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Current Friday

UPDATE FOR FRIENDS OF BILL ONLINE

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Friday April 6th

FOX NEWS PROTEST NYC

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ProjectBlackout/DemocracyMarch

The day befor the FOX Protest

Thursday April 5th,

I arrived at JFK at 6:30, Harlan James picked me up at the airport, I then

went to the VoterMarch Meeting. I met Lou Posner and David Lytel from

Democrats.com(Dave was one of the speakers that evening).

The meeting was very productive, meanwhile the final touches were being added

at the democracymarch.org meeting in NY as well. Lou is a very professional

organizer and his meeting was great, and many of you should try to make at

least one of them in NY if you can before May 19th.

We all had a wonderful time at dinner later in the evening. We mixed business

with fun and I will share the pictures with all of you at a later date. New

York, New York, and little Italy, what fun.

Many of you do not even know how this protest at FOX began.

Many are writing about the interview that Cheryl Guttman had with Mr.

Hannity, that came about after the PRESS RELEASES were sent out to all the NY

media before the protest.

Around 2 months ago I began ProjectBlackout. The FIRST PROJECT was protest at

Fox News in New York, and some of you remember because I had the first

meeting in my home here in Cincinnati. And we had a chatroom discussion about

how and when we would have the protest. We discussed many of the logistics

that took place at Fox. Members like Lou Posner and myself, GinaRegina,Sherri Newkirk, Skip VanHook, Kevin Cole and

others were present at the meeting. We picked a date and time. We agreed with

Lou that the Friday date would be the best time, since many would be going to

lunch.

I do not live in New York, I live in Cincinnati, Ohio and to be one of the

organizers and creator of this project, it broke my heart not to be there in

NY. I called Helen and I told her she must help. And not only did she help

she contacted many from the DemocracyMarch. This is where the hard work comes

in. DemocracyMarch took over the protest more or less, because they had the

people there and many of our members were in other cities except for Helen Ginsburg.

Helen has been a long time member of Friends of Bill  since 1998 and CitizensAgainstBush.

And we met in DC at the famous We the People rally against Kenneth Starr in 1998.

When I stood on the podium to deliver my speech, I saw the ticker board in front

of the Fox New building. It read Welcome Project Blackout. Well

the first part of my speech was " Hello I am Juliet Stewart, I am not here to talk

about Baseball but play Hardball, and we don't want to talk about the blackout in

California but the blackout on the Stolen Election.

Mr. Roger Ailes came over to me when he put all the unbrellas down on the table.

I reached my hand to him and I said hello Mr. Ailes I am Juliet Stewart founder

of Project Blackout and CitizensAgainstBush, at that moment he paused. He almost took back

his hand for a moment. This was a real Kodak moment if only someone could have captured

the look on his face at that moment. He then reached forward and gave me his hand.

Many thought and wrote that I delivered a powrful speech.  My emphasis was on the stolen election, Jesse Jackson and Media Bias. I was disappointed

that I did not have enough time to finish my speech which included the poem which you can read on Monday's Update.

I was grateful for the

hospitality that Cheryl Guttman showed, by giving me a place to stay. I

stayed in the East Village and Cheryl went out of her way to make me

comfortable.

That morning Helen and I after a little breakfast and shopping in the

morning, got to the Protest, it was raining so hard that my luggage and my

speech were drenched. I saw Sid Oper a long time FOBer. I saw some others who

were at the 1998 DC protest as well.

As an organizer I believe the focus should be on the Protest and it was

successful.

IndyMedia taped the entire Protest. Dave Lytel from democrats.com took many

pictures of the speakers. I hope they all came out well, I would like to post

them on the citizensagainstbush.org web site.

I had to leave shortly after my speech to catch my flight back to Cincinnati,

and we had to take the subways to get to Brooklyn because Harlan's car was at

his home there.

I was only there for the first hour of the rally, and I remember that Roger

Alies came over and introduced himself to me and gave us all Fox unbrellas

as a nice gesture so we would not get wet. I will write Roger and ask him if

we can have another chance to have a face to face meeting with Mr. Hannity

and Colmes.

Helen informed me that Phil Berg and Lou Acosta gave powerful speeches as

well. Helen is making copies of the video and hopefully I will be able to see

how we all did.

Also I know IndyMedia will make the Protest available.

When Cheryl gave her speech she did mention the LA and Tampa rallies. I want

to thank fringefolk.com and the oral majority folk's for their help in making

all the Protest successful.

I wish all of you could have been there. I want to thank all of you who

seldom write and complain but are always there in support and took the time

to write to send email with prayers and thanks.

It is for your dedication that we made the sacrifices to get the Protest at

FOX heard. All NEWS IS GOOD NEWS. I can tell you to get NATIONAL ATTENTION

from FOX is GOOD NEWS, they are worried and they better be. This is only the

beginning.

The delivery by Cheryl was fine but when she told them she didn't watch FOX

that was the end, and I agree that perhaps a better person to speak for the

Protest. Someone from either of our groups, ProjectBlackout or democracymarch

that watched FOX NEWS. But we got attention we had National coverage of the

protest.

This itself is a HUGE success. And it made Hannity and Combs look less

powerful than they think they are. THEY CAME TO US remember that. THEY ARE

WORRIED OF THE MASSES. WE ARE THE MEDIA, as I said in my Speech.

There will be more to come, I was satisfied with the protest and it was a

great turnout considering the rain. But after the rain comes the rainbow. And

Hannity himself said, PLEASE LEAVE US ALONG AND PROTEST AT ABC or CBS etc.

YOU GET IT NOW, THEY ARE WORRIED. Thanks to all of you again in NY and Helen Ginsburg for being my ears and eyes in NY.

big kisses and to those of you who took, jets, subways etc to be there. Those

of you who made protest signs, the platform the sound people, those who

passed out flyers. Hooray to all of you.

I will be in touch and ProjectBlackout has a lot to be proud of. I want to

thank Democracymarch.org for without them none of this could have been

possible.

We had a great dinner with Lou Posner, Chris, Tom,  John(CLG) and others.

Many of our organizations need money to survive, and we need your help for

the next one. And the next one is VoterMarch, and the funds need to come in.

Please help us here. As chairman of the VoterFundraising, I need your help.

Please folk's send your criticism to Hannity and Colmes, remember Cheryl was

one of the organizers and she was exhausted, ask him to focus on the Protest

and NOT ON CHERYL GUTTMAN. THE PROTEST IS THE MESSAGE.

A Big thanks to Harlan and Nancy James without them I would have had to take

all the transit NY had to offer to get to NY from JFK. Please thank Harlan

James for me and the sacrifices he made to get me to and from the airport. A

big thanks to all of you who spoke, sang and danced, you should all give

yourselves a big pat on the back.

in solidarity and peace,

Juliet Stewart

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FRIENDLY FOE

Read what the New York Post said about our Protest at Fox.

Oh by the way, Roger Ailes gave us Fox News unbrellas and coffee. We want to thank

Roger for supporting our protest.

Juliet Stewart

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[Image]

Jennifer Weisbord

FOX News Channel chief Roger Ailes had a warm welcome for the handful of protesters who showed up Friday in the rain. The radical members of Project Blackout believe the media has conspired in a vast coverup - refusing to report the "truth" about how the Republicans "stole" the election for George W. Bush. So Ailes had a message for the dripping demonstrators posted on the electronic zipper of the News Corp. building: "Welcome Project Blackout protesters . . . The most powerful name in news is glad to provide something for you to do today . . . Rest assured we'll give a fair and balanced report as always." Ailes then provided the demonstrators with pots of coffee and Fox News umbrellas, which they gladly deployed.

________________________________

Stolen Election, Silent Media

By By Liza Steele

Columbia Daily Spectator

Copyright 1999-2000 The Columbia Daily Spectator, Inc

To paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt, if we don't exercise our

rights,

>we won't have any rights to exercise. A handful of Democrats showed up in

>front of the Fox News Cable Studio building between 47th and 48th St. on

>Sixth Ave. last Friday to protest the media bias which has resulted in a

>virtual blackout of the stolen election. The event was sponsored by

>DemocracyMarch.org, a grassroots organization founded in New York last

>November, in coordination with Project Blackout. For two hours, in the

rain,

>various activists took turns protesting the illegitimacy of Bush's election

>and subsequent administration, as well as coverage thereof (quite literally

>coverage, not news reporting) by Fox, among others.

>

> Among the events not given adequate media attention is the

>revelation by Greg Palast of BBC News' Newsnight of a ''[$4 million]

contract

>between Governor Jeb's division of elections and a private company in Texas

>named DBT [Database Technologies], which accidentally wiped off the voter

>rolls thousands of Democratic voters.''

>

> Accidentally? Palast testified further that he ''obtained a

>document marked 'confidential and trade secret' which removed from voter

>roles a list of 58,000 felons which turned out to be 95 percent wrong.'' As

>you can imagine, a large percentage of the names on the list were of black

>people, who were overwhelmingly bound to vote for Gore.

>

> This sort of intervention ''in any other country in the world

>[would probably have occasioned] riots or military troops throughout the

>streets.''

>

> For more hair-raising details visit the BBC website

>(http://news.bbc.co.uk/).

>

> It is the tip of an iceberg, really. Last week, in an op-ed

piece

>by Frank Rich titled ''The Slumber Party'' in The New York Times, I

stumbled

>upon the revelation that 6,600 butterfly ballot votes for Gore had been

>disqualified because the voters hadn't known how to use these new devices

>correctly. Then there are the undervotes and the black youth newly turned

18

>who were turned away. Was the issue of conflict of interest ever raised

over

>Katherine Harris doubling as Florida's Secretary of State and Bush's

campaign

>manager?

>

> But we can attempt to do more to halt this rampant encroachment

>on our rights. On Saturday, May 19, votermarch.org will sponsor the Voter

>Rights March to Restore Democracy. Individuals will voice their outrage

over

>the fraud and disenfranchisement of voters in the 2000 election and the

>Supreme Court's partisan decisions. They will call for critically needed

>voting reforms. So many lives have been lost to preserve our liberties. Let

>us regain ours before it is too late, by peaceful protest.

>

> At the April 6 rally, a World War II veteran in his eighties

>regretted that he could not possibly die in peace until our liberties, for

>which he had fought so hard and watched comrades die, were restored. A Fox

>employee jeered at the small group, rudely interrupting a speech with the

>words, ''Freedom of speech!'' What had that to do with anything but what

the

>activists were attempting? One of the protesters became hysterically angry

at

>the mention of the name Rupert Murdoch by another of the speakers and had

to

>be gently silenced more than once.

>

> Though I am sorry to say I have done little more than talk

about

>my outrage at this recent affront to democracy, I am especially surprised

and

>disappointed by the lethargy of the Columbia community. How has more than

>fifty percent of the country, let alone a large majority of Columbia's

>population, allowed their voices (as votes) to be ignored? The sanctity of

>the democracy that we pioneered and propagated has been severely violated.

>But it is not too late to get our outrage on the record.

>

> We must win back an unbiased press, the ''fourth branch'' of

our

>government. That and our voters' rights. Another of the speakers at the

April

>6 rally spoke of her family's presence in this country since the 1600s,

>before the American Revolution. They witnessed the acquisition of freedom

and

>are now horrified at the specter of the Bush threat. Hasn't that family

done

>enough? If office is becoming hereditary, we're far better off with Mr.

Gore

>this time around, whom we did after all elect. If anyone should take

another

>job, it's Bush, who well into his adult life, it is documented, aspired

>toward nothing more than coaching baseball. Let's help him back to that far

>more appropriate place in life before he can do much more damage where he

is.

>

> Copyright 1999-2000 The Columbia Daily Spectator, Inc.

> Website Questions? E-mail online@columbiaspectator.com

____________________________

Faux News Protest, Tampa

We were very apprehensive that it would just be the two of us in our two lone cars, so didn't make a big fanfare calling the other TV stations. We sent a press release to AP this a.m. I think it went wonderfully, and was it ever fun! We were five cars: Suni, myself, Mari and her friend (her name escapes me at the moment), Barbara from St. Pete--she wants to do these once a week!--and two great gals from Brandon who picked up on the internet announcement. So, a caravan was born! Suni did a wonderful job of cutting and fringing our bright orange festoons and we had those draped on either side of our cars, orange balloons, and orange crepe paper streamers--the crowning touch was Suni's great straight-to-the-jugular signs, about 45 of them that she had prepared, in case we had a deluge of participants. We must have circled the Fox 13 building 20 times, honking louder each pass! We received a lot of attention by passing motorists. Kennedy Blvd. is the main drag east/west in Tampa! Fox sent out a camaraman w/ tripod and he filmed us the whole time! We got I would say MOSTLY positive reactions from the public--of course some freepers, one yelling "Gore is a communist"--how pathetic. A young reporter from radio station WMNF (the NPR affiliate) interviewed all of us, and Mari took the time to record it as they broadcast it! Mari got great tape footage of the whole thing and photographs as well.

After an hour of the caravan, we parked and hauled our signs to the sidewalk in front of the studios and did our thing until 2:00--Barbara had to get to work, and I think we all felt that we had left a definite impression on Fox 13. One lone employee from the station did walk up and converse with us, very courteous and Suni brought up the anecdote regarding hypocrite Bush and the 15 year-old girlfriend's abortion. We all agreed that the caravan makes a "bigger" effect than just several bodies protesting with signs. Definitely noisier! I do believe that we stayed on message, particularly in the radio interview. Mari and friend, and Suni headed to Sweet Tomatoes and then on to Suni's place in Clearwater, and I headed east to my daughter's in Brandon. I feel very, very good about our action today against the worst of the slantmeisters! I'm sure you will receive other tidbits from my cohorts.

JanL

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