Glenn Beck: Vitriolic Attacks Lead to Death Threats

Glenn Beck credit Indyposted

 

Does anyone really believe that the hateful rhetoric abounding in the mass media does not lend itself to violence? There are those who cling to the First Amendment in a cloak and dagger form, inciting violence such as we witnessed in Tucson recently. One example of this is Glenn Beck, who has taken on 78 year old Frances Fox Piven, a professor at the City University of New York. Beck has labeled Piven “an enemy of the people.” He also claims that she is one one of the “nine most dangerous people in the world.” Since this declaration from Beck, Professor Piven has had numerous death threats against her, many of which were posted on Beck’s website, The Blaze.

Part of Beck’s stance against Piven is derived from an article written by Piven and her now deceased husband, Richard Cloward, in 1966. The article was entitled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty.” Within the article Piven and her husband suggested that Welfare rolls could be overwhelmed by people who needed money, thereby drawing attention to poverty and creating fiscal and economic stress to our financial system which would hopefully draw attention to the crisis of poverty in this country. Keep in mind that this was written in 1966. Beck called it “economic sabotage.”

More recently, Piven came under fire for suggesting in an article in The Nation that unemployed people should be staging mass protests. In Beck’s on-air response to Piven, he played videos of violent outbursts and fires in Greece due to their own economic crisis and drew parallels between those demonstrations and the statements of Frances Fox Piven. So Piven calls for the staging of protests and Beck, in his over-the-top dramatic style, plays a violent video from Greece. Piven’s response was that this was Beck’s way of “trying to frighten his viewers.”

And out of this Becketized rhetoric, death threats were issued against Piven. Some of the death threats against Piven read as follows: “We should blow up Piven’s office and home;” “I am all for violence and change Frances: Where do your loved one live?” and “OK! If it is violence she wants I think we should start with Ms. Piven.”

Is this 78 year old woman truly deserving of being placed on Beck’s “nine most dangerous people in the world” list? Is it a coincidence that eight of Beck’s so-called “nine most dangerous people” in the world are Jews? Is it any coincidence that these people are considered intellectuals? This rancor of Beck seems to be, in itself, a dangerous throw-back to a horriibly dangerous time in history.

On January 20, the Center for Constitutional Right sent an appeal to Fox News chairman Roger Ailes asking him to put a stop to these tirades against Piven. It stated that the “threats must be taken seriously by Fox News, and that her life could well be at stake.” According to the New York Times, Joel Cheatwood Fox News vice president, told the CCR that he would not order Beck to stop criticizing Piven and that he knew of no death threats against her. It is that old canard: money trumps everything. Beck brings in viewers with this rhetoric which in turn brings revenue to Fox News. At what price life?

Written by Askcherlock

From more articles by this author visit: http://askcherlock.com/

 

Washington Post Debunks Email

Republicans have been circulating an email amongst the workplace and Tea Party crazies. Today, Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post “Fact Checker” rips apart another example of Rebulican distortions and lies campaigns. Check it out at:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2011/01/judges_letter_on_health_care.html

 

 

Republican Job-Killing Lies

Lizard Skulls

Once again, the Republicans are using lies in their attempt to strip health care away from millions of Americans. As is somewhat well known, the fork tongued Repugs have famously called the new bill, “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act”. The non-partisan political fact check site factcheck.org/ completely dismantles this shameful rightwing lie. Below is a summery debunking cry-baby Boehner and his lying cohorts on their job-killing falsehoods:

“When it comes to truth in labeling, House Republicans are getting off to a poor start with their constantly repeated references to the new health care law as “job-killing.”

We find:

• Independent, nonpartisan experts project only a “small” or “minimal” impact on jobs, even before taking likely job gains in the health care and insurance industries into account.
• The House Republican leadership, in a report issued Jan. 6, badly misrepresents what the Congressional Budget Office has said about the law. In fact, CBO is among those saying the effect “will probably be small.”
• The GOP also cites a study projecting a 1.6 million job loss — but fails to mention that the study refers to a hypothetical employer mandate that is not part of the new law.
• The same study cited by the GOP also predicts an offsetting gain of 890,000 jobs in hospitals, doctors’ offices and insurance companies — a factor not mentioned by the House leadership.

There’s little doubt that the new law will likely lead to somewhat fewer low-wage jobs. That’s mainly because of the law’s requirement that, generally, firms with more than 50 workers pay a penalty if they fail to provide health coverage for their workers. One leading health care expert, John Sheils of The Lewin Group, puts the loss at between 150,000 and 300,000 jobs, at or near the minimum wage. And Sheils says that relatively small loss would be partly offset by gains in the health care industry.”

It should be noted that the CBO states that most of the job losses will come from people nearing retirement that are holding onto low paying jobs simply for the health insurance benefits. The CBO suggests most of the loss will be voluntary. And of these relatively small job losses, untold gains will “partly offset” the actually number. Factcheck.org is among several non-partisan fact checking sites that have come to these same conclusions. One, the job losses created by the new health care reform law will be “very small”. Two, the Republicans are lying yet again. They are distorting the facts because they know if Americans actually knew the truth they would overwhelmingly supported the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

In fact, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports, “32 to 82 million people with both health problems and job-based coverage would be vulnerable without the new law.  Increasingly, employers have used annual and lifetime limits on benefits to keep their health insurance costs down.  In 2009, roughly 94 million Americans were in employer-sponsored insurance with a lifetime limit.¹¹ The new health reform law has already banned lifetime limits in private insurance and has restricted annual limits for group and new individual market plans before banning such limits in 2014.  This protects workers and their dependents with health conditions, whose coverage may have otherwise run out with a serious accident, disease that involves intense care, or other high-cost illness.”

When you include all the Americans with pre-existing conditions without job-based coverage, the total number of Americans that would be vulnerable if the new health care law is repealed balloons to 129 million Americans potentially affected by the lying Republicans actions. Of course the health insurance industry will be eternally indebted to the Repugs.

Now that the House has passed their falsely framed bill, it will be up to the Senate to put an end to the Republican lies. Yet, no one should be surprised when the fork tongued Repugs start proposing new bills that will attempt to dismantle bit by bit the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

Yesterday, on the House floor, Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky said it best when he denounced the Republican effort: “They can say whatever they want, but the truth is that the Republican plan is no care, no matter how desperate or how dire your diagnosis, no matter if the alternative saves money, saves jobs and saves lives. I yield back.”

More from Politifact.com :

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jan/20/eric-cantor/health-care-law-job-killer-evidence-falls-short/

Skulls provided by U.C. Davis @ mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu

Rightwing Rhetoric Takes Lives

Yesterday, after hearing about the tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Federal Judge John Roll, and others, including the death of a 9 year old girl Christian Taylor Green (born on 9.11), I wrote a brief comment on one of my favorite citizen journalism websites, which later turned into an interesting discussion similar to what we might see play out in the next few days:

“HurricaneDean: Congresswoman’s shooter appears to be another domestic rightwing terrorist and friend of Fox News. Another anit-gov nativist. Shooter sounds a bit like Glenn Beck.

HurricaneDean: Sarah Palin had Gabrielle Giffords on her “hit list.” Palin wrote of unseating Giffords, “If the vote failed, don’t retreat — RELOAD.”

TheTAZZone: Palin’s an idiot…but…we can’t really pin it on her, this is kinda like blaming gangsta rap for some kid doin’ a drive-by…or blame a movie for creating serial killers…yes, it was a stupid thing

TheTAZZone: to say, but we kinda expect that from Palin. 😉

HurricaneDean: TAZZ, Not exactly. Music and movies are entertainment. Hate filled vitriol from politicians is not.

HurricaneDean: The guy that attempted to shoot up the Tides and ACLU said he listened to Glenn Beck and believed a revolution was coming and he wanted to be a part of it.

HurricaneDean: Even though Beck has called himself a clown, people take his lies, smears, and vitriol seriously. When public figures order hits it is different from when a video game orders it.

TheTAZZone: Yes and no. Perhaps there’s a slight difference but all them require the one and same ingredient …a person who can’t differentiate between reality and fantasy…a sane person would not have seen…

TheTAZZone: that as a call to action…or you’d have a lot more than one person flying off the handle.

HurricaneDean: History tells us, political leaders can drum up violence with words. Music, not so much

HurricaneDean: Political violence is on a raise. I have two articles that have published findings on this matter.

TheTAZZone: Why did, out of 10’s of thousands of insane and 100’s of thousands of marginally intelligent did ‘ only ‘ one ‘ person react? Because even most morons and crazy people knew it was a bad joke. ;)….

TheTAZZone: could differentiate.

HurricaneDean: Reports show violent rightwing extremist groups rising, as is the violent rhetoric of rightwing talk show and politicians.

HurricaneDean: Yes, it is the crazies that will go off the edge. But they don’t need any help from political leaders.

TheTAZZone: Agreed…it was a stupid thing to say because they should know that someone will likely go off the edge.

HurricaneDean: We don’t need anymore Timothy McVieghs. (Another rightwing anti-gov. nativist).

HurricaneDean: When political extremism rises, so does the body count. Left or right, this is simply history. Look at the anarchists in Greece. Same story, just opposite side of the spectrum.”

However, I was not alone in my quick analysis of looking toward Republican leaders for partial blame. Tucson, Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik also came out in opposition of the Republican and rightwing political rhetoric:

“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

“It’s not unusual for all public officials to get threats constantly, myself included. And that’s the sad thing of what’s going on in America. Pretty soon, we’re not going to be able to find reasonable, decent people who are willing to subject themselves to serve in public office.”

He later added:

DUPNIK: Let me just say one thing, because people tend to poo-poo this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech. But it’s not without consequences.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/08/gabrielle-giffords-shot-c_n_806211.html#79_wow

Since I started this piece by quoting myself, I guess it is only fitting to end it doing the same. Here is a small excerpt from an article I published in March, 2010 titled, Tea Party Terrorists:

“A Harris Poll published March, 22, 2010 demonstrates the influence extremist ideology has had on Republicans. When asked about Obama’s intentions, 51 % believed, “He wants to turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a one world government,” 45 % believe, “He was not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president,” 61% says he, “Wants to take away Americans’ right to own guns,” 39 % believes he “Is doing many of the things that Hitler did,” and 41% answered true to the statement that Obama, “Wants to use an economic collapse or terrorist attack as an excuse to take dictatorial powers.” [5]

At one time, this type of thinking was considered rightwing extremist fringe ideology. Today, the conspiracy theories of the crazies are trickling into the main stream rightwing media. We see slogans and rhetoric splattered across the front pages of our papers that could have been written by George Eaton or Timothy McVeigh. And that is where all of this vitriol and crazy conspiracy theories ultimately can lead to, another Oklahoma City bombing. That is why all of us need to talk to our fellow Americans and listen to them without using bullhorns, racial slurs and brinks throw their windows. We need to end allowing crazy conspiracy theories to substitute honest debate on policy differences.”

Republican rhetoric takes lives. Now is the time for all Americans to just say no. No more lies, smears, and vitriol. No more fear mongering. And especially, no more threats and images that provoke violence. However, I feel the only way this ultimately will change is when the few remaining morally sound Republicans finally stand up to the extremist elements that have hijacked their party. That is of course, if there really are any remaining morally sound Republicans left in America. I’m increasingly less convinced of that possibility.

Beware of Republican CBO Hypocrisy

Even Fox News admits:

“The Republican plan to repeal the healthcare law would drive up federal deficits by $230 billion by 2021, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded Thursday, undercutting GOP efforts to seize the mantle of fiscal responsibility.

Overturning the law President Obama signed in March would also leave 32 million more Americans without health coverage, the analysts concluded.

And although health insurance premiums would be lower in some cases, the analysts estimated that without the law, consumers would get skimpier coverage and many would actually pay more because they would lose insurance subsidies included in the new law.

House Republican leaders quickly dismissed the new projection from the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, as unrealistic. Some analysts have also questioned whether all the savings in the sweeping health overhaul will be realized.

“CBO is entitled to their opinion,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday. “I do not believe that repealing the job-killing healthcare law will increase the deficit.”

Yet, Media Matters documents, the new House Majority Whip Eric Cantor said in a June, 2009 press conference, “In following up on the Leader’s statements about Republican efforts to try and make sure we accomplish health care reform, I think the news yesterday from the CBO is the turning point in the heath care debate so that we will be able to put some reason back into the discussion here and be able to produce for the middle class families in this country.”

In addition, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called the CBO “independent” and has often quoted their findings when it serves his special corporate elite interests.  McConnell was especially vocal about the CBO report that seemed to justify the giant health insurance company Humana’s right to mislead seniors. According to a September, 2009, Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky) article “McConnell, who has opposed health care proposals by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, was back on the Senate floor Wednesday. He pointed out that an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showed Humana’s concerns were justified.”

Republican Body Count is dedicated to standing up for the millions of Americans that risk losing their health insurance and with it quality health care. In that effort, RBC is interested in exposing the hellish fountain of Republican lies and hypocrisy in their attempts to undermine the general welfare of Americans. The Repugs are now attempting to push one of the most legitimate, independent, non-partisans accounting sources off to the sideline in order to strip away health care for millions.

When the lying Republican’s ran for office, they claimed they were all for honesty and transparency. Now they want to replace the legitimate, independent arbitrator of economic policy with the sleight of hand “Enron-type accounting” of Republican controlled chairman. According to the Huffington Post:

“Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the incoming ranking member of the House Budget Committee, warned on Tuesday that Republican leadership is set to implement new rules that would effectively do away with the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO is often regarded as a nonpartisan, independent scorekeeper for Congress. And by taking away its input in legislative matters, Van Hollen said, Republicans were ushering in an era of make-your-own-reality-based budgeting.

“This is a huge loophole for Enron-type accounting … In the rule they pass tomorrow they are going to reiterate that the chair of the budget committee has the authority to come up with his own estimate of the budget impact of various pieces of legislation,” Van Hollen told the Huffington Post. “And a week from now, when they get around to repealing health care reform I think you will see they will go down and say this has zero cost impact.”

“It is a wholesale disregard of CBO estimates,” Van Hollen added.”

Now that they are in office, the first thing the Republican shysters are attempting is to con Americans into believing that by denying health care for millions of Americas, the nation will save money. Don’t you believe this repugnant lie for one second. Even Fox News admits the CBO estimates killing health care reform will add $230 billion to the deficit. Let alone cause great suffering and devastating personal financial debt for millions of Americans.

For regular updates on the adverse affects of the new Republican congress’ policies on Americans, visit my new website RepublicanBodyCount.wordpress.com

Republican Lies Kill Americans

Republicans just helped kill Americans! That is right, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, end-of-life counseling both extends life and improves the quality of life. Nonetheless, Republicans and rightwing nut jobs pushed Obama to reverse his decision yesterday on providing Medicare funding for end-of-life counseling by telling a series of lies . As a result, tens of thousands of Americans will not receive such counseling, pay more in health care, and live shorter lives.

With today’s swearing in of the new Republican congress, I starting a new blog called Republican Body Count. Since Republicans and phony freak-o-patriots wish to strip millions of Americans away of their health care, safety, and overall general welfare, I will keep a tally of the eventual millions of Americans adversely affect by Republican policies in the next two years.

I start with the end-of-life counseling Republicans have been shouting about this past week. As some that follow Fox News and the rightwing blogs already know, the Rupugs have resurrected the whole “death panels” issue when they learned that Obama authorized Medicare to pay for end-of-life counseling. However, after a great deal of Republican pressure, Obama reversed his decision and called for more debate on the issue.  As a result, if only 2% of the terminally ill do not receive professional end-of-life counseling, roughly 22,000 American lives could become shortened and their bank accounts depleted.

But don’t take my word for it, here is Dr. Atul Gawande, associated professor at Harvard School of Public Health and a practicing surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston explains the horrific consequences of the Republican “death-panel” lies on democracynow.org:

“End-of-life discussions are not death panels. But you say it over and over again, you brand it over and over again, and you begin to define what the meaning is of a major policy that’s passed. Being able to provide funding for discussions that have been shown to have a huge difference in improving the quality of life patients have and, in a recent study published in the New England Journal, also generated longer life for patients by helping them make better decisions about when to stop therapies that have become harmful to them, like that fourth round of chemotherapy and so on, those kinds of studies indicate we need more, longer and better discussions with doctors, overall. Repeal is a major mistake.”

The Obama administration says only a small percentage of Americans would actually be affected by the end-of-life Medicare provision. Fair enough, since there are an estimated 1.1 million terminally ill Americans in the U.S. annually. I will set the Body Count at 22,000 Americans directly affected by the Republican lies at the start of this year. I believe I am making an extremely conservative estimate, more than 1% of terminally ill Americans and less than 5%. Nonetheless, this is 6 times more Americans killed and economically plundered than on 9/11. With control of the House, Republican have vowed to repeal health care reform, which would end mean millions of Americans will end up losing their health care. Add their efforts to repeal Food Safety regulations, environmental protections, and worker protections and we can see the Republican Body Count go into the tens of millions in just two years. Let’s hope not!

For story by story update and body count of Americans hurt by the new Republican congress, check out this site over the next two years.

 

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