, he would become the party's 60th vote — the number needed to overcome a filibuster that might otherwise block legislation.
Specter, who has a lifelong record of independence, told reporters, "I will not be an automatic 60th vote." As evidence, he pointed out he opposes "card check" legislation to make it easier for workers to form unions, a bill that is organized labor's top priority this year.
His move comes as Democrats are looking ahead to battles on health care, energy and education.
Specter was one of only three Republicans in Congress who voted for Obama's economic stimulus bill earlier this year, a measure the senator said was needed to head off the threat of another Great Depression.
Specter called the White House on Tuesday to notify Obama of his decision to switch. The president called back moments later, according to spokesman Robert Gibbs, to say the Democratic Party was "thrilled to have you."
Several officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said discussions of a possible switch had reached into the White House in recent days, although Gibbs said he had no details.
Gibbs said Obama would raise money for Specter as well as campaign personally for him if asked.
Specter told reporters at his news conference that Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, had suggested a meeting in Washington for this week at which the party's leadership could formally "endorse my candidacy."
In Pennsylvania, State Rep. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, swiftly announced he was no longer interested in running for the Senate next year. The only announced Democratic candidate has been Joe Torsella, chairman of the State Board of Education.
Among Republicans, former Rep. Pat Toomey is expected to run. He had been poised to challenge Specter, who defeated him narrowly in a 2004 primary.
"I welcome Senator Specter and his moderate voice to our diverse caucus," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement that was a jab at the Republicans.
Other Democrats spread the word on Twitter in a way that reflected surprise. "Specter to switch parties? Wow," said a message sent by Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri.
At his news conference, Specter grew animated as he blamed conservatives for helping deliver control of the Senate to Democrats in 2006, making it impossible to confirm numerous judicial appointees of former president George W. Bush.
"They don't make any bones about their willingness to lose the general election if they can purify the party. I don't understand it, but that's what they said," he added.
Ironically, Specter had spoken recently about the importance of a strong Republican presence in the Senate.
"If we lose my seat they have 60 Democrats, they will pass card check, you will have the Obama tax increases, they will carry out his big spending plans. So the 41st Republican, whose name is Arlen Specter, is vital to stopping tax increases, passage of card check and the Obama big spending plans."
Pennsylvania has voted increasingly Democratic in recent elections, and Obama's candidacy in 2008 prompted thousands of voters to switch their registration to his party. Specter said their migration had left the GOP primary electorate "very far to the right."
After nearly six full terms in the Senate, Specter is one of a handful of moderate Republicans left, a politician of remarkable resilience who has maneuvered successfully to protect his seat at home and his seniority rights in Congress.
In line to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2004, he was forced to reassure conservatives he would not attempt to thwart them on Bush's conservative judicial nominees. As a senior lawmaker on the Senate Appropriations Committee, he is responsible for a steady stream of federal projects in his state.
In recent years, he has battled Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymphatic system, but maintains a busy schedule that includes daily games of squash.
Specter was the sixth senator to switch parties in the past 15 years, and the first to leave the Republicans since former Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont became an independent in 2001. Jeffords' defection gave Democrats control of the Senate. Reid, then the second-ranking Democrat, played a role in that change, as well, offering to give up a committee chairmanship so Jeffords could retain it.
As one of the most senior Republicans in the Senate, Specter held powerful positions on the Judiciary and Appropriations committees. It was not clear how Democrats would calculate his seniority in assigning committee perches.
As recently as late winter, he was asked by a reporter why he had not taken Democrats up on past offers to switch parties.
"Because I am a Republican," he said at the time.
Tuesday's switch was not Specter's first.
He was a Democrat until 1965, when he ran successfully on the Republican ticket for district attorney in Philadelphia.
Confronted with clear evidencethat she tried to obstruct justice in the caseof Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman — two former top AIPAC officials slated to go on trial for espionage on June 2— Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat, did what politicians usually do when forced to face unpleasant facts: she brazened it out. In a response to the Congressional Quarterlypieceby Jeff Steinthat has proved such an entertaining embarrassment, she brayed:
“These claims are an outrageous and recycled canard, and have no basis in fact. I never engaged in any such activity. Those who are peddling these false accusations should be ashamed of themselves.”
Notice how she doesn’t deny saying that she would “engage in any such activity,” i.e. that she would intervene with the Bush White Houseand the Justice Department to get the charges in the Rosen-Weissman case reduced or dropped — instead, she says she never kept her promise to the “suspected Israeli agent,” as the CQ piece described her interlocutor. What? A politician who breaks a promise? I’m shocked! — shocked!
Seriously, though, from this one might infer that Harman is utterly shameless, but, then again, maybe not. On Wednesday night, she showed up at the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s glitzy “Welcome to Washington” event, although, as Roll Callreported, “she kept a low profile. [Heard on the Hill] spotted the Congresswoman entering the theater in darkness just after the curtain went up, and then saw her slip out while performers gave their final bows.”
As Shakespeare put it in Cymbelline:
“Though those that are betrayed
Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
Stands in worse case of woe.”
Could it be that Harman does have a sense of shame — or was she just trying to avoid reporters?
In any case, Rep. Harman is not alone in her shamelessness, not as long as there are people like David Frum around. Frum, you ‘ll recall, is the author of the “axis of evil” trope, fired from his White House speechwriting job for grandstanding — or, rather, for his wife’s grandstanding — and now embarked on a crusadeto save the GOP from “extremism” — this from a man who wrote a book calling for the invasionof nearly every country in the Middle East, and advocating total surveillanceof the American people by government authorities. He also wrote a deranged piece for National Review that attacked antiwar conservatives as “traitors.” This last is a bit much to take given his latest: a piece portraying Harman — and Rosen and Weissman — as “heroes,” and smearing US prosecutors as anti-Semites and worse.
According to Frum, the thievery of vital US intelligence engaged in by Rosen and Weissman — stealing highly classified secrets related to Al Qaeda, providing documents revealing internal US government discussions, and various other sensitive items — never happened. These acts are described in the indictment, but Frum isn’t interested in the indictment, or in even knowing the details of the government’s case. All that he tells us is that “the story is almost insanely complicated” — when it actually isn’t at all complicated, unless one is trying willfully to misunderstand the charges and their basis in fact.
Rosen and Weissman systematically milked former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklinfor top secret information to which he had access, and he handed over a veritable treasure trove of secrets: Franklin kept over 80 top secret documents, filched from Pentagon files, at his home, doubtless for reference in case his handlers (Rosen and Weissman) needed to answer an inquiry from their handler (Naor Gilon, chief of political affairs at the Israeli embassy). The spy nest met over a period of two years, always after taking elaborate security precautions: the indictment details one meeting during which the spies switched locations three times. These guys knew what they were doing was treasonous, and rightly feared they were being followed.
None of this makes it into Frum’s narrative, however. Instead, he narrowly focuses in on one detail of the case, and comes up with a truly lame ”explanation” for the arrest and alleged “persecution” of all involved:
“Elements within the FBI and other U.S. agencies have been convinced for years that Israeli spy agencies have penetrated the U.S. government. These anti-Israel elements responded with what spy types call a ‘mole hunt’ — a ferocious search for the suspected infiltrator. Again and again, the search has turned up empty. But from the point of view of a mole hunter, nothing is more damning than the absence of evidence: The inability to discover the mole only proves the mole’s vicious cunning!”
Gee, they thought a “mole” had penetrated our national security defenses — now whydo you supposetheythoughtthat?
From the point of view of a committed Israel-Firsterlike Frum, there can never be such a creature as an Israeli mole, and so a “mole hunt” only proves the inherent wickedness (and ill-disguised anti-Semitism) of the hunters. And of course, these mole-hunters are “anti-Israel” — never mind that their job requires them to protect US national security, no matter what country is trying to penetrate our defenses. We all have a duty to look the other way! Frum cites a supposed “lack of evidence,” and yet refuses to even so much as mention the details of the government’s case — except in one instance, which he manages to get totally wrong. Frum writes:
“At last, in October 2005 the mole hunters found their man: a career Defense Department employee named Larry Franklin. Franklin’s offense? Brace yourself …
“Franklin had learned of U.S. intelligence reports that Iranian sabotage teams were operating inside Iraqi Kurdistan. These reports were being disregarded for a reason very familiar in the Bush years: They contained uncomfortable news that higher-ups did not wish to know.
“Franklin, however, thought the information important — maybe vitally important. He thought it needed to be pushed up the organization chart. Lacking the clout to move the information himself, he decided to do what frustrated officials often do: He leaked it.
“Specifically, he leaked the information to two employees — American citizens both — of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, in hope that they could galvanize a response from their contacts in the White House. The two, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, shared Franklin’s information with journalists, colleagues, and the Israeli embassy. For this action, all three were charged with criminal offenses.”
In reality, the story about Iranian “sabotage teams” in Kurdistan was completely made up— by the “mole-hunters,” i.e. the FBI’s counterespionage unit, which had been watching Franklin (as well as his handlers) ever since he showed up at a luncheon attended by Rosen, Weissman, and Naor Gilon, volunteering to commit espionage on Israel’s behalf. They tracked his movements, and listened in on his phone conversations, as he responded to requests for specific information from Rosen and Weissman. After clearly establishing their target’s criminal intent, the G-men pounced, showing up at Franklin’s Kearneysville, West Virginia, home and confronting him with his treason. Franklin admitted his crimes, and agreed to help the feds nab his accomplices in exchange for leniency.
Toward that end, the FBI planted a story — the Kurdistan “sabotage team” story — and sent a “turned” Franklin to meet with his co-conspirators. Franklin told Rosen and Weissman that Israelis who had infiltrated Kurdistanand were engaged in “training” Kurdish militias were in mortal danger from Iranian “saboteurs,” and that furthermore this information was highly classified: he warned them not to use it. It didn’t take too long for them to leak it, bigtime, not only to the Israeli embassy and other AIPAC employees, but to the media as well.
The point of planting this story was to clearly establish the criminal intent of the two AIPAC spies and seal the legal case against them. It’s not clear whether Frum just doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or if he’s deliberately using this story to throw up a smokescreen so as to avoid mentioning the real crimes of Rosen and Weissman — in Frum’s case, I would tilt toward the latter. Whatever — the fact is that Frum is misinforming his readers on a story that is easily checked. Whether it’s sheer laziness, or the habit of deception, I leave to my readers (and Frum’s editors) to decide.
While Frum’s response to the Harman spy scandal is all too predictable, the response from Congress has been to call for an investigation— not of Harman, but of those who uncovered her corruption! If Rep. Harman was overheard telling an Israeli agent that she’d help him get the charges dropped or reduced, in return for political favors from AIPAC — then it’s the eavesdroppers who’re at fault and must be brought to justice. It doesn’t seem to matter that the FBI went before a judge and got approvalbefore they started listening in — nor does the fact that they weren’t listening in on Harman, specifically, but on the “suspected Israeli agent.” All the Democratic-controlled Congress is concerned with is protecting one of its own.
I might add that the Republicans, who are usually quick to pounce on the merest hint of scandal in Democratic ranks, have said not one word about Harman’s embarrassing ties to a spy nest — not a peep. Which makes sense, because they’re just as firmly in the Lobby’s pocket as the Democrats in Congress. Not to mention that whiff of Bush era corruption wafting into the room once we take into account the quashing of the investigation into Harman by then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who saved her skin by averring “We need Jane.” Rep. Harman was the Bush administration’s biggest Democratic allywhen it came to massively violating the civil liberties of Americans.
Both parties are in this up to their necks. That’s why Obama’s Justice Department is now openly leaking the information that they’re considering dropping the chargesagainst the AIPAC spies — with nary a protest from either side of the aisle.
It looks like Harman, Frum, and the Lobby have won, after all — despite the mountains of evidence against Rosen and Weissman, and the protests of hardworking patriotic law enforcement officials who are dismayed and demoralized by the blank check our Justice Department is giving Israel to spy and steal our secrets with impunity. They leaked the dirt on Harman out of desperation, in the hope that popular outrage would prevent Israel’s American spies from beating the law and slithering back to their nests.
These decisions, of course, are never made in a vacuum: it’s all about politics, and the politic thing to do is to give in to the Lobby, and neo-Pollardites like Frum. Overseas, this will score the administration some brownie points in Israel, and perhaps soften the right-wing government’s increasingly intransigent stance against the new American president, while domestically it will placate and temporarily silence a vocal claque of critics.
After all, what else could we expect a self-proclaimed “pragmatist” to do?
In a better world, a member of Congress caught on tape agreeing to obstruct justice at the request of an agent of a foreign power would have stepped down as soon as the news hit the headlines. In our shameless era, however, that isn’t likely to happen. Instead, the spies will get off, Israel will continue to steal us blind, and a trial that would have shocked the American people and portrayed Israel in a far more realistic light than our news media dares will never take place.
How’s that for change we can believe in?
However, it doesn’t have to turn out that way. It could be that the patriotic, pro-national security counter-intelligence officials who have exposed the AIPAC spy nest and their enablers in government will have their hopes vindicated — their hope that the American people will protest once they understand how and why espionage is allowed to be practiced openly in our nation’s capital, protected and defended in the very halls of Congress.
The outlook of this shocking case doesn’t look too good at the moment, but that could change — if enough Americans are informed and angry enough to protest. The decision to drop the case, as of this writing, has yet to be made: it’s only that they’re considering dropping it. There’s just one way to lodge your protest, at this point, and that is to contact the US Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia, where the case is being tried.
Remember, there are no doubt people in that office fighting to keep this case alive — so be polite. Briefly express your disappointment upon reading news reports that the case might be dropped, and your hope that this is not the case.
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