Scott Roeder (mugshot)

Leach has been pressing Roeder for months to use the so-called “necessity defense,” claiming even if he is found guilty it would open the door for future use of the legal maneuver to defend actions against abortion providers. In August, Leach drafted a legal brief for Roeder using that argument, which says a crime may be permissible if it is committed in order to avoid a much greater harm.

Leach produced a series of videos explaining why he believes the necessity defense is so important. The videos feature two young girls, surrounded by stuffed animals and pretending to be reporters, interviewing Leach about whether a “pro-lifer can shoot an abortionist and still get a trial of the only contested issue in the case by jury.” Leach’s hope is that by confessing to the all the facts of the case, including the murder itself, the judge will be forced to allow the jury to hear arguments on the necessity defense.

Leach even organized an online auction with the goal of hiring an attorney willing to argue that defense.

Judges across the country have uniformly rejected that argument, saying that since abortion is legal it is protected by law. Margaret Raymond, a law professor at the University of Iowa who previously practiced as a criminal defense attorney, told the Iowa Independent in August that the likelihood of a judge allowing this defense quite small.

“Typically, you don’t get to use that defense in murder cases,” she said at the time. “The problem with a necessity defense in this case is that it is hard to say that something that the law permits is an act that must be prohibited at the cost of death.”

Raymond says the argument could prove problematic for Roeder, since it involves confessing to a crime.

Leach could not be reached for comment.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (File photo via Minnesota Governor's Office)

Before his trip to Iowa, Pawlenty had taken heat for endorsing the Conservative Party candidate over the Republican in Tuesday’s U.S. House district in New York. He then called moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine “more liberal than most Republicans would like.”

Pawlenty seemed to be addressing that controversy, saying debate over things like the party platform are good, but once that’s complete Republicans must unite to “start the American comeback.”

Pawlenty then struck a chord for party unity, saying that there should be vigorous primary campaigns, but then everyone should get back on the same team in order to elect Republicans.

“We’re going to have our debates about what the platform will look like,” he said. “We’re going to have our primaries and caucuses. We’re going to go through that process, and it should be hard fought. But when those decisions are made, as a team we have to come around and support each other.”

This marks the second major Republican Party of Iowa fundraiser where a potential 2012 presidential candidate has made it a point to discuss creating an inclusive party. In June, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told a crowd of GOP activists and elected officials that the only way back into the majority was to resist demands for ideological purity.

For most of his speech, Pawlenty struck a populist tone attacking federal bailouts for Wall Street companies and Detroit automakers. And on the night that U.S. House lawmakers approved health care reform legislation, Pawlenty repeatedly hit the Democratic reform efforts, saying they are proof that Democrats no longer care about working families.

“They have a party now, our competitors, that have embraced big government, big unions and big bailouts,” he said. “And they want to have the people believe that they work for the common person. The working person.”

During his successful presidential campaign, Barack Obama regularly asked if the crowd was “fired up and ready to go,” Pawlenty said

“Are you fired up and ready to fight back?” Pawlenty said. “Are you willing to be involved?”

He said Obama broke his campaign promise to seek bipartisan health care reform, instead deciding to push for a liberal bill, ignore Republican voices and continue the “dangerous leftward tilt” the president has pursued for the country.

“In his victory speech in Iowa after the caucuses, President Obama promised — he used the word promise — he was going to bring Republicans and Democrats together to pass needed health care reform,” Pawlenty said. “Now I ask you, are you sick and tired of Democrats trying to ram down this liberal monstrosity down our throat which is their health care reform plan?”

But the Republican Party can’t simply be critics, Pawlenty said. Republicans must also offer solutions, and he pointed to his record as governor of Minnesota as proof that GOP ideas work. Minnesota is a very liberal state, Pawlenty said, and he was still able to cut spending and taxes.

“If we can do it there, we can do it anywhere,” he said.

The federal government could learn from his experience in Minnesota. Instead of allowing the national deficit to continue to grow, government should begin to live within its means, Pawlenty said.

“The only thing growing faster than the national debt is [MSNBC host] Chris Matthews’ man-crush on Barack Obama,” he said.

This marks Pawlenty’s first trip to Iowa since he campaigned for Arizona Sen. John McCain last year, and many are speculating that the trip is another indication of his interest in seeking the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. He has already said he will not seek a third term as governor and last month he formed a political action committee called Freedom First, a typical first move for presidential aspirants.

Steve King

U.S. Rep. Steve King is hoping to derail health care reform legislation scheduled to be debated in the U.S. House by trying to harness the Tea Party protests that took place throughout the summer and once again bringing them to the nation’s capital on Saturday.

King announced Friday that “will join his Republican colleagues and Americans from across the nation” at the U.S. Capitol at 1 p.m.

“Republicans and other participants will deliver a message that the American people reject a government takeover of health care,” King said in a statement.

However, King’s event appears to be hastily planned. Levi Russell, a leader in the national Tea Party Patriot movement who participated in Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s health care protest Thursday, told the liberal blog Talking Points Memo that he was unaware that the gathering was taking place.

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.”

According to information first reported Tuesday afternoon by Ed Tibbets of the Quad-City Times, which has since been replaced by a report by James Lynch of The Gazette, Moravek attempted to extort $1 million from Iowans for Tax Relief and David Stanley, a resident of Muscatine and the group’s co-founder. Moravek, according to Lynch’s report, agreed to meet with undercover detectives on Tuesday afternoon that she believed were employees of Iowans for Tax Relief, who were agreeing to a “settlement.” In exchange for the alleged much-reduced $30,000 payment, Moravek was going to sign a statement indicating that she knew of no wrong-doing perpetrated by members of the conservative group.

Moravek told The Gazette on Tuesday morning she was going to file a complaint with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board alleging that Cloyd “Robbie” Robinson of Cedar Rapids, a lobbyist for the taxpayers group, was reimbursed by the group for checks he wrote to state and municipal political candidates. Moravek said she witnessed Robinson writing the checks and then cashing checks from Iowans for Tax Relief for the same amounts.

Robinson, a former Democratic legislator, and Ed Failor Jr. of Muscatine, the president for Iowans for Tax Relief, denied any wrongdoing.

According to state records, Moravek, who is registered as a Democrat, served as a lobbyist during the 2009 session for the Iowa Commission for Persons with Disabilities, a state board on which she has also served as a commissioner.

A search of Iowa electronic court records performed by The Iowa Independent Tuesday night revealed that Moravek had three past criminal convictions on theft charges. She received monetary fines for 5th degree and 4th degree theft convictions in Linn County in 1998 and 2004. She was also given a monetary fine, a suspended 30-day jail sentence and one year of probation following a 4th degree theft and trespass conviction in Linn County in 2005.

An identical search conducted Wednesday morning by The Iowa Independent of the same electronic database revealed several additional convictions. Moravek was convicted of 4th degree theft in Johnson County in 1998, and of 5th degree theft in Linn County in 2003. During 2003 she was also convicted in Linn County of assault and 5th degree theft. In January 2005, she was convicted in two separate cases of harassment by communication in Benton County. All of the convictions resulted in monetary fines ranging from $50 to $300.

Within the electronic records there is also a case against Moravek in Cedar County that was filed this week on Tuesday, Nov. 2. A spokeswoman within the Cedar County Attorney’s Office, however, said that she knew of no such case and couldn’t provide further comment. According to online records, Moravek is scheduled to make an appearance in that case on Nov. 19 at 9 a.m.

Discrepancies within the two electronic records searches were brought to the attention of state’s information technology department that maintains the court database. According to a spokesman from that office, if the cases missing from the initial search had all originated in the same county, the omission could have been due to a lack of communication between state and county information systems. Because that was not the case, the spokesman could offer no explanation as to why the search results from Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning provided differing information.

If found guilty of the extortion charge, which is a Class D felony, Moravek could face up to five years in prison and a $7,500 fine. She is currently released on bond.

The ad will air in the Des Moines and Cedar Rapids markets as well as some cable around the state. It is titled “Stronger Than Ever” and focuses on the governor’s response to last year’s flooding and to the state’s economic downturn.

“The new ad … puts the economic situation and recent budget decisions in context,” Culver campaign manager Andrew Roos said in a press release announcing the ad. “With the worst natural disaster in Iowa history, and the deepest economic downturn since the 1930s, Iowa has faced real challenges. Culver has taken these challenges head-on, managed the state responsibly and made smart investments that will help Iowa emerge from this storm stronger than ever.”

In the ad, Culver sounds like he’s running a politically conservative campaign, focusing on cutting spending and cutting his own salary, as well as emphasizing his decision against raising taxes.

Culver launched his first TV ad in mid October, focusing solely on his economic record.

Scott Roeder (mugshot)

Leach publishes a newsletter called “Prayer & Action News,” which advocates the doctrine of justifiable homicide in the case of abortion doctors. The man accused of murdering Tiller, Scott Roeder, was a contributor to the publication. Leach and several other anti-abortion activists want to hire a private attorney in order to pursue a “necessity defense” for Roeder, which in general terms says that it’s OK to commit a crime in order to avoid a much greater harm.

In an exclusive interview with The Iowa Independent in August, Leach said he had drafted a legal brief on Roeder’s behalf using the “necessity defense.” Leach’s argument is that Tiller’s murder stopped an untold number of abortions.

Now Leach is organizing an online auction of items on eBay to raise money, an effort that launched Sunday night. The items include several graphic drawings done by a fellow inmate and signed by Roeder. A spokesman for eBay initially told the Kansas City Star that while the company does not oppose all listings that raise money for legal defense funds, “our policy does not permit listings that benefit someone charged with or convicted of a crime.”

The company has since announced that it will remove the items it deems violate the site’s listing policy, however several items are still available, such as a Bible once owned by an Oregon woman who shot and wounded Tiller in 1993.

Leach did not respond to a request for comment by the Iowa Independent.

Since Tiller’s murder, Leach has garnered a lot of media attention, both for his ties to Roeder and for his controversial statements regarding acts of violence against abortion providers. Shortly after Roeder’s arrest, Leach told The Iowa Independent that when human law conflicts with God’s Laws, “we ought to obey God rather than man.” He later told The Des Moines Register that he is personally no danger to abortion providers because he doesn’t know enough about guns to do any harm.

In the mid-1990s, Leach’s association with the accused killer of a Florida abortion doctor helped persuade U.S. marshals to guard the Planned Parenthood clinic in Des Moines.

In the January 1996 issue of his newsletter, Leach published the Army of God manual, which advocates the killing of the providers of abortion and contains bomb-making instructions. Because of this, he was fired from his job as a writer for an Ankeny newspaper.

In 2002, he tried to air videotape of patients entering a local Planned Parenthood clinic on public-access cable TV. Mediacom Communications Corp. decided it would not allow him to air the footage.

“Based on primary substance abuse treatment admission data from the Iowa Department of Public Health, alcohol accounts for about 61 percent of all clients, followed by 23 percent who are there primarily for marijuana and almost 8 percent mainly for meth,” said Gary Kendell, Iowa’s drug policy coordinator and director of the Governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy.

In addition to being the most popular illicit drug for all age groups, marijuana was the drug of choice for 56 percent of juvenile substance abuse clients.

Methamphetamine activity in Iowa, after trending downward over the last five years, has turned upward again, according to the report.

Prescription drug abuse continues to emerge as Iowa’s fastest growing form of substance abuse. The Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement opened 243 percent more pharmaceutical cases and seized 412 percent more pharmaceutical units last year, the third year in a row that has seen an increase.

(Photo courtesy Recovery.gov)

So when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed early this year, adding $6.2 billion to the federal weatherization program, Iowa officials realized the state would see a dramatic increase in funding. And the additional $80 million for the state means another 10,000 Iowa homes could benefit from the program.

But the huge influx of funds has some worried that federal, state and local agencies will have trouble allocating them and conducting sufficient oversight. Because the money must be spent quickly, the worry is that there could be waste or fraud, and because the massive funding increase cannot possibly be matched with an equal hiring increase, many predict there simply won’t be enough hands on deck locally to oversee the program’s expansion.

In Iowa, the program is administered by a small state agency called the Division of Community Action Agencies, which is part of the Department of Human Rights.

The division administrator, William Brand, said the federal recovery act has strict guidelines to avoid waste and fraud. And while his agency has only been able to add four new members to their staff of five to help with inspection and oversight, local agencies that operate the program have been able to hire additional staff as well.

“Local agencies have to assure to us that they are going to follow the rules, and we require a monthly program report for work that has been approved,” Brand said. “Our agency also does onsite monitoring to go through their books to go through receipts, payroll records, all sorts of records to make sure everything is in compliance.”

The state also does random on-site inspections at homes that are weatherized to ensure quality work is being done.

Money for the weatherization program goes directly to the Division of Community Action Agencies, which in turn funnels the money to 18 nonprofit agencies around the state — in Polk County, for instance, the agency is government run. Those agencies handle the application process and the initial energy audit of the homes.

When it comes time to do the actual work on the home, some local agencies hire local contractors to do all the work on a competitive bid process. Others do some of the work themselves.

“Local agencies are responsible for reporting all their expenditures of funds on a monthly basis,” Brand said. “Each local agency must also contract with an independent auditing firm, and the results of audits are provided to us for our review.”

Some worried the state and local agencies wouldn’t be able to ramp up fast enough to match the increase in funding. But for the first time the weatherization program had to comply with the federal Davis-Bacon Act, which says the local prevailing wage must be paid. That delayed dispersal of funding through the summer, while the U.S. Department of Labor determined county-by-county prevailing wage levels across the nation, giving local agencies some time to train new staff and implement oversight regulations.

“We’ve been gearing up for a while on this,” Brand said. “It’s a very accountable system.”

A looming deadline

The money must be spent by March 30, 2012, something Brand said won’t be an issue.

“We’ve got such a long waiting list, we know the money will easily be spent,” he said.

Aiding in that effort is the fact that income levels for qualifying families were raised from 200 percent of poverty level to 300 percent. Homes are prioritized based on energy consumption and whether young children, the elderly or the disabled live there.

“Those homes go to the front of the line,” Brand said.

A report released earlier this year by the nonpartisan Iowa Policy Project found that families who were able to participate in the weatherization program saw the share of their family budget dedicated to energy cost substantially reduced.

“It literally is a great economic stimulus program, because it will create jobs, put more work in the community for contractors and will result in energy efficiency that helps low-income families who are strapped with high energy bills,” Brand said.

Jon Murphy, director of the Office of State-Federal Relations and co-chairman of Iowa’s Recovery Act task force, said another benefit of the additional funding is that it clears the way for families in the future to get assistance that otherwise would have been left out.

“Unfortunately in Iowa, we have a long line of people who have been waiting for the weatherization program to come to them,” he said. “This helps clear a lot of those people off the queue.”Whil

File photo: Sen Charles Grassley. (Lauren Victoria Burke/wdcpix.com)

While Grassley has long worked on a compromise bill with Democrats, it appears the legislation put forward by his good friend, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, does not compromise enough.

“I don’t think it does what it was portrayed to do over the long haul,” Grassley said. “There are some good aspects of it but I intend to vote against it.”

The bill in question does not include a public option, which has been Grassley’s sticking point from the very beginning. It does, however, contain several provisions that make it impossible for Iowa’s senior senator to support it, he said.

He opposes provisions in the bill that would require all Americans to carry health insurance or face financial penalties, though waivers or discounts would be provided for lower-income Americans. Many believe Grassley’s position on this portion of the bill has changed since this summer.

He believes insurance premiums will go up, citing new taxes and fees in the bill as his proof, and believes the bill will damage Medicare Advantage, a private insurance plan that covers a quarter of Medicare recipients. Experts have concluded that basic benefits that mirror regular Medicare will stay the same, but the extra benefits that people receive under Advantage could be changed.

Ultimately, Grassley pointed to a pair of debunked myths as reasons to oppose the health care reform bill, saying it does too little to block federal money being spent on abortions and for illegal immigrants.

Despite being repeatedly proven false, opponents of reform continue to claim abortion will be covered under the legislation.

The claim that illegal immigrants will receive health insurance is also a myth, as a House version of reform specifically states “undocumented aliens” will not be eligible for credits to help them buy health insurance. Republicans contend that the legislation does not directly mention a citizenship verification procedure, therefore making it possible for illegal immigrants to get around the ban.

In the end, though, Grassley said he expects the bill to pass the Senate Finance Committee on a party-line vote.