Day: 10/20/2010

Glenn Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue: George Soros Edition

Posted by on October 20, 2010 at 11:48 pm. 5 Comments :

Just when you thought Glenn Beck had gurgled his most surreal delusional nightmare, he amazes everyone by surpassing a measure of insanity that was previously thought to be impossible. He’s just that good.

In response to the news that George Soros (whom Beck mocks as “Spooky Dude” in an embarrassing but typical display of childishness) donated a million dollars to Media Matters, Beck embarked on a journey stretching the boundaries of sanity, even for him. He begins by explaining to his flock that the donation is all about him. He actually thinks that Soros watched his show yesterday and was so rattled that he woke up and wrote a million dollar check this morning.

On Yesterday’s show Beck sketched out another of his blackboard jumbles that tied numerous unrelated people and organizations together with each other, with socialists, with Kevin Bacon, with alien Shapeshifters, and … oh, you lose track after a while. Then he challenged Soros to come on his show and debate him for an hour (see Top 10 Reasons George Soros Should Refuse To Debate Glenn Beck). Don’t hold your breath, Glenn. There isn’t much more chance of that happening then of your prop phone to the White House suddenly ringing.

Beck’s Soros hysteria has led him to find meaning in the press release announcing the Media Matters donation that no sane person could muster on a dare. He views it as a mortal threat aimed at him personally.

Beck: You know what’s weird? This press release is almost like a “Wanted: Dead or Alive” poster, isn’t it? Gee Mr. Soros. You’re not inciting violence over there towards me? You’re not making me public enemy #1 are ya? I hope not, Mr. Soros. But I’ll make sure to track down all of that violence. I’m worried. Somebody says something like this and some nutjob could go violent and just … Am I safe in here? (deep sigh). […] He’s putting up a million dollar bounty on my head.

I wonder where in the press release Beck is reading this. It must be carefully hidden between the lines, written in invisible ink, and in an alien language that only Beck can decipher. There is much that is hard to fathom in his Soros rant. For example, He makes an ambiguous allegation that “Their system is built on lies. If it were not, Soros would not be out in the open.” That is patently nuts. Why does Beck think that Soros being “out in the open” is evidence of a system of lies? Wouldn’t a system of liars avoid being in the open?

Beck continues up the crazy tree by making the claim that Soros is “The most powerful man in the world.” For the record, Soros is only 35th on the Forbes list of billionaires, and above him are Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud (a major shareholder of News Corp at #19) and the Koch brothers (conservative activists and Tea Party financiers at #24). But he’s still not done. In response to an effort aimed at Fox News advertisers, Beck warned his adversaries that he is omnipotent and not to be fooled with:

Beck: You don’t get it. You were in Stars Wars, you should watch. Remember when they did whooosh to Obi-Wan? Strike me down, you will only make me more powerful.

That ought to set the Soros progressives to trembling. Who knew that Beck has actual Messianic powers? And it’s a good thing too, because of the way he is being attacked by imaginary enemies too numerous and powerful to list. This is reminiscent of a previous claim by Beck that he can rise like Jesus from the dead:

“They can take my job and they can take my wealth but that’s okay…even if the powers to be, right now, succeed in making me poor, drum me out, and I’m just a worthless loser… which I’m just about that much above that now… I will only be stronger for it. I will use American ingenuity and my ingenuity to pull myself up, and I will find another way to get my message out on a platform that will be a thousand times more powerful!”

This begs the question, if he has a platform that is a thousand times more powerful, why isn’t he using it now? Perhaps because it’s just another hallucination over which he has no control. Like the many visions he has of enemies out to destroy him. For instance…

“If I show up, you know, in Thailand, dead from auto-erotic asphyxiation, don’t believe it.”

[…and…]

“If I’m ever in a weird car accident, or I commit suicide or something, after the media stops celebrating my death, could they check into it? Because I’m not suicidal. And I’m a pretty good driver.”

Beck even asserted that the Mighty Soros had it in for him in the past. On another show where he was merrily bashing Soros, Beck paused to alert him that he has a bullet proof car. And let’s not forget the time Beck accused President Obama of murderous intent, telling him that he had already broken three commandments and warning him not to go for a fourth: Thou shalt not kill.

Beck spent the majority of his program today spewing paranoid fantasies about threats on his life and his supernatural ability to overcome them and emerge stronger. It would have been even more compelling if any of the threats had any basis in reality. So I’ll leave you with this final quote that demonstrates his confidence in his holiness and immortality:

“Things are changing and there is no bad news here. Because what I am feeling in myself, and what is happening to my physical body, to some extent, and what is happening to me mentally, is not a depression, is not a death. It is a transformation. It is a transcendence.”

And with that he ascended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Lord. Or at least that’s what he thought. He must not have noticed that his “lord” had horns and a long, pointy tail.

Fox News: Architects Of The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

Posted by on October 20, 2010 at 1:54 pm. 3 Comments :

When Hillary Clinton coined the term “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” twelve years ago, many members of the VRWC ridiculed her and denied their own existence. Now Think Progress is in receipt of a private memo from the billionaire Koch brothers inviting some of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful individuals and companies to a clandestine meeting last summer where they would strategize for the upcoming midterm elections. It’s a fascinating story that includes in-depth research on the participants in this cabal and their connections to political players and institutions.

The part I’m most interested in is the presence of the media in the group. Take a look through the list of participants and you can’t help but notice one name that keeps repeating: Fox News. Here is a list of the Fox News affiliated members of the Koch Klan:

  • Michael Barone
  • Glenn Beck
  • Charles Krauthammer
  • Steven Moore
  • Nancy Pfotenhauer

What’s striking about this is that these people are not attending the secret meetings as journalists. They are participating in the brazenly partisan campaign planning conducted by the biggest business special interests in the world. These media players are not bystanders. They are the architects of the conservative agenda. They join their boss, Rupert Murdoch, in this endeavor. Murdoch, it was recently revealed, has donated millions to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Republican Governor’s Association.

All of the usual suspects were present at the secret meeting, from the Chamber of Commerce to Big Oil to the pharmaceutical giants to defense, real estate, Wall Street, and the top right-wing think tanks. The attendees even included a couple of Supreme Court Justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Talk about your activist judges. After attending these meetings (which reportedly occur biannually, with the next one set for Palm Springs in January), these media hucksters return to the airwaves to promote the agenda they helped to fashion. And, of course, there is no disclosure that they had a hand in the policies they are peddling.

Tea CrusadersThis is another example of a phenomenon that is increasingly confounding to me. How can the Tea Party, who describe themselves as average, middle-class, Americans who are seeking to restore Constitutional principles and make Washington accountable to “We the People,” continue to follow an elite assembly of wealthy corporatists whose interests are so far removed from those of the Tea Party? Why doesn’t the Tea Party, who fancy themselves as revolutionaries, revolt against these upper-crusty impostors who are so obviously trying to manipulate their movement to the benefit of their elite and wealthy friends? What sort of revolutionaries align themselves with the entrenched establishment?

If the Tea Party had any sense they would be repulsed by Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Fox News and the business-allied GOP. They would reject these phonies who are perverting the movement they claim belongs to the people. They would refuse the dirty money flowing from the Koch brothers, the AstroTurfers (i.e. FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, et al), and foreign financiers like the Chamber of Commerce and Rupert Murdoch.

But then again, if the Tea Party had any sense they wouldn’t be the Tea Party as we know it. They are a sad crowd of gullible malcontents, and the more I contemplate their role in contemporary society, the more I pity them. I just wish their pathetic endeavors and delusions didn’t also cause the rest of the country suffer.

Megyn Kelly’s Kangaroo Court: Anita Hill Edition

Posted by on October 20, 2010 at 12:29 pm. 6 Comments :

On today’s episode of Megyn Kelly’s Court the subject was a bizarre phone call to Anita Hill from the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Virginia.

Hill received a voice mail on her office phone purporting to be from Ginny Thomas and asking that Hill apologize for “what you did with my husband.” That’s an odd phrasing that implies they did “something” together. Thomas also asked that Hill give a “full explanation,” as if several days of senate confirmation hearings about pubic hairs and Long Dong Silver weren’t sufficiently detailed.

Kelly and her panel took on this raging twenty year old scandal from a uniquely Fox News perspective. They didn’t address the possible motivation of Thomas reigniting this controversy after two decades. They didn’t discuss the propriety of the wife of sitting Supreme Court justice (and herself a Tea Bagging AstroTurf activist) making such a phone call in the first place. No, the issue that got Kelly fired up was that Hill had “called the police” on Thomas.

Well, as usual, Kelly is either lying or ignorant of the facts. Had she read the report that originated with ABC News she would have known that Hill “initially thought it was a prank.” And if it was “thought the authorities should know about it.” Hill clearly did not call the police on Thomas, she was concerned that it was somebody else. Yet Kelly’s Court was all over the phony notion that Hill had overreacted and turned Thomas in to the FBI.

Kelly then concluded the segment with her “ruling” on the case. Not surprisingly, Kelly exonerated Thomas and closed by stating, with typical Kelly indignation, that Thomas had done nothing wrong but that Hill had. This was an obvious allusion to Hill’s testimony regarding Justice Thomas’ alleged sexual harassment. So Kelly has now taken it upon herself to rule that Hill’s testimony was false despite having nothing to affirm that position.

In this one segment Kelly has impugned the integrity of Hill and asserted that she committed perjury. Kelly also misstated the course of events surrounding the phone call and how the authorities were notified. Consequently, my ruling is that Kelly is disreputable and dishonest purveyor of propaganda and should not be regarded as credible in any respect. Case closed.

Top 10 Reasons George Soros Should Refuse To Debate Glenn Beck

Posted by on October 20, 2010 at 2:57 am. 5 Comments :

In a challenge dripping with sarcasm and scorn, Glenn Beck pretended to invite George Soros onto his show for a one-on-one debate. Of course, it was just another of the phony clown shows Beck puts on to the delight of his fans who think his act is real.

But just in case Soros had an afternoon free and, in a moment of weakness, thought it might be a hoot to jostle Beck’s diseased brain around for hour, I offer the following:

Top 10 Reasons George Soros Should Refuse To Debate Glenn Beck.

  1. Why would he waste an hour arguing with a third rate Muppet imitator?
  2. He’s already booked on The Lying Weasel Crybaby Hour.
  3. Sarah Palin and Byron Williams are hiding in the Green Room with chloroform and duct tape.
  4. He wants to see Beck debate Keith Olbermann first.
  5. Rupert and the other billionaires would make fun of him.
  6. The cast of Jersey Shore would be more challenging.
  7. He’s afraid of catching something before Obamacare kicks in.
  8. His facts are no match for Beck’s delusions.
  9. Being called a socialist 12 times a minute isn’t really a debate.

And the #1 Reason George Soros Should Refuse To Debate Glenn Beck…

  1. Glenn Beck will be there.

😉