After asserting that the Senate had committed a “crime in broad daylight” by passing the food safety bill this morning, Glenn Beck announced today that the “perfect storm” he's been warning about for five years “is here” and it's about time to “close the ark door”:
BECK: The time that I told you would come of the perfect storm is here. And I want to outline it for you today and I want to show you what you can do. And I tell you - I said to the guys, I'm almost to the point to where I say close the ark door. Launch the lifeboats. Whatever analogy you want. Close the bunker door.
You know the point in the Wizard of Oz where they're like 'Dorothy, Dorothy' and Uncle Henry or whatever his name was is like, 'Come on Em, we got to get into the shelter.' And they get into the shelter and they close the door and Dorothy has to fend for herself because the storm is here. It's about time to get Em and go down to the cellar because the storm is here. The one we've been telling you about for five years. It's here. And Wikipedia is just a part of it ... sorry, WikiLeaks.
Sounds like a big deal right? The perfect storm that's been brewing for five years is actually here. Get thee to the cellar!
Well, regular viewers of Beck's show could tell you that it's probably a good idea to discount his attempts at meteorology. See, in Beck's mind, the catastrophic perfect storm is always on the horizon, but it's also always coming ashore, and it's frequently “here”:
November 15: “This is the perfect storm I told you about five years ago.”
BECK: I have to tell you, if you look at the communists, at the anarchists in Phoenix, Arizona at the national socialist - the Nazis that were in the streets. We're not dealing with - This is the perfect storm I told you about five years ago. This is it. All of the enemies of the republic are uniting. Not in working together, but in cause: Destroy the United States of America, cause a massive disruption because anarchy allows people to then have their leaders rise up and say I will solve your problem, and it's a strongman that rises up on that.
September 16: “It's coming, gang.”
BECK: If the goal is to reduce our piece of the pie, this will accomplish it. And then at the same time, the IMF has also issued a frightening report with the International Labor Union Organization -- oh, they're not socialists at all -- that says that America and Europe face the worse jobs crisis since the 1930s and risk an explosion of social unrest unless they tread carefully.
Now, that's not the fearmongering Glenn Beck saying that. That's the IMF. Although for years, I've been telling you that the perfect storm has been gathering on the horizon and what could happen if that storm hits, especially if you added two elements: hunger and fear.
Well, Greece has already given us a glimpse of what may be on the horizon here. It's coming, gang. [From Nexis]
August 16: “The storm is going to wash ashore.”
BECK: I talked to you before about the perfect storm that has been brewing globally. The best way to describe it is that there are many different forces and factors all working against America simultaneously.
All of these things we have beaten in the past. But I don't think that we've ever hit all of them at once and survived. At some point, the storm is going to wash ashore and there will be nothing we can do about it if we haven't already battened down the hatches. [From Nexis]
August 12: “We've never fought anything like the perfect storm that is coming to shore.”
BECK: Your economic picture is not good. Do you remember, if you've been a long time listener of this program, I told you five years ago, perfect storm. And when it comes on shore, we've never fought anything like it. We fought the Civil War and everything else. We've never fought anything like the perfect storm that is coming to shore.
I told you two years ago the tip of it is now starting to enter our space. It's here. And it is about to rock our world. The first part is financial. Then let's look at this. I don't know what it is. I couldn't tell you. But there's an alarm bell in me ringing so loudly on Google. Something's not right with Google. I don't know what it is and quite honestly I haven't had time to research it.
May 24: “We're facing a perfect storm now.”
When the Berlin Wall fell down, we went to sleep. And that's when the enemies of freedom in America went to work. We're facing a perfect storm now, just like Russia did. And we have Islamic terror. Just like Russia had with Osama bin Laden. I mean, it's the same guy -- the same guy, Islamic terror.
[...]
I want to show you a couple of things. First, headline from “The Washington Post” today. Here it is. “One false move in Europe could set off a global chain reaction.” One false move in Europe could set off a global chain reaction -- gee, who said that? Who said that?
I said that three years ago. I said look for an Archduke Ferdinand moment. There is going to be a moment in time with the perfect storm. People will dismiss it, they don't even know what it means, but it will set the world on fire. [From Nexis]
March 25: “It's here.”
BECK: It is more important than ever now to get in touch with our core principles that we have in each of us. I'm telling you the way to solve this is with faith, hope and charity.
We're under attack unlike anything ever before from multiple fronts. I've talked about almost - gosh, probably eight years now. A perfect storm would come. It's here. The left is trying to paint people as crazy, dangerous and violent. [From Nexis]
February 1: “Here it is.”
BECK: If you've listened to me on the radio for the last five years, you've heard me explain a theory that I've had and I hope I was wrong a long time, but it seems to be coming together, called “the perfect storm” theory. It's this theory, and all these stories I'd just told you about, all kind of fit in, and I hope I'm wrong, but it is coming more and more accurate everybody and here it is. We will be overwhelmed with financial debt, security, energy, political problems, and then there would come a time where someone would say “now.” And there'd be a blow.
One emergency or crisis that would change the world as we knew it, and it would put our most sacred freedoms to the test. It would -- it would test those people who would like to use a crisis to take freedoms away. [From Nexis]
June 10, 2009: “There is a storm formulating.”
BECK: The One Thing that they're missing is -- the pot in America is boiling, and this is just yet another warning to all Americans of things to come. This guy is a lone gunman nutjob. He wrote an article titled “Hitler's Worst Mistake: He Didn't Gas the Jews.” You're going to see a lot of nutjobs coming out of the woodwork now.
There are two very important things that are happening here. The first one, it's what I talked about two years ago when I talked about the perfect storm. I said that there is a storm formulating, and it is -- it's the economy, it is political correctness, it's corruption in Washington, it's the militant Islam. It's all of these things. I said, when it comes onshore, there's going to be a “go, go, go” mentality.
And that's what this is. There is a mentality in our enemies. Our country is now vulnerable. [From Nexis]
April 28, 2009: “Perfect storm ... just came onshore.”
BECK: Now, let me go back to the story that, you know, the one that everybody is forgetting about and that one is -- Specter, you know, broke some political news today -- swine flu. It is spreading and not stopping. There are now more than 60 confirmed cases here in the U.S. Carnival Cruise Lines says it has cancelled three Mexico stops for its cruise ships due to the swine flu.
[...]
BECK: But we are -- and I have been describing this for several years: a perfect storm. I said back in September, there is a perfect storm that has come onshore. I've been talking about it for years, and it just came onshore. This is part of it. It is -- while it's not connected, it is all connected on how much can we weather as a nation, as an economy, as a planet -- the way we have set it up. [From Nexis]
January 29, 2009: “This is a perfect storm we're facing”
BECK: America, we have to get a handle on this situation globally. I mean, this is a perfect storm we're facing, you know, and if you don't understand what could possibly be coming across our border and what's happening in Mexico, that thing melts down, what do you think is going to happen in the rest of the country? How do you think Texans and Arizonans are going to react to this? [From Nexis]
September 25, 2008: “Tonight, the perfect storm begins to come ashore.”
BECK: Tonight, the perfect storm begins to come ashore here in America.
First, the financial crisis not seen since the Great Depression threatens to dismantle the economy. Can Congress and the administration guide us through, or are they going to cause more problems?
Then, another part of the perfect storm, our enemies are ready to strike when we`re our weakest. I`ll talk to the president of Georgia about how Russia and Iran should be handled.
And as our financial crisis grows, an energy crisis waits on the horizon. We`ll continue our special series, “Exposed: The End of Oil,” with a look at what it might take to make America energy independent before it`s too late. [From Nexis]
July 22, 2008: "We've got a perfect storm formulating."
BECK: OK. Then if that`s true, wouldn`t the added stress of anything else -- I mean I`ve been worried about a perfect store. We can handle anything. But we`ve got a perfect storm formulating. With all of the other things that -- you know, the uncertainty in, you know, the government and what they`re going to do and regulation and everything else. Oil. War. [From Nexis]
July 15, 2008: “We're in the perfect storm.”
BECK: Here`s what you need to know tonight, America. Our weak dollar is getting weaker, and it is driving up commodity prices, like corn, natural gas, electricity, oil, food. Have you bought cornflakes lately? I`ve been saying this for months: when oil goes up, so does the price of everything else that you buy. And, as importantly, as the dollar goes down, oil goes up even more.
To sum it all up, we`re in the perfect storm. There are a lot of steps along the way, but America`s credit rating with China or whoever else we`re borrowing money from, and the value of our dollar in Bangladesh has a direct effect on what you pay for a hamburger and gasoline and how long you keep your job. [From Nexis]
June 30, 2008: “The storm is finally coming ashore.”
BECK: Tonight, I`m back. And I`ve been predicting the perfect storm for months. But now with oil prices soaring and stocks plummeting, the storm is finally coming ashore. [From Nexis]
Beck even created a dedicated Perfect Storm website in November 2006. It doesn't appear to have been updated since 2007, but I'm sure he'll add something shortly since, you know, the perfect storm is here.
From the site:
UPDATE:
It wasn't just on his radio show that Beck announced that the perfect storm has arrived. Here's the video from the November 30 edition of his Fox News program:
From the front page of GlennBeck.com: