George Soros

Glenn Beck Attacks His Boss – Again

Posted by on June 8, 2011 at 11:30 pm. 2 Comments :

On his TV program today, Glenn Beck spent the whole hour with former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, Herman Cain.

Cain, who is challenging Joe Biden for the Gaffe King crown, discussed his previous slip-up when he said that he wouldn’t appoint Muslims to his Cabinet if he were elected president. He later had to backpedal that, but today he got himself in more trouble. When Beck asked him about it, Cain said that as president he would require Muslims to take a loyalty oath that Christians, Mormons, and others would not be required to take. He knows less about the Constitution than Palin does about Paul Revere. But he still doesn’t sink as low as his host.

Beck took a few minutes to bash American workers and products by slamming General Motors.

Beck: The newest GM CEO is Dan Akerson. He used to work for the Carlyle Group. That’s a global private equity firm that manages $106 billion. Hey, yeah, some of the players in the Carlyle Group are great. George Soros. Who would’ve seen that one coming?

Beck apparently thinks that GM is some sort of left-wing front group because of the resume of its new chief executive. However, the Carlyle Group is a notoriously conservative enterprise that has been headed by folks like Frank Carlucci, Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor; James Baker, Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush; and Caspar Weinberger, former Reagan Defense Secretary. Beck displays a graphic that lists the scoundrels associated with Carlyle:


Yep, there’s George Soros (right up at the top), Madeline Albright’s daughter (whose name Beck must have forgotten), and Colin Powell (Bush Jr.’s Secretary of State). But the cherry on top is Prince Al-Waleed who happens to be the largest shareholder of News Corp stock outside of Rupert Murdoch and family.

This is not the first time Beck has implied that his boss is somehow involved in nefarious activities. On one occasion he tagged him as a funder of the so-called Mosque at Ground Zero. On another occasion Beck actually accused Al-Waleed of being part of the Al Qaeda gang who attacked Manhattan on 9/11. And now we learn that it’s even worse than that. Al-Waleed is in cahoots with George Soros.

What a tangled web we weave…..

News Corpse Part Of Soros-Funded Echo Chamber?

Posted by on June 6, 2011 at 4:27 am. 2 Comments :

The ultra-rightist Media Research Center has just completed its four part series purporting to reveal the truth about the George Soros domination of the media. The series was authored by the MRC’s Boone Pickens Fellow, Dan Gainor. The first three parts of Gainor’s project were laughably muddled dissertations on an imagined world ruled by the omnipotent Soros.

The allegations submitted thus far put Soros at the helm of a network of dozens of “major media organizations” with a reach of over 300 million people worldwide. The only problem with Gainor’s theory is that he never proves any it. The entire series is based on phony assumptions, ludicrous extrapolations and tangential associations. For instance, Gainor’s idea of a major media organization is the Center for Investigative Reporting, which is not exactly the New York Times or CNN. What’s more, it is also supported by Rupert Murdoch, whose Times of London is a CIR affiliate. Gainor also lists NPR as beholden to Soros despite the fact that his total contribution to the radio network amounted to a mere fraction of 1% of NPR’s receipts.

The fourth chapter of this faulty thesis runs farther off the rails than the three that preceded it. It focuses almost entirely on Fox News as a victim of leftist hostility. The opening paragraph attempts to belittle criticism of Fox News but actually defines it pretty well.

“To hear the left tell it, Fox News has a ‘history of inciting Islamophobia and racial and ethic animosity’ and tries to ‘race bait its viewers.’ One staffer is called a ‘hit man,’ while his network is accused of ‘attack politics.’ A highly questionable study is hyped by numerous outlets claiming that it ‘confirms that Fox News makes you stupid.’ Fox is called simply: ‘The Liars’ Network.'”

That’s all pretty much true. Fox does have a history of lying, inciting racism, and engaging in attack politics. But one of the items enumerated above hits close to home here at News Corpse. Gainor’s reference to the study that “Fox News makes you stupid” was linked to an article I wrote that was re-published by Alternet. It reported the results of a University of Maryland survey that showed that Fox viewers were significantly more misinformed than consumers of other news sources.

Consequently, Gainor is now alleging that I am part of the Soros-Funded Echo Chamber. To that accusation I would just like to say: “I Wish!”

As usual, Gainor’s logic is riddled with nonsense. His attempt to tie me to this supposed Soros plot demonstrates how far he has strayed from reality. And because he cannot produce an actual link between me and Soros (because there are none), he settles for the connection to Alternet. Then he attaches Alternet to the Soros empire by virtue of their membership in The Media Consortium, which has received donations from Soros. However, the Consortium is a trade association whose members are not beneficiaries of Soros. To the contrary, they pay to belong. Gainor’s argument against my article is summed up in a “disclaimer” he extracted, minus the context, from the study:

“This suggests that misinformation cannot simply be attributed to news sources, but are part of the larger information environment that includes statements by candidates, political ads and so on.”

That statement affirms the integrity of the study that Gainor, nevertheless, disputes. However, the study’s researchers did not insert it to refute their own findings. Whatever effect the statements of candidates and political ads had on viewers, that effect would have been produced across the board, not just at Fox. Yet the study’s results unequivocally show Fox viewers as being the most misinformed even considering the “larger information environment”.

Gainor cites as further evidence of the Soros-left’s assault on Fox News that the blog ThinkProgress “slammed Fox more than 30 times in six months.” No, really? When you calculate that down it comes to one slam per week. If you ask me, that’s a fairly restrained schedule of slamming because Fox broadcasts dishonest, partisan attacks on Democrats and progressives numerous times every day. If ThinkProgress reported on Fox smears only once a day that would come to 180 times in six months. How on earth did they keep it down to 30? I’m gonna have to call them on the Soros Hot Line we’ve all been issued and ask them why they’ve been slacking off.

There is a sublime irony in the primary objective of Gainor’s poorly reasoned treatise. While harboring a compulsive obsession with Soros as a left-wing financier of partisan media (which he never proves), he exhibits a severe blindness to his own rabid partisanship. The media analysis organization for whom he produced this paper is itself funded by right-wing media barons like Richard Mellon Scaife and the Koch brothers (through their Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation). His articles were dutifully re-published by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and Fox Nation. And his position at the MRC was endowed by oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens.And let’s not forget that it was Murdoch who donated a million dollars to the Republican Governor’s Association and another million to right-wing Chamber of Commerce.

What Gainor imagines to be a leftist cabal determined to bring down Fox News and advocate on behalf of progressive ideology is nothing more than like-minded authors and activists pursuing an agenda in which they believe. The left doesn’t need Soros to slam Fox. We are fully capable of recognizing unethical journalism on our own and taking action independently.

Much of the rest of America is starting to take action as well. The results of the latest Nielsen ratings book for May 2011, show that viewers are turning off Fox News in growing numbers. That isn’t Soros’ fault – or mine either (though I like to think I played a role). It is the result of Fox’s repeated deceptions and overt advocacy of GOP doctrine. Their decision to flaunt an editorial bias rather than engage in honest journalism is the cause of their problems in the ratings and amongst critics.

So despite Gainor’s delusional paranoia, there is no Soros-funded echo chamber. We are not a zombie horde prowling the conservative mediasphere. Nothing like that exists. You can’t prove it. We are a figment of your demented imagination. However, we are coming to get you, Dan. And your little Fox News too. Be afraid.

George Soros Triggers Rightist OCD

Posted by on May 26, 2011 at 2:53 pm. 9 Comments :

The uber-conservative Media Research Center has been fixated lately on a pathetic “study” of the media reach of George Soros. The author, Dan Gainor, may be one of the most ineffectual researchers to ever publish on the InterTubes. The product of his research seems more like a symptom of the debilitating syndrome that hobbles many of his ilk, OCD: Obsessive Conservative Disorder. The latest chapter is the third of a four-part series. Let’s re-cap:

In Part One, Gainor introduced his premise that George Soros “has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets.” He never documented any ties other than some donations to charitable organizations, none of which were major news outlets. There were some non-profit institutions that focus on journalism, but even in those examples Gainor didn’t explain how Soros’ donations would have given him any control over them. Neither did he cite any evidence that the organizations were influenced by Soros’ donations.

In Part Two, Gainor claimed to expose millions of dollars of influence peddling by Soros to media enterprises. For the most part it was a rehashing of Part One. The new information turned out to reveal that the organizations Gainor disparaged for their connection to Soros were also connected to right-wing billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and T. Boone Pickens. Gainor himself is the Boone Pickens Fellow at the Media Research Center.

Now, in Part Three, Gainor asserts that Soros-funded media “reach more than 330 million people around the globe.” Again, he never reveals how he arrived at that calculation. He merely cites a few examples that figure into the total without actually adding it up. And his examples are hysterically misconstrued. For instance, Gainor cites a $1.8 million contribution to NPR. That would represent a fraction of 1% of NPR’s funding, not exactly enough to wield much influence. And then Gainor frantically reports that…

“Soros funds nearly every major left-wing media source in the United States. Forty-five of those are financed through his support of the Media Consortium. That organization ‘is a network of the country’s leading, progressive, independent media outlets.'”

Did you get that? Nearly every major left-wing media source in the United States! Really? The forty-five that Gainor mentions as receiving funding via their membership in the Media Consortium actually receive nothing for their membership. In fact, they pay the Consortium to belong.

However, I think I discovered the real reason Gainor has been hammering on this. The Media Research Center is now featuring an ad that asks “Help us expose George Soros.”

“Left-wing billionaire George Soros has undertaken a war on conservative media to make it easier to spread his anti-American views, and the liberal media are his willing accomplices.”

The MRC says that if you make a donation today your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar. Will those matching funds come from a right-wing billionaire who has undertaken a war on liberal media? I don’t know. They don’t say where the money will come from. But we do know that the MRC is funded by Pickens and another media billionaire, Richard Mellon Scaife. We also know that they have partnered with Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News whose former managing editor, Brit Hume, considered them indispensable.

So perhaps this is just a symptom of another sort of OCD: Obtain Conservative Donations.

Fox News’ George Soros Conspiracy Continues To Crumble

Posted by on May 19, 2011 at 2:23 pm. 5 Comments :

Last week Fox News published an article by Dan Gainor of the ultra-rightist Media Research Center that purported to reveal a web of connections between George Soros and the mainstream media. The article failed completely in its mission. As I wrote last week:

“On the Fox News web site today, Dan Gainor, a VP at the ultra-conservative Media Research Center, wrote an op-ed that asked, ‘Why Don’t We Hear About Soros’ Ties to Over 30 Major News Organizations?’ The answer, as it turns out, is because there aren’t any such ties. […] Gainor has utterly failed to support his thesis. Not only does Soros have no control over these organizations, but they aren’t even the big media powers Gainor describes them as.”

Today Fox News published part two of Gainor’s series. Not only did he continue to fire blanks, he actually revealed information that implicates the right in a vast media conspiracy.

Most of part two was a rehashing of part one with even fewer specifics. The threads in the alleged web Gainor is weaving merely tie Soros to some media organizations that are also funded by many other people and groups who seek to advance the state of independent journalism. And while pointing out the connections, Gainor never discloses anything sordid resulting from them. There isn’t even a hint of some effort to slant their reporting or engage in biased coverage. So the only conclusion is that Soros donated money to a number of reputable organizations that have demonstrated their integrity and that Gainor is apparently opposed to that, as are most conservatives. The last thing they want is news that is truly fair and balanced.

One area where he provided some new information was in identifying a few more of the “major” news organizations for whom Soros is supposedly the puppet master. There is just one thing wrong with these revelations. They are also affiliated with news organizations on the right:

  • The Center for Investigative Reporting lists Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London as an affiliate.
  • The Center for Public Integrity is connected to the Associated Press, of which Murdoch is a member of the board of directors.
  • The Lens is affiliated with WVUE-TV in New Orleans, a FOX affiliate.
  • The Texas Tribune’s founding investor was T. Boone Pickens.

That last affiliation is particularly notable because Gainor is the “Boone Pickens Fellow” for the Media Research Center, and that Pickens himself is an MRC trustee. So Gainor’s job at the MRC was endowed by the same man who bankrolled one of the media enterprises connected to Soros and that Gainor says is irredeemably leftist.

Uh oh. That means that Gainor himself is connected to Soros and this whole series of articles must be a plot orchestrated by Pickens, Murdoch, Soros, and probably President Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood. Be afraid.

FOX News Invents Another George Soros Conspiracy

Posted by on May 11, 2011 at 4:29 pm. 3 Comments :

On the Fox News web site today, Dan Gainor, a VP at the ultra-conservative Media Research Center, wrote an op-ed that asked, “Why Don’t We Hear About Soros’ Ties to Over 30 Major News Organizations?” The answer, as it turns out, is because there aren’t any such ties. In the opening paragraph Gainor writes that Soros…

“…has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets – including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC and ABC.”

Then Gainor fails to provide a single piece of evidence that Soros is connected to any of those enterprises. The article is a hodge-podge of guilt-by-association assertions that are held together by the thinnest of threads.

Rather than support his headlined accusation, Gainor offers as examples of Soros’ omnipotent influence the fact that he has donated to a few independent, non-profit institutions that focus on journalism. The organizations he chose to pick on are ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity, and the Center for Investigative Reporting. These groups have indeed received donations from Soros, as well as many other donors. Soros has no executive control of any of them. But more to the point, these groups hardly qualify as being “major news organizations.”

Gainor’s problem with these groups, other than that they were beneficiaries of Soros’ generosity, is that they have some working journalists serving as board members or advisors. Perhaps Gainor would prefer that media foundations put more banking and oil executives on their boards. The wild-eyed players that Gainor is so disturbed by include rabid partisans like David Gergen and Christiane Amanpour. And, again, Soros has no influence over these individuals or whether they accept invitations to serve on foundation boards.

Gainor has utterly failed to support his thesis. Not only does Soros have no control over these organizations, but they aren’t even the big media powers Gainor describes them as. However, Gainor’s column appeared on the web site of a bona fide major news organization: Fox News. And the owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, also has control over an empire of media enterprises including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Dow Jones NewsWire, and BSkyB, Europe’s biggest satellite television provider. What’s more, Murdoch is also on the board of directors of the Associated Press, another bona fide big media player.

Finally, it should be noted that Gainor’s own employer, the Media Research Center, is funded by foundations run by right-wing media baron Richard Mellon Scaife. It is also closely tied to Murdoch’s Fox News. When former Fox anchor and managing editor, Brit Hume, accepted an award from the MRC, he thanked them…

“…for the tremendous amount of material that the Media Research Center provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report, I don’t know what we would’ve done without them. It was a daily buffet of material to work from, and we certainly made tremendous use of it.”

So, as usual, the allegations levied by the right turn out to be the very same improprieties they are guilty of themselves. Some things never change.

[Update] Media Matters reveals that Dan Gainor is “the Boone Pickens Fellow” for MRC, and that Pickens himself is an MRC trustee. Pickens is also a major player in the natural gas industry, which ProPublica has reported on and exposed for its grim environmental record. Funny that Fox News failed to disclose the conflict of interest in which Gainor is engaging by attacking ProPublica for its coverage of Pickens’ business.

Also, Glenn Beck referenced this article on his television program today and completely misstated its contents. He said that Soros funds ABC, CBS, and the Koch brothers. Not only is that not what the article says, it’s downright insane. Or in other words, typical Beck.

Fox News And Glenn Beck: Pro Genocide?

Posted by on March 25, 2011 at 1:48 am. 8 Comments :

The latest demonstration of right-wing dementia is actually just a variation on an old theme: Whatever Obama does, they’re against it. In this instance they are coupling that with a perennial conservative favorite: Whatever it is, George Soros is behind it.

From the moment the crisis in Libya began there was an outcry from rightists that the President should intervene on behalf of the rebellious citizens whom Qaddafi was slaughtering. That is until the President did just that, at which point they were outraged by his reckless imperialism.

Now the attacks on the administration are escalating to accuse Obama of conspiring with a shadowy organization that they allege is tied to terrorists and aspires to invade Israel. The organization is the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. This ghastly, UN-backed backed group lists barbarians like former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Bishop Desmond Tutu amongst their patrons. Their mission is to enlist the international community’s cooperation to prevent genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes. What a dastardly plot!

Glenn Beck took up this argument this morning on his radio program. He was alerted to it by a caller and could barely contain his glee. For him it was another piece of the conspiratorial stew that mashed together many of his favorite demons including Soros, Muslims, and Cass Sunstein whom he calls “the most dangerous man in America.”. And somehow by becoming even more conspiratorial he insisted that this puts an end to criticism of him as a conspiracy theorist. Apparently the conspiracy theory that he is a conspiracy theorist is a conspiracy theory itself. And least that’s Beck’s theory.

It’s clear, however, that Beck’s caller got his information from either WorldNetDaily, who published an item claiming to have found “Soros’ Fingerprints on Libya Bombing,” or from one of their many conservative repeaters, including Fox Nation. The WND article was written by notorious Birther Aaron Klein and declared that…

“Philanthropist billionaire George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the global organization that promotes the military doctrine used by the Obama administration to justify the recent airstrikes targeting the regime of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.”

Klein is a long-time Obama basher who wrote a book titled, “The Manchurian President,” that questioned Obama’s citizenship and patriotism. He has been working tirelessly to taint the President’s policy toward Libya. Just two days ago he posted an article on WND that asked…

“Could President Obama’s decision to sidestep Congress and strike Libya as part of an international coalition put the U.S. on a military collision course with Israel?”

There’s that Israel invasion thing again. You have to wonder whether these guys actually believe what they are spewing or are they just so infected with Obama Derangement Syndrome that they’ve lost the ability to process coherent thoughts?

The policy they are so feverishly flagellating is known as “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). It was adapted from the 1948 United Nations “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” which was a response to the atrocities witnessed during the Holocaust. There was worldwide condemnation of genocide and war crimes, and agreement that it must never be permitted to happen again – even if that meant using force to defend civilians being victimized by their own government. In 2001, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) published a report that refined the policy and it was formally adopted by the UN in 2005.

That’s the policy cited by the right as justification for restraining Qaddafi. And that’s the policy that Fox News and Glenn Beck are opposing. By extension, it must be concluded that they are in favor of ethnic cleansing and other crimes against humanity that the policy prohibits. Beck even conceded that the mission of R2P sounded good until he discovered its wicked roots. He began by expanding on the U.S. plot to invade Israel on his television show today. Not surprisingly he got everything wrong. He attributed the policy to a National Security aide, explicitly asserting that it “came from Samantha Power,” not the UN.

No it didn’t. It came from the UN commissioned ICISS report while John Bolton was ambassador, and it was supported by conservatives in the Bush administration including Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Beck asserted that the UN got the idea from Soros who got it from Power’s book, “A Problem from Hell.” The only problem with that theory is that Power’s book (which, by the way, won the Pulitzer Prize) came out the year following the publication of the ICISS report so could not possibly have been the inspiration for it. Typical Beckian disinformation that can’t even make the ends meet. But that doesn’t stop him from filling his gullible disciples weakened brains with hogwash.

Now Beck and the right is closing ranks to attack this humane policy that is illustrated by sentiments like this:

“True sovereignty belongs to the people, who in turn delegate it to their governments. If governments abuse the authority entrusted to them and citizens have no opportunity to correct such abuses, outside interference is justified.”

While that sounds like it could have been uttered by anyone from Reagan to Clinton, or even to Beck, that quote was in fact from (you Tea Baggers may want to sit down), George Soros. It epitomizes the Open Society philosophy of people-powered democracy that Beck distorts as being a version of a New World Order.

I find it more and more depressing that there are people who actually buy into the fiction that Beck and Fox News promote. Granted those numbers are in decline, but it’s still a concern. It is the most delusional faction that still adheres to these lies and they can be a dangerous lot. That’s why it remains so important to continue to counter the disinformation with the truth. At least it may be possible to mitigate the damage they do.

The Haunting: Glenn Beck Sees George Soros In Every Shadow

Posted by on March 7, 2011 at 6:47 pm. 5 Comments :

How does Glenn Beck sleep at night when he knows that his dreams will be invaded by the Puppet Master himself, George Soros. Beck seems to be obsessively fixated on the imaginary threat that Soros is persecuting him at all times.

The latest episode of Beck’s dementia concerns a story last month from the Jewish Internet magazine, Tablet. Liel Leibovitz discovered that Premiere Radio Networks, the radio syndicator of top names like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, offers a service that provides actors to portray callers for their radio program clients.

Many of my liberal peers jumped on the story, accusing the right-wing broadcasters of faking calls to their shows. I laid off because, while the Premiere-On-Call service does exactly that, there was no allegation that any specific host was utilizing the service.

Nevertheless, Glenn Beck’s web site, The Blaze, has responded with typical paranoid bombast. They posted what they think is a shocking expose titled: Uncovered: Another Soros-Funded Attack On Glenn Beck and Talk Radio. The posting begins by attributing the Leibovitz story to the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) who merely posted a link to the original article on the Tablet’s web site. But that was enough to imply a Soros connection. CJR receives some funding from Soros’ Open Society Institute.

The problem is, CJR did not write the article, nor did they implicate Beck or anyone else as using the phony phone callers. In fact, the original column in the Tablet didn’t implicate anyone either. But that didn’t stop The Blaze from making a wholly unsupported accusation that Lelbovitz mislead his readers. The Blaze criticized Leibovitz for writing about…

“…how stations around the country are using actors to augment their programs but nowhere in the article does he offer legitimate proof or any reasonable semblance of proof that Beck, Hannity, or Limbaugh ever made use of the service.”

That’s true. No one disputes that Premiere was providing actors to stations to augment their programs. And it’s true that Leibovitz offered no proof as to Beck, et al, using the service – because he never made that allegation. Reporters often decline to provide proof of things that were never a part of what they were writing. You may have noticed that I haven’t offered any proof in this article that Sarah Palin is Charlie Sheen’s meth connection.

The Blaze goes on to inquire as to why Leibovitz mentioned only Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck in his article, and then responds saying “The answer to the question is simple, George Soros.” Of course. Soros is the answer to every question in the Beck universe. It couldn’t have had anything to do with the fact that they are the three biggest talkers on Premiere’s roster, and in the nation as a whole.

Finally, The Blaze leaps entirely out of the reality-based world to assert that Leibovitz is “connected to the Columbia Journalism Review” and is a contributor. I cannot figure out how they came to that conclusion. There is no reference to Leibovitz on the CJR web site, and there are no articles attributed to him. None. But without tying Leibovitz to CJR they could not tie him to Soros. So they had to invent the connection in order to advance their conspiracy.

This is how obsessed Beck is with manufacturing controversies that affirm his fear that George Soros is pulling the strings behind every devious, anti-American endeavor that creeps into his diseased brain. And, of course, that includes the assaults aimed directly at Beck. Because in the end that’s all that really matters. The entire structure of western civilization is propped up on Beck’s shoulders, and the only thing that prevents it all from crashing down is Beck standing guard against the defiler, Soros. That puts Beck’s life at risk every day, and every night as well. Even in his haunted dreams, Soros is lurking, waiting to strike. Don’t go to sleep, Glenn. That’s how he’ll get you.

The Unmitigated Hate of Fox News

Posted by on January 27, 2011 at 9:58 pm. 20 Comments :

In response to a long and repulsive record of anti-Semitism and insensitive allusions to Nazis and the Holocaust on the part of Fox News, a coalition of 400 rabbis published an open letter calling on Rupert Murdoch to sanction Glenn Beck and demand that Roger Ailes apologize for their atrocious behavior. The letter was printed in a full page ad in Murdoch’s own Wall Street Journal, and said in part…

“We share a belief that the Holocaust, of course, can and should be discussed appropriately in the media. But that is not what we have seen at Fox News. It is not appropriate to accuse a 14-year old Jew hiding with a Christian family in Nazi-occupied Hungary of sending his people to death camps. It is not appropriate to call executives of another news agency ‘Nazis.’ And it is not appropriate to make literally hundreds of on-air references to the Holocaust and Nazis when characterizing people with whom you disagree.”

Rather than take the responsible path and accept that the criticism of hundreds of independent rabbis is sufficient evidence that Fox has stepped way over the line, Joel Cheatwood, senior vice president of development for Fox News, took a confrontational stance that proved once again that Fox News is committed to an agenda of hate. He said…

“We haven’t seen the ad, but this group is a George Soros backed left-wing political organization that has been trying to engage Glenn Beck primarily for publicity purposes.”

Really? The 400 rabbis who signed the letter are from a diverse spectrum of congregations, from reform to orthodox. They include liberals and conservatives and they have no organizational affiliation other than their common faith and a shared disgust for those who tarnish the memory of their families and heritage. But Cheatwood insults them by accusing them of being publicity seekers. And worse, he asserts that they are but minions of the “puppet master,” as Glenn Beck dubbed George Soros, thus recycling the same sort of vilification that Jews were subjected to in Hitler’s Germany.

There is simply no excuse for this overt hostility and insensitivity. This is no longer confined to the brutish ignorance of a few television hosts. It extends to the network management from Cheatwood, to Ailes, and all the way up to Rupert Murdoch himself. These people have no respect for others who have suffered under the most horrendous circumstances. They are only concerned with their own obsession for spreading hate and division. Ironically, Glenn Beck spoke of this on his program today:

“We can’t treat everyone as an enemy. We need to stop focusing on the things that divide us, but the things that unite us. […] Do you know why you can shoot a cop or beat somebody at Wendy’s; why you can call neighbors – neighbors – enemies because they voted for a different person? Because we no longer see people as human beings.”

If that wasn’t so sick coming from someone who spends every waking hour demonizing his ideological foes, it would be a laugh riot. Beck is the man that has likened progressives to cancer and warned that they can only be dealt with by shooting them in the head. And now he wants to deliver sermons on unity and respect for fellow Americans?

Glenn Beck has spoken more about the Nazi affiliations of Democrats and liberals than anyone on radio or television. It is an obsession with him. Hardly a day goes by that he doesn’t make some comment about the Holocaust. Which is interesting because today was one of those rare days when he never brought it up at all. He completely ignored the subject of the Holocaust today – the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this day Beck remains silent on the subject. A silence that speaks volumes.

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.

UNHINGED: Glenn Beck Thinks Government Wants To Starve You

Posted by on November 30, 2010 at 9:57 am. 7 Comments :

Glenn Beck UnhingedIn a rant that raises Glenn Beck’s delusional factor to unprecedented heights, he is now accusing the United States government of seeking to control the people via food safety programs with an ultimate goal of deliberate starvation. If you think that is hyperbole, here are his exact words: “This is about control and, in the end, starvation.”

This hallucinatory screed was spurred by a Senate bill (S.510) that would give the FDA additional authority to address food safety matters. The bill has received bipartisan support in response to the numerous cases of food recalls the past year (peanut butter, spinach, cookie dough, etc.) due to pathogens like E.coli and salmonella that have sickened thousands of Americans and led to dozens of deaths. Beck shrugs this off by asking “Is there a big problem that I don’t know of?”

No Glenn, there isn’t. You DO know, you’re just lying about it. [FYI (pdf): Each year, about 76 million people contract a food-borne illness in the United States; about 325,000 require hospitalization; and about 5,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] And that’s not all you’re lying about.

Beck: Do you know where the FDA’s Deputy commissioner for foods used to work? Just a wild coincidence. The Monsanto company. And guess who the second largest holder was, you know, last quarter, the shares of the Monsanto corporation…George Soros.

Not true. George Soros is not now, and has never been, the second largest holder of Monsanto stock. He has never even been in the top ten. His fund does own approximately $312 million worth of Monsanto stock, which is less than 7% of the $5 billion fund.

As for the FDA official whom Beck didn’t bother to name, it is Michael Taylor, who did indeed work for Monsanto for three years – ten years ago! For the 35 years before and after that he worked for either the FDA or Department of Agriculture. He was also a professor at George Washington University. It appears he took a short break from government service to cash in as a lobbyist. I won’t defend that but, the bottom line is that, whatever his association with Monsanto, it wasn’t recent enough to reasonably assert that he is still lobbying on their behalf.

On a side note, it’s interesting that Beck should take such an antagonistic tone toward Monsanto when his employer engaged in a notorious and unusual defense of the company a while back. In 1997, a couple of local Fox reporters, Steve Wilson and Jane Akre, produced a story on rBGH, a synthetic growth hormone developed by Monsanto that boosts milk production and is associated with an increased risk of cancer. After a letter writing campaign by Monsanto to Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News, disputing the story and hinting at a lawsuit, the story was shelved and the reporters were fired, despite all the evidence that the story was accurate.

In subsequent litigation Fox argued that under the First Amendment broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox has since taken full advantage of that right by lying and distorting the news every single day. And their lead distorter is, of course, Glenn Beck.

[This Just In:] Despite Beck’s urging that his viewers call Congress and protest, the Senate overwhelmingly passed the Food Safety Act 73-25, including 15 Republican votes. That still means that a majority of the GOP voted against the bill, but it is more bipartisanship than has been seen in the past two years.