NO BIAS HERE, JUST MOVE ON

Hey, robots, use your brain instead of blindly protesting

I don't blame the folks at Fox News for being the promotional engine behind the Tax Day Tea Party protests today.

Fox has been laughable for years, and this is just another low-level stunt for ratings.

So Fox doesn't surprise me. But what does surprise me are the robotic, non-thinking lemmings who will still take their marching orders from Fox, and other stations' hosts.

What still surprises me – to the extent anything in the “mainstream” media can surprise me – is the extent to which “journalists” can’t perform even a simple Google search. If this Gary Stein had done so, he might have discovered that the first tax protest occurred before Rick Santelli’s (of CNBC, not Fox)famous tea party rant.

Fox News may be jumping on,but they certainly aren't leading the bandwagon.

And Gary Stein is going to be thrown under it.

via Don Surber.

A NEW CABINET DEPARTMENT

The Administration response to tea parties.

TAX DAY TEA PARTY IN DC

Here are some initial pictures and impressions from the protest.

It was wet, cold, and raining throughout the day. Even with coats and an umbrella, we left cold, tired, and soaked to the skin. Despite the weather, I'd guess the total attendance was at least 2000, perhaps as high as 3000 at the peak.

It was so closely packed at the outset that we couldn't get close enough to hear the speakers despite the fact that there was a loudspeaker system. This photo gives some idea of the density near the speaker’s stage. It was taken at least 50 feet back from the fence surrounding the stage.



The sign in the center reads:

Constitution – 4400 words
Declaration of Independence – 1328 words
2009 Tax Code – 3.7 million words
JUST WORDS?

The audience was very well behaved -- no clown suits, that sort of thing. There was a large number of families in attendance, and I spotted a fair number of suits & ties in attendance, especially over the lunch hour.


The number of posters and signs, was a little sparser than I expected. Because of the rain, unprotected posters didn’t fare that well. Here’s one on a “pirate” theme. I suppose Senator Harry Reid wasn’t considered important enough to make the list.



And the hiring freeze.



“The 111th Congress could be replaced with a button marked THEFT.” True enough.



But my personal favorite, is this one:



“HOCUS POTUS” You can’t say it better than that.

Please stay tuned. Thoughts to come on the police activity (trivial); the counter-protest (laughable); audience (laudable); and some video clips.