Fox hosts GOP-backed Tea Party Express to deny that tea party is "Astroturf"
Fox & Friends hosted Amy Kremer of the Tea Party Express to rebut charges that some of the tea party movement is orchestrated by the Republican Party. Kremer insisted that "this is a true, genuine, grassroots movement," but, in fact, the Tea Party Express was launched by Republican consultants and has been criticized by other conservative activists for its partisan ties to Republicans.
Please upgrade your flash player. The video for this item requires a newer version of Flash Player. If you are unable to install flash you can download a QuickTime version of the video.
Fox & Friends hosts Tea Party Express' Kremer, who says, "[T]his is a true, genuine, grassroots movement"
From the March 1 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
GRETCHEN CARLSON (co-host): We're joined by the director of the Tea Party Express Grassroots and Coalition, Amy Kremer. Good morning to you, Amy.
KREMER: Good morning, Gretchen.
CARLSON: As someone so involved with the tea party movement and having heard Nancy Pelosi call you Astroturf before, about six months ago, what was your reaction when you heard her say that she may have some things in common with you?
KREMER: I was shocked. I think most people within the movement are shocked. She's a little delusional. There's not much that she has in common with us. You know, I just -- I can't believe that she would think that she would. She brings up the special interests, and, you know, their ruling with the Supreme Court. Honest to goodness, that's not what we've been focused on.
STEVE DOOCY (co-host): Sure.
KREMER: We've been focused on our core principles and values of fiscal responsibility, limited government, free markets, and most importantly, recently, health care. I don't recall anybody mentioning anything about the special interests lately.
DOOCY: Right. Amy, do you agree with her that some of the tea party stuff is orchestrated by the GOP headquarters?
KREMER: Absolutely not. I'm sure she would like to think so, but it's not. I mean, this is a true, genuine, grassroots movement.
DOOCY: Right.
KREMER: We're not Astroturf. We're not being orchestrated by anyone or anything, and we're going to continue to grow.
But Tea Party Express was launched by Republican consultants
Tea Party Express run by Republican PAC. The Associated Press reported in October 2008 that Our Country Deserves Better PAC, which launched the Tea Party Express, "was formed in August [2008] by California political consultant Sal Russo and former California Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian." As their OCDB biographies note, Russo is a veteran Republican consultant and Kaloogian served as a Republican.
OCDB's mission is to oppose Obama and "Democratic Congress." On its "About Us" page, OCDB states that "we must stand up to Barack Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress." The PAC also solicits contributions by stating, "Help us fight the Democratic Congress!" NPR reported on September 26, 2008, that OCDB's website then said "it has one objective: to defeat Obama." During the 2008 campaign, the PAC hosted "patriotic, pro-McCain/Palin rallies" to "Stop Obama."
OCDB campaigned for Republican Tedisco. OCDB "campaign[ed]" "on behalf of" Republican New York congressional candidate Jim Tedisco in March by "broadcasting television and radio advertisements. ... Total ad buy is expected to reach well into the hundreds of thousands by Election Day."
TPM: Majority of OCDB spending in recent reporting period "went to GOP firm that created it." On December 28, 2009, Zachary Roth reported for Talking Points memo that "[t]he political action committee behind the Tea Party Express (TPE) -- which already has been slammed as inauthentic and corporate-controlled by rival factions in the Tea Party movement -- directed almost two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period back to the Republican consulting firm that created the PAC in the first place." Roth further wrote:
Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) spent around $1.33 million from July through November, according to FEC filings examined by TPMmuckraker. Of that sum, a total of $857,122 went to Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates, or people associated with it.
OCDB, which built the Tea Party Express, is essentially a Russo, Marsh creation, as we've detailed. The PAC's site was registered in July 2008 by Sal Russo, the firm's founder. That site also lists Russo as the PAC's "chief strategist." Tea Party Express fundraising emails, sent by OCDB and obtained by TPMmuckraker, come from another Russo, Marsh employee, Joe Wierzbicki.
Other tea party groups reportedly accuse Tea Party Express of being "sham organization" for GOP
Tea Party Express reportedly seen by other conservative activists as "sham organization" pushing "partisan Republican agenda." On October 9, 2009, David Weigel reported for The Washington Independent that other tea party activists see the Tea Party Express as "a scheme for Republican strategists and candidates to take advantage of a movement that was chugging along fine without them":
An argument has broken out, perhaps inevitably, between Tea Party activists and one of the groups that has laid claim to the Tea Party mantle. The self-described grassroots activists in Tea Party Patriots and the American Liberty Alliance see the Tea Party Express as a sham organization, using the political heft of the movement to push a bland, partisan Republican agenda. Privately and publicly, they accuse the Tea Party Express of being an "astroturf" outfit, a scheme for Republican strategists and candidates to take advantage of a movement that was chugging along fine without them.
National Precinct Alliance director called Tea Party Express a "Republican National Committee-related group." On January 25, The New York Times reported that Philip Glass, the director of conservative group National Precinct Alliance, announced that his organization would not participate in the National Tea Party Convention. The article reported: "Mr. Glass said he was also concerned about the role in the convention of groups like Tea Party Express, which has held rallies across the country through two bus tours, and FreedomWorks, a Tea Party umbrella. He called them 'Republican National Committee-related groups,' and added, 'At best, it creates the appearance of an R.N.C. hijacking; at worst, it is one.' "
Meckler of Tea Party Patriots on Tea Party Express: "[T]hey raise money for Republicans." Weigel reported on October 2, 2009, that Mark Meckler, a national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, said, "Tea Party Patriots are very dissatisfied with the Republican Party -- we have nothing against Our Country Deserves Better PAC, but they raise money for Republicans."
Fox News aggressively promotes Tea Party Express tour
Fox News has aggressively promoted the Tea Party Express tours. Fox News, Fox Business, Fox Nation, and FoxNews.com have promoted the tours, going so far as to cheerlead for the protests and advertise the tea party schedule so viewers "can be a part" of the events. Indeed, a Fox News producer was even caught coaching a crowd to cheer during a stop of the Tea Party Express.
Fox Nation promoting Tea Party Express III. Fox Nation has promoted the third national tour, which begins March 27 in Searchlight, Nevada, and ends April 15 in Washington, D.C.
In turn, the organizers of Tea Party Express have used Fox's coverage for fundraising. The OCDB PAC used Fox News' coverage of its Tea Party Express to fundraise in a July 29, 2009, email.
One of the goals of astroturf is, of course, to inspire that sort of copycatting--it makes the phony "movement" look even larger. For the same reason, every major teabagger event offers the accompanying spectacle of the astroturfers pushing insanely high over-estimates of crowd size. That's what astroturf is.
The corporate press has been rather steadfast in ignoring all of this and reporting on the teabaggers as a real "movement," which, again, serves the goals of the astroturfers.
---
Left Hook! The Blog
http://lefthooktheblog.blogspot.com/
Gullibility? Profound ignorance?
And your reading comprehension is faulty too I guess, since you couldn't figure out WHY I restated MMFA's point!!!
But thanks for showing everyone how your personal animus controls when and how you post - you'd rather have everyone see how inadequate your reading comprehension is than refrain from making a baseless personal attack! Keep digging that hole.
The article is about the Tea Party and that means elections, most notably the ones coming up this fall. If you can't see beyond your tunnelvision, keep it to yourself, the rest of us can.
It's not my fault that SeaSlug made an off topic post that had nothing to do with the topic MMFA was addressing. No one is a victim of my "unnecessary meddling" here.
And then next time I need your wholly inadequate advice on how to run my life, you'll be the first one to know.
This article is about how FoxNews hosted a representative from a GOP-backed group to claim the group wasn't an invention of the GOP!!!
This article is NOT about any election or how the Tea Party might affect any election.
So an article about a political party, grassroots or not, and the GOP's influence on that party is not about elections or how they might affect one? You're not serious? That's like saying talk radio shouldn't be included in discussions about the media.
And if posts are off topic then MMfA will remove them, there is a place for that on every post. Do you know that? They can run things just fine without your assistance.
I address points raised in posts, and that activity on my part has absolutely nothing to do with who made the post.
However, your personal animus towards me makes you attack my posts based upon the fact that the posts are made by me.
Keep digging that hole, RightON. Keep digging.
And you dodged my point about election relevancy to this topic.
You attack people.
And your nonsense about how I didn't address a point you made. First off, I have no obligation to address anything other than what I want to address. Secondly, my very first post fully addressed the election issue. Here it is in its entirety. It's not my fault you're too ignorant to be able to keep posts in context!
"This article is not about how successful or unsuccessful Democrats might be in November. It's about how someone from a GOP-backed group was interviewed by FoxNews in an attempt to portray the group as grassroots, which it's not."
Oh, and actually you never do. You do one of three things. 1) Call the post you can't refute off topic thereby giving you an "out" because you have no rebuttal, or 2) Call it a personal attack, or 3) Just rubber stamp whatever MMfA says.
That's all you ever have.
Beyond that, what's pathetic, but still amusing, is that she actually cares whether someone posts a comment that may only be collaterally related to mmfa's article.
If his given name was John, and I consistently made bathroom jokes about his name, that'd be a personal attack.
Making fun of a screen name because of the offensive trollish behavior that the anonymous poster has exhibited is not a personal attack.
Get a clue.
1) If the point raised in a post is off-topic, I address that fact! I don't ever call an on-topic post "off-topic" because I have no rebuttal.
But thanks for not proving your allegation with a single example of that. I always appreciate it when people crater their own argument by failing to provide any documentation of their allegations!
2) I call personal attacks "personal attacks". Again, you can't provide a single example of a time when I called something that wasn't a personal attack a "personal attack". It doesn't happen.
3) I do often agree with MMFA, but I also often expand upon it. I do lots of other things too, but yeah, comments should relate to the articles that MMFA posts, and since they post factual information, it'd be really hard for someone who stays true to the truth to object to most anything that MMFA posts! However, they did misread a poll in a post earlier today, and I corrected them on it in the thread.
Right wingers have a tendency to pat themselves on the back waaaaaay too much.
The little astroturf movement of about 70,000 people is no where near mainstream, so please stop drinking the Cool-Aid
Not in the MA senate race, not here in New Jersey's governor's race. The Democratic candidate in MA ran an inept campaign and the Democratic governor in New Jersey was a former Goldman Sachs CEO who was disliked by just about everyone.
Then why are they constantly braying about how they swung the vote for Brown?
Epic Fail
Sorry pal, you sound like a wannabe schoolyard bully.
Now over the weekend she says - “but, you know, we share some of the views of the Tea Partiers in terms of the role of special interests in Washington D.C., as –it just has to stop,”
Interesting that she now says that she shares some of the views of a movement that she basically called fake months ago.
Shared views? So is she now proclaiming herself to be A) astroturf B) Republican C) a 'Tea Partier' or D) a liar
I have no religious faith. If I were to point out one particular issue on which I agree with the Catholic church, would that immediately make me a Catholic? Of course, not. That's exactly the way to view Pelosi's statement. She sought to establish one piece of common ground with the teabaggers (for whatever reason) and that was the extent of it. Doing so is far, far, FAR from a statement of membership in that group.
The origins of the teabaggers is definitely astroturf. Those origins don't mean that the group doesn't actually exist. The two are not mutually exclusive. That's another exercise in lousy logic on your part.
Oh simple why FOX would give that pasty white whale face time. The PAC paid them a quarter of a million during their last bus tours.
Pay and play baby. They all do it.
Way back in 2002, before the Bush military spending orgy, the Pentagon admitted it could not account for $2.3 trillion in transactions. It's much more than that by now.
You'd think that your side would have found SOME posters who had the common sense to do some research on their own before accusing someone of making something up!!!
I typed "Pentagon missing trillions" into Google, and came up with 5.8 million matches!!!
I mean, really, this isn't rocket science!
What about when ACORN bussed people to CEO's houses and banks to protest defaults on mortgages? How about various Soros-funded campaigns? MSNBC? Organizing for America? That's Astroturfing, and you have every right to do it. I fully support the ability of the people to (peacefully) say those things, I don't care who organized it, even when I happen to disagree.
I don't see the difference, but what I do see is if it's the Right, it's supposed to be wrong, if it's the Left, it's promoting fairness, or some equally bizarre rationale.
The difference has to do with the truth, plain and simple.
If I told you that I was George Clooney, even when it was pointed out that I neither lookd like nor sounded like nor even had the same skin color as George Clooney, would you believe anything else I said?
Um Senator, it doesn't work that way. You want to learn about grass roots? Read some history about the thousands of "blood for oil" protests during Shrub's tenure.
And they did it without corporate sponsorship, demagogue-tanks like Freedom Works or AEI and without organization, advertisement and promotion by a propaganda network.