A Wisconsin man arrested Wednesday night after accidentally shooting a pistol  through the door of his Madison motel room faces federal charges for allegedly plotting to kill an abortion doctor and clinic workers.

Ralph Lang, 63, told police that he planned to use the gun to kill the doctor at a Planned Parenthood clinic near the motel. According to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court in Madison, Lang said he wanted to “lay out abortionists because they are killing babies.”

Lang suggested to the officers who interrogated him that they look up “Rosary of the Unborn.” The website, which sells rosaries and anti-abortion literature and paraphernalia, includes messages supposedly from Jesus. The divine messages posted this week call abortion “the greatest weapon of mass destruction” and declare that it’s responsible for “economic distress,” natural disasters ravaging the country and resource depletion. “If you will stand corrected, many problems within the heart of the world will be resolved.” ( continue to full post… )

Two former roommates of the man who killed Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller say they have testified before a federal grand jury investigating whether Scott Roeder acted alone.
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A Wichita, Kan., judge has denied Scott Roeder’s bid to use a “necessity defense” when he is tried for the murder of late-term abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller. Sedgwick County Judge Warren Wilbert pointed out Tuesday that the Kansas Supreme Court ruled in a previous case regarding blocking an entrance to an abortion clinic that the necessity defense cannot be used.

Roeder told the Associated Press last month that he shot and killed Tiller at the doctor’s church on May 31 because “pre-born children’s lives were in imminent danger” and there was “the necessity to defend them.”

Roeder’s own attorney had already said that a necessity defense — sometimes called the “choice of evils” defense–was not a viable option when Roeder personally filed a lengthy motion seeking to rely upon it at his trial, scheduled for Jan. 11, on charges of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault.

Prosecutors also asked the judge on Tuesday to bar Roeder’s attorneys from claiming his alleged actions were justified because they were in the defense of another, in this case the unborn. Wilbert said he will consider arguments later on that argument. He also delayed ruling on a defense request to move the trial outside Wichita because of pretrial publicity. Wilbert said he was optimistic that an impartial panel could be picked, but said he would revisit the issue if that proved to be difficult.

Scott Roeder, who has confessed to the fatal shooting of a Kansas abortion provider, is fighting prosecutors’ attempts to ban the so-called necessity defense at his trial.

Roeders’ attorney filed a motion stating that Roeder should be allowed to argue that the killing was necessary to prevent Tiller from performing abortions, The Associated Press reported this week. The move was a surprise, because lead defense attorney Steve Osburn had said earlier this month that the necessity defense was not a viable option. At the time, Osburn was responding to Roeder’s statement to The Associated Press that he’d killed George Tiller and that he intended to use the necessity defense at his trial, scheduled for Jan.11. Osburn has not explained his apparent reversal.

The necessity defense is highly unlikely to succeed in Roeder’s case, according to two law professors who spoke to Hatewatch. “He may think this is his opportunity to explain why abortion is murder, but that’s not relevant,” said Michael Kaye, a professor of law at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas. ( continue to full post… )

The American Family Association (AFA) usually frets about homosexuals and pornography, but in the aftermath of the shootings at Fort Hood last week, the ultraconservative religious right group has a new concern: Muslims in the U.S. military. Ban them, urges Bryan Fischer, AFA director of issues analysis.

The day after Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim, is alleged to have shot and killed 13 people at the Texas army post and wounded more than two dozen others, Fischer posted his anti-Muslim screed on the AFA website.

“It is time, I suggest, to stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military,” Fischer wrote. “The reason is simple: the more devout a Muslim is, the more of a threat he is to national security. Devout Muslims, who accept the teachings of the prophet as divinely inspired, believe it is their duty to kill infidels. Yesterday’s massacre is living proof.”

Fischer conceded that most U.S. Muslims don’t shoot their fellow soldiers. No matter, because “the more devout a Muslim is, the more likely he is to lie to you through his teeth,” Fischer writes. “You invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it’s used, and we’ll welcome you back with open arms. This is not Islamophobia. It is Islamo-realism. The barbarians are no longer at the gate. They’re inside the fort, and it’s time for the insanity to stop.”

Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said that barring Muslims from serving in the U.S. military would violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment that ensures equal application of laws among people regardless of their race, faith and the like. “That’s a bigoted, racist, vile position,” Weinstein said of the AFA article. “It’s un-American. It’s inhuman. It violates our Constitution.” ( continue to full post… )

The veteran anti-abortion outfit Operation Rescue denounced as a “cowardly act” the recent murder of abortion provider George Tiller in Wichita, Kan., allegedly committed by Scott Roeder, a man with a long history of anti-abortion and anti-government extremism.

Not so white supremacists, most of whom have greeted Roeder’s actions with praise. On Stormfront, the largest white supremacist forum in terms of members, the more than 400 comments that have been posted about Tiller’s murder are running about ten-to-one in favor of the killing.

“Well that vile scumbag will never kill another White child. I’d say mission accomplished on this one. Taking things into our own hands is not just right it is our duty!” wrote “Whitelad 88” on Stormfront. His compatriot “Mechanicalstar” chimed in with, “We can’t wince at every action one of our people take when they get fed up and go over the edge, because things aren’t going to change simply by talking a whole lot on the Internet.” Another poster wrote, “Scott Roeder will and should go down as a hero in our pantheon.” ( continue to full post… )

The man suspected of fatally shooting abortion provider George Tiller as Tiller served as an usher during church services yesterday has a long history of involvement with the anti-government “sovereign citizen” movement, as well as anti-abortion radicalism.

Scott Roeder, 51, allegedly killed Tiller with a single shot in the foyer of the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kan. Roeder was taken into custody a few hours later in Kansas City and is being held without bail.

Roeder’s arrest is further evidence of a resurgence of right-wing extremism. A recent Department of Homeland Security report came under severe criticism from the right for making the point that such extremism is likely on the rise.

Roeder’s support of violent extremism dates back at least as far as April 1996, when police in Topeka, Kan. pulled him over for driving with a bogus license plate. Instead of a legitimate license plate his vehicle bore a “sovereign citizen” plate that proclaimed the driver immune from state and federal laws. ( continue to full post… )