Boise Weekly: “Two defendants in the recent crime sweep of the Aryan Knights—a white supremacist gang operating in and out of Idaho prisons—entered guilty pleas in a Boise federal courtroom today, admitting to weapon possession.” James Hood and Rory Palma were indicted alongside 19 others for a variety of criminal offences in September, “including distribution of methamphetamine and possessing firearms.”
Huffington Post: Hurricane Sandy has provoked extreme reactions from some quarters, with The Westboro Baptist Church among those issuing controversial statements. “Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Westboro pastor Fred Phelps, has spewed a series of tweets about Hurricane Sandy since the storm first brewed in the Caribbean last week. ‘God sent the whirlwind. #ThankGodForRighteousJudgment,’ Phelps-Roper tweeted after deaths were announced in Cuba.” Elsewhere, right-wing Christian preacher Chaplain John McTernan blamed the hurricane on, among other things, the “pro homosexual” policies of both Presidential candidates.
Richard Bartholomew: High profile members of the US counter-jihad movement, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, have been seeking to raise money for the legal defence of EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who was arrested following reports he entered the US illegally.
Orlando Sentinel: ” All charges have been dropped against a third member of the neo-Nazi American Front as state prosecutors prepare to take the domestic terrorism case to trial, Osceola County court records show. Diane Stevens, who sported tattoos of red swastikas on her chest, will not stand trial or face any form of punishment for her membership in the group accused of conducting paramilitary training in Holopaw to prepare for what members believed was an inevitable race war.”
Hatewatch: ”A man who was found with more than 145 pounds of explosives in Brisbane, Calif., might have connections to the antigovernment ‘sovereign citizens’ movement.” William Harrell is charged with several felonies resulting from the discovery of explosives in his apartment earlier this month, to which he pleaded not guilty on October 4th. The basis for Harrell’s association with sovereign citizens stems from a Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) filing in which he was listed as a debtor to himself, “a tactic used by some sovereigns in an attempt to free themselves of financial obligations.”
