While the nation is awakening to the big spenders in Washington with over 2000 Tea Party protests across the nation, liberal "progressive" media is mounting its own anti-tea party movement online and on cable news.

Appearing on Fox, ThinkProgress' Faiz Shakir accused the network of promoting what they called the "anti-Obama tea parties.”

Shakir said, "These tea parties are a sham. The reason they're a sham is because they're directed by lobbyists here in D.C. ... And on top of that, you've got this network, Fox News, which is advocacy -- pushing this, promoting this with all of its heart. And it is not a grassroots movement when you have Jonathan Hoening, Neil Cavuto, Glenn Beck, Greta van Susteren promoting this up the wazoo. That is not a grassroots movement.”

"Let me jump in, there's a big difference between covering something and promoting it," guest host Charles Payne responded to his accusation.

Progressive media is on its own campaign giving negative coverage of the Tea Party in an obvious effort to play down the anger the American people feel about taxation, stimulus packages and bailouts.

Today the HuffingtonPost in its so-called comprehensive coverage of the Tax Day Tea Party protests, published an article entitled, "Tea Bag Error: Protests Causing Scares, Evacuations at Congressional Offices." According to the post legislators are fleeing for their lives as concerned citizens mailed out tea bags.
The article reads as follows: “Local reports indicate that the practice of mailing actual tea bags to legislators is raising security concerns, and sometimes forced the evacuation of congressional offices in anthrax-like scares.”

This comes as no surprise as the Department of Homeland Security warned law enforcement of the rise of “rightwing extremists” in the nation.

In another article in the NY Times, columnist Paul Krugman critized the American people's tea party saying, “They are AstroTurf (fake grassroots) events manufactured by usual suspects (G.O.P).”

He said the tea parties are not an accurate representation of public sentiment.

“These parties -- antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution -- have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so," said Krugan

Krugan attempts to connect the G.O.P to the Tea Parties writing, “Everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party.”

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on her Show denigrated the movement with puns for 13 minutes, calling it “insanitea” organized by conservative activists. She mockingly laughed out loud as she disparaged the tea party movement during the broadcast.

Newsweek’s senior editor Daniel Gross also said the movement was “AstroTurf” rather than grassroots because he alleges it begun from the top down, according to NewsBusters.

“I think, when it comes to teabagging, the president should probably just ignore this,” Gross said. “He's got 10 other things on his plate, you know, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the banking crisis, the overall economic situation. To get bogged down with a -- you know, what seems to be a fringe group of people throwing consumer products into the lakes and rivers of this nation doesn't seem to be worthy of his attention. ...”

However, hundreds of other daily and local news stations have announced Tax Day tea parties in various towns and cities. There are tea parties in more than 2000 cities with nearly 3,000 organizers across the U.S. If this is “AstroTurf,” it's pretty real and big.

CNN Reporter Confronts Tea Party Protesters