Glenn Beck leaving Fox: his 10 most controversial statements (so far)

With the news of Glenn Beck leaving Fox officially announced, it's time to reflect. The host has packed a lot of wallop in just two-plus years at Fox News. Conspiracy theories, apocalyptic predictions, and just plain eyebrow-raising statements have kept the folks at Media Matters for America, a liberal watchdog group, busy. They track his show (along with many others) and take notes.

Now that the show “Glenn Beck” is ending later this year, Media Matters has opened its files and shared some of the most noteworthy moments. We’ve whittled the list down to the 10 most controversial things Mr. Beck has said on Fox – so far, at least.

It bears noting that Beck has a lot of followers, who admire his populist conservative critique of the Obama era. His Facebook page has more than 1.8 million fans -- coincidentally, the same number of viewers he had as of January (down from 2.9 million in January 2010). Whether those fans believe his every word is hard to tell. But, like any good showman, he knows how to draw a crowd.

- Linda Feldmann, Staff writer

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Glenn Beck speaks last year in Chicago at RightNation 2010, a unique Midwest political event bringing together conservatives, Republicans, libertarians and Tea Party independents. (Ray Garbo / WENN.com)

10. Beck Suggests Soros Will Kill Him For His Brazil Oil Conspiracy Theory.

(From the June 21, 2010, edition of "Glenn Beck")

BECK: Gasoline Brazil. Now why am I telling you about this? Have you heard of another word? Soros. George Soros. I do have a bulletproof car, George. I just want you to know.

[...]

BECK: I'm not sure if he knew that the administration would be making a $2 billion preliminary commitment for Petrobras, for Petrobras, for exploration, just days after he strengthened his investment. Isn't that weird? You see, he's got some connections here, but I'm sure he had no idea what was coming on the other side of the circle? No. It's probably just another one of those bad luck situations for Obama, because this doesn't seem to pass the smell test at all. No. Billionaire investor dumps money into a state-controlled Brazilian oil company; days later the American administration dumps $2 billion into the exact same company. What are the odds, Gilligan?

Let's go here. George Soros starts the Center for American Process with John Podesta. John Podesta, Center for American Progress, selects the Obama transition team. Soros buys $900 million in gasoline powered bras. Then, in a completely unrelated story, BP has their oil spill. But wait a minute, who's this guy? John Podesta. John Podesta is the guy who does all the lobbying for BP? Certainly -- I'm sorry, Tony Podesta -- certainly no relation to John Podesta, other than they're brothers. We'll have to come back to that one later in the show. So then Center for American Progress starts to make Obama policy. This one, we'll show you, laid out by Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. One of the policies: cap and trade, which goes right to Crime Inc. and all of the Obama friends with the Climate Exchange in Chicago. That's weird.

Then Obama suspends the deepwater drilling at 1,500 meters. He says "Hey, hey, that's dangerous! Fifteen hundred meters, that's crazy." Petrobras is drilling at 2,777 meters. Obama knows it and loans $2 billion to Petrobras. Last stop, Petrobras shareholders get rich. Oh my gosh, we're back at the beginning: shareholder, Petrobras. Getting rich. You getting screwed. You see how this works? [Fox News, "Glenn Beck," 6/21/10]