Michele Bachmann Encourages People To Say One Million People Attended The Rally

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RT @todayspolitics Michele Bachmann Encourages People To Say One Million People Attended The Rally #politics http://bit.ly/apkrS1 // Dunce ^

RT @todayspolitics: Michele Bachmann Encourages People To Say One Million People Attended The Rally #politics http://bit.ly/apkrS1

@Andrea Griffin, Ooops – there’s actually links in that text. The light blue color there with the light gray text isn’t playing well with my color blindness. : >

Still, I didn’t find any actual content from Freedomworks itself when I went to the TPM page. I’d like to know how FW came up with that number. Obviously, any person or group that is intentionally inflating the numbers is pretty lame and should be publicly outed, but it is possible that their number is sensible – if they are counting online viewership.

@Hank, Absolutely. The truth matters. It doesn’t matter who is spreading misinformation – if you’re doing it intentionally, people should know.

I guess my main curiosity about this is why get sidetracked on issues like “How many attended?” It’s diverting attention from the pertinent points. (Like getting sidetracked by discussion over Rights of Religious Freedom when asserting it’s simply inappropriate to build the GZ Mosque.) Any way you look at it, the live attendance coupled with the online and television attendance was impressive.

The point is that much is wrong with America these days. There are obviously strong differences about how to approach, address and attempt to solve these problems. The Democrats were quite genuinely impressed by the number of people that turned out for the Obama Inauguration activities. It showed people were interested and involved. It showed they cared. (Although I think they “cared” for some very wrong reasons.)

Now, Beck, Palin, The Tea Party, et. al. have invigorated the electorate and pushed them to action and involvement. I think many voters are much better informed due to their activities. And this is what really eats at me about the current state of politics in America. Why is it somehow bad or harmful now? That it just isn’t your party? Your fellow ideologues? Your version of the “truth”?

If both sides are invigorated and informed, perhaps future elections will spawn better results. Better leaders. Whether they are YOUR guys or ours.

I look at it like this. I did not vote for Obama. But if he had turned the economy around, not raised my taxes, given me better, less expensive health care, not raised my taxes, etc., I would be a staunch, if reluctant supporter now.

Likewise, I would hope that had someone from my side of the aisle been able to accomplish the same, you guys could have been open enough to understand results were the main thing that counts.

An informed, literate and intelligent electorate should be nothing for Politicians (or opposing ideologues) to fear IF they are doing the job we elected them to do.

Unfortunately, so far, President Obama has not fulfilled the “Hope” he fostered and nurtured in an America looking for something “different.” Something “better”.

While that is unfortunate for him and his political future, it is devastating for America. I don’t think he can turn it around because as I maintained from the very beginning, he lacks the political experience and savvy to control his own party. His Presidency has been undermined by the more radical elements of the Left…his own party, simply because (in my opinion) he lacked the experience, political savvy and expertise to control and restrain them.

Something has to give in this country. And it needs to be soon.

@Hank, i am continually surprised that people who rail about obama’s demagoguery can turn around and be supportive of some grinning huckster’s cult of personality. the crowd numbers are impressive until you realize that this event was simply the middle-aged white person’s version of a rock concert, complete with getting to see the pretty people from the T.V. say things like they say on the T.V. while wearing their bright and shiny T.V. faces.

obama never had the “hope” of something “different” or “better”, he had political slogans to help sell his product, that being his political career. likewise, glenn beck et al, have nothing to offer but platitudes and belief reinforcement calculated to keep the money rolling in. to claim an audience so easily manipulated is somehow an informed electorate is like saying that people who love obama no matter what he does are well informed; it’s disingenuous at best and idiotic at worst.

as for your talking points, they’re all pretty much out of the right-wing playbook, although the phony concern trolling and the bullshit about how you would have supported obama (if only he’d acted like a republican!) are laughable. the way i see it, either you are actually rich, and obama is really going to raise your taxes, which suggests you purposefully support this whole disinformation sham because you stand to benefit financially off of it, or you’re not that rich, are, in fact, grossly misinformed, and easily duped by race-baiting con-men.

nothing “has to give” in this country. there have always been charismatic assholes around to stoke the fires of fear and hatred, and part of their bottom line is always that some “revolution” that never comes is on its way. in this case, people are terrified that their white privileged is being slowly revoked, so they’d like to imagine some wagnerian deity descending to restore them to their former glorious place as master in a world full of darker skinned servants. ain’t gonna happen. the corporate machine will continue to gobble us up, and we’ll continue to be divided and distrustful of one another, just like the institution wants us to be.

@rott3nappl3s, I don’t have “talking points”. Sorry to disappoint you, but most of this idiocy I come up with all by my lonely.

However, I do notice that you used four paragraphs and….I don’t know….maybe 700 or 800 words to trot out the tired old liberal argument that I don’t like Obama’s policies because he’s black and I’m a racist. Yawn……..

You either misread or do not understand what I said. For example, I did not say I support Beck’s “cult of personality” (great song by the way). I simply said it is good for the electorate to be informed and invigorated. You obviously don’t like the “information” they are getting or the “source” of that information. That is your prerogative.

Also, I did not say Obama had the “hope” of anything different or better. I said he fostered the hope of something different and better in the electorate.

And if you don’t think this country is so polarized politically, ideologically that “something has to give” in order to make progress, I would respectfully disagree with you.

Seems to me that you trotted out the “race” card for your comment and not much of anything else you said after that was pertinent.

But thanks for your attention.

@Shiva, Okay. Got it!

Bush did it. I’m a victim of “false information”. The Health Care Industry did it. (I mean, who but the gullible Right could have seen THAT coming?) And I do nothing but parrot Conservative Talking points.

So, tell me again. Who lives on “Talking Points”?

“The Last Refuge of the Left”

Thank you.

@Shiva, I don’t believe in censorship. If someone wants to make an ass of themselves, then by all means. Just don’t be surprised when it bites you in the ass later on – and in this case, I hope it does. The zealous efforts by the major political parties to protect their own at all costs is really obnoxious. Without the truth there can be zero meaningful discussion. If there’s one thing you can I can both agree on, I hope it’s that.

People who do this professionally estimate around 86,000 people.

In my comment on the article, I noted that CBS said 87k. NBC said 300k. Most places seem to be reporting in the 300k range. There’s likely something wrong with what CBS reported since their numbers are so much lower than everyone else’s.

The problem is that none of us here have access to their data and methods, so we can’t say if it was a matter of intentional malicious activity (I really hope it isn’t) or just a goof somewhere along the line (most likely scenario).

The lack of transparency and accountability in the news media is really appalling.

But – someone out there has the aerial photos along with the date and time they were taken. There’s probably multiple people with such materials. So, if the population controversy is going to be a news item, I don’t see what is so hard about a large news organization getting access to these photos, getting the information, reporting on it, and outing the people who are manipulating the numbers.

That way, we can find out if the population was 87k, 300k, 400k, or just a few thousand and some careful camera placement.

@Hank,

let’s see”
Me
“that Obama not walked into a financial disaster I think he could have done far more for America.”

Hank
“Bush did it. ”

you completely missed the whole point because you needed to do your talking points thing. It was a comment on Obama, not Bush

Me
“The healthcare providers are doing that on the their own and were raising rates incredibly fast during the eight years of the Bush administration. Obama does not set those rates.

Hank
“The Health Care Industry did it. ”

totally not understanding why you don’t understand that health care industry is the one that raised the prices. Not Bush, not Obama. You could have far more reasonably priced health insurance but it seems there’s a political party that is totally against it.

Me
“I do agree with you that this country is polarized politically and it is coming from a tremendous amount of false information.”

Hank
“I’m a victim of “false information”. ”

I never said anything about you being a victim of false information, you assign that to yourself. That’s paranoia

I suppose I could say as it is presented you agree with me on all points.

@Dianne, However, a firm hired by CBS News to estimate the crowd put attendees at between 78,000 and 96,000. The firm, AirPhotosLive.com, had three estimators go over high-resolution aerial photos of the event, and then combined the three estimates. (One of the estimators talks about the experience here.)

http://tinyurl.com/2errjaj

@Hank, My interest in the numbers only goes as far as my interest in the people who are lying about the real counts for some kind of political gain. It’s lame and unnecessary, and shows how low some people will stoop to try to influence others.

@Andrea Griffin, I agree that the censorship of ideas and information is wrong.

The news sources have not really quoted anyone that is professional that I know of. I read someplace yesterday that aerial people estimated between 85,000 and 100,000 as compared to past crowds there

@Anomaly100, Absolutely not!…Goggle it and compare Obama’s inaugural and Glenn Beck’s. The Washington post did a story on how many people fit in the mall…check it out…the mall hold 2.1 million people according to the park . There are graphs in how they measure a crowd. I compared the tow events for my self. Beck’s was the larger crowd and it is very possible to have had more that a million . I was there and I witnessed the crowds. There were people in front of the Lincoln memorial and across the street and beyond the Washington Monument…The mall was full to capacity….Now if we estimate by what the Washington post printed about Obama’s inaugural…to be far and balanced we should use the same measuring stick. Shouldn’t we…No one knows for sure but Michele is very close in her evaluation… check it out for your self. I personally will not trust the writer of this article with reporting the truth and nothing but the truth…We can not longer trust others to report, we must search out the truth for ourselves…

@Shiva, Really? What are your sources? I have only found one source, CBS News, estimating the crowd under 100,00. But after that, what does it matter? And why are you so desperate to downplay the attendance? Perhaps you’ll like this source:

http://huff.to/cF2YmR

Oh! BTW, “FOX Lies”. Would that be a tried and tired Liberal Talking Point? And I disagree with your statement, “Ratings do not indicate truth.”

In the short term, perhaps not. But over the the last 6 years, with an impressive ratings dominance??? One would think if there was any substance to accusations of lack of truth or bias, they would lose viewers. So far, they have not.

It appears you are yet another who gets his information regarding FOX from Media Matters.