Glenn Beck brought his red-baiting to the border today, equating foreign aid to Mexico to “arming and training people that will fight against us in the end” -- people like Trotsky and “Marxists in South America” -- all [un]hinged on the thoroughly debunked claim that the U.S. government has ceded land “80 miles in” to Mexico.

Renewing the disreputable claim that the U.S. has given land to Mexico, Beck asserted:

We've now had to close a park 80 miles in -- 80 miles in. We've had to close it. Why? It's too dangerous for Americans. Oh. Oh, it's too dangerous. Why? Are there bears in there? No. We don't have control of our borders. Oh. So let's just close the park. Let's close, 80 miles into U.S. land, let's just close it. What, what, what, what -- what are we? What are we?

To wit, what we are is not closing a park “80 miles into U.S. land” because “we don't have control of our borders.” Beck's claim is simply false. A representative of the refuge in question told Media Matters that about five miles square of the park along the border has been closed since 2006 in order to complete construction of a vehicle barrier and a border fence. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has very explicitly refuted the “inaccurate reporting” that the closure extends 80 miles into the U.S. According to Fish and Wildlife officials, “The closure area extends north from the international border roughly ¾ of a mile.” In other words, Beck inflated the extension of the closure by 10,500 percent.

After wondering why we don't just start giving U.S. land to Mexico, Beck demagogued against foreign aid to Mexico, which he said amounted to “arming and training people that will fight against us in the end,” because “they are co-opted by the drug lords.” That's where the communists come in:

BECK: Is it really that unreasonable to believe that there are forces in Mexico and -- by the way, does anybody know where -- not Lenin; who was the other guy that led the revolution in Russia? It was Lenin and Stalin. Trotsky. Does anybody know -- does anybody know where Trotsky went, because Trotsky was a challenge to the power in Russia at the revolution? Does anybody know where he went?

PAT GRAY [Producer]: Mexico.

BECK: Mexico. Mexico. What happened to him in Mexico? Uh, just killed. He was just -- but he had time. He had just a little time.

The Marxists in South America, from Mexico to Venezuela -- you think they don't see this as an opportunity? You don't think that southern border open?

Beck went on to say you were “darn right” that communists and drug cartels would conspire to take advantage of the “open border,” yelling that “we've just lost 80 miles in Arizona -- 80 miles [not to belabor the point, but this is not true]" and warning that the drug lords -- in cahoots with the communists -- would “take Laredo.”

Beck recently claimed that baseless charges that he can't back up would get him fired. Then again, Beck can't conduct a proper witch hunt without the requisite level of mass hysteria.