...A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and t***sform the United States.[129][130][131] Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven.[129][132] Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines,[133] Maurice Strong, George Soros,[134] John Holdren and President Barack Obama.[130] According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda.[130][134] In his quest to root out these "progressives", Beck has compared himself to Israeli N**i h****rs, vowing on his radio show that "to the day I die I am going to be a progressive-h****r. I'm going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don't care if they're in nursing homes."[35] Beck compared Al Gore to the N**is while equating the campaign against g****l w*****g to the N**i campaign against the Jews.[135]
Progressive historian Sean Wilentz has denounced what he describes as Beck's progressive-themed conspiracy theories and "gross historical inaccuracies", countering that Beck is merely echoing the decades-old "right-wing extremism" of the John Birch Society.[136] According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the t***h, stating:
Glenn Beck is trying to give viewers a version of American history that is supposedly hidden. Supposedly, all we historians – left, right and center – have been doing for the past 100 years is to keep true American history from you. And that true American history is what Glenn Beck is teaching. It's a version of history that is beyond skewed. But of course, that's what Beck expects us to say. He lives in a kind of Alice in Wonderland world, where if people who actually know the history say what he's teaching is junk, he says, 'That's because you're trying to hide the t***h.'[136]
Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they've got access to secret knowledge."[35]
In 2020, Beck argued that the e******n of Democratic p**********l candidate Bernie Sanders could lead to "another Holocaust."[137]
Barack Obama and the Obama administration
Beck promoted numerous conspiracy theories and falsehoods about President Barack Obama and the Obama administration.[138] [139][140][141] Beck suggested that Obama was building FEMA concentration camps to put opponents in,[142] that Obama was planning to f**e a terrorist attack such as the Oklahoma City bombing in order to boost the administration's popularity,[143] and that Obama was the "puppet" of George Soros.[144] He frequently likened Obama and his administration to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.[142] Beck falsely claimed that the John Holdren who led the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration "proposed forcing a******ns and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population."[145]
Beck argued in 2009 that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a r****t."[146] These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott which resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming.[147][148][149][150] He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as r****m what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black theology.[151] In November 2012, Beck attempted to auction a mason jar holding an Obama figurine described as being submerged in urine (in fact, submerged in beer). Bidding reached $11,000 before eBay decided to remove the auction and cancel all bids.[152][153]
In a 2016 interview with The New Yorker, Beck said of his commentary on Obama: "I did a lot of freaking out about Barack Obama." But added, "Obama made me a better man." Beck said that he regrets calling Obama a r****t and is a supporter of Black L***s M****r. He said, "There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to. I had to listen to them."[139]
Van Jones
In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck called Jones, "an avowed, self-avowed, radical revolutionary c*******t". PolitiFact rated Beck's claim "mostly false", noting that Jones, who has open about his past as a c*******t during the early 1990s, had since expressed firmly capitalist beliefs.[154]
Beck also criticized Jones for his involvement in STORM, a Bay Area radical group with Marxist roots,[155] and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of k*****g a police officer. Beck spotlighted video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the September 11 attacks happen. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones.[90]
In a move attributed by The New York Times as a response to the controversies by the White House, which had not seen Jones' position as senior enough to warrant a full vetting, and Jones' decision that "the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," Jones resigned his position in September 2009.[156] Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".[155]
Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama White House, was a frequent target of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories.[157][158] Beck led opposition against Sunstein's nomination to the position.[159] Beck described Sunstein as "the most dangerous man in America."[160] Beck suggested that Sunstein was plotting ways to "ban" conspiracy theorizing.[161]
ACORN
In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for various reasons, including claims of v***r r**********n fraud in the 2008 p**********l e******n.[162] In September 2009, he broadcast a series of alleged undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which portrayed ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax and other advice to people who had said they wanted to import "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as child prostitutes.[163][164] Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate v**ed to cut all of its federal funding.[90]
On December 7, 2009, the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees.[165][166][167][168] On March 1, 2010, the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited"[169] and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office.[170][171] On April 1, 2010, an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited",[172] and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees.[172][173] On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings, which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received.[174][175] In March 2010, ACORN announced it would be closing its offices and disbanding due to loss of funding from government and private donors.[176]
According to a 2010 study in the journal Perspectives on Politics, Beck played a prominent role in media attacks on ACORN.[177]
Satire website
In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw.[178] Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck.[179] The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily t***sferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.[180]
Jewish Funds for Justice
In January 2011, in protest against what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to N**is by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter published as a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice (JFFJ), which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion".[181] The letter states that Beck and Fox had "... diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive said to Reuters that the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".[182][183]
George Soros conspiracy theories
Beck is a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist.[184] Beck falsely claimed that Soros as a boy helped to "send the Jews to the death camps."[184] Beck frequently referred to Soros as a puppet-master and repeated the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Soros caused the 1997 Asian financial crisis.[184] In 2010, Beck was accused of being anti-Semitic due to his smears against Soros. The Anti-Defamation League said Beck's remarks about Soros sending Jews to the death camps were "horrific" and "totally off-limits."[185]
On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".[186][187]
In 2016, Beck, a friend of actor and director Mel Gibson claimed he and Gibson shared a conversation in which Gibson claimed Jewish people had stolen a copy of The Passion of the Christ before its official theatrical release, and that Jewish people were assaulting him in the streets.[188]
2011 Norway attacks
Beck condemned the 2011 Norway attacks,[189] but was condemned for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth. He said, "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or wh**ever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing."[190] The statement was ill-received in Norway, prompting political commentator and Labour party member Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist", a "swine" and a "f*****t",[191] and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful".[192] Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9–12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.[191][192][193][194][195]
Trump comments and 2016 SIRIUS XM Suspension
Beck opposed Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president, comparing him to Adolf Hitler and describing him as "an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity."[196][197]
...A collection of progressives, whom Beck has ref... (
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