In an article titled, “6 Lunatics Inspired by Fox News and Glenn Beck,” published on Oct. 28 — so six weeks before before Jared Loughner’s terror attack in Tucson that left six people dead and 13 wounded, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — Jim Edwards, columnist for BNET, recapped six instances over the past two-and-a-half years in which lunatics who committed violent acts, or were thwarted before they could act, later said they were inspired to violence after intense exposure to propaganda from Fox and Glenn Beck:
- April 2010 – Charles Wilson: Sentenced to prison last week for repeatedly threatening to kill Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). His cousin, in a letter to the court, said: “While his actions were undeniably wrong and his choices were terrible, in part they were the actions of others played out by a very gullible Charlie. He was under the spell that Glenn Beck cast, aided by the turbulent times in our economy. I don’t believe that Charlie even had the ability to actually carry out his threats.”
- July 2010 – Byron Williams: Arrested while driving to the HQ of the liberal non-profit group The Tides Foundation carrying numerous guns and body armor, intent on killing everyone in the office, before moving on to do the same thing at the ACLU. Williams confessed he views Beck as a “schoolteacher” who “blew my mind.” The would-be killer admitted that Beck “give[s] you every ounce of evidence you could possibly need” to commit violence. He awaits trial in jail.
- July 2008 – Jim David Adkisson: Killed two people and wounded six others in a shooting attack at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in West Knoxville, Tenn., in 2008. Adkisson was inspired by Fox commentator Bernard Goldberg: “This was a symbolic killing,” Adkisson wrote. “Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate and House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg’s book. I’d like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I knew these people were inaccessible to me.” Goldberg is the author of 110 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken Is #37). UPDATE: See Bernard Goldberg’s response below.
- April 2009 – Richard Poplawski: Charged with killing three Pittsburgh police officers who responded to a 911 call about a family dispute at his mother’s Stanton Heights home in April 2009. Polawski “loved Glenn Beck,” according to his mom.
- June 2009 – James W. Von Brunn: Fox itself was reportedly in danger from white supremacist Von Brunn who was arrested after opening fire at security guards, killing one, at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. One of his targets was apparently a “Fox News location.” One of Von Brunn’s pet issues was President Obama’s birth certificate, a “debate” that got plenty of air on Fox.
- April 2010 – Greg Lee Giusti: Arrested for threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom Beck himself has said he would like to poison. Giusti’s mom said: “Greg frequently gets in with a group of people that have really radical ideas and that are not consistent with myself or the rest of the family, which gets him into problems … I say Fox News, or all of those that are really radical, and he, that’s where he comes from.”
Edwards concludes:
Beck spends a lot of time intimating that one day the federal government’s jackbooted thugs will come for us all, at gunpoint. It’s actually the other way around: Beck’s own viewers are the gunmen who want to kill those with whom they disagree. (And note how it’s law enforcement officers and security guards who are mostly taking bullets from Fox’s viewers.)
I’m not saying Fox supports terrorists. I’m saying Fox inspires them.
We live in a media environment in which right wingers are so coddled both by the media, their own Fox and AM radio apparatus and establishment outlets, that they don’t bother to self-edit. Case in point is this response to Edwards from Fox Business Channel and HBO Sports provocateur Bernard Goldberg:
The book in question hit No. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list. Hundreds of thousands of people read it. Yet only one committed any kind of violence after reading it. One!
And, hey, that one guy only killed two innocent people. Could have been a lot worse, right, Bernie?
Only one?
by my count there’s at least 22 dead and nearly 50 wounded.
http://www.recreatingtampa.com/2011/01/10/politics-monday-the-rhetoric-of-violence-and-its-consequences/
sarah palin’s face belongs in that line up
sarah palin is responsible for those deaths tn Tucson
sarah palin must be punished
sarah palin is THE antichrist
Von Brunn probably never shot anybody. Read the details:
http://signofthetimes.yuku.com/topic/1363/6-10-09-Holocaust-Museum-Shooting
So starviego, you’re suggesting that a security guard at the Holocaust Museum killed another security guard and blamed it on the old white guy? Here’s what the right-leaning NY Daily News wrote right after Von Brunn was arrested:
Also it’s not suspicious or even unusual that Von Brunn was transported to the Butner Federal Correctional Complex, even though it was “hundreds of miles away” (257 miles to be exact). Butner has the largest medical/psychological complex in the entire federal prison system. Other inmates there include John Rigas, who used to own Adelphia, the cable company, the blind sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and Bernie Madoff. Former inmates include Jim Bakker and John Hinckley.
So Von Brunn is right wing because he hated Jews? Stalin also hated Jews and he was left wing.
These left right pin pointing, it seems no one has down to a science rather than opinions and guessing.
Non-responsive. Typical troll. Nobody said Von Brunn was a right winger “because” he hates Jews but you, Kim. The evidence that he was a right winger includes the fact that he was a birther, a white supremacist and a holocaust denier.
We’ll be looking for evidence from you proving your claim that von Brunn was not right wing and therefore a liberal.
Kim, come on out of the closet…anyone who has read your postings recognizes that you are a conservative right parading as a progressive. Go watch Beck and listen to Limbaugh and leave your thoughts in their space. They love you. You know what you want to say and nothing is going to deter you…so I will not waste any further time on you and your fear issues. You talk out of both sides of your mouth.
Nicely put, Jethrow and Hazel.
None of you had to say it, this article says it all.
Wouldn’t a person who denies the holocaust hate Jews? Or did you just want to spin that because I brought up the fact that some insane lefty murdered more than a righty?
So all White Supremacists are Right Wingers? OK, please apply that to Black Supremacists, Mexican Supremacists or any creed or color of people, are they all right wing or is it just the white ones?
Do any of you have the balls to admit that maybe people are just not ready to be a collective, maybe we’re not in this together?
Every article posted on this site, all full whacked out and biased claims perverted for your worldly view.
I’m not a right-winger, not that it matters because you guys are so brainwashed by partisan politics and sucking the teat of the State for the ” common good ” that even if I were to say I wasn’t one thing over another, my views will be shoved into your classification of what “right wing” is. If anyone dissents against you, they watch Fox News or Glenn Beck, they’re Bush supporters. That is all you people have to fall back on, time lord style scapegoats..because you know your reasoning makes no sense…its elitist and and you frown upon anything adverse.
Point out for me, in any of my posts the views that are right wing. Do it..you won’t find one. You know why? Because there are none, either you all just make this up as you go along or you really believe the word salad you spew.
Pure spin, like Fox News…no different for this site is or any other, right or left, from blogs, TV shows, news papers.
You’re all insane, your opinion is absolute, the state and government are always in the clear, all fodder for your verbal cannons.
So like anything, none of this matters…you’re people with opinions, views that will add up to nothing and change nothing either.
You’re free to have them, as am I, but I don’t argue in absolutes.
Being non-partisan or Jffersonian is what I strive for.
You couldn’t, because you’re stuck in this king of the hill mindset, either you’re with us or you’re conservative.
And of course you’d agree Trish, those comments are written by children who only want what they want and everyone else can go to hell.
It suits your editorial style to agree, I mean you have been practically writing editorials for Highlights magazine “grown-ups” edition.
I can’t wait till your next article on the secret right wing beliefs of Goofus & Gallant
I’m also very sure Jethrow is no one else but Jon Ponder.
You can’t hide your writing style…doesn’t work
Kim, you are cracking me up. Good stuff!
LMAO. Kim, thanks, I only wish I could write as well as Jon. You’re funny and wrong. Don’t work yourself into a tizzy over little ole me.
Lol, you think I’m actually upset..thats whats funny.
The funnier part of this is the most resent post you guy have.
Super imposing the shooter over Beck’s face.
Now that is comical