Posted on 09/12/2009 1:54:38 PM PDT by Jack Black
Please post any and all coverage or lack of same on the amazing protest today on the mall. At this time C-SPAN is running back "Book Notes", stangely all of a leftist variety. CNN has an endless show on America's terrorism alertness and is showing the story about the boat in the Potamac. C-SPAN2 is also showing pre-recorded stuff. Headline News has a personal finance show on. MS-NBC is showing infomericals.
Fox has at least done some coverage but it is minimal, competing with H1N1 vacine stories, and a tabloid murder of a Yale coed.
Let's keep a log of who is covering it, if at all.
My overall take is that there is a (official?) media blackout on this event.
Fox web site has a story on the protests:
The Tea Party Express — a gathering of activists protesting what they view as out-of-control spending by an expanding federal government — has arrived in the nation’s capital Saturday.
Tens of thousands of people marched to the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, carrying signs with slogans such as “Obamacare makes me sick”
The line of protesters completely filled Pennsylvania Avenue for blocks, all the way to the capitol, according to the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. People were chanting “enough, enough” and “We the People.” Others yelled “You lie, you lie!” and “Pelosi has to go,” referring to California congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.
Others are waving U.S. flags and holding signs reading “Go Green Recycle Congress” and “I’m Not Your ATM.” Some men are dressed in colonial costumes. Police on motorcycles and horses watched as the marchers passed.
FreedomWorks Foundation, a conservative organization led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, has organized several groups from across the country for the Saturday event, dubbed a “March on Washington.”
The demonstration is part of the so-called Tea Party Movement that gathered steam in April to protest tax policies. And Saturday’s event is the culmination of a 34-city, 7,000-mile bus tour that began Aug. 28 in Sacramento, Calif.
The “partiers” have cited a host of grievances and demands, such as a call for any health care reform to create more competition and be guided by market principles, not a government-run plan.
Organizers said they anticipated tens of thousands of proponents of limited government to attend. They say it will be the largest group of fiscal conservatives to ever gather in Washington.
Richard Brigle, 57, a Vietnam War veteran and former Teamster, came from Paw Paw, Mich. He said health care needs to be reformed — but not according to President Barack Obama’s plan.
“My grandkids are going to be paying for this. It’s going to cost too much money that we don’t have,” he said while marching, bracing himself with a wooden cane as he walked.
The rally comes on the heels of heated town halls held during the congressional August recess when some Democratic lawmakers were confronted, disrupted and shouted down by angry protestors who oppose President Obama’s plan to overhaul the health care system.
“I can’t figure out to save me what [Mr. Obama and the Democrats] are trying to accomplish, unless they want socialism,” 73-year-old Joseph Wright, a retired paper-mill worker, told The Wall Street Journal.
Wright rode from Tallahassee, Fla., to Washington this week on one of the many chartered buses bringing in demonstrators from states as far-flung as Massachusetts and Arkansas.
Many protesters said they paid their own way to the event — an ethic they believe should be applied to the government. They say unchecked spending on things like a government-run health insurance option could increase inflation and lead to economic ruin.
Terri Hall, 45, of Starke, Fla., said she felt compelled to become political for the first time this year because she was upset by government spending.
“Our government has lost sight of the powers they were granted,” she said. She added that the deficit spending was out of control, and said she thought it was putting the country at risk.
Other sponsors of the rally include the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform and the Ayn Rand Center for Individuals Rights.
Norman Kennedy, 64, of Charleston, S.C., said he wants to send a message to federal lawmakers that America is “deeply in debt.” He said though he’d like everyone to have free health care, he said there’s no money to pay for it.
“We want change and we’re going to get change,” Kennedy said. “I want to see fiscal responsibility and if that means changing Congress that will be a means to that end.”
The White House on Friday claimed it was unaware of the planned rally.
“I don’t know who the group is,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters with a shrug.
But a House leadership aide warned fellow Democrats that up to 2 million demonstrators could turn out.
“It looks like Saturday’s event is going to be a huge gathering, estimates ranging from hundreds of thousands to 2 million people,” Doug Thornell, an aide to Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., wrote in a memo obtained by FOXNews.com.
But conservatives believe the memo is ploy to inflate expectations for the turnout anticipating that it will fall short.
“It’s an old political tactic to get out in front and make wild projections and when they’re not met, claim their opponents don’t have the juice,” said Pete Sepp, a spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union, one of the organizers of the rally.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Do we give tax money to C-Span?
Dude, I watched two hours straight on C-SPAN.
Funny that newspaper circulation is down and all cable stations losing ratings war to Fox...seems that most thinking folks are getting their info from talk radio & internet, while the majority of 2008 voters are still fed their daily pablum from the sources that get their talking points from the DNC.
Indirectly, through cable franchise fees.
C-SPAN did a good job of covering the march.
“But conservatives believe the memo is ploy to inflate expectations for the turnout anticipating that it will fall short.”
2 million + is a figure we’re getting out of the DC police as an estimate of actual folks on ground.
No ploy or BS.
Evidently it was over at 4. CSPAN covered the event live.
I’ve been doing housework, and have CNN on the TV at one end of the house and FOX on the other TV. Both have been covering the tea parties, and if anything, I’ve seen more coverage on CNN, but that may be a function of timing rather than the amount of coverage...I’ve seen a lot more about the missing coed on FOX.
One can only guess how the alphabet channels and the rest of the print Marxist media will cover this or avoid it, afterall their fuhrer also had a rally today.
ABC will be the one to watch...
IGNORE US AT YOUR PERIL!
They all need viewers/readers to attract advertisers and they can't repeal the laws of economics.
Please don’t promote the 2 MM figure — that’s a gross exaggeration. But there had to be between 50-100K. Great turnout, Freepers and others. Glad to see the Silent Majority being silent no more.
Same here. I’ve been going back and forth from channel to channel. Fox to CNN! Neither had a picture of the crowds of people that I’ve seen on the threads of freerepublic...something doesn’t match up. Never really saw a birds-eye view of the crowds on the TV which I thought was also suspiciously absent of coverage.
The Glenn Beck coverage was disappointing.
It was great as far as it went, but he only covered the parties in D.C., Fort Worth and Quincy, IL. And the latter two just got scant attention at the end of the program.
Weren’t there supposed to be parties all over the country today?
Time lapsed video of the march from that webcam. Pretty cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoPud1TeubM
I have seen the birds-eye views on CNN and was amazed at the number of people there. I suppose if one really wanted to compare, you could use the picture-in-picture feature of some televisions to do that...
I believe that video is bogus. Why is the flag at half staff?
CSpan did run it about an hour ago. Fox ran it with Glenn Beck and MSNBC ran a bit which surprisingly was not bad.
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