The truth about the Fox News Tea Parties


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  • 04/15/2009 - 12:07

    "Astro Turf." Fake grassroots. It’s what you get when big business and rich zealots hire pricey consultants to manufacture public outrage. With big budgets, limitless manpower, sophisticated targeting, and a sympathetic media channel, it's not difficult to generate anger. And that’s exactly what’s going on with today’s tea parties

    Whether these so-called tea parties originated as grassroots events or not, they have become nothing more than Astroturf outrage generated by Fox News and corporate-financed consultants. $aveTheRich.com is dedicated to documenting these efforts, so we created a clearinghouse of information to expose the truth behind the so-called “Tax Day Tea Parties” being held around the country. And so far, the tell-tale signs of Astro Turf are everywhere:

Recent News Stories

Frank Strategies and the Astroturf Tea Parties

Yet more evidence is trickingling out that Wednesday's Tea Party's are nothing more than Astroturfed events organized by high profile DC lobbying groups, their consutlants and Fox News.

A couple of days ago I noticed a video popping up on all the conservative blogs that was made by Frank Strategies. So I decided to do a little bit of checking on what Frank Strategies was all about, and this is what I found:

Frank Strategies specializes in helping clients build support for their legislative and/or electoral goals through the coordinated and creative use of New Media and more traditional vehicles, such as earned and paid media, grassroots mobilization, and direct contact with key elected officials.

That's right folks, the firm that created the video specializes in...Astroturfing. Oooh, but there's more:

Ed Frank is the President of Frank Strategies. Ed brings more than 15 years of front-line professional political experience to the table, including a five-year stint as a policy and communications staffer on Capitol Hill and on hotly contested Congressional campaigns

Ed has also served as the official spokesman for U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao in the Bush Administration and in a variety of positions for the nation’s largest small-business lobbying group, NFIB, and America’s premier free-market grassroots lobbying organization, Americans for Prosperity.

Turns out Mr. Frank used to have another job:

Ed Frank is Americans for Prosperity Foundation's Vice President of Public Affairs. Ed brings a wide variety of political and public affairs experience to AFP.

Yeah, that's right, Ed Frank who is a consultant for Americans for Prosperity and who also used to be Vice President of Public Affairs for AFP, is making videos and coordinating Tax Day Tea Parties for AFP all over the country. Americans for Prosperity is organizing events in the following cities:

Arizona
Illinois
Kansas
New Jersey
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Washington DC
Wisconsin

So be on the look out for all the hype about "grassroots" tea parties and non-partisanship. The events around the country are being organized by Conservative Lobby organizations from DC and their high-paid consultants.