SO…WHAT'S GOING ON WITH TWEEDLE BILL AND TWEEDLE HAL?

We haven’t spoken much about the goings-on with Bill White and Hal Turner, but with them due for their respective trials in a few weeks, we should get people up to speed. To date, both are still finding ways to skirt the system in ways that no one else would, but at least someone is putting up a fight against that. Bill was actually let out a month ago on bail, despite threatening to go on a killing spree. It took prosecutors to let an appeals court in on that for him to be sent back within days. Hal is supposed to get out tomorrow, but the conditions of his release is to not speak to press, get on the internet, etc. That might have been violated by the mere announcement appearing on a support website for him, but we don’t know yet. in any case, the two stooges are still on the hook, and things should start looking interesting from here.

One People’s Project

It has been over a year since neo-Nazi Bill White was put in a federal lockup, and four months since Hal Turner followed him. Both have achieved their notoriety – and their current living quarters – through their respective blogs and neo-Nazi activism that involved in particular communicating threats to those they have had political disagreements with. While nothing has ever come of those threats, they have given them the kind of attention many observers believe they truly sought. Both have appeared on various television shows and other news outlets. In a little more than a month, both will be on trial for their efforts.

Turner’s trial stemming from his arrest for threatening federal judges in Chicago is set to begin on Nov. 30 in Brooklyn, NY, his attorneys being able to convince Judge Donald Walter that a change of venue was appropriate. On Oct. 13, an entry on the blog Friends of Hal Turner indicated that Turner was going to be out on bail soon. “We expect to post bail by Friday 10/16/09 and to have Hal released by 10/21/09,” the blog read. “In preparation for his expected release Federal Marshals transported Hal from US prision (sic) in Chicago, Il. to the Federal tier of a N.J. prison near Hal’s home town of North Bergen, N.J. Once released, Hal will be under house arrest and under a gag order forbidding him from talking to the media.”

It is not certain if this blog entry would indicate a violation of his bail conditions, but the entry was curiously removed within 24 hours, only to reappear days later. It is believed that the blog is maintained by Turner’s wife Phyllis.

Roanoke, VA is where Bill White will have his trial beginning Dec. 9 for threats he has reportedly made against various individuals throughout the nation. His fortunes have been a little better than Turner’s In July, White saw federal charges in Chicago that he threatened a juror in the trial for World Church of the Creator’s Matt Hale, who was ultimately convicted of conspiring to murder a federal judge. In September, White was ordered released on 25,000 bond that his father and wife posted, but five days later, three judges of the US Appeals Court stayed the order and White was sent back. Prosecutors cited his own statements on the Web about going on a “murderous rampage” in Roanoke. A few weeks after he was sent back, Daniel Lee Jones, the Portland, OR regional director of Bill White’s American National Socialist Workers Party, was himself arrested on intimidation charges stemming from him sending a noose to the head of the Lima, Ohio chapter of the NAACP.

Both Bill White and Hal Turner are considered at the very least pariahs among other white supremacists. Posts the Vanguard News Network Forum in a thread about Turner’s possible release were openly hostile to the mere mentioning of his name “He’s just an informant,” Clayton Jennings of European Americans United wrote. “He’d sell his own mother for some government money or a fine cigar. He has no real friends and he certainly won’t have any safe ports in the coming storm. He’s a cheap toy that has outlived its amusement value to a very spoiled child.” It was even a harsher climate for Turner on the website Stormfront, where a Moderator Jack Boot warned against posting fundraising efforts for Turner there, citing how he, his lawyers and the prosecutors admit he is a paid informant. “There may be a constitutional issue centering Hal’s case and there might not be. As far as SF is concerned, he’s on his own,” Jack Boot wrote before locking the thread.

White’s situation is just as embarrassing. During his appearance in Roanoke, his wife Meghan White sat alone on one side of the courtroom while other spectators, mostly comprised of NAACP members, packed the other side. The only time someone shared her side was when the judge ordered that his father come in personally to sign the bond for his release. Even then, his father would not sit with Meghan, choosing instead to sit a few chairs behind her. Stormfront posters have been no less charitable towards White than they are towards Turner. “He is not one of us,” poster “ActionAlert” wrote. “I don’t care what happens to him. I know first hand that he posts lies about people. True White Patriots still rot in prison.

“Sometimes excrement sinks and sometimes it floats,” ActionAlert continued. “In this case, it’s the latter.”