WASHINGTON - Senator Chuck Grassley, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is questioning the United States Secret Service about possible involvement of staff from the White House Communications Agency, and the White House Office of Advance in the Colombian prostitution scandal given the close working relationship among members of advance teams.

Grassley's letter to Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan and Acting Inspector General Charles Edwards asks if the Secret Service, in the course of its investigation, is also looking into the possibility that staff from the White House Communications Agency and White House Office of Advance may also be involved in the scandal that has plagued the agency over the last week.  Grassley's questions come following a Senate Judiciary Committee staff briefing provided by the Secret Service.  The Senate Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over the Secret Service.

A copy of the text of the letter to the Secret Service Director and the acting Inspector General is below.  A signed copy of the letter can be found here.

April 20, 2012

Via Electronic Transmission

The Honorable Mark J. Sullivan                                Mr. Charles K. Edwards

Director                       Acting Inspector General

U.S. Secret Service                        U.S. Department of Homeland Security

950 H Street, NW                             245 Murray Drive, SW Bldg. 410

Washington, D.C. 20223                          Washington, D.C. 20528

Dear Director Sullivan and Acting Inspector General Edwards:

I write today regarding the ongoing investigation by the U.S. Secret Service Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (OIG) regarding the recent events surrounding the recall from Colombia of 11 agents and officers after allegations of misconduct arose.  I appreciate the quick action taken by the Secret Service to immediately address these serious allegations by removing the agents and officers from the field, starting an investigation with OPR and the OIG, and by taking swift action to remove individuals involved from federal service.  While these actions indicate the Secret Service is taking these allegations seriously, more work remains to investigate and uncover what occurred, hold those responsible accountable, and to put in place new policies and procedures to prevent future misconduct.

I appreciate the briefing provided to my staff on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Committee) today by representatives of both the Secret Service and OIG.  The briefing included a number of useful details about the investigation thus far and about ongoing plans.  In addition to matters discussed at the briefing, I have a number of additional questions that need to be addressed in writing.  Accordingly, I ask that you provide responses to the following questions.

(1)   In addition to the rooms held by Secret Service agents and officers at Hotel Caribe, were there agents or officers staying at other hotels in Cartagena, Colombia?  If so, were records from those other hotels pulled?  If not, will those records be pulled?

(2)   It has been reported that in addition to the 11 agents and officers of the Secret Service there were members of the Department of Defense (DOD) involved as well.  It has also been reported that those individuals are currently being reviewed by DOD.  It is my understanding that ordinarily the Secret Service advance team works closely with the White House Communications Agency (WHCA) which is made up of military and civilians.  Further, it is also my understanding that the Secret Service advance teams work closely with the White House Office of Advance and that sometimes the Secret Service may help reserve rooms for representatives from these offices.

a.       Did the Secret Service reserve rooms at the Hotel Caribe or other hotels in Cartagena, Colombia for representatives of the WHCA or the White House Advance Team?  If so, have records for overnight guests for those entities been pulled as part of the investigation conducted by OPR or OIG?  If not, why not?

b.      In the event neither OPR nor OIG are pulling the records of WHCA or White House Advance Team staffers, who would be reviewing these hotel records to ensure that sensitive information was not compromised by overnight guests from these entities?

c.       Were there any rooms shared by Secret Service, WHCA, and the White House Office of Advance for operational or support matters?  If so, were logs for those rooms checked to see if overnight guests were registered?

(3)   Please provide an official copy of all written policies and procedures that agents and officers are provided and expected to adhere to while on foreign travel.  This request should include all relevant regulations, rules, procedures, and applicable policy statements that inform agents and officers of restrictions and limitations on their conduct while on official business.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this request.  The Committee has jurisdiction over the Secret Service and given the fluid nature of the ongoing investigation I would appreciate your response as soon as possible to address these important questions.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Grassley

Ranking Member

It's not the end of the world that fascinates engineering physicist Daniel Friedmann, it's the beginning.

Forget the Mayan Long Calendar, Friedmann has come up with a formula that converts "Bible time" to years as we know them in calculating the age of the universe, the sun, and life on Earth. The surprise? Friedmann's calculations consistently match scientific estimates derived from the study of fossil timelines, the solar system and the cosmos.

In his book The Genesis One Code (www.genesisonecode.com), the CEO of the aerospace company known for building the space station's robotic arm, describes how he developed the formula - 1,000 X 365 X 7,000 -from references in religious texts.

"The formula is simple," Friedmann says. "The Bible tells us in Psalms that one day for God is 1,000 years for us. We know that 365 days is our solar year, and from other studies of the scriptures we can conclude that one creation day in Genesis equals 7,000 God years."

"Multiply those numbers and you find that in years as we know them, each creation dayis an epoch of 2.56 billion years," Friedmann says. The age of the universe, when calculated using the formula, is 13.74 billion years. Science puts it at 13.75 billion, plus or minus 0.13 billion.

Friedmann's formula produced 20 other Bible/science matches for events described in Genesis, They include :

• According to the Bible, the sun appeared to mark days, seasons and years on Day 4 of creation. Calculating from the end of the fourth day, Friedmann puts the "creation time age" at just under 4.79 billion years ago. Science says the sun is 4.57 billion years old, plus or minus 0.11 billion years.

• Science has determined the simplest form of life first appeared on Earth 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. Using Friedmann's formula, calculating from the beginning of Day 5, life appeared 3.52 billion years ago.

• Complex life - most of the major animal phyla - appeared in a fairly rapid "Cambrian explosion" about 530 million years ago, give or take 5 million years, according to fossil records. That was four hours into Day 6, according to Friedmann, 532 million years ago.

• Day 6 was when "God planted the garden in Eden," according to the Bible. Friedmann calculates plant life appearing a little later in the "day," starting 426 million years ago and concluding 106 million years ago. The fossil record indicates that the first primitive macroscopic plants appeared about 420 million years ago, with seed plants and conifers diversifying 280 million years ago and flowering plants showing up 130 million years ago.

The creation text, Friedmann points out, comes from books in the Bible whose existence are acknowledged by all three of the Abrahamic religions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The polarizing debate has been between the world of science, with its numbers derived from scientific observation; and religion, with the Genesis creation narrative that appears to contradict scientific evidence.

"I focused on the 'what' and 'when' because those questions can be addressed with a detached, scientific perspective," Friedmann says.

"Now the debate can focus on the 'how' and 'why.'"

About Daniel Friedmann

Daniel Friedmann is CEO of MDA Corp. aerospace company in Canada, specializing in robotics used on the international space station. He has a master's in engineering physics and 30 years' experience in the space industry. He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed scientific papers on space industry topics. He is also a longtime student of cosmology and religion.

After weeks of no news or not-so-good news, I have THREE positive developments to share.

(1) The House late Wednesday passed its version of the Health and Human Services budget bill. I am happy to report they restored funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs, going from $0 to $2.8 million!

The bill is headed to a conference committee, where differences will be ironed out. But because both chambers have now passed bills with AT LEAST the same amount of funding as this year, we are hopeful we will see an increase in funding for these critical programs for the next fiscal year.

We sent out some sample letters to the editor on this issue this week. Letters in local newspapers are read closely by legislators. If you are interested in submitting a letter to your paper, contact Cassandra Furlong at cassie.furlong@cancer.org.

(2) In that same bill, the House agreed with the Senate that the state should help IowaCare cancer patients receiving treatment at the University of Iowa Hospitals pay for their lodging costs if no other option exists. The Senate allocated $200,000 for this; the House did not put a cap on the amount. We are quite hopeful now that we will receive funding for this critical need.

(3) And finally, whether or not our K-12 tobacco-nicotine-free schools language will remain in the education reform bill and become law is now up to the conference committee negotiating differences between the House and Senate on the bill. We sent out an Action Alert on this yesterday. If you have not had a chance to respond, please do so now. If the 10 legislators on the conference committee get hundreds of requests to include this, it will be hard to ignore!

The question on everyone's mind is when the Legislature will adjourn since the 100^th day, the day their expense money ended, was Tuesday. Speculation runs rampant. I can tell you they still have quite a bit of work to do, but how fast they get it done depends on how badly they want to end the session. We will keep you posted, so stay tuned!

And as always, feel free to contact me directly with any questions or concerns - peggy.huppert@cancer.org.

The Bettendorf company is the cover story on the March/April issue of Music Inc. (story continued below)

Foster Family Music Center, located in Bettendorf, Iowa, is the cover story and lengthy feature article in the March/April issue of Music Inc. magazine. The publication is a leading music industry trade magazine that is distributed to music stores throughout North America.

During the past 10 years, the piano industry has been in a state of decline nationally. The market is now smaller than it has been in 60 years, resulting in manufacturer consolidations and the disappearance of most piano retailers. Since 2001, seven local piano retailers in the Quad Cities have closed or stopped offering new pianos for sale.

A combination of technology-centered activities like video games and computers, along with an expanded emphasis on team sports and hectic schedules have resulted in fewer families engaging in piano lessons.