Crime Inc: Glenn Beck’s Corrupt Advertisers

Glenn Beck BlackboardThe past couple of weeks Glenn Beck has been raving about some sort of criminal enterprise that he imagines is being run from the White House. Even with the help of his blackboards he hasn’t ever been able to coherently explain it, but he is convinced that it exists and, as befits his Messianic hallucinations, it is out to get him.

The cabal that Beck has dubbed “Crime Inc” began as an alleged conspiracy contrived by the climate change gang, which includes everyone from Al Gore to General Electric to the United Nations. Lately the conspirators grew to include your church and any institution that embraces social justice (including Beck’s Mormon church). It’s a global syndicate that seeks to collapse international economies and install a one-world government. I assume it’s being run by the Lizard People (whose leader is Barack Obama) but Beck hasn’t gotten to that part yet.

However, it appears that the real Crime Inc is the assembly of advertisers who sponsor Beck’s show (the ones who haven’t yet fled in disgust). As it turns out, many of them are running less than reputable operations that have run afoul of the law. For instance…

Goldline International
This peddler of over-priced gold products is passing itself off as an investment advisor. They advertise prominently on right-wing radio and TV programs that spread fear of an economic meltdown, which they contend gold is a hedge against. The only problem is that they charge far more than the actual value of the gold in their products and employ high-pressure sales tactics. In many cases gold would have to increase in value over 200% for you to just break even. Rep. Anthony Weiner is requesting that federal regulators look into whether Goldline’s highly questionable business practices violate the law.

LifeLock
This is an identity security company that is famous for its CEO who parades his Social Security number around on a billboard mounted to a truck. He also includes it in his TV ads. But now the Federal Trade Commission has “accused Lifelock of operating a scam and con operation. The commission announced, along with 35 state attorneys general, that it had levied a fine of $12 million against the company for deceptive business practices and for failing to secure sensitive customer data.” In short, investigators found that LifeLock failed to provide any of the services they promised.

In addition, an investigation by the the Phoenix New Times revealed that LifeLock’s CEO has had his identity breached multiple times. Losses in the thousands were racked up for the company head who so confidently broadcast his ID to the world. The New Times also uncovered some nefarious activities by another company founder that included gambling debts, arrests, and even identity theft.

Tax Masters
Citing nearly 1,000 complaints, the Texas Attorney General filed an enforcement action against TaxMasters, charging them with unlawful conduct and misleading customers. The action asserts that Tax Masters “unlawfully misled customers about their service contract terms, failed to disclose its no-refunds policy, and falsely claimed that the firm’s employees would immediately begin work on a case.” In addition, the AG charged that Tax Masters failed to even provide the services they promised and refused to give refunds, yet pursued debt collection efforts against clients who canceled their contracts.

Free Score
The first thing you need to know about Free Score is that it is not free. Well, except for the score, that is. But the report that provides you with useful information will end up running you $29.95 per month. It’s a classic bait and switch operation that tags unwary customers for thirty bucks a month for a report that can actually be obtained for free at AnnualCreditReport.com. The company employed conservative hack Ben Stein as its spokesman. That relationship cost Stein his column for the New York Times which does not permit its employees to be commercial shills. Free Score is owned by a disreputable firm called Vertrue that has been the target of actions by both the New York Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive business practices.

These are amongst the steadiest remaining advertisers on Beck’s show. And they appear to reflect the same disregard for ethics and honesty that Beck has made his trademark. It’s rather funny that Beck attacks his imaginary crime syndicate when he has such a close relationship with so many actual criminals. And it isn’t just as advertisers. Beck has long personally acted as a spokesman/shill for Goldline. Even when this violated the guidelines of his employer Fox News. You have to wonder how many of Beck’s other advertisers also have legal problems that have yet to surface. This would be another good reason for reputable companies to cease to associate themselves with Beck. Do they really want to be lumped in with the profligate companies listed above?

Beck’s latest hyperventilations feature a foursome who Beck fears are in cahoots with the White House in a plot to destroy him. Jim Wallis is the head of Sojourners, a progressive Christian organization. After Beck ordered his followers to “run as fast as they can” from any church that practiced social justice, Wallis wrote an item that called on Christians to run from Glenn Beck. Van Jones is the former presidential advisor on green jobs who was once affiliated with Color of Change, the group that initiated the advertiser boycott against Beck. Jones left the group two years before the boycott, which was in response to Beck calling the President a racist. Andy Stern is the former head of the union SEIU, which has joined with Color of Change and MoveOn.org to boycott Beck. These three EOGs (enemies of Glenn) have been portrayed by Beck as agents of the President. Never mind that none of them have any association with the White House or any other government office whatsoever. This is classic Beckian conspiracy mongering wherein everything he deems evil is connected to everything else he deems evil.

The fourth horseman of the Beckocalypse is Rep. Anthony Weiner, who just asked federal regulators to look into Goldline. Beck’s response was to launch a web site called WeinerFacts.com, where Beck’s disciples have been tasked with searching for dirt to smear on Weiner while making fun of his name. It’s all very mature.

Since Beck is so concerned about potential criminal activity, I wonder if he will look into the sordid histories of the people and companies that bankroll his show. And for that matter, his boss, Rupert Murdoch, has also been found guilty of improprieties ranging from corporate espionage to hacking into private email and phone systems of celebrities and politicians. Criminal behavior is part and parcel of the way these people do business. When you look at the big picture here, it’s obvious who the real Crime Inc is.

The Glenn Beck Advertiser Boycott Must Be Working

The way you can tell if a protest is effective is when the target of the action can’t stop complaining about it. For two days in a row, Glenn Beck has devoted valuable airtime to castigating the proponents of an advertiser boycott that began last year in response to Beck calling President Obama a racist with “a deep-seated hatred of white people.”

For Beck to divert so much time from fabricating paranoid conspiracy theories to fabricating smears on his perceived enemies is revealing. His anxiety could not be more apparent, even as he pretends that the efforts directed against him are making him happy:

“The fact is, I haven’t felt this good and positive in a long time. Why? Because the boycott attempts are the most transparent AstroTurf attacks I have ever seen or ever heard of.”

Ever? The truth is that the boycotts were initiated by a very small group that most people (including me) had never heard of. Color of Change began the effort with a small email list and a campaign to communicate with Beck’s advertisers. This shoestring effort produced surprising results, getting more than 100 advertisers to refuse to permit their commercials on Beck’s show. [Note: StopBeck later joined the effort further enhancing its effectiveness]

Beck spent the majority of his rebuttal inventing a plot that went all the way up to the White House. The first brick thrown by Beck was at his perennial nemesis, Van Jones. However, while Jones was a co-founder of Color Of Change, he left the organization two years prior to the Beck boycott. That didn’t stop Beck from building his cloud castle of hate.

He then tied Jones to Rev. Jim Wallis of the Sojourners. However, Wallis had nothing to do with the advertiser boycott, then or now. Wallis entered the picture after Beck took an astonishingly stupid stand against social justice and advised his listeners to “run” from any church that advocated it. Wallis responded by calling for Christians who believe in the venerable Christian practice of social justice to run from Glenn Beck.

And of course, Beck had to inject his distaste for working Americans by slandering unions. So he tethered Andy Stern to the boycott effort, although Stern and his SEIU had no part in the year-old boycott until about two weeks ago when they signed on with a new push by MoveOn.org.

After this hallucinatory construction of a widespread cabal attacking him, Beck capped it off with a wild accusation that it was a high level plot that the President was “coordinating from the Oval Office”:

“Is it possible, maybe, that pointing out every night that there are radicals, Marxists, and communists, in the White House, maybe that struck a nerve? Has someone decided that they must destroy my career and silence me because we’ve stumbled onto something? […] Has there ever been a case in American history…where an American president administration tried to destroy the livelihood of a private citizen with whom they disagree. Can’t think of any.”

Beck’s paranoia led to this declaration that nothing like this had ever happened before. He then immediately contradicted himself by comparing it to Richard Nixon’s famous “enemies list.” The only problem with that comparison is that Nixon’s list was documented and Beck’s delusions still only exist in his twisted cranium. What’s more, Nixon sought to use the power of the government against his opponents, but the Beck boycott relies entirely on the efforts of individual citizens engaging in free expression. Nevertheless, Beck elevates this to an absurd altitude wherein he literally compares himself with victims of Nazi atrocities:

“Where’s the media? Do the rest of you in this business think it’s gonna stop with me? Really? Once they get me what happens to you? Is there absolutely no chance whatsoever that you might be a target at some point in the future? What is that poem…First they came for the Jews and I stayed silent…”

Now they are coming for Glenn Beck. It is so like Beck to manifest his Messianic complex in this fashion. He is the persecuted one that suffers for his congregation. And his stylings are getting more televengelical and Apocalyptic by the day. Witness this fire and brimstone sermon:

It is a bizarre world. It is an upside down, inside out, quantum physics world. […] It is the eve of destruction in America.

I believe in God. I believe rights come from man, and this Constitution, and the founding of this nation, were divinely inspired. These are God’s rights and God’s freedoms.

If we appreciate those rights, if we do the right thing […] we are going to have to pay the consequence for our living and mistreating these rights. But in the end, have no fear, because nothing will thwart Him. Because these are His rights. This was His Constitution. This was His country for His purposes, not ours. And nothing…nothing…will thwart Him in the end.

Hallelujah. This may be the first time I have heard anyone declare that the Constitution was “divinely inspired.” To my knowledge, it has not been included in any version of the Bible. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison have not been beatified, nor is George Washington a saint. But in Beck’s mind a new holy doctrine has been proclaimed. One that permitted human slavery and denied women the right to vote. If the Constitution was divinely inspired, then what right did later generations have to amend it? Were they also the servants of God? And if so, did God screw up when he ratified Prohibition or the right to levy income taxes?

I have said this before, and it is all too apparent that it must be repeated: I genuinely hope that the people who care for Glenn Beck get him the help that he so obviously requires. It is way too tempting for his family and his producers and his hangers on, to hold back and revel in the riches he generates for them. But they will surely regret it when he self-destructs and splatters them all with the blood of their greed.

Now I’m sounding a little Biblical. And so I speaketh not further for the time is at hand for me to shuteth up. For now…..