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Glenn Beck

Depression in Disguise?; ACORN Accused of Voter Fraud

Aired October 14, 2008 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, the government is buying huge stakes in the nation`s banks. So, the economic crisis must be over, right? Not so much. I`ll show you the scary parallels between today and the Great Depression.

Plus, Senator Obama rolls out his plan to heal the economy. Heal! If you believe. And if you believe it doesn`t involve the redistribution of wealth, socialism, right? Sure sounds like it.

And she worked side by side with the Great Communicator, former Reagan speech writer, Peggy Noonan, stops by to talk about the election and disenfranchisement in America.

All this and more, coming up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: Well, hello, America.

You know, I watched the TV news last night, you know. I got home and looking at the stock market coverage. And there`s somebody had a little banner underneath on one of the shows that said, "Is the crisis over?" I`m like, yes, new million-dollar mortgages for everybody! Yes! Don`t be fooled by the stock market. Here`s "The Point" tonight.

Do not believe the hype. An upswing in the market does not always equal health or even a recovering economy. We`re going to have big downs and big ups for a long time to come, and here`s how I got there.

For starters, yesterday was Columbus Day, and while the stock market was open, the credit market wasn`t, and that is where we need to see significant progress before anybody starts popping champagne with, you know, dollar bills that, you know, now it takes about a billion of them to equal one.

Most importantly, yesterday`s gain should not be encouraging, you know, when you look at it and go whoa, almost 1,000 points, because of this little fun fact. Do you know when the last four biggest daily percentage gains in the stock market in history took place? Ready? 1929, 1931, 1932, and 1933. For you young whippersnappers out there, that was the time we used to call the Great Depression, and we liked it! Forget about daily gains. Ask yourself, your grandparents, how was life back then?

So tonight, America, here`s what you need to know. The federal government is just so colossally bad at business. The reason why yesterday`s market was so good is the feds announced they planned to buy stakes, whether they wanted to or not, the U.S. banks, in those banks. Well, that caused the price of those shares in the banks to go up. And so when they actually do buy the shares, which means when they take your money and buy them, it means now we`re going to pay a lot more than we could have, had we bought them Friday and zipped our mouth.

Morgan Stanley`s stock shot up 87 percent. Guess who gets to get in on that deal? Now we got to pay 87 percent more, just because we told everybody in advance. It was amateur hour, brought to you by the same folks who buy thousand-dollar toilet seats and run the DMV.

Do me a favor: stick to just pointing fingers at each other and yelling at each other, boys, will you? Leave the economic work where it belongs: in the hands of the free market.

William Poole is senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve. And Peter Schiff, the president of Euro PAC and author of "The Little Book of Bull Moves in a Bear Market."

OK, Bill, let me start -- let me start with you. You led the Fed in St. Louis, and you`ve been against this bailout. Why? I thought everybody was for it.

WILLIAM POOLE, SENIOR FELLOW, CATO INSTITUTE: I was against the TARP Program, the asset purchase program. I`ve been in favor of equity infusion in the banks; that is government buying preferred shares or common shares in the banks.

However, I had assumed, and the treasury had been talking about that program as being voluntary. Now, it`s not voluntary. The banks have been strong-armed into doing it. And I must say the treasury has no authority in the law, as far as I know, to require banks, any other company, to sell pieces of themselves to the United States government.

BECK: Hey, hang on just a second, Bill. Because this is something that I have not heard covered anyplace else. I have not heard this focused on. Everybody`s so busy celebrating, but they forced the bank -- the banks that say I don`t want your money, and the banks must sell them, these preferred shares, to the government. Why would they do that?

POOLE: The banks were volunteered the way a soldier in the Army gets volunteered to do latrine duty. "Yes, sir, sergeant. Yes, sir. Right away sir." That`s the way this was done.

And I find it highly objectionable that we are not operating under the rule of law. It sets a very bad precedent. It means that, in the future, any time there is a crisis, the government will have the authority to require a company to sell a piece of itself to the federal government. I think it`s terrible.

BECK: So Peter, let me ask this. That begs the question. Is capitalism dead, and -- and fascism alive? I mean, when can a company say, "No, you can`t buy shares of me. I don`t want to sell them to you"?

PETER SCHIFF, PRESIDENT, EURO PAC: Unfortunately, we buried capitalism years ago, you know, and we`ve been talking about this. Nothing the government is doing is legal. They`re violating the Constitution with everything that they do.

But you know, Paulson said today about this plan, he said it was necessary and unprecedented, and he`s wrong on both counts. It`s completely unnecessary, and unfortunately, there is precedent for this type of monetary policy. They tried it in Argentina. They tried it in Weimar Republic of Germany. They`re trying it right now in Zimbabwe.

I`ve got right here in my hand $100 billion Zimbabwe dollars. And if I spend it quickly enough, I can buy a pack of chewing gum. This is the road they`re taking us down.

We don`t need liquidity in this country. We need savings. And the government is trying to inject the banks with all this liquidity so they can loan it out. But you can`t do that. We need legitimate under- consumption to have real savings. All the government is providing us with is inflation, and we`re going to get more and more of it.

BECK: So Bill, you`re a former head of the Fed. I mean, you`re a reasoned guy. I mean, not like this Peter Schiff dude over here. You`re a guy who knows how this system works. Are we headed towards Weimar? I mean, how do you pump this much money into a system that we have been doing over and over again, and still intend on doing, without inflating our money like crazy?

POOLE: There is an inflation danger for the long run. It`s not a danger next year in the immediate future, and it is a worry. I don`t think there`s any possibility of hyperinflation. We`re not going the way of the Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe. That won`t happen.

BECK: Why?

POOLE: But there is a danger...

BECK: Why wouldn`t that happen?

POOLE: Because the -- because the federal authorities and the Federal Reserve and the understanding of the economics profession is such that that won`t happen.

BECK: No, it`s not.

POOLE: I`m confident that won`t happen.

SCHIFF: So you`re saying we`re smarter, Bernanke and Paulson, these guys are smarter than the central bankers of other countries? They`re repeating all the same mistakes. They`re no smarter. They`re the ones that got us into this mess. And fundamentally, intrinsically, there`s no difference between the money the Fed prints and money the Zimbabwe government prints. It`s all paper. There`s nothing there.

POOLE: I don`t disagree with that but I believe this country is a far more responsible country than Zimbabwe. I don`t know about that.

BECK: I will tell you, Bill, I...

POOLE: Let me...

BECK: Yes, go ahead. Go ahead.

POOLE: I would like to -- those are valid long run concerns and we must pay attention to them, and the federal budget deficit is going to be a big problem in coming years.

But I want to come back to the issue that is right at hand of managing the financial crisis, which is real, which is serious, which does need to be managed. But I believe that this step goes way beyond what is necessary, and going beyond what is authorized in the law is a very dangerous thing to do.

BECK: So Bill, how does -- wait, wait, wait, Peter. Bill, how do we stop it? How do we stop people in the Fed? How do we stop people in the treasury? The Americans have spoken out against this. We are destroying capitalism.

For instance, try this little "T" sin (ph). Everybody wants salary caps. Salary caps? Who the hell is going to run these banks if you can only make $250,000 a year? I know that sounds like a lot to a lot of people, but it`s not for people who are -- to run the biggest financial institutions on planet earth.

POOLE: You know, one thing -- one thing that would stop it would be if one of the executives of these companies, if one of these banks, the nine banks, were to go to court and ask for a court injunction against this requirement. Then it would be tested in the court system. We have a very high integrity in our court system, and the case would be heard promptly.

SCHIFF: I don`t think so. Also the problem is this crisis can`t be managed. We need the free market. You`ve got these cronies in Washington. They`re like little kids with a chemistry set, and they keep on throwing these chemicals together, trying one thing after another. They hope they`re going to stumble on a miracle, but they`re going to blow us all up.

BECK: OK. Guys, thank you very much. I appreciate the conversation.

Coming up, I ask John McCain how it feels to be compared against -- to segregationalist [SIC] George Wallace. He about blew a gasket when I talked to him on -- on the radio program earlier. Also, we`ll talk about his newly unveiled plan for the economy.

Plus, our current economic crisis a big problem, but a bigger problem is the lack of leadership to steer us through it. Tonight what would Reagan do? Speech writer Peggy Noonan joins me in just a bit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: We have Senator John McCain on with us now. Welcome, Senator. Welcome to the program. How are you, sir?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I`m just fine, Glenn. How are you?

BECK: I`m very good. I was for the bailout at the beginning when it was three pages, because I think you needed to do something.

MCCAIN: Yes.

BECK: But then I was with -- I was actually with you, when you said it would be obscene for anybody to put pork in there. And then we had...

MCCAIN: And they did.

BECK: ... $150 billion in pork. But why did you sign it? Why did you go with it? Why didn`t you stand up and say, "No, it`s obscene"?

MCCAIN: I came back, and we got several provisions put in to protect the taxpayer, to give more options, including insurance, to rein -- to put some restraints on CEO pay, to make several improvements in the bill.

The stock market had just wiped out $1.2 trillion in American savings, and pensions, et cetera. Hopefully this volatility will level off, and yesterday`s incredible rebound in the market will stabilize the market, but to do nothing at that particular point, everybody I know told me was not the right thing to do, and I agree with them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: You know, it`s easier to notice the lack of leadership once you`ve seen how effective a great leader can be. A little later on in the program I`ll talk to Ronald Reagan`s former speech writer, Peggy Noonan, about her thoughts on the economy, the election and America, as well as what she thinks the Great Communicator would have to say about the America that we find ourselves in today. That`s coming up in just a bit.

First let`s go back to the economy for a second. When the residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, you know, start yapping about the economy, I mean, they don`t really have a great track record of making things a whole lot better. So when the guys who hope to move to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue talk about their plans for rescuing the economy, I don`t really have a problem managing my excitement. You know what I`m saying?

John McCain, he`s the Republican candidate, of course. He rolled out his plan today. It includes a 50 percent tax cut in the capital gains on some stock purchases, a doubling of tax deduction you can take for a child.

As for Barack Obama we`re just now getting a sense of the small thinking behind the big idea here. Obama wants to let you withdraw up to $10,000 from your retirement accounts without tax penalty for two years. Sounds good on the surface. But Stephen Moore is here. He writes editorials for the "Wall Street Journal" and is author of "End of Prosperity."

Stephen, I looked at this, and I went back and I looked at the 401(k). You can withdraw -- if you`re going to lose your house, you can withdraw money from your 401(k), but you get a 10 percent tax penalty.

Instead of encouraging people to take money to pay their credit cards or whatever, why not just take, get rid of that tax penalty if you`re going to lose your house, or you have medical emergencies or something like that?

STEPHEN MOORE, AUTHOR, "END OF PROSPERITY": Well-put. I just don`t think, Glenn, it`s a good idea to encourage people to take money out of their retirement accounts to deal with their -- paying their current bills. Sort of like what Washington has been doing for 20 years.

BECK: Let me be really cynical here, Stephen. I mean -- I mean, look, if you`re going to lose your house, you should be able to grab your money if that`s what you need to do.

MOORE: Sure.

BECK: And you should be able to do it without penalty. And that`s -- I think that`s a fair idea, but you know what? The idea of being able to open it up and take money out to me is enslaving, because what you`re doing is you`re taking the money out for your retirement to pay your credit cards or daily bills, which is ridiculous. It teaches to you spend, and it enslaves you on something called Social Security later down the road.

MOORE: But you know, I was just thinking when you were describing that, what you described is exactly how Social Security works. They take out that pension money, and they spend it on everything else. And then when we have to retire as Baby Boomers, there ain`t going to be anything in the chest.

I am so frustrated today, Glenn. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have come out with new economic programs. It seems like they do every three or four days. And there`s, you know -- there`s some good ideas here, but as we`ve been talking about for the last few weeks, the house is burning down. You`ve got a cancer patient. You don`t put Band-Aids on him. And both -- both McCain and Obama come up with Band-Aids, cosmetic surgery.

BECK: Steve...

MOORE: We need a whole overhaul of the economic system.

BECK: Nobody is going to give us that.

MOORE: Right.

BECK: So how can we -- because they are giving us -- I`m sorry, they are giving us a complete overhaul of the financial system.

MOORE: Right, in a negative way.

BECK: They`re giving -- Stephen, is there any doubt in your mind that we are a socialist country, a country that is based on socialist principles, or at least strongly moving in that direction, more than we ever have before. And we`re nowhere close to this.

MOORE: The only time that we`ve ever come close to this was when Franklin Roosevelt was president and he enacted the New Deal, which was very socialist. And we are not a socialistic country. We know instinctively that free markets, lower taxes, less government spending and debt is the right solution.

And yet what the politicians keep coming up with is exactly the opposite, this kind of socialistic -- I mean, my goodness, what they called for on Tuesday, I mean on Monday, was essentially a kind of nationalization of the banks. I mean, that`s a pretty socialistic solution, wouldn`t you say?

BECK: I would. You know what? Stephen, help me out with -- help me out with one problem. You`re a student of history. I`m sure you are. Roosevelt and Wilson ran against each other and Roosevelt was saying -- this is Teddy Roosevelt.

MOORE: Ted. T.R., right.

BECK: Yes. And he was saying, you know that, "I`m going to nationalize everything." Basically, he was the Barack Obama candidate, believe it or not, at the time.

MOORE: That`s right.

BECK: And Wilson came out and said, "No, no, no, I`m not going to do that. All that stuff is crazy." Wilson got in, and he actually went further than Teddy Roosevelt even promised.

MOORE: That`s right.

BECK: That`s what it I`m afraid that John McCain is. Is there a possibility of that?

MOORE: There`s always that danger. By the way, another historical parallel. If you look at 1932, when Franklin Roosevelt ran for president, he ran for president on a balanced budget. He was going to balance the budget, of course, and the budget went through the roof.

So yes, look, you can`t -- you can`t really listen to what these guys are saying on the economy, because they`re going to throw all of these plans out. I mean, Glenn, do you really believe anybody`s going to get a tax cut next year? We`re looking at a $1 trillion budget deficit, potentially, with all these bailouts. How could they possibly finance a tax cut on top of that?

BECK: How long has it taken us -- how long has it taken us to go to a $10 trillion deficit or $11 trillion deficit? How many years?

MOORE: Yes, it took us, you know. It took us, you know, 200 years to get to this situation. And we`re practically doubling the debt in five or six years, so it`s...

BECK: It is obscene.

MOORE: It`s a debt culture, and you know, if you look at what`s wrong with private sector America and the banks right now in so many companies, it was too much leverage, too much debt. Now we`re going through a painful de-leveraging, where they`re getting rid of that debt. But government is not getting rid of its debt.

BECK: Stephen, quickly, let me ask you a question. Could you -- could you find out for me the best guess on how much money we have printed and come back on the show with that?

MOORE: Well, I have a chart for you. I`ll show you the next time I`m on. The printing presses, the number goes straight up, the amount of money we`re pumping into the system, which of course causes inflation.

BECK: OK, bring that with you.

MOORE: I will.

BECK: OK, thanks, appreciate it.

All right. I believe once all of the fear and the panic is gone and things have settled down, we`re going to do what Americans all do. And that is roll up our sleeves and go to work. And we`ll do it by focusing and reconnecting with our values. What kind of people are we really? What kind of people do we want to be?

You ask yourself how we lost our way? Most importantly, do we have a chance to start over? The answer is yes.

Those kinds of questions, really what I try to answer in a book that`s coming out here the end of this month or early next month. It`s called "The Christmas Sweater." It`s a story that is based on my own childhood. It is a novel, and it`s -- it`s one that you could easily apply to a misguided country as you could to a misguided 12-year-old boy that I was.

If you were looking for a gift that the whole family can experience and connect with together, I ask you to consider "The Christmas Sweater." It is autographed, and there`s copies of it available right now for pre- order, right now while supplies last. You can find that at GlennBeck.com.

Coming up, investigations and hearings by several swing states into ACORN and instances of voter registration fraud. You got to be kidding me. We got fraud to worry about now, as well? It`s bad, gang.

And a new poll shows CEOs across America fear the consequences of an Obama presidency by a margin of 4-to-1. Might be that whole, you know, taking wealth from one group and giving it another. Don`t miss tonight`s "Real Story," coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Vote early and often, actually said originally by Al Capone, when crime and Chicago politics walked hand and hand. It`s completely different now.

Unfortunately, claims of voter fraud didn`t end with Al Capone and the Chicago way. ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- and I think they mean it -- is a group of community organizers, currently under investigation in several states, where it`s suspected of filing fraudulent voter registrations. What?

Serious accusation, especially with a presidential election at stake, but once the allegation has been -- has been made, you know, something as severe as voter fraud, how -- how do we begin and why hasn`t already begun an investigation?

Representative John Culberson is a Republican from Texas.

What are the allegations here and how widespread is it, Congressman?

REP. JOHN CULBERSON (R), TEXAS: Glenn, the ACORN organization has actually admitted to and pled guilty to a number of these fraud charges. It`s far more than charges. We know they`ve done it.

We`ve also got interviews on the Internet. Thanks to the Internet, people have been able to see for themselves interviews with individuals who have been, in some case, signed up to vote as many as 72 times, and repeatedly hounded by these ACORN activists. So we know there`s voter fraud going on but...

BECK: OK, but you know, Congressman, here`s what really is -- America, you`re going to wet yourself when you hear this, you`re going to be so mad. Congressman, why is it over the summer Congress put into all of our mortgages a -- what is it -- a $400 donation, if you will, to ACORN? Everybody who has a mortgage, you`re now donating to ACORN.

CULBERSON: Unfortunately, Glenn, that`s exactly right. That was one of my -- a no vote that I`m glad I cast. I also voted against these two bad bailout bills last week.

But the fact of the matter is that in the Fannie and Freddie Mae bill that Barney Frank put together this summer, when we nationalized the mortgage banking industry, that legislation, Glenn, contained language that gave the -- these community activist organizations like ACORN -- out of every $100,000 mortgage from this day forward, each one of us will pay a fee of $420 forever that will go directly to these community activist organizations. It`s going to be a line item on your closing statement.

BECK: Congressman, when did we lose control of our country? I mean, we have -- it has been taken over by thieves and criminals and socialists and Marxists, and god only knows what. What the hell happened, and how do we get it back?

CULBERSON: We, the people, have lost control of the government, Glenn. Look at what happened with this Wall Street bailout. These bums that are -- basically, we`ve got a Goldman Sachs CEO as secretary of the treasury, bailing out Wall Street bankers with our money, with our kids` money. It is absolutely disgraceful. It`s an outrage.

We -- gave King Henry -- Henry Paulson is essentially now a king, gave him $700 billion to spend it however he wants. He is going to bail out, with that -- with our tax money, we`re going to borrow money from Chinese and Middle Eastern banks to bail out Chinese and Middle Eastern banks. The outrages just don`t stop.

And we lost control, Glenn, when we drifted away from the core principles of the founders. Now, we can take it back. Every two years we have a revolution in this country. And I think it`s critical that voters demand that their elected officials show some backbone, show some spine, and some commitment to the Constitution, and otherwise we`re going to throw you out.

And it`s just inexcusable, and this Wall Street bill, I hope, is the catalyst, when we see the country seize the level of greed and the amount of money that we`ve lost and are squandering, I hope we rise up in this election and throw -- and throw the bums out, if -- if they supported this.

BECK: Back in a minute with "The Real Story." Thanks, Congressman.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Well, welcome to "THE REAL STORY."

Last night I explained why I believed that some of the sell-off in the markets lately is because investors are betting on an Obama presidency and all of the new economic policies that are going to come with it. Believe it or not people who make a living betting on corporate profits and an expanding economy are not in love with the idea of the guy in the Oval Office who looks at our country like this. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It`s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you that they`ve got a chance at success too. I think when you spread the wealth around it`s good for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Wow, I mean did you hear that? It`s not that I want to punish you. I just want to make sure of the other people. I mean I know it was hard to hear especially at the end. And let me repeat what he said at the very end and he said quote, "When you spread the wealth around, it`s good for everybody." That`s not government`s job.

I mean last time I heard somebody say that was, oh, I remember, Karl Marx.

"THE REAL STORY" is not only do the laws of economics disagree with Barack Obama but so do the people who actually create wealth that he`s so eager to give away.

I saw a survey today in "Chief Executive" magazine; not like I read it. It is recently the magazine that asked their subscribers about their feelings on the election. The results were staggering. Maybe I should read it some more. Out of 751 responses, 80 percent support McCain. Probably not surprising, but this one is.

A full 74 percent of CEOs said that they actually fear the consequences of an Obama presidency. They`re not just a little concerned about it or hesitant, they fear it.

By the way, another president who was feared by business was FDR, and it was during the dawn and the long, long endless years of the Great Depression.

For all of the bad press, the CEOs in this survey are the people who create jobs, and wealth in this country. They`re the people who have to, at night, decide, are we going to open a new processing plant in your town or are we going to move it to India? They`re the people who decide whether to start a new division or close an existing one. They`re the people who are fearful that the fruits of their labor and yours will be taken away by a man who believes that handing a man a fish is a better idea than teaching him how to do it himself.

J.P. Donlon is Editor-in-chief of "Chief Executive" magazine. J.P., the survey that you`ve just done, fear, that`s a pretty strong word, isn`t it?

J.P. DONLON, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, CHIEF EXECUTIVE MAGAZINE: Yes, it is, but it`s appropriate, because the CEOs have been absorbing the policy pronouncements of Barack Obama for the past six to eight months. We`ve been polling CEOs since February on various presidential policy issues. And in September, I think some of their thinking crystallized, and they`ve come to the realization that the policies of this person are not only anti- growth, but they`re redistributive. And as you said in your opening remarks, there are no really incentives for businesspeople to start businesses, expand businesses, create jobs.

BECK: What makes you say that? Let me play devil`s advocate here. What makes you say that?

He says 95 percent of Americans are going to get a tax cut. He says that he`s got all kinds of stimulus packages and all kinds of ideas to help grow the economy. What makes you say that that`s not true?

DONLON: Yes, that 95 percent figure is very beguiling, but it can`t be true because if you look at the numbers, you know, one percent of the taxpayers in this country pay something like 68 percent of the taxes, and the bottom 13 percent of taxpayers pay three percent of federal taxes, and it`s the latter group that Obama thinks needs relief.

Well, what he doesn`t say in that 95 percent tax-free group is that a great deal of the scheme involves giving a "tax break" to people who don`t pay taxes.

BECK: Right.

DONLON: So in fact it is a not a tax relief, it is more properly understood as welfare or at least a transfer payment.

BECK: Let me go to -- real quick the CEOs grade the candidates on issues here. The energy policy, Barack Obama got a C minus, McCain got a C plus; Economic fiscal policy D plus for Obama, B minus for McCain; tax policy D and B minus. Let me just real quick go up to the energy policy, C minus and C plus; neither one of these guys is really good on energy and energy, energy is going to play a huge role in any recovery that we have.

DONLON: Indeed it will, and I think that one of the reasons why McCain didn`t score higher is that his support for nuclear was somewhat tepid and also he has been not supportive of let`s say drilling in ANWAR and most CEOs feel that what we need to do is push on everything.

Certainly renewables are important but renewables are not going to get us to where we need to be and all of these other things we need to not only have more oil to transition but we need other sources such as nuclear.

BECK: Ok, J.P., thank you very much.

Now, three weeks from today, we are going to learn a lot more than just who will pretend to hate special interest groups for the next four years.

For example, one of the most important referendums in the country is taking place in California. It is going to affect your life. This is where voters will decide the cryptically titled Proposition Eight. If you don`t know what it is already, let me tell you who`s against it, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Gavin Newsom, the "New York Times" and the "Los Angeles Times."

Do you really need to know anymore? The official title of Prop Eight is "The eliminates rights of same-sex couples to marry" initiative, and if passed would result in an amendment to the California constitution that would include these words, quote, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." A lot of people are like, oh why does this even affect my life? How does it affect my life?

Well, opponents have tried to paint this as a vote on a referendum on support for civil rights of gay couples. But "THE REAL STORY" is, opposition to this has very little to do with civil rights or homosexuality or even re-defining of marriage. It has everything to do with re-defining hate speech, and let me explain.

First, anybody with a semblance of a brain has no problem with homosexual couples visiting each other in the hospital or receiving life insurance payments, or doing any of the other common sense, compassionate things that two people who make a commitment to each other should be able to do.

The real issue here is that if marriage is redefined, then how do churches operate without being called organizations of hate? How is the Bible not a hate pamphlet? Preaching traditional view of marriage on Sunday is going to open up entire religions to being labeled as extremist hate groups. You watch.

How do parents teach their kids traditional family values, and then not risk being deemed unfit when those kids go to school and learn what the state`s view is? I am not a slippery slope kind of guy. I`m really not, but redefining marriage doesn`t just leave open the chance that religions and family values groups will be eventually accused of committing hate crimes. It virtually mandates it.

Dr. James Dobson is the president of Focus on the Family. Dr. Dobson, how are you, sir?

DR. JAMES DOBSON, PRESIDENT, FOCUS ON THE FAMILY: Hello, Glenn. It`s nice to be on your program. As a matter of fact, you were on mine today by tape, you probably didn`t know that.

BECK: I didn`t know that. Dr. Dobson, am I going too far in saying that this could make churches into hate groups?

DOBSON: There`s no question about it. If Proposition Eight fails, there`ll be a spate of lawsuits against churches, against -- it`ll have tax implications. It`ll have major implications for schools, and we`re very, very concerned about it.

You summarized it very well, but can I give you the background?

BECK: Sure.

DOBSON: -- for how we got to this point?

In the year 2000, there was an initiative, it was actually Proposition 22, where the people of California definitively voted on how they were going to see marriage and how they were going to define it. And it passed 61 percent to 39 percent, overwhelmingly, saying marriage would be exclusively between one man and one woman.

As you know, Abraham Lincoln at the Gettysburg address said that this is a government of the people, by the people and for the people, so the people make their own decisions. Yet the state of California`s Supreme Court just arrogantly overruled that decision by the people, and by a vote of 4-3, decided that there would be same-sex marriage. And proposition 8 is designed to overturn that imperious decision.

BECK: I know there`s a lot of money being poured into this on both sides really and Dr. Dobson, a lot of people are saying how does this affect my life?

Tell me about schools. I told you about churches. You tell me about schools. How is this affecting people in schools?

DOBSON: Well, in the first place, all the textbooks would have to be republished, because you can`t have illustrations of a man and a woman, a mother and father, if that`s not really the definition of marriage, and the way the textbooks are written will have to change. Let me give you an example.

Last Friday, Glenn, last Friday in San Francisco, a first grade class, these are sixth graders, were taken to the San Francisco City Hall, where Mayor Gavin Newsom performed a marriage of the teacher of that class and her lesbian lover. And here you`ve got these 6-year-olds who ought to be learning how to read and how to write and how to do the other things that are taught in the sixth grade, I mean, the first grade, down there, participating or watching this marriage.

BECK: Ok --

DOBSON: Everything in schools will change, if this passes or if it fails to passes.

BECK: Dr. Dobson, we live in interesting times. I appreciate the fight that you put up every day and thank you for joining me on the program. We`ll talk again.

That`s "THE REAL STORY" tonight.

We`ll back in just a minute with Peggy Noonan. Don`t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: You know, one of the things I know as a recovering alcoholic is redemption, no matter how many mistakes you`ve made, no matter how many things that you have done that you regret or how far off track you think you are, you can always, always start again.

It doesn`t just apply to people, however. It applies to countries as well. People are disenfranchised, increasingly angry with America`s direction and yes, we have massive problems and real challenges ahead, but the feeling that we`re too far off the tracks to ever get back on to course is dead wrong.

America is America, and we have access to that same gift that all people do, the power to heal, the power to unite, and the power to start all over again. We just have to take advantage of it.

Peggy Noonan is a former speech writer of President Reagan and Bush and she`s the author of a new book called "Patriotic Race." nice to see you again Peggy.

PEGGY NOONAN, AUTHOR, "PATRIOTIC GRACE": Nice to see you. And I like what you just said. We need to hear a little more of that. America is feeling blue. We got to remember who we are, a great nation, great people.

BECK: It amazes me, I listened to both of the candidates and while they`ll say the words, I don`t believe them. I don`t believe they believe it all the time.

NOONAN: There are times when they say the appropriate thing, but do you not sense the fire.

BECK: Yes.

NOONAN: And the fire is not, it`s not what media specialists tell you. It`s not going like this. It`s not going like this.

BECK: Yes.

NOONAN: If you got the fire, the fire comes out and if you really mean it, your face changes. And you can`t force that. And we`re sensing they`re not meaning it as much as perhaps we would hope.

BECK: How do we find it again, as people? You know, I don`t know if you sense this. In reading your book I sensed you get it like very few do.

I`ve heard especially in the last four or five days, more calls from people on my radio program that are fearful. They are truly fearful, it is starting to dawn on some people, oh, my, we`re in a place we`ve never been before, and gosh, we better reconnect or we could lose our country. How do you reconnect with the hope? Convince somebody that your actions make a difference.

NOONAN: Oh, my goodness.

We`re in a national crisis that appears to be a global crisis. That`s the economic thing. That`s scary enough. We`re also living in a new age, a new age of a kind of existential threat, that`s such a funny way to put it, in a way, but we`re living in the age of weapons of mass destruction. Everybody knows it, in the back of their minds; they`re a little bit worried about that.

There is a sense in America, we feel stressed, stretched, overtaxed, not able to make, through government, make a great change in things. I think there is a sense among voters that there`s an odd thing. We are all obsessed about the presidential race, and yet deep in the back of our minds, we know a President can`t solve it.

Isn`t that a funny thing?

We`re obsessed with this thing. If only we get the answer to this and it`s the right answer, everything will be ok. It isn`t going to be ok. It`s just a President, you know what I mean? He`s going to be operating within limits.

So there`s a feeling out there; it is palpable. I haven`t been able to describe it but you know what it is and it`s something you`re getting. I`m getting it in my email.

I`m getting more letters from people saying, what should we do, as if I would know or you would know. Of course we don`t, but sometimes when crisis comes, it reorients you and you remember what you`re doing at home right now, in your relationships right now, in the human love that you can spread, in the stability that you can foster. That makes a big difference.

BECK: Peggy Noonan is going to be with us for a full hour on Friday`s program. Don`t miss it. This is one I don`t think we can afford to miss.

Time for tonight`s "Real America" brought to you by CSX.

They say that laughter is the best medicine, I say they`re nuts, medicine is good medicine. But one incredible woman is proving me wrong, facing her cancer and beating it, three times now, one laugh at a time.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: The word cancer means fear to almost everybody who is affected by it. But for one strong survivor, fear turned into hope. Linda Hills` catalyst was laughter.

LINDA HILL, CANCER SURVIVOR: Well, I have a warped sense of humor. I have this -- I have just been blessed with the ability to find humor in almost any situation.

I give my parents credit. They were very positive people, and this is actually my third cancer so it`s not like I haven`t dealt with this for quite a while.

BECK: Linda has thyroid cancer, breast cancer, and has gone through a double mastectomy, but she`s refused to let the cancer get the best of her. Linda Hill wanted the last laugh, so now she wears her remission across her chest, literally, creating tee shirts to show the world that she beat cancer, and she can laugh about it.

Let`s go through some of these here.

HILL: Ok.

BECK: There`s this one.

HILL: "Of course, they`re fake, the real ones tried to kill me." I love that one. This is my favorite, this one`s not due out until November. "Does this shirt make my boobs look small?"

It`s a way of dealing with it and that`s the kind of how I`ve chosen it, and otherwise you`re curled up in a little ball in the corner of your room somewhere.

BECK: The t-shirts are available online at somuchmoreonline.com and $2 of every sale go to the Huntsman Cancer Institute. And she calls the site so much more because that`s exactly what she wants the world to know about it, she is so much more than a cancer survivor.

HILL: You know what I haven`t gotten any negative reaction yet.

I think I can get away with it, because, you know, hello, I`ve experienced it. But and again, it`s not that I think cancer is funny, I just want to get a message across that we`re so much more than that.

BECK: Right.

HILL: And that`s where the name came from.

I mean when you talk about people you love you don`t say, hey, she`s got a great sense of humor, she is really fun, and, oh, yes, she has both her breasts. I mean you don`t talk about that stuff. You know what I mean? That doesn`t define who I am, in any way. And it doesn`t define any of us so.

BECK: You are an inspiration. Thank you so much for being on.

HILL: Thank you, so much. I appreciate it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: I just love her spirit, and her t-shirts. If you would like to order a t-shirt, go to somuchmoreonline.com. Like I said in the piece, $2 from every purchase goes directly to the Huntsman Cancer Institute is the cause near and dear to my heart.

That`s tonight`s "Real America" it`s sponsored by CSX. It`s how tomorrow moves.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Every day, in the email newsletter, we give you your daily arguments against the idiots when election time comes, you`re going to, you know -- you`re going to hear one of your stupid friends say, oh, you know what, every four years Republicans are going around trying to steal the election. I don`t know how they did it, but they probably even stole the election when Reagan was supposedly winning 49 states.

And then you have to say, I could either kill him or just respond like this. And I suggest you respond like this. Have you picked up a newspaper or turned on the news lately? It`s the leftist organization A.C.O.R.N. that is being investigated for trying to fraudulently register voters.

And then your friend says, A.C.O.R.N. is simply a group of people just trying to make sure that someone other than the Bush cronies and corporate fat cats can vote. They go into the inter City and register people who have never, ever had a voice. Uh-huh.

In fact, they`ve given at least one person 72 voices in Ohio. They registered him 72 times. They registered almost the entire Dallas Cowboys football team to vote.

And they followed minority voters around and offered them money and cigarettes to get them to register multiple times. Now you know how much your vote is worth. Where did you get that information? Karl Rove, or Halliburton? No, actually from the guy it happened to.

When asked if the people at A.C.O.R.N. knew that he was already registered, he said, yes, they told me that it was cool to sign, because they needed a signature, and they got paid in signatures. He also said that A.C.O.R.N. would offer a cigarette or a dollar for each signature. When asked if he actually received the dollar or cigarette, he said, of course.

What, are they not trust worthy?

Remember, this isn`t ancient history, this is happening right now, and Barack Obama represented A.C.O.R.N. back in the `90s, but more importantly, his campaign has just given over $800,000 to a consulting firm affiliated with A.C.O.R.N. this year. When it came time to disclose it, the Obama camp initially said, oh, that`s for staging and sound and lighting.

Later, they had to correct the record to show that, in fact, the cash went to "get out the vote" efforts and around $80,000 went directly to A.C.O.R.N. That`s just what`s being admitted to today. No word on how much of that was spent on cigarettes.

You get our "Arguments with the Idiots" in your email box free every day, just by signing up for the email newsletter, it`s free and it`s available at glennbeck -- it`s a socialist thing I like to do from time to time, free at glennbeck.com.

From New York, good night, America.

END