For months now, Glenn Beck has been writing Jim Wallis’ name on his famous chalkboard on a regular basis. The Sojourners CEO is the kind of “social justice Christian” Glenn can’t stand.
Wallis has a pastoral relationship with Barack Obama. Since Beck wants to paint the president as a godless Muslim-sympathizer (if not closet Muslim) it is necessary to discredit the kind of Christianity Obama espouses. (more…)
Robert Jensen doesn’t like Glenn Beck. But after watching three hours of his “Restoring Honor” rally, the University of Texas professor understands why so many people are attracted to the man. Does that make Jensen feel better about Beck? Quite to the contrary. By sponsoring a genuinely non-political event, he writes, Beck may have found a way to transcend his Tea Party base.
More than ever, people in the United States don’t want to look at details, because the details are bleak. Beck is on the national stage at a time when we face real collapse. One need not be a Revelation-quoting end-timer to recognize that we are a nation on the way down, living on a planet that is no longer able to supply the endless bounty of our dreams. That’s a difficult reality to face, one that many clamor to deny.
The danger of Beck is not just his appeal to fellow conservatives, but rather his appeal to anyone who wants to deny reality. My fear is not that he will galvanize a conservative base and make a bid for leadership of that part of the political spectrum, but that his message will resonate with moderates, maybe even some liberals, who despair over the future.
You can find the rest of Jensen’s thoughtful reflection at the Texas Observer. This isn’t just another partisan liberal denunciation of the enemy. Professor Jensen wants to understand why so many people take Beck seriously. Highly recommended.
Glenn Beck is the most successful pundit in America today. His secret? Bringing the kind of audacious, dim-witted, scandalous comments that are normally reserved for coffee shop conversation to a national television audience.
Beck’s loyal followers break into furious applause. “Somebody finally found the guts to say it!” they exclaim.
His critics gasp in shocked disbelief. “I can’t believe he actually said that!”
Either way, Beck’s notoriety, and market share, continues to expand.
Today, Beck and a holy host of conservative celebrities led by Sarah Palin will be hosting a Restoring Honor rally on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. If you want my take on Mr. Beck’s odious brand of bigotry you can find it in an earlier post where I introduced you to Beck’s mentor, a virulently racist John Birch propagandist named W. Clean Skousen. Beck’s brand of conservatism is essentially a repackaging of early 1960s John Birch paranoia.
Beck was at his muck-raking best recently when he wrapped himself in the mantle of Martin Luther King and predicted that he “wouldn’t be surprised if in our lifetime dogs and fire hoses are released or opened on us. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of us get a billy club to the head. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of us go to jail — just like Martin Luther King did — on trumped-up charges. Tough times are coming.”
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert is not amused.
But that’s Mr. Beck’s game. If he can get 100,000 to the Mall in DC he’ll be happy. If he can get New York Times columnists and obscure bloggers foaming at the mouth he’ll be delirious.
But Mr. Herbert couldn’t resist the bait, and neither could I. So once again, Mr. Beck wins.
We’re locked into a weird waltz with the Beckian heresy, and Beck is leading.
Federal Judge William Moore ruled on Tuesday that the June 24th hearing over which he presided fell far short of proving that Troy Davis was innocent of the 1989 murder of officer Mark MacPhail.
But Judge Moore went further. Even if you subtracted all the recanting witnesses from this case, he says, the state still has enough probative evidence to convince a reasonable juror that Troy Davis is guilty.
Considering the evidence presented at the June 24th hearing, Judge Moore’s confidence in the state’s case is surprising. Consider this brief summary of the testimony provided by Amnesty International.
· Four witnesses admitted in court that they lied at trial when they implicated Troy Davis and that they did not know who shot Officer Mark MacPhail.
· Four witnesses implicated another man as the one who killed the officer – including a man who says he saw the shooting and could clearly identify the alternative suspect, who is a family member.
· Three original state witnesses described police coercion during questioning, including one man who was 16 years old at the time of the murder and was questioned by several police officers without his parents or other adults present. (more…)
Glenn Beck has been presenting himself as a religious historian in recent months. Lately, he has been giving a lot of airtime to David Barton, a Texas conservative with an interesting take on American history. The Beck-Barton connection has been generating a lot of interest in progressive circles since the duo started pushing a supposely non-partisan gathering on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in late August. Of late, Beck, using arguments culled from Barton, has been presenting himself as a latter day incarnation of Martin Luther King.
Over at Religion Dispatches, Julie Ingersoll emphasizes Barton and Beck’s mutual dependency on the controversial theories of Christian Reconstructionist R.J. Rushdoony.
At the Texas Freedom Network blog discusses the “uncivil union” between Barton and Beck.
No one in the academic world takes David Barton’s scholarship seriously; but if you possess the Glenn Beck seal of approval academic opinion doesn’t matter.
It has frequently been noted that the Tea Party folks are a pretty secular bunch compared to the Religious Right. Folks like Beck and Barton are trying to change that impression.
This post is a follow-up to yesterday’s Red River Justice on Trial.
The Honorable John Miller, the judge who refused to grant state motions to dismiss bogus drug convictions in Red River County, has been recused.
Judge John L. McCraw Jr., a visiting judge from Collin County, listened to two hours of testimony then casually granted the recusal motion.
Judge Miller decided to skip the recusal hearing. The upside: he didn’t have to take the stand and answer Mark Lesher’s searching questions. When the Red River County Courthouse was renovated several years ago, the text of the ninth commandment was discovered under several peeling layers of paint: “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness.” This maxim might not pass First Amendment muster these days, but it was advice the Honorable Mr. Miller wisely heeded. (more…)
You may be wondering what became of the Texas judge who refused to accept a prosecutors motions to dismiss charges against drug defendants. As a practical matter, judges almost always cooperate with prosecutors eager to dismiss cases. Court time is at a premium and judges generally love motions that clear the docket.
So why, in this instance, is Judge John F. Miller Jr. departing from established practice?
The question becomes more acute when you consider that the motions to dismiss were filed by Texas Assistant Attorney General Nicole Habersang.
This strange judicial wrangling concerns a dozen narcotics cases filed against six defendants, most notably brothers Vergil and Mark Richardson. It all started on the early evening of November 17, 2007 when a confidential informant in Clarksville, Texas purchased $200 worth of marijuana from a young man named Kevin Callaway. According to the police report filed in the case, Callaway “advised” the informant and an undercover sheriff’s deputy “that he was going to have a party and dice game at the residence” later that night.”
Unfortunately for Mr. Callaway, the officer who overheard this casual remark was Robert Bridges, a Red River County sheriff’s deputy in charge of the department’s “Narcotics Special Response Team”. Bridges was running for sheriff and the election was just a month down the road. He wanted to flaunt his tough-on-crime credentials and busting same black drug dealers was just the thing. Bridges ran off to magistrate Shelly Benton and applied for a warrant to conduct a no-knock search. Bridges, a reserve officer, had never written an affidavit supporting a search application and it showed. (more…)
Like many sensible Americans, Dick Cavett is horrified by the crude expressions of bigotry and political opportunism unleashed by what the pundits are calling the “Ground Zero Mosque controversy”.
A woman tells the news guy on the street, “I have absolutely no prejudice against the Muslim people. My cousin is married to one. I just don’t see why they have to be here.” A man complains that his opposition to the mosque is “painting me like I hate the whole Arab world.” (Perhaps he dislikes them all as individuals?)
I remain amazed and really, sincerely, want to understand this. What can it be that is faulty in so many people’s thought processes, their ethics, their education, their experience of life, their understanding of their country, their what-have-you that blinds them to the fact that you can’t simultaneously maintain that you have nothing against members of any religion but are willing to penalize members of this one? Can you help me with this?
I’m not sure I can, but a voice from the mid-twentieth century might be of assistance. (more…)
I had just finished watching Stephen Colbert’s hilarious treatment of Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s recent rant when I got my weekly call from WEUP Radio in Huntsville, Alabama. Radio host and journalist David Person asked me for my take on Dr. Laura’s tirade.
Here’s the background (you can get the full audio and text versions of the complete conversation here). Dr. Laura got a call from a black woman with a white husband. The woman was upset because her husband’s friends sometimes toss around racially offensive language in her presence and ask racially insensitive questions. Dr. Laura asked what her caller meant by “racially offensive”. Some people, she explained, are hyper-sensitive about race. Then Dr. Laura launched into phase one of her rant:
“A lot of blacks voted for Obama simply ’cause he was half-black,” she informed the caller. “Didn’t matter what he was gonna do in office, it was a black thing. You gotta know that. That’s not a surprise. Not everything that somebody says — we had friends over the other day; we got about 35 people here — the guys who were gonna start playing basketball. I was going to go out and play basketball. My bodyguard and my dear friend is a black man. And I said, “White men can’t jump; I want you on my team.” That was racist? That was funny.”
The caller was undeterred. “How about the N-word?” she asked. “So, the N-word’s been thrown around . . .”
This was Dr. Laura’s cue to give us phase 2: (more…)
Two prominent politicians dodged judicial bullets in the last twenty-four hours: former Illinois Governor Rob Blogojevich and Tom “The Hammer” Delay, the erstwhile Republican house whip.
Neither Rob nor Tom are entirely in the clear, of course. The man with the second most impressive mop of hair in politics (Texas governor Rick Perry still holds the “good hair” title) was convicted of one count of lying to investigators. Mr. Delay, meanwhile, is still under indictment in Travis County, Texas.
Blagojevich was indicted for allegedly going on a political corruption crime spree. According to US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, “The conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave.” Perhaps, but it didn’t horrify enough jurors to get a conviction on 23 or 24 counts. (more…)
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