UPDATED: 9:42 pm EST
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t expect any of the so-called elite media to provide positive coverage of the tea party protests that took place all over America yesterday, but I also didn’t expect the liberal media to come right out and lie about what happened. Here is what the NY Times had to say: “It was hard to determine from the moderate turnout just how effective the parties would be.”
This is a complete lie and everyone know it! The NY Times then went on to explain that there were 200 protesters in Philadelphia and 500 in Pensacola, Florida, and completely ignoring the hundreds of thousands of people that attended 2000 tea parties across the country yesterday. Yes, that’s right, hundreds of thousands of people. The math is actually quite simple. Even if you assume only 100 protesters at 2,000 tea parties that is 200,000. In reality, we know that there were far more than 100 protesters per tea party, so don’t be surprised if in the days to come we learn that there were not hundreds of thousands of people, but rather millions who protested on April 15, 2009, which is a day that is likely to go down in history books as the day a peaceful conservative revolution started the march to take back America.
The Vancouver Sun also reported that turnout for tea parties was “tepid” in the US, but the story goes on to explain:
About 4,000 people are reported to have shown up in Cincinnati, Ohio, while Chicago drew an estimated 5,000 protesters and Des Moines, Iowa, drew 3,000.
Exactly what is “tepid” about that? In fact, according to RedState.com, which is trying to compile a list much like the one I have below, with reports on only 156 of the 2,000 tea parties there were at least 309,985 people who protested yesterday.
While crowd estimates are really only starting to roll in, don’t let the liberal media fool you. Turnout was remarkable and despite the fact that left learning so-called “news” sources are saying attendance was poor, our political leaders know the truth, which is why we need to keep the momentum going and call our Representatives and Senators. While they listen to the liberal media far more than they should, they are also pragmatists and understand that ignoring millions of people is not a strategy for getting re-elected.
Here is what we know so far in terms of crowd turnout for the tea parties held yesterday, in no particular order and with links to where I came up with the estimates.
- Atlanta, Georgia — 15,000 to 20,000 (see also Atlanta Police Estimate)
- Indianapolis, IN — 12,000 to 15,000
- Cincinnati, Ohio — 4,000 (see Vancouver Sun above)
- Chicago, IL — 5,000 (see Vancouver Sun above)
- Des Moines, Iowa — 3,000 (see Vancouver Sun above)
- Lansing, MI — 5,000
- Dayton, OH — 4,000 to 5,000
- Birmingham, AL — 5,000 to 7,000 (see also The Liberty Papers)
- Huntsville, AL — 2,300
- Rapid City, SD — 1,500
- San Antonio, TX — 4,000 to 5,000
- Houston, TX — 8,000
- Texas — Fort Worth (3,000), Southlake (500), Austin (1,000), Burelson (500)
- Tennesee — Chattanooga (2,000), Knoxville (1,700)
- San Diego, CA — 3,000
- Sacramento, CA — 5,000
- Washington, DC — 3,000
- San Francisco, CA — 500
- Salt Lake City, UT — 2,000
- Baton Rouge, LA — 1,000 to 3,000
- Arizona — Phoenix (5,000), Tuscon (1,500), Gilbert (1,000)
- New York, NY — 12,500 (Newt Gingrich quoting NYPD on O’Reilly 4/16/09)
- Boise, ID — 2,000
- Olympia, WA — 5,000
- Spokane, WA — Thousands
- Grand Junction, CO — 2,000 to 3,000
- Charleston, SC — 2,000 to 2,500
- Columbia, SC — 3,000
- Carson City, NV — 2,000
- Salem, OR — 1,000 to 2,000
- Madison, WI — Thousands
- St. Paul, MN — 2,000
- North Carolina — 17,500 (see also Raliegh count of 5,000 to 7,000)
- Kansas (various) — 5,000 +
- Overland Park, KS — 2,000
- Boston, MA — 2,000
- Louisville, KY — 2,000 to 3,000
- Tulsa, OK — 1,000 to 1,250
- Hartford, CT — 5,000
- Santa Ana, CA — 800
- Albany, NY — 2,000
- Miscellaneous estimates reported by American Spectator
Tampa, FL — 3,250
Jacksonville, FL — 4,000
Sarasota, FL — 2000
Tallahasee, FL — 1,500
Fort Lauderdale, FL — 4,000
Oklahoma City, OK — 4,000 to 5,000
Nashville, TN — 10,000
Springfield, TN (300)
Mt. Juliet, TN — 2,000
Franklin, TN — 4,000
St. Louis, MO — 8,000 to 10,000
Providence, RI — 1,000 to 2,000
Hopefully our leaders, including President Obama himself, were paying attention. I know I called my Senators, Senators Warner and Webb today. I had to leave a message for Senator Webb, but actually talked to a polite staffer at Senator Warner’s office. I reminded the staffer that Senator Warner, who was overwhelmingly elected in November 2008, received a lot of Republican votes and that he needed to pay attention!
Tags: ny times, obama, taxed enough already, tea party
Gene, I’m confused. To take back America from whom – ourselves? For the first time someone is Washington is saying, let’s give tax breaks to people who make $250,000 or less – i.e., the majority of “the people.” So 98% of “the people” should see their tax bill go down – THAT can’t be what they’re protesting.
So it has to be what we’re doing with the money. For 6+ years, we’ve been spending billions a day on military missions to Afghanistan (probably necessary) and Iraq (probably not). The plan is to reduce this expenditure (not overnight but in an orderly way according to the wisdom of our military commanders), so THAT can’t be what they’re protesting.
What else? Oh, yes, the bailout and the stimulus. As I understand it, bailout money is repayable – I was just reading a story about how some financial company that had gotten bailout money had paid some of it back when things went better than expected. And the stimulus is to put “the people” back to work. So what is the beef – do “the people” object to contributing so that the guy down the street has a job until the economy gets better? Would you rather that he be unemployed for months on end? Are neighborhoods full of empty houses a good idea for the rest of us fortunate enough to be able to keep ours?
This is America – we should help each other. No one did teabag parties when we were pouring our money into Iraq instead of spending it to make our ports and borders safer, or to develop new technologies to detect chemical, biological or nuclear threats more quickly. I think the reason the mainstream media has been dismissive of these “events” is that they have been stimulated by people with a political agenda opposite to the Obama administration – the same ones that want him to fail not for the good of the country but for their own political ends.
Count me out. We have enough challenges, caused in some part by neglecting to be focused on what’s important for the last 8 years. I’d like us to succeed
Kevin-
I respect you, but disagree with a lot here. The disagreement we are going to have is that the mission in Iraq was not necessary. History will prove it was exactly the right thing to do. So many say we should have finished the job in Afghanistan, without ever considering what that would have meant. If we go into Afghanistan and all the terrorists who hate America go there to fight us then it is a very different battle. Drawing them to Iraq where the terrain favors us is a brilliant tactical move. On top of that we get rid of one of the worst dictators in history. I can’t see how that is a bad thing. Iraq is succeeding, terrorists are dying and American is safe.
I do think you are right that these tea parties are about what the government is doing with the money. By the time the overwhelming majority of stimulus money gets spent the recession will be over, at least for a short while until the inflation caused by the reckless spending puts us right back into a recession.
There is also a healthy distrust for government. How can you seriously trust someone who says he is going to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term when he is first doubling it for several years and then halving it will still be a larger deficit than any year under Bush. Not to mention that the debt will at least double or triple under the Obama Administration. I disagreed with Bush bailing out companies, and I disagree with Obama not only making the same mistakes, but making them in far grander fashion.
You are also right about our neighborhoods. Everyone knows this mess was created by banks lending money to people who could never pay it back. They ran up prices and the housing market collapsed. Spending more and more money without fixing the housing crisis is just plain wasting money that we will eventually have to pay back. Check that… no one believes we will ever pay back the $10 trillion projected debt. We will inflate our way out of that, which is going to lead to prolonged economic crisis.
-Gene
protested for or against what?