The billboard created by
Working Assets and the League of Independent Voters -- and inspired and funded by
the DailyKos community -- landed on Grover Norquist's doorstep at 1920 L St. this morning just in time for his infamous weekly "Wednesday meeting" of the conservative elite.
And Raw Story was there to blog it.
So did the Center for American Progress via Campus Progress.
There's more on the flip side, including another pic and a request for your Kosmopolitan suggestions for our billboard driver in DC...
From CAP's Campus Progress:
Working Assets, an organization that "helps busy people make a difference" organized an event that showed just how crude and dangerous Mr. Norquist's ideas about government really are. Activists rented a truck whose cab was flanked by two twin billboards, featuring Field Marshal Norquist's famous quote juxtaposed with an image of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - a drowned New Orleans. Appropriately, at 8:45 this morning Working Assets parked the truck in front of the offices of Americans for Tax Reform, an essential part of Norquist's New Right brigade, and the meeting place for that weekly breakfast strategy session of rightist revolutionaries.
With the conspicuous truck parked squarely in front of Americans for Tax Reform's locked-down offices, a sizeable handful of activists, with original chants that point to America's shameful standards in high school English curricula, courted media photographers while making their presence known to the planners of the watery death of American government. "246810 What if a hurricane comes again? 13579 Your rich friends will be just fine." Someone missed that 9th grade lesson on meter.
Other spontaneous chants included:
Katrina wasn't Heaven-sent
Grover shrank the Government
Move on over, Grover
The neo-con game is over
New Orleans -- still-a-hurtin'
We don't need no Halliburton!
Under-fundin' FEMA
Is meaner than Katrina
Smaller government, here's the rub:
We're all drowning in Grover's tub
More chants -- including an original "O When The Rains" song , sung to the tune of "When the Saints Go Marching In" -- are included in one of the first comments to this diary.
Now that we've given Grover and company a visual comeuppance, we need your help.
From CAP:
(Working Assets organizer Andrew) Boyd will be taking the graphic-laden truck to what he calls "the twelve stations of the cross of the conservative movement," such as the offices of the CATO institute, the Republican club, and the Heritage Foundation. (We hope the Heritage interns can see the billboards from their magical balconies.) And true to its progressive, grassroots inspiration, the eight days of diesel-fuelled activism has been funded by only a few days' worth of $5+ donations from people like you and me, not by some establishment organization funded by, say, a world-renowned billionaire investment banker with progressive political leanings. Boyd wanted us to note that in particular. Don't worry -- we at CAP didn't take it personally.
Due to the ideas germinating out of Daily Kos comment threads, CATO and Heritage are now on our DC itinerary. But we need more right-wing haunts for ample billboard exposure.
Help us decide where the billboard goes next!
On Thursday, we're going to drive the billboard around downtown DC. Where should we go? Include site, address, rationale, and any tricky driving instructions (for a 30' x 13' 4" truck!). On Friday, the same goes for the Virginia suburbs. If you know of any special events we should drive by or park outside of, tell us what and when. FYI: Saturday we'll be at the anti-war march, and Sunday is still being figured out...
Post your suggestions in the thread below and recommend this diary so we get as many good ideas as possible!
p.s. Andrew Boyd, billboard shepherd and co-founder of Billionaires for Bush, also recently cooked up "Katrina a la Bush" at http://www.RecipeForDisaster.org -- a poignant reminder of the devastating human consequences of the radical right's anti-government agenda.
Update [2005-9-21 22:17:15 by Fiat Lux]: Excellent ideas so far, Kossacks! We can't choose them all, but in a little while we'll be posting many dKos-inspired D.C. tour stops for "The Grover" on Thursday. Come back and find out where when the diary title is changed to "[NEW LOCATIONS]". Stay tuned... and keep storming your brains for ideas (if it's good, we may just change the itinerary)!
Update [2005-9-22 1:17:39 by Fiat Lux]: Here's the itinerary for Thursday! (Watch this diary for TWO secret locations revealed late Thursday morning)
GROVER NORQUIST'S KATRINA "BATHTUB" BILLBOARD
THURSDAY'S TOP TEN TOUR STOPS
1) Republican National Committee
2) American Enterprise Institute
3) The Federalist Society
4) Heritage Foundation
5) Cato Institute
6) Up and down "K" Street, back and forth… forever.
7) The Washington Post
8) Capitol Hill congressional offices (security pending) of Tom DeLay, John Cornyn, Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Rick Santorum (and other elected reps suggested by Kossacks in this thread)
9) Washington Nationals vs. San Francisco Giants baseball game (at RFK Stadium, 4:35 pm EST)
10) "Blogging: Free Press for All or Free-for-All?" panel discussion as part of the National Archives' Constitution Day activities (7 pm)
and… two super-secret (dare I say "double-secret") bonus locations that we'll reveal late on Thursday morning.
If you want to get the skinny on the secret locations (shhhhhh), keep recommending this diary so it can be used for updates throughout the day (unfortunately, I can't post another full diary until 6 pm EST due to the one-diary-a-day rule).
Meanwhile, here's where "The Grover" will be roving over the weekend:
FRIDAY:
Northern Virginia locations to be determined (got suggestions? post them in the comments!)
SATURDAY:
On the periphery of the 9/24 anti-war protest as it passes by the White House (unfortunately, trucks won't be allowed in the march)
SUNDAY:
Outside NBC's "Meet the Press" headquarters (where MTP guests are interviewed by other media following their appearances)
(also considering a mega-church in Arlington, VA, that many conservative elites attend)
And… ?
Please keep posting your suggestions so the bathtub billboard can tour more locations in D.C. and Northern Virginia this weekend.
And again, please continue to recommend this diary so it can be used for updates to reveal Thursday's secret locations.
Update [2005-9-22 15:18:30 by Fiat Lux]:
SECRET LOCATION REVEALED
Well, unfortunately, we could not get the second location nailed down, but we still got the bathtub billboard delivered to the most important destination of the day.
Drum roll please...
Grover Norquist's home
Yep -- the billboard was at Grover's place bright and early this morning...
NEXT UP: Northern Virginia and a few DC locations on Friday -- mostly suggested by Kossacks -- will be revealed later this afternoon, including the Club for Growth and the American Conservative Union.
If you know of any locations that haven't been mentioned -- either in DC or Northern Virginia -- please add them to the comments. If it's good, we'll change the itinerary!
We're looking at locations for Saturday and Sunday as well, including the protest, of course.
Look out for another diary soon regarding billboard locations... beyond DC. :-)