The Tucson Tea Party is having a big protest rally this Saturday at Tucson Electric Park. Billed as Tucson’s Last Stand, it’s a chance for conservatives and libertarians to express their displeasure with Democrats who are in power.
But there’s one anti-tax message that might not be heard. Brandon Patrick, who is running the campaign against the Public Safety First initiative that city voters will decide on Nov. 3, says that he’s having trouble connecting with Trent Humphries, the organizer of the event.
Patrick wants to have a chance to warn the crowd that Prop 200 will likely result in tax increases because the latest estimates show this unfunded mandate would cost the city nearly $64 million a year once it’s fully implemented in five years.
UPDATE: Patrick tells The Range that Humphries did get back to him earlier today and let him know that neither pro-200 nor anti-200 representatives would be speaking at the event, but he was welcome to buy a booth.
This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2009.
Allegations of “astroturfing” appeared in a Playboy article by Mark Ames and Yasha Levine in February 2009. The article was removed after libel claims, but no legal action materialized. The authors repeated and elaborated their allegations—that the tea party protests were a “carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign . . . for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced,” including the Koch family, Dick Armey and FreedomWorks—elsewhere.[85][86]On October 3, 2009, David H. Koch confirmed the allegations, admitting to launching the Tea Party protest movement at an Americans for Prosperity sponsored summit in Washington D.C. [87]
On April 9, 2009, the blog Think Progress claimed that most of the 2009 protests were conservative lobbyist-created “astroturf” projects and not spontaneous grassroots protests. Instead, Think Progress contended, the protests were nationally coordinated and organized by Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks.[4] The story was picked up in a New York Times op-ed column by economist Paul Krugman, writing that “the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey.”[88] On April 15, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi agreed, saying “it’s not really a grassroots movement. It’s astroturf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class.”[89] On the same day, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow commented, saying that “corporate-funded PR shops and lobbying groups have done a lot of the organizing and promotion for these events. That’s controversial because it’s astroturfing. It’s disguising a formal top-down organized paid for things as if it’s some spontaneous grassroots event.”[90]
Media Matters for America, a self-described progressive media watchdog organization, argued that the Fox News Network actively promoted the tea parties and encouraged viewers to get involved with them instead of neutrally covering them. The group pointed to several examples, including an episode of Glenn Beck’s show in which an on-air graphic referred to some of the protests as “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties”.[112] Media Matters president, Eric Burns, wrote an open letter to Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asking him to “publicly address recent actions by Fox News personalities that unambiguously cross the line separating news and legitimate commentary from political activism and demagoguery.”[16] Media Matters pointed out that Fox News “aired at least 107 commercial promotions for their coverage of the tea party protests” in the ten days leading up to the April 15 protests.
“Teabagging”
Origins
In February, David Weigel of The Washington Independent photographed a protester holding a sign that read “Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You.”[118] The verb “tea bag” is used by others including Fox News Reporter Griff Jenkins and reteaparty.com where it is used self-referentially.[119] Salon.com, however, pointed out that “teabagging” has long had another meaning.[120][121][122][123]
The double meaning of the phrase drew criticism and mockery from MSNBC’s David Shuster who on April 13, accused the protesters of “going nuts for it” and “whip[ping] out the festivities”; wanting to “give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending.” He argued that “the people who came up with it are a familiar circle of Republicans including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, both of whom have firm support from right wing financiers and lobbyists.” and that “the Fox News Channel, including Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, both are looking forward to an up close and personal taste of teabagging themselves.” He concluded, saying that “If you are planning simultaneous teabagging all around the country, you’re going to need a Dick Armey.”[124] On April 13,[125] 14,[126] and 15,[127] MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow made similar remarks. On April 14[128] and 15,[129] MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann made remarks in the same vein, and on April 15, CNN’s Anderson Cooper said “It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_pro…
Nice to see people are waking up and standing up for the USA!!! check out this site http://townhalltz.com
So Reggie, been teabagging a lot at the town halls? What was it like letting Glenn Beck teabag you?
All aboard! The right’s Fox News gravy train rolls on
October 06, 2009 9:45 am ET
Since President Obama took office, Fox News has been acting more like the propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee than a legitimate news outlet.
Back in March, Fox News vice president of programming Bill Shine described his network as the “voice of opposition [to Obama] on some issues.” Then there’s Glenn Beck, the buzz-cut conspiracy theorist who claimed Fox News president Roger Ailes wooed him over to the conservative network from CNN Headline News in part by stressing the network’s opposition to Obama, saying, “I see this as the Alamo.”
We’ve seen what the Fox News brand of opposition looks like.
In the days and weeks leading up to the April 15 tea party protests, which it repeatedly described as “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties,” Fox News aggressively promoted and publicized them, as well as encouraged viewers to get involved with the events. In fact, over the course of a single week, it featured at least 20 segments on the protests and over a similar time span, aired at least 107 commercial promotions for its coverage of the events, which Beck, Neil Cavuto, Sean Hannity, and Greta Van Susteren each covered live from cities around the country.
Hardly skipping a beat, Fox News began publicizing subsequent tea parties almost immediately after the April 15 events ended. After repeatedly promoting “Tea Party 2.0,” an event sponsored in May by the Republican Governors Association, Fox began encouraging people to register for Independence Day tea parties through the Fox Nation, which was followed by the network’s relentless promotion and live coverage of the Tea Party Express throughout the waning days of summer.
Not content with outdoor rallies full of paranoid, angry tea-partiers, Fox stepped things up in August, directing its minions to attend health care reform town hall meetings held by congressional Democrats.
The conduct on display at these events would make Rep. Joe Wilson (R-You Lie!) blush. Fox & Friends in particular repeatedly praised protesters and urged viewers to join in the, umm … fun? During one revealing Fox segment, reporter James Rosen displayed only the schedule of Democratic town halls, stating that he would display the GOP schedule if only Fox could get its hands on a copy. It wasn’t until later in the day, after apparently brushing up on basic Google skills, that Rosen displayed both Democratic and Republican town halls.
This partisan hackery paled in comparison to what was coming in the days surrounding the anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
For months, Beck had been promoting his “9-12 Project” as a place for people looking to take back their country, with an eye toward organizing for a September 12 march on Washington. Beck went into overdrive, encouraging followers to turn out en masse, saying, “On 9-12, I hope to see you in Washington. I will make sure you’re seen all over the country.” Fox News was there, all right, just as Beck said it would be, supplying wall-to-wall coverage of the day’s events. One producer even got in on the action, coaching a crowd of protesters to look lively and excited for the cameras just before a live shot.
When the dust finally settled, Beck was so giddy that he couldn’t decide exactly how many people had attended his event — was it the “largest march on Washington ever,” 500,000 people, or 1.7 million people? Truth be told, the D.C. fire department unofficially estimated the crowd at between “60,000 and 75,000” attendees.
Yes, Fox News has proven itself quite the capable astroturf supplier, so much so that the conservative network’s contributors and hosts are cashing in.
On two separate programs this week, Fox host and potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee directed those watching at home to sign an online petition telling Congress to “balance the budget,” “cut their spending,” and “save American families.” What he didn’t say is that once signed, the petition redirects visitors to a page soliciting donations for his political action committee, which financially supports GOP candidates and pays his daughter’s salary.
Huckabee seemed to be doing his best Dick Morris impersonation. Leading into the 2008 election and in the weeks that followed, Morris mentioned GOPTrust.com during at least 13 Fox appearances and asked viewers to “give funds to GOPTrust.com,” all without disclosing that the organization had paid $24,000 to a company apparently connected to Morris, according to Federal Election Commission records. Just last month, Morris was at it again, using an appearance on Fox to raise money for a right-wing organization that he is closely tied to.
Perhaps it’s the rallies or the lobbying or the fundraising or the demonstrably false attacks that’s kept President Obama from appearing on Fox News.
Regardless, the right’s gravy train rolls on undeterred, facts be damned.
http://mediamatters.org/columns/2009100600…