Tag Archives: Glenn Beck

Sep 07 2010 3 cmnts
General, Media Bias

Dishonoring 9/11: Fox Nation’s Calendar For Obama, Palin And Beck

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Posted by: Mark @ 7:39 pm

Over at the Fox Nation, where every news item is a right-wing attack piece, they have been alerted to the fact that President Obama will be spending September 11 at the Pentagon, one of the sites targeted by the terrorists ten years ago. But rather than publishing a story with the headline, “Obama to Mark September 11 at the Pentagon,” the Fox Nationalists posted this:

Pres. Obama Not Attending 9/11 Ceremony at Ground Zero

As might be expected, Fox clearly went out of their way to come up with that negative slant on the story They could easily have used the more neutral headline I proposed above, which happens to be the actual headline of the article to which Fox Nation linked.

What Fox News did not report is that Obama is not the only prominent public person who isn’t going to ground zero on 9/11. In fact, the two most prominent employees of Fox News, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, aren’t going to ground zero either. They also won’t be at the Pentagon. And they aren’t going to be at the Pennsylvania crash site with Michelle Obama and Laura Bush either. (For the record, Vice-President Joe Biden will be at ground zero).

Palin and Beck care so much about this memorial that they have scheduled an appearance together more than 3,000 miles away from any of these sites, in Anchorage, Alaska, at an event that will cost the public between $73.00 and $130.00 each to attend. Oh yeah, there is also a $225.00 ticket that includes a meet-and-greet with Beck. What a wonderful way to honor the memory of the citizens and responders whose lives were lost on 9/11.

Perhaps Beck decided to visit Palin in Alaska on this anniversary so that the two of them could keep an eye on Russia. More likely, Beck is repaying Palin for her appearance at his Washington BeckFest last week. And it is quite a rich repayment that could bring in half a million dollars. That oughta restore some honor.

So while Obama is honoring the fallen, the Fox all-stars, Palin and Beck, will be hustling their followers. And the only news that Fox sees in all of this is that Obama won’t be at ground zero. Fair and balanced.

Sep 02 2010 17 cmnts
General, Wankery

If You Still Think Glenn Beck Is Not Racist…

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Posted by: Mark @ 12:14 pm

Glenn Beck and his defenders have fiercely denied allegations that he is a racist or has incited racial hostility on his radio and TV programs. But the evidence of his animosity toward people of color is abundant since the election of a black president.

Looking back on Beck’s crusades since the inauguration (which, coincidentally, was also the inauguration of his show on Fox News), Beck began with an attack on ACORN, a group of community organizers who advocated on behalf of poor and minority populations. Then he went after Van Jones, an African-America who sought to bring jobs and environmental justice to disenfranchised communities. Then it was Mark Lloyd, an African-America working to insure diversity in the media in his role at the FCC. Then it was Valerie Jarrett, the African-America aide to President Obama. The it was Shirley Sherrod, an African-American woman who was slandered by Beck and Andrew Breitbart in a phony attempt to cast her as a racist.

Now Beck is attacking Dolores Huerta, an Hispanic labor activist with a legendary resume. She co-founded the United Farm Workers of America with Cesar Chavez. She is presently working with the Department of Labor to insure that workers are not exploited by employers seeking to pay them less than they are entitled to under the law. Presumably Beck would like to bring back indentured servitude.

The real question is why are the targets of Beck’s attacks so often people of color? Even though there is the occasional Caucasian like Cass Sunstein (who is Jewish), the racial scale for Beck’s tirades is heavily weighted toward minorities. Anyone who doesn’t recognize the significance of that fact is dwelling in deep denial. With this assault on Huerta, Beck continues to prove that he is overtly discriminatory in his selection of enemies.

On a tangential point, the Obama administration has a pretty poor record of standing up for its people. They let Van Jones go. They forced Shirley Sherrod to resign (before apologizing). They never defended ACORN, even after they were absolved of any wrongdoing. If they permit Beck to railroad Huerta out of the Labor Department they are going to see the last remaining remnants of their support from progressives, and others on the left, drift away. So my message to the administration: Don’t be stupid.

Aug 31 2010 8 cmnts
General

Fox News FINALLY Refudiates Violent Rhetoric

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Posted by: Mark @ 3:02 pm

Almost since its inception, Fox News has been a hotbed of irresponsible discourse that encouraged intolerance and hostility. They have harbored hosts, contributors and guests whose language was sometimes thinly veiled advocacy of violence, and sometimes there was no veil at all.

  • Bill O’Reilly threatened to “hunt down” and “strangle” members of the media.
  • Liz Trotta joked that “somebody knock off Osama … uh … Obama … well, both if we could.”
  • Rush Limbaugh told his listeners to start riots at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, “with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that. That’s the objective here.”
  • Sarah Palin has taken to giving her followers this advice: “Don’t retreat…Reload!”
  • Glenn Beck agreed with his guest Michael Scheuer that the only hope for America “is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.”

Beck is one of the worst perpetrators of hostile rhetoric. He used to have a regular radio bit wherein he speculated about who he would like to beat to death with a shovel. He fantasized about choking Michael Moore to death with his bare hands. And more recently he frequently condemns progressives as a cancer that has to be “cut out.” So perhaps it was Beck to whom this Fox News story was referring when they said that provocative remarks “could easily incite a rabid fan to commit violent acts.” And that fans “could be influenced because of their devotion.” The article quoted Cooper Lawrence, the author of “Cult of Celebrity” saying that:

“The fear isn’t that a celebrity will influence someone to do something violent or out of character due to the sheer devotion to the celebrity, the fear is that someone who is already vulnerable, mentally disturbed, already considering something dangerous, may be encouraged to do so if it is advocated by their favorite star.”

Image consultant Michael Sands concurred saying that he “is taking his fame too seriously. He is having delusions and his anger” could “get him arrested!”

These criticisms ought to be taken seriously by anyone, left or right, who ventures into such disturbing scenarios and has the ability to influence others who may not be of particularly sound mind. Certainly that would apply to someone with the public posture of Glenn Beck. Just one little thing…The article was not referring to Beck or any of the other viscerally divisive characters above. It was referring to actor John Cusack who Tweeted…

“I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICES ORDICK ARMEYAND NEWT GINGRICH-and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS”

Much of the reaction at Fox News, and elsewhere in the rightist blogosphere, is that Cusack was articulating some kind of threat. That just illustrates how deficient their comprehension skills are. Anyone with a functioning cerebrum can see that Cusack was responding to the bigoted and illogical arguments against the Islamic community center being planned near ground zero in Lower Manhattan. Cusack was satirically turning the controversy on its head by proposing a church of Satan near Fox’s offices. But the dimwits at Fox, and their ideological peers, just don’t get it.

It’s too bad that when Fox News finally gets around to making a principled statement against violent hate-speech that they direct it toward someone who wasn’t engaging in it and ignore their own complicity. It would be nice if those getting so worked up about this phony misinterpretation of Cusack’s comments would be similarly outraged by the very real violent rhetoric that is a regular part of Fox’s programming, as noted above. But I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that expression of fairness and balance to occur.

Aug 30 2010 8 cmnts
General, Wankery

Beck-Stock Postmortum

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Posted by: Mark @ 12:54 pm

I think it’s fair to say that the promised miracles for Glenn Beck’s Right Power Rally failed to materialize. There were no sightings of the Virgin Mary in tea leaves and no healing of lepers. [FLASH: Beck announced a "miracle" that occurred at the rally. Some birds flew overhead. Yep, that's it. Sends chills down your spine, doesn't it?] It was less a turning point for America than a veering off into ditch. But there were a couple of things that deserve notice:

First, Beck appeared on Fox News Sunday the day after his revival meeting and walked back his famous assertion that President Obama is a racist, telling Chris Wallace that…

“You see, it’s all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation. I don’t know what that is, other than it’s not Muslim, it’s not Christian. It’s a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it.”

Well, that clears that up. Obama isn’t really a racist, he just believes in oppression and is perverting the gospel. That’s much better. Thanks for the clarification.

Secondly, prior to Beckapalooza, he appeared with Bill O’Reilly to hype the event. In the course of their discussion O’Reilly bet Beck that there would not be more than 100,000 people at the rally. If there were, O’Reilly promised to give Beck his primetime spot on the Fox News schedule. Crowd estimates have varied widely from an expert’s analysis at CBS of 87,000, to Beck’s own guess of between 300,000 and 600,000. Since O’Reilly would never concede that CBS would get anything right, it leaves us with a figure that was certainly in excess of 100,000. So I’m wondering when O’Reilly will step down and let Beck move into his studio.

Finally, it should be noted that Beck’s sermon about how it is now time to “concentrate on the good” didn’t last even 24 hours. He was already bashing the President the next day on Fox News Sunday. So I wouldn’t get too excited about a new, positive Beck. In fact, I would expect his petulant tirades to continue into the foreseeable future

Aug 28 2010 9 cmnts
General

Has Our Honor Been Restored Yet, Glenn Beck?

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Posted by: Mark @ 1:15 pm

Pope Glenn BeckThis was the big weekend for Glenn Beck, and allegedly, America. He went from the Kennedy Center Friday night to the Lincoln Memorial Saturday, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream Speech.” That’s three murdered progressive heroes in two days. Is there a name for that sort of psychosis?

I watched over three hours of Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally this morning. I watched it very closely. I didn’t leave the room even once. But I’m afraid I may have missed something.

For months prior to the event Beck promised that it would be a turning point for America; that it would be an awakening; that miracles would happen. Well, unless a leper was healed in the reflecting pool off-camera, I must have missed the miracle. In fact, all I saw was a live, extended episode of the 700 Club with Glenn Beck as the guest host.

If I had spent several hundred dollars on transportation and lodging to hear an alcoholic, drug abusing, former morning zoo radio shock jock, tell me that I should heed the word of the Lord, I would feel somewhat disappointed right about now. Especially if I was expecting some premium Obama bashing and anti-government blather.

For the most part, Beck kept his promise to avoid politics. While there were a few indirect aspersions to political issues, the bulk of the presentation focused overwhelmingly on Christian fundamentalism. It was an old-school revival meeting without a lick of originality wherein Beck announced that America is “turning back to God.” And although he promoted the event as one that would unite all faiths, there wasn’t a single representative from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, or any other non-Christian sect (not to mention Atheism). The only Jewish participant was a rabbi (and former associate of convicted felon, Jack Abramoff), who was introduced on stage but did not address the crowd.

Also on stage were numerous African Americans, mostly members of gospel choirs. I would venture to say that there were more African Americans on stage than amongst the tens of thousands in the audience.

The sermon Beck delivered was notable in that he defined 9/11 as “a wake up call” from God. That may come as a surprise to those who assumed terrorists from Al Qaeda were responsible. He also stressed that “America is at a crossroads” and that “we must advance or perish.” Beck courageously declared that he would choose to advance. I guess that should silence all those radicals who think we ought to perish instead. However, I wonder if advancing might not be a little too suggestive of the progressive course that Beck so feverishly abhors.

One of the most frequently expressed themes articulated by Beck was that we have been spending way too much time on what’s wrong with America and that it is now time “to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished – and the things that we can do tomorrow. That would be refreshing if Beck were able to sustain it for more than a heartbeat.

Ninety-five percent of show his about what’s wrong with America. He hates the government. He hates the people. He hates the Democrats. He hates the Republicans. He hates health care and the environment and unions and churches and Social Security. To Beck we are a crumbling empire awash in debt, ruled by Marxists and estranged from God. And this guy is lecturing the rest of us about concentrating on the good things? A few days ago he expressed his thoughts on the future in a more foreboding tone that is common on his radio and TV programs:

“I’m begging you to get down on your knees. What is coming is not good. I don’t know how things end. I should rephrase that. I do know how things end. But I know how things end after a long struggle. I don’t know how that struggle is going to work out. I don’t know how much time each of us has. I don’t know how much time the country has.”

How does he expect his flock to concentrate on the good while he is advising them to liquidate their assets and hoard gold and guns? It will be interesting to see if Beck’s new-found evangelistic optimism can be maintained for even the next week of his broadcasts, or if his familiar doomsday fear mongering will continue to dominate his message. Either way, I’m still waiting for evidence of his Miracle on the Mall. And for the record, my honor never needed restoration in the first place.

Addendum: Attendance estimates for Beckapalooza have begun buzzing around the media hive. Predictably, they range from 87,000 (certified by a CBS expert analyst) to 600,000 (by the certifiably insane Beck).

Aug 27 2010 6 cmnts
General, Humor

Fox News Posts Review Of Glenn Beck’s Rally Before It Happens

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Posted by: Mark @ 10:53 am

Fox News promos often tout the network as “The Most Powerful Name In News.” Now that power extends into the supernatural as FoxNews.com is caught publishing a story reviewing Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, DC, the day before it takes place. This demonstration of journalistic clairvoyance may just be a part of the “miraculous” occurrences that Beck promised would take place at tomorrow’s historic event. However, despite the obvious scoop that Fox could claim with this pre-porting, the story was quickly removed from the site, but not before I captured this picture of the screen:

Whether or not the event plays out as depicted in this visual account, we will just have to wait and see. But many prognosticators are laying down their bets for how the event will be portrayed after the fact. Even Glenn Beck has submitted his prebuttal to the media’s reaction:

“My prediction is that this will be covered incorrectly, they will take one line from somebody, or one thing, or they will find one person on the stage that shouldn’t have been there, and or there will be somebody in the crowd, whatever, they will focus on one thing.”

It’s not surprising that Beck would produce this prediction since it mirrors so precisely his own patented method of incorrectly covering people and events in the news.

In the weeks preceding the rally, Beck made some rather grandiose predictions concerning the impact it would have on the attendees and on America. He said to expect a miracle on 8/28; that it would be a turning point for the nation; and that it would be both the Woodstock and the anti-Woodstock of the next generation. But he said the most profound impact would be on the children who would forever remember the experience, and “will be indelibly marked. It will be marked forever. … It will be a brand on them.”

Now, I’m not a Bible scholar, but the only Biblical reference to being “branded” that I can recall had to do with the “Mark of the Beast” (aka Satan). So we may want to check the kids leaving Beck’s Rally on Sunday for the telltale “666″ on their foreheads.

[Numerology Alert: The numerological summation of the phrase "Restoring Honor" is "6." The numerological summation of the date "8/28/2010" is "3." Hence three sixes.]

The big challenge for Beck is to manage to live up to the rhapsodic buildup he gave for his Revival meeting. In what form will the promised miracle take place. Will a Heavenly aura embrace the mall? Will tears of blood run from Lincoln’s marble eyes? Will all the toast in DC sport images of Sarah Palin in biker shorts? Will the lame be healed (good news for Beck)? Will Jesus sing the lead of Cat Scratch Fever in a duet with Ted Nugent? Who knows? But if the world isn’t wholly transformed by Sunday morning, this event will have to be perceived as a failure. Can Beck deliver?

There was a noticeable evolution in the buildup to the rally as the original announcement portrayed it as a launch party for his next book, “The Plan, a 100 year blueprint for the restoration of America.” Said Beck…

“On August 28, 2010, I ask you, your family and neighbors to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln on the National Mall for the unveiling of The Plan and the birthday of a new national movement to restore our great country.”

Subsequent to that announcement the affair took on several different agendas culminating with the current version that celebrates (exploits) fallen soldiers, even though Beck recently removed the reference to honoring veterans from his permit application. The press kit (pdf) still portrays the event as a tribute to veterans but, at the same time, it dismisses any suggestion that it has any political affiliations:

“The Restoring Honor Rally is neither a 9/12 nor a Tea Party rally. There will be absolutely no politics involved. This rally will honor the troops, unite the American people under the principles of integrity and truth, and make a pledge to restore honor within ourselves and our country.”

It is hard to see how an even featuring Beck along with Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent, that is sponsored by the NRA, and has as its organizational partners FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, can be characterized as non-political. It is likewise difficult to grasp how he can claim that it isn’t a Tea Party or 9-12 rally when the 9-12 Project is explicitly cited on the permit as an organizer, and both 9-12ers and Tea Partiers are actively involved in planning and transportation activities. These distinctions are important because the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which is identified as the charity benefiting from the event, risks losing their non-profit, tax-exempt status if they engage in political activities. Although the matter of charitable contributions may be moot due to this fine-print disclaimer at the bottom Beck’s “Restoring Honor” web site:

“All contributions made to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) will first be applied to the costs of the Restoring Honor Rally taking place on August 28, 2010.”

That’s sweet. Beck is getting the entire event paid for by people who believe they are contributing to a charity for veterans. It won’t be long now until we have the answers to these and other perplexing questions. The historic significance that Beck promised will be realized, or not, in the next 24 hours or so. Are your affairs in order?

And if the report from Fox News pictured above isn’t sufficient evidence of the event’s pivotal impact on our nations future, then make plans to watch Fox News Sunday where Beck will be the featured guest and will surely give an unbiased assessment of his monumental festival of Beck Worship. The Sunday morning news program will cap months of Fox News supposedly not being involved with the rally while promoting it incessantly.

Aug 25 2010 13 cmnts
General, Wankery

Glenn Beck: Obama Is Not A Muslim – Or A Christian

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Posted by: Mark @ 12:39 am

For someone who continually broadcasts disclaimers that he is not an expert on anything, Glenn Beck sure pontificates on every subject imaginable as if he were the world’s supreme authority. In today’s episode Beck chose as his topic the actual supreme authority, God!

The message that Beck sought to convey to his jello-brained viewers was that President Obama is some sort of spiritual chameleon whose only prayerful commitment is to a collective holy borg. The presumptuousness of Beck believing that he could analyze the President’s faith reveals a measure of pride that would surely condemn him to eternal damnation were it actually the mortal sin it has been advertised as.

A new poll was released that shows that about one in four Americans are still so stupid and ill-informed that they think Obama is a Muslim. Amongst Republicans (who must be even stupider) it’s one in three. Beck blamed Obama for this mass asshattery that, in truth, was more the result of people like Beck and his talk radio lie brigades.

But Beck went further to construct a tower of trash and innuendo that was designed to leave his flock in a state of uncertainty and panic regarding this alien figure residing in the White House. For Beck is was pretty much routine. He simply trotted out the ghosts of Jeremiah Wright and social justice and wove them into a new fabric of fear. And of course, he employed his patented use of out-of-context quotations and eerie micro-focusing of otherwise mundane citations.

Prominently featured in Beck’s fantasia was a passage from Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, wherein Obama described his spiritual introduction to Christ:

“Kneeling beneath that cross on the south side of Chicago I felt God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.”

To which Beck responded:

“Even that statement is confusing. Submission? That’s Islam.”

Umm…..Glenn may need to brush up on his scripture:

James 4:7 – Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Job 22:21 – Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you.

This is typical of the way Beck invents red herrings against which he can rail. He simply makes a declarative statement, like “submission is Islam,” and then castigates his target for violating some principle that Beck just made up. Another of his favorite methods of misinformation is to quote some authority and claim that the quote validates his position. Today Beck did this with a citation that he has used before from Pope Benedict:

“Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine but demonic.”

Beck intended for this to be an indictment of Obama’s belief in “collective salvation.” All that means is that Obama places importance on helping others as a method for enhancing his connection to the holy. But Beck, due to his revulsion of helping others, twists it into some sort of evil plot to suppress individual will. That is an invention of Beck’s making and has nothing to do with Obama’s intention. But even more damning, so to speak, is that the Pope’s remark is more an indictment of people like Beck who insert religion into government works. The Pope is saying that when government and politicians try to do God’s work they are actually doing the work of the devil. So all you congressmen who want to draft legislation to outlaw abortion or gay marriage had better wise up.

Finally, I thought it would be fun to note that Beck took a back-handed swipe at CBS News anchor Bob Scheifer. Scheifer’s sin was to express the shocking opinion that there is false information on the Internet (you don’t say) and that that was where some of the misperception of Obama’s faith came from. That didn’t sit well with Beck who wanted to blame everything on Obama. So Beck said…

“Bob Schiefer. You seem like a nice gentleman. I don’t know you. And I’m sure you are a good journalist. I don’t know, because I don’t watch CBS News and, quite frankly, I don’t know anybody who does.”

Oh boy, that’s funny. Beck slammed Scheiffer for having so few viewers. That’s gotta hurt. Except for this little fact: Scheiffer’s CBS News draws twice as many viewers (5.2 million total/1.6 million 24-54) as Beck’s lame cable show (2.1M total/603K 25-54). So the fact that Beck doesn’t know anybody who watches CBS just reaffirms what a sheltered little world he lives in.

Aug 19 2010 32 cmnts
General

Glenn Beck Drops Veterans From 8/28 Rally

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Posted by: Mark @ 7:06 pm

Glenn Beck Deploring HonorIn a notice posted today at Congress.org, Glenn Beck finally got the permit for his 8/28 rally approved. It was also noted that he changed the purpose of the rally from a “demonstration to honor veterans” to simply a “restoring honor rally.”

Why would Beck alter the purpose to something so generic it that it doesn’t have any real meaning? Could it be that his little scam was revealed and he could no longer pretend that this event was for charity? It was previously revealed that the Special Operations Warrior Foundation would not receive any money until after all of Beck’s expenses had been covered. So the possibility exists that there will no donation at all.

With this more vague description of purpose, Beck can turn the affair into the evangelical revival meeting that he always wanted it to be. It can be the celebration of his “Divine Destiny” which, by the way, is the name of his event to be held the night before where he promises to “heal your soul.” We already know that he believes this event will be a turning point in history, and he said today that it will be this generation’s Woodstock (?). And don’t forget that he was told by “someone” in the Vatican that what he is doing is “wildly important.”

This isn’t the first time that Beck has changed the purpose of the event. At one time the purpose was to launch the publication of his next book, “The Plan,” a 100 year blueprint for the restoration of America. Here is how he described it in his original announcement:

“On August 28, 2010, I ask you, your family and neighbors to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln on the National Mall for the unveiling of The Plan and the birthday of a new national movement to restore our great country.”

After that he claimed that God had chosen the date:

I believe in divine providence. It was not my intention to select 8-28 because of the Martin Luther King tie. It is the day he made that speech. I had no idea until I announced it and I walked off stage and my researchers said, New York Times has already just published that this is Martin Luther — and I said, oh, geez. We were going to use 9-12 but 9-12 is a Sunday. I’m not going to ask anyone to work on the Sabbath. I’m not going to ask anybody to honor God on a Sunday.

I have no idea what he means by not honoring God on a Sunday. And apparently he isn’t expecting any Jews to attend his rally because for them (and many Christians for that matter), Saturday is the Sabbath.

Beck’s next explanation for the event was that he was doing it all on behalf of our brave fighting men and women and their families. That didn’t last long. Now he has dropped the reference to the veterans from his permit application, though I’m sure he will continue to exploit them.

One other amendment to the permit application concerns the attendance. He raised the projected figure from 150,000 to 300,000. He must be feeling pretty confident. Which is funny because he said on his radio program today that he was discussing the event with Bill O’Reilly who guessed that between 10 and 15 thousand people show up. Beck was obviously surprised by O’Reilly’s estimate so O’Reilly asked him how many people he thought would be there. Beck said modestly, “I don’t know. Over a hundred thousand I hope.” This seems like false modesty from someone who just doubled his official projection to 300,000.

Apparently O’Reilly is not as optimistic as Beck. According to Beck, O’Reilly told him that if that many people showed up that Beck could take over the O’Reilly Factor. Now that would be fun. I bet Beck would hold O’Reilly to this. I would love to see the two of them go at it for the primetime slot. We’ll see how that unfolds in a couple of weeks.

Aug 17 2010 2 cmnts
General, Wankery

Glenn Beck Refudiates Glenn Beck And Opposes His Own Rally

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Posted by: Mark @ 9:52 am


Once again Jon Stewart has embarrassed the Conventional Media by conducting better research and placing current events in more relevant context. This time the subject is the New York City non-mosque that is being planned for not-ground zero. Here is what Beck had to say about America’s role in motivating the 9/11 terrorists, compared to his dumbfounded (with an emphasis on the “dumb”) outrage at remarks by Imam Feisal Rauf:
 

Glenn Beck, 8/10/2010: What did this “moderate” say just a few days after 9/11? Well of course what all moderates say, quote:

Imam Feisal Rauf, 9/30/2001: Glenn Beck, 4/15/2010:
I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened. Did we deserve 9/11? No. But were we minding our business? No. Were we in bed with dictators and abandoned our values and principles? Yes. That causes problems.

What this tells us is that Beck is at least as guilty of radical hyperbole as Rauf. Beck believes that a cultural center two blocks from “hallowed” ground should not be permitted due to Rauf’s allegedly extremist views. But using the same logic, Beck should cancel his “Deploring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial which is just across the Potomac from the Pentagon, another “hallowed” site of 9/11 terrorism. Beck’s views are no less extremist than Rauf’s, and no less an insult by Beck’s standards.

And it isn’t the first time that Beck has insulted the victims and survivors of 9/11. He previously said “I didn’t think I could hate victims faster than the 9/11 victims.” That was a reference that also insulted the victims of Katrina whom he called “scumbags.”

If Beck were consistent he would immediately announce that his August 28 rally has been canceled or moved to a less sensitive location farther from the Pentagon. He simply cannot tolerate having the graves of our brave soldiers being defiled by the likes of himself. It’s time for him to rebuke himself and decline any further association with himself and his television and radio programs. Glenn Beck is an extremist who hates America and Glenn Beck should have nothing to do with him.

Update: Fox News’ Greta Van Susteran agrees:

On August 28th my colleague Glenn Beck is going to lead an event on the mall in Washington, DC. It is the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. The event is causing much controversy …some support and some don’t support and some are even furious and upset. Yes he has a First Amendment right to do it…but what about the wisdom of it? Remember…the Muslims in NYC have a First Amendment right to build a mosque but most Americans don’t want it…and you have to ask the wisdom of the Muslims to push the issue. Just because you have the right to do something does not mean you should. My view? No mosque at ground zero and Glenn should move his event.

Van Susteran was taking so much flack from the FoxBots that infest her blog that she had to post a disclaimer walking back her remarks and claiming she was just “raising a question.” Of course, that isn’t true. She explicitly stated that her view was that Beck should move his event.

Aug 12 2010 3 cmnts
General

Glenn Beck: We Are Only Delaying Our Death

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Posted by: Mark @ 4:23 pm

On his radio program today, Glenn Beck laid out a plan for creating economic havoc and bankrupting the country. This exceeds Rush Limbaugh’s famous desire for President Obama to fail. Beck is proposing an action plan to achieve that end.

In a discussion that began with a biblical reference to Ecclesiastes, Beck preached that “To everything there is a season.” and that “This is the season for awakening.” Beck’s awakening is one that calls for Americans to recognize the futility of striving to make America a better country, and instead to let it collapse into ruin:

Beck: For this system to work you’ve got to spend money. But I’m telling you this system will never work. We’re only delaying our death. Let us do what Coolidge did. Let it come down and retool. It led to the roaring twenties.

Beck is expressly advising his disciples to withhold spending. Our fragile economy is thirsting for the consumer confidence that will drive growth, create jobs, and save families, but Beck is telling his viewers to that there is no hope, that “this system will never work.” That advice can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Which, of course, is exactly what Beck wants. He says so explicitly when he calls for “let[ting] it come down.”

There is a great deal wrong with that advice. First and foremost it is an advocacy of failure and hardship. It would cause profound and unnecessary pain for millions. But his justification for this dreadful path is that it could lead to something resembling the roaring twenties. Well, we know how that turned out: The stock market crash of 1929, followed by the Great Depression. This is what Beck is actively engaged in bringing about by misleading his gullible congregation into deliberately making matters worse.

Perhaps he believes that we deserve to suffer; that we have brought this hardship on ourselves. Perhaps he believes that God has forsaken us, and for that we must endure the cleansing pain of a divine fire. He spoke repeatedly of fire on television today, which fits nicely with what he was saying on the radio this morning:

Beck: Is this land less blessed than we’ve all been raised? Well not all of us. Not the Marxists – almost everybody who works at the White House. Are we somehow or another less blessed as a land than we always have been? I think the answer to that one is yes.

So Beck has concluded that America is less blessed, which is another way of saying that God has turned his back on us. Then Beck went full-throttle televangelist, discarding all talk of politics and policy. He sermonized passionately that the only hope for America is to turn to faith. And then he made it an article of faith to attend his revival meeting in Washington DC in a couple of weeks.

All that’s left of Beck’s spiel is hucksterism and lies. He sees himself as the sword of God and the shepherd of his unhinged flock. With every day his appeal to fear escalates. But what’s truly frightening is that he has said that his upcoming rally will be an historical event that will be a turning point for the nation. Now he must feel some pressure to deliver. I wonder what the Hell he is planning (with the emphasis on Hell).

Aug 10 2010 7 cmnts
General, Wankery

Glenn Beck Admits That He Is A Terrorist

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Posted by: Mark @ 4:09 pm

A few minutes ago Glenn Beck made a declaration that ought to cause some consternation in the executive suites of his employer, Fox News. It ought to, but it probably won’t. They have already dismissed his declarations concerning…

  • The President being a racist.
  • A Jewish leader being the cause of Nazi death camps.
  • A major News Corp shareholder (Saudi Prince Alwaleed) being involved in 9/11.
  • The Jews killing Jesus.
  • The only hope for America being Osama Bin Laden deploying a weapon of mass destruction in the U.S.

That’s a long (and incomplete) list of astonishing and repulsive commentaries that Beck has gotten away with to date. The only conclusion is that Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes and the rest of the Fox News hierarchy agree with Beck. So presumably they agree with this as well:

Beck: “Terrorism, in its broadest form, is just designed to scare you into changing your way of life.”

That makes sense to me. And it works pretty well too. After 9/11, Americans, through fear, accepted changes to their way of life that included having their phones tapped without warrants; abandoning habeas corpus; restrictions on travel; and engaging in apparently endless wars that have nothing to do with national security.

But if you were to select someone in the American media that conforms best to Beck’s definition of terrorism, it would be none other than Beck himself. His program is a daily rant on fearsome policies, politicians, and prospects for the future. Beck believes that President Obama should be feared as a Marxist bent on destroying the country. He believes that Congress should feared for their alleged efforts to usher in Socialism. He believes progressives should be feared as a cancer that will “eat the Constitution.” He believes that the economy portends a future so frightening that you must liquidate your investments and buy gold and guns with the proceeds. He fervently believes that America is in grave danger, as are you and your family and all the values and principles you hold dear.

Beck’s entire raison d’etre is to incite fear and persuade his viewers to change their way of life. It goes far beyond his investment advice. Beck wants to shape your spiritual development. He warned his disciples to “run as fast you can” from any church that espouses social justice. He regularly condemns churches for abandoning what he regards as their mission. He even accuses them of perverting their faith. This may be the most terrifying example of Beck’s scare tactics because he is exploiting people’s fear of their relationship with God and eternity.

In pursuit of that goal, and in his role as a wannabe-Messiah, Beck is promoting a new event that promises to “heal your soul.” Is this some new ability he has acquired? Perhaps you can touch the hem of his robe if you buy his latest book. The event will be held on the evening before his DC rally on August 28, and is called “Glenn Beck’s Divine Destiny.” Seriously! This is a play for worship or martyrdom. Beck is plainly moving closer to becoming a full-fledged televangelist, or more accurately, a cult leader in the vein of Jim Jones or David Koresh, religious figures who also used fear to subjugate their followers. The pre-8/28 event is being advertised by Beck as…

“…an eye-opening evening at the historic Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C that will help heal your soul. Guided by uplifting music, nationally-known religious figures from all faiths will unite to deliver messages reminiscent to those given during the struggles of America’s earliest days. The event will leave you with a renewed determination to look past the partisan differences and petty problems that fill our airwaves and instead focus our shared values, principles and strong belief that faith can play an essential role in reuniting the country.”

I wonder if these “religious figures from all faiths” will include Muslims or Buddhists. And it will be interesting to see how Beck transcends “the partisan differences…that fill our airwaves” when his rhetoric is so weighted down with hatred for progressives and others with whom he disagrees. The notion of Beck placing himself in the position of “reuniting the country” is nothing short of surreal.

Glenn Beck is the archetypal fear monger. He has adapted the fire and brimstone model of spiritual revivalists to his brand of theo-political crusades. He routinely warns that if we do not quickly change our course, our way of life, we are doomed. If that doesn’t fit the profile of the terrorist that Beck spoke of today on his program, I don’t know what does.

Aug 04 2010 5 cmnts
General

Fox News Stands By Glenn Beck’s Hate Speech 1000%

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Posted by: Mark @ 2:32 am

This should tell you all you need to know about Fox News and their commitment to bigotry and division.

Earlier today Michael Calderone of The Upshot posted a story describing the most recent example of Glenn Beck’s intolerance and insensitivity. It all began when Beck broadcast a brazenly offensive attack against Simon Greer, chief executive of Jewish Funds for Justice. As you might imagine, the fact that Greer runs an agency that advocates justice of the social variety is enough by itself to set Beck off. But when Greer wrote about the benefits, both personal and spiritual, of pursuing the common good, Beck couldn’t restrain himself:

“This leads to death camps. A Jew, of all people, should know that. This is exactly the kind of talk that led to the death camps in Germany. Put humankind and the common good first.”

Not surprisingly, Greer took offense at being portrayed as an instigator of Holocausts. Especially when he was merely expressing what his faith teaches him as written in the Talmud:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am for myself alone, what am I?

Calderone’s article goes on to state that Greer had a meeting with Fox News CEO Roger Ailes and senior vice president Joel Cheatwood. In Greer’s account of the meeting the Fox executives agreed that Beck had “crossed the line” and they promised talk to him. A couple of days later Greer received a letter from Beck that was something less than an apology, but which Greer graciously regarded as “a peace offering.”

But the story doesn’t end there. After Calderone’s article was published, Cheatwood ran to the press to deny that there was ever any agreement with Greer and that both Cheatwood and Ailes stand “behind Glenn Beck 1000%.” That’s right. They felt it was imperative to quickly correct the record and make it known that they believe, along with Beck, that caring for your neighbors, and your community, and the community of mankind, will lead to fascist death camps. And, of course, those who do care are budding Hitlers. Thanks for clearing that up.

Veteran Beck observers will not be surprised by any of this. His racism, and his employer’s support for it, has been documented before. When Beck called President Obama a racist with “a deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture,” Rupert Murdoch declared that he was right.

To top off this story, it was just revealed that Beck had listed on his “favorites” on Twitter a Tweet from a white nationalist that said to “Embrace White Culture” and included the logo and acronym for “White Pride World Wide,” a known slogan of white supremacy groups. After it became public, Beck deleted all of his favorite Tweets. Unfortunately for him, the evidence was captured before he was able to destroy it.

And this is the guy who compares himself to Martin Luther King and still thinks he has a moral right to hold a self-glorifying rally on the anniversary of, and at the same location as, King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Aug 02 2010 5 cmnts
General, Propaganda, Wankery

Tales From The Crippled Brain Of Glenn Beck

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Posted by: Mark @ 9:31 pm

It’s hard to tell whether Glenn Beck has completely given up trying to make sense of anything he says, or if he is actually working harder than ever to spin new mythologies and horror stories. The result is that his ravings have become more fantastical and less rooted to reality than ever before. Brace yourself for the fright of your life as Beck weaves his sinister tale of terror and treachery.

This nightmare begins in the spine-chilling days of the 1960′s, when children were flowered and tangles of hair-covered hippies choked the landscape. It was in those harrowing times that a pack of wild youths known as “students,” sought to build a democratic society. [insert ominous music here] These SDS demons infiltrated the hearths of our sacred homesteads and replaced our sons and daughters with rebels and peaceniks.

From this cursed crucible came a fearsome force. Beck told you about them last week when he revealed the left’s playbook, the manifesto from the Weather Underground. Of course, the Weathermen were a tiny band of misfits that most of the left, including SDS, renounced. They had zero influence on anyone then, and even less now. That didn’t stop Beck from elevating them to becoming the driving force of liberalism and the authors of its future. Beck dearly loves to unearth ancient irrelevancies and pretend that they are omniscient. But the most frightening part of this tale is that these harbingers of doom, this ragtag crew of rebels, grew up to assume positions of power in government under the hypnotic control of the ultimate puppetmaster, Barack Obama.

At this point in the tale, Beck asserts that these ageless SDS monsters have regrouped and are now poisoning the minds of today’s youth in a “new” SDS. The proof of this association is that they all appear on the same blackboard in Beck’s television studio. Other than that, Beck provides no evidence whatsoever that the new SDS is in any way affiliated with the old ghost of SDS. But I suppose that just makes it even more frightening.

In Beck’s telling of this story he finds it curious that the new SDS was formed two years before Obama was elected president. In the richness of Beck’s delusions, that means that it was a conspiracy whose purpose was to install the radical revolutionary Obama in the White House and implement a communist dictatorship. What a brilliant plan. After all, what could be easier than getting a black man elected to the presidency for the first time ever? I’m surprised nobody ever thought of it before. Although I’m just a little confused about Beck’s aversion to radical revolutionaries considering he said this just a couple of weeks ago:

“They don’t have any idea who I am. So let me announce who I am beginning today. I am a revolutionary. Yes I am. I’m a man that believes radical change must come.”

It isn’t unusual to hear Beck castigate others for things he does himself. In this episode he complained that the media isn’t telling you the truth. He reached back to the sixties again to play a clip from the Perry Mason Show as a witness was being sworn in. Then he asked if there is anyone in the media who is telling “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Well, certainly not if you regard Beck and Fox News as being the media.

Comrade Homer SimpsonI must commend Beck for the angle he’s taking here. The assault on hippie generation; the use of iconic figures from the popular culture of a half century ago like Perry Mason; on a recent program he reached backed to Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver in order to frame Homer Simpson as a Weatherman operative (no, seriously). This is all part of his appeal to an aging audience that is still fighting the anti-war, free love, peaceniks that they were all so jealous of when they were uptight teenagers.

The truly frightening part of this is that Beck is fomenting a hatred of his fellow Americans so intense that it is spurring them to violence. He is assembling a Zombie army that takes their orders from him through the airwaves. Media Matters has documented some of the more overt incidents where Beck has delivered his haunted sermons. Beck’s rhetoric today continued that trend, even as he complained about this characterization of him:

“Most people in America don’t realize what they are up against. This is not just a movement with big government tendencies. It’s radical revolutionaries who believe so strongly that America is evil, that capitalism and the free market are evil, that they will stop at nothing to end the perceived oppression.”

It’s hard to see how Beck could be so blind to the possibility that this sort of fear-mongering could incite an unstable pseudo-patriot to star in his own slasher film. Yet Beck defends himself in the most peculiar terms.

“No one on TV has preached more that violence is not the answer than me. But when I do, the leftists say, ‘Hmm, why would you have to say that unless your crazy listeners weren’t one push away from a shooting spree?” I say it for the same reason Martin Luther King said it.”

See? He’s just like Martin Luther King. Except for the fact that Dr. King never whipped up a paranoid hysteria of white devils determined to reinstate slavery and destroy everything you hold dear. To the contrary, King spoke of loving your enemy and the importance of everyone coming together harmoniously. When Beck starts preaching that progressives are his brothers and his intention is to inspire camaraderie and affection, I’ll take his claims of anti-violence more seriously. But to date he has maintained that progressives are a cancer on America and he literally said that they are “taking you to a place to be slaughtered.” I don’t recall that speech from Dr. King.

There is, however, something that Beck has in common with Dr. King. They both profess to be men of God. Of course King proved it with a doctorate from Boston University where he studied theology and philosophy, after which he devoted his life (literally) to his faith and his work on behalf of civil rights. Beck, on the other hand, is a dropout who became an alcohol and drug abuser as he pursued a career as a radio shock jock and a wealthy political televangelist. Other than that they were exactly the same. It’s funny that, given these similarities, Beck went out of his way to quote Pope Benedict as saying…

“Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine but demonic.”

That was actually from Truth and Tolerance by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, years before he was promoted to Pope. The funny part is that Beck cited that passage to criticize Rev. Jim Wallis, an advocate of social justice, for injecting religion into politics. Yet Beck constantly preaches that religion must play a bigger role in public life. He advocates posting the Ten Commandments in government buildings and imposing prayer in public schools.

All of that, along with the rest of the right-wing theo-con movement, is directly contrary to the Pope’s opinion. But as with all things conservatives concern themselves with, there is a different standard for them and for everyone else. Judgment Day to them is the day when they get to be the judges. And God help you if you haven’t made your peace with Glenn Beck.

Jul 30 2010 7 cmnts
General, Humor, Wankery

Glenn Beck Uncovers Homer Simpson’s Clandestine Plot

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Posted by: Mark @ 3:08 am

Comrade Homer SimpsonWith the myriad enemies that America is facing in this tumultuous age of terrorism, leave it to Glenn Beck to investigate and unveil one of the most dastardly schemes ever perpetrated on our unsuspecting nation. Only someone with the delusional paranoia of Beck could have discovered this lurking danger. Thank God for Beck’s dementia, for without it we would all be doomed.

Beck: Before the 1960s, these were the shows on television. This was Father Knows Best. Can you even imagine a show named that? This is My Three Sons. Ward Cleaver, Leave It To Beaver. The role of father was strong, but now — I mean, I hate to be my grandfather and say, “We didn’t even have Rice Krispies back then” — but look at the difference.

This was before these guys [the Weather Underground] showed up. Now look at our culture. [The Simpsons] is the funniest show ever written on television. I love this show. But dad’s a schlub.

That’s right! The Weather Underground conspired to turn dads into schlubs. Never mind the fact that on programs like Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver the dad, just as likely as not, was portrayed as dense or over-reacting to some family crisis. He was frequently bailed out by the mom or some innocent revelation of the child. And set aside Beck’s inability to come up with program names that reflect the strength (i.e. dominance) of the father figure, like maybe King of Queens or My Wife and Kids.

All of that is just a distraction from the hidden truth of the Weather Underground’s blueprint for destroying the family unit and demeaning fatherhood. For half a century this cabal has laid dormant, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. At the center of this sleeper cell is the craven visage of Homer Simpson, a villain thrust upon us by the execrable Rupert Murdoch and Fox. Thanks to Beck we can now see that this deceptively lovable goofball is actually a treacherously effective functionary of a secular-socialist revolution that aims to impose a brutal dictatorship and enslave us all.

However, Comrade Homer didn’t count on Beck exposing his plan. And now that the veil has been lifted, there is still time resist the looming tyranny. So rise up America. Rise up and cast off the shackles that Homer and his legion of Marxists would bind unto you. Reject tyranny. Reject Fox and Murdoch. Live free or eat my shorts!

Jul 29 2010 5 cmnts
General, Wankery

Iowa GOP Seeks To Strip Ronald Reagan Of US Citizenship

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Posted by: Mark @ 11:14 am

In a Declaration from “We the People” of Iowa the Iowa Republican Party declares that…

“…the federal government has grown too large, too intrusive and too oppressive to the point that government now stifles the productivity, the freedom, the ingenuity and the very spirit of the American people. We declare that all three branches of government have been governing outside their well-defined bounds as stated in Articles I, II, and III of the Constitution of the United States.”

Consequently, they demand that…

“…the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government return to govern within their constraints clearly defined by the Constitution given to us by the founders in 1787 and further refined by the Bill of Rights in 1789.”

Notice that they did not demand a return to any of the amendments other than those in the Bill of Rights. So under their restoration of the original intent of the Founders, slavery would still be legal and women could not vote.

But what elevates this declaration from curiosity to idiocy, and beyond that to absurdity, is this charming little provision tucked away in the platform:

“7.19 – We call for the reintroduction and ratification of the original 13th Amendment, not the 13th Amendment in today’s Constitution.”

Th 13th Amendment to which they refer is not the one presently in the Constitution that abolishes slavery. There was a 13th Amendment introduced prior to that that was never ratified. It proposed that…

“If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them.”

The purpose of including this plank in the platform was to make a statement regarding President Obama having won the Nobel Peace Prize. Setting aside for the moment that the Nobel is not awarded by a “foreign power” and thus would not have triggered the provision, if it were applicable it would mean that every American Nobel winner (scientists, writers, etc.) would have had their citizenship revoked as well. What’s more, it would strip the citizenship of Americans honored by the British Crown with honorary knighthoods, including Bill Gates, Rudy Giuliani, Steven Spielberg, and the sainted Ronald Reagan.

Since these crackpots haven’t been able to prove that Obama isn’t a citizen because he wasn’t born in the U.S., they are now trying to revoke his citizenship, and that of hundreds of other dignified Americans, including many that are their heroes.

Just how crazy are these lunatics? Let’s take a look at a couple of other planks in their platform. Section 4.26 says that “We oppose teaching multicultural based curriculum.” Section 7.10 says that “We affirm that desecrating the American or state flags is not constitutionally protected free speech, and should be punished accordingly.” That was immediately followed by Section 7.11 that says “We oppose any regulation or law that would restrict the freedom of speech.”

And if you need any further evidence of the madness in the Iowa GOP, the platform declaration also contains an enumeration of values that were taken straight from Glenn Beck’s web site for the 912 Project. Eleven of the twelve values on Beck’s site are in the Iowa GOP platform. The missing one is “charity,” which the Iowans replaced with “common sense.” That is a telling substitution. Six of nine of Beck’s principles are in the platform as well.

With the Iowa GOP deciding who can and cannot be a citizen, and Beck providing divine inspiration and spiritual guidance, there are, as Beck would say, “dark days ahead” for the Republican Party.

Jul 26 2010 7 cmnts
General, Racism, Ratings

Why Fox News Is Racist

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Posted by: Mark @ 8:53 pm

For the past few weeks Fox News has been ratcheting up the racial content of their tabloid fare. Megyn Kelly’s obsession with a trumped up story about the New Black Panther Party and their dozen or so members is a perfect example of the race-baiting that Fox passes off as journalism. They follow that up with the promotion of an Andrew Breitbart video that was blatantly edited to tar USDA employee Shirley Sherrod as a racist even though the opposite was evident when the video was viewed in its entirety.

Glenn Beck Deploring HonorBut these recent events are not aberrations. They are representative of an agenda that cannot be anything but deliberate. Recall Fox’s use of offensive rhetoric with reference to President Obama and his family like “terrorist fist jab” and “Obama’s baby mama.” Then there was the time that Bill O’Reilly tried to explain his reluctance to be critical of the First Lady by saying that he didn’t “want to go on a lynching party.” Or the time he attempted to praise patrons of Sylvia’s Restaurant in Harlem by noting that they didn’t shout for their “mother-fucking iced teas.” And who could forget Glenn Beck calling Obama a racist with a deep-seated hatred for white people? Beck is escalating his racial insensitivity by holding his self-glorifying rally in DC on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech next month.

Some people might wonder why Fox News would risk alienating a potentially significant portion of their audience. Well, we have the answer now. According to Brian Stelter of the New York Times, the African-American segment of viewers of Fox News in primetime this season is only 1.38%. That compares to 19.3% for MSNBC, and 20.7% for CNN, numbers that are much closer to the 14% of African-Americans in the population at large. These numbers also suggest that the black audience that might have been watching Fox have split evenly between MSNBC and CNN causing those networks to be over-weighted by about 6% each.

It is apparent that Fox News has little to lose by offending a segment of the television universe that doesn’t watch their programs anyway. Combine that with Fox’s political incentive to suppress Democratic votes and the strategy of inflaming racial animus doesn’t seem so bad in their warped perspective.

At the very least this explains why Fox persists in airing obviously offensive stories and why they think they can get away with it without adverse consequences. They have nothing to lose in financial terms, and much to gain by pandering to a prejudice demographic. It may be reprehensible to decent folks, but to Fox it’s just good business, and more importantly, good politics.

Jul 26 2010 1 cmnts
General, Humor

Andrew Breitbart (Hearts) Al Qaeda

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Posted by: Mark @ 3:16 pm

In a shocking new video the chronically choleric Andrew Breitbart is caught admitting that he “hearts” Al Qaeda and its network of terrorists.

This confession, startling for its candid veracity, is not particularly surprising coming from a this rhetorical bomb-thrower. His personality is rife with terrorist leanings and he is known to be as opposed to the present government of the United States as Osama Bin Laden or any other radical jihadist.

Now that the truth is out, Breitbart’s defenders must be put on notice. Chief amongst these is the Republican Party who is hosting a fundraiser in Beverly Hills next month. This event is asking deep-pocketed Republican elitists to donate between $5,000 and $60,000 to the party. The entertainment for the evening features RNC Chairman Michael Steele sharing the stage with Breitbart. There has been no comment from Steele as to whether Breitbart’s embrace of Al Qaeda or his deceitful smearing of Shirley Sherrod as a racist present any problems for this booking.

The disclosure of Breitbart’s allegiance to Al Qaeda is reminiscent of Glenn Beck’s admission that he idolizes Adolf Hitler:

Everyday we learn more of the truth about these dangerous and disreputable characters.

Jul 19 2010 6 cmnts
General, Humor

The Lord Smites Glenn Beck With Blindness

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Posted by: Mark @ 5:53 pm

Glenn Beck Messiah

Glenn Beck broke down again this weekend as he revealed to his congregation of American Revivalists that he may, or may not, go blind in the next year. It was a stirring moment wherein he sobbed as he confessed that, were he to lose his sight, he would miss reading more than seeing his wife or his kids as they grow up. How touching. His family must feel so loved.

I couldn’t help but wonder how this potentially devastating hardship would fit into Beck’s evangelical perspective. While he professed to accepting his fate as the will of God, it seemed to me that he was missing some pretty ominous signs.

Beck claims to be a devout Mormon and Christian. He certainly piles on the sermonizing during his radio and television shows. So he must be familiar with Deuteronomy 28:27-29, and the punishment from God if you fail to follow his laws:

27: The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.
28: The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart.
29: And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.

Taking these one at a time, verse 27 speaks of being smited with emerods, known today as hemorrhoids. A couple of years ago Beck was not only so smited, but it nearly killed him. He posted a bizarre video of himself recuperating and railing against the private, for-profit health care system under which he suffered.

In verse 28 the Lord warns of being stricken with the blindness that Beck may now be facing. It also warns of madness and astonishment (i.e. confusion, panic). You only need need to watch a few random minutes of any episode of Glenn Beck to see that he is consumed by panic. He freely admits to being confused, and he is quite obviously mad.

Verse 29 very plainly addresses things that could be interpreted to refer to Beck’s professional misfortunes. Certainly he is still a very wealthy man, but having over a hundred advertisers abandon his noonday program surely impacts his prosperity, if not his reputation. And today his most reliable remaining advertiser, Goldline, International, was informed that they are being investigated for fraud. That’s just the tip of the criminal iceberg surrounding Beck’s advertisers.

The only reasonable conclusion is that God has had enough. He is no longer tolerating Beck’s heresy, dishonesty, and arrogance. He is probably not to thrilled with Beck portraying himself in Messianic terms either. However, God may have to be a bit more demonstrative before Beck gets the picture. A few prophecies from Deuteronomy may be sufficient to alert most people to their sinful ways, but let’s face, Beck has been “blind” for a long time. It may require locusts and pillars of salt for him to see the light. His ox may have to be slain. Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to floods, because that could hurt a lot of innocent people.

With the specificity of these Biblical prophecies, the hemorrhoids, the panic, the loss of prosperity, the madness, and now the looming blindness, it would be foolish for Beck and his disciples to dismiss these ominous signs. For it can only mean that God’s wrath is seething and that Beck’s fate is dire. Either that or he’s masturbating too much.

Jul 16 2010 5 cmnts
General, Wankery

Glenn Beck: The Jews Killed Jesus

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Posted by: Mark @ 2:25 pm

How many times, and in how many ways, can Glenn Beck insult and offend people of different ethnicities than himself – and get away with it?

I missed this morsel from earlier this week, but Keith Olbermann picked it up:

Beck: “Jesus conquered death. He wasn’t victimized. He chose to give his life. He did have a choice. If he was a victim and this theology was true then Jesus would have come back from the dead and made the Jews pay for what they did, that’s an abomination.”

Olbermann correctly pointed out that it was the Romans who crucified Jesus and that most Christian doctrine, including the Catholic Church, repudiated the accusation against the Jews. Although Jesus may not have made the Jews pay, generations of his followers picked up the cause and still endeavor to extract payment to this day. And now we can count Glenn Beck amongst them.

The discussion of this subject occurred during an interview with Alexander Zaitchik, author of Common Nonsense, Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, a highly recommended read. Watch the video from Countdown:

Jul 14 2010 11 cmnts
General, Media Bias, Wankery

Is Megyn Kelly Worse Than Glenn Beck?

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Posted by: Mark @ 2:36 pm

It goes without saying that Fox News is a seething cauldron of sensationalistic propaganda. There have been innumerable examples of bias so egregious it would be more accurate to call it fiction. Still, the degree of separation from reality, or the Fox Fake Factor (3F) is not uniform across the Fox schedule. It can be segmented into three general categories that I define as…

  • Blatant Dishonesty (i.e. Sean Hannity)
  • Acute Idiocy (i.e. Steve Doocy)
  • Hysterical Dementia (i.e. Glenn Beck)

Defenders of Fox News argue that the network functions like a newspaper with clearly delineated sections containing straight news or editorial opinion. This includes Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, who went so far as to say that…

“…it’s a mistake to look at Fox News Channel’s primetime opinion shows and say they represent the channel’s journalism.”

In support of Ailes’ admission that his primetime lineup should not be mistaken for journalism, Fox’s Sr. VP Michael Clemente drew distinct boundaries in order to identify the channel’s actual “news” content. He said that it is just the hours of 9am to 4pm, and 6pm to 8pm, that air straight news. Of course that would include such thoroughly opinionated programs as Fox & Friends, Your World With Neil Cavuto, and Glenn Beck. It would also include Megyn Kelly.

For the past week or so, Kelly has been rabidly attached to a bogus two year old story about members of the New Black Panther Party who have been accused of voter intimidation. She has hosted numerous interviews with W. Christian Adams, a notoriously partisan activist who claims that Obama’s Department of Justice has adopted a policy of not pursuing cases involving white victims. Never mind the fact that it was the Bush Justice Department that degraded the case against the NBPP and concluded that the evidence did not merit criminal prosecution. Kelly would not let up and continued, day after day, to present the story with an overt expression of shock and judgmental disgust.

Kelly’s demeanor was hardly what one could call objective. In yesterday’s program she nearly bit the head off of Fox News Democrat, Kirsten Powers, who soldiered on despite Kelly’s insulting declarations that Powers didn’t know what she was talking about. And in a bid for total domination, Kelly even threatened to cut Powers’ mic.

This is not an isolated incident for Kelly. A few weeks ago she displayed the same sort of wild-eyed obsession over speculation of whether Pennsylvania senate candidate Joe Sestak had received improper incentives from the White House to drop out of the race. Sestak didn’t drop out, and there was never any evidence of wrongdoing on his part or that of the White House. But that didn’t stop Kelly from pushing the story incessantly. On one occasion she devoted fully 75% of her two hour program to just the Sestak matter, never once reporting on the gulf oil spill, Afghanistan or the economy.

Add to these the following journalistic indiscretions that seem to characterize Kelly’s absence of standards.

  • The false assertion that the Department of Health and Human Services had authored a report that showed the costs of health care rising as a result of the new legislation, and the allegation that the report was suppressed by HHS and/or the White House prior to the vote in Congress. This story was debunked later by Fox’s own Bret Baier.
  • The suppression of a letter revealing the marital infidelity of Senator John Ensign. Kelly kept the letter, from the husband of Ensign’s mistress, secret for five days, thus protecting the Senator from scandal. The story broke anyway and there is a possibility that it was Kelly who tipped off Ensign about the imminently breaking news.
  • The promotion of a non-scientific survey on the military’s support of Obama as if it were a real poll. Kelly misrepresented the survey to disparage the President shortly after he received an endorsement from Gen. Colin Powell.

The behavior of Kelly in these examples is squarely in alignment with the mission of Fox News. However, it is directly contrary to what they claim. It is the antithesis of fairness or balance. And it puts Kelly in the running to surpass Glenn Beck on the scale of reportorial incompetence and deceit.

I know that’s a harsh assessment, but look at the facts. Beck is a purveyor of paranoid conspiracies. People expect him to be a hyperbolic nutcase. Kelly is on from 1:00pm to 3:00pm ET, smack in the middle of the news day. She is supposed to be, according to Ailes and others, a straight news reporter. Yet while Beck (who is also in the news daypart) can be placed into only one of the 3F categories above, Kelly may qualify for all three.

Sure, she’s not as bombastic as Beck, but Beck doesn’t have a law degree or the implied credibility that comes with it. And she’s not as inclined to present herself as a cult or spiritual leader, but she does impose her views on an audience that has been made gullible by fear and repetition. Her imputed authority, and the force of her argumentativeness, has the potential to sway people from realistic appraisals of current events. And she has the added benefit of not appearing to be as obviously disturbed as Beck, which helps her to advance her opinions.

The manner in which Kelly presents her reporting is every bit as phony as Beck’s hallucinatory drivel. But the only people who will believe Beck are those who are already inclined to accept delusion as truth. Kelly, on the other hand, manages to come off as a serious newscaster whose reports contain some semblance of substance. And that’s what makes Kelly worse, or potentially more dangerous, than Beck. While Beck casts himself as a rodeo clown, Kelly is portrayed as a wise and sober analyst.

In the larger picture, Kelly is merely following the Fox format which also has so-called “news” casters like Neil Cavuto, Jon Scott, Bill Hemmer, and Bret Baier engaging in observably biased broadcasts. It’s a deliberate and articulated strategy by Ailes, Murdoch, et al. It’s the Fox Way.