Afghanistan: A Conversation with Senator John McCain

Jacob Heilbrun offered a comment on Huffington Post "The Latest Neocon Attack on Obama":

As President Obama prepares to visit Russia, the new neocon organization called the Foreign Policy Initiative (the successor to the defunct Project for the New American Century) has issued a letter, which was also signed by several liberal hawks, imploring him to raise the issue of human rights. It also points to what it calls Russia's attack on Georgia as a sign of renewed imperialism, even though it was Georgia that attacked Russia. Simultaneously, former UN ambassador John Bolton declares in today 's Washington Post that the crackdown in Iran shows that Obama should stop trying to play kissyface with the mullahs. It's time to prepare for a military assault.
Not so fast.

Moderator: Dr. Robert Kagan
Board Member, The Foreign Policy Initiative and Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Kagan began by asking Senator McCain how, if he had been elected president, his plan for Afghanistan would have differed from that of the Obama Administration.

McCain stressed the need to emphasize how difficult the mission in Afghanistan will be. There will be an initial, significant increase in casualties as we deploy more forces there, he explained. But the situation in Afghanistan is not as dire as it was in Iraq prior to the “surge.”

Assuming that the Administration may be planning to eventually provide more forces beyond the recently announced 21,000, McCain said that he would have announced the full increase up front, so as to avoid the appearance of “Lyndon Johnson-style incrementalism.” He also would have proposed a substantial expansion in the size of the Afghan National Army.

McCain went on to suggest that a year from now, the United States will be facing even greater opposition from enemies in Afghanistan. Asked whether Republicans could be expected to continue supporting the mission, McCain indicated that they would and argued that the most criticism would likely come from the left, where some have already begun to complain about the number of forces being sent to the country.

Asked about the Bush Administration’s handling of the Afghan conflict, McCain pointed to shortfalls in the command structures established in Afghanistan, the failure to sufficiently grow the Afghan National Army, and the inability to encourage more effective participation from our allies. Failure to properly resource the conflict, McCain argued, stemmed from the fact that once we had become committed in Iraq, it became critical that we succeed there, as failure would have compromised our success in Afghanistan and our interests elsewhere. This is one argument for increasing the size of the American Army and Marine Corps, McCain explained.

With regard to our allies, McCain suggested that the goodwill and enthusiasm generated in Europe by Obama could perhaps be leveraged into additional support for the Afghan mission—though not in the form of more troops. Rather than asking for more forces we are unlikely to get, McCain said we should encourage our allies to take the lead in the Afghan Army training efforts.

Having raised the issue of inadequate U.S. Army and Marine Corps force sizes in the Bush years, McCain went on to discuss the necessary defense spending priorities of the years ahead. Citing the evolution in the application of military technology even over the course of the Iraq war, McCain suggested that we need to carefully tailor acquisition to the threat environment, rather than pursue technology for technology’s sake. He believes that procurement reform is an absolute priority.

On the topic of Pakistan, McCain argued that the challenges emanating from the country represent a strategic threat, which calls for a strategy addressing Pakistan qua Pakistan—not simply the border regions. He said that the notion that you cannot succeed in Afghanistan without solving the border problems is incorrect. But the proposed plan for conditioning aid to the Pakistani Army based on measurable success in pursuing insurgents is problematic, he explained. Moving forward, we will need to communicate to the people of Pakistan that it is in their interest to see the United States and its allies succeed in Afghanistan.

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Unprotected Sex: Abstinence Education's Main Accomplishment

Youth seeking his father's advice on love
From the Haft Awrang of Jami, in the story A Father Advises his Son About Love. His counsel is to choose that lover who desires him for his inner beauty. See Sufi outlook on male love Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

It is widely known that teenage birth and pregnancy rates, which dropped dramatically between 1991 and 2005, are now climbing. By tracking changes in reported contraceptive use among sexually active high-school students, researchers at Columbia University and the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which studies sexual health, have identified as the leading culprit a drop in the use of birth control -- specifically condoms. The team studied trends in teen sexual activity and contraceptive use between 1991 and 2007. During most of this period, the level of sexual activity reported by teenagers in routine surveys overseen by the Centers for Disease Control remained largely unchanged. But during a crucial period -- identified in the study as between 1991 and 2003 -- the use of condoms rose dramatically, climbing from 46.2 percent in 1991 to 63.0 percent in 2003. Then a perceptible decline in the use of condoms began, with 61.5 percent of students reporting condom use in 2007. "These behavioral trends are consistent with the 2006 and 2007 increases in the teen birth rate," the study published in the July issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health says. "They may well portend further increases in 2008."
The decline in contraceptive use may cheer those who have promoted faith-inspired school curriculums that refuse to even mention birth control and, in some cases, specifically emphasize that condoms can fail. True enough.

But now we have sad and clear evidence that political foolishness among adults is leading to foolish and harmful behavior among kids. Who could reasonably want more teen pregnancies, more abortions among teenagers, more unmarried mothers, more babies born with greater health risks and with the sorely limited economic prospects that burden the children of young, single mothers? No one would dare promote such a policy. Yet these are the results of our recent national sex-education policy, which was based on religious faith, not science, and put political gamesmanship ahead of public health. More...

USA
Almost all U.S. students receive some form of sex education at least once between grades 7 and 12; many schools begin addressing some topics as early as grades 5 or 6. However, what students learn varies widely, because curriculum decisions are so decentralized. Many states have laws governing what is taught in sex education classes or allowing parents to opt out. Some state laws leave curriculum decisions to individual school districts.
For example, a 1999 study by the Guttmacher Institute found that most U.S. sex education courses in grades 7 through 12 cover puberty, HIV, STIs, abstinence, implications of teenage pregnancy, and how to resist peer pressure. Other studied topics, such as methods of birth control and infection prevention, sexual orientation, sexual abuse, and factual and ethical information about abortion, varied more widely.

Two main forms of sex education are taught in American schools: comprehensive and abstinence-only. Comprehensive sex education covers abstinence as a positive choice, but also teaches about contraception and avoidance of STIs when sexually active. A 2002 study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 58% of secondary school principals describe their sex education curriculum as comprehensive.
Abstinence-only sex education tells teenagers that they should be sexually abstinent until marriage and does not provide information about contraception. In the Kaiser study, 34% of high-school principals said their school's main message was abstinence-only.

The difference between these two approaches, and their impact on teen behavior, remains a controversial subject. In the U.S., teenage birth rates had been dropping since 1991, but a 2007 report showed 3% increase from 2005 to 2006.[29] From 1991 to 2005, the percentage of teens reporting that they had ever had sex or were currently sexually active showed small declines. However, the U.S. still has the highest teen birth rate and one of the highest rates of STIs among teens in the industrialized world. Public opinion polls conducted over the years have found that the vast majority of Americans favor broader sex education programs over those that teach only abstinence, although abstinence educators recently published poll data with the opposite conclusion.
Proponents of comprehensive sex education, which include the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the Society for Adolescent Medicine and the American College Health Association, argue that sexual behavior after puberty is a given, and it is therefore crucial to provide information about the risks and how they can be minimized; they also claim that denying teens such factual information leads to unwanted pregnancies and STIs.

On the other hand, proponents of abstinence-only sex education object to curricula that fail to teach their standard of moral behavior; they maintain that a morality based on sex only within the bounds of marriage is "healthy and constructive" and that value-free knowledge of the body may lead to immoral, unhealthy, and harmful practices. Within the last decade, the federal government has encouraged abstinence-only education by steering over a billion dollars to such programs. Some 25 states now decline the funding so that they can continue to teach comprehensive sex education. Funding for one of the federal government's two main abstinency-only funding programs, Title V, was extended only until December 31, 2007; Congress is debating whether to continue it past that date.
The impact of the rise in abstinence-only education remains a question. To date, no published studies of abstinence-only programs have found consistent and significant program effects on delaying the onset of intercourse. In 2007, a study ordered by the U.S. Congress found that middle school students who took part in abstinence-only sex education programs were just as likely to have sex (and use contraception) in their teenage years as those who did not. Abstinence-only advocates claimed that the study was flawed because it was too narrow and began when abstinence-only curricula were in their infancy, and that other studies have demonstrated positive effects.
It is estimated that more than half of all new HIV infections occur before the age of 25 and most are acquired through unprotected sex. According to the experts on AIDS, many of these new cases come about because young people don’t have the knowledge or skills to protect themselves. To try and resolve this problem the American Psychological Association (APA) is recommending that comprehensive sex education and HIV prevention programs become more available to the youth. The young people need this to help protect them from HIV/AIDS and other STDs they might get if they decide to have sex.

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Abstinence-only sex education is working, NOT!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/health/0...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 ? The birth rate among teenagers 15 to 19 in the United States rose 3 percent in 2006, according to a report issued Wednesday, the first such increase since 1991. The finding surprised scholars and fueled a debate about whether the Bush administration?s abstinence-only sexual education efforts are working.

The federal government spends $176 million annually on such programs. But a landmark study recently failed to demonstrate that they have any effect on delaying sexual activity among teenagers, and some studies suggest that they may actually increase pregnancy rates.

http://hs.riverdale.k12.or.us/~hfinnert/exhib_06/carolinep/abstinence.gif

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The Netherlands
Subsidized by the Dutch government, the “Lang leve de liefde” (“Long Live Love”) package, developed in the late 1980s, aims to give teenagers the skills to make their own decisions regarding health and sexuality. Professor Brett van den Andrews, a medical research scientist who graduated from ISHSS (International School for Humanities and Social Sciences), has suggested that exposing children aged 4-7 to sex education will greatly reduce the risk of future pregnancies and health issues. Of course his theories have been the subject of much scrutiny under the NIGS (Netherlands Institute of Geooracular Sciences). Nonetheless, he is widely appreciated in the medical society and has been featured in many medical journals. Nearly all secondary schools provide sex education as part of biology classes and over half of primary schools discuss sexuality and contraception. The curriculum focuses on biological aspects of reproduction as well as on values, attitudes, communication and negotiation skills. The media has encouraged open dialogue and the health-care system guarantees confidentiality and a non-judgmental approach. The Netherlands has one of the lowest teenage pregnancy rates in the world, and the Dutch approach is often seen as a model for other countries.

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Sex education and public edification

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England and Wales
In England and Wales, sex education is not compulsory in schools as parents can refuse to let their children take part in the lessons. The curriculum focuses on the reproductive system, fetal development, and the physical and emotional changes of adolescence, while information about contraception and safe sex is discretionary and discussion about relationships is often neglected. Britain has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe and sex education is a heated issue in government and media reports. In a 2000 study by the University of Brighton, many 14 to 15 year olds reported disappointment with the content of sex education lessons and felt that lack of confidentiality prevents teenagers from asking teachers about contraception. In a 2008 study conducted by YouGov for Channel 4 it was revealed that almost three in ten teenagers say they need more sex and relationships education.

Scotland
In Scotland, the main sex education program is Healthy Respect, which focuses not only on the biological aspects of reproduction but also on relationships and emotions. Education about contraception and sexually transmitted diseases are included in the program as a way of encouraging good sexual health. In response to a refusal by Catholic schools to commit to the program, however, a separate sex education program has been developed for use in those schools. Funded by the Scottish Government, the program Called to Love focuses on encouraging children to delay sex until marriage, and does not cover contraception, and as such is a form of abstinence-only sex education.

Michael Jackson: Thriller

Ayatollah Khatami: Iran Protesters Will Be Punished "Without Mercy"

Amongst others, a member of the Iranian pro-government Basij militia, center right, chants slogans during a Friday prayer ceremony at the Tehran University campus in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 26, 2009. Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, a senior cleric, said during nationally broadcast Muslim sermon on Friday that the government should punish "leaders of the riots, who were supported by Israel and the U.S., strongly and with cruelty." (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.

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Iran's increasingly isolated opposition leader effectively ended his role in street protests, saying he'll seek permits for future rallies. A leading cleric demanded in a nationally broadcast sermon Friday that leaders of the unrest be punished harshly and that some are "worthy of execution."

Iran's ruling clergy has widened its clampdown on the opposition since a bitterly disputed June 12 presidential election, and scattered protests have replaced the initial mass rallies.

The official Web site of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, his main tool of communicating with his supporters, was hacked Friday, leaving it blank, an aide said.

Mousavi has said victory was stolen from him through fraud, challenging the proclamation of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner.

However, Mousavi has sent mixed signals to his supporters in recent days, asking them not to break the law, while pledging not to drop his challenge of the election results.

Hundreds have been detained in recent weeks, including journalists, academics and university students, and a special court has been set up to try them.

In Friday's central Muslim sermon at Tehran University, a senior cleric, Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, called for harsh retribution for dissent.

"Anybody who fights against the Islamic system or the leader of Islamic society, fight him until complete destruction," he said in the nationally broadcast speech.

The cleric claimed some involved in the unrest had used firearms.

"Anyone who takes up arms to fight with the people, they are worthy of execution," he said. "We ask that the judiciary confront the leaders of the protests, leaders of the violations, and those who are supported by the United States and Israel strongly, and without mercy to provide a lesson for all."

Khatami said those who disturbed the peace and destroyed public property were "at war with God," and said they should be "dealt with without mercy."

He reminded worshippers that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rules by God's design and must not be defied.

The cleric also lashed out at foreign journalists, accusing them of false reporting, and singled out Britain for new criticism.

"In this unrest, Britons have behaved very mischievously and it is fair to add the slogan of down with England to slogan of down with USA," he said, as his remarks were interrupted by worshippers' chants of "Death to Israel."

Iran's rulers have accused the West, which has become increasingly vocal in its condemnation of the post-election clampdown, of meddling in Iran's internal affairs. Earlier this week, Iran expelled two British diplomat, prompting the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats by Britain.

In Trieste, Italy, foreign ministers of the Group of Eight countries called for an end to the violence in Iran and urged the authorities to find a peaceful solution.

Khatami, meanwhile, alleged that the icon of the opposition, slain protester Neda Agha Soltan, was killed by demonstrators, not the Iranian security forces. Soltan, 27, was killed by a shot to the chest last week, on the sidelines of a protest.

"The proof and evidence shows that they (protesters) have done it themselves and have raised propaganda against the system," he said. "I say hereby that these deceitful media have to know that the ordeal will be over and shame will remain for them."

In quelling protests, Basij militiamen have broken up even small groups of people walking together to prevent any possible gathering. Still, dozens of friends and relatives of Soltan managed to pay tribute Friday, arriving at Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in groups of two and three, uttering brief prayers, placing flowers on Soltan's grave and then leaving, witnesses said.

Vigils for Soltan have been held around the world.

On Friday, Mousavi, who has said he is being increasingly isolated, lost his main link to the world after his official Web site Kalemeh, came up blank and stripped of any text or pictures. Mousavi's associate Ali Reza Beheshti told The Associated Press the site had been taken down by unknown hackers.

In a message on the site late Thursday, Mousavi had said he would seek permission for future protests, even though he said unfair restrictions were being imposed. He said he has been asked by the Interior Ministry to apply in person, a week ahead of time.

The opposition leader noted that his rival, Ahmadinejad, has been able to hold two post-election marches and a Tehran rally "that were well publicized on state television, seeming to encourage participation with their regularly advertised march routes."

Mousavi has said the authorities are pressuring him to withdraw his challenge by attempting to isolate and discredit him. He hasn't led a rally in more than a week.

Khamenei has ordered a large security detail around Mousavi _ ostensibly to protect him, but presumably also to restrict his movements. Authorities have also targeted those close to Mousavi.

Late Thursday, state TV reported that the head of Mousavi's information committee, Abolfazl Fateh, was banned from leaving Iran for Britain. The report, which could not be verified independently, identified Fateh as a doctoral student in Britain.

The semiofficial Fars news agency said Fateh was banned from travel so authorities could investigate "some of the recent gatherings," a reference to election protests.

At least 11 Mousavi campaign workers and 25 staffers on his newspaper have been detained since the election.

On Wednesday, 70 university professors were detained immediately after meeting with the opposition leader. All but four have been released. Those still in custody included Qorban Behzadiannejad, Mousavi's former campaign manager.

In all, at least 17 people have been killed in postelection protests, in addition to eight members of the Basij, the government has said.

Murders of Raul and Brisenia Flores

On 30 May 2009, Raul "Junior" Flores, 29, and his daughter, Brisenia, 9, of Arivaca, Arizona, were murdered during a home-invasion.

Gina Marie Gonzalez, 31, Junior's wife, was in the home during the attack. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said the attackers hoped to rob the Flores-Gonzales family of drugs and money, as Flores was involved in the illegal drug trade. Gonzalez called 911 when the assailants left the home for a few moments. While Gonzalez was on the phone, the assailants reentered the home and Gonzalez fired a handgun of her husband's, wounding one of the assailants.

An early exchange within the 911 call is as follows:

Gonzalez: "They shot me and I pretended like I was dead. My daughter was crying. They shot her, too.

Operator: "Are they still there, the people who, that shot them?"

Gonzalez: "They're coming back in! They're coming back in!" (Gunfire.)

Another Flores daughter, 12, had been at her grandmother's home in Sahuarita, Arizona, during the attack.
/wiki/Murders_of_Raul_and_Brisenia_Flores#cite_note-2"> Gonzalez identified two men, one "white," the other "Mexican," and a white woman as her attackers. Gonzales said it was the white man who had murdered her daughter and husband.

Suspects

Leaders of Minutemen American Defense
plus an alleged operational confederate

Albert Gaxiola
Contact in
Arivaca, Arizona

Gunny Bush
National Operations Director

Shawna Forde
National Executive Director

Shawna Forde

Shawna Forde (born December 6, 1967 (1967-12-06) (age 41)), of Everett, Washington,is an anti-immigration activist who had been expelled from the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps for "unstable" behavior, and later formed a splinter group to further her political agenda. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik alleged Forde to have planned and ordered the murders of the Floreses.

Biography

Forde has asserted that she had formerly been the promoter of a grunge rock band; she has also worked as a youth counselor, as an aircraft factory worker, and as a licensed cosmetologist and esthetician. Forde ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Everett City Council in 2007.

Forde had several run-ins with the law before her arrest for double murder. Court records show that she served time in juvenile lock-ups for repeated convictions involving theft, burglary and prostitution. Forde married four times, in 1989, her future husband sought court protection from Forde claiming that she had physically attacked him and threatened to hurt herself with a knife. In 2007, she was charged with stealing a small container of chocolate milk from an Everett grocery store, which Forde described as a misunderstanding. While running for the Everett City Council, her son was convicted of assaulting the owner of the beauty salon at which she was employed. In January 2008, Forde accused members of a drug cartel of sexually assaulting and shooting her, however, she later suggested the alleged culprits were actually criminal associates of her son. In 2007, she first became involved in the anti-immigrant activities and later joined the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. However, she was asked to leave the organization in February of 2007 after members described her as being "unstable". Forde later founded a splinter group, the Minutemen American Defense organization, which had 14 members at the time of the attack on the Flores family.

Gunny Bush

Jason Eugene "Gunny" Bush ((born August 11, 1974 (1974-08-11) (age 34)), of Meadview, Arizona, is M.A.D.'s National Director of Operations. Bush was shot in the leg during the same time frame as the attack.

Bush is Forde's second in command. He has ties to the Aryan Nation and was also charged in June 2009 with the 1997 murder of Hector Lopez Partida in Wenatchee, Washington. Later in 1997, Bush was imprisoned for the theft of a car and for his possession of a firearm (unlawful because Bush was already a felon, from a previous conviction). After he was released in 2003, Bush moved to Hayden Lake, Idaho, where he lived until 2007.

Albert Gaxiola

Albert Robert Gaxiola (born February 9, 1967 (1967-02-09) (age 42)), of Arivaca, Arizona, is believed to have provided intelligence about drug activities in the area to the M.A.D. Gaxiola had been imprisoned on marijuana charges from 1992 to 2000. According to Gonzalez, Gaxiola and Flores had an on-going dispute that had originated in 2008 over marijuana belonging to Gaxiola that had been stored at Flores's residence.

Alleged involvement of Militiamen American Defense

Militiamen American Defense is a militant anti-illegal immigration splinter group founded in the late 2000s by Forde after she was expelled from the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. Various Forde family members and some of Forde's associates said that Forde began to rob presumed drug dealers in 2009, in hopes of raising funds to benefit her vigilante group. Chuck Stonex, of Alamagordo, New Mexico, a former member who quit the organization after Forde's arrest, says that M.A.D. had about 14 members and that Forde termed its covert missions "Delta One Operations." Stonex said Forde intended to fund the purchase of a 40-acre property in southern Arizona where she had intended to establish a base for her group's border operations.

Chuck Stonex

Chuck Stonex, a member of MAD, is quoted in several articles about Forde. The certified home inspector was also in Arizona at the time of the home invasion/murders. He told authorities that he was called upon to provide medical treatment to Bush and didn't question their story of being shot at by a smuggler while patroling the border.

He has a history of defending Forde and carrying out personal attacks online against anyone who opposed his views or those of MAD. One such attack started on the Everett Herald in which he engaged in heated correspondence with one individual, quoting "Shoot, reload, shoot, call 911 is my SOP."

Provided an email address for this woman, he contacted her company in an attempt to persuade her employer to terminate her employment. Calling her a "bottom-feeding Mexican parasite" in email boasting about his accomplishment, he blamed her for his actions. It ended abruptly when she contacted the authorities.

Once the murders were made public, he claimed to have been oblivious to Forde's real motives, stating "this is not what minutemen do."

Pastor Asks God to Smite President Obama

As if President Obama doesn’t have enough to deal with - what with civil unrest in Iran, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and economic malaise at home - now he’s also got a Southern Baptist minister praying for his death.

The Rev. Wiley Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., told Fox News Radio earlier this month that he was practicing “imprecatory prayer” – a divine curse – that would bring about Obama’s death.

“So you’re praying for his death?” asked the show’s host, Alan Colmes.

“Yes.”

“So you’re praying for the death of the president of the United States?”

“Yes.”

The pugnacious pastor later elaborated: “If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that’s correct.”

A spokesman for the Southern Baptist Association, where Drake was second vice president in 2006-2007, responded to Drake’s comments by saying that he believes most Southern Baptists are praying for the president’s well-being.

Obama isn’t the first person for whom Drake has prayed for an untimely demise. In 2007, when Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a formal complaint with the Internal Revenue Service maintaining that Drake’s endorsement of Mike Huckabee for president violated tax laws, Drake called on his followers to pray for the deaths of the nonprofit’s staff.

And after Kansas physician George Tiller, a prominent provider of abortions, was murdered in church on May 31, Drake said his death was the answer to his imprecatory prayers. He called Tiller “a brutal, murdering monster” on his radio program. “This man, George Tiller, was far greater in his atrocities than Adolf Hitler.”

Drake is none too fond of homosexuals, either. He wrote the resolution at the Southern Baptist Convention in 1996 calling for a boycott of the Walt Disney Corporation after it afforded health benefits to gay and lesbian partners of employees. He urged followers to join him last year in praying for rain to fall on the Democratic National Convention in Denver. “I too am still against killing babies and allowing sodomites to marry,” he explained. [The weather was beautiful when Obama made his acceptance speech before 84,000 people in a football stadium].

Drake also is chaplain to the Minuteman Project, a group that President George W. Bush called “vigilantes.” He was Alan Keyes’ vice-presidential running mate on the America’s Independent Party ticket in 2008. They were plaintiffs in one of several unsuccessful lawsuits filed last year claiming that Obama could not be sworn in as president because he supposedly wasn’t born in the United States.

Neo-Nazi Hal Turner Arrested Again

Hal Turner, a neo-Nazi talk radio host known for his threats against public
figures, was denied bail during an appearance in federal court Thursday
afternoon on charges of threatening to assault and murder three federal
judges. Also at the hearing, FBI officials revealed that they’d found 200
rounds of ammunition and 150 illegal hollow point bullets in Turner’s home during a search on Wednesday, according to the Jersey Journal.

Turner’s arrest comes three weeks after he was taken into custody in New Jersey on charges that he incited violence against two Connecticut legislators. He had been freed on $25,000 bond and wasn’t scheduled to return to court until July.

But the FBI — an agency for which he once may have worked as a paid informant — arrested Turner on Wednesday after going to his home in North Bergen, N.J., to execute a search warrant. The charges stem from Internet postings earlier this month in which he blasted a June 2 decision by the 7^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago that essentially upheld local handgun bans.

The blog posts named Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook, who wrote the unanimous decision, along with Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer. “Let me be the first to say this plainly: These Judges deserve to be killed,” Turner allegedly wrote on June 2. He later posted the photographs, phone numbers, work address and room numbers of the three judges, as well as a modified photo of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse where they work that reveals the locations of “anti-truck bomb barriers.” He also posted a map showing how to get to the building, according to the FBI.

In the June 2 blog post titled in part “OUTRAGE: Chicago Gun Ban UPHELD,” Turner states that the same federal appeals court that made the handgun decision also upheld the 2004 conviction of Matt Hale, a white supremacist now serving a 40-year sentence for soliciting the murder of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow. Turner also noted that a gunman killed Lefkow’s mother and husband in her home. “Apparently, the 7^th U.S. Circuit Court didn’t get the hint after those killings,” he allegedly wrote. “It appears another lesson is needed.”

Turner, 47, isn’t the only neo-Nazi whose cyberspace comments on the Hale case have helped lead to criminal charges in Chicago. Bill White of Roanoke, Va., the leader of the American National Socialist Workers Party, is scheduled for trial next month in federal court in Chicago on obstructing justice charges related to his alleged encouragement of violence against the foreman of the Chicago jury that convicted Hale. White posted the name, home address, phone numbers and other personal information of the “Gay, Jewish, anti-racist” juror last September. White wrote that the juror “played a key role in convicting Hale.”

If Turner is convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. “We take threats to federal judges very seriously. Period,” said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Turner has made numerous racist and violent threats. In 2007, he railed against President George W. Bush, saying that “a well-placed bullet can solve a lot of problems.” He has written that “we need to start SHOOTING AND KILLING Mexicans as they cross the border.” In 2006, he published an attack on New Jersey Supreme Court justices that included several of their home addresses. Just before President Obama’s inauguration, he suggested that the mass murder of those attending the event “would be a public service.” Most recently, he was charged on June 3 with inciting injury to persons or property after he posted a blog entry that encouraged readers to “take up arms” against two Connecticut lawmakers, Sen. Andrew McDonald and Rep. Michael Lawlor. Turner was upset about state legislation that would give more power to the laity in the Roman Catholic Church.

In January 2008, unidentified hackers posted E-mail correspondence between Turner and an FBI agent who appeared to be his handler in the forum of Turner’s website for his radio program, “The Hal Turner Show.” The FBI last year declined to comment about Turner’s relationship with the agency.