Glenn Beck Interview With Eric Massa A Waste Of Time

UPDATE:  An ethics investigation and subsequent charges have been dropped against Massa.  Hmmm…you don’t suppose that is why he backed off and backtracked do you?  Or was it just that he did not have the goods?

Yesterday, Glenn Beck spoke on his radio show about an interview planned for his television show yesterday evening with Rep. Eric Massa.  He explained that it would be an hour long interview and that he had no idea what Massa would reveal on the show about corruption in Washington and his recent resignation over sexual harrassment charges from a male staffer.  All I could think was why would anyone spend an hour airtime on this Washington scum.  We are the better for this guy stepping down.  Much has been made of Massa being a no vote on ObamaCare, but it was not because he has principles.  The bill is not Marxist enough for him because the public option was not included.

Michelle Malkin agreed with my accessment as well and she spoke on Glenn’s show yesterday defending the idea that this was a waste of time and that Glenn should not give him an hour on television.  Glenn and Michelle debated back and forth and then after a pause Glenn said, “I don’t understand you people.”  Michelle was clearly not happy about that and neither was I.  Glenn eventually apologized to her.  Ed Morrissey has video and comments on this here.  I continue to wonder what is going on with Glenn.  Is his fame and power going to his head?  He regularly attacks those on the same side as himself and made inferrances yesterday about attacks he has received after his CPAC speech.  So basically Glenn is going after those of us who realize that our only option in 2010 is to take back the Republican Party.  He seems to think that this is an endorsement od the GOP, which it is not.  Most of us conservatives go after Republicans more harshly than people on the left.  The problem with Glenn is that he attacks us for this plan while offering none of his own.  He merely thinks educating the masses will make a difference, but if there is no action, we simply have an American population living under tyranny and realizing what that means.

After watching the interview on Glenn’s show, it would seem that Michelle and I were right with our criticism.  Glenn actually apologized at the end of the show for wasting America’s time, which I know is legitimate because Glenn prides himself on giving us quality programming.  Massa was evasive and backtracking.  After three days of claiming that he was forced out of office, he told Glenn that he was not forced out and that he takes responsiblity for his bad behavior.  The revelations of corruption and backroom dealings were not revealed.  Massa appeared to only be interested in saving his political career as Michelle indicated in her comments to Glenn on his show.  Apparently, Glenn got the big ratings he expected from this interview, but not much else.  I hope he did not give Massa an hour simply for ratings.

Glenn Beck And Debra Medina Saga

Anyone who has followed this blog for any amount of time knows that I am a loyal fan of Glenn Beck.  I own four of his bestselling books and two of them I have had autographed in person.  I have been to one of his shows and also attended his rally here at The Villages in Florida.  But something has happened to Glenn Beck.  Or rather, I should say that something has happened to me that has sparked my critical eye towards Glenn Beck. 

It actually started at The Villages when Glenn announced his plans for 2010 to help take back this country.  I was not the only disappointed person that day when I heard him announce that he was going to be focusing on education and a one hundred year plan.  I understood the length of such a plan since we did not get to the state of affairs here in America overnight.  But my understanding has been that Glenn was already educating us and had been doing so the previous year.  A fellow attendee admitted that she had the same feeling of a let down.  It made me wonder if this was not just another opportunity to write more books and host more pay to see shows.  I love capitalism, do not get me wrong, but when it is cloaked in an effort to help take back the country I do wonder a bit.

Then Glenn started laying into the “Birthers” and declared them to be idiots.  While I do not believe that the President was born in Kenya, I do have many questions that would probably leave me labeled a “Birther”.  Where is the official birth certificate?  Why has Obama spent millions to end these lawsuits that he could end in a minute with his birth certificate?  Has he ever held a passport for another country?  Was he considered a British citizen since his father was one and his mother was not 18 when he was born?  These are legitimate questions and I do not appreciate being relegated to an idiot for asking them.

Then last Thursday, Debra Medina made her infamous appearance on the Glenn Beck Radio program.  I could tell from the beginning of the interview that Glenn was not open to Debra.  I was not sure why until he asked if she was a 9/11 Truther.  A poor answer to an unexpected question lead some people to believe that Debra Medina thinks the government blew up the twin towers.  To my knowledge, she has never made any such claim.  She simply said what I believe most Americans, inlcuding myself, think about 9/11.  We still have questions.  What did the government know and when did they know it?  Did our government shoot down Flight 93 to save thousands of lives?  Why did Clinton let Bin Laden get away?  Why did these terrorists have expired VISAs?  And the list goes on.  Does this make me a “Truther”?  According to Glenn, I guess I am.  I have covered this issue on several of my radio programs with soundbites from the Beck show and various other radio shows:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/freedomswings/2010/02/11/freedoms-wings-thursday

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/freedomswings/2010/02/18/cpac-2010-starts–freedoms-wings-thursday

Glenn has continued to battle back and twisted the interview he did with Debra Medina on his most recent shows, which really caused me to wonder what in the world was going on with him.  He claimed that she basically lied on another show when she claimed that she laughed off the question about being a 9/11 Truther.  Pat Gray, one of Glenn’s sidekicks, claimed that she didn’t laugh off the question and they played a chopped soundbite that edited out the parts where she laughed (she laughed twice).  I knew this to be a lie since I had listened to the original interview and then recorded and played the soundbites on my radio show.  A radio show host in Texas noticed this same slanted defense from Glenn and I played bits from that show as well:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/freedomswings/2010/02/20/freedom-swings-saturday

And now there are revelations about the CEO from Clear Channel, Lowry Mays, and the large amounts of money he has donated to Rick Perry.  The amounts over the years equate to $300,000.

Clear Channel CEO Donations to Perry
Year	Donation
2001-2002	$51,400
2003-2004	$55,000
2005-2006	$80,000
2007-2008	$50,000
2009	$50,000
Total	$286,400
Source: Texas Ethics Commission

h/t to Burnt Orange Report for the above chart and the following comment, “Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and countless other right-wing radio station personalities are owned by Clear Channel. Beck is paid $10 million by a Clear Channel subsidiary for his radio show (Source: Forbes). Is it any surprise, then, that he ambushed Medina the way he did — and subsequently told all of his radio listeners to support Perry? After he finished his interview with Medina, Beck went on to pronounce his love for Rick Perry.” 

I do not know if this is the reason why Glenn has treated Debra Medina this way, but I certainly have had my eyes opened.  I appreciate the education he has given me and the thirst to seek out more information, but my trust has eroded a bit and I have realized, yet again, not to put anyone on a pedestal because they will disappoint you every time.

Glenn Beck’s Plan From The Villages

Glenn Beck announced this past week that he had formulated a plan to take back America and that he would be sharing it at his book signing at The Villages on Saturday (today).  So I made my way north and brought the Geritol with me.  It was a beautiful day in The Villages as they say.  Glenn arrived a little before four eastern time and was met by an energetic crowd of what I would estimate to be about 6,000 people.  There possibly were more, but I could not see the entire crowd.  The center square where Glenn held his rally is the same one that hosted Sarah Palin during the campaign.  It is an internal park area, but is surrounded by streets and sidewalks, which people had spilled out onto.  They only issued 2,000 wristbands for the book signing and I was one of the lucky recipients.

Glenn gave a stirring and passionate speech and laid out an outline of the plan he has for us to take back America.  It is a 100 year plan and he pointed out the reason that his plan is set against so many years is that it took us a long time to get here and will take much time to dismantle the Progressive structure around us.  After all, we have just made the first step of finally having the opportunity to audit the Fed, so the idea that we could abolish it overnight is unrealistic.

Glenn has assembled a large team of experts broken into groups of three according to each area of expertise, for example there are money experts and community organizing experts.  Glenn is breaking the country into seven regions and each region will host a convention that will be a full day or possibly a weekend of education about our history and the different areas of expertise.  The first convention will be held in Orlando on March 27th.  For the other regions, Glenn is setting up an area on his site for people to vote which city in each region they would like to have host the next convention.

These conventions will culminate in a huge gathering at the feet of Abraham Lincoln in Washington DC on August 28th.  Glenn is hoping to have several thousand, I am hoping for millions, so that our representatives will be forced to listen to us.  We will be an educated and angry mob hell-bent to take back our country peacefully.  Glenn gave us our first action step, which is to be an example in your individual life.  He pointed out that if you are in debt, get out of debt.  We need to take personal responsibility so that we can hold DC responsible.

It was a very motivating speech and then the book signing started.  This is the second time I have attended a Glenn Beck book signing.  It was great getting to shake his hand and thank him again.  This time, though, I added something else.  I held Glenn’s hand to make sure he heard me and I said, “Glenn, I am part of another non-existent group: gay conservatives.  We stand with you too.”  Glenn looked me in the eye and held onto my hand and pulled me towards him and said, “God bless you.”

When it comes to freedom and the Constitution, it really does not matter who we are.  We are all in this fight together and it is going to take each and every one of us.  Thank you to Glenn for being our inspiration!   I just finished this as news broke that the Senate got the 60 votes to move ReidCare into debate – now more than ever – WE ARE AT WAR!

UPDATE:  The Villages paper, The Daily Sun, reports that 25,000 people were in attendance – I guess I was a little off.

Advertisers Dump Fox News’ Glenn Beck

Apparently, when someone gives their opinion on the President and it is negative it is considered an attack now.  The Associated Press is running a story entitled, “Attack On Obama Riles Beck’s Advertisers.”  So the AP has passed judgement on the political opinions of Glenn Beck as attacks on the President.  And several advertisers including CVS Pharmacy, UPS, Clorox and Wal-Mart have decided that they would like Fox News to move any of their commercials out of the rotation during Glenn Beck’s show.  Never mind the 2.4 million viewers that watch the show.  And never mind patriotic Americans like myself who will not be patronizing these outlets.   How many of these advertisers pulled from shows accusing myself and millions of Americans of being racist and tea baggers and mobsters?  Does this kind of stuff only count when it is the great Obama?

Let’s look at the facts.  Behind this push to get these advertisers to drop Beck is a group by the name of ColorofChange.org which was founded by Van Jones, the Green Czar, now under scrutiny from Glenn Beck.  Van Jones is an avowed Communist and readily admits to converting to his support of Communism in prison.  Glenn did a broad expose this evening on his show about Van Jones.  Also, it is apparent to many people who are paying attention that the President does hold a racially charged deep seated anger.  Whether one calls him a racist for that or not is their decision, but I can see why someone would say such a thing.

The AP is reporting, “[Beck] actually on another Fox show July 28 when he referred to Obama as a racist with ‘ deep-seated hatred for white people.’The network immediately distanced itself from Beck’s statement, but Beck didn’t. He used his radio show the next day to explain why he believed that.”  I felt his explanation was fair.

These advertisers have every right to pull their ads from Beck’s show, but I also have the right to not give them anymore of my money.  And Glenn, stop the personal advertising you do on the radio for the UPS stores because those back stabbers don’t deserve your’s or Tanya’s kudos anymore.