Byron Williams Speaks from Jail

"More and more people are waking up," said the maniac who was on his way to murder people at the Tides Foundation and the San Francisco ACLU in July.



I've heard the theory that there's no such thing as shared responsibility, but doesn't Glenn Beck challenge that? Isn't there such a thing as verbally inciting to riot, or inciting to commit murder? How about if Bryon Williams is 100% responsible for everything he did and Glenn Beck is 100% responsible for what he did? What's wrong with that?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Glenn Beck on the Byron Williams Incident

The Washington Post published an article examining the reaction of Glenn Beck to the arrest of Byron Williams. He's the guy many say was motivated by Beck to plan an attack on the Tides Foundation, which was thwarted.

A week after the incident, the mystery was solved. "Tides was one of the hardest things that we ever tried to explain, and everyone told us that we couldn't," Fox News host Glenn Beck told his radio listeners on Monday. "The reason why the blackboard" -- the prop Beck uses on his TV show to trace conspiracies -- "really became what the blackboard is, is because I was trying to explain Tides and how all of this worked." Beck accuses Tides of seeking to seize power and destroy capitalism, and he suggests that a full range of his enemies on the left all have "ties to the Tides Center." On Monday, he savored the fact that "no one knew what Tides was until the blackboard."

For good measure, Beck went after Tides again on Fox that night. And Tuesday night, Wednesday night and Thursday night. That's on top of 29 other mentions of Tides on Beck's Fox show over the past 18 months (two in the week before the shootout) according to a tally by the liberal press watchdog Media Matters. Other than two mentions of Tides on the show of Beck's Fox colleague Sean Hannity, Media Matters said it was unable to find any other mention of Tides on any news broadcast by any network over that same period. Beck declined comment.

The author of the article, Dana Milbank says, "It's not fair to blame Beck for violence committed by people who watch his show." She goes on to describe some of the other Beck-inspired incidents.

I'm not that politically correct or journalistically fair, I blame Glenn Beck. In my book, he bears part of the responsible for these incidents, only a few of which come to light. Thousands of lesser ones must go unconnected to him but are actually a result of his hateful talk. And that's not to mention the millions of his followers who enjoy an increased hate of government and hate of progressives and hate of the Left, all in the name of what, freedom, rights?

What's your opinion? What do you think about Glenn Beck?

More on the ACLU and Byron Williams

Over at AlterNet, Joshua Holland lays out the recent history of ACLU activity with regards gun rights, including the case we looked at the other day.

None of this makes any difference. As I’ve written before, the debate over gun ownership now has little to do with substantive policy issues. Guns have become part of the culture wars, which means that no matter how secure the right to own a firearm may be in the courts — in reality — the gun lobby and firearms manufacturers have too much at stake to let the specter of the gummint taking your shooting irons go away. And there are always people who are easily suckered and buy their dark conspiracy theories.

But make no mistake: theirs is an incredibly dangerous brand of demagoguery, because the suckers who buy the gun lobby’s spin are heavily armed.

He's referrring to Byron Williams, whom we've recently discussed. And, I'm afraid Byron is not the only one out there.

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Glenn Beck and Byron Williams

Salon.com has more on the story Jadegold posted about last week.

Police said last night that Byron Williams, the heavily armed man who got into a shootout with police after being pulled over in Oakland Sunday, was en route to kill officials in the San Francisco offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU.

The ACLU has been a whipping boy of the right for years. But the Tides Foundation? If you haven't heard of Tides, a standard-issue lefty foundation that's been around since the 1970s, it probably means you don't watch the Glenn Beck program. It turns out that Beck rails against Tides constantly on his program — roughly weekly, according to our search of his show transcripts. That includes two shows less than a week before the July 18 shooting. Tides frequently appears on Beck's famous blackboard renderings of who is pulling the strings of the Obama administration and the liberal media.

I blame Glenn Beck. Through his cleverly orchestrated public persona, which I believe has personal enrichment as its only scope, old Glenn is doing lots of damage in the country. The vast majority of his adherents do not act out violently, but are they better off? Are they mentally healthier and more productive? Are they better citizens? I don't think so.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.