The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Richard Day's picture

    THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD, AMEN

    Benedict Arnold V
    January 14, 1741 - June 14, 1801 (aged 60)
    Benedict arnold illustration.jpg
    Benedict Arnold Signature.svg


    Warning Against Enticement
     8 Listen, my son, to your father's instruction
           and do not forsake your mother's teaching.

     9 They will be a garland to grace your head
           and a chain to adorn your neck.

     10 My son, if sinners entice you,
           do not give in to them.

     11 If they say, "Come along with us;
           let's lie in wait for someone's blood,
           let's waylay some harmless soul;

     12 let's swallow them alive, like the grave, [b]
           and whole, like those who go down to the pit;

     13 we will get all sorts of valuable things
           and fill our houses with plunder;

     14 throw in your lot with us,
           and we will share a common purse"-

     15 my son, do not go along with them,
           do not set foot on their paths;

     16 for their feet rush into sin,
           they are swift to shed blood.

     17 How useless to spread a net
           in full view of all the birds!

     18 These men lie in wait for their own blood;
           they waylay only themselves!

     19 Such is the end of all who go after ill-gotten gain;
           it takes away the lives of those who get it.

    (Proverbs1, 8-19)


    I watched the movie Breach again. It is nice when a tremendous movie does not sell well. It means I am entitled to see the presentation years before it would normally find its way to basic cable.

    The movie concerns the treachery of an FBI agent who served from 1978 to 2001. Wiki gives a nice summary:

    Eric O'Neill is a young FBI employee assigned to work undercover as a clerk to Robert Hanssen, a senior agent he is told is suspected of being a sexual deviant. Hanssen has been recalled to FBI headquarters ostensibly to head up a new division specializing in Information Assurance.

    Initially, Hanssen insists on a strict formality between the two men. He frequently rails against the bureaucracy of the FBI and complains that only those who regularly "shoot guns" are considered for senior positions instead of those, like himself, who are involved in vital national security matters. He calls the bureau's information technology systems antiquated and laments the lack of coordination and information exchange with other intelligence agencies.

    ·  Chris Cooper - Robert Hanssen

    ·  Ryan Phillippe - Eric O'Neill


    I found the following gem in an article/book entitled The Last Day In the Sun-Robert Hanssen Story and here is a reproduction of the letter this asshole sent to the KGB just prior to his arrest:


    Dear Friends:

    I thank you for your assistance these many years. It seems, however, that my greatest utility to you has come to an end, and it is time to seclude myself from active service.

    I have been promoted to a higher do-nothing Senior Executive job outside of regular access to information (sic) within the counterintelligence program. I am being isolated. Further, I believe I have detected repeated  bursting radio signal emanations from my vehicle. The knowledge of their existence is sufficient. Amusing the games children play.

    Something has aroused the sleeping tiger. Perhaps you know better than I.

    Life is full of its ups and downs.

    I will be in contact next year, same time, same place. Perhaps the correlation of forces and circumstance then will have improved.

    Your friend,

    Ramon Garcia

    Bob Hanssen had a friend staying at his house in Northern Virginia that weekend. On this Sunday he took that pal, Jack Hoschouer, to church with the family. The Hanssen brood was large. There were six kids, though only two, Lisa and Gregg, were still living at home. The other four had either married or were in college. The Hanssen family members were Catholic conservatives. They belonged to Opus Dei, a small but powerful faction of Catholicism that many called a cult. The Hanssen family displayed their conservative beliefs prominently, marching in pro-life rallies, slapping anti-abortion stickers on the family van, and attending gun shows. Bob collected guns; there were 14 in the house ranging from an Uzi semiautomatic rifle to Walther PPK pistols. The Walther PPK was James Bond's weapon of choice and Hanssen, a Bond fan, had two in his collection. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/spies/hanssen/1.html

    Wiki also does a nice job of summarizing some of this traitor's activities while in the FBI:

    (The year following his induction into our national secret police)... Hanssen was moved into counter-intelligence and given the task of compiling a database of Soviet intelligence for the Bureau. It was then, in 1979, only three years after joining the FBI, that Hanssen began his career as a Soviet, and later a Russian, spy.

    That year, Hanssen approached the GRU (the Soviet military intelligence agency) and offered his services. Hanssen never indicated any ideological motive for his activities, telling the FBI after he was caught that his only motivation was the money.[13] During his first espionage cycle, Hanssen told the GRU a significant amount, including information on FBI bugging activities and Bureau lists of suspected Soviet intelligence agents. His most important leak of information was the betrayal of Dmitri Polyakov, code named TOPHAT. Polyakov was a CIA informant for more than twenty years before his retirement in 1980, and passed enormous amounts of information to American intelligence while he rose to the rank of General in the Red Army. For reasons that remain unclear, the Soviets did not act on their intelligence about Polyakov until he was betrayed a second time by Aldrich Ames in 1985. Polyakov was arrested in 1986 and executed two years later. Ames was blamed for giving Polyakov's name to the Soviets, while Hanssen's role remained unknown until after his arrest in 2001.[14]   wiki

    I watch a movie and sometimes I even turn the sound off just watching the frames. This is of course, after I had already viewed the film from the beginning till the end a few times. In Western art-- Pre Renaissance or Renaissance-- there are always clues lurking in the shadow of a painting. Hell, looking at the  cave art  representing the higher art of the so-called 'cavemen' beginning some 40.000 years ago, one can discern so many 'hidden clues' inserted on purpose into the masterpieces on those cave walls.

    In Breach, the camera pans Hannsen's office several times during the movie. There is the crucifix, a place where Hanssen actually kneels and prays. There is a similar painting to the painting on the wall of the shrink in Good Will Hunting. And there is John Ashcroft's smiling face. Now remember, Ashcroft has only been Attorney General for about three months prior to the traitor's arrest. One would wonder why Bush's lovely face or the FBI director's smile was not chosen to decorate Benedict Arnold's office. But there you have it.

    LET THE EAGLE SOAR...

    Drama is drama. I mean I do not believe that baby Jesus was taken into Egypt. Only one book of the bible depicts this sabbatical. And speaking as a boy who was taken to Kansas City, Missouri at age one and returning a year or two later, I know little of Kansas City except the history of the first battles of the Civil War, prior to the attack upon Fort Sumter.

    And Jesus would not have learned much as a baby of the grandeur of Egypt if he was a human being in fact and would need no 'learnin' about that grandeur if he was indeed god incarnated. 

    The flight to Egypt is created for dramatic effect just like the manger scene.

    I have no pictures of the office of Hanssen during the last three or four months of his tenure with the FBI.

    But I smelled CStreet throughout the film Breach.  I mean OPUS DEI means the Work of God but it also is a very powerful arm of the American Roman Catholic Church.

    In the movie, Hanssen represents everything and I mean everything I despise about American conservatives. He is depicted as training in a newbie. The newbie is a plant by the FBI who is sure that some hanky  panky as been going on with regards to this 25 year veteran in our secret police department.

    Hanssen demands that the newbie say a rosary a day.

    Hanssen makes it clear that women should not wear pants, because god knows that we do not need any more Hilary Clintons in this world.

    Hanssen demands that he have the opportunity to meet the newbie's wife (of East Germanic persuasion) and begins to move into their relationship. Literally bringing his own wife over to the newbie's home for dinner and pontificating about the importance of reproduction.

    Hanssen even sneaks over to the newbie's home to see the youngster's wife alone.

    Hanssen demands that the newbie attend church regularly with his wife.

    Hanssen demands that the newbie never taste of the grape during his entire tenure with the FBI, claiming that there was some rule, written or not, that agents never drink on duty or off duty because they are always presupposed to be on duty regardless of the hour.

    Hanssen espouses every goddamnable political position I have ever despised.

    Of course Hanssen cheats on his wife. Of course Hannsen cheats on his country. Of course Hannsen drinks in excess.

    In short, Hanssen is the typical hypocrite. Hell, this traitor takes hypocrisy to a new level, sort of.

    Ashcroft, Huckabee, Ensign, Vitter, and scores of others associated with the fundamentalist conservatives in this country and/or CStreet are all people I despise.

    I want it made clear for the record here, in case anyone wishes to attack me as withholding some information, that I have a bias with regard to issues of faith.

    Pope Benedict has declared June 19 as the beginning of the Year of the Priest. He has proclaimed that "without priestly ministry, there would be no Eucharist, no mission and even no church." I hate to be the one to inform him, but Eucharist, mission and church existed long before the rise of priesthood. http://ncronline.org/blogs/young-voices/don%E2%80%99t-tell-pope

    This writer from the National Catholic Reporter also adds:

    I wouldn't worry about telling the pope that Eucharist, mission and church existed long before the priesthood, nor that the Year of the Priest should really be a year dedicated to all the laity. Instead, we need to understand this ourselves.

    The Year of the Priest is an opportunity for the entire Christian faithful to reflect on priestly ministry, and in so doing, to claim our own.

    I was simply going to add some history about the Catholic Church that include the fact that some Popes over the last fifteen hundred years or so ascended to their positions as bastard sons of some previous el papa and that one of the Leos actually opined centuries ago:

    Would it not be incredible to discover upon death that there really was a God?

    What is my point in writing this essay?

    If someone claims to be a follower of Christ and is in politics, IT IS IRRELEVANT TO THE POSITION HE SEEKS IN GOVERNMENT.

    If someone is perceived as practicing the tenets of A Christian Church, IT SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS OR HER QUALIFICATIONS TO ACHIEVE A POSITION IN GOVERNMENT.

    RELIGION IS IRRELEVANT.

    You hear that? It is irrelevant.

    If Matthews can claim that he will never judge a person's motive because he cannot see into another's soul, then IT IS IRRELEVANT WHAT THE INDIVIDUAL'S GODDAMNABLE RELIGIOUS VIEWS ARE!!!

    If there is one saving grace of some of the neo-cons as well as rover, it is that some of them have disavowed any affiliation with any religion.

    Jimmy Carter is an avowed Christian. As far as I know Jummy never cheated on his wife--except in his mind's eye, hahaha-and he has truly fulfilled in my mind, the life of a true Christian. I love Jimmy Carter.

    Wild Bill Clinton is an avowed Christian. As far as I know Billy attempted to screw anything without a penis. William Jefferson Clinton is achieving great things as a former president and of course, w bush, has made Clinton's Administration LOOK A HELL OF A LOT BETTER THAN I THOUGHT AT THE TIME.

    George W. Bush is an avowed Christian. As far as I know, his administration was one of the worst this country has seen in its 220 some year history. I think is an egotist, an egoist and an ignoramus. Although Palin has given some wonderful nuances to the term 'ignoramus'.

    But I know this as an amateur bible reader.

    CStreet residents have demonstrated an ignorance of the true message contained in the Gospels.

    They do not wish to feed the hungry.

    They do not wish to heal the sick.

    They do not wish to house the homeless.

    They do not wish to help the lost find their way.

    I CAN TELL THIS FROM THEIR GODDAMNABLE VOTING RECORD.

    Why do some avowed Christians act the way they do? Maybe because of something I found in the biography of a modern day Benedict Arnold:

    Hanssen never indicated any ideological motive for his activities, telling the FBI after he was caught that his only motivation was the money.