Category: Glenn Beck

Hate to Say I Told You So, But …

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You should have listened to Glenn Beck!

Bullion strikes record above
$1,700 on S&P downgrade

By Lewa Pardomuen/REUTERS
Bullion roared to record highs above $1,700 an ounce on Monday as an unprecedented downgrade to the U.S. credit rating sent investors scrambling out of riskier assets, hammering equity markets and the dollar.
Both U.S. gold futures and cash gold could rise further if pledges by the Group of Seven nations to support battered financial markets fail to bear fruit as investors turn their attention to the Federal Reserve’s policy-setting committee, the FOMC, meeting on Tuesday.
The one notch downgrade by Standard & Poor’s of the U.S. long-term rating on Friday added to the threat of contagion from the euro debt crisis, fears over recession in the United States and even the possibility of a third round of U.S. quantitative easing.
Spot gold touched a lifetime high around $1,702 an ounce, its 11th record in 19 sessions — lifting the price of silver by more than 5 percent. The U.S. December gold contract earlier hit a record about $1,704 an ounce.

Remember: On May 20, 2010, the first time I mentioned Rep. Anthony Weiner’s attack on Glenn Beck for promoting gold sales, the price was $1,192.60 per ounce. Your investment in gold on that day would have yielded a 42% profit in less than 15 months.

Yet every time gold hits a new high and I say, “You should have listened to Glenn Beck,” somebody always says in the comments that the price has already peaked. But gold just keeps going up, up, up, doesn’t it?

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You Should Have Listened to Glenn Beck

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In May 20, 2010, when I first took note of Rep. Anthony Weiner’s attack on Glenn Beck for promoting gold, the price was $1,192.60 per ounce. Now here’s Monday’s headline from Bloomberg:

Gold Tops $1,600, Surges to Record
in Longest Rally in 31 Years on Debt

Monday’s price was $1,607.90 an ounce, which means gold has increased $415.30 per ounce since May 2010 —  a 35% gain in 14 months.

Beck was right. Anthony Weiner? Not so much.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Perhaps I could interest you in a $120,000 7-carat diamond ring?


Beck and O’Reilly vs. Hannity?

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Among the many interesting tidbits in Gabriel Sherman’s gossipy 6,000-word article about Roger Ailes and Fox News:

Sean Hannity complained to [Fox News programming chief] Bill Shine about Beck. And it didn’t help matters that O’Reilly, who had become friends with Beck and can’t stand Hannity, scheduled Beck as a regular guest, a move that only annoyed Hannity further.

(Via Memeorandum.) That O’Reilly has always viewed Hannity as a rival is hardly a secret to people in the business.

As the network’s top primetime star, O’Reilly claims the right of first refusal on any big exclusive interviews: If you are a publicist who wants your client to appear on O’Reilly’s show, you’d better not schedule an interview with Hannity first, because that will be viewed as a betrayal of O’Reilly. And knowing themselves to have this power, O’Reilly’s producers do not hesitate to manipulate guests — hinting at the possibility of a “Factor” appearance, on a wait-and-see basis — to the frustration of these would-be guests and their P.R. people, who are left hanging on such hints.

However, to learn that O’Reilly was using Beck as a weapon to snub Hannity — and that Beck permitted himself to be used to those ends — adds something new to our understanding of the often-toxic behind-the-scenes rivalry among Fox’s primetime hosts.

BTW, I don’t doubt that people at Fox will dispute the accuracy of Sherman’s article, and they may dispute this particular item. However, the O’Reilly-Beck-Hannity angle matches what I already knew about the situation, so I’m willing to believe it is reasonably close to truth.

Gold Tops $1,500 Per Ounce: Now Don’t You Wish You’d Listened to Glenn Beck?

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A little less than a year ago — on May 20, 2010, to be exact — I first took notice of Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner’s attack on Glenn Beck for encouraging people to buy gold. The headline of my post:

Everybody Should Buy Gold, Even If
Glenn Beck Gets Paid to Tell You So

Weiner accused Beck of having a conflict of interest: Goldline was one of his advertisers and so, when Beck warned against the inflationary policies of the Obama administration, this could be seen as at least an implied promotion of his advertiser’s product, as investments in gold represent a hedge against inflation. Part of Weiner’s criticism was related to charges that Goldline engaged in dubious marketing practices, but his real indictment of Beck was that the Fox News host was hyping inflation fears for profit.

But anyone with the most basic understanding of economics could see that the Obama administration’s policies were inflationary and so, despite Weiner’s attacks, if Beck was telling people to buy gold, he was actually giving them sound advice. On that day, May 20, 2010, the latest closing price for gold was $1,192.60 per ounce. As of this past Friday, gold was at $1,503.40 per ounce.

So gold has gained $310.80 per ounce — a 26% increase — in less than a year. If you listened to Beck (and me) in May 2010, your $10,000 gold investment is now worth $12,600. And this would be an excellent time for you to cash out enough of your gains to hit my tip jar for $20. (What, you think I’m giving this great investment advice for free?)


Fox & Beck: The Real Story

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Jason Write, who co-authored Glenn Beck’s book The Christmas Sweater, explains the less-controversial truth behind the end of Beck’s daily show:

He and his vastly underrated business and creative teams at Mercury Radio Arts have long considered a change when he became, in effect, a free agent. It’s not what his detractors want you to hear, but if Beck and his production company had wanted to keep the daily show, he would have signed a new deal and continued clubbing the competition.
While Beck’s ratings have slipped from the sky highs of the health care debate, he still pulls 2 million viewers for a live broadcast at 5 p.m. EDT. Consider that a moment. He’s capturing those ratings with a show that airs on the East Coast while most are commuting home and at 2 p.m. on the West Coast, when folks are still tied to their cubicles.
Although he airs during Denny’s senior discount hour, he’s still pulverizing the prime time 8, 9 and 10 p.m. shows on the other cable news networks. He has unprecedented numbers for such an early broadcast. Are we really to believe Fox killed a show breaking ratings records in a time slot no one wants? . . .
Beck will continue to appear on Fox as a guest on other programs, he will produce and appear on programming of interest to Fox’s core audience, and he will remain a member of Fox’s extended family. What he won’t have to do is put on makeup and be locked in a studio at 5 p.m. every weekday.

REPORT: Beck to End Daily Fox Show

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Apparently, Glenn Beck has issued a press release announcing he “intends to transition off of his daily program” on Fox News Channel.

Exactly what that means, we don’t know yet.

UPDATE: The press release describes discussions about “a variety of television projects” in a vague enough way that media tea-leaf readers at both the Washington Post and NPR interpret this as a polite let-’em-down-easy way of Fox saying, “See ya later, Glenn.”

UPDATE II: HuffPo notes: “Joel Cheatwood, a senior Fox News executive who Beck hired away to his own company, will serve as the main liaison between the two networks.” The New York Times observes, “The joint statement did not specify an end date for Mr. Beck’s show.”

UPDATE III: Behold, the idiotic glee in Lizardlandia:


So, in August 2009, Charles Johnson labeled Beck a “raving freakazoid nut sandwich” and now in April 2011 — which is to say, 19 months later — claims vindication, “laughing last.”

Except that every weekday for the past 19 months, Beck has reached a national television audience of more than a million viewers, continues to draw millions of radio listeners, and has sold umpteen thousand books, earning himself many millions of dollars.

Not bad for a “raving freakazoid nut sandwich.”

Will Fox Dump Glenn Beck?

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That’s what David Carr of the New York Times suggests: Beck’s contract is up in December and maybe he and the Fox folks don’t see eye-to-eye.

Howard Portnoy at Hot Air Green Room is dubious about this theory, citing Scott Baker at the Beck-sponsored Blaze blog.

I don’t watch Beck’s show enough to offer any definitive judgment, but it is my general impression that Beck’s show was much better in 2009 than it has been in recent months. Beck did valuable work in showing the connections between various radical elements of the organized Left and the Obama administration. 

There were a lot of people who sort of woke up after the 2008 election asking themselves, “How did we get here?” And what Beck did, with his chalkboard talks and so forth, was to provide these newly-engaged people with a very watchable seminar on the history and structure of the American Left, keyed on current events.

That was very good, but in recent months, whenever I tune into Beck on Fox, I get the idea that he’s preaching more than teaching. The show is now less about fact and more about feeling. He seems less interested in politics and history, more interested in forging an emotional connection with his viewers. But that is merely my perception, and it may be that regular Beck-watchers will say I’m mistaken.

Suggestion: Somebody at the network needs to have a sit-down meeting with Beck and explain that this is the Fox News Channel — not the Fox Patriotism Channel or Fox Faith Channel. Focus the show a bit sharper on here’s-what’s-happening-now and filling in the here’s-what-you-don’t-know background behind the headlines.

Also, a rooftop concert in London with Billy Preston on keyboards might be helpful: Get Beck!

Hey, Maybe Glenn Beck Was Right

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You may recall that, when the Egyptian revolution first popped into the news, Glenn Beck caught a lot of grief for saying that the American Left was in league with Islamists to destabilize the Middle East. What Beck said — or perhaps the way he said it — seemed a bit kookier than that, but the essence of his accusation is not really new: David Horowitz’s 2006 book, Unholy Alliance, makes basically the same argument.

Well, guess what? Glenn Beck isn’t the only one worried about the American Left supporting terrorists. There’s also the U.S. Justice Department:

It’s not every day that an American labor union gets investigated for possible ties to two of the world’s most lethal terrorist organizations. But Chicago’s Service Employees International Union Local 73 isn’t an everyday union. Last September 24, FBI agents raided residences in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan of more than a dozen radical activists in an effort to connect them to the Hamas (Gaza and the West Bank) and FARC (Colombia) guerrilla movements. Two of the occupants were SEIU Local 73 chief steward and executive board member Joe Iosbaker and former local board member-steward Tom Burke. . . .
Federal officials are trying to determine whether they and a dozen other subpoenaed activists, mainly in Chicago and Minneapolis, have provided financial or other material support for armed revolutionary movements. “The warrants are seeking evidence in support of an ongoing Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism,” remarked Steve Warfield, spokesman for the FBI’s Minneapolis field office.

Read the rest of that. And here’s video from those crazy kooky conspiracy theorists at Fox News Democracy Now:

Video via The Blaze, and thanks to commenter Adobe Walls for the tip.