Jewish leaders call Beck out on his false attack on George Soros

To quote a famous song from Sesame Street: “Three of these things belong together,” and the three things are unhinged, Glenn Beck and George Soros.

Anytime the name of the self-made billionaire and Soros is mentioned the right becomes unhinges, and Faux “news” madman Glenn Beck is unhinged.

With so few liberal billionaires around to attack, unlike the vast number of rightwing billionaires who are politically active, Soros is an easy target for the right. The name of Soros has reached the level of taking point to the right, and anything they want to discredit to their base they just add the words, “Soros-funded,” in front of anything.

Soros is a self-made man, something Republicans claim they admire, but in addition to his humanitarian giving, that includes helping end apartheid in South Africa by giving money for scholarships to black students there and helping end Communism by funding dissident movements behind the iron curtain, he also gives to Democrats.

That is his crime, or perhaps they hate him because he, unlike most GOP millionaires and billionaires, did not inherit his wealth.

But Beck went after Soros again this week with an hour-long smearfest against Soros with the ridiculous claim that he has somehow conspired with Democrats, progressives and the Obama administration to demolish the U.S. economy.

Media Matters, which finally received $1 million from Soros after the right falsely claimed he funded them for years, does another great job of debunking Beck’s lies. But the right will attack and try to discredit them because of the first and only contribution from Soros. It’s a good thing Media Matters lists its sources.

But the Jewish community reacted negatively to Beck’s over the top and false attacks and trivialization of the Holocaust to attack Soros.

Beck claims that as a child in Nazi-occupied Hungary, Soros survived by living with a non-Jewish family, “used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off. And George Soros was part of it. He would help confiscate the stuff.” He claimed Soros never had any remorse even ad an adult.

In an article in the Nov. 11 of the “Jewish Week,” Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman called Beck out on his rant, saying, “it was totally over the top.” Foxman is also a child survivor who lived only because his parents turned him over to his Catholic nanny. He said the issue of the Holocaust “is so sensitive that I'm not even sure Holocaust survivors themselves are willing to make such judgments.”

“For a political commentator or entertainer to have the audacity to say, there's a Jewish boy sending Jews to death camps, that's horrific,” Foxman said in the Jewish Week. “It's totally off limits and over the top.”

Even more Jewish leaders called Beck out.

Elan Steinberg, vice president of The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, called the Beck accusations “monstrous; you don't make such accusations without proof, and I have seen no such proof.” Beck's charges, he said, “go to the heart of the instrumentalization and trivialization of the Holocaust."

Even non-Jewish religious leaders called Beck out.

Interfaith Alliance President Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy said Beck's “use of the Holocaust to discredit George Soros is beyond repugnant. The Holocaust is one of history’s most tragic events and those who survived it are owed our enduring respect.”

Deranged Beck named 2009 Misinformer of the Year

In perhaps the easier pick in years, Faux “news” madman Glenn Beck was named Media Matters' 2009 Misinformer of the Year.

Media Matters always has a lot to choose from in picking its annual award - just from the Faux line up alone - from cable news to right-wing radio, from online publications to major newspapers. But, the former Morning Zoo shock jock's unique brand of vitriol, stage theatrics, and hyperbolic fright, make him an easy choice for Media Matters’ 2009 Misinformer of the Year.

When he wasn’t crying, going off on demented rants telling people to get off his phone or whipping up the corporate-funded tea-baggers he was calling the President of the United States a racist, saying he was a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred of white people.”

I would say the guy needs a straightjacket, but the reality is he may just have hit on the rightwing formula for success: say the most outrageous, false smears against any non-extremist tea bagger, and you can rake in the millions and be assured of success. It has worked well for the likes of Hanity, Coulter, O’Reily and Limbaugh.

Media Matters dug deep through the more than 3,500 detailed research items they released this year to select Beck as the annual "Misinformer of the Year.” He joins other past winners Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews, ABC, and Sean Hannity

Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. They have earned the wrath of the likes of O’Reily for daring to smear him by putting the actual unedited, video of him up smearing himself.

False smears earn hatemonger Hannity the 2008 Misinformer of the Year dishonor

With all the smears and misinformation put out by the conservative media against President Barack Obama and the Democrats in 2008, it would seem to be hard to choose just one person who has conveyed the most misinformation and smears. Not so says media watchdog Media Matters, and it chose Faux News talking head Sean Hannity as the 2008 Misinformer of the Year.

Hannity won the award hands down, despite many people to choose from; including numerous right-wing radio hosts, cable news pundits, major daily newspapers and online publications. Month after month, Media Matters shone the light of accountability on the media, which all too often pass along conservative spin, smears and distortions as fact. They did so by posting the actual video of misinformation and a transcript, defeating the claim that it took things out of contest.

It also documented the many lied and smears of fellow Faux talking head Bill O'Reilly's misinformation by actually posting the video, and it earned them his ire, calling them "the most dishonest website in the country." And how do they do that? By actually posting the audio and video of O'Reilly's misinformation.

Media Matters dug deep through the more than 3,500 detailed research items they released this year to select the annual "Misinformer of the Year." But Hannity's tactics left little doubt that the blow dried talking head deserved the dishonor. He left no smear of a progressive leader or issue unspoken, turning both of his cable television programs and his nationally syndicated radio show into cesspools of conservative misinformation.

His nightly show on Faux News was filled with examples of taking what Obama said and distorting it. His constant refrain was Obama'a alleged "radical associations," and that means if Obama and the alleged radical were in the same place at the same time once. Almost every long, convoluted question that was really a statement put out by Hannity always included the words, "Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright, Louis Farrakhan and Rezko." Even Obama's family have not been off-limits.

In addition to simply mouthing Republican talking points, Hannity has continued to use debunked smears against Obama and Democrats in general, give a platform to the most despicable smear merchants, defending Republicans and even raising money for them and failing to disclose that little fact.

Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.

Looking for the big 3 of media bias

Every reporter has heard the unfair charge of liberal media bias, and bristled at what many see as a political strategy hatched by the right. Now, with your help, we plan to take a look every week at the three worst Michigan reporters, columnists, commentators and pundits; the Big 3 so to speak. As we have seen from the attacks on Media Matters from people like radio host Rush Limbaugh and TV host Bill O'Reilly, they do not like having a spotlight focused on them.

Charges of media bias have been around a long time, and are hard to pinpoint and to get rid of.

Benjamin Franklin was accused of being biased in 1728 when he wrote an article advocating the printing of more paper money, but failed to mention his own printing company stood to profit by printing that money. At the turn of the 20th Century major cities had multiple daily newspapers, and many of those dailies were published by political party members and even served as the official publication of the party. That slowly began to change as the separation between the newsrooms and the editorial page widened and newspapers adopted strict codes of ethics.

But the charges of so-called liberal media bias really took off during the Republican administration of Richard Nixon when the media was full of negative press reports on the Vietnam War, reflecting the mood of the country. I November 1969, Nixon’s vice-president, Spiro Agnew, made a landmark speech blasting what he labeled the liberal media's opposition to the war. In that speech he uttered the famous line accusing the media of being "nattering nabobs of negativism." Former Nixon aide and presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan wrote in conservative publications in the 1970s that the "the liberal media establishment” reporting on Watergate brought down a president.

The assault on the media has continued ever since. This is where you come in.

Based on an informal survey of many bloggers who write about politics, this is the list of commentators that was suggested, to be whittled down to the Big 3: Nolan Finley, Frank Beckmann, George Weeks. Dawson Bell, Dave Renkiewicz, Tim Skubick, Murray Feldman and Bill Ballenger.

Finley is Editorial Page editor of The Detroit News, and as such he sets the tone for the page. He has been a constant critic of Gov. Jennifer Granholm. His column runs every Sunday. Beckmann hosts a morning radio show on conservative radio station WJR and also writes a column for the Detroit News. He is also a Granholm antagonist.

Weeks was a political columnist for The Detroit News for 22 years before his recent retirement, but now his weekly column is syndicated by Superior Features, running in the Traverse City Record Eagle. For 14 years, Weeks served on the staff of Republican Gov. William G. Milliken in various positions including press secretary.

Bell is a reporter for the Detroit Free Press covering Lansing and politics. Renkiewicz is the host of the “Live with Renk” show on Sunday on conservative talk station WBCK in Battle Creek. Skubick is the host of the long-running political talk show “Off the Record,” and he covers Lansing for various TV and radio stations.

Feldman is the business reporter for Fox TV 2. Ballenger is a former Republican member of the Michigan Senate and House, a noted political pundit and the editor and publisher of “Inside Michigan Politics.”

We want readers' help in picking the top three, and so we are attaching an online poll to choose the winner. We will announce the winner a week from today. Please go to Michigan Messenger to cast your vote.

Just one more example of Coulter’s discrimination

I guess the only good news is no newspaper in Michigan carries hatemonger Ann Coulter’s column after her last discriminatory outburst, but unfortunately people can still read her slime on line.

Her latest piece of trash is called “Nuts in the crosshairs,” and I can only hope no one really takes this bile seriously. Believe it or not, she’s talking about the tragedy at Virginia Tech University, and its pretty much the standard fare: more then half the U.S. population, Democrats, are evil and more than half the world population, followers of Islam, are also evil.

“Democrats are promoting a mental health exception to the right to bear arms.”

As you know, in December 2005 the district court in Montgomery County, Va. ruled that the Virginia Tech shooter presented "an imminent danger to self or others.” The ruling, more than a year before Monday's mass shootings, was the necessary criterion for a detention order, after he had been accused of stalking by two female schoolmates. So Coulter is saying people who are insane or are judged to be a danger to themselves and others should not be denied the right to buy a firearm? I have to disagree. Whether the 2nd Amendment allows individuals to buy any kind of firearm with no sane restrictions or whether it’s a collective right is also up for debate.

As lovely as it would be, we cannot identify mass murderers before they have broken any law, and mass murder is often the first serious crime they commit. No one can be locked up permanently for being potentially dangerous.

It’s a little scary, but I agree with Coulter in this one. But I don’t think we should allow the mentally ill unfettered access to any kind of firearm they want.

So on one hand, the mental health exception is a feel-good measure that would be largely pointless. But on the other hand, it's no skin off my back. Liberals go to therapy. Conservatives go to church. And I think we'd all sleep better knowing that David Brock could not buy a gun.

Again, those judged by a court to be a danger to themselves and others should be allowed a weapon? I disagree. “Conservatives go to church?” There is no one who listens or reads Coulter’s hate speech can believe this woman is a Christian. It just seems to me that the values of social justice and care for the less fortunate that liberals embrace are much more in line with Christian values. I don’t get the shot at David Brock, other than people like Bill O’Reily and Rush Windbag are on a mission to destroy him because as the head of Media Maters he is exposing their lies and misinformation.

It’s funny, Brock - the author of the rightwing attack book “The real Anita Hill,” and recently the confessional “Blinded by the Right” – was once one of the rightwing conservative attack writers that were in engaged in the GOP character assassination strategy in the 1990s. Now he is a target of the people he once served for doing the right thing. He was a writer for the rightwing magazine American Spectator where he was part of the infamous “Arkansas Project” that was financed by Richard Mellon Scaife to dig up dirt on the Clintons. Brock’s crime now? He is posting entire transcripts, video and audio of the hate monger’s shtick, and apparently O’Reily, Limpbag and the other right wing attack dogs are misquoting themselves and taking themselves out of context.

And it would end the public lunacy of Jim Wallis, the Democrats' Christian. Wallis' first remark on the massacre at Virginia Tech last week was to hail the remarkable "diversity" of the victims. True, Cho murdered 32 people in cold blood. But at least he achieved diversity!

Wow. Apparently, Rev. Wallis is not a Christian and Coulter is. Wallis is an independent, but because he embraces the values of social justice and care for the less fortunate that Jesus Christ preached he must be a liberal. Wallis is a graduate of Michigan State University and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois and the author of “God’s Politics.” Wallis was taken completely out of context from a column reflecting on the tragedy of the massacre, and like he said, “This is not a time to seek easy answers or to assign blame.” Tell that to Coulter. Read it for your self.

If the Koreans can do it, why can't the Muslims? What explains the lack of a Muslim guilt impulse — so normal, as seen in the case of the saddened Koreans — after dozens of terrorist attacks on Americans?
How about a Muslim exception to the Second Amendment? That would have prevented the Virginia snipers from killing 10 people within three weeks in 2002. But most important: It would help us achieve "diversity" in our gun law prohibitions.

If you need any more proof of Coulter’s discrimination here it is. It’s like the ridiculous notion of holding every Christian accountable for the Salem Witch killings. I hope Coulter is aware a Muslim is simply a follower of Islam.

Coulter continues to say decency and respect does not apply to her

Just days after rightwing hatemonger and bigot Ann Coulter’s disgusting attack on Presidential Candidate Sen. John Edwards the queen of hate was telling people she can say what ever disgusting and hateful thing that pops in her head and get away with it.

This is what she had to say on rightwing talk show Hannity & Colmes just a few days after calling Edwards a “faggot.”
"This is the same thing we go through every six months. I say something, the same people become hysterical, and that's the end of it. I mean, I think the lesson young right-wingers ought to draw from this is it's really not that scary to attack liberals. This is about my 17th allegedly career ending moment."

Not only are some sane and reasonable people in Livingston County trying to stop her from earning $30,000 for two hours work and further sully the image of Livingston County and reinforce it as a safe haven for racists and bigots of all ilks, like Coulter, but the nation is taking action as well. Media Matters for America – a web-based, non-profit research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media – is listing the contact information for the 39 newspapers across the country that carry her column. So far, nine have agreed to drop the column, including the Oakland Press here in Michigan.

Coulter is set to speak at Cleary University’s Economic Club Speakers Luncheon Series on Oct. 1 to spread her unique bigotry and hate here in Livingston County. There is a small but earnest group of people trying to persuade Clearly President Tom Sullivan to drop Coulter in favor of someone less repugnant and not give her a platform to spread her disgusting outbursts.

You can do that by contacting Sullivan at:

President Tom Sullivan
Cleary University
3750 Cleary Drive
Howell, MI 48843
tsullivan@cleary.edu
Phone: 517.548.3670