video All things popular must eventually make their way to Hollywood (or thereabouts) so this news shouldn't really suprise anyone. Just in time for Thanksgiving -- when everyone will have some extra turkey recovery time on their hands -- some enterprising filmmakers (and some well-known conservatives) have apparently whipped together Tea Party: The Documentary Film. (more...)

Call it Bachmann Tea-Party Overdrive: Last night Jon Stewart and the Daily Show staff revealed something remarkable: That in his coverage of Michele Bachmann's so-called "Superbowl of Freedom" last weekend in D.C., Sean Hannity used footage of Glenn Beck's 9/12 event to make the Bachmann rally look bigger. By a factor of thousands. "If I didn't know any better I'd think they just put two days together and acted like they didn't," said host Jon Stewart, before going on to present video evidence that that was precisely what they did — including Hannity exclaiming over how many people cared enough about freedom to come down to be heard on a Thursday. Er, Saturday. When is the Superbowl again? (more...)

The last time we saw Dick Armey he was giving the cold shoulder to Rachel Maddow on Meet the Press, but he has returned in all his glory as a feature subject in this week's Times Magazine. (more...)

video Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity really want Doug Hoffman to win that special congressional election in Upstate New York's 23rd district. It's not just because he's a 3rd party "Conservative" candidate in a race that saw the shunned, moderate Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava drop out and endorse the Democrat, Bill Owens. It's because this race is a referendum on town halls, on tea partying, on the 9/12 Project. (more...)

video Last night on The Daily Show Jon Stewart noted the different manner in which Fox News opted to cover the 9/12 tea bagger marches in September versus the similarly attended (numbers-wise) Gay Rights march this past Sunday. Short version: they didn't. Stewart speculates this round of marchers may have had a different response to the question 'Do you have anything to say to Glenn Beck?' Like, say: "Who cuts your hair and why are they so angry at you?" But with maybe a few expletives thrown in. (more...)

It was 70 degrees and serenely perfect this past Sunday as I marched alongside thousands of other supporters in the Equality March that consumed downtown D.C. A friend and I arrived via Bolt Bus around 11 a.m. and were shocked at the number of people already crammed together at the starting point on 15th and I. Clearly, the people wanted to send a message. Though I'd never participated in a march before, I can say with reasonable confidence that this was probably the most colorful gathering of people to ever join together for the same cause (except for, say, Hallowe'en in the West Village). Rainbow flags, Mardi Gras beads, and glittery purple signs were ubiquitous; an audience with Lady Gaga lay ahead. Rather than the somber and festering mob I had expected, the crowd was really...happy! (more...)

Poll/Video Video shot at last weekend's 9/12 Project protests has surfaced showing Heidi Noonan, an associate producer for Fox News, encouraging the crowd to hoot and holler behind Griff Jenkins while he talks live from the scene with Glenn Beck in the studio. (more...)

Fox News host Glenn Beck has a unique interpretation of the Founding Fathers: in part, he fancies them men of God and figures that they might have been okay with secession. But Beck has his own ideological forefather who has gone largely unnoticed by a large portion of the media watchdogs who have tracked Beck's meteoric rise. That is, until the incisive Salon exposé of W. Cleon Skousen -- "Beck's favorite writer and the author of the bible of the 9/12 movement" -- which ran yesterday online. (more...)

In the passion of yesterday's 9/12 protests against, um, something, Jay Rosen noticed that Michelle Malkin was crowing about attendance of 2 million at the protest in D.C. Also known as one out of every 130 people in America. Sensing that perhaps that number was a little high, he traced the error back to a conservative Twitterer named @pinkelephantpun, who claimed to have gotten the figure from ABC News. (Which, faster than Joe Wilson can amend an apology, ABC News denied.) In fact, ABC estimated the crowd, on the high end, at about 70,000. (more...)

video "I launched a project back in March and it comes together Saturday, 9/12," says Glenn Beck in a Foxnews.com promo video. "Thousands of people are going to gather in Washington, D.C., and around the nation, to stand up for the principles and values that have made America great." Where was Beck today? In his New York City Studio - but he wasn't happy about it. (more...)

Today I watched one of the most bizarro TV shows that I have ever seen: Glenn Beck's 9/12 special on Fox News.

Even now, I am not sure what it had to do with 9/11 — other than completely co-opting it for Tea Partiers, Fox News, dissent and — oh yes — Glenn Beck. (more...)

video Apart from the discovery of the Lascaux cave paintings in 1940, September 12th is a day that has largely lived in obscurity. But thanks to the meteoric rise of popularity and influence of Fox News anchor Glenn Beck, today is now also known for The 9/12 Project - a day for followers of the Tea Party movement and other conservative groups to march on the nation's capital to protest what they say is out-of-control government spending (with similar, smaller events are expected in cities across the country). It's a given that the march will receive extensive coverage on Fox News Channel (starting at 1:00 PM EST), but raises questions of how other news outlets should cover this event -- as grass-roots movement, publicity stunt or both? (more...)