Harold “Hal” Turner, a white supremacist New Jersey blogger and former radio host who frequented the same right-wing circles as Sean Hannity and Pat Buchanan turned himself into police today after encouraging his audience to “take up arms” against two lawmakers and a state official. The comments that lead to Turner’s arrest were made because he was reportedly “angry over legislation that would have given lay members of Roman Catholic churches in Connecticut more control over their parish’s finances.”
Aside from serving as the North Jersey coordinator for Pat Buchanan’s 1992 presidential campaign, a 2005 article by The Nation points out that Hannity “offered his top-rated radio show as a regular forum for Turner’s occasionally racist, always over-the-top rants.” The Nation also reported that Turner and Hannity’s conversations continued off-the-air as Hannity offered Turner “encouragement” while he struggled to kick his cocaine habit and overcome his “homosexual leanings.” In 2007, Hannity backed away from his association with Turner in a tit-for-tat debate with Black Panther leader Malik Shabazz. Watch it:
Much like Wednesday’s Holocaust Museum shooter (who Hannity conveniently didn’t cover on on the day of the attack), Turner has promoted violence in the name of racism, anti-semitism and white nationalism. In 2006, Turner left former Jersey City Deputy Mayor, Jaime Vazquez, with a back injury and a fractured wrist when Vasquez began publicly protesting his anti-immigrant comments:
TURNER: “(T)he illegal immigrants are breaking the law, and people like me should break the law as well by shooting them down.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Turner as:
“A belligerent, foul-mouthed talk show host, Turner is the maestro of radio hate — a man who rants about a ‘Portable Nigger Lyncher’ machine, ‘faggots,’ ’savage Negro beasts,’ ‘bull-dyke lesbians’ and ‘lazy-ass Latinos … slithering across the border.’”
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