Butler sentenced to death for activists’ murders

By Shawn Gaynor

Las Vegas, Nevada, Jan. 12-- After two days of deliberation, jurors sentenced John Butler, convicted of murdering two Anti-Racist Action (ARA) activists, to die by lethal injection.

Butler, a leader of the Independent Nazi Skinhead movement in Las Vegas, murdered Daniel Shersty and Lin “Spit” Newborn, both members of Anti-Racist Action, in a desert ambush outside of Las Vegas on the night of July 4, 1998. At least three others remain uncharged for their involvement in the crime.

“It’s a bittersweet victory” said ARA spokesman Rodney Sheridan. “Butler’s conviction can’t bring Spit or Dan back to friends and family that loved them so much, but at least one of their killers is off the streets.”

Shersty and Newborn were lured into the desert ambush under the pretext of a party that they were invited to by Melissa Hack (Butler’s fiancee), and an unidentified women. Eyewitness accounts, and a convenience store video tape, show Shersty and Newborn with Melissa Hack immediately proceeding the murder.

“Melissa Hack’s involvement in this case was integral to beginning a planned and calculated ambush of two individuals simply because of their anti-racist views,” Sheridan said. “It proves beyond any reasonable doubt that Butler’s actions were not a lone act of violence, but rather part of an assault on all Las Vegas’ rights and freedoms.”

Melissa Hack did not testify in the trial, invoking her fifth amendment rights against self incrimination.

Joseph Justin, a key witness against Butler, said that he helped Butler and Melissa Hack remove evidence from the crime scene, including a beer bottle and shotgun shells, the morning after the murders. “This would prove to him (Butler) that he had trust to put me in his crew,” said Justin. According to Justin’s testimony, Butler told him that he wielded a shotgun in the attack, while Ross Hack fired a handgun.

Butler was in possession of a handgun used in the murder at the time of his arrest.

Ross Hack, Melissa’s brother and leader of the Las Vegas Hammer Skins, a neo-nazi group, has never been charged for his role in the slayings. According to the testimony of Jacob Hack, father of Melissa and Ross Hack, Ross has been on vacation in Europe since being named as a suspect two years ago.

“Why the Hacks are not in jail awaiting trials of their own is a question local officials have repeatedly failed to answer,” said Cindy Cheyenne, a Las Vegas ARA member who has followed the case from its inception. “That police seemed unconcerned about any further harm these individuals can cause to our community is extremely unsettling to me as a resident of Las Vegas.”

Prosecutors say they have no plans to pursue charges against Ross or Melissa Hack.

An independent poll conducted by ARA members of Las Vegas residents shows that 87 percent believe there were more suspects involved in the murders and 62 percent feel that local officials have dropped the ball in bringing justice to this matter.

Residents have also voiced fear of a growing nazi movement in Las Vegas in light of authorities’ lack of concern. “My own child, a fifth-grader, was approached by several students from a nearby middle-school and handed Aryan and white-pride propaganda,” said one west Las Vegas resident who asked not to be named. “I’ve never seen or heard of anything like that in Las Vegas before.”

“This isn’t just a fight between the ARA and a few neo-nazis,” says ARA member Joe Rowen. “It affects everyone, and we need to take action to prevent further incidents like this in our community.”

New US plans for nuclear weapons revealed

Oakland, California, Jan. 10— Department of Defense (DOD) plans obtained by the Western States Legal Foundation through the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the US is conducting research to make nuclear weapons more useable against a variety of targets. This work is continuing despite US claims in an international treaty that it is de-emphasizing its nuclear arsenal.

According to the DOD’s “Defense Science and Technology and Strategy and Plans,” dated February 2000, the US is pursuing research to develop low-yield nuclear weapons effective against underground targets. A stated goal for 2001 is to “demonstrate the effectiveness of nuclear weapons capabilities in defeating deep structures using precise, low-yield attacks by HE [High Explosives] simulation.”

The documents were made public by the Western States Legal Foundation (WSLF), an Oakland-based public interest group critical of US nuclear weapons policy. WSLF Program Director Andrew Lichterman explained: “These plans make clear that the US (Stockpile Stewardship) program, portrayed to the public as designed solely to preserve the existing stockpile, is part of a continuing effort to expand the role of nuclear weapons in warfare.”

One project DOD plans is to “conduct laser/fireball tests in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to improve understanding in tunnel airblast.” The NIF is also slated to be used for “nuclear effects x-ray testing.” Now under construction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the NIF has been criticized for its multibillion dollar price tag and questionable scientific merit.

“The opportunity to escape the constant threat of nuclear destruction, which arrived with the end of the Cold War, is slipping away. The US is preparing to continue the nuclear arms race into the 21st century. It’s time for a real national debate on these issues,” said Lichterman.

The US committed itself to “a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies to minimize the risk that these weapons will ever be used and to facilitate the process of their total elimination,” earlier this year at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. That commitment was reaffirmed in a November 20, 2000 United Nations vote.

Source: Western States Legal Foundation: www.wslfweb.org

Protesters march against fatal shooting by police

By Bruce Schreiner

Louisville, Kentucky, Jan. 15— Several hundred protesters marched from an inner-city neighborhood to police headquarters Sunday to denounce the shooting death of a black man by police and to demand a wider investigation.

The procession, bundled up in the damp, chill air, stretched a half-block and was followed by a long line of cars honking in support. The marchers were led by an 18-year-old man - the same age as shooting victim Clifford Lewis Jr. - carrying a picture of Martin Luther King Jr.

As police cars escorted the marchers through the streets, protesters expressed bitterness toward police, but the march was peaceful.

“The people are hurting,” said the Rev. Louis Coleman, a civil-rights leader and march organizer. “When leadership does not lead, the people have to go to the streets.”

An estimated 350 people marched about three miles through city streets to protest the shooting of Lewis. Dozens of sympathizers waited outside police headquarters downtown to greet the marchers.

Lewis became the latest of several black youths killed in clashes with Louisville police in recent years, and his death further strained relations between police and the black community.

Coleman urged a wider investigation of the shooting by the US attorney’s office, the state attorney general and the FBI.

“This latest incident only compounds the wrongs that the African-American community has had to suffer from the city administration and the group of officers in this department that have no regard for the civil rights of others,” several civil-rights leaders said in a letter to the state and federal agencies requesting them to investigate.

Louisville police are conducting an internal investigation and have said the FBI is doing its own independent investigation of the shooting.

Lewis was stopped by police last Tuesday while driving a van owned by a cousin who was wanted on charges of assaulting a police officer.

Police said Lewis backed up the van, pinning an officer against another vehicle. Another officer fired on Lewis, who was unarmed.

The officer who opened fire has been placed on administrative leave while police investigate.

Protesters chanted “No Justice, No Peace,” as they marched through the streets Sunday. Some held signs condemning police actions and claiming that blacks are targeted by police.

Kevin Toogood, 32, recalled that his mother told him as a youth to seek out the police whenever he needed assistance. Toogood, accompanied in the march by his 8-year-old nephew, Kenneth Toogood Jr., said black parents are reluctant to give such advice to today’s youths.

Source: Associated Press

First US flight to defy sanctions lands in Iraq

By Hassan Hafidh

Baghdad, Iraq, Jan. 13— An airlift of humanitarian aid which US organizers said was the first such American flight to defy UN sanctions since the 1991 Gulf War arrived in Baghdad on Saturday.

Aboard the plane, chartered from Royal Jordanian airlines, were US peace activists representing American humanitarian and human rights organizations.

Hours later another plane landed in Baghdad carrying former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a long-time opponent of UN sanctions against Iraq.

Clark, heading a 50-member delegation representing humanitarian organizations which oppose the sanctions, brought with him relief aid including medicines.

“The sanctions have been criminal. They have been a crime against humanity for a decade,” Clark told reporters on arrival at the airport.

“What I hope is the rest of the nations of the world refuse to participate in a criminal conspiracy against the people of Iraq,” he added.

Clark opposed the war and the sanctions and has visited the country several times.

Aboard the first plane were some $150,000 worth of medicine and medical equipment and school supplies for Iraqi children.

“We are here to show as Americans that we are sorry for the damage the American bombs are doing,” said James Jennings, one of the organizers of the trip and head of an American relief group called Conscience International.

“There are many thousands of American people who are concerned about the devastating effects of sanctions on the Iraqi people,” Jennings told reporters at Saddam International Airport, 15 km (nine miles) west of Baghdad.

No permission

Jennings said the supplies and the flight had been organized without US government authorization.

“By not applying for a US permit to take the humanitarian aid to Baghdad, the group claims it is exercising its First Amendment rights,” he said.

The United States led the multinational force which ejected Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991.

US and British forces led a four-day air and missile attack against Iraq in December 1998.

US and British warplanes patrol two no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq set up soon after the Gulf War, and say they regularly fire on Iraqi anti-aircraft installations.

The zones, which Baghdad does not recognize, are supposedly in place to protect a Kurdish enclave in the north and Sh’ite Muslims in the south from possible attacks by Baghdad’s troops.

Humanitarian aid to Iraq has been gaining momentum during the last few months. Dozens of humanitarian flights have landed in Iraq since August last year, but Saturday’s was believed to be the first organized by US nationals.

Baghdad says that around 1.5 million Iraqis have died because of the shortages in medical and food supplies since the imposition of the UN embargo, and blamed continuation of sanctions on Washington.

Source: Reuters

Bush appointees reveal extremist nature of coming administration

By Brendan Conley

On January 20, George W. Bush will become an unelected President, having lost the popular vote and been assigned the electoral college vote by a bare majority of the US Supreme Court. Bush’s lack of popular support has not kept him from assembling a Cabinet of extreme right-wingers and proponents of corporate capitalism, appointees who now face Senate confirmation hearings. Bush has been praised by the corporate media for the diversity of his Cabinet, which includes women and racial minorities, but there is little diversity in ideology among this group. The records of these men and women are instructive in determining how they will affect US policymaking. Here we examine seven key appointments to foreign and domestic policy posts that reveal the character of the Bush administration.

Secretary of State: Colin Powell.

Powell will be the first military leader to hold this post since Gen. George C. Marshall was appointed head of the foreign policy establishment by Harry Truman. He is a life-long operative of the CIA and military-industrial complex. Powell worked for the Pentagon during the Vietnam War, helping to cover up the My Lai massacre. Powell served as national security advisor under President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s; during the Iran/Contra affair, he lied under oath to protect Reagan and Bush, Sr. from further scandal. Later in his career, Powell commanded the illegal US invasion of Panama. He was chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the US carried out the bombing of Iraq beginning Jan. 16, 1991, a brutal attack that killed at least 100,000 Iraqi people, including soldiers retreating and attempting to surrender.

With Powell directing foreign policy, we can expect the US to rely further on its military might to hold on to global power. In his acceptance speech, Powell promised that as secretary of state, he would support the development of a National Missile Defense system – the so-called “Star Wars” system – which Russia has warned would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Powell has also vowed to “re-energize” the sanctions against Iraq, already responsible for the deaths of 1.5 million Iraqis.

Secretary of Defense: Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld will return to the post of Secretary of Defense – a job he held 25 years ago under President Gerald Ford. As a Member of Congress from Illinois, he voted against food stamps, Medicare, and antipoverty programs. He has been a member of the Hoover Institution, a right-wing think tank, as well as the Committee on the Present Danger and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Rumsfeld supports big increases in the already massive Pentagon budget, but he seems to have been nominated mainly for his unwavering support of National Missile Defense. Rumsfeld headed the 1998 Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, a panel which found that the US was vulnerable to nuclear attack from emerging nuclear powers, and recommended a $60 billion budget to start working on it. The findings were significant in that they contradicted the findings of most other military planners and assessors.

George W. Bush has admitted that Star Wars would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, but he plans to go forward with it anyway. Tests of the system have ended in failure, and critics have described it as “an aggressive first-strike capability.” Peace organizations are organizing against Rumsfeld’s nomination, calling for the Senate to block his appointment. According to Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, Rumsfeld supports US efforts to “take control of outer space” by attacking other nations’ satellites with space-based lasers and other weapons.

Attorney General: John Ashcroft.

This past December, after six years in the Senate, John Ashcroft became the first US senator in history to lose a re-election bid to a dead opponent, after Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash during the campaign. The voters chose the dead man, and his widow was then named to the post.

The appointment of this right-wing fanatic to the position of Attorney General is perhaps the most spectacular of Bush’s recent moves. Ashcroft appears to be led by religious and political dogma to take extreme, reactionary positions. For instance, he favors a total ban on abortion, even in the case of rape or incest. Ashcroft expresses total support for the death penalty. He is opposed to equal rights for gay and lesbian people, believing that homosexuality is a sin. Ashcroft is an outspoken defender of the Confederacy, and he recently accepted an honorary degree from the ultra-conservative Bob Jones University in South Carolina.

Ashcroft has advocated extreme drug war legislation during his tenure in the Senate, including an act that, had it passed, would have criminalized certain drug- and drug policy-related discussions on the Internet, and would have allowed police to conduct secret searches of homes. These attacks on the First and Fourth Amendments aside, Ashcroft has proposed seven amendments to the US Constitution during his six years in the Senate, including an amendment to make it easier to amend the Constitution. Ashcroft opposes efforts to spend “drug war” money on treatment rather than interdiction, saying that treatment “enables” drug users. He is a fervent supporter of mandatory minimums, laws that require judges to sentence drug users to prison for five or ten years, regardless of their past history or their individual situation.

Ashcroft is a gun fanatic with tremendous support from the National Rifle Association. He opposes the Brady law’s background checks for gun buyers, is against the federal ban on assault weapons, and has links to an extremist pro-gun group which believes that the answer to America’s school shootings is to allow pupils to be armed in the classroom.

Ashcroft’s record has earned the attention of such firms as Monsanto, which contributed $10,000 to his 2000 campaign to retain his Senate seat, more given than to any other candidate.

At a news conference after the announcement of Ashcroft’s nomination, Bush said, “This is a person who believes in civil rights for all citizens.”

Secretary of the Interior: Gale Norton.

Gale Norton is Bush’s choice to steward America’s natural resources, but she faces the opposition of nearly every major environmental group in the United States. The League of Conservation Voters Education Fund has released a report indicating that Norton’s views are “strikingly out of step” with most Americans. Norton believes that current laws protecting the environment and enforcement of those laws are too strict and need to be relaxed, a view shared by 3 percent of the population. “You can’t get much farther out of step with mainstream thinking,” said Deb Callahan, president of the League.

Norton is a protégé of James Watt, having worked under him in the Interior Department under Reagan. Advocacy groups are especially concerned with Norton’s support of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The government of Canada has vowed to fight oil drilling in the Refuge.

As Secretary of the Interior, Norton would be obliged to enforce the Endangered Species Act, a law that she resisted enforcing as attorney general for Colorado. Norton said the law should not be used to prevent the destruction of habitat. Environmental groups also say that Norton’s enforcement record as attorney general shows that she advocated allowing mining, timber, and oil industries more leeway to police themselves.

Norton may have a serious conflict of interest – she serves on the board of a group involved in three lawsuits against the Interior Department.

Norton has also drawn criticism from civil rights groups because of her opposition to affirmative action. As Colorado’s attorney general, she refused to defend the state’s affirmative action laws. In a 1996 speech, Norton bemoaned the defeat of the Confederacy as a loss for “states’ rights.”

Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tommy Thompson.

Tommy Thompson has been appointed to head an agency that he came into frequent conflict with during his tenure as governor of Wisconsin. Thompson met resistance in his attempts to establish state welfare policies more restrictive than the federal norm, but Wisconsin ultimately served as the model for Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform, which has destroyed an important element of the social safety net and reduced tens of thousands of former aid recipients to destitution. Building on this success, Thompson has been one of the main proponents for converting Medicaid to a system of block grants to states.

The man whom Bush proposes to guard the nation’s health has deep ties to the tobacco industry. As governor of Wisconsin, Thompson accepted the gift of a scuba-diving trip with Philip Morris lobbyists. Between 1993 and 2000, Thompson received $72,000 in campaign contributions from Philip Morris. With this record, critics wonder what Thompson will do to prevent the deaths of an estimated 400,000 Americans from tobacco products each year.

Thompson is an opponent of abortion, and as governor of Wisconsin, he signed legislation that requires women seeking an abortion to first obtain counseling on alternatives, then wait three days for the procedure. He also signed a law, blocked by the Supreme Court, that would have imposed sentences up to life on doctors who perform so-called “partial birth” abortions. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Thompson does not have the power to change the basic laws governing women’s reproductive rights, but he can exert tremendous influence on access to abortion and birth control.

Secretary of Energy: Spencer Abraham.

Many of Bush’s appointees have opposed policies of the departments they have been chosen to head, but Spencer Abraham, Bush’s choice for Secretary of Energy, actually sought to abolish the Department of Energy. In 1999, then Senator Abraham co-sponsored the Department of Energy Abolishment Act, which called for “the complete abolishment of the Department of Energy.”

Bush’s selection of Abraham may signal his desire to eliminate the Department of Energy and distribute its functions to other agencies. Abraham’s bill called for US energy programs to be shut down, except for war projects. Abraham says that today he no longer supports abolition of the Energy Department.

Abraham has an anti-environmental record as a Senator. Seven months ago, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) named him to its list of “Dirty Dozen” anti-environmental candidates targeted for defeat, an effort that succeeded in the case of Abraham. Abraham has voted to cut the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency, against clean water programs, and against fuel efficiency standards. He scored 6 out of 100 in the LCV’s pro-environment scoring system.

Director of Environmental Protection Agency: Christine Todd Whitman.

To head the Environmental Protection Agency, charged with enforcing the nation’s environmental laws, Bush has picked a woman who has said she doubts the hole in the ozone or global warming are serious problems.

As governor of New Jersey, Whitman cut the state Department of Environmental Protection budget by 30 percent and laid off hundreds of workers. She ordered that state regulations be no more restrictive than federal rules. The collection of environmental fines fell by 80 percent under Whitman’s governorship, after she introduced grace periods for companies that violate New Jersey environmental laws.

Whitman’s state is massively polluted, and home to some of the world’s largest oil refineries and chemical manufacturing plants. As governor, Whitman chipped away at pollution controls and clean air and water standards, while supporting controversial development projects in New Jersey’s vanishing wetlands and woods.

Sources: Between the Lines, Denver Rocky Mountain News, DRCNet, Economist, Environment News Service, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, Inter Press Service, League of Conservation Voters, Manchester Guardian, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Violence Policy Center, Workers World, World Socialist Website

Bush appointees

Secretary of State: Colin Powell
Secretary of the Treasury: Paul O’Neill
Secretary of Defense: Donald Rumsfeld
Attorney General: John Ashcroft
Secretary of the Interior: Gale Norton
Secretary of Agriculture: Ann Veneman
Secretary of Commerce: Donald Evans
Secretary of Labor: Elaine Chao
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tommy Thompson
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Melquiades Martinez
Secretary of Transportation: Norman Mineta Secretary of Energy: Spencer Abraham
Secretary of Education: Rod Paige
Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Anthony Principi National Security Advisor: Condoleezza Rice Director of Environmental Protection Agency: Christine Todd Whitman
White House Counsel: Alberto Gonzales

ELF continues campaign of economic sabotage

Long Island, New York, Jan. 15— The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) has officially claimed responsibility for burning an articulated loader and a pickup truck at Melo’s Construction Corporation in Miller Place, Long Island on January 14, 2001.

A communique sent by the ELF stated, “All businesses, large or small, which participate in earth-raping industries, will continue to be targeted as a part of the ELF’s ongoing campaign to evoke economic damage on those responsible for urban sprawl.”

The ELF is an international organization that uses direct action in the form of economic sabotage to stop the systematic exploitation and destruction of the natural environment. This is the eleventh major action to be claimed by the ELF on Long Island in recent months.

The communique continued, “This action was done in solidarity with Long Island’s Andrew Stepanian. Stepanian is a very prominent member of the Animal Defense League and is now serving jail time for a crime he did not commit. This is a pristine example of how law enforcement agents are unable to catch the real perpetrators and instead target vocal, above-ground activists.”

Since 1997, in the United States alone, the ELF have caused well over $37 million in damages to entities they deem as profiting off the destruction of the natural environment.

This is the second ELF action to occur in 2001. The group also claimed responsibility for the January 1, 2001 fire which burned down the Superior Lumber Company in Glendale, Oregon, causing an estimated $400,000 in damages.

The communique finished by stating, “Every night is Earth Night, ELF.”

Source: Frontline Information Service

Law professors protest Supreme Court decision on vote

United States, Jan. 13— A group of more than 500 law professors has published a protest statement claiming that the Supreme Court decision that gave George W. Bush the presidency “suppress[ed] the facts.”

The statement, published as a full-page advertisement in today’s New York Times, and signed by law professors from more than 100 American law schools, claims that “the Supreme Court has tarnished its own legitimacy.”

The professors say they are of various political leanings, but, “we all agree that when a bare majority of the US Supreme Court halted the recount of ballots under Florida law, the five justices were acting as political proponents of candidate Bush, not as judges.

“It is not the job of a Federal court to stop votes from being counted,” reads the statement.

The statement describes Justice Scalia’s argument that the justices had to stop the vote to prevent a situation that might make a Bush presidency seem illegitimate. “But,” say the professors, “it is not the job of the courts to polish the image of legitimacy of the Bush presidency by preventing disturbing facts from being confirmed. Suppressing the facts to make the Bush government seem more legitimate is the job of propagandists, not judges.”

For more information: http://www.the-rule-of-law.com

North Carolina police captain demoted

Raleigh, North Carolina, Jan. 10— A police captain accused of forcing two teen-age suspects to rinse their faces in a toilet after they were pepper-sprayed has been demoted to corporal.

Police said Tuesday that they had apologized to the teens’ mothers. One of the women said she was considering legal action.

Officer Al White was working at an off-duty security job at a high school basketball game when he went into the bleachers to break up a fight, according to police reports. He was attacked and thrown from the stands.

Another officer used pepper spray on the teens.

After William Blue, 17, and Rogia James Lassiter, 18, were arrested, White led them to a rest room to wash off the pepper spray, according to a police statement.

“Because he could not get cold water to come from the sink’s faucet, he determined that it would be acceptable to use commode water to remove the pepper spray,” the statement said.

Officers are trained to take pepper-sprayed suspects to a fire station for decontamination, the statement said.

Source: Associated Press