Showing posts with label Glenn Beck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glenn Beck. Show all posts

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Right-Wing Loon Behind Glenn Beck Defense Exposed

Even if under the weak pretense of providing "balance," I cannot believe any legitimate news organization that gives any semblance of creedence to the hate-mongering extremists behind the website defending Glenn Beck's hate-talking on Fox and elsewhere.
KingOneEye in a Daily Kos diary offers a riveting profile of a group called "The United States Justice Foundation" and its leader, Gary Kreep.
Kreep, says KingOneEye,
...is the general counsel to the racist, anti-immigration group, The Minutemen. He has been affiliated with the radical and violent anti-choice group, Operation Rescue. He was a California delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1976 and 1980.
Most recently Kreep has been a leader of the "birther" movement that seeks to nullify last November's election of the grounds that Obama is not a U.S. citizen. He has been one of the most vocal proponents of the birther myths going back to at least November 2008, when he tried to prevent California delegates to the Electoral College from casting their votes. He originally worked with birther queen, Orly Taitz, representing several clients, including Alan Keyes. He has since replaced Taitz as counsel to birther litigant "Rev." Wiley Drake. Drake is notable for publicly praying for the death of Obama. When a man like Drake selects you to represent him, over Orly Taitz, that is quite an endorsement.

That's bad enough. What's even worse, as KingOneEye points out, is the legitimacy the mainstream media is giving this nutcase and his new group in the name of providing counterbalance to the successful efforts of ColorOfChange to expose Beck's hate speech and dry up Beck's sponsor support to the point that he can no longer spouting his hate on the airwaves.
Speaking of the website, "Defendglenn" that this nutball has created to fight back efforts to cause Beck's show to get pulled off the air, KingOneEye wrote:
DefendGlenn was created to instigate complaints directed at the companies who pulled their ads from Beck, and to thank his remaining advertisers. Instead, the site has become a repository of lies and disinformation, as well as a sycophantic center of blind adulation for Beck.
It is impossible to gauge whether the site has any measurable influence, except to note that none of the companies boycotting Beck have reversed their positions, nor cited DefendBeck as motivation for their actions. However, the press has taken notice and is beginning to treat the site as the legitimate counterbalance to Color of Change. Consequently, whenever there is a mention of Color of Change, the media, in its misguided pursuit of balance, will mention DefendGlenn as well. This is another example of media laziness. Balance is not achieved by juxtaposing truth with lies. Color of Change documents its impact with letters from the companies they have solicited, and their leaders and staff are identified on their web site. But DefendGlenn provides no such documentation, and their leadership is a mystery to anyone who visits their site.

What part of this doesn't the mainstream media understand? There's nothing legitimate about a man with a right-wing nutjob background setting up a website defending another right-wing nutjob. This is no counterbalance. It's legitimizing hate.
It's time the media stopped acting like a bunch of sissies and call this pro-Glenn Beck organization and the nut job behind it what he is-- a loon who doesn't deserve a mainstream forum.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Beck Boycott Still Strong Despite Host's Hiatus

If anyone thought the boycott against Glenn Beck was going to die down after the Fox "news" channel took him off the air for just a week, they are mistaken big time.
Reports the Huffington Post:
Glenn Beck returns to Fox News Channel after a vacation on Monday with fewer companies willing to advertise on his show than when he left, part of the fallout from calling President Barack Obama a racist.
A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Walmart, CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck's show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago.

Hate speech has no place in our airwaves, and what Beck and others on the right, especially on Fox, have been peddling is hate speech. It has nothing to do with encouraging free debate on issues critical to society.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Right-Wing Violence Erupts In Florida Healthcare Townhall

You'd think this could not happen here in America, but this is what happens when one side of the health care debate can't win the argument rationally.
It reminded me of when I watched old films about how Hitler's Nazi hordes roughed up their critics during their reign of terror in '30s Germany.
It's one thing for those who want to raise legitimate concerns about the healthcare legislation now before Congress. It's another for thugs egged on by right-wing talkshow hosts and anti-healthcare reform corporate interests to resort to the violence reported in the linked story.
Glenn Beck's removal from the airwaves is long overdue. His show must be taken off the air at once.