Mother Jones has released new video of Mitt Romney praising Glenn Beck as a “statesman” at a May 30, 2009 fundraiser at George Wythe University. Romney described Beck as a “man who is really making an impact in our entire country today.” As Mother Jones explains, “at the time of the fundraiser, Beck had established himself as a champion of the far right who peddled extreme and conspiratorial views.”

Around the time of Romney's praise, Beck was starting up his show on Fox News. In that time period, he repeatedly called President Obama a “socialist” and “Marxist.” Beck often compared Obama administration policies to “slavery,” the mafia, and “fascism.” In one instance Beck pretended to be Obama dousing Americans with gasoline while setting them on fire.

Beck also promoted several conspiracy theories about “global government,” “one world currency” and confiscation of firearms by the Obama administration while also accusing the government of overhyping concerns about swine flu for political purposes. Beck compared former Vice President Al Gore to Joseph Goebbels and said Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's empathy “leads you to very bad decisions” like support of Adolph Hitler.

Here are numerous examples of the sort of extremism Beck was trafficking in as he was praised by Romney:

January 2009

Beck described then President-elect Obama as a “socialist” who “has Marxist tendencies.”

February 2009

While discussing the Employee Free Choice Act, Beck said, “by the way, if I show up dead, check the unions.”

Beck compared former Vice President Al Gore to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels and drug dealers, and after Gore gave a speech to students, Beck asked “are we having the new Hitler Youth?”

Discussing the Recovery Act, Beck compared the proposals in the bill to Nazi Germany and said, “we are truly stepping beyond socialism and starting to look at fascism.”

Beck described the Recovery Act as “slavery”

Beck accused President Obama of “addicting this country to heroin - the heroin that is government slavery.”

Beck predicted that “depression and revolution” were coming to America as a result of the Recovery Act

March 2009

While playing the Soviet anthem, Beck called the president “Comrade Obama,” accused the AFL-CIO and Congress of being under Communist influence and said that “the destruction of the West is happening.”

Beck said Obama “is so clearly” a socialist, and that “he's surrounded himself with Marxists his whole life.”

Beck compared Obama to “the Manchurian Candidate.”

Beck described the attempt to recoup bonuses from AIG after that company was bailed out as “whipping up mob rule.”

Beck said America was “going the way of the mob” and described Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as a “mob boss[]” and accused him of being “in the Corleone administration.”

Beck described President Obama and the Democratic Party as “vampires” who are “going after the blood of our businesses” and suggested “driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers” as a remedy.

Beck accused the U.S. government of being a “heroin pusher using smiley-faced fascism to grow the nanny state”

April 2009

Beck accused the Obama administration of pushing for a “global currency” and “world government.” He went on to say that “the Constitution is being taken apart piece by piece through international coalition, through international law, and through the United Nations.”

Beck said the government was “marching us to a brand of non-violent fascism - towards 1984.”

Beck insisted that Obama “will slowly but surely take away your gun or take away your ability to shoot a gun, carry a gun.”

Beck pretended he was President Obama pouring gasoline on an average American while asking, “President Obama, why don't you just set us on fire? We didn't vote to lose the Republic.”

Beck described a decision by Iowa's Supreme Court that struck down a ban on same-sex marriage as “actually about going into churches and going in and attacking churches and saying you can't teach anything else.”

Beck argued that “you can't convince me that the founding fathers wouldn't allow you to secede,” especially if a state was being forced to commit “economic suicide.”

Beck said former Vice President Gore was telling “lie[s]” about climate change and compared it to “Goebbels or Hitler.”

Beck promoted the conspiracy theory that an emergency declaration about swine flu from the government was connected to the Senate confirmation vote for Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services (which had already been scheduled).

Beck described climate change activism as being “about population control.”

May 2009

Discussing Supreme Court nominations, Beck said phrases like “lives in the real world,” “compassionate,” and “understands social justice” were secretly “code language for Marxism.”

While accusing Obama of “socializing” every industry, Beck said, “I think this whole college thing is a scam -- we're making it so easy to get, everybody can have a free education, it's meaningless to a lot of people.”

Beck accused the Obama administration of a “power grab” and “hostile takeover” that would eventually “silence voices like mine.”

Beck said that people at ACORN were “brownshirts” aided by “their henchmen” at SEIU who “break kneecaps - maybe they do, maybe they don't, I don't know.”

Beck claimed that same sex marriage would allow siblings to marry if “they're both fixed” and were unable to procreate.

Beck said states struggling with their budgets were in danger of “los[ing] their sovereignty” after getting federal assistance because the federal government would “nationalize” them.

Pretending to do a “Comrade Update,” Beck said “The American pigs are bowing to our every whim without even knowing it.”

Discussing the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Beck said, “hey Hispanic chick lady! You're empathetic - you're in!”

Countering descriptions of Sotomayor as empathetic, Beck cited Adolph Hitler as an example that proves “empathy leads you to very bad decisions.”