COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — The attorney who unsuccessfully defended Richard Butler — a civil case that led to the bankruptcy of the Aryan Nations more than a decade ago — goes on trial today in a murder-for-hire plot involving a pipe bomb apparently aimed at the lawyer’s wife.

Edgar Steele (left) and Larry Fairfax

The federal case against 65-year-old attorney Edgar Steele of Sagle, Idaho, is attracting the attention of hate groups throughout the United States who are supporting his legal defense fund and offering up assorted Internet rants and conspiracy theories.

A nonprofit organization, the Edgar Steele Defense Fund, was established in November by Deon Masker, the wife of anti-Semitic self-described “conspiratologist” Richard F. Masker, a former Butler devotee who lives in North Idaho. ( continue to full post… )

The silence from those who organized and promoted a California anti-Muslim protest that devolved into a revolting display of hatred has been deafening.

A major Muslim organization released a video compilation (no longer available) earlier this week that depicted a Feb. 13 rally in Yorba Linda promoted by several Muslim-bashing groups, conservative organizations, local and national politicians, and some Jewish leaders. Although the rally started out as a strident but peaceful protest against a Muslim fundraiser that included two highly controversial speakers, a group of about 100 protesters broke away from the main crowd and launched into a series of vicious tirades.

The video is chilling. Small children, clutching their parents’ hands fearfully as they arrive at the fundraiser, cower as people behind police lines wave American flags and scream, “Go back home! Go back home! Terrorists! Terrorists!” A tiny girl in a pink hijab walks past the camera as a man’s voice rises above the crowd: “Muhammad was a child molester!” he shouts. A woman, standing behind a police barrier, bellows at the Muslim cameraman. “You’re a terrorist!” she screams. “Go home, go home! … Do you beat your wife, too? Are you a molester? … You beat your women, your wife and your children. Why don’t you go beat up your wife like you do every night? Why not go have sex with a 9-year-old, marry her?”

The video, which also features a city councilwoman saying she knows some Marines who would be happy to send the “terrorists” attending the fundraiser “to an early meeting in paradise,” has caused an outcry from progressive journalists and many others. But not elsewhere. In fact, there was a triumphal tone from many, including some who might be expected to know better. “We protestors [sic] all represented our city well,” Yorba Linda Councilman John Anderson wrote after the event.” It was a “triumph,” crowed Pam Geller of the hate group Stop Islamization of America. The Jewish Journal wrote an account nine days after the rally that made no mention of the insults from speakers and other protesters, instead depicting a motherhood-and-apple-pie event populated by a wide array of people opposed to “hate.” ( continue to full post… )

Early this morning, a man was killed and a woman injured in a shooting in Citrus Heights, Calif., a suburb of Sacramento. Law enforcement authorities said the man, who was shot in the head and torso, was found dead inside the home. The woman, who was shot in the leg, was taken to a local hospital for treatment. Local media reports said that two children were believed by law enforcement to have been inside the home at the time of the shooting.

Law enforcement sources have confirmed to Hatewatch that the man who was shot was David Lynch, 40, and his death is being treated as a homicide.

Lynch was a clever and charismatic racist skinhead organizer whose history of racist activism dates back to the late 1980s, when he became the eastern states coordinator for American Front, a nationwide skinhead coalition modeled after Britain’s racist National Front. After American Front’s power waned in the mid-1990s, Lynch lived for a time in Canada, then relocated to Sacramento, where he gradually assumed control of the Sacto Skins, one of the oldest skinhead gangs in the country. ( continue to full post… )

Imprisoned neo-Nazi radio host Hal Turner, one of the most vitriolic racists in America, who routinely suggested killing his enemies, may lose a bit of his venom if federal attorneys are successful in their proposition to destroy his guns.

Following his conviction in December, U.S. District Judge Donald E. Walter ordered Turner’s small stock of firearms – three pistols and a shotgun – turned over to someone of Turner’s “designation who is licensed to have them.” Federal prosecutors on Monday, however, asked the judge to reconsider, given Turner’s history of threats. “The government requests permission to destroy the firearms, rather than turn them over to Turner’s mother,” the filing said.

Turner owned a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, a Sig Sauer Model P-229.40, a Star Firestar 9mm and a Walther PPK 380. They hardly comprise an arsenal, but federal prosecutors apparently see a threat in letting someone of Turner’s reputation keep weapons, even in family hands.

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