Mediaite » Tea Party

Sen. DeMint: Tea Party ‘Had Nothing To Do’ With Obstruction In Payroll Tax Cut Extension Fight

Josh Feldman — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:30:12 +0000

On CNN’s State of the Union today, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint responded to an assertion made by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last week on Meet the Press that the influence of the Tea Party has been dying down as the economy is slowly picking up steam. Reid claimed that Republicans are starting to realize the Tea Party is too radical and are trying to distance themselves from it, but DeMint argued that the movement is still going strong.

Candy Crowley observed that in a recent poll, the Tea Party has been losing some traction following the debate over the payroll tax cut extensions. DeMint insisted that particular fight “had nothing to do with the Tea Party,” laying the blame in that particular spat with the media for misrepresenting the arguments.

In fact, DeMint argued that Reid was more to blame than the Tea Party for obstruction in the case of the payroll tax cut extension. He pointed to Reid’s support of a two-month extension that he said would have been payed for with the “permanent increase in the cost of mortgages in America.”

Watch the video below, courtesy of CNN:

Sen. Harry Reid: ‘I Think The Tea Party’s Dying Out As The Economy’s Getting Better Slowly’

Josh Feldman — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:43:37 +0000

On Meet the Press today, David Gregory showed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a poll that shows two-thirds of the electorate disapproves of the Democrats in Congress. Reid acknowledged that the American people have many legitimate problems with Congress, but insisted Republican obstructionism has been the main roadblock to legislative success, citing the debt ceiling debate as an example.

He still expressed hope that he would be able to compromise with Senate Republicans on key pieces of legislation that both parties could work on in the coming months. He noted that unlike the past year or two, the Tea Party has not recently had the kind of outrage and organization it was once noted for. Gregory asked Reid for a clarification, and Reid unequivocally stated what he thought was the case.

“I think the tea party’s dying out as the economy’s getting better slowly… I would hope that the two Republican leaders have learned what took place in the previous year. And, you know, what we have to focus on this year is rebuilding the economy. We have to, and the only way to do that is to create jobs.”

Watch the video below, courtesy of NBC:

Laura Ingraham And Sen. Jim DeMint Warn Conservatives Not To Ignore Ron Paul And His Policies

Jon Bershad — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:52:03 +0000

Last week, I predicted that, if Ron Paul didn’t place first in Iowa, conservative bigwigs and the GOP establishment would use that as an excuse to stop talking about him until he quietly went away. For an all too brief moment there, it seemed like I was finally right about something. However, as Paul’s support base has refused to wane and, in fact, seemed to grow, it appears that I was way off. Many conservatives seem to be realizing that they should talk about him and are doing it…a lot. Today on her radio show, Laura Ingraham and Sen. Jim DeMint offered a full-fledged warning to the Right about the dangers of ignoring Paul and what he stands for.

Early this morning, Ingraham posted a message on her website’s blog stating that, while she wasn’t a Libertarian, she could see that conservatives had to “start answering some of Paul’s arguments on the merits” instead of merely mocking him if they didn’t want his support to continue to grow.

Later on her radio show, Ingraham asked guest DeMint what he thought on the subject and his feelings echoed her own. He doesn’t agree with all of Paul’s positions, but he knows that his friend has plenty to offer and that the GOP would be foolhardy in not picking up on it.

“I’m glad you asked about [Paul] because I think one of the things that have hurt the so-called conservative alternative is saying derogatory things about Ron Paul. I don’t agree with him on everything, but he is right about the out-of-control and unaccountable Federal Reserve. He’s right about the need for limited constitutional government and the importance of individual liberty. And I really think the Republican who is going to win this thing—if the capture some of what Ron Paul’s talking about for years. And more and more we can see that what he’s been talking about is true. Again, you don’t have to agree with everything he’s saying, but if the other candidates miss the wisdom in what he’s been saying on monetary policy and limited government, then I think we will see it’s to their determent because the twenty percent or twenty-five percent or so who are supporting him are people that we need in the Republican Party. A lot of them are libertarians, but they’re our natural base. We shouldn’t ignore them.”

Ingraham pointed out that Paul “articulating a sentiment that is based in a growing revulsion with both parties.” She compared the strong groundswell behind Paul to that of the Tea Party which she said, despite a big contribution in 2010, didn’t seem strong and organized enough to affect this year’s White House race.

Hey, remember all those stories about everyone flat out ignoring Ron Paul? It’s strange how much things can change.

Listen to the audio below:

South Carolina Tea Party Leader Says She Doesn’t Know Anyone ‘That Does Not Despise Mitt Romney’

Nando Di Fino — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:13:36 +0000

It’s no secret that Mitt Romney isn’t exactly a darling of the Tea Party, but Karen Martin, the head of the Spartanburg County, S.C., chapter, did not mince words when speaking to NPR’s Frank James about just how little they care for him.

“There’s no Tea Partier that I talk to in the state or nationally that would want to promote Romney,” Martin said. “Other than the people that have come out publicly and endorsed Mitt Romney and the people left over from his 2008 campaign, I do not personally know anyone that does not despise Mitt Romney and doesn’t hate the idea of him being our nominee.”

A combination of Romneycare, flip-flops on issues, and a perceived slight of the Tea Party by Romney have combined to make him incredibly unpopular within the movement. Martin said that her group felt “betrayed” by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Tea Party favorite, when she endorsed Romney last year. The South Carolina primary is set for Jan. 21 — 11 days after New Hampshire — so Romney does have some time to try and get in their good graces.

And it isn’t all bad news for the Iowa victor, according to James. He notes that the group is more concerned with knocking President Obama out of power, so they will likely “grudgingly” vote for him if he wins the nomination. And James also finds one person, Allen Olsen — former head of the Columbia County Tea Party, and now a Newt Gingrich volunteer — who has heard of a Romney supporter in the state’s Tea Party system.

“I think,” Olsen says, “there’s one Tea Party member in Columbia who likes him.”

Senator Lugar: Tea Party Candidates Killed Chances For Republican Senate Majority

Colby Hall — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:07:49 +0000

Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) has served the state of Indiana in six consecutive terms in the U.S. Senate. While hard core conservatives may derisively point to his willingness to work with his ideological foes across the aisle, Lugar is a well respected member of congress recognized for his tough but well informed positions on U.S. foreign policy. Still, he finds himself in battle with some home-grown Tea Party candidates for his Senate seat, which Lugar took aim at during a sit down with CNN’s Candy Crowley.

The term “GOP Civil War” was thrown around a lot in the midterm elections of 2010, and came to represent the seeming battle for the Republican party soul by two factions: there was the established GOP represented by beltway insiders like Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer and Newt Gingrich, and on the other side there were Tea Party endorsed candidates like Christine O’Donnell and Sharon Angle (neither of whom fared well enough to win the general election.)

Lugar addressed the recent history of Tea Party candidates not faring so well in his conversation with Crowley, ostensibly blaming their candidacies on the lack of a Senate majority. Lugar said “Republicans lost the seats before in Nevada and New Jersey and Colorado where there were people who were claiming they wanted somebody who was more of their Tea Party aspect but they killed off the Republican majority.” He then added “this is one of the reasons why we have a minority in the Senate right now.”

Given this sort of rhetoric from Lugar — an individual known more for his calm and reasoned demeanor over fiery political rhetoric — perhaps it’s time to consider the notion that the Tea Party label is one that established politicians are shying away from instead of looking to join?

Watch the segment of State of the Union below, courtesy of CNN:

(H/T Breitbart.tv)

Braveheart: GOP Rep Would’ve Stopped Payroll Tax Deal If He Could’ve, But Not Really

Tommy Christopher — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:17:02 +0000

The fallout from the House GOP’s (including Tea Party members) cave-in on the payroll tax cut extension has been heavier than a dumpster full of wet tea bags. Tea Party supporters are furious that not a single member had the stones to object its passage by unanimous consent. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) tried to save a little face by telling CNN’s T.J. Holmes that he would totally have stopped the measure, if only he could have gotten there in time! Upon follow up, though, not so much.

House Republicans have taken to the silver screen for inspiration this year, watching a clip of the Ben Affleck gangster flick The Town to psych themselves up for the debt ceiling fight, and recently, huddled together comparing themselves to Braveheart‘s William Wallace character. At this point, I’d be happy to lend them a copy of The Bad News Bears.

Huelskamp began by repeating the transparent talking point that the House wanted to pass a yearlong extension all along (they opposed a clean extension, and when the Senate agreed to a compromise, then insisted on an amendment-laden 1-year extension), then Holmes asked him, “Did you give any thought to going back and going on the House floor and objecting today?”

“That’s all it would have taken,” Holmes said. “One person could have stopped this. Did you think about doing that?”

“Actually, I did,” Rep. Huelskamp replied. “Problem is by the time we were notified that the unanimous consent agreement would be offered, where I come from in Kansas, I can’t get to Washington quick enough on this short notice.”

In case that wasn’t clear enough, the Congressman added, “We did think about that, but there’s no way to fly in on time to make that happen.”

Holmes, perhaps sensing some wiggle-room, tried to nail him down. “You’re telling me the only thing that kept you from objecting and keeping this two-month extension going forward was that you just couldn’t get there in time? You would have if you could have?”

“No,” Rep. Huelskamp replied, “what I’m saying is i could not make it, number one. Number two, when our leadership decided to drop our desire for a one-year extension to give americans a $1,000 tax cut, versus the two-month variety apparently there were enough folks that wanted to take that fight and follow through so as a result we’re going to have to come back in january and go through another two-week debate over this in order to try to extend it the rest of the year.”

As William Wallace once bellowed on horseback, “They may take our lives, but this is an election year, so we can’t kill a middle-class tax cut!”

Or something like that.

Here’s the clip, from CNN:

Tea Party Leader Mark Meckler Arrested For Trying To Board Flight With A Gun

Alex Alvarez — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:56:51 +0000

Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, was taken into custody at New York’s LaGuardia Airport Thursday after attempting to board a Delta flight to Detroit whilst in possession of a gun. As sensational as that may sound (Was it a bazooka? Was he waving it over is head? Was it a pistol, strapped to his thigh? Did he ask a flight attendant if he was “feeling lucky, punk”?), Meckler had the Glock stored in a locked gun box, along with 19 cartridges of ammunition.

Meckler had declared the gun, as is required by law, but was evidently unaware that his gun license, issued in the state of California, does not extend to New York state.

Meckler told authorities that he carries a gun with him because he receives numerous threats. Meckler’s lawyer added that his client was merely “in temporary transit through the state of New York in possession of an unloaded, lawful firearm.”

Either way, consider this a cautionary tale.

h/t Politico and CBSNews.com

Bill O’Reilly And Bernie Goldberg Hit Back At ‘Intellectual’ David Frum’s Fox News Jab

Frances Martel — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 02:34:34 +0000

CNN contributor David Frum caught Bill O’Reilly‘s eye yesterday on Reliable Sources, when he went after Fox News for being a bad influence and agent of misinformation in the 2012 election. O’Reilly didn’t understand Frum’s “beef” with the network, but Bernie Goldberg had an answer: Frum was merely “an intellectual who is frustrated because he doesn’t have the clout that you have.”

“Not that he’s an important guy, Frum,” O’Reilly noted as he asked Goldberg for analysis, but did not that it was a strange attack coming from a conservative. “They seem to be mad at Fox News,” he suggested. Goldberg had an answer to why this was the case: “there are two kinds of conservatives… intellectual conservatives, or something close to that– they don’t like the riff-raff.” Goldberg argued Frum was one of these intellectuals, and almost seemed sympathetic when asking O’Reilly rhetorically, “could you imagine how frustrating it must be to be an intellectual” who realizes “the riff-raff have more of an influence on politics and culture?” “They resent the fact that Fox News is an important player in the culture and, by and large, they’re not,” he concluded.

O’Reilly added that Frum’s specific comment that Fox News viewers were more misinformed than others was symptomatic of a type of political thought of people who “just believe stuff they hear because they want to believe it,” comparing it to those who believe President Obama is a Muslim or Vice President Cheney went to war because of Halliburton. Goldberg agreed, but returned to the central point that it was not just that thought process but a desire to be influential that fueled Frum.

Goldberg then ends the segment with some “unsolicited advice”: “if the White House goes after you, the New York Times… somebody important,” he suggested it was wise to attack; “if an intellectual who is frustrated because he doesn’t have the clout you have [attacks]… he’s not worth going after.” O’Reilly convinced him, however, that the attack was merited because it spawned the “fascinating” segment he just ended, a point Goldberg conceded was valid.

The segment via Fox News below:

Glenn Beck: I’d Vote For A Ron Paul Third Party Candidacy Over Newt Gingrich

Jon Bershad — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 23:11:53 +0000

Over the past few years, there’s been much talk about some talk about a kind of “Republican Civil War” between the old dog GOP establishment and the newly energized Tea Party. This past weekend though, Glenn Beck did something impressive when he managed to piss them both off during an appearance on Fox Business Network. He annoyed the establishment by saying they were filled with progressives and that the only difference between Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama was that he was white and he annoyed the Tea Party by asking them if that was why they liked him. And if that weren’t enough to get Republicans angry at him, today Beck said that, were Gingrich to get the nomination, he’d consider voting for a Ron Paul third party run, something many assume would give the election to Obama.

Although he took pains to clarify that he doesn’t think the Tea Party is racist (he just wanted them to think about their choice), Beck has certainly chosen to turn directly into the skid when it comes to being the Right’s villain today. During his GBTV show this evening, he wondered aloud how much of his audience he was “hacking off.” Whatever the case, he shrugged and responded that he “calls them like [he] sees them.” And, while the establishment he has promised to hit back against may not have enjoyed his show dealing with the history of progressives in the Republican party, it was the Ron Paul comment, made on his radio show that could prove to be the most controversial.

The comment was made during a testy conversation with a caller who began the conversation saying to Beck “I love you and merry Christmas but you’re really ticking me off today.” The caller then tried to summarize Beck’s position, accusing the host of only thinking Michele Bachmann was a viable candidate. Beck instantly disagreed and clearly took umbrage at having his words misinterpreted.

“Not true. Not true. Excuse me. To be able to have a conversation with somebody, you have to be able to understand their side. When you can get my side right, then we can have a conversation. Your impression is wrong and I’m sorry if I’ve done anything to lead that. I’ve said on the air that, for me if I had to vote, it would be a tough choice between Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. However, I just said last week, gun to my head, I’ll vote for Mitt Romney. If it’s Newt Gingrich and a third party and it’s Ron Paul – and I don’t agree with his Middle East policy at all – I might consider a third party. So there’s where I stand.”

Already, some in conservative media are furious at the comment. But, as Beck made clear in his show, he doesn’t care what those on the networks or with their websites (possibly referring to this) have to say. Again, he calls them like he sees them.

For a guy with a fledgling network still in its infancy, you have to admit that’s a brave stance to take. Either that or a crazy one. But, if there’s anything the years have taught us, Glenn Beck has always rested somewhere between courageous and bat sh*t insane.

Listen to the clip from GBTV below:

(h/t The Right Scoop)

Andrew Breitbart Goes Off On ‘Coward’ Glenn Beck: ‘He Is Dead To Me’

Jon Bershad — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:50:14 +0000

Glenn Beck is very much not a fan of Newt Gingrich. If anyone didn’t yet know that from this interview, he made it very clear Saturday on Fox Business Network when he alleged that Gingrich was so similar to President Obama in his “progressive” ways, that the only reason Tea Partiers would like him over the President would be because of his race. Unsurprisingly, this has caused some anger. Even less surprisingly, one of those angry voices is Andrew Breitbart, a man who is very much not a fan of Glenn Beck.

Breitbart appeared on the Victory Sessions podcast and slammed Beck for, as his BigGovernment site put it, “pulling the race card” on the Tea Party. However, the Beck/Breitbart beef goes back a far way and one could tell this had as much to do with a heated, longstanding grudge as with the Tea Party comment.. In fact, Breitbart only discussed that comment briefly before moving on to a list of the many slights he feels he’s received from Beck. He accused Beck of throwing him under the bus during the Shirley Sherrod scandal and trash talking him in private while poaching employees to create rival website The Blaze).

This was clearly personal.

“I don’t know what to say because I know it makes me look like a bad guy and I know Reagan’s 11th Commandment, but how many times can you have a baseball bat taken to your rib cage by a gang that have GBTV on your jerseys before you stand up for yourself?

…

This guy has always been about himself. You know, while you’re sitting there watching him talk about the food shortage stuff, he doesn’t tell you this ties to the Mormon Church. He doesn’t talk to you about his investors. He doesn’t tell you that they’re paying for him to create a crisis. He always talks about Cloward-Piven and how Rahm Emanuel said ‘Don’t let a good crisis go to waste,’ but creating a hysteria that there’s going to be food storages because of chaos that is coming – he is profitting off this as well. There is a financial stake for him with food storage companies that advertise on his site. This guy is a huckster. He’s always been a huckster. It was only a few years ago that he was a shock jock, that he was a morning zoo guy. And he’s been taking people’s content for years and not crediting it.”

At the end of the interview, the podcast’s host Stephen K. Bannon put it explained that this seemed to be something that “comes from [Breitbart's] heart” and that might be an understatement.

Listen to the segment from The Victory Sessions below:

Watch Glenn Beck’s segment via Fox Business below:

Glenn Beck: The Tea Party Supporting Gingrich Over Obama ‘Must Be About Race’

Frances Martel — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:09:59 +0000

Glenn Beck has made no secret of how much he dislikes Newt Gingrich– not even to Newt Gingrich’s face. But he has yet to confront his supporters until last night, when he reasoned to Freedom Watch host Judge Andrew Napolitano that there was very little difference between Gingrich and President Barack Obama– so much so that the only possible explanation for Tea Partiers rallying around Gingrich is “Obama’s race.”

Describing Gingrich as “the only candidate I cannot vote for” and “a progressive, he knows he’s a progressive, he doesn’t have a problem with being a progressive,” Beck issues a “challenge to the Tea Party” when they go to the voting booths and see his name on the ballot:

“If you have a big government progressive, or a big government progressive in Obama… ask yourself this, Tea Party: is it about Obama’s race? Because that’s what it appears to be to me. If you’re against him but you’re for this guy, it must be about race. I mean, what else is it? It’s the policies that matter.”

Judge Napolitano agreed, adding that he believed Gingrich was “so polarizing… the Democrats may succeed in turning the campaign away from the President’s miserable three years in Washington.” Beck agreed, citing “the establishment in Washington clawing for power” as the reason for his rise, and adding that “he makes Mitt Romney look like a small government guy.” Beck did admit that “it would kill me to do it,” but he could vote for Romney, which he could not do for Gingrich. The conversation was rounded out with an assessment of Rep. Ron Paul, who he noted was absolutely right in his opinion on the economy, but he “disagreed vehemently” on foreign policy with.

The segment via Fox Business below:

Rachel Maddow: Newt Gingrich Polling Well With Tea Party Because Of His Support Among Senior Citizens

Josh Feldman — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 14:11:22 +0000

Newt Gingrich is not only the Republican presidential frontrunner right now, but he is polling better than the other candidates with the Tea Party. A recent Gallup poll found that Gingrich has 47 percent of Tea Party support, followed by Mitt Romney with 17 percent. Why would such a recognizable insider politician like Gingrich be getting the most support from Tea Partiers? Rachel Maddow examined this very question on her show tonight and concluded that Gingrich’s high poll numbers among senior citizens are helping him in Tea Party polls.

Maddow claimed that when you examine the demographics of the Tea Party, “it tends to be made up of old people.” However, as Maddow explained, it is precisely because of this that they are more knowledgeable of federal programs like Medicare and Social Security than some liberals would believe. What the Tea Party opposes isn’t government programs, it’s government programs supported by younger people and poor people.

These statistics are some of the findings in a new book about the Tea Party and its relationship with the conservative movement. It also finds that the “distinction between workers and non-workers… is central to the Tea Party worldview and conception of America.”

So what does this have to do with Newt Gingrich’s rise in popularity among senior citizens? Maddow explained it was because of how much Gingrich has been setting his sights on younger, poorer people in his comments about child labor laws and elsewhere. And that is why Newt Gingrich, a man very few would confuse with a Washington outsider, is polling well with the Tea Party and seen as a threat to the Republican establishment.

Watch the video below, courtesy of MSNBC:

Rush Limbaugh: “Ron Paul Has Nothing To Do With The Tea Party”

Frances Martel — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 03:55:21 +0000

Apparently Limbaugh slept through the entire 2007 Republican primary campaign. Reacting to a self-identified tea party caller that suggested Rep. Ron Paul, Rep. Michele Bachmann, and former Senator Rick Santorum were the only true conservatives left in the race, Limbaugh reacted in shock at the idea that Rep. Paul would be associated with the Tea Party because “he has nothing in common with Tea Party foreign policy.” Except the first group to use the term “Tea Party,” as is well documented, were Rep. Paul supporters.

The caller that so infuriated Limbaugh called to argue that “Newt Gingrich is the RINO’s RINO” for his “well-known progressive” stances, and that he was leaning towards a vote for Rep. Paul, who to him represented “trust, justice, and constitutional leadership.” This left Limbaugh upset. “This guy is not a Tea Party caller; this guy is a Ron Paul caller,” he told his audience. He then went to argue explicitly: “the Tea Party is not the Ron Paul campaign. Ron Paul has nothing to do with the Tea Party– zilch, zero, nada.” This, he asserted, was because of his foreign policy. “Ron Paul blames America for 9/11,” he continued, “that’s not what the Tea Party thinks!” He also argued that Paul did not “start the Tea Party,” a fairly well-documented fact.

While it is true that many in the 2011 version of the Tea Party– a much larger group than the Tea Party in its nascent stages– has foreign policy stances in some form, many stances of these hawkish, and that Rep. Ron Paul’s supporters have drifted away from the social conservatives now prevalent in the Tea Party movement, the claim that Rep. Paul was not there at the inception of the group or that he has “nothing to do” with it is wildly out of step with history that should be recent enough to recall correctly. The “Tea Party” name came from the fact that Rep. Paul supporters began staging events at the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party to fundraise– an idea that also spread to holidays like Guy Fawkes’ Day that year.

Plenty of reporting from 2007 shows that the “Tea Party” in its most primitive form was a way for Paul supporters to gather. While, yes, there was a period in between the 2008 primaries and the 2009 Tea Party conservative explosion that reignited the Tea Party in its current manifestation, to ignore the relationship that one has with the other, and the role Rep. Paul played in its first incarnation is to ignore history so recent it lives on the internet as it mostly did four years ago.

It also ignores the core of the Tea Party movement: a sense that the government is too big, and it spends too much money, and that putting aside other differences Americans may have in politics is essential to getting together to solve the current debt crisis. The 2009 Tea Party protests, and the Glenn Beck-hosted 9/12 events correlated with it, were about one problem and one problem only: government spending. Foreign policy was a matter to be left on the backburner as it pertained to everything but the debt crisis and government spending. The urgency of the situation didn’t allow for drawing lines the way Limbaugh does here. Of course, by the time he had chosen to exclude Rep. Paul from the Tea Party, the caller who was co-excommunicated with the Congressman had long hung up. But one can imagine the Rep. Paul Tea Party faction won’t be too happy to hear his comments from today.

Listen to Limbaugh’s comments in the following clips below:

(h/t Daily Rushbo)

Anti-Elitism Or Anti-Education? Chris Hayes Panel Heats Up On Tea Party Populism

Frances Martel — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:00:14 +0000

“We need a leader not a reader,” responded Herman Cain to questions recently about whether he had the intellectual horsepower to be President. The general attitude against academia was the topic on the table for today’s Up with Chris Hayes, where some panelists went as far as to call the American right “anti-education” rather than simply anti-elitist, with Ezra Klein left to defend the conservative attitude towards education.

Host Chris Hayes started off with his take on Cain, which he found to be “this ultimate rebuke to expertise, to knowledge, to prepping,” something that he considered had a “long vintage in conservative and Republican politics, but in American politics on both sides of the ideological spectrum [as well].” He described it as “skepticism in this country about experts and expertise.”

That did not seem sufficient to describe the attitude to panelist Michaela Angela Davis, however, who saw it not as a rebuke to expertise, but as plain “anti-education,” a take Hayes didn’t consider fair to the Tea Party. Davis explained, however, that it was not an attitude against “just experts or elites, or people who drink lattes, but facts… or that data is somehow irrelevant. I feel it’s dangerous.” is somehow irrelevant. I feel its dangerous.”

MSNBC contributor Maria Teresa Kumar agreed, adding that “the last people that did that were the last great empire of Rome, where they started gutting education, started moving away from the intelligence; we all know how that story ended,” a comment which met some resistance from fellow contributor Ezra Klein. “That is going a bit too far,” he corrected, arguing that “people have different ideas on education in this country” that are not just pro- or anti-, but “a lot more complicated than that.” In contrast, however, Hayes noted that a comment like “leader not a reader” is hard to misinterpret, but Klein warned against attributing that attitude to the entire American right and conflating “anti-education” with “anti-intellectualism.”

The segment via MSNBC below:

Colin Powell: Tea Party Will Not ‘Produce A Presidential Candidate Who Will Win’

Frances Martel — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:17:57 +0000

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has no faith in the Tea Party’s ability to produce a president. This he noted today in a discussion with Christiane Amanpour on This Week, where he lamented the “very tense” tone currently in Washington and attributed some of that to the obstinacy of the Tea Party.

“The tone is not good right now and the political system here in Washington… has become very, very tense,” Powell told Amanpour, arguing that this was not exclusive a Congressional problem, but a media problem. “The media loves this game where everyone is on the extreme– it makes for great TV.” The extremes, however, would not produce results, he argued. The media, he concluded, needed to “take some head out of political life in terms of the coverage, so that these folks can get to work.”

As for the rejection of compromise, he completely disagreed. “The Founding Fathers compromised on slavery,” he noted, “compromise is how this country was founded. The Tea Party point of view of no compromise whatsoever is not a point of view that will eventually produce a presidential candidate who will win.”

Powell is likely in the minority of Republicans who feel that the Tea Party is a liability and are vocal about it, and given his comments recently in support of Occupy Wall Street (in theory), this is likely not to go so well with the far right.

The segment via ABC below:

Occupy DC Protesters Push Back Against Coverage Of Sexual Assaults At Camps

Tommy Christopher — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:27:13 +0000

One of the subplots of the Occupy Wall Street movement is the exploitation of reports of sexual violence by opponents of the movement, particularly conservatives stung by the negative press that the Tea Party received. At Occupy DC Monday, I spoke with several of the protesters to see if they were aware of the issue, what they thought of the coverage, and most importantly, what was being done to keep people safe.

The Occupy protests differ from other demonstrations in several ways, one of which is the fact that they’re not “events” that begin and end. These encampments are 24/7 microcosms that present many unique challenges, one of which is the fact that they attract all kinds of people, even those who seek to prey on the vulnerable. While the media has reported on the fact that there have been sexual assaults at the Occupy camps (not nearly enough for some, however), the protesters here feel the problem, while serious, has been blown out of proportion to undercut the movement.

Bryan Meister, a sort of unofficial spokesman for the camp, told me there has been “a lot of reporting, but not a lot of sexual assaults.”

Asked whether the same “isolated incidents” defense should have also applied to the charges of racism leveled at the Tea Party, Meister said that “At the beginning of the Tea Party, those signs were not few and far between. We’re being tarred by things that are genuinely rare.”

Several of the female protesters told me that the camps are just smaller versions of society, and that the proportion of sexual assaults and harassment is actually smaller in the Occupy camps. They described steps that the camp has taken, including a “safe women space,” where any female Occupier who feels uncomfortable, who needs a women-only place to sleep, or for any reason, can go to and be safe.

Mary Mork, who has been at Occupy DC for two weeks now (after stints at several other Occupy encampments) told me that she feels “One hundred percent safe,” and described the camp’s “De-escalation Teams,” who look to defuse any type of aggression before it gets started.

Here’s a clip of Mork and Meister (that could be a hell of a TV show) discussing the issue of sexual assault at Occupy camps, and their interactions with police:

Red Eye’s Andy Levy Takes Alan Colmes To Task For Defending OWS ‘Dregs’

Josh Feldman — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 04:38:36 +0000

On today’s edition of Red Eye, Andy Levy called out Alan Colmes for not acknowledging that there are members of the Occupy Wall Street protests who have engaged in less-than-civil means to spread their message. Levy brought up the continued acts of aggression and general chaotic nature of some Occupy Wall Street protestors, and asked Colmes why he thinks it is unfair of media outlets to show the more undesirable elements of the movement, when he had no such objections to tea party coverage.

Colmes stated that all the members of the tea party were “dregs,” so capturing them in such a way may be unavoidable. Greg Gutfeld chimed in to ask how many tea partiers were arrested compared to OWS people. And to Gutfeld’s point, a recent infographic released comparing the two movement found less than 50 tea partiers were arrested over the last three years, contrasted with over 1500 OWS protestors in just thirty days.

Colmes argued the more important point was one of civil disobedience, and pointed out that “every civil liberties person in the world has been arrested.” Gutfeld brought up the several instances of protestors accused of rape, and Levy took the opportunity to explain to Colmes why the less respectable members of Occupy Wall Street need to be acknowledged and reported on.

“Obviously they’re not all rapists, and they’re not whatever, but it’s getting to be a large enough sample that you’ve got to start wondering about what’s going on there. And I’m not, it’s not, it’s obviously not the whole movement, it’s not even close to the whole movement.”

Colmes interjected to suggest they weren’t even part of the movement, but Levy completely dismissed that notion.

“You can’t say that. That’s the easy way out, when you say, ‘Oh, they’re not part of the movement.’ Guess what? You’re the 99 percent. They are part of the fucking movement.”

Watch the whole segment below, courtesy of Fox News:

Megyn Kelly Refs Shouting Match Between Alan Colmes & Mike Gallagher On Occupy Wall Street

Tommy Christopher — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:40:55 +0000

On America Live Friday afternoon, host Megyn Kelly played referee in a shouting match between Fox News liberal embed Alan Colmes and conservative radio host Mike Gallagher over supposed outrage at Democratic support for Occupy Wall Street. Colmes chided Gallagher, and the media, for focusing on the actions of a small number of protesters, but what really set Gallagher off was Colmes’ comparison of OWS to the Tea Party.

At issue are reports of violence, sexual assaults, arrests, and attention-getting moments of silence at OWS protests, which Gallagher says prove that “these occupy wall street dregs are a bunch of anarchists, they’re lawless thugs, and it’s been nice to see the entire country turn against them.”

While he’s right that the movement has waned in popularity, Colmes points out that this is more a function of the media’s “if it bleeds, it leads” fixation on conflict. “The media, of course, wants to focus on the small group of people that are causing disruption,” Colmes says, “but I think it’s also important to urge them to peacefully demonstrate, to take the lead of what Gandhi and Martin Luther King talked about, the whole list of things you can do not to lose sight of the larger message, which I think is a good one.”

Gallagher predicted that the Democrats would pay a price for their support of Occupy Wall Street. “Democrats have stepped in it in a big way,” he said, “and the big picture you raised, Megyn, is to wonder about the support, the unfettered support that Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and all the rest of them, I haven’t heard a single democrat denounce these lawless thugs.”

His characterization is an oversell (everyone from President Obama to Mitt Romney has expressed some sort of sympathy for the movement’s underlying frustrations, hardly “unfettered support”), but he’s right that Democrats are more closely associated with the Occupy movement than Republicans, and if the movement becomes identified with the peripheral violence, Democrats could pay a price. However, there’s no indication that public support for proposals like those contained in the President’s American Jobs Act has been affected at all.

Things really got heated, though, when Colmes suggested that the Occupy and Tea Party movements “have a lot in common,” eliciting a comical, “How DARE you!” from Gallagher.

“You are utterly disingenuous,” Gallagher said, prompting an objection from Colmes over the personal attack. “Zip it for a moment,” Gallagher shouted, “and let me respond to your scurrilous comparison to the Tea Party movement, a bunch of patriots who love the Constitution, who aren’t breaking the law. Are you kidding me, Alan?”

Much has been made over the difference in the way the media covered the Tea Party and the Occupy protests, and while there are some fair gripes to be made, the assumption that it’s ideological is, in my opinion, a mistake. It’s true that the media was quick to publicize the flaws and the misbehavior of some in the Tea Party movement, and that coverage of the Occupy movement has been, in many ways, more favorable.

What critics like Gallagher ignore, though, is the fact that the Occupy movement gained momentum with the press, and sympathy from the public, based on early images of police attacking non-violent protesters, a pattern that has continued. There’s no way to know how the media would have covered Tea Partiers clashing with police, but it’s a safe bet that pepper-spraying a little old lady makes the news, either way. To reverse the equation, how would the media react if Occupiers were bringing firearms to protests, as some Tea Partiers did?

Here’s the clip of Colmes’ and Gallagher’s battle, from America Live:

Occupy San Diego Protester Asks For Moment Of Silence For White House Shooter

Tommy Christopher — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:47:44 +0000

The media’s embrace of the Occupy Wall Street movement has been cause for bitter frustration on the right, where the feeling is that the Occupiers are getting a fairer shake than the Tea Party did. Today, the conservative blogosphere is abuzz about a video of an Occupy San Diego protester asking for a moment of silence for the White House…and the guy who put a bullet into a White House window. It’s a strange moment, for sure, but hardly worth the comparisons some are making.

At the tail end of a rally at San Diego Police headquarters, a protester stepped up to the microphone (an actual microphone, not a human one) to ask for a moment of “silence and solidarity” for the White House, which was the victim of a shooting over the weekend, and the troubled alleged shooter, Oscar Ramiro Ortega.

It’s an odd moment, and one which reinforces liberal stereotypes about compassion and inclusion (what conservatives call “bleeding heart”), but conservatives are asking questions along the lines of Ace Of Spades‘ rhetorical overreach: “If anyone in the Tea Party expressed solidarity with Jared Loughner (and if a group of Tea Partiers than bowed their head in respectful silence for him), do you imagine the media would have been interested?”

If there was a way to go back and make it so that Loughner (the shooter in the tragic Tucson massacre earlier this year) only managed to ding a pane of bulletproof glass, I bet we would all take that deal. It’s a hideous comparison, variations of which are all over the conservative Twittersphere.

It’s silly, too, because their point, that this exact moment would have played very poorly against the Tea Party, is completely valid. Why undercut it by comparing Ortega to monsters like Loughner and Timothy McVeigh?

Tea Party or not, I would still feel bound to point out the best part of this clip, which is the bewildered look on the face of the woman who hands over the microphone. Her reaction is a bit of slow-burn comedy worthy of Jack Benny.

Here’s the clip, from Occupy San Diego:

Update: The protester in question, 27-year-old Tyler Kai LoRusso, says that he was “misunderstood”:

“Whoever shot at the White House is basically a terrorist,” LoRusso tells CityBeat, “and I was holding a moment of silence for the White House and President Obama and everyone in the White House. I wasn’t holding a moment of silence for the terrorist in any way. We’re a peaceful movement, and we don’t support people shooting at the White House.”

…we asked him what he was thinking last night as he asked for his chance to speak and he said:

“I was just thinking how terrible it is that our nation has someone who tried to shoot at our White House, our country’s main deal, and that’s what makes our country beautiful is that we have a White House that carries all the establishment that makes our country awesome.”

While there are some who have clearly misunderstood Tyler, accusing him of “celebrating political violence,” his explanation doesn’t gibe with what he actually said. Perhaps he has since thought better of urging empathy for the troubled alleged shooter (he even referenced the rumor that the shooter was an OWS protester himself), but in his original remarks, that’s what he did.

Tucker Carlson: The Tea Party Has Destroyed The Republican Establishment

Colby Hall — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 17:04:19 +0000

Sarah Palin offered some unsolicited advice last night to Mitt Romney, the red-headed stepchild of GOP presidential frontrunners, encouraging him to more openly embrace the fiscal and social conservative side of the Republican party, and to develop a more robust relationship with the Tea Party movement. This morning on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, host Martha MacCallum asked Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson and liberal “embed” Alan Colmes to discuss Romney’s strategy in engaging the powerful Tea Party contingent, which Carlson put in remarkably stark terms.

After openly questioning why Romney hasn’t made more of an effort in including an energized side of potential GOP voters sympathetic with the Tea Party movement, Carlson boldly stated what he felt to be an under-told story in the evolution of conservative politics, saying of the Tea Party:

Well I think the explanation is a little broader. Leaderless movements don’t endure because they can’t. This is basically a leaderless movement. But I think it’s had a huge effect, and its biggest effect that almost no one ever mentions is that the Tea Party destroyed the Republican establishment. All the people Republicans and conservatives have looked to for guidance have been basically discredited by the Tea Party, which has alllowed this current chaos to flower. That may be a good thing, it might be a bad thing. I don’t even know. But that is the legacy of the Tea Party. No more Washington establishment on the right.

One of the leitmotifs of the 2010 midterm election was what we called the GOP Civil War, and was perhaps best evidenced by the ongoing rhetorical battle between GOP operative Karl Rove and Tea Party Senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell. Carlson makes the astute point that business as usual inside the D.C. beltway is a thing of the past, which is evidence of a Tea Party victory in the battle for the soul of the conservative movement.

Given that Carlson has a lengthy resume of defending the GOP and conservative movement, it’s not difficult to imagine that when he says that he isn’t sure if this is a “good thing or bad thing,” he really is shooting a cannonball across the bow of the USS Tea Party, especially when Tea Party endorsed candidates like Herman Cain (and Sharron Angle of last fall) brought embarrassment to some in the GOP ranks. Perhaps the Tea Party has won the GOP battle, but some might suggest that they will lose the eventual war against their Democratic foes.

Watch the clip below, courtesy of Fox News:

(Follow Colby Hall on Twitter)

Numbers Don’t Lie: Gloria Allred Gets More TV Airtime Than Her Client, Sharon Bialek

Nando Di Fino — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:38:05 +0000

Every now and then, Mediaite likes to take a deeper look at what topics are getting coverage and who’s being ignored by the broadcast and cable news. Fortunately, we have the tools that make this all possible, in the form of TVEyes, a site that chronicles nearly every word uttered on TV. Today’s look inside the television landscape reveals Gloria Allred pushing her client out of the spotlight, a conservative movement possibly popping up on QVC, and the sad dismissal of Gary Johnson by the mainstream media.

If you’ve seen Sharon Bialek — Herman Cain‘s fourth accuser and first to come forward publicly with sexual harassment allegations — anywhere over the last three days, it’s almost a guarantee that you’ve seen her attorney, Gloria Allred, next to her. So it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that Allred has gotten some media attention. But, according to research on TVEyes, Allred’s name has actually outpaced mentions of Bialek’s. And it’s not even close: Allred’s name has been mentioned an average of 86.7 times per day since Bialek came forward three days ago; Bialek’s comes up 63.3.

If Allred’s hope in taking on Bialek as a client was for some more public attention, it has worked brilliantly.

And that’s not all we learned by playing with some numbers…

Occupy Wall Street vs. Tea Party

In the never-ending Occupy Wall Street vs. Tea Party battle, Occupy Wall Street is currently winning, at least in TV mentions. The term has been uttered 91.5 times per day over the last week on cable channels. Tea Party has been brought up 66.1 times. As far as where it’s been mentioned, this is how they shook out on cable news stations over the past 30 days:

Occupy Wall Street
1220 times on FOX News
1145 times on MSNBC
793 times on CNN

Tea Party
774 times on MSNBC
763 times on FOX News
434 times on CNN

In a fun twist, QVC has actually mentioned “tea party” five times over the last week, but in a wholly different context (talking about actual tea parties, not the political movement).

The Little Guys

Buddy Roemer and Gary Johnson are both running for President, but have been shut out of most of the debates, as well as the general discussion of candidates. Over the past week, their lack of exposure has been all too stark. Roemer was mentioned a total of 17 times; Johnson’s name was mentioned 16. Just for the sake of comparison, Jon Huntsman’s name had been mentioned across all television stations a total of 107 times by 2 p.m. (Eastern) today.

Elizabeth Warren Shows Grace Under Fire As Heckler Calls Her ‘Socialist Whore’

Tommy Christopher — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:58:44 +0000

Massachusetts candidate for US Senate Elizabeth Warren continues to pioneer the art of grassroots publicity, as another one of her volunteer meetings has spawned a viral sensation. This time, it wasn’t the size of the crowd, but rather, the candidate’s calm handling of a profane heckler that’s making the viral internet rounds. As Warren tries to engage the man, he calls her a “socialist whore,” before attempting a comically flubbed storm-out.

Warren has already leveraged significant publicity from a series of humble sources. Her living-room rebuttal of so-called “class warfare” was a viral hit, her response to a question in a local debate sparked a kerfuffle that became national news, and a photo of the huge turnout at Warren’s first volunteer meeting became political geek porn for progressives eager to take back the Ted Kennedy seat.

Now, she stands to get even more free publicity from an incident at a volunteer meeting in Brockton Wednesday night. From HuffPo:

The crowd tried to shout the man down, but Warren told her supporters to let him speak. “No, no, it’s alright. Let me say two things,” she said. “I’m very sorry that you’ve been out of work. I’m also very sorry that the recent jobs bill that would’ve brought 22,000 jobs to Massachusetts did not pass in the Senate.”

Speaking in a packed VFW hall, Warren went on to address his question about her association with Occupy Wall Street. “I’ve been protesting what’s been going on on Wall Street for a very long time,” she said, but added that the movement has its own independent agenda and will proceed along its own course.

“Yeah, so has the Tea Party,” the man said, before losing his cool.

“Well, if you’re the intellectual creator of that so-called party,” he said, “you’re a socialist whore. I don’t want anything to do with you.” The crowd shouted him down as he added that Warren’s “boss,” presumably referring to the president, was “foreign-born.”

The man then tries to storm out of the meeting, but can’t work the door, and has to leave through a different exit. Warren, of course, makes me feel like a jerk for laughing at him, telling HuffPo, “I actually felt sorry for the guy. I really genuinely did. He’s been out of work now for a year and a half. And bless his heart, I mean, he thought somehow it would help to come here and yell names.”

Most accounts of the incident have identified the man as a “Tea Party supporter,” a designation that Glenn Beck’s The Blaze takes issue with, saying, “there is nothing in the report or related video to suggest this is true.”

However, aside from the fact that the man explicitly references the Tea Party while heckling Warren, I can tell you from personal experience that “socialist” is the “Squirrel!” of Tea Party protesters.

Ironically, Warren hardly appears to need all of this free publicity, as her first few weeks of fundraising doubled rival Sen. Scott Brown‘s take from that entire quarter.

Here’s the video of the incident, from The Huffington Post:

Bernie Goldberg On Media Bias In Favor Of Occupy Wall Street: ‘There Is No Hope For Them’

Frances Martel — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 01:33:23 +0000

As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to refuse to budge from lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, tonight on the O’Reilly Factor resident media critic Bernie Goldberg took a look at how the media has treated the movement. Ultimately, he gives guest host Monica Crowley a grim prognosis for the media’s chances at being fair towards the movement in the same way they were (or were not) to the Tea Party: arguing that “the storyline is set in stone,” he concludes “there is no hope for them.”

The attitude in the media towards Occupy Wall Street, Goldberg, argues, is far too favorable because “if they [the media] share your values, you will get an easy ride.” In contrast, the Tea Party, being conservative, was molded into a narrative where “conservatives are people who aren’t very nice and, frankly, racists,” while the Occupy Wall Street folk are “young idealists, the American version of the Arab spring.” Crowley noted that the coverage of violence and anti-Semitism at the events was lacking, which Goldberg compared to that of racism in the Tea Party. “I’m not saying at all that these anti-Semitic signs are representative of the whole movement,” Goldberg argued, but that “the racist sign at the Tea Party was also an outlier.”

While Goldberg admitted he didn’t want to end the segment pessimistically, he found that the lack of critical coverage of Occupy Wall Street didn’t inspire many good feelings. “There are people who sell Slurpees and cigarettes to insomniacs at 7/11 on the overnight shift who have more introspection than journalists who cover important events in our country,” he railed. “They will never look inward; they will never see their biases.” “There is no hope for them,” he concluded grimly.”

The segment via Fox News below:

Tea Party Group To Rep. Michele Bachmann: Please Drop Out Of The Race

Frances Martel — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 21:26:44 +0000

“Tea Party Candidate” Rep. Michele Bachmann is having a bit of a problem convincing the people she claims to represent that she should be their leader, at least if the leadership of American Majority is any indication. The president of that organization, Ned Ryun, released a statement today imploring Rep. Bachmann to drop out of the race, calling her a “back bencher” and warning she could hurt the movement. In response, the Bachmann campaign suggested Ryun was in the tank for Rick Perry, and played down his influence in the Tea Party.

In a post entitled “Bachmann’s Floundering Can Be Damaging To The Tea Party,” Ryun demands that “it’s time for Michele Bachmann to go,” as her campaign was too driven by social issues and, particularly, “has become less about reform and more about her personal effort to stay relevant and sell books.”

Meanwhile, the Bachmann campaign has responded, noting that the decentralized nature of the Tea Party means that no single opinion really counts for all that much:

“The strength of the Tea Party is all individual’s opinions are valued but the no single leader speaks for it. Mr. Ryun, who supports Texas Gov. Rick Perry, is entitled to his own opinion. And that’s exactly what he is expressing. Michele Bachmann enjoys strong support from Americans across party lines and that certainly includes the Tea Party. She will continue to be a strong advocate for the values and principles reflected by the Tea Party as works toward a victory in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses as she seeks to win the Republican nomination.”

The catch? Ryun, who wrote the post, denies supporting Perry. What’s more, Ryun updated his post to add some reactions to his from the media, which he argues proves that they do not understand the point the Rep. Bachmann made about the decentralization of the Tea Party as legitimate. “There cannot be just one voice of this movement,” he writes, citing one of the bigger problems he seems to have with Rep. Bachmann– her insistence that she is “the Tea Party candidate.”

While the Bachmann campaign has not responded to that final quote, it is likely this won’t be the final shot fired in this scuffle. There are plenty of individual Tea Party organizations open to opining as they choose on the matter, and as Rep. Bachmann continues to roll through the primary season, these will become increasingly more vocal.

A report on Bachmann’s troubles with American Majority via Fox News below:

Bill O’Reilly Scolds Leslie Marshall For Noting Koch Brothers Support The Tea Party

Frances Martel — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 20:03:22 +0000

Bill O’Reilly was in rare form last night. After a “Talking Points Memo” segment going after the Occupy Wall Street protests for “demonizing capitalism” and “show[ing] the world the cops are fascists,” O’Reilly welcomed his panel, and refused to let guest Leslie Marshall speak much after she compared the role of George Soros on the left to that of the Koch brothers on the right.

O’Reilly was clearly incensed at the whole matter, narrating the events that led to violence at the Occupy Oakland protests and chastising Oakland’s mayor for “throwing your entire police department under the bus.” He also accused the Occupy movement of lying about its grassroots origins, it instead being a well thought-out plan by the extreme left. He turned to Marshall for her opinion on the matter, and she noted that she believed the idea that Occupy Wall Street was being co-opted by the radical left was a theory that could apply to any grassroots movement with any political ideology. “Every movement is going to be ‘exploited,’” she argued, whether it be “the Koch brothers and the Tea Party on the right, or George Soros and Occupy Wall Street on the left.”

This was apparently too much for O’Reilly, who asked Marshall to “prove” that the Koch brothers were “tied into the Tea Party financially” (a claim that Marshall didn’t seem to be making, but she didn’t deny making, either). There have been several reports, the most exhaustive from The New Yorker, that make the financial link from the Koch brothers to the Tea Party, but Marshall instead noted that they had contributed money to politicians favorable to the movement, and not to the grassroots itself. Or at least she tried to, before O’Reilly interrupted her half a sentence in.

“You’re a Fox News contributor, you have a responsibility,” he replied, and got her to admit that “with a check in hand” she could not prove a direct donation to a Tea Party organization, but that the ties to politicians favorable to the group were there. This was not enough. “I want to remind you not to make statements you can’t back up on this network,” O’Reilly instructed. “We don’t do that on this network. Other networks do. We don’t.”

Marshall got the worst of it, but wasn’t alone. Professor Caroline Heldman, who sat in silence during this lashing, also got scolded for claiming that “more than half of the American public have a favorable view” of Occupy Wall Street (apparently, a new Fox News poll shows this is no longer true, among people who participate in Fox News polls). O’Reilly, naturally, took full credit for this development: “that’s directly because of my reporting,” he informed Heldman, because, unlike other networks, Fox News was not “hysterical” (someone please notify Don Imus).

On the one hand, there is something commendable about O’Reilly taking off the kid gloves– particularly given that his guests were both women, and, unfortunately, there are still obvious hang-ups in cable news about berating females in a way that may come off as misogynistic. On the other hand, this was the return of Bush-era Bill O’Reilly– the one known for cutting people off, yelling, and generally being belligerent and unpleasant. It was not a pretty sight, and his insistence that Fox News was somehow without the original cable news sin of bending truths was laughable, at best, and unnecessarily opens the entire network up to attack in a fairly irresponsible manner. O’Reilly did return to Marshall and “gave her the last word” (ie talked over her while she attempted to make a final point), and promised to give her air time should she have the facts to back up her claims. This is a rematch that would best happen sooner rather than later.

The segment via Fox News below:

Michael Moore Warns: OWS Is Not Concerned With Candidates Or Voting To Make Change

Josh Feldman — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 02:08:47 +0000

On Anderson Cooper‘s show tonight, documentarian Michael Moore declared that “the wind and the snow is not going to stop the collective anger” of the Occupy Wall Street protestors, and they would continue to speak out against the financial industry into the winter season. If anything, the cold weather will only strengthen their resolve, he claimed.

Moore expressed hope that the sheer numbers of the movement would outweigh the influence of several hundred billionaires with more combined wealth than half of the country. However, what Cooper wanted to know was whether Occupy Wall Street would take the same steps the Tea Party did and actually become a potent political force in upcoming elections.

“This movement is so beyond just, hey, let’s get behind this candidate, get them elected to office. Those days are over. You know, we’ve all worked for candidates. We’ve all voted. We’ve all participated. And what have we gotten out of it? We’ve all written to our Congressmen and women, please pass House bill number 3428. What did we get? Where are we? We’re in the worst shape we have been in this country that I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. And, and so, this movement is not right now concerned with candidates or specific bills in Congress.”

Moore also responded to Peter Schiff‘s comments that big government was more to blame than capitalism for the financial crisis, explaining that “the congressmen and the senators are the employees of Wall Street.”

Watch the video below, courtesy of CNN:

Richmond Tea Party Says Occupy Protesters Getting Special Treatment, Demands $10,000 Back From City

Nando Di Fino — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:00:19 +0000

In April, the Richmond Tea Party held a Tax Day rally in Richmond’s Kanawha Plaza. Along with two more of their rallies, the group was charged about $10,000, and had to comply with a list of rules and regulations. Now they want their money back, saying that Occupy Wall Street protesters have been camping out and using the plaza for free since October 15. Colleen Owens, a Tea Party spokesperson, says that her group had to go through a litany of procedures — getting permits, paying for police, paying for port-o-potties, and paying for emergency personnel, among other things — while the Occupiers are getting use of the Plaza without incurring any expenses.

“The City of Richmond’s picking and choosing whose First Amendment rights trump someone else’s First Amendment rights and we thought–well that’s fine–then they can refund our money,” Owens told CBS 6′s Sandi Cauley. “If that’s how they’re going to run the city then they owe us our fees back.” Mayor Dwight C. Jones had no comment on the issue, as his office had not received any communication from the Tea Party (the letter asking for the refund was being sent on Friday), but at least one government official agrees with Owens:

“I guess we’ll be writing a check to the tea party people,” Councilman Bruce W. Tyler told Wesley P. Hester of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “You can’t treat one group different from the other. It’s unfair. We’ve now hit the slippery slope that we never should have found ourselves on.”

On Thursday afternoon, Mayor Jones visited the Occupy camp and met with some of the protesters. The scene, described by Hester in the Times-Dispatch, was almost like when Dorothy landed in Oz and met all the people with their strange customs. For instance, when Jones was trying to explain that city officials would soon be sent to discuss the legality of the occupation, this exchange ensued:

“I’ve been lenient,” Jones said to the group of dozens gathered around him. “I understand protests.”

Jones was then interrupted, and informed by [Josh] Kadrich that the encampment was not a protest, but rather “an occupation in protest, which is something distinctly different.”

It gets better:

When Jones resumed speaking, protesters began shouting “mic check,” which meant that members of the group could not hear him. They then began using the “people’s mic,” essentially shouting every few words that Jones uttered.

Jones then attempted to “invite your leaders” to come and meet with him to discuss the occupation, at which point he was informed that there were no leaders.

As for the Tea Partiers who paid to use the same Plaza, Owens says that if the group isn’t given the refund, they may choose a different venue for future rallies, but won’t try to take over the Plaza without paying. “We’re the tea party,” she told Hester, “we don’t break the law.”

Google Data: ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Now Tops ‘Tea Party’ In Recent Searches

Nando Di Fino — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:06:34 +0000

Google’s “Politics and Elections Blog” released data on Thursday revealing some interesting statistics about the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. Searches for Occupy Wall Street, according to Google’s Jake Parrillo, currently outpace Tea Party queries, but that’s expected, as it’s a buzzy topic. What Google uncovered, though, was that when both were gathering steam, OWS still outpaced Tea Party in search traffic during their respective early phases. And the blog pinpoints the exact moment when OWS took over the “most-searched” title from the Tea Party: September 24. Since then, OWS searches have far outpaced those for the Tea Party.

Another interesting nugget unearthed by Parrillo is that while the most “Occupy Wall Street” searches are coming from, predictably, New York City, the most searches for the “Occupy” term aren’t coming from anywhere near the east coast — they’re coming from Portland, Oregon. And over the last 90 days, Parrillo says that the greatest interest in searches for both “Occupy” and “Occupy Wall Street” are coming from Vermont.

For those interested in fair play, Parrillo says that the two movements are almost equal in the volume of news coverage:

Despite big leads in polls and search traffic for Occupy Wall Street, it is almost in a dead heat with the Tea Party for the volume of news coverage. Using Advanced Search in Google News we found that between October 7 and last week, Occupy Wall Street only barely bests the Tea Party when we examine the number of news pieces covering each movement: 29,000 to 22,000.

And for Tea Partiers upset with the movement being overshadowed by the OWS searchers, there is one smidgen of a silver lining: Occupy Wall Street searches have been on a steep downward trend, after peaking on October 15.

Cenk Uygur On Similarities Between Occupy Wall Street And Tea Party Movements

Colby Hall — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 21:46:47 +0000

Last Friday, I made my way down to Zuccotti Park to meet up with Current TV’s latest host, Cenk Uygur (who was taping a week’s worth of shows there), for a quick discussion about a variety of topics: the Occupy Wall Street movement, the role of corporate media in its coverage of the protest, and when and what we can expect to see his new Young Turks show on Current. A series of unfortunate events conspired to delay the interview, which lessened the total time to just a few minutes. However, Uygur packed a lot of observations about the OWS protests, the Tea Party, and the media into our short visit.

In our brief interview, Uygur discussed the media portrayal of Occupy Wall Street (it’s getting better), how anger towards corporations isn’t the thing (its corporate cronyism), and how the OWS movement is very similar in spirit to that of the Tea Party movement. He also revealed that his new show should be launching on Current in about a month, and that while he and Keith Olbermann clearly share a similar political point of view, there will be differences in their two shows. In particular, Uygur is looking to have more dissenting opinions on his program, and is actively hoping for more conservative guests with which he can engage in a serious discourse.

Working in television for a number of years engenders a certain cynical approach, to both fellow media peers and viewers. On-air personalities are often the most jaded of the sort, who often bring a strange mix of egomania alongside an over-reliance on a writer/producer to help him or her look good. Uygur was quite the opposite, however. Perhaps his humble start as a YouTube star, or his somewhat unceremonious departure from MSNBC, combined to make Uygur a remarkably down-to-earth and likable guy.

Of course it helps that he was surrounded by (mostly) like-minded people at Zuccotti Park, though there was one rabble rousing Wall Street protester, “Kenny,” who considered Uygur’s taping of material for his new show to be “pornography,” and did everything in his power to disrupt the taping. No worries for Uygur, he didn’t complain and just went about his business.

Can You Look at 20 Photos Of People Holding Signs And Guess If They’re OWS Or Tea Party Protesters?

Nando Di Fino — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:15:26 +0000

There’s been a growing argument that — hippies and agitators aside — the bulk of the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party protesters comprise a very similar group: angry at the government and large corporations for overtaxing and under-representing the everyday American. Buzzfeed’s Matt Stopera, likely trying to prove this point, presents a brilliant exercise in showing just how close the two groups are.

Stopera posted 20 photos of protesters holding up signs and asked readers to guess if the photo was taken at a Tea Party or Occupy protest. Trained eyes may pick up some telltale elements in the background of pictures, or even obvious themes in the signage, but it’s still a fun — and somewhat surprising — exercise in discovering how similar the two movements actually are.

Try your skill at the photos below (the answers are at the bottom of the page), then click here to test yourself at Buzzfeed.com. Feel free to report your score (19 out of 20. Huzzah) in the comments below.

Your samples:

Answers:
Photo on top: Tea Party
Photo on the bottom: Occupy Wall Street