Beck Brags About Taking On George Soros

On His Last Show, Beck Says: “We've Taken On ... George Soros.” From the June 30 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: We made an awful lot of enemies on this program. We've joked before, gosh, can we -- is there anybody else we can take on? I mean we've taken on every single person we've been told not to take on from the anarchist to the president to the Republicans to George Soros because the truth has no agenda. It will lead us where it leads us. [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 6/30/11]

Beck Has Repeatedly Smeared Soros With Anti-Semitic Stereotypes And Falsehoods.

• Beck Has Used The Anti-Semitic Stereotype “Puppet Master” To Describe Soros. Glenn Beck has repeatedly attacked Soros with anti-Semitic stereotypes, referring to Soros as a “puppet master” and accusing him of controlling the media, the political process, and the global economy. In fact, Beck has claimed that he will “expose” Soros and has referred to Soros as “the head of the snake.” Beck has also fearmongered that the “republic's at stake - set your DVR now” for “one of the most important shows I've ever done...a special hour on the puppet master, George Soros.” Moreover, in his efforts to paint Soros as a villain, Beck repeatedly relied on a number of anti-Semitic sources including a book from Nazi supporter Elizabeth Dilling. [Media Matters, 11/09/10]

• Beck Revived An Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theory To Smear George Soros. During the October 5, 2010, edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck, Beck, citing former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, suggested that Soros might have “helped trigger the economic meltdown” of Southeast Asian currencies in 1997. Mohamad's claims to that effect, during which he noted that “coincidentally, Soros is a Jew,” were completely unsubstantiated. Mohamad later retracted the claim about Soros. [Media Matters, 10/6/10]

• Beck Has Falsely Claimed Soros Was A Nazi Collaborator. Beck has falsely claimed that Soros took “the lands from the people, his Jewish friends and neighbors who were being sent to the gas chambers.” In fact, in the interview on which Beck's comments were based, Soros said he “had no role in taking away that property.” [Media Matters 11/9/10]

• Beck: Soros “Collapses Regimes,” And America Is “His Target Now.” During the November 9, 2010, edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck, Beck claimed: “Along with currencies, Soros also collapses regimes. With his Open Society Fund, which was founded in 1979, Soros has helped fund the Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic, the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, the Rose Revolution in Georgia. He also helped to engineer coups in Slovakia, Croatia, and Yugoslavia. So what is his target now? Us. America.” [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 11/9/10, via Media Matters]

Beck Says He's Taught His Audience About The Dangers Of Social Justice

On His Last Show, Beck Calls Social Justice Dangerous. From the June 30 edition of Beck's Fox News show:

BECK: Social justice, a phrase that is so dangerous because it can be used for good, but when you know the history behind social justice you better investigate, especially because it's being used in churches. They've also hijacked the word even further to include environmental justice, reproductive justice and economic justice. [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 6/30/11]

Beck Has Repeatedly Attacked Social Justice As A Danger To Society.

• Beck: “They Are Injecting Social Justice Into Our Churches...This Is The Last Dying Breath Of Our Churches If We Don't Snap Out Of It.” During the May 18, 2010, edition of his show, Beck predicted: "[T]he government is going to merge with churches under the Democrats, you would have said I was stark-raving insane...The reason I warned you about this is because they are injecting social justice poison into our churches and it is the last -- this is the last dying breath of our churches if we don't snap out of it." [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 5/18/10, via Media Matters]

• Beck Has Also Said: “They Call It Social Justice” But The White House And Progressives Are “Taking You To A Place To Be Slaughtered.” [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 11/3/09, via Media Matters]

• Beck: Obama's Agenda Is Based On “Reparations” And “A Model That Will Settle Old Racial Scores Through New Social Justice.” In July 2009, Beck stated: “Here is ”The One Thing" tonight: everything that is getting pushed through Congress, including this health care bill, are transforming America and they are all driven by President Obama's thinking on one idea: reparations." He then added: [Obama's] goal is creating a new America, a new model, a model that will settle old racial scores through new social justice. [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 7/23/09, via Media Matters]

Beck Says He Has Educated His Audience About The Caliphate

On His Last Show, Beck Tells His Audience “You're Informed On The Caliphate.” From the June 30 edition of Beck's Fox News show:

BECK: We learned about ACORN. You're informed on the caliphate. This information has allowed us to look at everything in a whole different way. It has allowed us to look and have some perspective. To believe that, yeah, things like -- things are possible. Things are indeed true that there are some people who want to harm the United States. [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 6/30/11]

Beck Has Developed A Wild Theory That The Arab Spring Will Result In Socialists And Islamists Working Together To Form A Global Caliphate.

• Beck: “This Isn't Happenstance,” “The World Is About To Be Dominated,” “A Muslim Caliphate” Will “Emerge.” As revolutions now known as the Arab Spring spread across Egypt and the rest of North Africa, Beck declared on January 31 that “this isn't about politics, this is about world denomination.” According to Beck, the revolt in Egypt was the first step towards the emergence of “a Muslim caliphate” that “controls the Mideast and parts of Europe.” He then asked: “What happens to us?” [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 1/31/11, via Media Matters]

• Beck: The Caliphate Moment “That I've Been Saying For Five Years” Is Coming Here To America With A Speech Scheduled For March 3, 2011. In February Beck predicted that the caliphate moment that he had predicted “for five years,” “the moment that [he had] been saying for five years” was coming when a speech would be delivered on March 3, 2011. In fact, the speech Beck referred by Shariah 4 America was canceled and Shariah was never implemented in America. In fact, the Supreme Court ended its term by issuing rulings based on the U.S. Constitution, not Shariah. [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 2/28/11, via Media Matters; Media Matters, 3/3/11; Supreme Court of the United States, accessed 6/28/11]

• Beck Used Events With No Connection To Each Other To Validate His Theory. Glenn Beck took to showing images of unrest anywhere in the world as proof of his wild conspiracy theory of a global caliphate. Beck decided that protests in Ivory Coast, Sudan, Mexico, and even Madison, Wisconsin supported his claims that radical leftists and extremist Muslims were working together to create global chaos in order to destroy Israel and the “Western way of life.” As Media Matters has previously documented, these events had no connection whatsoever to his predicted Marxist-Islamist revolution. [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 2/17/11, via Media Matters]

Beck References Perennial Bogeyman ACORN

Beck: “We Learned About ACORN” On This Program. From the June 30 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: We learned about ACORN. You're informed on the caliphate. This information has allowed us to look at everything in a whole different way. It has allowed us to look and have some perspective. To believe that, yeah, things like -- things are possible. Things are indeed true that there are some people who want to harm the United States. [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 6/30/11]

Beck Has Repeatedly Lied About And Vilified ACORN.

• Beck Hyped Dishonest ACORN Video Sting Created By O'Keefe And Pushed By Breitbart. Beck was the first major media figure to promote videos targeting ACORN created by James O'Keefe and hyped by right-wing Andrew Breitbart. The videos, and the claims about them, were proved to be largely fictitious and ACORN was cleared of wrongdoing. [Media Matters, 9/10/09, 7/21/10]

• Beck Made False Claim That The Stimulus Package Included “Billions Of Dollars” For ACORN Or Groups Like Them. During the May 6, 2009, edition of his Fox News show, Beck echoed a false Republican talking point by stating, “By including ACORN, or groups like them, in the stimulus package, we have guaranteed them billions of dollars to buy more votes for the party that helps them the most.” In fact, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 does not mention ACORN or otherwise single it out for funding; ACORN itself has said that it is ineligible for the funds and has no plans to apply for them. [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 5/6/09, via Media Matters; Media Matters, 4/24/09]

• Beck Has Repeatedly Fearmongered About ACORN To Attack President Obama. For instance, on the July 27 edition of his Fox News show, Beck said: “Our president is not just bankrupting our country. He is fundamentally transforming it as he promised, and he is doing it to the core. In the next few years, I promise you, America will look more like ACORN in structure and less than anything that our Founders had in mind.” [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 7/27/09, 7/24/09, via Media Matters]
• Beck Has Pushed Tenuous Or Tangential “Connections” Between ACORN And Various People And Groups. For example, in June 2009, Beck asserted that Frances Fox Piven, who “community organizers like ACORN revere,” teaches at a university that received money from AmeriCorps. In addition, on the July 6, 2009, edition of his Fox News program, Beck said that SEIU has a “powerful connection” to ACORN because they “share goals and office space.” [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 6/29/09, via Media Matters; Fox News, Glenn Beck, 7/6/09, via Media Matters]

Beck Warns Of Possible Hyperinflation

Beck: “Only Way Out Of [Debt Crisis] Is Real Trouble Now, And Maybe It's Hyperinflation.” From the June 30 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: We showed you that this debt clock -- only way out of this is real trouble now, and maybe it's hyperinflation. Maybe. We showed you that that can happen. We asked you to prepare. [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 6/30/11]

Beck Has Continually Warned Of Imminent Inflation, At One Point Predicting That It Would Occur On November 3, 2010.

• Beck Warned Of “A Lot Of Similarities” Between Weimar's Monetary Policy And Ours. On his Fox News show in April 2009, Beck said: “I have read about the Weimar Republic, and there are a lot of similarities on what they did and what we did to the money, and that was one of the real breeding grounds.” [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 4/10/09, via Media Matters]

• Beck Again Pushed Parallels Between The U.S. And Weimar. In August 2009, Beck again suggested parallels between the United States, the Weimar Republic, and Zimbabwe, claiming, "[W]e're closing now, in on our -- what did Forbes.com call it today? Oh, I remember, our 'Zimbabwe Moment.' We could never suffer Zimbabwe's fate of hyperinflation and collapse -- oh, no, no." He added: “What was it that turned those Nazis into Nazis? Oh, I remember, they were the Weimar Republic, and then, debt, hyperinflation and Nazis. Oh, I remember, but this is America. We're immune to hyperinflation or any kind of problems -- Jimmy Carter -- that never happens here.” [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 8/12/09, via Media Matters]

• Beck Hyped Gold Because “Inflation Is Going To Go Through The Roof.” On the May 19, 2010, edition of his Fox News show, Beck stated: “Well, if you think a collapse is coming, if you think things are bad, if you think inflation is coming, well, you're not going to put your money into gold. I mean, into treasuries. You're going to put it into gold, which made this happen.” He further said: “What you do is you buy these and you say, they're lying, man! Are you kidding me? Inflation is going to go through the roof.” [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 5/19/10, via Media Matters]

• Beck Predicted “The Weimar Moment” On November 3, 2010. On the October 25, 2010, edition of his Fox News show, Beck claimed that on “November 3rd, the Fed hits the Weimar moment.” He repeated the claim, this time about the Treasury, on his radio show the next day. And on October 29, he once again argued that “the Weimar Moment” would come immediately following Election Day. [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 10/25/10, 10/26/10, 10/29/10, via Media Matters]

• In November 2010, Beck Said That “Come Next Year, You Are Going To See Prices Skyrocket.” [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 11/2/10, via Media Matters]

• In Reality, There Has Been No Weimar-Style Hyperinflation. During the period of hyperinflation in Weimar Germany, prices on average “quadrupled each month” for sixteen months. By contrast, according to the latest inflation numbers, U.S. inflation is currently at 3.6 percent over the last 12 months. [EconLib.org, accessed 6/28/11; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 6/15/11]

Beck Mentions Hindenburg Omen, His Predictor For Stock Market Crashes

Beck: On This Program “We Showed You The Hindenburg Omen.” From the June 30 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: We showed you the Great Depression of 1920. How many people even know that? And how it was turned around and it can be done again if we learn from history. We showed you the Hindenburg Omen, the Kondratiev wave, the Overton Window. [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 6/30/11]

In 2010, Beck Twice Predicted An Imminent Five Percent Drop In The Stock Market Due To “Hindenburg Omen.”

• In August 2010, Beck Said “The Hindenburg Omen” Had Been Triggered, Meaning A 5 Percent Drop In The Market “Usually Takes Place Within The Next 40 Days.” [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 8/16/10, via Media Matters]

• After The 40 Day Period Passed, Beck Reset The Clock On The Hindenburg Omen On October 5, 2010, Saying, "[W]e Just Entered The 30 Day Period." [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 10/5/10, via Media Matters]

• The Crash That Beck Predicted Didn't Occur. In reality, the stock market has risen since October 2010. While there have been ups and downs, the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the NASDAQ are all higher now than they were in October 2010. [The New York Times, accessed 6/28/11, via Media Matters]