glenn beck

The Republican Party is on life support and needs serious help. Sure Democrats have reason to celebrate this week, but the left should be really concerned about what might happen if the GOP continues down their current path of self-annihilation.

This is something I have been talking about for years now and Nicholas Kristof hits on this very point in today's New York Times:

Schadenfreude may excuse Democrats’ smiles for a few days, but these trends portend a potential disaster not just for the Republican Party but for the health of our political system. America needs a plausible center-right opposition party to hold Obama’s feet to the fire, not just a collection of Tea Party cranks.

So liberals as well as conservatives should be rooting for the Republican Party to feel sufficiently shaken that it shifts to the center. One hopeful sign is that political parties usually care more about winning than about purism. Thus the Democratic Party embraced the pragmatic center-left Bill Clinton in 1992 after three consecutive losses in presidential elections.

The "Tea Party cranks" Kristof talks about is the biggest enemy of the right. Take a look at this last session in the House. When we were trying to avoid debt default, good ideas were being generated by Democrats and Republicans collectively. It wasn't until John Boehner got held hostage by the Tea Party members of his own caucus that things went down hill and our credit rating was lowered.

But the Tea Party isn't the only culprits in this mess. Again, here's Kristof:

Now this is really interesting:

Wouldn't it be great if a Republican presidential candidate could just buy the support of just about every major conservative talk show host in America? Well, it may not be as far-fetched as you may think. Clear Channel owns more radio stations (850) than anyone else in the United States. They also own Premiere Radio Networks, the company that syndicates the radio shows of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, among others. Needless to say, Clear Channel basically owns conservative talk radio in the United States. So who owns Clear Channel? Well, it turns out that Bain Capital is one of the primary owners of Clear Channel. Yes, you read that correctly. The company that Mitt Romney ran for so long is one of the "big bosses" over virtually all conservative talk radio in America. Of course Mitt Romney is not running Bain Capital anymore. He is a "retired partner", but he still has a huge financial stake in Bain Capital. We're talking about millions upon millions of dollars. If you doubt this, just check out page 34 of this public financial disclosure report. So if you have been wondering why so many conservative talk show hosts are being so incredibly kind to Mitt Romney, this just might be the answer.

This week right wing talkers like Hannity and Limbaugh started attacking any GOP candidate that was going after Romney's Bain years. Now we know why.

And full disclosure be dammed here. At least MSNBC announces that they are partners with Bain in the Weather Channel. The right doesn't feel you have a right to know. It might prevent Republicans from being so subservient to big businesses influence.

UPDATE:

E.J. Dionne has a great piece today talking about the Buffett tax plan. Conservatives have been on a constant attack against Warren Buffett over his claims that his tax rate is to low. Of course all the focus has been on Buffet, but there are other’s in Buffett’s tax bracket that feel the same:

Advocates of higher taxes on the wealthy do not want to “punish” the successful. Buffett and Doug Edwards, a millionaire who asked Obama at a recent town hall event in California to raise his taxes, are saying that none of us succeeds solely because of personal effort. We are all lucky to have been born in — or, for immigrants, admitted to — a country where the rule of law is strong, where property is safe, where a vast infrastructure has been built over generations, where our colleges and universities are the envy of the world, and where government protects our liberties.

That is what I have been talking about. The rich got that way because of America, so paying taxes and contributing to help get America moving forward again is the least they can do for the country that made them. The problem is the right wing noise machine. I’ve got many Republican friends who make less than $100,000 a year and yet feel taxes should continue to be cut on the rich. Most of them listen to people like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Of course these talking heads will rally against raising taxes on the rich. Just look at their 2010 salaries:

It's no secret that Glenn Beck's show on FOX News has been in a rapid decline in terms of content, viewers and sponsors. Now it looks like the end to Beck's television show could be in sight: 

But a funny thing happened on the way from the revolution. Since last August, when he summoned more than 100,000 followers to the Washington mall for the “Restoring Honor” rally, Mr. Beck has lost over a third of his audience on Fox — a greater percentage drop than other hosts at Fox. True, he fell from the great heights of the health care debate in January 2010, but there has been worrisome erosion — more than one million viewers — especially in the younger demographic.

He still has numbers that just about any cable news host would envy and, with about two million viewers a night, outdraws all his competition combined. But the erosion is significant enough that Fox News officials are willing to say — anonymously, of course; they don’t want to be identified as criticizing the talent — that they are looking at the end of his contract in December and contemplating life without Mr. Beck.

The problem is that crazy still sells, so Bec could end up holding on. That is unless FOX can find someone even crazier to fill the spot. God help us all if that happens.

One of Glenn Beck’s big gold sponsors is in some serious trouble:

Glenn Beck might, for once, be right: the government iscoming for your gold. But only if you happened to buy it from one of Beck's advertisers, the Superior Gold Group. At the request of prosecutors from LA County and Santa Monica city who have filed a civil suit against the company, Los Angeles County judge has ordered that Superior Gold be placed into receivership and all of its assets—bank accounts, real estate, and presumably gold stored for customers—frozen. On Monday, a court-appointed lawyer actually physically seized control of the company, presumably to prevent further wrongdoing. The lawsuit alleged that among other things, Superior had defrauded its customers by overcharging them, fraudulently inducing them to buy overpriced collectors' coins rather than the bullion that they wanted, and taking customers' money for coins they never produced. The prosecutors hope that the lawsuit will provide restitution for all of the company's ripped off customers. The judge will hold a hearing later this month to decide whether the company's assets should remain frozen until the case goes to trial.

(h/t Cesca)

After years of the right wing claiming George Soros was funding Media Matters, the billionaire decided to cave and write his first check to the website:

Media Matters, the liberal activist group that wages a rhetorical war againstFox News Channel and others in the conservative press, will announce on Wednesday the receipt of a $1 million donation from the philanthropist George Soros.

In a statement obtained by The Caucus, the organization says it plans to use the money to intensify its efforts to hold the Fox host Glenn Beck and others on the cable news channel accountable for their reporting.

This news caused wingnut rhetoric to go into overdrive, right on cue from their leader:

Today on his radio program, Rush Limbaugh reacted to the news of George Soros' $1 million donationto Media Matters thusly: "You want to talk a little foreign money in politics? George Soros has admitted to donating $1 million to Media Matters for America."

Sovereign citizens are the craziest of the crazies. They are the most extreme of the right, believing that the federal government has zero authority and even rewrite history to say as much. But it doesn’t stop there. These people are also some of the worst predators out there:

They call themselves sovereign citizens, U.S. residents who declare themselves above state and federal laws. Many don't register children's births, carry driver's licenses or recognize the court system.

Some peddle schemes that use fictional legal loopholes to eliminate debt and avoid foreclosures.

A few such believers are violent: Two police officers in Arkansas died in a shootout in May after stopping an Ohio sovereign citizen and his son.

The entire article gives a very scary look into the growing movement and how dangerous it is to our country. And while you read it remember that these are the type of idiots that people like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and a majority of Republicans look up to as heroes. That’s how dangerous the rhetoric on the right is giving.

Glenn Beck earns roughly the same as all of us:

Just how handsomely does it pay to be one of the most controversial men in America? For Glenn Beck, $32 million.

Beck, who became a household name in 2009, pulled in the shocking sum through a revenue stream that includes books, radio, TV, digital media, and speaking fees.

Isn’t $32 million the median household income nowadays?