Right Wing rhetoric came close in 2010

[Grumpy]

A while back I stated that if you like Glenn Beck, don't miss an episode as the men in white coats are on the way. I searched but could not find the post.

We also witnessed the wringing of hands of some because there were some on the left who blamed Right Wing extreme rhetoric for the shooting in Arizona. They felt justified when it turned out it didn't and thereafter attacked any attempt to point out just how lucky they were. My point that there are always a certain percent of their audience that believes every word they say and are too unstable, too confused or too stupid to not go to the next logical step. If _____ is destroying the country, then they would make the sacrifice and take______out of the equation for the cause. James Earl Ray did it for the bigot cause, Eric Rudolf did it for Abortions and McVeigh did it for Ruby Ridge. The KKK was a whole bunch of ignorant hicks who were willing to do it en mass to maintain their bigotry.

But my point was poopooed, it was just the left wing nuttiness.

So, let's go back to June of 2010...

"In July, Williams, a convicted bank robber, put on a suit of body armor and got in a car with a 9-mm handgun, a shotgun and a .308 caliber rifle equipped with armor-piercing bullets and set off for San Francisco. His destination was the Tides Foundation, which had been mentioned at that point in at least twenty-nine episodes of the Glenn Beck show, sometimes along with Piven. His goal, as he later told police, was to kill "people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU" in order to "start a revolution." Williams's mother said that he had been watching TV news and was upset at "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing-agenda items." Or, as Williams himself put it, "I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind." California Highway Patrol officers pulled Williams over for driving erratically and, after a firefight, subdued and arrested him before he could blow anyone else's mind away."

Two questions

1. Is the Right playing with fire with their extreme rhetoric?

2. Will Glenn Beck still be on Fox 30 days from today?

My answers? 1. yes. 2. No.Feel free to give your reasons, as I certainly will.

Grumpy

[Wyvern]

Two questions

1. Is the Right playing with fire with their extreme rhetoric?

2. Will Glenn Beck still be on Fox 30 days from today?

My answers? 1. yes. 2. No.Feel free to give your reasons, as I certainly will.

1. Yes

2. Yes. Fox feeds on controversy, if one of their talking heads makes a comment that cause any kind of controversy all it will do is cause more people to watch Fox's programming and in turn allow Fox to charge more money to their advertisers due to their increased viewership.

[Grumpy]

Wyvern

2. Yes. Fox feeds on controversy, if one of their talking heads makes a comment that cause any kind of controversy all it will do is cause more people to watch Fox's programming and in turn allow Fox to charge more money to their advertisers due to their increased viewership.

That is certainly why he is there in the first place, but since he called Obama a racist his advertisers have bailed. The only sponsor he has left is the gold guys, and they are currently under investigation for fraud(if you have gold, sell, sell, sell). There is also the "paid spokesman" problem. Recent rules changes require that celebrity endorsement of products or services must be reported to the FCC by the station for all on-air persons. Beck first admitted he was paid by Goldline, then he retracted it when he found that Fox has a policy of no paid endorsements. The problem for Fox is there are HUGE penalties for getting the reporting wrong and evidently the only communication between execs and Beck is now through Beck's lawyer, with him refusing to clear up his relationship with Goldline. He can admit that Goldline paid him and be fired, he can refuse to admit it and, if it turns out he lied(imagine that), cost Fox millions and THEN get fired or it may come from conservatives, themselves...

"Last week, Fox News' Glenn Beck launched a week-long effort to explain developments in Egypt as only he can. The deranged media personality cooked up truly bizarre conspiracy theories -- even by his standards -- involving caliphates, communists, and radical theocrats, all of whom are coordinating their efforts for "the coming insurrection" and the "new world order," which will apparently include China seizing New Zealand.

Over the weekend, The Weekly Standard's William Kristol, a Fox News contributor, had seen enough. "[H]ysteria is not a sign of health," Kristol wrote in a new column. "When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He's marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s."

Nearly as important, National Review's Rich Lowry, who's also a Fox News contributor, praised Kristol for taking "a well-deserved shot at Glenn Beck's latest wild theorizing." Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund, another very conservative media voice, added that Beck's use of "apocalyptic conspiracy terms" when describing Egypt "goes too far.""

...or his head could explode mid-rant one day. Whatever the straw is that injures the camel, Beck is doomed. Fox was happy with him as long as it was only liberals and Democrats that cried foul, that is Fox's function and the fact that Beck was a raving looney mattered not. But it is now threatening their bottom line(if not their license)and more rational conservatives(and there are a few these days)have stepped up to point out just how dangerous propaganda can be(Beck's Caliphate conspiracy about Egypt makes America to appear looney as well)for our country(it's about time!).

Grumpy

[whyhate]

Glenn Beck is what we call the Loss Leader. He gets the viewers, but sponsors don't wanna be associated with him.

[Grumpy]

An example of where rhetoric and actions are hard to seperate.

But we begin tonight with new and worrying details about the murder of Kansas doctor, George Tiller. Today, confirmation that Dr. Tiller‘s alleged assassin, Scott Roeder, was in contact with the extreme anti-abortion group Operation Rescue in the months leading up to Dr. Tiller‘s murder.

Up to this point, Operation Rescue has maintained that Scott Roeder was not a member of their organization. But evidence of a link between the two that was first inadvertently spotted in local television footage, has now been followed up and confirmed.

Check this out—immediately after the Tiller shooting, when Scott Roeder was pulled over by police, local TV footage from KMBC captured a glimpse of a small note that was on the dashboard of Mr. Roeder‘s car. The note read “Cheryl Op Rescue.� And it had a phone number on it.

Cheryl at Op Rescue, we can now tell you, is Cheryl Sullenger. She is employed by the anti-abortion group as their senior policy advisor. Ms. Sullenger has now admitted that she did, in fact, have multiple phone conversations with Scott Roeder before Dr. Tiller was killed. Those conversations were about Dr. Tillers.

Operation Rescue maintained and still maintains something that they call “Tiller Watch� on their Web site. Allies of Dr. Tiller in Kansas say that until recently, Operation Rescue also posted online the doctor‘s real home address and the address of his church—which, of course, is where Dr. Tiller was ultimately murdered this weekend allegedly by Scott Roeder.

Cheryl Sullenger tells “The Kansas City Star,� quote, “I was polite enough to give him the information. I had no reason not to. Who knew? Who knew, you know what I mean?�

Advertise | AdChoicesIn addition to informing Mr. Roeder of Dr. Tiller‘s whereabouts over the phone, Cheryl Sullenger was also using her Twitter account to track Dr. Tiller‘s movements. March 12th, 11:24 a.m.: “Ambulance just took woman from hospital from Tiller‘s mill. Photos, video to come. Tiller tried to hide from us.� March 5, 7:23 p.m.: “Inviting all to Tiller trial in Wichita March 16th.� February 20th, 11:26 a.m.: “Meanwhile, bloody business as usual at Tiller‘s shop of horrors.�

Before she became Operation Rescue‘s senior policy advisor, Cheryl Sullenger served almost two years in prison for conspiring to bomb a California abortion clinic in 2008. We invited Cheryl Sullenger to be on the show tonight to discuss this matter with us. She declined. We hope that she would reconsider.

Because of the history of violence against abortion providers and abortion clinics in this country, like Ms. Sullenger‘s own attempted bombing for which she went to prison, Congress gave the federal government extraordinary powers to try to stop this violence, and to stop threats of violence against abortion providers and to stop the extreme anti-abortion movement from blocking access to clinics. Those powers come from a law that‘s called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, the FACE Act. It was passed in 1993 and it says—things that might be considered minor crimes at other facilities are federal crimes when they happen at abortion clinics, because of the pattern of for terrorizing tactics and violence against abortion providers, and because of the national interest in stopping this form of terrorism.

For example, the federal crimes defined by the FACE Act include, quote, “Intentionally damaging or destroying the property of a facility or attempting to do so, because such facility provides reproductive health services.� Damaging or destroying the property of an abortion facility in other words is a federal crime. If it‘s a first offense, it‘s punishable by up to six months in prison. Second offense? Eighteen months in prison. Federal authorities are obligated, of course, to enforce that law.

And under President Clinton, federal authorities were enthusiastic about enforcing it. According to the Justice Department, and investigative work by reporter Daphne Eviatar at “The Washington Independent� today, “The Clinton administration prosecuted 17 defendants for violations of the FACE Act in 1997 alone and an average of about 10 per year since the law was enacted in 1994.�

On the other hand prosecution of FACE Act violations nearly disappeared under President Bush. “The Bush administration brought only about two criminal prosecutions per year in the entire country under the FACE Act and never more than four in any single year.�

What happens when you stop enforcing a law like this? A law that‘s designed to not only go after individually, politically-motivated criminals, but to shut down the networks among them—well, that brings us back to what happened in Kansas this weekend, what happened with Scott Roeder and what we‘re now learning about the history of violence against abortion clinics. His history of intentionally damaging or destroying the property of abortion clinics—which is, of course, under the FACE Act, a federal crime, we‘re now learning that over the past nine years, Mr. Roeder targeted one Kansas clinic in particular, it‘s the Central Family Medicine clinic in Kansas City.

Mr. Roeder glued the doors of that clinic shut at least four times over the past nine years. Mr. Roeder, of course, allegedly, entered a Wichita church and murdered Dr. George Tiller this past Sunday. Just one day before that, Mr. Roeder was at that clinic in Kansas City, gluing shut the doors at the Central Family Medicine clinic again. It‘s a clear violation of the FACE Act. It‘s a federal crime."

So the conservatives calling abortion murder have a direct effect of making it seem rational to comit murder.

Grumpy

[East of Eden]

An example of where rhetoric and actions are hard to seperate.

But we begin tonight with new and worrying details about the murder of Kansas doctor, George Tiller. Today, confirmation that Dr. Tiller‘s alleged assassin, Scott Roeder, was in contact with the extreme anti-abortion group Operation Rescue in the months leading up to Dr. Tiller‘s murder.

Up to this point, Operation Rescue has maintained that Scott Roeder was not a member of their organization. But evidence of a link between the two that was first inadvertently spotted in local television footage, has now been followed up and confirmed.

Check this out—immediately after the Tiller shooting, when Scott Roeder was pulled over by police, local TV footage from KMBC captured a glimpse of a small note that was on the dashboard of Mr. Roeder‘s car. The note read “Cheryl Op Rescue.� And it had a phone number on it.

Cheryl at Op Rescue, we can now tell you, is Cheryl Sullenger. She is employed by the anti-abortion group as their senior policy advisor. Ms. Sullenger has now admitted that she did, in fact, have multiple phone conversations with Scott Roeder before Dr. Tiller was killed. Those conversations were about Dr. Tillers.

Operation Rescue maintained and still maintains something that they call “Tiller Watch� on their Web site. Allies of Dr. Tiller in Kansas say that until recently, Operation Rescue also posted online the doctor‘s real home address and the address of his church—which, of course, is where Dr. Tiller was ultimately murdered this weekend allegedly by Scott Roeder.

Cheryl Sullenger tells “The Kansas City Star,� quote, “I was polite enough to give him the information. I had no reason not to. Who knew? Who knew, you know what I mean?�

Advertise | AdChoicesIn addition to informing Mr. Roeder of Dr. Tiller‘s whereabouts over the phone, Cheryl Sullenger was also using her Twitter account to track Dr. Tiller‘s movements. March 12th, 11:24 a.m.: “Ambulance just took woman from hospital from Tiller‘s mill. Photos, video to come. Tiller tried to hide from us.� March 5, 7:23 p.m.: “Inviting all to Tiller trial in Wichita March 16th.� February 20th, 11:26 a.m.: “Meanwhile, bloody business as usual at Tiller‘s shop of horrors.�

Before she became Operation Rescue‘s senior policy advisor, Cheryl Sullenger served almost two years in prison for conspiring to bomb a California abortion clinic in 2008. We invited Cheryl Sullenger to be on the show tonight to discuss this matter with us. She declined. We hope that she would reconsider.

Because of the history of violence against abortion providers and abortion clinics in this country, like Ms. Sullenger‘s own attempted bombing for which she went to prison, Congress gave the federal government extraordinary powers to try to stop this violence, and to stop threats of violence against abortion providers and to stop the extreme anti-abortion movement from blocking access to clinics. Those powers come from a law that‘s called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, the FACE Act. It was passed in 1993 and it says—things that might be considered minor crimes at other facilities are federal crimes when they happen at abortion clinics, because of the pattern of for terrorizing tactics and violence against abortion providers, and because of the national interest in stopping this form of terrorism.

For example, the federal crimes defined by the FACE Act include, quote, “Intentionally damaging or destroying the property of a facility or attempting to do so, because such facility provides reproductive health services.� Damaging or destroying the property of an abortion facility in other words is a federal crime. If it‘s a first offense, it‘s punishable by up to six months in prison. Second offense? Eighteen months in prison. Federal authorities are obligated, of course, to enforce that law.

And under President Clinton, federal authorities were enthusiastic about enforcing it. According to the Justice Department, and investigative work by reporter Daphne Eviatar at “The Washington Independent� today, “The Clinton administration prosecuted 17 defendants for violations of the FACE Act in 1997 alone and an average of about 10 per year since the law was enacted in 1994.�

On the other hand prosecution of FACE Act violations nearly disappeared under President Bush. “The Bush administration brought only about two criminal prosecutions per year in the entire country under the FACE Act and never more than four in any single year.�

What happens when you stop enforcing a law like this? A law that‘s designed to not only go after individually, politically-motivated criminals, but to shut down the networks among them—well, that brings us back to what happened in Kansas this weekend, what happened with Scott Roeder and what we‘re now learning about the history of violence against abortion clinics. His history of intentionally damaging or destroying the property of abortion clinics—which is, of course, under the FACE Act, a federal crime, we‘re now learning that over the past nine years, Mr. Roeder targeted one Kansas clinic in particular, it‘s the Central Family Medicine clinic in Kansas City.

Mr. Roeder glued the doors of that clinic shut at least four times over the past nine years. Mr. Roeder, of course, allegedly, entered a Wichita church and murdered Dr. George Tiller this past Sunday. Just one day before that, Mr. Roeder was at that clinic in Kansas City, gluing shut the doors at the Central Family Medicine clinic again. It‘s a clear violation of the FACE Act. It‘s a federal crime."

So the conservatives calling abortion murder have a direct effect of making it seem rational to comit murder.

Grumpy

Dr. Tiller's murder was a tragedy, just as much as the 4,000 abortions that happened yesterday. There is far more violence that goes on inside abortion clinics than outside. Half the people who enter them never come out alive.