Des Moines anti-abortion activist Dave Leach. (Video screengrab)

Leach and a group of anti-abortion activists posted a dozen items on the auction site in order to raise money to hire a private attorney for Scott Roeder, who is accused of murdering Tiller because he performed abortions. Around a dozen items were posted, including graphic artwork drawn by fellow inmates and signed by Roeder as well as an “Army of God Edition” of Leach’s newsletter which lists ways to damage abortion buildings from putting super glue in locks to following two simple bomb recipes.

After five hours, eBay removed 10 items, with the final two items removed by late Monday afternoon. The company said in a statement that the anti-abortion memorabilia violated its listing polices which prohibit items being posted that “promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance, or promote organizations with such views.”

Leach said the site allows plenty of postings that fit that description.

“You sell World War II stuff, which ‘glorifies’ our role in it,” Leach said in a letter to eBay executives obtained by The Iowa Independent on Wednesday. “You do not censor things which honor police, who exist for their capacity for judicious violence. So it seems to me that your statement cannot be made sense of, without a common sense appeal to the context of violence.”

In August, Leach drafted a legal brief of Roeder claiming the necessity defense, which argues that a crime may be permissible if it is committed in order to avoid a much greater harm. The money raised would go toward finding an attorney willing to argue that defense.

Leach’s hope is that refusing to contest the facts of the case will leave no other option to the judge but to let the jury hear argument regarding whether Roeder was forced to commit murder in order to stop an “unlawful harm,” meaning abortion. That argument has been tried before and has repeatedly been rejected by judges regarding crimes committed to stop abortion because abortion is legal, and therefore protected by the law.

“[O]ur project has nothing to do with ‘promoting or glorifying violence,’” Leach said in his letter. “It is all about moving judges in abortion prevention trials to stop censoring the only trial issue, and the only defense, from the hearing of the jury. Does that sound to you like a fanatical, extremist, violence-glorifying, radical goal?”

Leach argued with the assertion that his postings “glorified violence.”

“For example, would you accuse the Bible of ‘promoting violence against an individual’ when such individual is slaughtering thousands every year?” Leach said. “How about items which honor police, who exist for the purpose of inflicting violence upon individuals when justified?”

In a note accompanying the letter, Leach said he and his associates may pursue other options in order to go forward with the auction, saying he has looked into purchasing software to make the auction a reality.

“We have had enough publicity, I think, to attract buyers,” he said. “Especially if we do it soon.”

Leach, who has received his fair share of bad press over the years regarding his association with radical anti-abortion movement, said he is comforted that Jesus received bad press as well.

“But I have been pondering the ‘bad press’ Jesus got from the Pharisees, and how he handled it, and a strategy remains alive in my mind how to turn this all around into a public move to end abortion,” he said.

Leach publishes a newsletter called “Prayer & Action News” that describes itself as “a trumpet call for the Armies of God to assemble.”

Roeder was a contributor to the publication, which advocates the doctrine of justifiable homicide in the case of abortion doctors. Along with Leach, the auction was organized by Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist who made headlines in 1995 when she was ordered by a federal judge to stop using a bullhorn within 500 feet of any abortion clinic. Since Roeder’s arrest in May he’s been in regular contact with what The Wichita Eagle describes as “a who’s who of anti-abortion militants.”

McDowell says he buys and sells domain names at home in his spare time, and that’s all this was.

It’s a practice sometimes called “domain name speculation.” It’s somewhat common, though intellectual property lawyers have done a good job of going after folks for squatting on the wrong name in recent years, so it’s not as common as it used to be.

Here’s a written statement McDowell sent me:

The registration of this particular URL has nothing to do with Sen. Paul McKinley or his exploring of a run for governor of Iowa. Completely outside of my duties in the Senate Republican Leader’s Office on my own personal time, I sometimes buy and sell URLs as part of some outside consulting and online work that I do in my spare time. In no way did Senate Republican Leader Paul McKinley have anything to do with this purchase that I made awhile ago on my own time and with my own resources. There is absolutely zero correlation between my personal purchase of this URL and Senate Republican Leader Paul McKinley or my duties in his office.

I followed up by asking McDowell if he would sell the domain name to Branstad if he decides to run. He said he definitely would.

That means that if Branstad is running for governor, he’s even more behind online than I originally thought.

“After returning from serving in Iraq, I quickly grew frustrated by my impression that leaders in both political parties did not understand the fundamental challenges to ending the war in Iraq,” Bailey said in a press release. “When I first learned of Senator Biden’s plan, I realized that was the ticket – a political solution, not a military one. I am endorsing him because from day one, our next president must make decisions on the direction in Iraq and I am convinced Senator Biden has the knowledge and experience to bring our troops home without leaving a situation that requires another generation of Americans to return in a decade.”

Biden noted in a press release, “McKinley is one of Iowa’s most promising political leaders, and I am proud that he has pledged to support my campaign. I am in awe of all that he has already accomplished, including his exemplary work on behalf of his fellow veterans.”

Bailey is a veteran of five years of service in the United States Army. Bailey was a paratrooper with the elite 82nd Airborne Division and led his Tactical Signals Intelligence Intercept Team on more than 100 combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the University of Iowa, where he earned a BA in International Studies, McKinley founded and served as President of the University of Iowa Veterans Association.Elaborating on his frustrations with the political parties, Bailey was quick to point his finger at the Republicans and their handling of the war in Iraq. “They did not understand the situation at all,” Bailey told the Iowa Independent. “The strategies they were using when they sent us over was to treat the civilians like a hill that you had to walk over to get to the enemy. That just doesn’t work. Iraqis are an extremely complex culture with lots of different religions, ethnic groups, and beyond that you have tribes, clans and lots of  other divisions. If you want to win, you have to understand that.”

“I work in military intelligence and we sent reports stating that we were going about this all wrong, but we kept getting ignored over and over,” Bailey said during a telephone interview. “I think that the Bush administration still does somehow think that they will one day kill all the bad guys and that will be the end of it. It’s far more complex than that.”

Despite being a Democrat, Bailey was not willing to let his party’s leaders off the hook so easily, in particular those members calling for a quick withdrawal. “Some Democrats are guilty of thinking we can just pack up and leave, and that’s just not feasible,” Bailey said. “There’s a lot of good people in Iraq who are on our side, and they and their families will be killed if we pack up and leave. They’ve trusted us and done everything we’ve asked of them, and we can’t abandon them.”

“We can’t stay there forever either. We have to have a rational and reasonable plan to get us out of there without leaving Iraq in a state of chaos, and that’s where I think Senator Biden steps in,” Bailey said. “When I first read Biden’s plan for Iraq over a year ago, I wasn’t thinking in terms of a presidential context, but I do remember thinking that somebody in D.C. finally gets what is going on.”

Asked what other reason, besides the Iraq war, as to why he’s endorsing Biden, Bailey responded that it’s too hard for him to separate the war from any of the other issues. “This is what really matters to me. I’ve been there, I’ve lost friends there, and ultimately the Iraq war was one of the guiding factors in my decision to endorse Senator Biden,” Bailey said.

Another important factor behind Bailey’s endorsement decision was Biden’s vote in March to supplement the funding in Iraq, which included Biden’s MRAP (Minde Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles) amendment. “When you’re running in a Democratic primary, that certainly was not the most popular vote, politically, and as a legislator, I genuinely appreciated Biden’s courage to vote for what’s right and not what’s politically expedient,” Bailey said. “With Biden as president, I think we will see this courage applied in lots of other areas. I don’t want to sound like a one-issue voter, but I think most of Democratic candidates share fairly similar stances on the issues. It’s Biden’s experience, leadership, institutional knowledge and ability to get things done that separates him from the rest of the pack.”

Elected in 2006, Bailey defeated three-time Republican incumbent George Eichorn by a 10-point margin and represents District 9, which covers all of Wright County and parts of Hamilton and Webster Counties. Bailey is the eleventh Iowa legislator to endorse Biden, including his leader, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Des Moines. “We are excited to have McKinley join the Biden team here in Iowa,” McCarthy said in a press release. “His work with veterans as well as his own service to our country will prove invaluable to helping Joe Biden win the Iowa caucuses.”

I’m with Joe: Rep. McKinley Bailey