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CBS Ran ‘Propaganda’ to Cover for Al Franken After First Sexual Harassment Claim

November 21, 2017
 Staff

WRITER

CBS News had a report over the weekend about Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) that exposed not real news but their own bias.

The outlet published quotes from several women who had worked with Franken, a Democratic senator who has been accused of sexual harassment by commentator Leeann Tweeden. The women in the “report” from CBS News only had glowing things to say about their former boss.

“CBS, you should be ashamed of yourself,” Doc said on today’s show while standing in for Glenn. “That’s not news. That’s propaganda. How is something that didn’t happen news?”

Tweeden said that during a USO tour in 2006, Franken forcibly kissed her without permission and left a photograph of him groping her chest. She released the picture as proof along with a post about the incident.

Today, a new accuser came forward to say that Franken groped her during a photo op at the 2010 Minnesota State Fair. Lindsay Menz’s account is the first accusation dated during Franken’s time in office.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

DOC: Doc Thompson in for Glenn Beck. We're discussing the witch hunt that is accusations all over the place of inappropriate behavior. All kinds of different people.

And I say witch hunt because you can clearly see that people are trying to gin up things from the past, in order to punish people.

Are some of these legit? Absolutely. Should those people be punished if proven guilty? Absolutely. I have no problem against that. Of course, they should.

But you recognize most of this is being done for a political nature, or for agenda. Even if it's not a politician. It's the, huh. We've heard virtually nothing about Kevin Spacey. But a whole lot about Roy Moore, haven't we?

Al Franken over the weekend, they ran a story on CBS that basically said -- and I tweeted about it. I was stunned. CBS, you should be ashamed of yourself. They ran a story that basically said, here's a bunch of women who worked in Al Franken's office who said, he was always a perfect gentleman and one hell of a boss. That's not news. That's propaganda.

How is something that didn't happen news? Okay. So your argument is, well, this disputes what this woman claimed. Well, remember, there's photographic evidence of one of her allegations. So you don't have to prove it or disprove it, as CBS is trying to do. CBS was trying to take the heat on of Al Franken. They were -- they were helping him.

They were not the fourth estate. They were not the media holding people accountable and reporting facts as journalists. CBS, we're propagandists, helping or attempting to help Al Franken. Had they dug up a bunch of women from Roy Moore's past saying, he was always a perfect gentleman. I was 13, and he didn't sleep with me. No. They didn't do that. Did they dig up a bunch of women during the campaign saying, Donald Trump never grabbed me by the hoo-ha? No. It was, here's a bunch of women that said -- that never happened with Al Franken. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Let's go to the phone lines. 888-727-BECK. 888-727-BECK.

Let's go to line number 55 in Massachusetts. It's Steve. Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program, Steve. How are you?

CALLER: Hey, Glenn. How are you doing?

DOC: Doing well.

CALLER: My biggest pet peeve with this whole sexual harassment scandal is why hasn't Bill Clinton at least been condemned and ostracized by the Democrat Party? He should have been in jail for what he did while he was governor of Arkansas, never mind have a political career. To me, the whole Democrat Harvey fighting against sexual harassment is the biggest fraud, because Bill Clinton is still walking around free and loose. And until they clean that up, I think my vote is going to be a protest vote, against Bill Clinton, for his sexual harassment.

DOC: You know what, Steve, and I -- you're absolutely right. The hypocrisy is incredible. Now, there is hypocrisy from the right too. There's a lot of people who won't hold people accountable, and that's fine. But you're absolutely right when it comes to Bill Clinton.

Did you see what Chelsea Handler did last week with regard to that story, where she was talking about Juanita Broaddrick, or tweeted at her.

So Chelsea Handler -- and, by the way, Steve, thank you for the call. Chelsea Handler, who suffers from Trump derangement syndrome -- full disclosure, I didn't vote for Donald Trump. I didn't support him, because I vote on track record. I certainly didn't vote for Hillary, but I vote on track record as a conservative Libertarian. I think Trump has done a pretty good job with some things. I've criticized him on others.

Having said that -- got to do that disclaimer in today's world, unfortunately.

Chelsea Handler tweets out about, all women are to be believed, and a bunch of other propaganda as part of her Trump derangement symptom. And, of course, blasted Trump.

She put something like, imagine when speaking of Roy Moore -- imagine you're a young girl and an older man abuses you sexually. It was pretty close to that. I'm paraphrasing. But it's pretty close.

And then you have to suffer through it the rest of your life, and then he gets elected to the Senate. And you have to witness that. And what does that show to other girls?

And Juanita Broaddrick, who has accused Bill Clinton of raping her, when he was governor, tweeted out, I don't have to imagine. Because it happened to me.

Said, that happened -- a governor did that to me, and then went on to be president. So on and so forth. And a bunch of people said, hey, what about that Chelsea, come on. And she was silent for a few days. And was forced to respond.

And she respond, Juanita, I didn't know about that. I'm just finding out about this. What? Bill Clinton. Allegations! Women! Rape, inappropriate, what? When did this happen -- what?

(laughter)

Really, Chelsea? Did you start reading the newspapers a week and a half ago? You really don't remember any of that stuff? You're lying. It's crap. How dare you.

Let's go back to the phone lines. Line 22 now. Rick in Missouri. Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. How are you?

CALLER: Thank you, Doc. Pleasure to be on. What gets me besides everything that has already been stated as basically the facts of it is, we got to learn from our history. And here's one simple little history lesson that is from the recent past.

Mitt Romney didn't pay his taxes for ten years. Well, that's what I heard.

DOC: Yes.

CALLER: Two years later, Harry, you lied, on nationwide TV. Harry, you lied. And he smirks and says, well, he didn't win, did he? Ha, ha, ha.

I'm feeling exactly the same thing in Alabama, on a state-level, which will lead to a federal level. That's exactly what I'm feeling.

DOC: And, Rick, mind you, while he was saying that, while Harry Reid having no conscience was saying that, there were actually people in the current administration when he said that, that didn't pay their taxes. Do you remember?

Tim Geithner and Kathleen Sebelius, remember? They did not pay their taxes and only paid them once they were called out and it was discovered. Yet, he called out Mitt Romney.

CALLER: Yes. And supposedly -- yes, and supposedly, approximately, what? Ten percent of IRS, certain department of IRS didn't pay their federal taxes either.

DOC: Yes, they still haven't. Yeah, every year, the IG reports come out and they don't pay their taxes. I mean, look at -- we found out -- well, Rick, we just found out that Lois Lerner, they started settling some of those cases with the Tea Party and patriot groups when Lois Lerner conspired with other people, and I believe the Obama administration and other people therein, to use the power of the IRS to punish people for their different political opinions.

CALLER: Oh, yeah.

DOC: And they've started to admit that now. They've actually admitted that, wrongdoing, and said they won't let that happen again now.

Meanwhile, Lois Lerner still sits, collecting a government pension, that, by the way, they waited to fire her or retire her a couple of months, so she would reach another category and make more money.

CALLER: Isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing?

DOC: And that's the hypocrisy, Rick. I don't care if it's Democrat or Republican. I'm tired of the DC game where it's them against us.

CALLER: Well, to me, Doc, to be quite honest with you, with regard to how the party goes, because I'm old enough to remember, Blue Dog Democrats. I'm old enough to remember real Republicans. The Republican Party today was the Democratic Party of 30 years ago. The Democratic Party today is the Socialist Party of today.

DOC: Wow.

CALLER: That's the way I look at it.

DOC: That's a great way to look at it, buddy. Thanks so much for the call. Appreciate it. Back to the phone lines. Let's go to New York now.

David from line 111. How are you, sir?

CALLER: Good. How are you?

DOC: Good. Well, sir.

CALLER: What I wanted to say was, you know, Judge Roy Moore is being slandered all over the news. You know, he might be guilty, he might not be. The lady may be telling the truth. But there's only -- there's no really way of finding out the truth, unless you ask him to take a polygraph test. Because he's being destroyed in the court of public opinion. So why not get some world-renowned polygraphist to give these guys tests, find out who is telling the truth?

DOC: Well, and I appreciate where you're heading with this. And I like the idea. If I were Roy Moore, I would take one. The problem is, polygraph tests aren't always accurate, as you know. But -- and, by the way, thank you so much for the call. But the bigger problem is you're asking Roy Moore to prove his innocence. That's not now how this is supposed to work.

Now, I know there are people like Mitt Romney even, who said, innocent until proven guilty is for a court of law, not public opinion. And all of this crap. And the bottom line is Mitt Romney doesn't like Roy Moore because Mitt Romney is the progressive Republican. We know that.

The reason he put that out there is because of other things. Other reasons he doesn't want Roy Moore to have that gig.

But you're still asking him to prove himself innocent. It's not supposed to work that way. Even though that's an official standard when it comes to our legal system, we're all supposed to have that attitude ourselves as well. Why would you want to start with somebody is guilty? Why would you want to assume guilt? That's not good. It's not Christian either. All right. Back to the phone calls. Let's go to the Buckeye State. Pete in Ohio. How are you, sir? Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program.

VOICE: Hey, good morning, Doc. The spotlight on people in powerful positions has never been brighter. And we can vote with our dollars and our feet in business or in Hollywood. But I'd like to expand the institution of term limits, as we have for our -- our mayors. Term limits for the governors. Term limits for the president of the United States. Power in the Congress and the Senate is based on, you know, dictates of entrenched politicians. And I would like to see them, you know, 16 to 20 years, I think is reasonable. It would -- it's not partisan. It wouldn't help one party or the other. But it would clean up Congress.

DOC: Pete, I absolutely agree with you. That's one of the solutions in this thing. So let's talk solutions. If you're tired of all of this back and forth witch hunt, backbiting when you know so many people are guilty from various backgrounds, from Republicans, Democrats, conservative, liberal. Whatever. If you're tired of it, then you have to come up with solutions. And, Pete, you're right. That's one of the solutions, term limits. We have to find as much way to take away power from DC as possible. And that's something our liberal friends are missing here.

A contested Democratic convention could lead to the ONE candidate who could beat Trump, says Michael Medved

Paul Morigi / Stringer/ Getty

On Wednesday's TV show, Glenn Beck sat down with radio show host, author, political commentator, and film critic, Michael Medved.

Michael had an interesting prediction for the 2020 election outcome: a brokered convention by the DNC will usher in former First Lady Michelle Obama to run against President Donald Trump.

Watch the video below to hear why he's making this surprising forecast:

Use code BECK to save $10 on one year of BlazeTV.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

FLASHPOINT? Virginia Gov. Northam declares state of emergency to ban firearms ahead of gun-rights rally


Zach Gibson / Stringer

On Thursday's "Glenn Beck Radio Program," BlazeTV's White House correspondent Jon Miller described the current situation in Virginia after Gov. Ralph Northam (D) declared a state of emergency and banned people carrying guns at Capitol Square just days before a pro-Second-Amendment rally scheduled on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Jon told Glenn that Gov. Northam and the Virginia Legislature are "trying to deprive the people of their Second Amendment rights" but the citizens of Virginia are "rising up" to defend their constitutional rights.

"I do think this is the flashpoint," Jon said. "They [Virginia lawmakers] are saying, 'You cannot exercise your rights ... and instead of trying to de-escalate the situation, we are putting pressure. We're trying to escalate it and we're trying to enrage the citizenry even more'."

Glenn noted how Gov. Northam initially blamed the threat of violence from Antifa for his decision to ban weapons but quickly changed his narrative to blame "white supremacists" to vilify the people who are standing up for the Second Amendment and the Constitution.

"What he's doing is, he's making all all the law-abiding citizens of Virginia into white supremacists," Glenn said.

"Sadly, that's exactly right," Jon replied. "And I think he knows exactly what he's doing."

Watch the video to catch more of the conversation below:

Use code BECK to save $10 on one year of BlazeTV.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

Ryan: Trump Louisiana Finale

Photo by Jim Dale

Part One. Part Two. Part Three.

At the end of Trump rallies, I would throw on my Carhartt jacket, sneak out of the press area, then blend in with everyone as they left, filing out through swinging doors.

Often, someone held the door open for me. Just 30 minutes earlier, the same person had most likely had most likely hissed at me for being a journalist. And now they were Sunday smiles and "Oh, yes, thank you, sir" like some redneck concierge.

People flooded out of the arena with the stupidity of a fire drill mishap, desperate to survive.

The air smacked you as soon as you crossed the threshold, back into Louisiana. And the lawn was a wasteland of camping chairs and coolers and shopping bags and to-go containers and soda cans and articles of clothing and even a few tents.

In Monroe, in the dark, the Trump supporters bobbled over mounds of waste like elephants trying to tiptoe. And the trash was as neutral to them as concrete or grass. They plodded over it because it, an object, had somehow gotten in their way.

It did not matter that they were responsible for this wreckage.Out in the sharp-edged moonlight, rally-goers hooted and yapped and boogied and danced, and the bbq food truck was all smoke and paper plates.

They were even more pumped than they had been before the rally, like 6,000 eight year olds who'd been chugging Mountain Dew for hours. Which made Donald Trump the father, the trooper, God of the Underworld, Mr. Elite, Sheriff on high horse, the AR-15 sticker of the family.

Ritualistic mayhem, all at once. And, there in Louisiana, Trump's supporters had gotten a taste of it. They were all so happy. It bordered on rage.

Still, I could not imagine their view of America. Worse, after a day of strange hostilities, I did not care.

My highest priority, my job as a reporter, was to care. To understand them and the world that they inhabit. But I did not give a damn and I never wanted to come back.

Worst of all, I would be back. In less than a week.

Was this how dogs felt on the 4th of July? Hunched in a corner while everyone else gets drunk and launches wailing light into the sky? configurations of blue and red and white.

It was 10:00 p.m. and we'd been traveling since 11:00 a.m., and we still had 5 hours to go and all I wanted was a home, my home, any home, just not here, in the cold sweat of this nowhere. Grey-mangled sky. No evidence of planes or satellites or any proof of modern-day. Just century-old bridges that trains shuffled over one clack at a time.

And casinos, all spangles and neon like the 1960s in Las Vegas. Kitchy and dumb, too tacky for lighthearted gambling. And only in the nicer cities, like Shreveport, which is not nice at all.

And swamp. Black water that rarely shimmered. Inhabited by gadflies and leeches and not one single fish that was pretty.

Full of alligators, and other killing types. The storks gnawing on frogs, the vultures never hungry. The coyotes with nobody to stop them and so much land to themselves. The roaches in the wild, like tiny wildebeests.

Then, the occasional deer carcass on the side of the road, eyes splayed as if distracted, tongue out, relaxed but empty. The diseased willows like skeletons in hairnets. The owls that never quit staring. A million facets of wilderness that would outlive us all.

Because Nature has poise. It thrives and is original.

Because silence is impossible. Even in an anechoic chamber, perfectly soundproofed, you can hear your own heartbeat, steady as a drum. A never-ending war.

I put "Headache" by Grouper on repeat as we glided west. We were deadlocked to asphalt, rubber over tarface.

And I thought about lines from a Rita Dove poem titled "I have been a stranger in a strange land"

He was off cataloging the universe, probably,
pretending he could organize
what was clearly someone else's chaos.

Wasn't that exactly what I was doing? Looking for an impossible answer, examining every single accident, eager for meaning? telling myself, "If it happens and matters the next year, in America, I want to be there, or to know what it means. I owe it to whoever cares to listen."

Humans are collectors and I had gone overboard.

Because maybe this wasn't even my home. These landmarks, what did they mean? Was I obvious here? When I smiled, did I trick them into believing that I felt some vague sense of approval? Or did my expressions betray me?

Out in all that garbage-streaked emptiness — despite the occasional burst of passing halogen — I couldn't tell if everything we encountered was haunted or just old, derelict, broken, useless. One never-ending landfill.

Around those parts, they'd made everything into junk. Homes. Roads. Glass. Nature. Life itself, they made into junk.

I cringed as we passed yet another deer carcass mounded on the side of the road.

As written in Job 35:11,

Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds in the sky?

Nobody. Look at nature and you feel something powerful. Look at an animal, in all of its untamable majesty, and you capture a deep love, all swept up in the power of creation. But, here, all I saw were poor creatures who people had slammed into and kept driving. Driving to where? For what reason? What exactly was so important that they left a trail of dead animals behind them?

So I crossed myself dolorously and said an "Our Father" and recited a stanza from Charles Bukowski's "The Laughing Heart"

you can't beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.

Out here, nothing but darkness. Needing some light, by God. Give me something better than a Moon that hides like an underfed coward.

Jade told me about some of the more traumatic things she'd seen while working at the State Fair.

"Bro, they pull roaches out of the iced lemonade jugs and act like nothing happened."

"All right but what about the corn dogs?"

"You do not want to know, little bro."

She looked around in the quiet. "Back in the day, the Louisiana Congress refused to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21," she said. "They didn't want to lose all that drunk gambler money. So the federal government cut off funding to highways."

We glided through moon-pale landscape for an hour before I realized what she had meant. That there weren't any light poles or billboards along the road. Nothing to guide us or distract us. Just us, alone. And it felt like outer space had collapsed, swallowed us like jellybeans.

Like two teenagers playing a prank on the universe.

In the cozy Subaru Crosstrek, in the old wild night, brimming with the uncertainty of life and the nonchalance of failure, we paraded ourselves back to Dallas. Alive in the river silence that follows us everywhere.

New installments come Mondays and Thursdays. Next, the Iowa caucuses. Check out my Twitter. Email me at kryan@blazemedia.com

Amid election security concerns, states should look to blockchain

Wikimedia Commons

The Iowa primary is just around the corner, and concerns of election interference from the last presidential election still loom. Back in 2016, The Associated Press found that a majority of U.S. elections systems still use Windows 7 as an operating system, making them highly susceptible to bugs and errors. And last year, a Mississippi voter tried multiple times to vote for the candidate of his choice, but the system continuously switched his vote to the other candidate. It's pretty clear: America's voting systems desperately need an update.

That's where blockchain voting comes in.

Blockchain voting is a record-keeping system that's 100% verifiable and nearly impossible to hack. Blockchain, the newest innovation in cybersecurity, is set to grow into a $20 billion industry by 2025. Its genius is in its decentralized nature, distributing information throughout a network of computers, requiring would-be hackers to infiltrate a much larger system. Infiltrating multiple access points spread across many computers requires a significant amount of computing power, which often costs more than hackers expect to get in return.

Blockchain voting wouldn't allow for many weak spots. For instance, Voatz, arguably the leading mobile voting platform, requires a person to take a picture of their government-issued ID and a picture of themselves before voting (a feature, of course, not present in vote-by-mail, where the only form of identity verification is a handwritten signature, which is easily forgeable). Voters select their choices and hit submit. They then receive an immediate receipt of their choices via email, another security feature not present in vote-by-mail, or even in-person voting. And because the system operates on blockchain technology, it's nearly impossible to tamper with.

Votes are then tabulated, and the election results are published, providing a paper trail, which is a top priority for elections security experts.

The benefits of blockchain voting can't be dismissed. Folks can cast their vote from the comfort of their homes, offices, etc., vastly increasing the number of people who can participate in the electoral process. Two to three-hour lines at polling places, which often deter voters, would become significantly diminished.

Even outside of the voting increase, the upsides are manifold. Thanks to the photo identification requirements, voter fraud—whether real or merely suspected—would be eliminated. The environment would win, too, since we'd no longer be wasting paper on mail-in ballots. Moreover, the financial burden on election offices would be alleviated, because there's decreased staff time spent on the election, saving the taxpayer money.

From Oregon to West Virginia, elections offices have already implemented blockchain voting, and the results have been highly positive. For example, the city of Denver utilized mobile voting for overseas voters in their 2019 municipal elections. The system was secure and free of technical errors, and participants reported that it was very user-friendly. Utah County used the same system for their 2019 primary and general elections. An independent audit revealed that every vote that was cast on the app was counted and counted correctly. These successful test cases are laying the groundwork for even larger expansions of the program in 2020.

With this vital switch, our elections become significantly more secure, accurate, and efficient. But right now, our election infrastructure is a sitting duck for manipulation. Our current lack of election integrity undermines the results of both local and national elections, fans the flames of partisanship, and zaps voter confidence in the democratic system. While there's never a silver bullet or quick fix to those kinds of things, blockchain voting would push us much closer to a solution than anything else.

Chris Harelson is the Executive Director at Prosperity Council and a Young Voices contributor.