More on the Fox-pushed Tea Party Express scam
April 14, 2010 2:42 pm ET by Matt Gertz
I noted a few months back TPM Media's report that the PAC that organized the Tea Party Express, a series of right-wing nationwide bus tours and rallies, had sent nearly two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period right back to the GOP consulting firm that spawned it. Today, Politico's Ken Vogel provides more details of the Tea Party Express' operations, including the original memo from a consultant with the firm, Russo Marsh + Rogers, proposing its creation.
Vogel also reports that a substantial percentage of spending from the PAC, Our Country Deserves Better PAC, continues to flow directly into the coffers of Russo Marsh + Rogers. That appears to have been the intent from the beginning; Vogel reports that the firm's operative, Joe Wierzbicki, stated in proposing the Express that it could "give a boost to our PAC and position us as a growing force/leading force as the 2010 elections come into focus."
Since the Express' inception, Fox News has seemingly done everything in its power to provide that boost.
In the memo, which Vogel reports was issued "just days after" last year's April 15 tea parties, Wierzbicki lays out how the first Tea Party Express bus tour would operate, who would be invited to participate, and how they would build a fundraising campaign behind it. He also drops this little nugget (emphasis added):
The trick here is that once enough people are "buzzing" about this effort (the tour and campaign advertising, etc...) then we should hopefully start to get some mentions and possibly even promotion from conservative/pro- tea party bloggers, talk radio hosts, Fox News commentators, etc.
This seems as good a time as any to point out Fox News' consistent, full-throated support for the Tea Party Express since its creation. The network even embedded correspondent Griff Jenkins with the Express' first tour; his hard-hitting reporting included declaring its riders "the America that Washington forgot." Our Country Deserves Better PAC repeatedly used Fox's coverage to flog its own fundraising efforts. And notwithstanding the plethora of free media the Express got from the network, the PAC ran ads on Fox urging viewers to "Join the Tea Party Express" on its tours.
Most recently, Fox News provided all-day coverage of last month's kick-off rally for the Express' third national bus tour. Correspondent Casey Stegall provided reports from the rally in Searchlight, Nevada, which highlighted the "real energy you feel from" the protestors; back in the studio, Neil Cavuto declared, "God bless these folks." And of course, Fox News contributor Sarah Palin was on hand to provide the event's keynote address, which was carried live by the network.
The following image from the Fox News website The Fox Nation pretty much sums up the network's coverage:
Reading the memo, one gets the feeling that the Express has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of Wierzbicki and company. And they owe it all to Fox News, a network willing to throw journalistic integrity by the wayside to emphatically endorse a "grassroots movement" created to boost its founders' bottom line.
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IMHO
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Btw, we here at Media Matters always knew that Republicans joined the so-called Tea Party movement 'cause their name change from Republican Party to GOP did NOT fool Americans. Yeap, a majority of Americans do blame Republicans for destroying America's economy, and the only people who can NOT see it are those poor real grassroot Tea Partiers. Uh, oh. LOL.
Most of the crowd could not see Palin during her speech, due to the "wall of video cameras" in the way, and they turned down her microphone during the speech.
The Palin appearance was not an appearance for the people there; it was for the cameras there.
Pictures of the gathering show a pretty steady crowd, but it really only occupied a right triangle that was 300 ft by 400 ft by 500 ft (60,000 sq ft). There was some overflow, but it was pretty easy to get to at least the camera wall.
Most importantly, I probably met only one minority who apparently sided with the Tea party crowd, and he had on a Hitler mustache.
Stay classy.
Score one for the progressives/liberals.
No wonder Fuchs Noose viewers rate the lowest on knowing the truth about what goes on in our government.
We always had this one.
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Remember, the TRUTH has a liberal bias!
We always had this one.
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Remember, the TRUTH has a liberal bias!
Can you say astroturf? I knew you could.
News Corp. is a foreign owned entity. Yet they apparently have a tremendous amount of influence on US political affairs.
Former The Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol was one of founding members of PNAC. The Weekly Standard, owned by News Corp., has been around longer (by a year), than FNC.
An article in The Weekly Standard from July of 2007 touts Sarah Palin as the GOP's newest star. The piece was written by Fred Barnes a TWS editor and regular FNC contributor. He was also the only political commentator (out of 27) to pick John McCain to win the 2008 Presidential Election in a HuffPo piece from Nov. 2008, so he and Bill Kristol obviously have a good deal in common when it comes to forecasting the political future.
Sorry, I digress. My point is there seems to so much more that is unseemly regarding FNC than distorting facts, outright lying and foisting what would otherwise be a fairly minor political movement upon the American public.
Frankly, you're welcome to him, but I wish we could purge our media of his ownership. Here he owns almost all of the main city newspapers, from suburban "throwaways" to our national daily. This has a terrifying impact on working print journalists as well as a stultifying effect on news reporting and, most certainly, opinion.
As I've stated elsewhere, Murdoch himself does not micromanage his entire empire - it is physically impossible. He generally operates via trusted minions and exploits what he thinks is the political trend. It seems that in the 1980s, during his big expansion in the U.S., having become enamoured of Thatcher's Britain, he hitched himself to the Reagan Administration - always good at sniffing the breeze, uncle Rupert. What he didn't seem to realise was that in this case he was making a Faustian pact. In the U.K., having sniffed the breeze, he was able to switch to Tony Blair and New Labour. In the U.S. he has become a prisoner of the Extreme Right.
There is a delicious irony for those of us who have watched his opportunistic career to see the biter bit, hoist by his own petard, swimming in his own excrement. Sadly, the damage he has already wrought is not worth the schadenfreude.
Hopefully, the various U.S. authorities mentioned here will be able to take appropriate action. What is generally not mentioned is that News Limited (I prefer to use its original, local name and I appreciate the pun) is very much Rupert's creature. When he goes, the whole pack of cards will as likely collapse.
The good news? He's not Silvio Berlusconi, although he does have significant holdings in Europe (as well as China).
The whole U.S. operation is unlike the old time News Ltd culture. The danger is that it is infecting the rest of the operation as the workforce is being "globalised".
Rupert has been "outFoxed" as evidenced by his disastrous appearance at your National Press Club recently - he didn't fully realise what was going on editorially.
Smells like Tea to me.
http://www.crashtheteaparty.org/
Here's my blog post on it with screen shots of pertinent details:
http://aprioriblues.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-do-you-know-that-crash-tea-party-is.html
Cnn is just as guilty as Fox for promoting these nutcases
Yep, I'm still waiting for anyone to report that much of what tea partiers believe can be proven false in a few seconds. It's the stupidest protest of all time and we should keep careful track on just how many people are that stupid, and how they got to be so stupid.
I was no fan of the previous administration and their rampant domestic or war spending and was active in voicing my dismay. I am unaffiliated and owe no allegiance to any party. But you will not hear me attempt to malign an entire group of people with a broad brush of 'racism' or 'sexism'. Your partisan leaning clearly fogs your vision - this government spends too much for too little.
The deficit is at a record and projects to grow at an incredible rate by all credible accounts. You can't pretend it won't.
If the President were a white male, these complaints would not be as loud.
People want to look for another reason why people are upset, but if you listen to them, it is almost entirely about government spending and the untenable debt that we have run up. Of course, you'd expect MMFA to undermine the Tea Party in order to discredit a credible threat to Democratic majorities - I get that - but misinformation runs both ways and MMFA is dangerously close to calling the kettle black.
BTW, I don't watch Fox . . . how do I know so much about them?