Jane Hamsher Saw Fox News Promoting the Tea Parties Somewhere!
April 11, 2009
So that proves that FNC is behind the Tea Party protests! Because Fox is one of the organizations that has disseminated information about where they are, and how to make them effective if you decide to hold one in your own town! Unreal.
The interesting thing is that when I saw “FNC” in her headline I had to think about what that might be, since I just don’t freakin’ watch television. I mean, I see ten-minute clips here and there, but I can’t imagine having time to watch TV. It looks like Ms. Hamsher’s research on the subject was limited to one web page, and not even a page that distributed information about today’s actions, or last weekend’s, or all the ones in February/March: no. Her screen cap was of a Fox News roundup of protests that are planned for the 15th of this month.
By Hamsher’s logic, these people are also behind the tea parties, rather than documenting them and trying to support the local organizers. As are these people. And, of course, PJTV, who are Fox News competitors—they’ve got a resource page for tea parties as well. So they are in on “the vast right-wing conspiracy that is conspiring” against government confiscation of private assets.
If there were a single organizing entity, then getting information about when and where these things are being held wouldn’t be like pulling teeth, but it is: some sites only keep track of events going on on Big Days, like April 15th and the 4th of July. One has to go elsewhere for information about protests on other days, Googling madly and wading through pages of information about how to hold tea parties for little girls, or for Upper West Side Matrons. (Here is my entry on California protests before 4/15; here is my entry for the 15th itself. Here, I’m waxing indignant because hosts at a local radio station attempted, in my mind, to cash in on this popular political movement some weeks ago for personal gain. Here’s another attempt to keep track of it all. Here’s another outside article on how to hold tea parties, and here are my own thoughts on organizing ‘em. If we’ve got command-and-control, why are there so many different approaches, and why are so many different entities issuing sometimes-contradictory suggestions?)
No, Ms. Hamsher: I’m afraid this is a grass-roots movement. Otherwise, one would be able to get current information on it with a phone call or a couple of emails. It’s much more viral than that; disgust with the debt this country is taking on is making a lot of people—Democratic, Republican, and Independent—vulnerable to tax-break fever.
By the way—have you had your shots?
Posted in Around the 'Sphere, Civil Liberties, Economics, Entertainment, Freedom of Speech, Media, Obama Administration, Organizing, Pajamas Media/PJTV, Tea Parties, new media
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April 11th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
So, basically, the tea parties, which are peaceable protests against The One’s absurd economic policies are scaring the socialists, so now they’ll have to lie about them and create a fiction to discredit them.
I was listening to Jesus Christ Superstar, and this part came up:
“There must be over 50,000
screaming love and more for you
every one of 50,000
would do whatever you asked him to
Keep them yelling their devotion
but ad a touch of hate at Rome….”
Substitute Rome for Bush or Rush or Tea Parties…you’ve got Obamabots.
April 11th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
I predict that someone someday somewhere will give a rat’s ass
about what Jane Hamsher thinks or says.
Not today, though.
April 12th, 2009 at 5:55 am
Keep the heat on. The fact that the Left is having to devote coverage to the Tea Parties means their afraid of their effectiveness.
April 12th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Jane has a real point, but if she wears a hat no one will notice.
Fox seems to be the only one interested in reporting actual news. Her main gripe seems to be that Fox is not ignoring the Tea parties like every in the tank media is.
They also don’t seem to make the connection of reporting the actual news=higher ratings. In the tank ass kissing or flat out ignoring stories= lower ratings. No doubt, she is reqally scratching her head why most newspapers are going under while others like WSJ that actually report all the news are not.
April 12th, 2009 at 8:42 am
This is just a little glimpse into the Journolist talking points on Tea Party protests: if you cover them as anything but bad, you’re a traitor supporting and promoting them.
Which, by extension means that the legacy media was supporting and promoting all those anti War on Terror protests…
April 12th, 2009 at 10:27 am
I predict that someone someday somewhere will give a rat’s ass
about what Jane Hamsher thinks or says.
Connecticut didn’t.
April 12th, 2009 at 10:27 am
I think the left is just upset that no one is going to pay ACORN’s wailers to show up.
April 12th, 2009 at 11:26 am
We should ask Jane’s Joe Lieberman in blackface for his thoughts. And all the Jew bashing she does. She is just another hateful progressive.
April 12th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
[...] The teabaggers are desperate to believe that theirs is a spontaneous populist uprising, and that it’s not being organized by a slick, well-funded political machine. The proof seems to be that it’s poorly organized… [...]
April 12th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Read it and weep, wingnut:
Despite these attempts to make the “movement” appear organic, the principle organizers of the local events are actually the lobbyist-run think tanks Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works. The two groups are heavily staffed and well funded, and are providing all the logistical and public relations work necessary for planning coast-to-coast protests:
– Freedom Works staffers coordinate conference calls among protesters, contacting conservative activists to give them “sign ideas, sample press releases, and a map of events around the country.”
– Freedom Works staffers apparently moved to “take over” the planning of local events in Florida.
– Freedom Works provides how-to guides for delivering a “clear message” to the public and media.
– Freedom Works has several domain addresses — some of them made to look like they were set up by amateurs — to promote the protests.
– Americans for Prosperity is writing press releases and planning the events in New Jersey, Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri, Kansas, and several other states.
This type of corporate ‘astroturfing‘ is nothing new to either organization. While working to promote Social Security privatization, Freedom Works was caught planting one of its operatives as a “single mom” to ask questions to President Bush in a town hall on the subject. Last year, the Wall Street Journal exposed Freedom Works for similarly building “amateur-looking” websites to promote the lobbying interests of Dick Armey, the former Republican Majority Leader who now leads Freedom Works and is a lobbyist for the firm DLA Piper.
Americans for Prosperity is run by Tim Phillips, who was Ralph Reed’s former partner in the lobbying firm Century Strategies. The group is funded by Koch family foundations — a family whose wealth is derived from the oil industry. Indeed Americans for Prosperity has coordinated pro-drilling ‘grassroots‘ events around the country.
April 12th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
[...] they are simply reporting on the Tea Parties in a somewhat sympathetic manner. Wake up, Sheeple! Tax protests don’t come from the grass roots! Fire doesn’t melt steel! There’s no way AIDS could have evolved [...]
April 12th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
[...] More on this silliness: http://littlemissattila.com/?p=7362 [...]
April 12th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Thanks for printing this information. I have been looking for the vast right wing conspiracy to whom I need to send my receipts for reimbursement for travel time, missed work, child care and sign making supplies. I just know that our POTUS wouldn’t want a simple, middle class, working gal like myself to foot the bill for anything. You’re a peach.
April 12th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
dave™© said:
“Stuff”
Reply:
Link please.
April 12th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
You people are moronic.Let me get this right,you aregoing to buy teabags which you pay tax on to protest paying taxes while dumping it.LOL .95% of the people got tax cuts but you are so ignorant that you want to standup for the rich while you have no health care and you cant afford college for your children.No wonder the right wing dont matter any more.
April 12th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
To quote Dan Akroyd
“Jane, you ignorant slut”!
April 12th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
[...] the nasty little bigot Jane Hamsher saying that the Tea Party protests are nothing but a Fox News/big corporation operation. And here [...]
April 12th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
The fact that no one knows what they’re doing just means that the organizers are incompetent. A real grassroots organization would, through trial and error, eventually work into something cohesive. That’s what evolution is all about and that’s what Adam Smith’s invisible hand is all about. As things develop, they drop the dysfunctional pieces and get better. The organizers can’t even come up with a unifying theme such as “taxation without representation is tyranny.”
The fact that Fox “News” channel announces where they will be sponsoring teabaggers and asks people to send in their own events so that Fox Gnus can help them along with a bit of publicity suggests that the grassroots aren’t really in control.
April 12th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
…that you want to standup for the rich while…
Yawn.
I always wonder what’s up with these leftist idiots. Does a day ever pass where their childish emotions don’t rule their miserable little lives?
April 12th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Poor “Texas Aggie” is obviously extremely perplexed by the Tea Party phenomenon. First “Aggie” claims that the movement is “incompetent” because they aren’t controlled by a single high command (like most Soros-funded leftist groups). Then “Aggie” claims the Tea Partys have taken too long to become “cohesive”….hmmmm.. from a single event to a nationwide protest involving tens of thousands of ordinary Americans in two months is the kind of growth that most liberal activists would give their trust fund for ! Thirdly “Aggie” is in shock that these ordinary citizens haven’t yet come up with a slogan or “theme”….liberals , of course, live for the simple slogan (”Yes we can”, “No war for oil” ) and any movement that doesn’t have a “slogan to bind them all” can’t be “real” (I mean, people might think for themselves without The Slogan !!!).
Lastly, as all good liberals do, “Aggie” has to attack Fox….how dare a News station like Fox report on a developing news story involving tens of thousands of working Americans !!! Why can’t Fox be like the liberal MSM and just report on Michelle Obama’s other worldly beauty and grace ? Poor “Aggie”….liberals have spent years prattling on about “people power” and “taking to the streets” but when it finally happens it isn’t Soros-funded or anti-American it’s actually decent, ordinary Americans who have had enough …what’s a liberal to do ????
April 13th, 2009 at 5:12 am
I can’t speak for anyone other than myself. I have never been an “activist”. For most of my life, I’ve thought that the individual can’t make much difference. Now I see protests taking place to push back against government excess and I’ve decided to join in.
I’m not a card carrying member of either political party. I think both have subscribed to the institutionalized corruption that has plagued our government for decades. And even if this TEA party movement doesn’t end up accomplishing anything, at least I can say I tried to fight the good fight rather than sitting on the sidelines.
Anyone got a link to a page on good sign engineering techniques?
April 13th, 2009 at 7:56 am
it’s funny b/c your so called “grassroots” is just astroturf sponsored by the same corporate lobbyists who take away your tax payer money. Your crazy radical right-wing ideas have lost and turned off many in the country, and I suspect many in your “movement” don’t even know what they are supporting, since in your previous tea parties they want to “burn the books” b/c education is BAD BAD BAD. Oh and many people do read what Jane Hamsher does have to say…and when the Next Mass shooting happens spurred on by violent radical right wing rhetoric, try not to hard to wash the blood off of your hands.
April 13th, 2009 at 7:57 am
What’s truly hilarious is the moonbats’ constant references to tea-partiers as “teabaggers”. Is this projection, fantasy, or envy?
April 13th, 2009 at 7:57 am
oh and I LOVE LIBERALS, we wouldn’t have a highway system, or social security, or freed slaves (b/c the republicans USED to be the liberal party) it’s ironic that the same people who try to fight against a corrupt sexualized culture watch tv shows, and Fox news programs where they dress their anchors up like hookers, and support the same PR companies that are sexualizing our youth.
April 13th, 2009 at 8:56 am
What financing could she possibly be talking about? I attended an April 11th ‘warm up tea party’ in Pasadena. I can’t speak for the other tea parties, but at our event there was nothing to be financed. Unless you count the microphone and hilarious signs. I understand where she is coming from.. as you can see in the video, you can’t get anyone to show up at their protests unless a large, international corporation finances the buses.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:23 am
[...] have stupidly lurched from “It’s a CNBC conspiracy” to “It’s a Fox News conspiracy” without batting an [...]
April 13th, 2009 at 9:47 am
[...] (Steve) Smears and more smears concerning the Tea Parties scheduled around the country for April 15. I thought they were all for [...]
April 13th, 2009 at 9:48 am
[...] Tea Party bashers have stupidly lurched from “It’s a CNBC conspiracy” to “It’s a Fox News conspiracy” without batting an [...]
April 13th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
[...] Tea Party bashers have stupidly lurched from “It’s aCNBC conspiracy” to “It’s a Fox News conspiracy” without batting an [...]
April 14th, 2009 at 4:47 am
And after Hamsher just got done whining about not getting paid off by those who might benefit from her blogging:
http://tr.im/iujN
April 15th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Let’s go back to the trickle down and the “Decider”s way of doin things!
Go FOX …great Dog and Pony show!
April 17th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
[...] abound. Teabagging snark aside, a common complaint is that the tea parties are little more than an astroturf creation of Fox News and PJTV. And yet the Wall Street Journal [...]
April 18th, 2009 at 11:53 am
How DARE Faux News cover… well… news. They must be behind the creation of EVERY story they cover.
I can’t believe the libtards denounce Fox for this but support the race-baiters for hire… i mean… ACORN.
September 15th, 2009 at 5:38 am
To believe that these so called “Tea Parties” are anything more that artificially created FOX NEWS propaganda is ridiculous!
Only a complete and total moron would believe the regurgitated crap FOX NEWS (AKA the EXTREME RIGHT) is dishing out. Which leads me to the real point, namely that: if you are stupid enough to believe anything FOX NEWS says, then you are probably a lost cause. So keep your children away from FOX NEWS it’s dangerous to their health and well-being and it probably gives you Cancer!