Last week, following yet another of his “nobody ever proves me wrong” self-affirmations, Glenn Beck claimed that if he “get[s] out of control and start[s] leveling baseless charges that can't be backed up,” then he would be “fired.” As we pointed out at the time, this is obviously not the case, as much of Beck's show hinges on “leveling baseless charges.”

Last night's show serves as a perfect example of why Beck, by his own standard, should be fired.

Let's start with Beck running with one of the most outrageously false things Fox News has promoted in recent memory: the absurd claim that Obama is “giving land back to Mexico.” While discussing immigration reform last night, Beck referenced the story this way:

Federal lands are now being closed to Americans because of the dangers of, quote, 'human and drug trafficking along the Mexican border.' Eighty miles into our border, and we've closed it. We might as well give that land to Mexico. Oh, I think we may have just done that.

Beck managed to squeeze numerous falsehoods into these three sentences, so let's unpack them one at a time. First of all, Beck's suggestion that the lands are “now being closed” and that we have “just” done this is false. The land was closed almost four years ago, in October of 2006 (or, more to the point, two years before Obama was even elected).

Beck also stated as fact that the land is “eighty miles into our border.” As explained in a press release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the “80-mile” claim is “far from accurate,” as the closed area “extends north from the international border roughly 3/4 of a mile.”

The whole idea that we “may have just” given the land back to Mexico is absurd. In no way, shape, or form has this land been “given” to Mexico. Bonnie Swarbrick, the public information officer for the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona (the refuge where the lands were closed), called the Fox story “totally false” and “ludicrous.” Beck and his Fox News cohorts provided no evidence to buttress the claim that the land has been “given” to Mexico.

So, if you are keeping track, in three sentences Beck coughed up three blatant falsehoods to level a baseless charge. And all of this nonsense was definitively debunked five days before he ran with it on his Fox News show.

And, of course, this is Glenn Beck we're talking about here, so his promotion of this ludicrous conspiracy was not the only “baseless charge” he leveled last night. Far from it.

After suggesting that George Soros may try to have him killed, Glenn Beck blatantly distorted comments Soros made in a Financial Times interview to claim that he is “looking to replace the capitalist system once it's been destroyed.” (Side note: Beck frequently accuses Democrats and progressives of trying to “collapse the system.” Coincidentally, the plot of his awful “factional” novel, The Overton Window, revolves around shadowy figures trying to “collapse the system.”)

In the Financial Times interview in question, Soros clearly states that the international currency system - not the “capitalist system” - is “broken and needs to be reconstituted.” That's a huge distinction that Beck completely ignored in order to level his baseless charge.

Beck also smeared both President Obama and George Soros with an inane -- and provably false - conspiracy theory that the Gulf drilling moratorium is an elaborate plan to further line Soros' already well-lined pockets.

That's at least three “baseless charges” -- each one a fireable offense, according to Beck -- from last night's show alone. If you take into account his long history of throwing around loony conspiracy theories, Beck should have been sacked more times than Billy Martin by this point. Luckily for him, Fox News isn't exactly known for its culture of accountability.

In the afterword to The Overton Window, Beck wrote about how one of the novel's heroes, new media superstar-turned-FBI agent Danny Bailey, can sometimes veer into conspiracy theories:

In Chapter 11 we hear from spirited conspiracy theorist Danny Bailey for the first time. Danny is the kind of guy who likes to string together a variety of facts in an attempt to make something crazy sound plausible. His speech is important because it shows how selected facts and truths can be used as the foundation for an overall thesis that is entirely fictional.

Though he often skips the step of basing his conspiracies on a “variety of facts,” you get the sense that Beck just as easily could have been writing about himself.