I watch
Glenn Beck pretty much every night. I'm not a "Beck hater" and find that he does present some great information (that others have researched and done the ground work on) in an easy to watch format. His shows on the founding father's and American history have been great. I have both praised and criticized Beck, You can search for "Glenn Beck" in the search box and find a mixed bag of my thoughts on his actions and coverage.
However, there are some disturbing trends that I notice with his show and it makes me ask the question "Is Glenn Beck Pro-Amnesty for illegal aliens?"
First though let me "put down my World of Warcraft and come out of my mother's basement" as Beck would describe any of us American citizens who dare to utter a word of thought online. Beck often debases the industry that is blogging or running a website as some sort of shallow pursuit that should hold no meaning to anyone. In essence he laughs at our first amendment rights as citizens to voice our concerns or critiques. He does have a point with some of the banter online, but he often lumps everyone into the same boat whether they are actually thinkers with a point or just those spouting garbage online with no thought. So of course that makes me wonder... "Question with boldness..." ... unless of course that questioning appears online and is not funded by a multi-billion dollar corporation or is 100% in agreement with Beck. Make of it what you will, but I in no way wish for Beck to go away.
My questioning of Glenn Beck's stance on illegal immigration comes up because of a pattern I have noticed from him and a pattern I've noticed of Fox News. Let me start off by stating quite clearly that Rupert Murdoch recently came out and declared his pro-amnesty stance. Murdoch is the CEO of News Corp, which owns Fox News. In a recent high profile meeting with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other CEO's Murdoch joined a coalition called the Partnership for a New American Economy pushing for amnesty for illegal aliens.
AP
Chief executives of several major corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, Boeing, Disney and News Corp., are joining Mayor Michael Bloomberg to form a coalition advocating for immigration reform - including a path to legal status for all undocumented immigrants now in the United States.
...
Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., appeared together Thursday [June 24, 2010] on Fox News to discuss the effort.
"We're just going to keep the pressure on the congressmen," Murdoch said. "I think we can show to the public the benefits of having migrants and the jobs that go with them."
Bloomberg added, "Somebody has to lead and explain to the country why this is in our interest."
Seems pretty clear to me that Murdoch is pro-amnesty. Not only that but he is for even more immigration. I don't want to play the "high unemployment" card, but it must be played. We currently have massive unemployment and we have the top CEO's of companies coming out and declaring that we need even more immigrants to compete with the unemployed, that we need to legalize illegal aliens and that this is the only way that our country will succeed. I find that a slap in the face to those looking for work and businesses that have gone under because of unfair competition by unscrupulous businesses hiring illegal aliens under the table for unfair competition purposes.
OK, but since Murdoch is pro-illegal alien and pro-amnesty does that make Fox News pro-illegal alien?
That is an excellent question that I have been pondering for a few days now. I have watched my share of Fox News - always with a skeptical eye - and have noticed a disturbing pattern recently. Every time border security comes up there is John McCain, the father of the last amnesty bill with the late Senator Ted Kennedy, gracing my screen on Fox News. This despicable creature is given the chance to spout how tough he is on illegal immigration. He touts his "experience" as the "senator of a border state" for nearly 3 decades as his badge to know how to handle illegal immigration. The only problem is that during his tenure, illegal immigration has gone through the roof and McCain has done nothing but put forth bill after bill to encourage even more illegal immigration. Fox News discusses Arizona's SB1070 and magically McCain appears on screen as if he had anything to do with Arizona finally trying to enforce the law.
McCain is no friend of those who want immigration laws enforced. So why is Fox News giving him so much time over the past few months? On top of this they have given little to no time to McCain's Republican opponent, the former congressman J.D. Hayworth, who actually wrote a book demanding that immigration laws be enforced and standing strong on the issue. Why the bias?
Those are the first two things that worry me. Murdoch being pro-amnesty and Fox News then pushing for John "father of amnesty" McCain.
So where does Glenn Beck fit into all of this?
I'm glad you asked.
First, is Beck's continued rant of immigration teasers. I don't know how many times he has said "we're going to talk about immigration this week" and then he never gets around to it. It gets railroaded off the show quicker than Van Jones from the White House. It is almost as if at the next commercial break Murdoch has called him and said "Oh no you're not!" The immigration pieces never appear. Even with Arizona in the headlines for weeks Beck has avoided the issue on his TV program. It speaks of some sort of "self-muzzling" or someone else shutting him down.
Second, is Beck's stance that the borders need to be secured. Even the godfather, Congressman Luis "F*&@ American Citizens, bring on the amnesty!" Gutierrez will state that the borders need to be secured. So this statement means nothing.
The third thing that troubles me is that Beck occasionally says that illegal aliens are "modern day slaves". While they surely are being taken advantage of, these criminals in no way compare to the true slaves of the past in this country. The slaves in America's history were brought here against their will in chains, paid nothing and occasionally beaten or even killed. Illegal aliens have come here of their own accord and can leave of their own accord. They have no similarities at all. Which leads me to the thought process that maybe Beck is truly playing the "slave angle" for ulterior motives. Is his solution to simply "free all these slaves"? How would you free them? Why, you would turn them into non-slaves of course! You would grant them citizenship and the right to vote. You would grant them a civil rights bill. All of this for breaking into our country and coming here illegally.
Fourth, Beck has continued to attack and destroy campaigns of those who have spoken out firmly against illegal immigration. The one that comes to mind immediately was Debra Medina who was running against the pro-amnesty Governor of Texas, Rick "in-state tuition for illegal aliens" Perry.
"Inviting an invasion... will destroy us," Medina stated regarding illegal immigration. "Failure to enforce state and federal laws has contributed to abuse of property and humanity all along the Texas border. We can no longer turn a blind eye on the situation and will, in order to protect our citizens and their property, take matters into our own hands to insure peace and protection along the Texas border."
There is no doubt where Medina stood on illegal immigration and it was a breath of fresh air after listening to the windbag that is Perry, with his double-talk and wishy-washy stances.
In comes Beck. In an interview Beck avoided many meaningful issues when talking to Medina and instead tried to play a game of gotcha! The transcript below doesn't show the truth of the interview, but it was clear Beck was angling for a way to take Medina down. On a bad phone connection that was breaking up, Beck asked Medina, a non-politician and inexperienced "Tea Party" candidate, whether she knew there were those accusing her of being a "9/11 truther".
GLENN: I have when I said that I was going to have you on, you can't imagine the mail pro and con that I received. There was a theme that ran against you and that is you are a 9/11 Truther.
MEDINA: Well, there's lots of mud that people would like to throw at Debra Medina and make stick. The truth is I'm an everyday ordinary person. I am fighting for the things that our founders fought for, those very basic principles of a constitutional republic, and I'm going to champion people that hold their government accountable, hold me accountable but that's the first time I've heard that accusation. So that's an interesting one.
GLENN: Right. Here's then let me be more frank and ask you the question: Do you believe the government was any way involved with the bringing down of the World Trade Centers on 9/11?
MEDINA: I don't, I don't have all of the evidence there, Glenn. So I don't.
The interview went on and Beck continued to try and corner her. He questioned whether her staff were "9/11 truthers". The only thing that Medina said was that there have been some interesting questions asked about 9/11, but if you listen to the audio of the clip it gives a very different perspective on the interview knowing that she had a hard time hearing him.
Of course the papers and Beck were blaring that Medina was a "9/11 truther" the next day and he repeated it time and time again on his show up until the primary with Perry. The media was gleeful in their reporting as it gave them the chance to destroy the "Tea Party" movement. Beck basically destroyed this pro immigration enforcement candidate. Medina lost to Perry. She may have lost anyway, but Beck was the nail in her coffin.
He finished his "interview" with her that day in the following way.
GLENN: Yeah. Okay, Debra, thank you very much. I appreciate it and best of luck to you.
MEDINA: Thank you, Glenn.
GLENN: You bet. Bye bye. I think
Beck's ending comment of "Bye bye. I think" to Medina is kind of ominous in a way. It's almost as if he was asking himself if this was good enough to end her candidacy, if he accomplished his mission.
He went on to declare his love for Rick Perry
GLENN: I think I can write her off the list. Let me take another look at Kay Bailey Hutchison if I have to. Rick, I think you and I could French kiss right now.
Whether his attack on Medina was over immigration or whether it was for some other motive (such as a GOP action) is unclear, but the interview seems suspect. What makes me question whether the move is over immigration is because of future actions by Beck.
Following on this pattern of destruction is the most recent strafing action taken by Beck and company. This one focused in Arizona in the senatorial primary race between John "illegal alien > American Citizen" McCain and J.D. Hayworth. I have already noted Fox News's pushing of John McCain, but Beck is pushing for him as well, equating McCain to the "devil we know". The flaw in his assertion that Hayworth is the "devil we don't know" being that Hayworth served in congress for nearly a decade in the house casting many votes and speaking out and being vocal. He has also been a talk show host for years. We most certainly know that Hayworth is not some "Johnny come lately" (like McCain recently found his immigration enforcement religion, just in time for the election! Go figure.)
The latest slam on Hayworth is that he appeared in an infomercial for a company showing you how to get government grants. No doubt this was brought to light by the McCain campaign. Totally ignoring the content of what Hayworth says in the infomercial, Beck goes off on a rant that Hayworth is pushing for you to take government funds and waste it on obscene vacations and a big lavish lifestyle. In other words Beck is a liar on this issue. I have watched the infomercial video (see below). The interview portions of Hayworth show him pushing the value of getting a government grant to start a business and hire people and maybe move on to buying your own home and advancing in this country.
Glenn Beck
GLENN: Hang on. Do we have the J. D. Hayworth infomercial audio, because it just doesn't get any better than this? Here's a guy who is running as a different kind of politician in Arizona and, boy, boy, do I wish it were true because I think this audience know how I feel about John McCain, but to replace John McCain, a guy, a devil you already know and he's a devil, with a guy that you're going, well, wait a minute.
STU: Not the devil. A devil. Just want to make sure.
GLENN: No. The devil is located somewhere else. Here is J. D. Hayworth in a commercial that he did.
JD Hayworth Government Grants Infomercial
Beck went on to declare JD Hayworth dead and to put things into his mouth that he never said in the above video. However, why let truth get in the way right?
GLENN: That's fantastic. So, what was my prediction last week?
STU: You may or may not have predicted the end of his political career after this infomercial was uttered.
GLENN: No. I do believe I did say -- I said his career is over. I'm declaring his career over.
...
GLENN: I mean, I think the problem here, J. D. Is you're, like, get some of this cash.
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: Get some of this free money!
Stu: It's not them taking free money in some different, unethical form. It's the idea that taking the free money in the first place is the problem.
PAT: We'll take the taxpayers for hundreds of billions of dollars month after month after month, from my one-bedroom apartment, and you can, too. Never pay it back.
GLENN: This guy is -- this is great.
The real question is did Hayworth know how the infomercial producers were going to edit the show later? They intersperse Hayworth's statement with people spouting about how they received grants of "free money" from the government and are living large and never have to pay it back.
Beck outright lies on his radio show though saying that Hayworth is two faced for calling for fiscal responsibility, but then giving an interview to a government grant company. I will side with Hayworth that he did not know the company would turn his interview into a "free money to live large like a rap star" show. All the while Beck ignored the fact that John McCain voted for the massive bailout of $700 billion a year and a half ago.
Beck says that he would rather have John "$700 Billion Bailout Waste" McCain than Hayworth, who was simply informing people about government grants for their business. The fact is that government grants aren't going away. They will be there. Hayworth was pointing out the positive side of grants, to start your own business and make something of yourself in this country. He wasn't calling for you to fraudulently get grants and go on a world tour.
My question is, why is Glenn Beck shilling for McCain? Why is it that time and time again Beck seems to try his damnedest to destroy any candidate who would crack down on illegal immigration? Why is he avoiding the issue on his show and instead focusing on the same old tired "socialism creep" he has been covering for a year and a half since he read Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism?
Yes, almost everything that Beck has been covering on the progressives, including his "hate" for Woodrow Wilson and his attacks on Teddy Roosevelt come straight from that book. You could draw a timeline on it - maybe even on a chalkboard. He was pushing the book just prior to him launching into his TV campaign against progressivism. Beck will gladly continue to portray himself as being the genius who "discovered it" and is pointing it out by not mentioning much that all his ideas are someone else's. Genius through omission.
You see things like that bother me. Taking someone else's ideas and pretending they're all your own is disingenuous and it makes me question Beck's other actions and motives. Like I said in the beginning, he presents some good information. Usually once every 2 months you actually get some real good new information. The rest of it is repetitious filler of the same stuff over and over and over, with of course no time for illegal immigration or any solutions he would present to solve the issue.
I'm guessing we wouldn't like the answer to our question of what Beck's solution would be to illegal immigration, because I'm also guessing the answer would be amnesty.
"Question with boldness..." even the current TV God.
You can leave your "You're just a liberal shill for the Obama Administration by questioning anything Beck says" comments below.
