Ask Verizon Wireless To Disassociate From Anti-Environment, Hate Speech Peddlers

In the volitle political climate we live in today, if you were a company, would you like to be associated with pundits or entertainers who have been associated with making highly offensive and hateful remarks?
That's the problem of Verizon Wireless sponsoring a pro-coal, anti-environment rally on Labor Day.
Here's part of a statement made by an organization called Credo Action criticizing Verizon's participation:

Why is Verizon Wireless co-sponsoring a pro-coal, anti-environment rally on Labor Day?
It's called the Friends of America Rally and over 25,000 people have already RSVPed to attend a political event to promote climate change denial and mountaintop removal mining.
Massey Energy, a dirty coal company and the most egregious violator of the Clean Water Act in history, is the moving force behind the event.
The rally features speeches by prominent global warming denier Lord Christopher Monckton and conservative pundit Sean Hannity. Ted Nugent will provide musical entertainment.

Hannity's involvement in the rally given the hateful rhetoric he has often used against President Obama and others is bad enough. What's even scarier is Verizon's association through this event with Ted Nugent who last year in a rant encouraged violent attacks against then-Democratic presidential candidates Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Here's the video of the Nugent rant:

Is Verizon really sure it wants to associate itself with the hate speech of Ted Nugent? I suggest it disassociate itself with this event posthaste?
The Credo Action piece continues:

Companies like Verizon Wireless may say they are not making a political statement when they participate in events like these. But it's never just about marketing. After all this is the same company that made a decision to block NARAL Pro-Choice America's text messages from its network. Verizon Wireless has choices. And once again, it's made a very poor one.
Tell Lowell McAdam, President and CEO of Verizon Wireless to issue a public apology and immediately withdraw all support from this extremist, anti-environmental rally.

I've already let my feelings be known to Verizon Wireless. I hope you do too.

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.

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.