Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid

Posted by on December 13, 2010 at 4:02 pm. 54 Comments :

[Thanks to AlterNet for reprinting this article]

Idiot FoxYet another study has been released that proves that watching Fox News is detrimental to your intelligence. World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation.

So the more you watch, the less you know. Or to be precise, the more you think you know that is actually false. This study corroborates a previous PIPA study that focused on the Iraq war with similar results. And there was an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that demonstrated the break with reality on the part of Fox viewers with regard to health care. The body of evidence that Fox News is nothing but a propaganda machine dedicated to lies is growing by the day.

In eight of the nine questions below, Fox News placed first in the percentage of those who were misinformed (they placed second in the question on TARP). That’s a pretty high batting average for journalistic fraud. Here is a list of what Fox News viewers believe that just aint so:

  • 91% believe that the stimulus legislation lost jobs.
  • 72% believe that the health reform law will increase the deficit.
  • 72% believe that the economy is getting worse.
  • 60% believe that climate change is not occurring.
  • 49% believe that income taxes have gone up.
  • 63% believe that the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts.
  • 56% believe that Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout.
  • 38% believe that most Republicans opposed TARP.
  • 63% believe that Obama was not born in the US (or that it is unclear).

The conclusion is inescapable. Fox News is deliberately misinforming their viewers and they are doing it for a reason. Every issue above is one in which the Republican Party had a vested interest. They benefited from the ignorance that Fox News helped to proliferate. The results were apparent in the election last month as voters based their decisions on demonstrably false information fed to them by Fox News.

By the way, the rest of the media was not blameless. CNN and the broadcast network news operations fared only slightly better in many cases. Even MSNBC, which had the best record of accurately informing viewers, has a ways to go before they can brag about it.

The conclusions in this study need to be disseminated as broadly as possible. Fox’s competitors need to report these results and produce ad campaigns featuring them. Newspapers and magazines need to publish the study across the country. This is big news and it is critical that the nation be advised that a major news enterprise is poisoning their minds.

This is not an isolated review of Fox’s performance. It has been corroborated time and time again. The fact that Fox News is so blatantly dishonest, and the effects of that dishonesty have become ingrained in an electorate that has been purposefully deceived, needs to be made known to every American. Our democracy cannot function if voters are making choices based on lies. We have the evidence that Fox is tilting the scales and we must now make certain that they do not get away with it.

[Addendum:] The folks at OurFuture had previously addressed some of the issues above and provided documentation that effectively debunks the myths.

[Update:] Michael Clemente, Fox News senior vice president of news editorial, dismissed the study’s findings in a statement to the New York Times:

“The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ‘Students Who Study The Least’ and being the ‘Best Party School’ – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with.”

Clemente obviously prefers the snarky retort to the substantive rebuttal, and clearly has no affinity for the truth. Rather than addressing the data in the study’s results, Clemente chose to viciously smear the UM student body who had nothing to do with it. And when the Times fact-checked his response they discovered that the Princeton Review actually ranks the University of Maryland among the “Best Northeastern Colleges,” and it only made it to 19th on the list of “Best Party Schools.” So even in their response Fox affirmed the conclusions in the study by continuing to misinform. At least they’re consistent.

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Wherefore Art Thou Tea Party?

Posted by on December 12, 2010 at 10:30 am. 7 Comments :

It has been a little more than a month since the mid-term elections. Voters, fueled by anger and dissatisfaction with the progress of the economic recovery, drove the majority Democrats from power and placed a sort of blind faith in the Republicans who put us into this stubborn recession in the first place. And even though the change in party control has not yet taken place there is a noticeable change in the nation’s political mood. Have you seen it?


Prior to the election the Tea Party was an omnipresent factor in campaigns, rallies, and in the media. GOP candidates clung desperately to Tea Party support groups. Self-appointed leaders like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck gathered frenzied Tea Partiers to theaters and malls across the country. And Fox News was a virtual Tea Party telethon where you couldn’t go five minutes without hearing another representative calling Democrats socialists and President Obama a traitor.

So where are they now? The fact that the presence of the town howlers was so ubiquitous a few weeks ago makes their sudden disappearance all the more curious. It’s as if the tsunami rolled onto the beaches causing profound havoc and fear, and then just as quickly receded back into the ocean leaving waste and destruction in its wake.

Most striking is the change in guest bookings on Fox News. Pre-election it was nearly impossible to escape the grimacing scowls of Fox-sponsored Tea Baggers. At times it seemed as if they were co-hosting with Fox & Friends, Neil Cavuto, Megyn Kelly, Sean Hannity, and others. There was a permanent tea stain on the network that had even branded the party as its own in its promos (recall the “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties”).


Post-election the programming is decidedly different. The Tea Party soap opera has been canceled after just a single season. The only public spokespeople for the formerly hyped movement are GOP operatives and the freshman class of congressional Republicans. Every now and then a former cast member will show up in a desperate bid for relevancy, not unlike one of the Brady kids or Joey from Friends. More often than not their appearance is limited to responding to some embarrassing utterance such as Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips, who was brought before the bar to respond to his absurdly discriminatory and elitist proposal that only property owners should be allowed to vote.

And speaking of elitist, that personality trait was a featured target of derision from within the ranks of the Tea Party. They frequently focused their animus on politicians and pundits whom they regarded as out of touch or overly bound to positions of power and influence. Today, however, there is nary a squeak of objection to the same rich and powerful in the public sphere advocating for tax policies that make them richer and more powerful. At the same time the benefits flowing to this self-serving privileged class would balloon the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars. That’s the same deficit that had previously made Tea Partiers quiver with outrage.

So has the Tea Party’s indignation dissipated or have they been shunted to the sidelines now that their usefulness has waned? The Republican Party relied on the motivational feverishness of Tea Baggers to realize their gains at the polls. They were beneficiaries of millions of dollars in contributions and countless hours of organizational savvy from well-heeled lobbyists like FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity. Their names were on the lips of partisan propagandists like Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich whenever they were within earshot of a microphone. But now they would be lucky to be raised as an afterthought, and the money spigot has been turned down, if not shut off entirely.

To be sure, the Tea Party was always a pseudo-movement whose profile far exceeded their actual girth. Poll after poll revealed that their numbers never justified the attention they enjoyed. But their utility to the ambitions of Republicans brought them abundant recognition driven by the capacity of Fox News to plaster their mugs on TV 24/7. That utility having been exhausted, the Tea Party appears to be over.

The so-called Tea Party candidates are distancing themselves from their fan base. They are taking positions that would once have been castigated as treason. For instance, their infamous aversion to earmarks has been replaced with a more pragmatic sounding advocacy of producing results for the folks back home. Even Tea Party favorites like Michelle Bachmann (chair of the House Tea Party Caucus) have embraced a new strategy that calls for “redefining” the term earmark. And isn’t it convenient that the new definition passes their test for supporting what they previously promised to oppose?

Furthermore, the cacophonous call of Tea Partiers as rebels and outsiders has been dimmed to a whisper. Many of the stalwart amongst them, including such luminaries as Rand Paul and Pat Toomey, have announced that their congressional offices will be run by former corporate lobbyists – the most inside of the insider contingent.

It is undeniable that the Tea Party has been abandoned by their heroes. And this forsaking is possible because the usurpers know what the the polls have shown all all along. There will be little consequence for their betrayal because the Tea Party is an impotent facade.

The question now is whether the former Tea Bagging tools will raise any kind of a ruckus at having been taken advantage of so brazenly. Is there really any fight in that crowd? Are they nothing without their AstroTurf benefactors? Do they resent having their “movement” hijacked by entrenched Washington insiders? And do they really even care about the principles they professed to hold? Will they reject the elitists who advocate for the wealthy and privileged at the expense of average Americans? Will they lobby for reducing deficits even if it means the upper/ruling class have to share in the nation’s suffering for a change?

Time will tell, but I’m not optimistic that many of the Tea enthusiasts can be wrested from their perch. Most will continue to fawn over Palin and Beck. And those whose eyes are actually opened will be ostracized and exiled from the tribe. Having imbibed the tea, it will be difficult to break the addiction. It is a sort of heroin/Kool Aid cocktail with a mighty grip on its victims. Without the unrestricted access to Fox News they they will fade away into the obscurity that almost every other third party has sunk into. And most likely, no one will notice their passing. As for Fox, they will report that we have always been at war with Oceana.


America Rejects Sarah Palin: Book/TV Flop

Posted by on December 9, 2010 at 9:20 pm. 18 Comments :

Sara PalinAmerican may be tiring of Sarah Palin’s whiny brand of self-glorification. Since she ungraciously rebuffed her fellow Alaskans by quitting half way through her term as governor, Palin has been on a non-stop promotional campaign for herself. But even with all of that effort, she is losing ground amongst discerning consumers.

The ratings for the fourth episode of Sarah Palin’s Alaska were the worst yet. Just 2.8 million viewers tuned in. The second episode of SPA saw a 40% drop from the debut. The third didn’t fare quite so badly but was still 35% below the debut. But last Sunday’s airing approached a 50% fall off in a continuing downward spiral. Her own web site vainly tried to focus on the four week average, which means nothing when the the program is still 800,000 viewers shy of that.

As for Palin’s new book, America By Heart, the returns are less than thrilling. The Washington Post reports that sales are “lackluster” and that the publisher “hasn’t ordered a second printing – a sign that sales haven’t been overly brisk.” And it should surprise no one that the quitter’s work ethic has sagged. She spent six weeks on the road and visited 33 states on behalf of her first book. But she only spent ten days in 16 states peddling America By [My] Heart[‘s Not Really In it].

If only she could do the whole book tour on Twitter. I’m sure she would give 110%.


BUSTED: Fox News Memo Reveals Coordinated Bias

Posted by on December 9, 2010 at 1:27 pm. 2 Comments :

In August of 2009, while the debate over health insurance reform was in full swing, GOP pollster Frank Luntz appeared on Sean Hannity’s program and advised Hannity and other Republican operatives to stop using the term “public option.” As a result of his own polling Luntz discovered that…

“…if you call it a ‘public option,’ the American people are split, [but] if you call it the ‘government option,’ the public is overwhelmingly against it.”

Luntz is a Republican pollster who specializes in language. His web site, The Word Doctors, sports the motto “It’s not what you say. It’s what people hear.” He is responsible for introducing rhetorical distortions such as the “death tax” into the public discourse. He truly does have a gift for doctoring words.

Two months after Luntz’s appearance with Hannity, Bill Sammon, Fox News’ Washington managing editor, issued a memo to Fox producers ordering them cease the use of the term “public option.” Media Matters published the memo today:

From: Sammon, Bill
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:23 AM
To: 054 -FNSunday; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 036 -FOX.WHU; 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers
Subject: friendly reminder: let’s not slip back into calling it the “public option”

1) Please use the term “government-run health insurance” or, when brevity is a concern, “government option,” whenever possible.
2) When it is necessary to use the term “public option” (which is, after all, firmly ensconced in the nation’s lexicon), use the qualifier “so-called,” as in “the so-called public option.”
3) Here’s another way to phrase it: “The public option, which is the government-run plan.”
4) When newsmakers and sources use the term “public option” in our stories, there’s not a lot we can do about it, since quotes are of course sacrosanct.

This is about as clear a demonstration of institutional bias at Fox News as you’ll ever see. The evidence of their bias has always been apparent on the air, but this shows that it isn’t merely the opinions of the presenters, but that it is a coordinated policy embraced and enforced from Fox News’ executive suites. It is also contrary to an earlier memo Sammon distributed disingenuously asserting that, “We do not cheerlead for one cause or another.” However it is perfectly aligned with Sammon’s ideology as expressed in his books:

Bill Sammon Books

  • The Evangelical President: George Bush’s Struggle to Spread a Moral Democracy Throughout the World
  • At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election
  • Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media.
  • Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism from Inside the White House
  • Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, Media Bias and the Bush Haters

In an interview on The Daily Beast. Howard Kurtz got Sammon to respond to the email flap:

“The term public option, he said, ‘is a vague, bland, undescriptive phrase,’ and that after all, ‘who would be against a public park?’ The phrase ‘government-run plan,’ he said, is ‘a more neutral term,’ and was used just last week by a New York Times columnist. I have no idea what the Republicans were pushing or not,’ Sammons says. ‘It’s simply an accurate, fair, objective term.’

If you believe that you’re probably already a loyal Glenn Beck viewer. Sammon’s complaint that “public option” is vague and bland is actually an endorsement of its neutrality and makes it more appropriate for unbiased reporting. Sammon knows full well that “government-run” is a loaded phrase. It certainly would have an impact on the anti-government Tea Party that is the foundation of both his network and the Republican Party.

His claim that he has no idea what Republicans were pushing is utterly implausible. If it were true it would mean that he is an incompetent manager and an uninformed journalist. How could he not know the GOP preference for “government-run” when it was broadcast on the second highest rated Fox News program? Does he expect people to believe that Frank Luntz could conduct polling on the phrases and report the results to Sean Hannity, without him having any knowledge of it? And was he entirely oblivious to the fact that only Republicans ever used the term “government-run”? His defense forces us conclude that he is either a liar or an idiot.

When Sammon objected to accusations that he was biased, Kurtz correctly pointed out a number of incidents that supported the accusations. He also mentioned a couple of Sammon’s books. However, I can’t let this little escape from reality go without comment:

Kurtz: “The significance of the marching orders is that they were issued to the news division, which aims to be fair and balanced and is run separately from the opinion side, populated by the likes of Hannity and Glenn Beck.”

I would like to see Kurtz provide any evidence that the news division at Fox is run separately from the opinion side. Or that they aim to be fair and balanced. The significance of the marching orders is that they were marching orders. An ethical network would not impose such constraints, even on their editorial commentators. The only sort of enterprise that would do so is one that is focused, not on news, but on propaganda; one that has an agenda and seeks to maintain ideological purity in their messaging. In other words: Fox News.


Glenn Beck Goes Nuts Over Forbes Blurb On Soros

Posted by on December 8, 2010 at 11:44 pm. 10 Comments :

Robert Lenzner posted a brief item today on Forbes.com about an event last night honoring George Soros. In the article Lenzner noted Soros’ warnings that…

“…the combination of Fox News, Glenn Beck, The Tea Party, and the ability of Americans to fantasize unrealistically about their political system might lead ‘this open society to be on the verge of some dictatorial democracy.’“

That’s a fairly cogent observation that recognizes the risks associated with a severely naive and misled electorate and an opportunistic and doctrinaire media. Lenzner continued saying….

“Soros also characterized Fox newscaster Glenn Beck, who has been falsely vilifying Soros publicly, as a throwback to the wild and crazy radical elements that never before were given such a public pedestal to foment their hate.”

Well that’s all it took to send Beck into one of the most demented tantrums I’ve seen him throw to date. Beck spun wildly from mocking Lenzner, to outlining a plot to “enslave” America, to pretending to hypnotize his viewers. He was in rare form as he employed several of his cartoon voices, held up props, and dashed manically from his video screen to his blackboard. In the end it was nothing more than petulant hysterics brought on by the perceived insult he suffered in a blog post. Beck spent twenty enraged minutes rebutting two paragraphs. It was an epic display of psychosis.

In the course of his tirade, Beck claimed that he didn’t hate Soros. If that’s true, he has an Olympian tolerance for evil. Beck’s three day Puppet Master series described Soros as a Nazi collaborator who collapses economies and destroys nations, with the United States next on his hit list. Beck cast Soros as advocating a tyrannical, one world government that would prohibit freedom and renounce God. He was plainly fomenting hate, just as Lenzner said. How Beck could not hate such a person I have no idea.

All of this built to a climax with Beck challenging Forbes to put up or shut up:

“The most egregious statement from Forbes Magazine is one that I would either like proof of or an apology from Forbes. In fact, I think I might demand one. Yes, I’m going to. That I “falsely vilified” Soros. Forbes Magazine – show it or apologize. I’d like to know exactly what I lied about.”

I sincerely hope that Forbes takes Beck up on this challenge. It would be a pretty easy task for them to document the litany of lies from Beck’s Soros-athon. They could start with Beck’s contention that Soros was a Nazi collaborator. Then they could address his deceitful editing of videotape that misrepresented Soros’ position on foreign influence in Congress. They could raise his reliance on the widely debunked book by David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party. They could point out his misrepresentations of Soros’ support for Poland’s Solidarity movement and the anti-communist Velvet and Orange revolutions in Czechoslovakia and the Ukraine.

So have at it, Forbes. This is your opportunity to take Beck apart. He wants to know what he lied about and you can tell him. Try it, it’s easy. There is no shortage of lies in any episode of Beck’s program.


Crime Inc: The Law Closes In On Glenn Beck’s Advertisers

Posted by on December 8, 2010 at 7:08 pm. 3 Comments :

Glenn BeckLast May I revealed the criminal syndicate surrounding Glenn Beck and his dwindling cadre of advertisers. The list included Goldline International, LifeLock, Tax Masters, and Free Score. I’m not sure there is any program on TV with a more nefarious assortment of sponsors.

Today Mother Jones is reporting that the long arm of the law has reached into Beck’s hideout and nabbed one of his gold scammers.

“At the request of prosecutors from LA County and Santa Monica city who have filed a civil suit against the company, Los Angeles County judge has ordered that Superior Gold be placed into receivership and all of its assets – bank accounts, real estate, and presumably gold stored for customers – frozen. On Monday, a court-appointed lawyer actually physically seized control of the company, presumably to prevent further wrongdoing. The lawsuit alleged that among other things, Superior had defrauded its customers by overcharging them, fraudulently inducing them to buy overpriced collectors’ coins rather than the bullion that they wanted, and taking customers’ money for coins they never produced.”

Superior is just one of the gold vendors advertising on Beck’s show. Rosland Capital, Investment Rarities, and Goldline International are others. Goldline is presently under investigation for the same sort of criminal activity for which Superior was busted.

The past few months has seen more than 300 companies refuse to advertise on Beck’s show. It can’t be a good sign for him if the advertisers he has remaining pull their ads because their company was shut down and they’re in jail.

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Fox Nation Has To Tell Their Idiot Readers How To Think

Posted by on December 8, 2010 at 1:48 pm. NO Comments :

Fox News has built a collection of mottos that all have one thing in common: they are distorted and deceitful descriptions of the network they purport to represent (i.e. “Fair and Balanced”). So when you hear Fox say “We Report, You Decide,” you can safely dismiss it as rubbish. Anyone who who watches Fox for more than thirty seconds knows how strictly they lead their viewers around by the nose. The same is true for the Fox Nation:


Notice that these headlines editorialize the Fox Nationalist view of Politico. This appears to be a recent occurrence that began last month. Fox is apparently worried that their readers won’t assign the same bias to Politico as a news source that the Fox editors do. So they tell their readers exactly what they are supposed to believe to insure that they come away with the same authorized Fox opinion. Here some more examples of this pre-digested analysis:

Left-Wing Politico Called Sexist by Palin
Left-Wing Politico: Barack Obama’s Deals May Leave Liberals Behind
Left-Wing Politico: Stimulus Sent $140 Million to Religious Groups
Left-Wing Politico: Obama’s Arrogance
Left-Wing Politico Smears Black Republican Allen West
Left-Wing Politico: Drudge Wins

It’s interesting to note that most of these headlines aren’t even representative of anything remotely left-wing. In fact, they are actually overt expressions of right-wing thinking. That wouldn’t surprise most liberals who regard Politico as a conservative-leaning publication.

The purpose of this, of course, is to inject FoxThink into their readers minds before they even read the article. The Fox Nationalists obviously regard their audience as too stupid or incapable of forming a coherent thought on their own, so Fox helps them along by providing its own brand of bias.

This is just further evidence (as if it were necessary) that Fox, despite it’s name, is not news. Perhaps a better motto for them would be “We Tell You What To Think, You Can Go Back To Watching American Idol.”


Right Wing Plotting To Infiltrate Media

Posted by on December 7, 2010 at 8:32 pm. 5 Comments :

US News and World Report published an article today with this headline: Fred Barnes Wants Conservatives to Infiltrate Left Wing Media.

Barnes is the executive editor of the conservative Weekly Standard. He is also a featured pundit on Fox News. The surprising thing about the headline above is not what Barnes is proposing. That has been going on for decades. The surprising thing is that he is admitting it in public. The occasion was a swanky dinner in his honor hosted by the uber-rightist American Spectator Magazine. Barnes delivered an address that was remarkably candid with regard to his aspirations for spreading conservative dogma. There is already ample evidence of the right’s efforts to “infiltrate” the press, and Barnes helpfully makes that very point in his speech:

“Conservatives dominate talk radio; we do awfully well in magazines, with the American Spectator, Weekly Standard, National Review, and many others, and actually there is probably room for a lot more. With Fox News we do pretty well on television. Fox News really has a tremendous influence.”

So why is Barnes complaining when he already knows how much conservatives have come to monopolize the media? What more does he want? I’ll let him tell you:

“What we need to do right now is dedicate ourselves to expanding our influence and not just sitting back and complaining about the mainstream media, but infiltrating them, overtaking them and changing the American media.”

Barnes goes on to note that there is a lot of money available to right-wingers to start more magazines, buy TV networks, etc. Apparently controlling the bulk of the print, radio and TV news business isn’t enough. He wants all of it.

But the worst part of this is that he is advocating the formation of an army of young reporters to surreptitiously sneak into legitimate news enterprises and misrepresent themselves in order to plant their disinformation from within. It is a strikingly unethical proposal whose only purpose is to taint the practice of journalism and advance his own weaselly agenda. And the fact that he is comfortable announcing such a scheme in public says a lot about the shamelessness of the rightist movement.


Another Glenn Beck Inspired Domestic Terrorist

Posted by on December 6, 2010 at 8:12 pm. 8 Comments :

Glenn Beck: There Will Be BloodWhile Glenn Beck scoffs at the notion that his followers would ever harm anyone, his followers keep proving him wrong. This time it’s an Idaho man who has now pleaded guilty to federal gun charges and manufacturing grenades.

“Kenneth B. Kimbley Jr., 58, discussed bombing local bridges with an undercover federal agent and made threatening statements toward President Barack Obama, leading investigators last July to seize 20,000 ammunition rounds and several firearms from Kimbley’s property, where he and other suspected militia members gathered to construct grenades, according to court documents.”

Kimbley was a felon and, as such, was already prohibited from possessing firearms. But his aspirations that led to this arrest far exceeded any simple desire to exercise any second amendment rights. The Southern Poverty Law Center identified Kimbley as the leader of the Brotherhood of America Patriots, an extreme-right militia, and notes that at the time of his arrest he had 20,000 rounds of ammunition, a stock of firearms, and materials he planned to use to construct grenades.

Kimbley admitted guilt without any plea deal and faces up to 10 years in prison. His inspiration for his lawlessness was his “idol,” Glenn Beck. In his defense his attorney was quoted as saying that…

“…everything said by Mr. Kimbley is no different than what his idol, TV commentator Glenn Beck, typically states on the air.”

I’m not sure if that’s much of a defense for Kimbley, but it is a pretty good indictment of Beck. What Beck typically says on the air is overtly hostile and incendiary. Despite frequently imploring his viewers to be peaceful, he cannot be absolved of responsibility when he also alarms them with terrifying tales of radicals conspiring to destroy their country, offend their God, and murder their families. In the face of that sort of looming nightmare, what would you do? And by the way, when a television host has to repeatedly remind his viewers not to kill anybody, what does that say about him and his employer?

This is not an isolated incident. In the recent past there have been other would-be terrorists who believed they were doing Beck’s bidding. Last July Byron Williams was captured after a shootout with police while he was on his way to kill people at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation. Beck has made numerous references to these groups and Williams regarded Beck as a teacher. In April of 2009, Richard Poplawski allegedly shot three police officers to death at his home. His best friend said that he “loved” Beck and was apparently worried that the government planned to intern dissidents in concentration camps.

The news of this latest case of domestic terrorism comes as Beck is ratcheting up the rhetoric of hate and hostility. His program today was dominated by his theory that it is the left who are prone to violence. His evidence of that was a few out of context quotes that employed analogies that no one in their right mind would take literally. Unfortunately, we’re talking about Glenn Beck here and, as we know, Glenn Beck is Unhinged.


Much his horror story was based on a portion of a speech by perennial Beck bogeyman, Van Jones. Here are the ghastly remarks by Jones where he described what he called a “nightmare scenario…”

“…where we’re going to see a nation more and more ethnically diverse, more and more culturally diverse, but less and less economically prosperous…If you know anything about history that is not a recipe for common ground. It is a recipe for a battleground. And you have opponents in this country who see the same scenario and their answer is fear the diversity. Their answer is attack the diversity.”

Clearly Jones is warning of potential trouble resulting from the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the disharmony we already see in Tea Party racism, immigrant bashing, and Beck’s own virulent anti-Semitism. Jones is not threatening violence. He is not advocating violence. He is merely observing a social trend that he views as troubling but avoidable if we act constructively and compassionately.

But what Beck hears is that “this is the bottom up, top down, and inside out theory”, wherein the people are organized to rise up so that the government can bring the top down turning us all inside out. Of course Beck invented this theory himself. It makes no sense whatsoever, but that doesn’t matter because he’ll just keep hammering it into the heads of his disciples until all they can do is repeat it robotically and assign whatever meaning to it that Beck says. And what Beck says is that…

“You have Latinos being organized. You have unions now being organized in the unemployment battle. You have unions in our churches. It’s the Czech Republic, 1948.”

See? When American workers, minorities, and people of faith are united in pursuit of their interests, and the interests of their neighbors and their nation, you have communism. And communism is the work of the Devil. And if you stand by and allow the forces of Satan to take control of your country, you are no better than the sinners who are out to enslave us all and impose a one-world government that answers only to the Prince of Darkness himself. But by all means do not resort to violence. It is just your country, your family and your eternal soul that is at stake.

And it’s after Beck berates you with that incomprehensible blather that he insists you make a choice. Poplawski, Williams and now Kimbley, made their choices. And Beck cannot disassociate himself from the demons he looses on society.


Glenn Beck’s Amazon Wish List Revealed

Posted by on December 6, 2010 at 2:50 pm. 2 Comments :

You’ll never guess what Glenn Beck wants for Christmas. Here’s a hint: It’s something he really, really needs.

Well, you don’t have to wonder any more. The crack investigators at News Corpse, with help from Glenn Beck Unhinged, have discovered Beck’s Wish List on Amazon.com.


Stop by and consider helping to make Glenn’s holiday the best ever.