Glenn Beck's Dropped Sponsors

More than 300 companies have stopped advertising on Glenn Beck's show, but I don't think that will push him out. Fox News would likely keep Beck even if he's losing money for the network. He's sort of the mascot. The only way his show would be canceled is if people stopped watching. From what I hear, he has a pretty good audience, including plenty on the left who watch because they love to hate him. This poster was designed by Chris Piascik:

Fox News Types Oppose Democracy for Muslims

Fox News types oppose democracy for Egyptians -- and all Muslims -- because it doesn't fit into their ideological views and their twisted interpretation of the Bible. As bigots, they only see Muslims as terrorists. Islam in Glenn Beck's eyes is not a valid religion. Unfortunately, Beck has a TV show and has been allowed to spread his hatred. Beck is the evil that he rails against.
For years, it seems the only card Hosni Mubarak has held with the U.S. is that he has maintained the status quo with Israel. Fox News types don't believe that Muslims can have a democracy and be at peace with Israel. That's why some conservatives couldn't let go of Mubarak. They haven't opened their eyes to try and understand that the youth of Egypt doesn't seem interested in radical politics. Early on, I was skeptical about the Egyptian revolution. That's because I didn't know a thing about Egypt, its politics or what they wanted. But after learning and watching, I see people who want what everybody in the world wants. What happened in Egypt is truly amazing and if the people are supported, only good things can come of it.

Rachel Maddow takes a look at how the right now opposes democracy:

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Beck is Not America's Saviour

I'm laughing at all this Glenn Beck coverage.
The guy is mentally unstable and the media can't stop talking about him. No one can stop talking about him. He's had a long history of drug use as well as a history of depression. His mother drowned and while it's not certain she committed suicide, Beck says it was. Without therapy, that kind of history can affect someone's mental health.

Beck shows manic depressive tendencies. He says god talks to him, but not in the normal way that people express a relationship with god, but in a more ego-maniacal way. He seems to think of himself as a prophet of sorts.
The media is SHOCKED that the tea party is religious. Hello.
The tea party is Bush's value voters all dressed up in a new outfit.
Beck's a lost soul trying to find his way and he's attracted a bunch of other lost souls, people who are looking to someone to provide them with moral guidance.

Beck is a talk show host. He's an entertainer. Even Beck used to remind everyone of this. But he appears to have moved deeper into his delusion. It now appears he views himself as more than an entertainer, thanks to the constant media attention, which has helped grow his ranks.

Beck appears to believe he's been appointed by god to save the country. Many of his followers believe that too.

I don't think many of the politicians buy it -- except perhaps Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, who seem to believe they're part of a grand plan as well.

Conservative politicians are mostly along for the ride, hoping to slurp up Beck's leftovers.
I keep thinking that soon Beck is going to tell us it's all a joke, a social experiment in manipulation. He did, after all, launch a "news" site following his revival.
People should step back. Stop watching his program for a while. Stop listening to him.
Then after a period of time, go back and listen and you'll hear a crazy man. That's what I hear. I see man who has harnessed his crazy in the same way that Jim Jones did. It's sort of sad.
People have to stop glomming on to people as their saviours and start thinking for themselves.

Perhaps this country is morally bankrupt but it's not bankrupt of freedom.

We're immoral when we persecute people for their religious beliefs, when we enjoy the fruits of cheap immigrant labor and then slam the people who do the work, when we scapegoat "the other," when we disrespect the office of the President, when we discriminate against people because they're gay or black or Asian or whatever, when we don't take care of the vulnerable among us, when we demonize liberals and conservatives, when we think our nation is better than every other nation, when our consumption reaches a level that's destroying the planet, when we take our environment for granted, when we think more of everything is better, when we buy houses that we can't afford, when we choose ignorance...

Here is a bit on how Beck portrayed his mother:

Over the course of many retellings, the tragedy of Mary Beck would become the cornerstone event in her son's personal narrative of redemption, and that tale of rebirth would became the cornerstone of his career. But the story Glenn Beck often tells about his mother is not quite the one recorded by the Tacoma paper. As Beck would later relate to millions of his listeners, his mother's drowning was no boating accident. It was a suicide, he claimed, explained in a short note written on that fateful dawn and left on the mantel. And he said it happened in 1977, when he was 13, not 1979, when he was 15 (even though newspaper obits and government records confirm that a 41-year-old woman named Mary Beck died in Puyallup in 1979.) In fact, Beck's first wife had never heard of Mary Beck's alleged suicide until years after they married, when she heard her husband discussing it live on the radio. Salon

Beck's followers clearly need more information. Instead of mocking them, perhaps there is a way to inform them:

Glenn Beck's Goldline Now Under Investigation

Beck Apologizes for Mocking Malia Obama

I don't listen to Glenn Beck. I try not to. But I have on occasion, mostly clips.
To a person who has fresh ears and isn't indoctrinated into his ways, he sounds like a person on the verge of a mental breakdown. I don't find him entertaining, funny, or in any way, informative.
Listening to him only boosts his salary.
He's completely irrational and his rants aren't based in fact. He's almost whimsical, like a cartoon character.
He appears to have the qualities of a cult leader. He's delusional, narcissistic, coercive, manipulative. I imagine many people find him charismatic. He's mentally unstable and yet he's able to lead masses of people, unwittingly, into his delusion.
I always feel sorry for his children. Practicing bigotry and hate is another form of child abuse.
This is his apology for what's in the absurd video below:

In discussing how President Obama uses children to shield himself from criticism, I broke my own rule about leaving kids out of political debates. The children of public figures should be left on the sidelines. It was a stupid mistake and I apologize--and as a dad I should have known better.

Weiner Targets Goldline's Sales and Business Practices

It's about time someone took a look at Goldline International Inc. Beck and others of his kind sell gold as the antidote to the "Obama economy." Goldline uses telemarketers to prey on people's fears:

Talk show host Glenn Beck and Goldline International, a California-based gold retailer, have colluded to use fear mongering tactics to bilk investors, according to a stinging report issued Tuesday by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.).

The report alleges that Goldline grossly overcharges for the gold coins that constitute the bulk of its business, uses misleading sales techniques and takes advantage of fears about President Barack Obama’s stewardship of the economy – which are stoked by its paid stable of paid conservative endorsers including Beck, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham and Fred Thompson – “to cheat consumers.”

Goldline is the exclusive gold sponsor of Beck’s radio show. Read more at Politico

Counter Protesters Beat up White Supremacists in Los Angeles

When I first heard that a white supremacist group was going to hold a rally in Los Angeles, it didn't seem any good could come of it. Sure enough, counter protesters showed up and were overcome with rage. Counter protesters beat one of the white supremacists and hurled rocks and bottles at others.

Is this a good thing? I think not. When it's hate vs hate, both sides lose.

If everyone just ignored the white supremacists--there were only 40 of them--or held a peaceful demonstration, instead of pushing back and legitimizing them, no one would've ever known the white supremacists were there.

How could any of the counter protesters, who started off with good intentions, possibly feel good about the outcome? It got so bad that the police ended up escorting the white supremacists to their cars.

It's the same with Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the rest of that pack. They stir up controversy by using hate rhetoric, but if no one bothered to push back, they wouldn't be popular.

Beck and Limbaugh are more popular with the people who love to hate them. They know that too, which is why they're always antagonizing. I got so bored of Beck and Limbaugh I finally decided just to stop posting about them. I've also lessened my postings on Sarah Palin as well. What's the point? I don't want to be another person out there adding to the madness. Now, if I could just let go of the tea party.

One man, who sported Nazi tattoos, was severely beaten near City Hall while another man, who carried a confusing sign about religion with a scribbled swastika, was pummeled by a mob of people on Spring Street between 1st and 2nd.

The Los Angeles Police Department went on tactical alert during the event and took responsibility for escorting the white supremacists to and from the demonstration site. Earlier in the week the group had obtained a permit for the demonstration.
At the end of the rally, after 2:30 p.m., police escorted the white supremacists to the criminal courts building parking lot to get in their vehicles. However, one car failed to start. A crowd of counter-demonstrators ran to the lot and began hurling rocks and bottles into the parking lot's southwest corner, hitting cars and shattering glass. As some of the white supremacists held shields emblazoned with swastikas over their heads to protect them from the projectiles, others attempted to jump-start the car. More at the LA times

Obama's NOT Banning Fishing ESPN Admits Error

Obama enjoying a day of fishing in Montana
March 11:

Here's another update to this story from the Obama administration--there WILL BE NO BAN on FISHING:

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco told a House panel yesterday that her agency had no plans to halt fishing. And National Marine Fisheries Service chief Eric Schwaab released a statement last night saying NOAA "is committed to adopting policies that will ensure that current and future generations have the opportunity to enjoy the great tradition of recreational fishing." NYT

If that's not clear enough:

"Both commercial and recreational fishing are vitally important to this nation," Lubchenco said. "We are not proposing any blanket ban on recreational fishing. I would strongly oppose that, and it is not in the works."

Contrary to popular rumor, Obama is not banning fishing. The rumor was started by an ESPN blogger:

The Obama administration has ended public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation's oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

ESPN's editor has since said the blog was in error:

Firestorms get started in a variety of ways, especially on politicized issues.

ESPNOutdoors.com inadvertently contributed to a flare-up Tuesday when we posted the latest article in a series of stories on President Barack Obama's newly created Ocean Policy Task Force, a column written by Robert Montgomery, a conservation writer for BASS since 1985. Regrettably, we made several errors in the editing and presentation of this installment. Though our series has included numerous news stories on the topic, this was not one of them -- it was an opinion piece, and should have been clearly labeled as commentary.

And while our series overall has examined several sides of the topic, this particular column was not properly balanced and failed to represent contrary points of view. We have reached out to people on every side of the issue and reported their points of view -- if they chose to respond -- throughout the series, but failed to do so in this specific column.

People WANT to believe Obama's banning fishing so they can be outraged and boy are they outraged. Just search "obama bans fishing." Some folks, such as Glenn Beck, who apparently rambled about this today, don't have anything else better to do. Beck is such an arse. Read more about the White House Ocean Policy Task Force here. In a 2008 interview with Sport Fishing magazine, this was Obama's stance:

Obama: My administration would place the emphasis in fishery management where it belongs: in ensuring the long-term health and sustainability of stocks through the use of effective and appropriate conservation measures. Such an approach would not provide a preference for one management tool, such as a marine reserve, over another. Given sufficient management controls and data, a fishery can meet conservation objectives through a variety of catch controls and habitat-protection measures, including gear restrictions, bag limits or closures. In some cases, additional conservation measures may need to be taken to ensure a positive recreational marine-fishing experience for future generations of Americans. Recreational fishermen have not shirked from embracing such measures when needed to achieve long-term stock sustainability, as long as measures are matched to the problem. While marine reserves may be an effective means of achieving important goals, their use and design must be based on an assessment of impacts and balanced by a strong respect for the ability of recreational anglers to practice their sport. In my view, we need to be open to the use of a variety of innovative conservation tools and be prepared to use them if the science justifies their establishment, and if it has been determined that less-restrictive options will not achieve critical goals like rebuilding fish stocks. The decision to establish marine reserves should be made as a result of a transparent, science-based process and be the least intrusive possible to get the job done. Such a process should include outreach to the sport-fishing community to explain both the scientific basis for the action and the expected conservation benefits to future fishing generations if it is to gain the community's active support. Read the whole interview here.

Obama's plan to restore the Great Lakes, so that they are fishable:

Turbo Tax Tweets It's Pulled Ads From Glenn Beck Show

I'm sure it wasn't too big a deal, considering that Beck show watchers probably don't pay taxes. That would be tyranny!

Thanks everyone for your feedback, & for reminding us of what we value. We’ve pulled advertising from the Glenn Beck show.

Weatherman's Snowpocalypse Freakout

The Glenn Beck of weathermen:

Glenn Beck Shuns O'Keefe

Does Glenn Beck believe his words have no consequences? He's been calling for a revolution. Hello. He's helping all sorts of people rationalize their bad behavior. Beck leaves James O'Keefe cold and lonely:

But O'Keefe, now accused with three others of posing as telephone repairmen in the New Orleans office of Democratic Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, won't find any comfort from Beck's corner. O'Keefe and friends face federal charges for the incursion in the senator's office.

"If they were doing that, it's Watergate,'' Beck said on the radio today. "That's insanely stupid, and illegal - if it's true.

"You don't do anything illegal. That's Watergate territory,'' Beck suggested. "You just don't do that. Besides that, I don't think you even go dressed up. It's a senator, for the love of Pete, it's a senator.'' Swamp

Conservative Hero Charged With Bugging Plot of Democrat's Office

Hailed as a hero by Glenn Beck and conservatives around the nation for the now infamous videotape of an ACORN office assisting a prostitute and pimp, James O'Keefe was charged in a plot to bug Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's office. O'Keefe, who describes himself in his Twitter bio as a investigative journalist tweets: "I am a journalist. The truth shall set me free."

The conservative young filmmaker whose undercover sting damaged a liberal activist group last year faces federal criminal charges in an alleged plot to bug the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

Federal investigators charged that James O'Keefe was among four men who created a ruse to enter the lawmaker's downtown office, saying they needed to repair her telephones. O'Keefe used his cellphone to take pictures of two men involved in the Jan. 25 plot, according to court records unsealed Tuesday.

Those men, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan, are accused in an FBI agent's sworn affidavit of impersonating telephone company workers, while O'Keefe and another man, Stan Dai, are accused of aiding the plot.

All four were taken to a suburban New Orleans jail and charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony. If convicted, each man faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. More at WaPo

Even Beck is On to Palin

This made me cringe. You just know that Beck is calling her out--she can't think of a single founding father. I think Beck is mad because Sarah Palin said she's going to continue being a republican because of planks or something like that. LOL.

New Documentary Waiting for Armageddon Debuts in NYC

Read more about "Waiting for Armageddon" here.

Waiting for Armageddon debuts in NYC this week.
This kind of stuff makes me crazy because these people have dragged ALL OF US into their delusion.
But there is no reasoning with extremists. That's all these people are, another form of extremist.
They are exactly what they fight against.
Glenn Beck promotes end times and many think Obama is some sort of sign.
Here's a synopsis of the movie produced by Q-Ball Productions Inc. and Eureka Film Productions LLC:

America's 50-million strong Evangelical community is convinced that the world's future is foretold in Biblical prophecy - from the Rapture to the Battle of Armageddon. This astonishing documentary explores their world - in their homes, at conferences, and on a wide-ranging tour of Israel. By interweaving Christian, Zionist, Jewish and critical perspectives along with telling archival materials, the filmmakers probe the politically powerful - and potentially explosive - alliance between Evangelical Christians and Israel...an alliance that may set the stage for what one prominent Evangelical leader calls "World War III."

White Supremacists Signing Up for the Tea Party

I'm reposting this video. The tea party isn't just a band of people worried about high taxes. We know that's not true based on their bigoted rhetoric and their signs about socialism. We know that's not true based on the fact that Bush drove up the national debt and no one formed tea parties or even talked about it over tea. About halfway through, this Al Jazeera video connects the dots from the tea party to Glenn Beck to extremists.

White Supremacists Engaged in the Tea Party - Video

Al Jazeera has a story about the new Nazis. This video is HIGHLY disturbing. These people voice the same "concerns" as Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann and the tea party but obviously they are more extreme in their tactics. White supremacist groups are targeting the U.S. government and immigration. To me the tea party has always been a soft core white supremacist group.

This video, alas, connects the tea party and Glenn Beck to the white supremacists. White supremacists are "pushing the envelope" in movements like the tea party. You'll notice the white supremacists use the same slogans as the tea party, such as "take it back."

How long until the tea party takes up white supremacist tactics?

Giving Up the Word Wingnut

In this piece at The Nation, Melissa Harris-Lacewell makes a case for giving up the word wingnut, a word that I frequently use to describe the wrongheaded rightwing and some on the left--Ed Shultz comes to mind--but mostly on the right. It's a descriptor that is understood by most. But what else to call Glenn Beck? He isn't just wrong, he's nuts! I sincerely believe that Beck is mentally unstable. Michele Bachman as well. They seem to suffer a paranoia. But Lacewell says we shouldn't be describing people as nuts.

She starts off by recalling how different groups of people throughout history have been called crazy and then says we shouldn't label people:

On nearly all matters of policy and politics I disagree with the birthers, the deathers, the tea baggers, most GOP office holders, a significant number of Southern Democrats, and more than a few members of my own academic department. While I judge them to be stunningly wrong-thinking, I am hesitant about labeling my adversaries "crazy."
Red-faced screaming at town halls, audacious lies about President Obama's citizenship, and incomprehensible obstruction tactics by legislators might be symptomatic of mental instability, and they are clearly indicative of deep human suffering, but the "crazy" label does more to obscure our understanding of our differences than to illuminate them.
Metzl's book is a reminder that diagnosing individuals encourages blindness to the social structures in which these individuals operate. Slavery was the madness, not the escaping slave. Racial inequality is the illness, not the Civil Rights Movement.
The Nation

She concludes:

We learn more and can more effectively influence social change when we consider the situation of our conservative opponents. Their "craziness" might seem more reasonable when we consider the tactics of fear-mongering and race-baiting that have long characterized American politics.

Hmmmm. I'm going to have to think about this.
Here's one for you, the birthers are mad at Glenn Beck:

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Tea Party Enemies: Education, Facts and Knowledge

This is Dale Robertson, who runs teaparty.org and can't spell. On the site, he calls himself tea party founder, president.

"You really think that your superior credentials grants you social wisdom and intelligfence. It doesn't."

That is a sentence from the first comment on David Brooks' column on the rise of the tea party and how the uninformed are rebelling against the educated. What a sad, sad, sad commentary.

This is what's most frightening about the tea party--education or aspiring to be be smart or any kind of critical thinking is not considered a positive attribute. It's a negative. The tea party revels in dismissing "elites" (educated), essentially giving themselves a pass for being mediocre to low life. Being educated and being informed = elite in wingnut eyes. Search #tcot on Twitter and you will find an amazing number of misinformed people spreading fourth-hand information that can easily be proven as BS. But that doesn't matter to them. For them, it's all about a set of ideological beliefs. They're also easily misled and ready to take in garbage, which is cult-like. These people think they have been unfairly kept down by the "elite." The "elite" are merely a scapegoat for their own lack of knowledge.

Terrorists don't frighten me one bit. But tea party wingnuts are scary because they spread hate, fear and ignorance. That's what brings down a nation. I'm not talking about the tea party faction who rails against taxes, which is a valid contingent of people who are worried about taxes and U.S. debt. I understand that criticism completely. They are a sliver of the tea party, which is a sliver of America itself.

I'm talking about the ignorant, crass, bigoted, wingnutty, Glenn Beck-Michele Bachmann-led tea party. There would not be a tea party if a white democrat was president. If a white man ran against John McCain, we probably would've never heard of Sarah Palin, who also inspired the tea party movement.

For the tea party, Obama is an assault to "white culture." The election of Obama was the last straw for these people. They fear being the minority. They fear being less powerful. They abuse the Constitution for their cause. They abuse Christianity for their cause. These people are all about ignorance and fear and the election of Obama spurred them to action.

Education reform should be at the top of our agenda because a whole new generation of kids are being taught not to aspire to facts, truth, knowledge and critical thinking. But rather to BELIEVE in things. I'm concerned about these tea party children who often are the victims of their parents' bigotry, another form of child abuse. One truth is that bigotry is immoral.

Book TV recently captured wingnuts at a Sarah Palin book signing. At first, the interviewees sound normal but when they continue on, about halfway through, they reveal their bigotry, which I believe is the heart of the tea party. Socialism is code. They would never admit to bigotry because they don't recognize it as bigotry. They're unaware because it is who they are. It's how they were brought up.

This video illustrates it's the ideology, what Sarah Palin represents that's most important. Wingnuts aren't informed on policy or world issues:

Colbert Mocks Conservatives Gold Motivations

Wingnuts don't realize they're being exploited for profit. Poor wingnuts.

NYT Delves into Glenn Beck's Gold Motives

Finally. The media is coming around to the discovery that there is a story here:

Joel Cheatwood, the senior vice president of development for Fox News, said the network’s legal department had recently sent a letter to Mr. Beck’s representatives “seeking clarification” about his work for Goldline.

“They sent back word that he is not a paid spokesman,” Mr. Cheatwood said, adding that it would be “problematic without question” if Mr. Beck did have a position as a paid spokesman for a product.

Fox News released a statement outlining its official policy about such issues: “Fox News prohibits any on-air talent from endorsing products or serving as a product spokesperson.”

Fox News stressed that it was not aware that Mr. Beck was listed on the Internet as a paid spokesman. But he definitely was, until very recently. On cached editions of the Goldline Web site over the last week to 10 days, a photograph of Mr. Beck was accompanied by an asterisk which led to a line at the bottom of the site that read: “paid spokesman.” NYT