Thoughts On Beckapalooza

As Glenn Beck helpfully reminds everyone today that the civil rights movement was really all about white people and what they contributed to help black folk ride buses (the same buses that 47 years later we should shut down for being tax-consuming parasites apparently) and drink from water fountains in parks (which 47 years later should also be shut down for being tax-consuming parasites) I can't help but think that maybe there's something that Glennsanity is overlooking just a bit.

Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald puts it brilliantly.

We're in an odd moment. Having opposed the freedom movement of the 20th century, some social conservatives seek, now that that movement stands vindicated and venerated, to arrogate unto themselves its language and heroes, to remake it in their image.

Thus, you get claims that "racism" is now what Shirley Sherrod said in a speech to the NAACP. And people calling Sarah Palin the new face of feminism. And conservatives touting the likelihood that King voted Republican — as if the party in 1957 bore any resemblance to the party now.

But even by those standards, Glenn Beck's effrontery is monumental. Even by those standards, he goes too far. Beck was part of the "we" who founded the civil rights movement!? "No." Here's who "we" is.

"We" is Emmett Till, tied to a cotton gin fan in the murky waters of the Tallahatchie River. "We" is Rosa Parks telling the bus driver no. "We" is Diane Nash on a sleepless night waiting for missing Freedom Riders to check in. "We" is Charles Sherrod, husband of Shirley, gingerly testing desegregation compliance in an Albany, Ga., bus station. "We" is a sharecropper making his X on a form held by a white college student from the North. "We" is celebrities like Harry Belafonte, Marlon Brando and Pernell Roberts of "Bonanza," lending their names, their wealth and their labor to the cause of freedom.

"We" is Medgar Evers, Michael Schwerner, Jimmie Lee Jackson, James Reeb, Viola Liuzzo, Cynthia Wesley, Andrew Goodman, Denise McNair, James Chaney, Addie Mae Collins and Carole Robertson, shot, beaten and blown to death for that cause.

"We" is Lyndon Johnson, building a legislative coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats to defeat intransigent Southern Democratic conservatives and enshrine that cause into law.
And "we" is Martin Luther King, giving voice and moral clarity to the cause — and paying for it with his life.

The we to which Glenn Beck belongs is the we that said no, the we that cried "socialism!" "communism!" "tyranny!" whenever black people and their allies cried, freedom.

I'll boil it down to "screw you, Glenn Beck."   The man is trying to rewrite history to benefit himself.  He should be ashamed, but I don't think he's capable of it.  Up until now I thought Beck was a dangerously egomaniacal demagogue, but now the guy is borderline evil.

He opposes everything Dr. King stood for and died for, most of all social justice.

What kind of man would do something like this to the African-American community and sill be able to sleep at night, untroubled by the ghosts of people who died so he could exploit them?

Jesus really would have wept.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Steve Benen on Glenn Beck's egomania:

I'm trying to imagine what the response would be among conservatives if, say, Barack Obama's campaign in 2008 had tried to do something similar. Imagine if the campaign had organized an event at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of the "I Have A Dream" speech, and then released a video comparing the Obama-led effort to the Founding Fathers, the Moon landing, the civil rights movement, and the invention of airplanes.

Imagine if that same Obama campaign video told viewers, "It's time to restore America. Restore the world. It's time to believe again."

The right would consider this egomania on an unhealthy level, and they'd be right.

And yet, here we are, with Beck, Palin, and 300,000 zealots showing up in D.C. on Saturday.

Umm, isn't that exactly what they did during the campaign and the transition with the whole "His President-Elect thing is egomania!!!!"

Glenn Beck Is Amazingly Stupid, But You Knew That

So, Glenn Beck's latest tirade goes like this:

1. Charles Darwin came up with evolution.
2. Evolution was used to justify eugenics by Mengele and the Nazis.
3. The Nazis were the most evil, racist people ever of all time.
4. Charles Darwin was therefore responsible for racism.
5. Science is evil.
6. Liberals worship science.
7. Liberals are evil racists.

No really, that's his theory.  Anyone can play.  Let me try!

1. Charles Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber in 1843.
2. Vulcanized rubber went into tires, gaskets, and all kinds of machines and devices including weapons.
3. Weapons and vehicles were increasingly used in war and warfare over the last 160 years.
4. Nazis used vehicles and tires and gaskets in war.
5. The Nazis were the most evil, racist people ever of all time.
6. Charles Goodyear was therefore responsible for the last 160 years of war.
7. Science is evil.
8. Liberals worship science
9. Liberals are evil, warlike killers.

Don't get me started on Alfred Nobel, either...

Seriously, can we just get Glenn a nice padded cell?

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

As it stands right now, President Obama still opposes gay marriage...

...and Glenn Beck does not.

Appearing on The O'Reilly Factor Thursday, Fox News' Glenn Beck took time out of his daily habit of railing against progressives to calmly explain that the country wasn't going to be destroyed by giving marriage rights to gays and lesbians.

Beck told Fox News host Bill O'Reilly why he didn't devote airtime to the issue. "Honestly I think we have bigger fish to fry," said Beck. "You can argue about abortion or gay marriage or whatever all you want. The country is burning down."

"But isn't that one of the reasons, because we are getting away from the traditional way we used to live into this progressive [agenda]?" prompted O'Reilly.

"Your country is burning down," repeated Beck. "I don't think marriage, that the government actually has anything to do with what is a religious right."

"Do you believe that gay marriage is a threat to the country in any way?" asked O'Reilly.
"No, I don't," said Beck. "Will the gays come and get us?"

"I believe what Thomas Jefferson said," Beck continued. "If it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket, what difference is it to me?"

I may have to take up drinking on a more professional basis after this.  Glenn Beck, the voice of effing reason on gay marriage.  This is one of those times folks where criticism of Obama is entirely and completely justified.

No Shame, No Sense Of Irony

BooMan points out today that 47 years after Dr. King gave his famous "I Have A Dream" speech in 1963 of non-violent cooperation and racial harmony, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin have kidnapped the day to spout their crap at an NRA rally on August 28 at the Lincoln Memorial.

The National Rifle Association, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are using the anniversary and site of Dr. Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington for what they are calling a "Restoring Honor Rally."

Calling the date of this rally "divine providence," Beck, the talk show host, has partnered with the NRA and Palin to help him generate interest in the August 28 event. The NRA placed a four-page advertisement for the event outside its monthly magazine, First Freedom. The ad is at www.bradycampaign.org/xshare/bcam/gunlobby/nra/NRA-1st-Freedom-Beck-Palin.pdf.

In a blog just posted, Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke today wrote:

"this is the same Glenn Beck, a life-member of the NRA, who has insulted the Anti-Defamation League; challenged Keith Ellison, a Muslim who had just been elected to Congress to ‘prove to me you are not working with our enemies;' repeatedly called President Obama ‘a racist' and accused him of having ‘ a deep-seated hatred for white people.' 

Glenn Beck is welcome to hold his little "We hate President Hussein" rally wherever he wants because it's Constitutional right to do so, but invoking the name of Dr. King  to justify his hateful rhetoric is an insult not only to people of color but every American and every human being who believes in equality.

But of course, he has an agenda to sell.

Not Speaking Inglis

While Republican voters in primary runoffs in South Carolina yesterday rewarded Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, they also massively punished GOP Rep. Bob Inglis for not being ideologically pure enough.  Inglis was crushed by Tea Partier Trey Gowdy.  Steve Benen:

It wasn't close -- despite having represented the area for 12 years, Inglis lost by a ridiculous 42-point margin, 71% to 29%.


Given the one-sided nature of the results, it's tempting to think Inglis must have been caught up in some devastating scandal, since incumbents in good standing just don't get humiliated like this often. But Inglis' only crime was taking on a moderate, pragmatic tone, which led Republicans to revolt.

I emphasize "tone" because Inglis had a very conservative voting record, and scored well among the far-right organizations that grade lawmakers on their positions.

But Inglis expressed a willingness to work with Democrats on energy policy; he urged his constituents not to take Glenn Beck too seriously; he thought Joe Wilson was wrong to heckle the president during a national address; and he said his main focus as a lawmaker was to find "solutions" to problems. Last year, Inglis said the Republican Party has a chance to "lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness" and "to understand we are all in need of some grace."

And as a result, Republicans turned on Inglis and he lost by 42 points. He was a conservative Republican in a conservative Republican district, but the GOP base decided he simply wasn't right-wing enough for their voracious appetites.

Republicans don't like opposing viewpoints, do they?  They absolutely ended Inglis's political career because he dared to work with the hated, enemy, evil Democrats.  He dared to criticize Glenn Beck.  Despite his solidly conservative voting record, he was politically flogged for his lack of "purity".  He didn't just lose narrowly, he was completely annihilated.

That's what Republicans do to their own who don't toe the party line.  Bob Inglis, the latest victim of the Hoffman Effect.  There's no room for conservatives, much less moderates.

Working The Political Scene

The uncontrolled anger being stoked by the "responsible" forces on the right continue to spiral out of control.  If you thought the death threats against lawmakers subsided with the passage of heath care reform, you're sadly mistaken.

I voted for you,” the caller said in a voice mail to Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler’s district office. “If you vote for that stimulus package, I’m gonna kill you. Simple as that.”

The FBI says the caller was a 70-year-old resident of Shuler’s North Carolina district with a history of mental illness and a cache of guns. In the weeks before calling Shuler’s office, the FBI says, the caller beat and choked his wife. She told the FBI that she’d tried to clear her home of guns — and that she went to bed at night with a can of mace tucked under her pillow.

When agents showed up at the man’s door, they asked him why he’d threatened to kill Shuler.

“I was trying to work the political scene,” he said. 

After all, such hateful rhetoric flooding the airwaves is the heart of the political scene in 2010, folks.  It's part and parcel of the daily bread of anger, violence, and hatred that's force fed to millions, hour after hour after hour.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) were threatened with assassination. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas) were threatened with bodily harm. Someone told Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) that her throat would be cut. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) was told someone would physically “f—- her up” if she held a town hall meeting in her district, according to the FBI files.

There may have been more threats — the FBI won’t release information on investigations that are still open — and there will likely be more this year; Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance Gainer says threats against members of Congress were up 300 percent in the first few months of 2010.

FBI agents arrested the North Carolina man who threatened Shuler, and prosecutors charged him with threatening to kill a federal official — a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Court records show that the case was dropped after he was found incompetent to stand trial.

Shuler says he was shaken — and that he has taken precautions to protect himself and his family. Family members have altered their daily routines to be more security conscious, and Shuler said that he and his wife have obtained concealed-weapons permits.

“You get a threat like that, and you start to rethink your priorities,” Shuler said.

Welcome to America, a democracy where we threaten to kill lawmakers who don't vote the way we want them to.  And it's perfectly normal, everyday occurrence because talk of doing it is now a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence.

It's just working the political scene.  El Rushbo, Glennsanity, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, just working the scene, man.  It's what they do.  If anyone gets hurt, well it's your fault for talking about the possibility that violence might happen because this, you know.  It's all your fault, not theirs.

They're just working the political scene.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Glennsanity giving the commencement address at Liberty University.



We're screwed.

General Principles

So the GOP attacks on the horrible, horrible fascism of reading the Times square car bomb suspect his Miranda rights is already well under way.  Luckily, at least one veteran in the Warren Terrah thinks John McCain and Pete King need to zip it.  Greg Sargent:

I just got off the phone with retired General Paul Eaton, who is best known for training Iraqi troops during the Bush years, and he offered scathing criticism of John McCain and Pete King for demanding that the Obama administration refrain from Mirandizing the Times Square bomb suspect.

General Eaton bluntly said McCain and King are potentially putting American lives at risk.

Eaton, a political independent who says he’s voted for both Republicans and Democrats, ripped McCain and King’s comments as “wholly inappropriate,” adding that not Mirandizing the suspect risks making it tougher to win a prosecution of him in court.

“I don’t understand how a Senator or a Congressman can challenge the Mirandizing procedure,” Eaton, who is also a senior adviser at the Dem-leaning National Security Network, told me. “The laws are clear. Rep. King and Senator McCain have advocated a position that could cost us this case.”

Eaton added that there’s no way the suspect will ever be tried in a military tribunal, and said that his trial was certain to take place in the civilian court system.

Civilian case, civilian court procedures.  That means Mirandizing him and following the law.  As usual, the GOP is just playing politics with empty tropes while the FBI nailed this guy (again, a civilian law enforcement agency, the FBI) in less than 48 hours.  This guy's going to a New York courtroom and he's going to face charges in a court of law.

This whole "trials make us less safe" bull is just used by people who don't want justice, but vengeance instead.  The GOP is attacking on this, why?  Oh yes, to distract the people from the Republican party's dismal record on preventing terror in the US.

For frack's sakes, even Glenn Beck says this guy gets his Miranda rights.

It was a packed curvy couch on Fox & Friends this morning, as Glenn Beck and Judge Andrew Napolitano joined the trio of co-hosts for a discussion on Miranda rights for the Times Square bomber.

The Judge naturally went the hardline judicial route, arguing he deserves to be Mirandized because he’s an American citizen, and Beck…agreed 100%.


The Right Scoop caught the exchange this morning, which featured a determined Beck squaring off against Brian Kilmeade, who wanted to make an exception. “He’s a citizen of the United States, so I say we uphold the laws and the Constitution on citizens,” said Beck.

“He’s a threat to the country, that’s different,” countered Kilmeade.

“If you’re a citizen you obey the law and follow the Constitution,” said Beck. “He has all the rights under the Constitution.”

Later, the money quote from Beck: “We don’t shred the Constitution when it’s popular. We do the right thing.”

Ladies and gentlemen, when even Glenn Beck can point out why this guy gets the right to remain silent, you've lost the battle.  Put this clown in front of a jury and lay out the evidence.  We're either a nation of laws, or not.

Another Day, Another Arrest

You had to have known this was coming.

The AP is reporting that the FBI has arrested a California man for making threatening phone calls to Nancy Pelosi over the health care bill.

In an interview with TPM, FBI spokeswoman Patty Hanson confirmed that a man, Gregory Guisti, 48, would be charged in federal court in San Francisco Thursday at 9:30 PT. Magistrate Judge Bernard Zimmerman will preside over the hearing, during which Guisti will be formally charged.

The AP has more details:

Several federal officials say the man made dozens of calls to Pelosi's homes in California and Washington, as well as to her husband's business office, reciting her home address and saying if she wanted to see it again, she would not support the health care overhaul bill that was recently enacted.

"The FBI takes threats against elected officials very seriously," Hanson said.

The charges against Guisti, who was arrested today, will be unsealed Thursday.

As much as Nancy Pelosi was demonized by certain folks on the right, as much as pictures of Pelosi carrying that ceremonial gavel enraged them,this was going to be the natural, expected result.  This is why the preemptive effort was made earlier this week to justify this by saying Pelosi antagonized these nutjobs.  Beck and  Limbaugh especially declared that Pelosi was simply egging on "America" to react.

Well, one American citizen certainly reacted.  If I were prosecuting Guisti, I'd ask if he listened to Beck or Limbaugh.  Hell, if I were Guisti's defense lawyer I'd call Beck and Limbaugh to the stand and blame them.  Sen. Patty Murray, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who's next?

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Ross Douthat thinks CNN should have more Glenn Becks.

1) Has anyone told Ross there that Glennsanity was indeed on CNN Headline News just a couple years ago, and how that really, really didn't work out ratings-wise, sponsor-wise, or corporate culture-wise?

2) MOAR GLENN BECK is not a good idea for any network.  Or America.

Nancy's Great Big Hammer Came Down Upon Their Heads

Mrs. Polly and the Rumpies remind us that Nancy Pelosi's Atomic +4 Gavel Of Legislating is a good thing if you're a Democrat.  If you're a Republican, it's become the latest phallic symbol to obsess over.

Right-wing media figures have criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for carrying a gavel while walking to the Capitol to vote on health care reform, claiming she sought to incite Tea Party members protesting the legislation. Glenn Beck said Pelosi was "inciting" the tea partiers and "slapping them across the face," and Rush Limbaugh said Pelosi tried to "provoke" tea partiers by "carrying that big gavel" with an "excrement-eating grin on her face."

Really guys?  You're sore over...a large gavel?

Michael Graham: Pelosi was "asking for" response by carrying gavel. Appearing on Glenn Beck, radio host Michael Graham stated, "I think Nancy Pelosi marching through the protesters on the eve of the health care battle with that big mallet in her hand, she was asking for -- she was saying yet again, 'Just try -- don't even look at me. I'm in charge here. You people sit down and shut up.' " [Glenn Beck, 3/25/10].

Yep.  They're mad.  They hated Pelosi before, but now she has become The Bogey Man Incarnate to the GOP.  Not all Obama Derangement Syndrome is directed at Obama, ya know...

Extreme History-onics

Glenn Beck and Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King really, really should never be allowed in the same conversation ever again.  Stuff like this happens.

Glenn Beck and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) expressed harmonized outrage on Beck's radio program Thursday about news that the House might vote on the health care reform package this Sunday. Voting on a Sunday, they said, was offensive and heretical.

"They intend to vote on the Sabbath, during Lent, to take away the liberty that we have right from God," King said.

"Faith has been perverted," Beck responded, then repeated. "They are going to vote for this damn thing on a Sunday, which is the Sabbath, during Lent."

Beck continued:

"Here is a group of people that have so perverted our faith and our hope and our charity, that is a -- this is an affront to God."

Though Beck conceded that he didn't believe that the Sunday vote was consciously chosen as a plot against God, he did find the timing apt.

"I think it's absolutely appropriate that these people are trying to put the nail in the coffin on our country on a Sunday -- something our founders would have never, ever, ever done. Out of respect for God."

Yes, because Republicans never, ever, ever voted on Sunday.  Ever.

On Palm Sunday in 2005, the Republican-controlled Senate passed a controversial bill to allow a federal court to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo. The House passed the same bill shortly after midnight on Monday morning.

Oh wait, so there's a standing precedent for voting on Sunday when health care is involved.  After all, Terri Schiavo was a life and death issue for a single American.  Surely the Republicans would have no argument in Democrats doing the same for potentially saving millions of Americans, yes?  Glad the Republicans could lead the way on it!

Way to be compassionate, guys!

The Chris Hayes Show

The Nation's Washington editor, Chris Hayes, guest hosted Rachel Maddow last night, and the guy has skills.  Here he is using reality TV star Heidi Montag and consumer advocate Heather McGhee to help explain the financial reform bill still stuck in Chris Dodd's Senate Finance Committee:


Also, he had fun with Glenn Beck and Eric Massa last night too, and used the phrase "Dirty Hippie".

More Chris Hayes, please.  Thanks.

Eliminationist Nation

I've talked about Dave Neiwert and his term for the most egregious of the Winger insanity:  eliminationism.  It's pretty gruesome stuff, by definition, and its most visible adherent these days is Glenn Beck.

What motivates this kind of talk and behavior is called eliminationism: a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination.

Rhetorically, eliminationism takes on certain distinctive shapes. It always depicts its opposition as beyond the pale, the embodiment of evil itself, unfit for participation in their vision of society, and thus worthy of elimination. It often further depicts its designated Enemy as vermin (especially rats and cockroaches) or diseases, and disease-like cancers on the body politic. A close corollary—but not as nakedly eliminationist—are claims that opponents are traitors or criminals and that they pose a threat to our national security.

Eliminationism is often voiced as crude "jokes," a sense of humor inevitably predicated on venomous hatred. And such rhetoric—we know as surely as we know that night follows day—eventually begets action, with inevitably tragic results.

If this sounds familiar to you, it should:  it's the primary theme of Beck's recent CPAC speech where he compared progressivism to a "cancer" that was destroying America.  He also called for it to be "eradicated".

And that's a deadly theme we see in nearly all the most dangerous Tea Party rhetoric.  Progressives exist to be destroyed, to be excised from America and the world.  How do you reason with people who want to destroy you, don't even see you as human?

The Darwinian Dystopia

For a bunch of folks that question evolution, conservatives like Glenn Beck have no problem subjecting the rest of America to natural selection where the weak are culled.  Open Left's Mike Lux:

Beck's essential message was that I crawled my way from the dung pile without any help, and that's what makes America great ,so we shouldn't help anyone in trouble. From his twisted personal story to his twisted vision of American history, Beck took rapturous CPACers on a classic tour of American conservative ideology. From his paranoid delusional ranting about how liberals hate anyone successful to his Social Darwinist view of society and nature, he laid out the conservative line and took it to its logical conclusion. And the audience loved it. The quintessential moment in the speech? When Beck explained why we shouldn't be helping anyone in need: "There's some sort of element of competition to life. Oh that's not natural. Really? Go watch the lions eat the weakest." And the audience burst into laughter and applause- as I wrote the other day, these conservatives really are into cruelty, so the idea of lions eating the weak got them going. 

It's brutal, as Mike says...the essence of brutality.  The strong must rule the weak, and if the weak cannot keep up, if they need help, if they need a safety net, they must be destroyed in order to allow for more resources to be divvied up among the survivors.

Conservatives' answer to the question "Am I my brother's keeper?" is a resounding Hell NO. And that is the essential divide between them and the progressivism which Beck describes as a cancer: progressives believe that all of us are in this together. When our child is weakened by a chronic illness, or our parent by old age, we don't abandon them in the wilderness so that the lion can eat them up (and then laugh about it). When our brother stumbles and hits bottom, we don't stand back and see if he can pull himself up by his own bootstraps, we lend him a helping hand. When our sister is abused and treated unfairly by an employer, we don't tell her she's on her own, we work with her to make things fairer. We believe in a community that helps each other survive and prosper, because we don't want to live in a world where only the strongest and wealthiest and - yes - luckiest survive. We don't have fantasies that all our success is of our own making because we know that without good families, good neighbors, good school and libraries and roads and bridges paid for by public dollars, that without all that, we'd be much less likely to make it on our own. In spite of Beck's paranoia, we have no problem with people being successful. I have never once heard any progressive attack Steve Jobs or Eric Schmidt for their success, or attack the local small businessperson making a good living because he or she is supplying products a community wants. But what we do believe is that those lucky enough to be successful have a responsibility to give something back to their fellow citizens. 

First Law Of Conservatism:  "I've got mine, screw you."

Social Darwinism has been around for a long, long time.  The basic hypocrisy of it is that without the people they consider to be peons to work for them and actually work at the jobs to provide the goods and services to earn the money to consume other goods and services, the folks at the top of the pyramid have no pyramid to be on top of.  Beck knows that.  He's been at the bottom of that pile.  Most of us have been at one point or another, out of work, scared, hurting.

We turned to others for help.  And help they did.

Beck got his help.  Then he got lucky.  Now the rest of America can go screw itself when beck shares his fantasy with others so they can pretend they still have something to deny people even more miserable than they are.  It keeps everyone in their place: the liberals, the gays and lesbians, the minorities, the women.

And that's just how the Glennsanity likes it.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Just for the record, Glenn Beck is a pile.

BECK: I also believe this is dividing the nation…to where the nation sees him react so rapidly on Haiti and yet he couldn’t react rapidly on Afghanistan. He couldn’t react rapidly on Ft. Hood. He couldn’t react rapidly on our own airplanes with an underwear bomber…it doesn’t make sense. [...] Three different events and Haiti is the only one. I think personally that it deepens he divide to see him react this rapidly to Haiti.

Jesus Hell in a breakfast burrito.  Because Haiti is exactly like Crotch Bomber and Ft. Hood, and our seven year plus war in Afghanistan.  No matter what Obama does, it's wrong and he must be attacked.  There's a reason it's called Obama Derangement Syndrome, folks.  This is it.

[UPDATE 5:47 PM] And then there's GOP Rep. Steve King.

“This sounds to me like open borders advocates exercising the Rahm Emanuel axiom: ‘Never let a crisis go to waste,’” Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said in an e-mail message to ABCNews. “Illegal immigrants from Haiti have no reason to fear deportation but if they are deported, Haiti is in great need of relief workers and many of them could be a big help to their fellow Haitians.” 

Stay classy, wingnuts.

Glennsanity Versus Moose Lady

Gosh, why are liberal media drones like FOX's Glenn Beck so mean to poor ol' Sarah Palin during interviews?

During Sarah Palin's interview with Glenn Beck today, something extraordinary happened -- Beck challenged Palin on a stock, noncommittal answer to a question. Beck asked: "Who's your favorite Founder?"

"You know, well, all of them, because they came collectively together with so much--" Palin began, in a manner much like her non-answers to Katie Couric's questions about which newspapers she's read ("All of them.") and which Supreme Court decisions she's disagreed with (which brought a similarly broad answer about how there are a lot of decisions).

"Bullcrap," Beck interrupted. "Who's your favorite."

You can't call bullcrap on Moose Lady!  Who does Glenn Beck think he is?  Boy, I bet Glenn Beck would be much nicer to Sarah Palin than this liberal Glenn Beck jerk.




It is rather disconcerting to find your heroes have brains of clay.

Last Call

Via Bob Cesca, it's Glennsanity just losing it again.

Today on his radio show, Glenn Beck wanted to discuss the census. “Apparently the census has come out,” he said. Beck’s co-host then chimed in, “Yeah and there’s a little confusion because there’s three boxes you can check if you’re a certain race. … I don’t know what the race is because there’s three different terms for them. Black, African-American, or Negro.” Instead of having any consideration to take issue with the term “Negro,” Beck launched into a tirade against “African-American”:

BECK: African-American is a bogus, PC, made-up term. I mean, that’s not a race. Your ancestry is from Africa and now you live in America. Ok so you were brought over — either your family was brought over through the slave trade or you were born here and your family emigrated here or whatever but that is not a race.

Oh really.

(Rant alert after jump.)

One Of These Is Not Like The Others

As Digby notes, Gallup's most influential man of 2009 was Barack Obama, who got 30% of the vote.  The problem is, in a poll where Obama, Nelson Mandela, the Pope and yes, even Dubya are rubbing shoulders, there's one guy in there who should scare the hell out of you.

Glenn Beck got fourth.

Nelson Mandela only gets one point higher than Beck --- who's tied with the pope?

No Limbaugh, no Hannity, no O'Reilly. Beck.

That actually freaks me out a little bit.

You're not the only one.  Dubya I can understand.  Even Dick Cheney I can see getting a percentage point or two. Limbaugh?  Sure.

But Glennsanity?  Really, America?  Of all the living men on Earth, he ranked number 4?

Oh, and if you're keeping score at home, Zandar's with Zandardad on this one:  Dr. Steven Hawking.