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Every time we run a Glenn Beck post, someone trolls into the comments and asks, "Why bother with this guy? We should just ignore him! Post more videos on [insert name of preferred progressive figure here]!"

We'd like to refer them to this week's special report from the ADL on the rise of populist anti-government rage, the one that officially dubbed Beck our national "Fearmonger in Chief".

Keith Olbermann invited Arianna Huffington onto Countdown to discuss the report last night:

OLBERMANN: It would be nice to think of Glenn Beck just as a joke, as fodder for this show and the “Daily Show” and others that point out how stupid some of this stuff is. But this report, you know, suggests something else, this is—fearmonger-in-chief term is frightening.

HUFFINGTON: It is frightening. Well, I would say the fearmonger-in-chief title should still be reserved for Dick Cheney, even in retirement. But barring that, there is something that we need to really pay attention to with Glenn Beck. We cannot just dismiss him. Because the truth of the matter is that there is a good reason why we have an exemption to the free speech protection by the first amendment when we say you cannot shout fire in a crowded theater.

And he's doing that every night. He's basically using images of violence to bring together with all that he's accusing the Obama administration of, which varies from racism to communism, Nazism and everything else in between. So, all that has definitely an impact. I believe words matter, language matters and he's using it in incredibly irresponsible ways night after night.

OLBERMANN: What do you say to the argument that this country has always self corrected, that whether Father Coughlin on the radio in the ‘30s or Bo Carter (ph) who was a newscaster who presented literally stuff that was made up on the hour in CBS News in the ‘30s or the columnist Westbook Pegler or Senator Joe McCarthy? All these people a finale in which they exited the stage and suddenly. What is to say that that‘s not going to happen here?

HUFFINGTON: Well, I hope it's going to happen, but it's not going to happen without people pointing out what Glenn Beck is doing.

Indeed, since the report was issued, Beck seems to have turned up the Wingnuttery Dial all the way 11.

We put together a compendium of Beck's finest fearmongering of just the past year on Fox, inspired largely by the instances cited by the ADL -- with a few of our own favorite moments thrown in for good measure.

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As Arianna says, confronting the Becks is vital to keeping our discourse healthy -- because he is polluting it daily with the toxic garbage of disinformation, paranoia, and scapegoating.

We discussed this recently in the matter of Lou Dobbs:

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For the second day in a row (Monday's show being so chockful o'wingnuttery that we didn't have time to post on it) Glenn Beck devoted two whole segments to the subject of net neutrality.

And for the second night in a row, the discussion featured a guy named Phil Kerpen from Americans For Prosperity, which has a long history of shilling for whatever right-wing corporate agenda it can suck out money for: tobacco interests, health-insurance companies, corporate polluters have all pitched in money so that AFP can variously promote tobacco, lobby against health-care reform (it was one of the original promoters of the Tea Parties) and push the idea that global warming isn't really happening.

And now he's out pushing the notion that somehow, regulating Internet providers so that they cannot determine or limit public access is the same thing as communism. Or something like that. When you have Glenn Beck as your No. 1 cheerleader, logic doesn't actually have to enter into it.

Especially not facts. Because Beck appears to have no idea at all what Net Neutrality is actually all about.

As Timothy Karr explained on Democracy Now last month:

And net neutrality is really the fundamental openness principle of the internet. Whenever you connect to the internet, net neutrality makes sure that you can connect to everyone else who’s on the internet. And this has been a tremendous engine for free speech, for economic innovation, for equal opportunity. And we are now fighting with some very prominent internet service providers, very powerful companies, to try to preserve that fundamental openness, so that whenever we go online we can choose, as users, where we go and what we do via the internet.

Somehow, Beck is able to transform this into an attack on "freedom of speech" -- when it obviously is precisely the opposite.

To guys like Beck, you see, the only threat to our liberties is from the government. Giant corporations that control our means of information, not so much.

Indeed, his argument boils down to a simple proposition: "Freedom" means letting powerful business interests control the public's access to the internet.

Hm. That's some kinda freedom.

ThinkProgress has more:

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From The Colbert Report:

Jeffrey Toobin explains what will happen to elections if the Supreme Court decides in favor of corporations.

September 15, 2009 Comedy Central The Colbert Report

The Word - Let Freedom Ka-Ching

Corporations do everything people do except breathe, die and go to jail for dumping 1.3 million pounds of PCBs in the Hudson River.

The Political Carnival: You can't reason with a sick mind

Brad DeLong: GOP congress critters couldn't find their asses with a map and two flashlights dept.

D-Day: Justice and accountability by inches

Newshoggers: Paging Dr. Mengele of the CIA

Economist's View: Do corporations have a right to free speech?

Informed Comment: 60 said killed in NATO bombings; US Aid money may support Taliban activities

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July 25, 2009 News Corp

During her now 10 month-long media victimization campaign, Sarah Palin has time and again revealed her fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment and Americans' free speech rights. Now as she prepares to exit the Alaska Governor's mansion, her confusion - and thin skin - is again on display.

On the Fourth of July of all days, Palin's lawyer Thomas Van Flein issued a warning that his client would bring defamation claims against bloggers and media alike speculating on rumors of a criminal investigation involving the Governor:

To the extent several websites, most notably liberal Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore, are now claiming as "fact" that Governor Palin resigned because she is "under federal investigation" for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing, we will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation. This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law. The Alaska Constitution protects the right of free speech, while simultaneously holding those "responsible for the abuse of that right." Alaska Constitution Art. I, Sec. 5. http://ltgov.state.ak.us/... These falsehoods abuse the right to free speech; continuing to publish these falsehoods of criminal activity is reckless, done without any regard for the truth, and is actionable.

As Moore herself noted regarding her reference on MSNBC to the lingering questions surrounding the construction of the Palin home and the Wasilla sports complex (a story first raised last year by the Wayne Barrett in The Village Voice):

"I haven't defamed the governor, I reported on speculation and rumor in Alaska. ... It's not my rumor; it's been out there for 10 months and the First Amendment protects me," Moore said. "Even if I didn't say it's 'rumors and speculation,' I'm still protected -- I would just lose credibility, which I'm not willing to do."

UPDATE: For its part, as the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday, "the FBI's Alaska spokesman said the bureau had no investigation into Palin for her activities as governor, as mayor or in any other capacity."

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The nation's first real federal bias-crimes statute -- the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act -- just passed the House Wednesday, and is now on its way to the Senate:

On a vote of 249-175, the House passed and sent to the Senate a bill backed by the new Democratic White House to broaden such laws by classifying as "hate crimes" those attacks based on a victim's sexual orientation, gender identity or mental or physical disability.

The current law, enacted four decades ago, limits federal jurisdiction over hate crimes to assaults based on race, color, religion or national origin.

The bill would lift a requirement that a victim had to be attacked while engaged in a federally protected activity, like attending school, for it to be a federal hate crime.

As Ali Frick at Think Progress says, the religious right is freaking out because hate-crimes legislation has been one of their cornerstone bugaboos of the past decade, and it's about to slip out of their grasp after all these years.

That means, of course, the flagrant lies are starting to fly. Like Virginia Foxx's little "slip" in calling Matthew Shepard's murder a "hoax."

Time to call in the veteran liars, obviously. So who should we see shopping the right's favorite falsehoods about the hate-crimes bill on the teevee but the ole Newtster himself. Gingrich appeared yesterday on CSPAN's Washington Journal, flagrantly lying about the nature of the bill:

Let me share part of what I think concerns reasonable people who look at that kind of legislation. In Sweden today, it is illegal to quote from certain parts of the Bible. Literally illegal. So pastors can get put in jail for quoting from the Bible. On some college campuses, thought, you know, regulations have said to students you can’t think out loud whatever you want to say. The act of thinking it becomes a crime, the act of saying it. It’s very dangerous to go down a road that says you can’t have an honest debate about an issue, because we have now decided we’re protecting one group of people.

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The Jewel of Medina is an as yet unpublished book about The Prophet Mohammed and his child bride, Aisha.   Several commenters and reviewers have indicated its quality as a novel might not be very good.  But Random House paid a $100,000 advance for the book, had arranged for foreign publication, Book of the Month Club selection, and Quality Paperback Book Club selection.  It's not like Random House deals exclusively in high fiction; they publish Danielle Steele romance novels, for crying out loud.  

Random House pulled out of publishing the book last minute, when they somehow got the idea that bad Islamic terrorists might retaliate against the publisher for the book's content.   In the meantime, at least one book prize committee has announced that they will not consider any Random House submissions until this book is published, due to the cowardice exhibited in pulling the title:

...we can not pretend that this type of cowardice will disappear without serious remonstrance. Until The Jewel of Medina is actually published, The Langum Charitable Trust will not consider submissions of any books, for any of our prizes, from Random House or any of its affiliates. We do this reluctantly, since our most recent prize in American historical fiction went to a Random House title.

Salman Rushdie, the most famous author to deal with threats and censorship due to his book's content vis-a-vis Islam, is supporting publication of the book on free-speech, rather than literary, grounds.

The Atlantic says they haven't seen "evidence that he read The Jewel of Medina or liked the excerpts."  But Rushdie is currently in the Random House stable of authors (although they didn't publish Satanic Verses):

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“I am very disappointed to hear that my publishers, Random House, have cancelled another author's novel, apparently because of their concerns about possible Islamic reprisals,” Rushdie said.  “This is censorship by fear and it sets a very bad precedent indeed.”

Free expression 1; Lieberman 0

Last week, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) contacted us to voice his concerns about seeing videos from several Islamic terrorist organizations on YouTube. We appreciated our dialogue with Senator Lieberman and his staff and wanted to explain to the YouTube community how we responded to his concerns.

Senator Lieberman stated his belief, in a letter sent today, that all videos mentioning or featuring these groups should be removed from YouTube -- even legal nonviolent or non-hate speech videos. While we respect and understand his views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds. Of course, users are always free to express their disagreement with a particular video on the site, by leaving comments or their own response video. That debate is healthy.

We appreciate Senator Lieberman alerting us to videos that violated our policies -- and encourage our users to continue to do the same through the flagging tool. And while we disagree with him about the details of our policies, we respect his views and thank him for giving us the chance to respond to his concerns.