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The story of the financial debacle will end the way it began, with the super-hustlers from Goldman Sachs at the center of the action and profiting wildly. Never in U.S. history has one company wielded such destructive power over our political economy, irrespective of whether a Republican or a Democrat happened to be president.

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Here's the link to Wednesday's live blog.

10:15 am PDT: President Obama said Thursday morning that he has earmarked $100 million to support recovery and relief efforts in Haiti following Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude earthquake that has left the country in ruins.

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Middle-class families have lost jobs, homes and savings for their children's education or their own retirement as a consequence of the Great Recession. But for many the problem started a long time ago. Over the past 30 years, 34.6% of all income growth went to the top one-tenth of 1% of all earners. The bottom 90% has collectively gotten only 15.9% of all income growth over the same period. The recession has made that situation worse. In fact, according to a just-released poll commissioned by the union-backed worker-advocacy organization Change to Win, the recession problem affecting the largest number of Americans – worse than actual job loss – has been "declining or stagnating wages."

Three-fourths of those surveyed by Hart Research Associates said they themselves or someone they know has been hurt by wages that lag behind the cost of living. Sixty-eight percent said they or someone they know has seen their wages cut.

“This survey reinforces what the economic data have been screaming out for more than a generation: A hard-day’s work in America simply doesn’t pay what it used to – unless you’re a corporate executive, and then you’re getting paid more than you’re worth,” said Tom Woodruff, Director of the Strategic Organizing Center for Change to Win. “To cure what ails our economy we need to create not just jobs, but jobs at good wages. We can start by using the power of the purse. Let’s look at how the federal government can promote higher wages, leveraging the $500 billion in federal contracts it awards to private employers every year. ... For 30 years, Americans have been working harder than ever, but their pay, in real terms, has hardly budged,” Woodruff said. “So where has all that money gone? To massive Wall St. bonuses and CEO salaries.”

Among the survey's other findings:

• Delayed or canceled medical treatment because of cost, 27 percent. Know somebody who did this, 50 percent.

• More women (71 percent) than men (65 percent) say they have been affected by reduced wages or hours.

• Nearly half (47 percent) of voters say they, a family member, or someone they know well  has fallen behind on mortgage payments or rent in the past few months.  

• Among Republicans, 96 percent say they are dissatisfied with the economic state of affairs, including 77 percent who are very dissatisfied (only 4 percent are satisfied). Among Democrats, 19 percent are satisfied and 79 percent dissatisfied, with 39 percent of those very dissatisified.

• More than three in five (62 percent) non-college graduates say they are having  challenging/difficult times, while their college-educated peers are split 49 percent good  times and 49 percent challenging/difficult times.

• A little more than half (53 percent) of whites express having a hard time personally, while minority voters say they are having a much harder time.  Two-thirds  (66 percent percent of African Americans say they are having a challenging or difficult time,  with a quarter (26% percent saying they are having difficult times.  Latinos report  even greater struggles, as 71 percent say they are struggling, including 35 percent saying  they are having difficult times.

Given what's now clear to all but the most optimistic analysts, without a major redirection of government policy, unemployment will remain high for years, and that means a continuation of the suppression of wage growth.

The American Prospect has devoted its entire October magazine to what should be done about the job situation, including the problem presented by wage stagnation, with articles about the sweatshop operations now contracted to feed U.S. troops and the difficulties associated with American workers' loss of bargaining power.

One of those articles, written by Ann O'Leary, executive director of the Berkeley Center on health, Economic & Family Security at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, argues for more executive orders from the President:

The Obama administration is considering a proposal to use the president's authority under the Procurement Act to promote "high road" contracting. Variants of the proposal have been put forward by the Center for American Progress and the National Employment Law Project with support from the Change to Win labor federation and the Service Employees International Union. ...

This proposal could have a real impact on low-wage workers. It would mean that more workers would be protected by existing laws -- from employee -- classification laws to wage and hour laws to the Family and Medical Leave Act. It would also mean that low-wage workers, who currently have the least access to paid sick days and by definition the lowest-wages, could benefit from the incentives provided to contractors to offer living wages and paid sick days.

That's just one of many actions needed to begin healing the wounds resulting from the economic battering imposed on workers over the past 35 years.

Economists are cheerfully bandying around the most moronic oxymoron I’ve ever heard. They are exulting that we’re experiencing a “jobless recovery.” I don’t see how their minds can put those two words together without having their heads explode. Excuse me, Einsteins, but there’s no such thing. You can spin your data ’til the cows come home, but an economy that has nearly 20 percent of the workforce either unemployed or underemployed, that has no plan for replacing the eight million jobs we lost in the last two years, that is now proceeding with mass layoffs of such essential workers as teachers and firefighters, and that is willing to accept poverty pay as the new American norm is not by any stretch of the imagination in a recovery.

» noticia original

The Progressive Congressional Caucus is leading an effort to tell President Obama that Social Security is off the table. I ask you to help by adding your voice. This is not part of an organized petition campaign. It’s an grass-roots effort for each of us.

» noticia original

California's Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown get to continue to do the right thing:

The outlook for the legal defense of Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage, grew cloudier Thursday as a state appellate court refused to order Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal a federal judge's ruling overturning the measure.

The Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento dismissed without comment a lawsuit seeking to compel the state to come to the initiative's defense. The suit was filed Monday by the conservative Pacific Justice Institute on behalf of a Los Angeles-area minister.

Why does it matter so much? Because in his decision overturning Proposition 8, Judge Walker expressed a great deal of skepticism as to whether the Defendant-Intervenors have the standing required to defend Prop 8 before the Court of Appeals. The State of California obviously has standing to defends its own laws; but previous precedent dictates that merely supporting a ballot measure does not necessarily provide standing to defend it in court. So unless the State is forced to defend Prop 8, it's entirely possible that any appeal could be dead on arrival.

Two points of irony. First, it was a series of rulings from conservative courts that made standing so restrictive. Second, why does it seem like "states' rights" get thrown out the window every single time a state does something that a state's rights advocate doesn't like?

[H/t America's Voice]

After her horrendous performance the other night in her debate with Democrat Terry Goddard, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is doing what she does best: Running from tough questions ... you know, what most folks call accountability:

Arizona voters won't be seeing any more debates between the top gubernatorial contenders.

Incumbent Republican Jan Brewer said Thursday she has no intention of participating in any more events with Democrat Terry Goddard. She said the only reason she debated him on Wednesday is she had to to qualify for more than $1.7 million in public funds for her campaign.

"I certainly will take my message in a different venue out to the people of Arizona," she said.

Yes, we can imagine what that venue will be. After 20-plus appearances on Fox News and none with any local TV journalists, we're getting the idea. (When she adds later in the piece that she will "be available for interviews," we're sure she will ... with Greta Van Susteren and Sean Hannity.)

Anyway, Brewer said, she believes the debates help Goddard more than they benefit her.

"Why would I want to give Terry a chance to redefine himself?" she said.

Translation: why create another situation where I would just be destroyed at my own hand?

Brewer conceded that her performance in Wednesday's debate, and her refusal to answer a question from reporters afterward, was not well-handled. That includes an opening statement when she lost her train of thought and went silent, and walking away after the event rather than answering questions about her prior statements about headless bodies in the desert.

Brewer blamed part of her post-debate activities on her gaffe in her opening statement. The governor also said she presumed reporters would want to talk to her about some of the issues raised during the hour-long, televised debate.

"All you guys were doing and talking were beheadings, beheadings, beheadings," the governor said. "That is something that has stuck with you all for so long, and I just felt we needed to move on."

Actually, Jan, the issue is that you have refused to retract those remarks, even though (a) they have been proven utterly false, and (b) they have helped kill the state's tourism economy.

And the fact is, you just don't want to answer that question. Because you can't without admitting you're a crappy governor.

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), the chairman of the Atlantic Council, recently sat down for an interview with the Washington Diplomat. In the interview, the former senator touched on a variety of topics, including what he feels is the need for the United States to “unwind” from the war in Afghanistan. Towards the end of the interview, Hagel says that while he has “no plans to renounce his membership in the party,” he finds that the Republican Party of which he is a part is not “presenting any new alternatives, any new options, or any new thinking“:

“I don’t see them presenting any alternatives, any new options or any new thinking,” Hagel said. “If the Republicans get back in power, what are they going to do? There is no articulation. It’s just a ‘no no no, I’m against Obama because he’s a socialist and he’s taking America in the wrong direction.’ That’s certainly an opinion, but what about you, Mr. Republican? What would you do?”

In fact, leading Republicans like Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, and Peter King have proudly embraced the “no, no, no” agenda. Hagel told the interviewer that he remains confident that his party will once again rebuild itself. “The Republican Party will find a new center of gravity,” he said. “I think they’ll let this nonsense play out. It’s like a bad storm — it just has to go through.”

Wow, one little lie about being an undercover cop who got too close to official corruption and you're booted, even from the Tea Party. Apparently making up stories about your personal history is worse than believing in the grand UN bicycle conspiracy. At any rate, Colorado gubenatorial candidate Dan Maes is nobody's darling anymore.

Despite mounting pressure from the GOP establishment and Tea Party groups to get out of the governor's race, Republican Dan Maes continued to dig in his heels Thursday, saying he wasn't going anywhere.

"This is a culture war, a culture war between the people and the machine, and we're going to find out who controls things," Maes said. "I am not getting out of the race."
....

[A] Denver Post story this week reporting that Maes embellished details about his law enforcement background combined with today's deadline for certification of the general election ballot prompted a string of defections. Soon after the story was published, Hank Brown, a former U.S. senator and former University of Colorado president, withdrew his endorsement, setting off a domino effect not only among prominent Republicans, but Maes' core, grassroots base.

Tea Party leaders across the state Thursday said in often harsh terms that they wanted Maes to drop out. Lesley Hollywood, director of the Northern Colorado Tea Party, posted on Facebook: "Alright Dan Maes — it's time for you to go. Get out now, while the gettin' is still good."

Mesa County commissioner and Tea Party organizer Janet Rowland called Maes a "fraud" in an e-mail sent to thousands of grassroots supporters and asked them not to support his candidacy. Hear Us Now!, which bills itself as the original tax-day Tea Party group, rescinded its endorsement.

What's a beleaguered Tea Party candidate to do? Why, just what Sarah Palin would! Take to Facebook, where Maes defiantly claims: "We are in the 4th quarter of the game and we must dig deeper than ever into our souls to find the strength to fight to . . . the end. Do not waiver. Do not quit. This is all part of the journey."

But state Republicans met with him today to try to force him out, and he lost the support of Senate candidate Ken Buck. If he leaves the race today, there's time to get the secretary of state to halt printing ballots while the party decides on his replacement. After today, it'll apparently be to late to stop the printing.

Hang in there Maes! Don't let Tancredo monopolize all the crazy fun.

President Obama will spend Labor Day alongside AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis in a Labor Day "celebration and rally" in Milwaukee on Monday. The appearance is another recent sign of unity between Obama and Trumka — the pair had sometimes had an adversarial relationship over the past year on issues like stimulating the economy and healthcare reform. (Trumka had pushed for a heftier stimulus and the inclusion of a public option in the healthcare bill.) But the Milwaukee appearance would be the second in about a month for Obama and Trumka. The president spoke in early August at a meeting of the union's executive committee, where he promised to keep on pushing for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, or "card check") and other legislative priorities favored by the labor group.

» noticia original

See? The DGA knows how to fight back. Maybe they could give boxing lessons to their scrawny buddies at the White House!

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Democratic Governors Association filed an elections complaint in Ohio on Thursday alleging Fox News Network illegally helped the Republican governor nominee solicit funds during a television appearance.

In an escalating battle with Fox’s politically conservative news arm, the DGA alleges that Fox allowed John Kasich to request contributions from viewers during an Aug. 18 broadcast and simultaneously displayed the address of his campaign website in on-screen graphics.

The complaint alleges the free publicity during Fox’s O’Reilly Factor amounted to an improper in-kind contribution to Kasich’s campaign, which exceeded Ohio’s $11,395.56 contribution limit and lacked the proper disclaimer for political advertising. The web address appeared for 90 seconds, the complaint said.

Kasich, a former Fox commentator, later told supporters the event helped him raise $21,000, according to complaint filed with the Ohio Elections Commission. He is seeking to unseat Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland in November.

Let's go back to the 1950s, says Ken Buck, GOP candidate for Senator in Colorado.

Buck: He still has his recorder on right there... [points, laughter]

Question: [brief lead-in] What plans do you have to make public education better in America?

Buck: "Let's talk about that [education] folks. In the 1950s, we had the best schools in the world. And the United States government decided to get more involved in federal education. [Pols emphasis] Where are we now, after all those years of federal involvement, are we better or are we worse? So what's the federal government's answer? Well since we've made education worse, we're gonna even get more involved. And what's gonna be the result?  It's kinda like health care. We've screwed up health care--Medicare--we've screwed up all kinds of other things, so what are we gonna do? We're gonna get even more involved in health care.  What are we going to do? We're gonna get more involved in education.

As Colorado Pols points out in this piece, most of the real federal investment in education came a lot later, in the 60s and 70s. What was the primary feature of education in the 50s (other than Bert the turtle films?).

Is this the "Rand Paul moment" for Ken Buck, folks? Most of the increases in federal funding for education, the federally-guaranteed student loans that Buck so famously wants to do away with, and other federal "involvement," happened in the 1960s, not the 1950s: the federal Department of Education didn't itself exist until 1980. In addition, before the 1965 federal student loan program we know today, which uses private lenders and federal loan guarantees, student loans were made directly by the U.S. Treasury. Is that his conservative vision?

....

Of course, there was that little matter of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954, later enforced by federal troops on a rather unwilling local government in Little Rock. Which would very certainly come under the heading of "federal involvement" in education, wouldn't it? As a matter of fact, wasn't that a big argument about "local control," if you set aside the messy racist stuff?

Yeah, that whole pesky Civil Rights era progress again. Wasn't life a lot better for the Ken Bucks and Rand Pauls of the world before brown people could start associating with them? Oh, and before Medicare "screwed up health care," too. You really need no more proof that women, minorities, and seniors don't really have a part in Ken Buck's world.

The Great Jobs Depression continues to worsen.

The Labor Department reports this morning that companies created ony 67,000 new jobs in August. That's down from the 107,000 they created in July. And because the government laid off temporary Census workers, the economy as a whole lost 54,000 jobs.

To put this into perspective, we need 125,000 net new jobs a month just to keep up with the growth of the population and the potential workforce.

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In a statement reminiscent of Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle’s call to abolish the federal Department of Education, Colorado GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck falsely claimed at a Q&A session with College Republicans that American schools have declined since the 1950s because of increased federal involvement in education:

In the 1950s, we had the best schools in the world, and the United States government decided to, um, get more involved in federal education. Where are we now after all those years of federal involvement?  Are we better, or are we worse?  So what’s the federal government’s answer?  Well since we’ve made education worse, we’re gonna even get more involved.  And what’s gonna be the result?

Watch it:

First of all, Buck’s claim that American schools are worse now than they were in the 1950s is laughably wrong. In 1957, less than half of white Americans and fewer than one in five African-Americans graduated from high school. By 2002, however, almost nine in ten white children and eight in ten black children earned their diploma.  Likewise, college graduation rates more than tripled during the same time period for both racial groups.  Our country has a long way to go before we build the education system Americans deserve, but Buck is simply wrong to claim that American schools haven’t made massive strides since the 1950s.

More importantly, although Buck was probably referring to the federal Department of Education, which was created in 1980, when he attacked federal involvement in education. His blanket attack on federal education policy ignores the single most significant example of federal intervention in public schools:

In the 1950s, much of America was an apartheid state. For millions of children, the black educational experience was a tale of crumbling buildings housing overcrowded classes taught by underqualified teachers who were paid a substandard salary.  Federal involvement broke this “airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society,” and Buck is wrong to ignore this history.

(HT: David Sirota)

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Democracy Now's Juan Gonzalez talked to investigative journalist and author Alexander Zaitchik about Glenn Beck's rise as a "nationwide cultural phenomenon" and how we ended up with someone who described himself as a recovering alcoholic with drug abuse and former shock jock ended up preaching to America from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.

This huckster has been doing the same shtick since his days as a radio Morning Zoo shock jock and he's laughing all the way to the bank with his new found fame that he doesn't deserve now and more than he did when most of the places he worked for were firing him left and right.

Zaitchik's book on Beck is titled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance.

JUAN GONZALEZ: We turn now to a deeply polarizing figure who’s been dominating the airwaves. He’s the darling of conservatives and right-wing activists. But to liberals and progressives, he’s a much-reviled object of derision, a demagogue prone to maudlin dramatics. Yes, I’m talking about the right-wing TV and radio host Glenn Beck. He’s also a bestselling author, and his latest venture is a slickly designed blog called "The Blaze."

Last weekend, Glenn Beck organized a much-publicized "Restoring Honor" rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in the nation’s capital. It was held on the forty-seventh anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Here’s an excerpt of Glenn Beck’s speech at the rally.

GLENN BECK: Somewhere in this crowd—I know it—I have been looking for the next George Washington. I can’t find him. I know he is in this crowd. He may be eight years old. But this is the moment! This is the moment that he dedicates his life, that he sees giants around him. And twenty-five years from now, he will come not to this stair, but to those stairs, and he can proclaim, "I have a new dream."

Tell the truth. Tell the truth. And it only matters when you tell the truth and you know it’s going hurt you. You know that it’s not going to help your side. Tell the truth. America is crying out for the truth! Tell the truth in your own life and then expect it from others.

JUAN GONZALEZ: That was Fox News broadcaster Glenn Beck. His fans reportedly number in the millions, and Saturday’s rally drew nearly 100,000 supporters.

How did a former Top 40 Radio DJ who describes himself as a recovering alcoholic who struggled with drug abuse become a nationwide cultural phenomenon? Well, investigative journalist Alexander Zaitchik tells this story in his book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance. He joins me here in our studio.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Good to be here.

JUAN GONZALEZ: You were at the rally.

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: I was there.

JUAN GONZALEZ: What was it like?

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Well, it certainly didn’t resemble the rally that I read about in the press. It sort of got a pass. People thought this is a softer, kinder, squishier Glenn Beck, a non-political Glenn Beck. But it was a deeply political event, I think. He’s calling for, you know, basically a return to Biblical principles, turning back to God, which is as political as you can get. This is a secular republic the last time I checked. And Beck’s conception of turning back to God and bringing the Constitution back to its, you know, original Biblical kind of base is—you have to see it in light of Beck’s Mormon reading of American history, in which God literally wrote the Constitution and intended its development to stop at around the Tenth Amendment. So when Beck talks about turning back to God, what he’s really talking about is a drastic diminuation of the government as modern Americans know it.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Tell us a little bit about his history. How did he get to where he is now, to become this sort of icon of right-wing conservatives?

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: It’s an incredibly unlikely story that this guy would end up addressing this many people at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. Just ten years ago, he was still a struggling Top 40 DJ. Basically a failure. Had bottomed out after about twenty years as a Morning Zoo Top 40 guy traveling the country, getting fired from markets pretty quickly for making a lot of enemies and being famous for his mean streak, which is still in abundant evidence. He was really kind of a divisive figure even then, when he was in this clownish, infantile world of Top 40 radio.

And he got a talk show largely through being at the right place at the right time. He was working for Clear Channel when it was still a small company. And then, when it began to take advantage of deregulation, he used his connections to land a job in Tampa, where he was about to get fired, until the recount drama of 2000 put a lot of focus on Florida, where he was working. So he was able to parlay that into ratings, and then he was syndicated. And then 9/11 happened, and he sort of turned overnight into this hard-charging, fire-breathing superpatriot that we know today.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And some of the—you mentioned his propensity to get in trouble for what he says. Some of the statements that you’ve been chronicling over the years now of his?

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Right. Well, his more recent controversies are pretty well known. But even going back to the '80s and ’90s, he was known for a racist, sexist shtick. He famously, or infamously, called up the wife of a competing DJ in Phoenix in the mid-'80s and mocked her for having a miscarriage live on the air. He made fun of a guy named Malik Jones in New Haven, who was an unarmed black man shot by a white police officer, and it was quite a big police brutality case at the time. He went on air that week making fun of Jones, talking about how he used to smoke crack with his grandmother. Stuff like this. So, you know, this Glenn Beck that is so divisive today has been there the whole time. And the idea that he had this, you know, transformative experience when he became a Mormon and became a good guy and is this sort of moral beacon is just ludicrous.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Glenn Beck was on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace discussing his "Restoring Honor" rally and how he plans to, quote, "reclaim the civil rights movement." When Wallace asked him about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s vision of economic justice, Beck said that's a part of the civil rights leader’s message that he didn’t agree with.

GLENN BECK: Reclaim the civil rights, meaning people of faith that look at equal justice and look at every man the same, that’s who needs to reclaim it, not the politicians, not the parties, not white people or black people.

CHRIS WALLACE: But Glenn—

GLENN BECK: People of faith.

CHRIS WALLACE: But Glenn, the civil rights movement always had an agenda beyond just equality, beyond just, quote, "justice." The full name of the march forty-seven years ago was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

GLENN BECK: Right.

CHRIS WALLACE: One of the speakers at the event was a labor leader, A. Philip Randolph, who talked about the injustice of people who live in poverty. John Lewis, then a student, now a congressman, said this at the event: "We need a bill that will ensure the equality of a maid who earns $5 a week in the home of the family whose total income is $100,000 a year." The civil rights movement was always about an economic agenda.

GLENN BECK: Well, you know what, Chris? I think that is part of it, but that’s a part of it that I don’t agree with. I think the bigger part—the thing that we fail to recognize is that is the racial politics.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And last year, Glenn Beck accused President Obama of being a racist and having a, quote, "deep-seated hatred for white peope." Well, on Sunday, Fox News’s Chris Wallace played that clip for Glenn Beck.

GLENN BECK: This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture. I don’t know what it is. This guy is, I believe, a racist.

CHRIS WALLACE: Question: after that, do you have any credibility talking about reclaiming the civil rights movement?

GLENN BECK: OK, let me go over this again on the reclaiming the civil rights movement. People of faith that believe that you have an equal right to justice, that is the essence. And if it’s not the essence, then we’ve been sold a pack of lies. The essence is, everyone deserves a shot. The content of character, not the color of skin. Now, when—I’ve addressed this comment a million times, and, in fact, I think I amended it this week, that what I didn’t understand at the time was the influences on President Obama. And, you know, the white culture, look—read his own books. He writes about the white culture and how he struggled with it, etc., etc. But I didn’t understand really his theology. He’s—his viewpoints come from liberation theology.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Alexander Zaitchik, your response to those comments of Glenn Beck’s, and especially what the comments on President Obama did to the campaign that developed against him?

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Right. Well, it led to the most successful campaign against Beck, the Color of Change, stopbeck.com, campaign to get sponsors to drop his show, and it’s been quite successful. It’s created this narrative out there, which Beck is rightly seen as somewhat freakish. No one recognizes brands from their breakfast table on his show anymore, and that’s as it should be.

As for the comments about Barack Obama’s liberation theology, you know, it’s hard to know where to begin. This is just kind of classic Beck, and it’s part of his larger campaign against social justice, which is, you know, a combination of the sort of classic Beck trifecta of ignorance, provocation and pretty sly racial innuendo, which comes pretty effortlessly to him.

As for Martin Luther King appropriation, he clearly would have put King on is chalkboard, had they been contemporaries. Beck not only would have honed in on King’s connections to real radicals, but he also would have, you know, called him a cockroach for spreading the virus of social justice. This is the kind of language that he engages in on a regular basis, which is what makes him so dangerous. He’s injected this language that is pretty foreign to American political discourse, this sort of pre-Hitlerian, almost, talk about cockroaches, rats, viruses, cancers, dehumanizing your political opponents.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And in the little time we have left, his involvement with the Mormon Church, while at the same time trying to curry support among evangelical Christians, who regard—many of whom regard the Mormon Church with disdain, could you talk about that?

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Sure, sure. This is, I think, the most interesting fault line that’s developed lately. It’s not so much between Beck and his liberal critics—we all know about that—but it’s between his evangelical fan base, those who are a little bit put off by his posturing as a Christian leader, as a divine medium, when in fact he belongs to what most evangelicals belong to—consider a cult. So it’s a little strange also that he would be throwing stones at other people’s Christianity, when he himself is in a pretty big glass house when it comes to, at least as his fans understand, his faith.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Is there any sense, in your research on him, that he has political aspirations? Of course, the talk a couple of years ago was more about Lou Dobbs running for president. But what about Glenn Beck?

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Yeah, no, I think Beck is smart enough to know there’s too many skeletons that’ll be dragged out if he ever tried to run for office. And also, frankly, there’s too much longevity and money in what he’s doing building himself up as a sort of movement leader that’s above the fray, or at least pretends to be above the fray, but in fact is not.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But he’s had a lot of influence, obviously, in terms of the campaign against Van Jones and then against ACORN. He was very influential in helping to destroy those figures.

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Sure, sure. He’s a potent political force, absolutely. I don’t think you can understand what happened on Saturday without reference to what’s going to happen two Saturdays from now with the FreedomWorks-organized march. Taxpayers March, they’re calling it.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, thanks very much for being with us, Alexander Zaitchik, an investigative reporter and the author of the Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance.