AUDIT THE IRS: Some thoughts about the Tea Party rally on the Capitol's east lawn yesterday.

The rally was scheduled from 12 noon to 2 pm; when I left about 3:30 pm it was winding down with only a couple of speakers left. Attendance? My guess is at least 3,000; less than 10,000 at peak, and average about 5,000. Here's why:

Here's the Capitol grounds at the west end of the Washington mall. The yellow trapezoid marks the rally site, and the yellow bar measures a distance of 100 feet. Roughly, the area encompassed was about 80,000 square feet. Most of the crowd (shoulder-to-shoulder) was in the speaker end of the trapezoid; the other end was populated more sparsely. I made several 'density' estimates from several vantage points, to guess at an average density of about 1 person for every 120-150 square feet; hence the estimate. Here are two crowd pictures. This was taken from about the middle of the trapezoid, looking toward the speaker's podium:

The young lady in the pink top was very animated; she needed the extra room to jump around.

This one was taken farther back, near the base of the trapezoid.

Both pictures were taken at the same time, shortly after the rally began but before the crowd peaked.

Here are some of the signs I saw.

Most were IRS related,

and these two were very sharply worded.

Orwell was a big hit,

and one elderly lady took a swipe at Obama (his politics; not his birth - I spoke with her).

And my absolute favorite:

There were plenty of potential bumper stickers. Among them: DC - District of Cronyism; TEA - Targeted Enough Already, IRS - Internal Revenge Service and Internal Rotten Scandals; Freedom Does Not Mean Free Stuff.

While the rally 'theme' was the IRS, it was not limited to the IRS. The speakers hit all the Obama administration scandals at one time or another: ObamaCare, Benghazi, NSA, immigration, gun control, all as evidence of a 'moral rot' at the White House.

Glenn Beck was the 'headliner' at the rally, and he pushed the 'moral rot' theme hard, though much of the time he spoke in the context of religious values.

Congresscritters speaking in cluded Senators Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Representatives Michelle Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, Tim Huelscamp, Dave Camp, Tom Price, and Jim Jordan.