Glenn Beck- In Favor Of Police, Except When He's Not

Salon's Joan Walsh, highlighting racial prejudice on the part of Glenn Beck, on August 6 posted this monologue of the right-wing conspiratorial talk show host. The segment I find most significant, though, is the following:

America, you watch the headlines. When are your neighbors going to wake up?

Our cities are now being forced into drastic measures and make cuts and guess what's first up on the chopping block? The teachers, the cops, the firefighters. Well, of course, that's the first thing you cut. Why? Why?

Well, progressives, they don't want to make any cuts. Why do you hate the children?

Do you remember Cloward and Piven? Cloward and Piven, the 1960s dope-smoking, hippy crowd that wanted to destroy America then, they think the best way to get their socialist utopia is to financially collapse the current system and start all over again.

Let's look at the cities. For anybody who -- it's crazy. Let's look at the cities who are either threatening to cut or have already cut teachers, cops and firefighters. Where are they?

Show me the cities.

Wow! What do they have all have in common?

Well, you got sniper attacks and rights and riots in Oakland. It's the third worst rated crime city in the US.

Hey, but then you have East St. Louis, there's a paradise for you -- crime index of three, that means it's only safer than 3 percent of cities in the country, which means it's only slightly safer than Oakland. They just cut 19 officers and we'll have at times -- but only the most dangerous night shifts -- only one cop.

Thugs probably shoot at the cops for sport in Philadelphia. It's so bad that the mayor had to ask citizens to help the police. You got to be kidding me.

Beautiful Newark, which is especially around fall when the trees match the blood in the streets, oh, they're celebrating now a whopping 43 whole days without a single murder. Well, congratulations! Don't get too cocky!

Yes, they're considering now, I mean, it's been 43 days since a murder, cutting 250 police officers. The cops have to go. The cops have to go.

Really? And in your wildest dreams is that where you would start cutting?

In Oakland, California, they keep $7 million for cost in museums. Let me tell you, Oakland, you're going to lose the art in the riots.

Newark, $39 million set aside for neighborhood and recreational services. Well, as much fun as I have sitting in the parks in Newark, I think you could probably cut back on the goodtime parks for a while before you slash the cops.

Philadelphia, you can save a couple cops right off the bat. Cut the million dollars set aside for mural art. Mural arts -- I don't know if you knew this, free market is great, baby, they do it for free, it's called graffiti.

Thirty-two million dollars for a free library -- well, I got to tell you, I read probably twice as much as the average Joe, I love to read. But I have a hard time reading or my kid would have a hard time reading when blood coming down their eyes.

Baltimore, cops are on the chopping block. But for $750,000, you can -- they got to rid of the cops -- we got an opera house online. This is like your wife coming home and saying, honey, we run out of money, we got to cut down on expenses but we got to stay healthy. We got to do something. We can't afford all of this food.

You're right, honey. We got to cut the milk, and meat and the organics. We got to cut all that out. We're only going to buy Mountain Dew and Cheetos. Mountain Dews and Cheetos!

How about we get the rich who never pay their fair share to buy their stupid, snotty opera house?

Let me ask you -- you're in a state -- would you cut the opera house or the cops?

The ferociously anti-union Beck ("the unions who have collapsed all of the businesses, who have collapsed all of their pensions, they are bankrupting everything they touch") is exorcised because cities, facing severe budget shortages, are not exempting police from budget cuts. (Perhaps if police unions were even stronger, officers would not be laid off.)

Understandably, it makes Republicans really uncomfortable, this inevitability of laying off teachers and, especially, police officers when every other class of public employees gets the ax. House Minority Leader John Boehner virtually acknowledged same when he recently said "everyone knows that state budgets have been hit hard and no one wants teachers or police officers to lose their jobs. But where do the bailouts end?"

The House of Representatives recently had an opportunity to "bail out" those cops Beck claims he wants out on the street. And it did so, as

The U.S. House of Representatives met in an emergency session on Tuesday to pass a $26 billion bill aimed at saving the jobs of more than 300,000 teachers, police and public service employees, and helping states cover the cost of the federal-state health care program for the poor, Medicaid.

After a day of partisan debate, the bill passed by a 247 to 161 margin....

The bill provides $10 billion for states to save the jobs of some 160,000 teachers. It also allocates $16 billion to help cover the cost of Medicaid. States will have money to keep some 150,000 police officers and other public sector workers on the job.

Democrats say the measure is fully paid for, in part by closing tax loopholes that encourage companies to send jobs overseas. It is also funded by reducing food stamps benefit for low income people.

The last part is not so good and some Democrats complained- no Republican reportedly did so, but you already knew that.

In his rant, Glenn Beck complained "all the economy is doing is exposing and accelerating what the progressives want to do in the first place: collapse the system and start all over again." How did those evil "progressives" vote? 245 Democrats in favor of the cops, 3 against. And those (i.e., Republicans) standing firm against the "progressives? Two voted in favor of teachers (and schoolchildren) and police officers, while 158 voted to "slash the cops," in Beck's terminology.

Saving the jobs of public employees- a bailout. Saving tax breaks of companies moving their jobs overseas- priceless. That's Glenn Beck, and that's the party he supports.

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