Glenn Beck

The tinhorn film version of "Atlas Shrugged" fails to rise even to the level of "eh" suggested by Ayn Rand's title. But with so little going on in cinematic or storytelling terms, we can cut straight to the fascinating tea-stained politics of the thing. Conceived as the first of a proposed three-part series, director Paul Johansson's movie is the work of true believers in Rand's pet theory known as Objectivism, which can be described as "Us? There is no 'us'!" In Rand's worldview, it is me-time, all the time.

Prosecutors have filed criminal charges against Goldline International Inc., a Santa Monica company that is one of the nation's largest gold dealers, for allegedly tricking customers into buying gold coins at inflated prices. The Santa Monica city attorney's office accused Goldline of running a "bait and switch" operation in which customers seeking to invest in gold bullion were instead sold gold coins that were marked up more than 50%. The company, which used radio talk show host Glenn Beck as a pitchman, has seen sales soar in recent years along with the price of gold.

The Overton Window A Thriller Glenn Beck Threshold/Simon & Schuster: 336 pp., $26

Ken Burns opened the tap and poured some big ratings for the first night of his PBS documentary "Prohibition. " The first episode Sunday night averaged 3.9-million viewers, according to Nielsen. PBS estimated that at least 7.6-million viewers saw at least six minutes of the first installment of the three-part, 5½-hour program. Those are giant figures by PBS' usual standards, reflecting the power of Burns to draw a large audience. But they are small by commercial broadcast yardsticks and also lower than for some of the filmmaker's past multi-part projects.

Mike Huckabee is siding with Michelle Obama over Glenn Beck after the conservative talk show host jabbed him for his "bigger government tendencies. " On his HuckPAC web site Thursday , the former Arkansas governor defends his support for the first lady's "Let's Move!" anti-obesity initiative, which he says is about personal responsibility and "not the government literally taking candy from a baby's mouth. " "I'm no fan of her husband's policies for sure, but I have appreciated her efforts that Beck misrepresented -- either out of ignorance or out of a deliberate attempt to distort them to create yet another 'boogey man' hiding in the closet that he and only he can see," Huckabee writes.

Predictably, conservative commentator Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally Saturday on the National Mall has evoked a lot of consternation. For instance, Greg Sargent of the Washington Post argues that because the rally explicitly avoided trumpeting a political agenda, it was all the more insidiously political. "Beck repeatedly claimed that his rally wasn't meant to be 'political,' " writes Sargent. "As high-minded as that may sound, the real point of stressing the rally's apolitical goals was political.

Radio and TV host Glenn Beck likes to talk about the potential collapse of the American economy. He also likes to talk about buying gold as a hedge against the unknown. The proximity of those ideas, the plethora of gold ads around his Fox program and Beck's work as a paid pitchman for one gold firm have some in the media wondering whether the conservative commentator has a conflict of interest. Since conflicts are in the eye of the beholder, Beck should consider himself lucky if the public doesn't judge him by the where-there's-smoke-there's-fire standard he uses to condemn his own adversaries.

At least Glenn Beck isn't among the nearly one in five Americans who believe President Obama is a Muslim. Nor, as far as he's yet admitted, is he among the majority of Republicans who actually told Newsweek's pollsters that they believe the president hopes to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, on America. No, Beck — who appears to be campaigning for prelate of an amorphous new civil religion — believes that Obama schemes to impose collectivism because he is an adherent of liberation theology.

Completing a swift rise and fall from TV stardom, controversial host Glenn Beck will lose his once-popular Fox News show later this year, the network announced Wednesday. Beck's 5 p.m. program, which earned scorn from liberals for its attacks on President Obama as well as its devotion to sometimes-obscure right-wing thinkers, was a top cable draw in 2009 and a signpost for the populist "tea party" movement in last year's midterm elections, which dealt a ballot-box rebuke to the White House.

Question: What do Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" extravaganza, held on the Washington Mall on Aug. 28, and a test for male infertility have in common? Answer: If you do your counting wrong for either of them, you can come to wildly inappropriate conclusions. When asked how large the crowd at his rally was, Beck offered a range of 300,000 to 650,000 and, after the fact, has reportedly settled on 500,000. These are quite impressive numbers, and they've been widely quoted. One might, however, be forgiven for suspecting that Beck had reason to guess high, in order to magnify the significance of his attempt to "restore" God to the American political arena, and the wide range of Beck's estimate might make one wonder where it comes from.

The pundit class has largely ignored, dismissed or mocked the Occupy Wall Street protest (the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, for example, calls the protesters "a collection of ne'er-do-wells raging against Wall Street, or something"). We too find it hard to get especially worked up over a series of small demonstrations in a handful of cities, including Los Angeles, involving mostly disaffected people who have trouble expressing what it is they're against. But isn't that how the "tea party" started out?

Oscar-winning documentary maker Michael Moore, 57, explores his early years as a provocateur-in-training in his new autobiography, "Here Comes Trouble: Stories From My Life. " The book is mostly about your early life and it ends at the beginning of your filmmaking career, which is how most people know you. Why is that? That will come in a future volume, the things I've experienced in Hollywood, the films and all of that. But I wanted to write a book of short stories that were just good reading, and I thought I've never seen a book of nonfiction short stories.

Perhaps it was only a matter of time before conservative American commentator Glenn Beck, viewed by many supporters as a modern-day prophet, brought his messianic message to Jerusalem. But even in an ancient city that has seen its share of religious enthusiasts, Beck's high-profile Holy Land tour this week, culminating Wednesday in a rally just a stone's throw from the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock mosque, is raising eyebrows. Before Beck's arrival, most Israelis were unfamiliar with the former Fox News host, whose cable TV show went off the air in June amid sagging ratings.

Glenn Beck's Fox News finale was a jaunt down memory lane of Beck's big issues -- from ACORN to what he referred to as "the caliphate" -- and filled with self-congratulation. But, to paraphrase a Washington Post reference to a Time profile on the radio-host-turned-TV showman, was Glenn Beck bad for America? Studies show that when it comes to politics, that brand of angry TV talk show host popularized by the likes of Rush Limbaugh doesn't do democracy or political discourse any favors.

Lupe Fiasco has never bitten his tongue about his disdain for modern politics, and his latest single "Words I Never Said," offers a few of his thoughts on the subject. "Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist, Gaza Strip was getting burned, Obama didn't say ?/ That's why I ain't vote for him, next one either," he raps on the controversial track from his latest album, "Lasers. " The rapper has opened himself up to even more scrutiny after appearing on CBS News' "What's Trending.

A roundup of entertainment headlines for Wednesday. Kim Kardashian is changing her last name to Humphries. Care to wager on how long that will last? ( TMZ ) Got shut out of this year's sold-out Coachella? Next year, you'll have two chances to see the same bands. But buy your tickets now. Want to know who's playing? Tough. Buy your tickets. ( Los Angeles Times ) USC is opening an animation center named after DreamWorks Animation honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg and wife Marilyn.

Talk show host Glenn Beck poked and prodded the Republican hierarchy Saturday night in a raucous address to fellow conservatives, comparing the party to an alcoholic who hasn't hit bottom and to golfer Tiger Woods before his public repentance. Calling himself a recovering alcoholic in that context, Beck said he believes in the concept of redemption but that he doesn't think the GOP has taken the first step toward achieving it. "I have not yet heard people in the Republican Party admit they have a problem," Beck told a packed ballroom in Washington.

Glenn Beck wants to become . . . a community organizer. The voluble Fox News television host says he hopes to transform his personal celebrity into political action and has begun to assemble a movement to "change America's course." Beck announced his intentions at a weekend rally at a retirement community outside Orlando, Fla., where he was promoting his new book, "Arguing With Idiots." He continued outlining his ideas during his radio and TV shows Monday. "America, we cannot wait for a leader anymore," Beck said.

Mike Huckabee is siding with Michelle Obama over Glenn Beck after the conservative talk show host jabbed him for his "bigger government tendencies. " On his HuckPAC web site Thursday , the former Arkansas governor defends his support for the first lady's "Let's Move!" anti-obesity initiative, which he says is about personal responsibility and "not the government literally taking candy from a baby's mouth. " "I'm no fan of her husband's policies for sure, but I have appreciated her efforts that Beck misrepresented -- either out of ignorance or out of a deliberate attempt to distort them to create yet another 'boogey man' hiding in the closet that he and only he can see," Huckabee writes.

The tinhorn film version of "Atlas Shrugged" fails to rise even to the level of "eh" suggested by Ayn Rand's title. But with so little going on in cinematic or storytelling terms, we can cut straight to the fascinating tea-stained politics of the thing. Conceived as the first of a proposed three-part series, director Paul Johansson's movie is the work of true believers in Rand's pet theory known as Objectivism, which can be described as "Us? There is no 'us'!" In Rand's worldview, it is me-time, all the time.