Shallow Hal

I first wrote about radio personality Hal Turner back in 2007. Here are my exact words:

"Hal Turner isn't a run-of-the-mill bigot. He's really a flaming shitheel of racist redneck throwback to previous century. I was surprised how human he looked in his headshot. I expected the slouched posture, pronounced forehead, and hairy palms."

It was true. Hal was and is a white supremacist nutter and I probably disagree with everything that he's ever said and most of what he hasn't said. Strangely, the FBI has managed to get involved in his life in such a way that I almost have a little sympathy for the bigot. So let's begin with the strangest part of the story. More here.

Since 2003 Hal has been a salaried employee of the FBI. That means when he uttered this hateful crapola in the clip below in 2007... our tax dollars were paying for it.
But the FBI made good use of him. he was a valuable contact within the white power movement. They exploited his credibility to manipulate contacts as far away as Brazil. A FBI memo said Hal "has proven highly reliable and is in a unique position to provide vital information on multiple subversive domestic organizations." Try to remember, he's not the head of a militia. He's a radio host that got kicked off WBCQ and lately is just a blogger. More here.

Today he's an inmate. The same FBI that was paying him to snitch on his fellow bigots arrested him for saying hateful things. It becomes more complicated now because Hal claims that the FBI coached him, with specific thing they wanted him to say; with specific people they wanted him to focus on. He is a bit of a nutter so the latter may or may not be true, but the story now lies in the arena of things that only can happen in radio.