The Glenn Beck Report

I just learned today via The Progress Report that Glenn Beck has lost every single sponsor for his UK version of the show. The digest email that I get refers back to an article at Think Progress by Amanda Terkel, who quotes two of my cultural heroes. Those would be Color of Change and StopBeck.com. Please give them a click; they have been instrumental in the effort to boycott sponsors of Glenn Beck’s show and force him off the air. I consider myself a mere dabbler in comparison to these true warriors for justice.

IN OTHER NEWS….

Glenn went totally ape-shit over an Obama speech about job creation and the stimulus bill. The clip is amazing; insanity, personified.

A nice gent who goes by the name of Kevinge3 on YouTube posted this clip:

UPDATE!! This video can’t be embedded by the request of the poster, but the link below still works to take you to the YouTube video. I respect Kevinge3’s right to disable embedding, so when you go over to YouTube, please do 2 things: First, show Kevinge3 some love for editing this 30 seconds or so out and making a nice video, and second, don’t forget to come back!

Alpo, anyone? Everyone send Glenn Beck a can of Alpo, please.

Prologue

I'm trying, but he has to ask some rational ones now and again

The Teaparty movement is composed of a diverse collection of groups that focus some of their energy in the same direction.  If you ask teabaggers what defines the group you will get a variety of responses mostly centered around a primitive view of the Constitution, a few Libertarian ideas regarding taxes and specific policy issues  (such as the stimulus package, 2nd Amendment,  health insurance reform, GM bailout, AIDS research,  unemployment benefits, etc., etc.), strong nationalism and anti-immigrant loathing, anti-abortion, homophobia, white-is-right on any issue regarding race, anti-liberalism, anti-communism/socialism, and a Christian theocratic view of governance that is heavily weighted towards so-called “Bible churches” which have no qualms about claiming control over their congregations’ lives based on their literal and bizarre interpretations of the Bible.

Anger is a major center of gravity that pulls teabaggers together. Anger against the “liberal media” and Democratic Party runs deep and wild. Anger against Muslims and other foreigners in places such as “Old Europe” has been stoked for years by the Bush Administration and still thrives today.  Right wing anger, racial and social prejudice, jingoism and American Exceptionalism, populism, and greed are the red meat of radio gasbags like Rush Limbaugh, who spew sarcastic hate speech, conspiracy theories, and outright lies by the hour.

Until Glenn Beck came along, media shock jocks took very few excursions past the boundaries of the GOP talking points. However, since the 2008 election in which Americans elected Barack Hussein Obama as President, the 24 hour right wing political babble has caught up with the GOP. (Is this possibly the verbal equivalent of “How many monkeys with how many typewriters…? I will have to explore that in a future post).  Glenn Beck has determined that Democrats and liberalism do not comprise the entire problem; the GOP is also part of it.  His redux is that the GOP has become too liberal, and that’s why America now has a Black Nationalist President who is busily hatching a steady stream of socialist-fascist plots to get reparations for slavery, among other things.  Barack Obama didn’t win the election, the GOP lost it.  Beck,  along with a few disgraced and rejected GOPERs including Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, and Dick Armey, are trying to build a 3rd party movement out of the teabaggers and New York’s 23rd Congressional district became the test tube for their experiment.  In a confused and hurried attempt to thrust a lame, unknown, and unqualified candidate into the race, they botched it and now a seat that should have been a GOP gimme is occupied by a Democrat. I wrote about that righty fiasco at length last week.

How PC is too PC?

Religion is a delicate topic among liberals but it’s newsworthy due to its powerful influence over the politics of the groups that are involved.  But before I dig into the topic, I would like to say a few words to liberals.

Modern liberalism has embraced many ideas and trends from pop culture over the last 3 decades. This has been a mixed blessing, as there have been numerous adoptions of over-simplified notions derived from larger initiatives such as ending institutionalized prejudice.  As is normal in human nature, we overreact when making corrections and then have to come back the other way.  One group of behaviors where we’ve overreacted is collectively named “Political Correctness”, or “PC” for short, a name that has itself become a focus for derision from all 180 degrees of the political scale.  This brings me back to the topic at hand, which is Mormonism, Glenn Beck’s religion.

To clarify my vantage point,  my own religious beliefs waffle between atheism and agnosticism, so any criticism of religion you hear from me is definitely not prejudicial because I regard all religions to be equal. Equally wrong, that is, in the fundamental claim they all make which is to know the unknowable. However, the “PC” nature of liberals has allowed the Mormons to sneak under the radar, as criticism of a religious group is considered to be intolerance.

I don’t wish to discuss the Mormon belief system except as to how it relates to politics.  The plain fact is that the LDS church contains a political activist group that has an agenda and is successfully pushing it through the political system.  Two blatant examples of this are the special ballot initiatives in California and Maine, where millions of dollars came from the Mormon front group NOM (National Organization for Marriage) which overturned equal marriage rights for LGBTs, and also the previously mentioned election in NY 23rd, where NOM was a major force against Dede Scozzafava.

How to build a place of worship when money is no object

Mormons are quick to deny that their church has any political affiliation, but the facts say otherwise. I have tried and failed to get a statement about Glenn Beck from the Church headquarters in Salt Lake City. I did get through 3 layers of the organization to a phone that is apparently never answered, at least not when I’m calling it. The best I could get was someone who refused to be quoted by name who told me that each LDS member has free will to do whatever they want as long as they attempt to follow church doctrines. I pointed out that Glenn Beck has called the President a racist, fantasized about killing Michael Moore and Nancy Pelosi, and lies on a continuing basis about matters that are important to the nation.  The response was dogmatic:  Any statement regarding Glenn Beck would have to come from “the Leadership” (which means The President and The Apostles, who speak to and for God on earth). Apparently God must think Beck is OK, as they haven’t made any attempt to distance themselves from his antics.  This doesn’t mean that Mormons universally support Beck.  On one chat board, a courageous Mormon fellow wrote an article under the subject line “Glenn Beck An Embarrassment To Mormons–Perpetuates Harmful, Untrue Stereotypes”. Wow, that is speaking to power, can I get an “Amen!?”

My point here is that we should not regard the Mormon church as ONLY a religious organization. They are more than that, the church is functionally a political activist group.  The Mormons would be of little interest to me other than their cult-ish beliefs and secrecy were it not for the fact that they are an international organization with a political agenda and $billions if not $trillions in assets to push it.

NEXT: Not just about fresh-faced boys and a great choir

Vapo-Rub or NY District 23 election results?

Glenn Beck is a lot of things to a lot of people. To most, he’s an opportunistic, money-grubbing, phony clown of a Mormon millenialist meat puppet. Beck uses his own ignorance as a foil while he poses simple hypotheses about complex questions and then allows “expert” crackpot guests on his show to conjure up facts out of thin air or their rectums to support Beck’s crackpot conspiracy theories while he fawningly agrees with him, nodding like a bobblehead with wide-eyed amazement about how Obama has done/is doing the most dreadful things.

To one man, however, Glenn Beck was something much more. Glenn Beck could reach through his empty head and grab hold of his shallow heart. That man would be Doug Hoffman, “staunch conservative” from out of nowhere, who got talked into running against Dede Scozzafava, who fell out of favor with Fox News and other conservative media. Michelle Malkin called Dede “an ACORN-friendly, union-pandering, tax-and-spend radical Republican.” Rush Limbaugh accused her of “bestiality”, proclaiming that she had “screwed every RINO in the country”. (This was so unbelievable that I had to include it in this post. I realize that including comments from other right wingnuts besides Glenn Beck is a bit off-topic, but sometimes it’s good to have them for a complete context. Think of it like an artist’s palette of stupidity from which you can savor the meaning created by the meaninglessness, greed, stupidity, and grabbasticism of the morally bankrupt and politically corrupt right wing nut movement of Beck and the Becktards, Rush and the Dittobots, Michelle Malkin and the perverts, Michael Savage and the Wieners, and so on and so on.) But, as usual, I digress. Here’s the Rush Limbaugh quote where he says Dede practices bestiality:

Dede Scozzafava, nemisis of Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck took a few swings at Dede Scozzafava himself. He bashed her in the video below for being “pro-choice, pro-stimulus”, ACORN-endorsed (and also “for the working families party”), and “the Democrat is basically the same as the Republican”. Glenn also managed to flail away at Arnold Schwarzenegger, the GOP, and Newt Gingrich.

Glenn’s cure? Stop the insanity! (He can’t resist citing Einstein’s “definition” of insanity. Note to Glenn Beck: you’re no Einstein.) He says the GOP should have chosen Doug Hoffman, who collected the endorsements of Sarah Palin, Steve Forbes, former US Senators Rick Santorum and Fred Thompson, and “The former House Majority Leader Dick Armey are [sic] also behind him”. Hmm, there’s something kicking around in the back of my mind… what do all of those endorsers have in common? Well, I guess it’s that none of them are from New York? Oh, WAIT A MINUTE… What Glenn Beck probably didn’t notice is that each of these endorsements comes from a failed and/or disgraced former GOPER who have fallen from power by running almost as right as Glenn is.

Watch:

So what’s the ONLY problem Glenn sees? The GOP continues to back the “Obama lite Republican.” Oh, that nasty Newt Gingrich! He’s one of the (great big finger quotes) “Republicans” supporting the Obama Lite candidate although Glenn has “nothing bad to say about him.” LOL! Glenn disagrees with Newt because Newt says that the local party has the right to choose their own candidate. Oh NO YOU DIDN’T! Glenn Beck says you’re WRONG on that, Newt, you vote for the person you agree with MOST! So in Glenn Beck’s world, the local party should vote for who, exactly? The candidate HE SUPPORTS. After all, how can you sleep “night after NIGHT” knowing you voted for the “ACORN-supported candidate”?

Well, before I forget, I want to go ON THE PUBLIC RECORD as supporting Glenn Beck in his effort to keep doing what he did last night, over and over, in 2010, in 2012, as long as he still can. PLEASE keep trying to pull the GOP to the brink of the lunatic fringe where you are and then push them over! PLEASE!

9/12 Project Website doesn't know Doug Hoffman's name

I couldn’t find much of anything about Doug Hoffman on the 9/12 website except a link to a story where he gets Fred Thompson’s endorsement. Only the link to the story and the story itself, from October 28, says Fred is endorsing Doug THOMPSON. This was so unbelievable I had to take a couple of screenshots for you. Talk about having some powerful NAME RECOGNITION, eh, Glenn? LOL.

So who is Doug Hoffman/Thompson? Turned down by the GOP Congressional Committee. Endorsed by lunatics. He’s an accountant from Saranac Lake, not even in the 23rd District. He claims to have been fighting for the heart and soul of the GOP which is waaaay too liberal. He says he’s going to “take America back” by “revolution”, which is just white nationalist code words. He doesn’t know anything about local issues in the 23rd District, but he says that “I think that this district is so wide and vast that ALL THREE CANDIDATES aren’t familiar with local issues in each different sector”. Really? So what are were voters supposed to do? Just TRUST you because you say you’re honest? You say you know about taxes, spending, and liberals so people should just vote for you because of that and because a pack of GOP has-beens says your OK?

WTF? Doug WHO?

Here’s the deal. I am sympathetic to the idea of 3rd party candidates, in fact I was a Nader supporter and even put a Ron Paul sign in my yard last fall along with the others. I even agree with Beck’s thesis that major party candidates should not have a lock on the process. There is no reason why people shouldn’t be able to file and run for any office and I favor making that easier rather than harder. The more the merrier.

But I would never support any candidate who has no specific policy positions, local or otherwise, except that he can spew the specific political/religious dogma such as “Obama-lite”, “tax and spend”, “RINO”, “take our country back”, “revolution”, and other meaningless gibberish. Doug Hoffman was the 9/12 Project candidate, in fact he was even listed on http://912candidates.org/gold-list/, the “unofficial” 9/12 website that has since taken his name down because even they realized that being associated with Glenn Beck was killing Hoffman’s chances. (Or maybe they took it down because they were trying to avoid the humiliation of backing a candidate who got his ass handed to him last night.) Doug Hoffman never looks very bright in any of the video clips I’ve seen, and the audio clip of him on the Glenn Beck radio show sucking up to Glenn and even calling him his “mentor” makes him sound like a driveling stooge.

Listen:

So congratulations, Glenn, and to the 9/12 Project, and to all the “take our country back” race-baiting “Patriots” from all over America who poured money and support into a non-resident candidate to defeat the “liberal” Republican. Glenn, you can put Dede Scozzafava’s scalp on your wall.

And you can also chalk up another GREAT BIG FAIL, Glenn, because what you’ve accomplished is to further divide the conservatives along the faultline of crazy. I think it’s wonderful, heckuva job, Glennie.

Monday the White House press team did something that has been a long time coming. They called a spade a spade. They repeated the obvious, a fact known by most reasonable people in the world, the fact that Fox proves and re-proves on a 24/7 continual basis, the fact that Fox is not a reliable news source because it is functionally a part of the GOP.

Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, was interviewed by Howie Kurtz of CNN’s Reliable Sources program. Here’s what she said, in part:

The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party. And it is not ideological… what I think is fair to say about Fox, and the way we view it, is that it is more of a wing of the Republican Party.

Let’s be realistic, here, Howie, they are widely viewed as a part of the Republican Party: take their talking points and put them on the air, take their opposition research and put it on the air. And that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news organization like CNN is.

… What is true, though is that you do not have to be a passive bystander when your opponents are seeking not to have a debate on the issues but simply to tear down the President and his presidency. And that’s what we’re not going to do: we will push back.

Here is the full interview conducted by Howie Kurtz of CNN’s Reliable Sources:

Oddly, Fox News doesn’t even appear to dispute the claim at all. The segment above includes this statement from Michael Clemente, Senior VP of Fox News:

An increasing number of viewers are relying on FOX News for both news and opinion. And the average news consumer can certainly distinguish between the A-section of the newspaper and the editorial page, which is what our programming represents. So, with all due respect to anyone who might still be confused about the difference between news reporting and vibrant opinion, my suggestion would be to talk about the stories and the facts, rather than attack the messenger…which over time, has never worked.

Clemente doesn’t dispute the right wing bias of Fox; he simply claims that they are both a news and opinion network. In reality, news is reported with a right wing filter, and what they present as news is a carefully selected group of stories interlaced with blatant, prejudiced opinion.

The mistake that the lefties make regarding Fox is trying to debate the facts. Facts are facts, and they are not debatable, they just “are”. It is well-documented that Fox is biased and inaccurate. Just Google “Fox News Bias” and you’ll get 2.5 million hits. So if Michael Clemente isn’t going to argue the point, how does Glenn Beck, part of what Clemente would call the “opinion” part of Fox, react to Anita Dunn’s comments?

Glenn Beck goes ABSOLUTELY WILD, and in the video below you’ll see him attempt to mock Anita Dunn. He pulls out a map of New York and purports to show where the “enemy is”. Glenn thinks that the White House believes that Fox News equals all the real national security issues facing the nation. Watch:

I especially appreciated the agitated music he has playing under the first part of the narrative before he tries to go sarcastic. His attempt at humor is based on a false equivalence, namely that a fair statement about Fox News right wing bias is a declaration of war by the White House, which puts Fox in the same category as the Taliban, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on. Don’t puff yourself up, Glenn, you’re just a pimple on the bum of the entertainment/news world enjoying his 15 minutes. Nobody is trying to curtail your right to free speech, even though you wail like a child in a grocery store checkout line that they are.

Glenn promises to run a whole series on this topic, and I will follow it. He has already conflated a straight-talk slapdown of his phony “news” network into an “issue” of Constitutional, epic magnitude. What a moron.

The whole world is laughing at the news-clown. See the clown laugh. See him cry. See him jump and see him fly. I’m sorry you didn’t win the Nobel, Glenn, maybe you can win an Emmy for best supporting actor in a tragicomedy. Don’t forget the Vapo-Rub.

Will the slings and arrows never stop for the intrepid Mr. Beck? Oh, the misfortune, oh, the pain! Expect a severe weeping episode coming to a Glenn Beck TV show SOON!

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham seems like an unlikely source for an “attack” on Glenn Beck. But, as some have reported (Keith Olbermann), Graham took a mild swat in Beck’s general direction today at the First Draft of History conference (GOP self-congratulatory love-fest) , claiming that Beck is not a Republican (false) and that he’s a cynic (true) in a nation of believers (unlikely after the collapse the economy, but Graham pulls out the old “Aw shucks, we’re all Americans” gambit.) Watch the video:

Glenn Beck absolutely is a Republican, he is NOT a Libertarian as he claims. Graham can disagree all he wants but the videotape of Beck spewing the GOP line night after night is absolute proof that Beck is a phony GOP populist, and a racist whack job to boot. Did you see the clip from today where Beck holds up a can of Copenhagen tobacco to somehow accuse the Obama Administration of causing cancer because they’re trying to bring the International Olympics to Chicago? Pure-D whack if ever I saw it.

In other Glenn Beck news today, Glenn Beck called Bill Maher “low brow” for telling Joy Behar that he expected to see Beck crack up on air and be wearing womens’ clothing or playing with his own feces. I dunno, seems possible to me. If he ever stops playing with the bat-guano.

As a side note, Senator Graham also called the Teabaggers “crazy” and slammed Rush Limbaugh for the hold he has over the GOP. Graham said, “Let’s knock this crap off and talk about the real differences we have.” I wonder if he was referring to the crap that Maher predicts that Glenn Beck will be playing with?

UPDATE: On Beck’s October 2nd program, he and Stu (I don’t know who “Stu” is, but I think it’s short for “Stooge”) discuss the video above. In Glenn’s Universe, two things pop out about this. First, the GOP is down in the 20% range because of “phony” GOPERs like Lindsey Graham. Second, according to Stu, Glenn couldn’t be a cynic because he has cried at least twice in the last year.

Now I know you probably think I’m making this up. I wish I could, then I could write comedy for cable, but in this case trash is imitating art. They said it.

My thoughts. To the first point, Glenn’s assertion that the GOP is turning into the pup tent party because of people like Graham, it’s all I can do just to keep myself from keeling over with laughter. When it’s convenient for Glenn’s argument, the GOP is actually the majority party. Now that they are trying to get his crap off of their shoes, they are marginalized because they are not following his instructions!
That is pure hilarity, all by itself. To the second point, well, it’s become apparent thanks to the video dug up and posted at http://gawker.com/ that the Beck crying stuff is chemically induced, and I don’t mean hallucinogenics. It’s just the application of Vick’s Vapo-Rub. They out to rename it in Glenn’s honor… Vick’s Vapid-Rub. Glenn Beck, this comment is for you… you can run but you can’t hide, buddy. The truth is catching up to you.