TPMDC
Capitol Hill Tea Party Crowd Growing
Eric Kleefeld and Evan McMorris-Santoro | November 5, 2009, 11:28AM
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Today's big Capitol Hill Tea Party, promoted by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), is getting ready to begin this morning, and already about 1,000 people are there, many of them arriving on buses sent by the event's organizers. This is not like the failed flash-mob from last week -- it's a seriously organized protest.
Attendees are set to go inside the Capitol itself, and personally lobby members of Congress to oppose the Democrats' health care bill. Many of them are carrying the Gadsden Flag and other protest signs. There is no sign of any increased security on Capitol Hill, which some Tea Partiers and their supporters had warned about.
One attendee was a man named Keith, a disabled veteran from Goldsboro, North Carolina, bused in this morning with about 50 other people from his area, and who was carrying an empty suit on a pole. "Look, the lights are on but nobody's home in there," said Keith, pointing at the Capitol. asked if that was directed at any specific people in Congress, he replied: "Pick one."
Is this group misunderstood? "It's people that don't come to these rallies that don't know what's going on at these rallies," said Keith. "I've been labelled an extremist, but I'm a patriotic, gun-toting American veteran."
Late Update: The crowd has now grown to between 2,000-3,000, and is increasing by the minute with chants of "Can you hear us now?" A man with a bullhorn is calling for a sit-in at Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office in the Cannon Building, at 1:45 p.m., to read the 1,900 page bill aloud page by page. "We're going to have a sit-in," the man declared. (Note: Pelosi's actual office as Speaker is in the Capitol, and her Cannon office handles her duties as a member for her home district.)
Late Late Update: One thing that would surprise an outsider at a Tea Party rally would be the diversity of opinion that would be found within the crowd. While presumably all of the protestors are opposed to the health care bill, there are very differing views about the government itself. For example, Dorothy Manthey, from Port St. Lucey, Florida, told Evan McMorris-Santoro she had lost complete faith in her government. "I never thought of my government as evil growing up, she said. "But that's what it is today, it's evil."
That view contrasted with the point of view of Laurie Danley, who brought her family to Washington, D.C., from New Jersey yesterday. "I really want to believe that the people in there listen to us," she said. "I honestly feel like we're gonna have an impact today."
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mans_best_friend
November 5, 2009 11:37 AM
"I've been labelled an extremist, but I'm a patriotic gun-toting American veteran."
OMG
Who wants to bet that this clown couldn't answer correctly the simplest questions about what's actually contained in these bills?
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Powkat
November 5, 2009 3:48 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
Or the Constitution. Or pass the test required for citizenship. The degree of ignorance in this country is enormous - and our popular culture encourages it.
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geofu54
November 5, 2009 11:38 AM
No, you ARE an extremist. Make no mistake about that.
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Nicnack74
November 5, 2009 11:41 AM
I don't see them getting in building regardless of what Michelle Bachmann says. You generally need a purpose for your visit and peaceful assembly isn't it.
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pol
November 5, 2009 11:53 AM in reply to Nicnack74
Not only that, but each and every one of them have to go through a magnetometer and pocket search.
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holyhandgrenaid
November 5, 2009 11:45 AM
One attendee was a man named Keith, a disabled veteran from Goldsboro, North Carolina,
I assume hes there to protest his socialist VA coverage?
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Overreach THIS!
November 5, 2009 11:56 AM in reply to holyhandgrenaid
Keep guv'mint out of his VA coverage!!
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AnswerFrog
November 5, 2009 12:00 PM in reply to Overreach THIS!
Big govt that personally benefits me is good.
Anything that might go to some poor slob who is, crucially, not me, is bad. Those people are 'losers' who should sink or swim.
But don't you dare touch my medicare, or VA benefits!
I call this the "me" principle.
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geofu54
November 5, 2009 12:04 PM in reply to AnswerFrog
... and I don't benefit from government, that's what I personally earn.
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AnswerFrog
November 5, 2009 12:17 PM in reply to geofu54
You don't, drive on roads, for example. Or use the internet. (Thanks DARPA!). Also, You don't use GPS, right. And never went to school.
Awesome, caveman.
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Stroszek
November 5, 2009 11:50 AM
These folks must really like insurance companies.
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Dorn76
November 5, 2009 11:50 AM
These people have no idea that they are being played for fools. It's sad to see, really.
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eric the red
November 5, 2009 11:54 AM
If they go inside, I assume they will be arrested just as the protesters in Lieberman's office today.
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Orlando
November 5, 2009 12:13 PM in reply to eric the red
That was actually a master stroke, intended or not. Now, when they are arrested, the police can claim total non-bias. They arrest liberals AND conservatives.
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Gordon Sewer
November 5, 2009 11:55 AM
I hope Keith brought BBQ from Wilbur's in Goldsboro. That place is great.
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jenesq
November 5, 2009 11:56 AM
Can we please not overdramatize these tools? 3,000 protestors? So freaking what? That's a tiny fraction of the people who showed up for the Marriage Equality event in DC, and a minute fraction of the numbers who regularly showed up to protest the Iraq War. Don't give these astrofturfed cretins more credit than they deserve.
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AnswerFrog
November 5, 2009 11:57 AM
I hate it when extremists get labeled as extremists.
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kash79
November 5, 2009 12:03 PM
3,000 Bachmann followers...I have a jeebeezus on my toasted bread I have to sell to one of these idiots, brb.
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VivaAmerica!
November 5, 2009 12:06 PM
A disabled veteran protesting against socialized health care? fucking idiot.
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sommers
November 5, 2009 12:11 PM
These people are there fighting for you all, you younger folks. You just don't know it yet.
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Chris
November 5, 2009 12:18 PM in reply to sommers
How exactly are they fight for us younger folks?
Fighting to prevent us from having affordable health care when we are older?
Fighting to preserve the private insurance companies that cut our coverage when we need it?
Fight to protect the insurance industry's profits and executive bonuses?
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Stroszek
November 5, 2009 12:22 PM in reply to sommers
I like how this troll assumes everyone on the internet must be about 20 years-old. Gee whiz Sommers, how did you ever get that new-fangled TV to phone your ISP and bring you here? Must be a genius.
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Matt Jones
November 5, 2009 12:17 PM
I bet the organizers will also claim that the rally is "non-partisan", nevermind the fact that it's been solely promoted by Republicans and Faux News.
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Chris
November 5, 2009 12:19 PM in reply to Matt Jones
That's the way it always works, isn't it?
But if you have a gay rights protest, it's always just left-wing liberals.
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cyntax
November 5, 2009 12:31 PM in reply to Chris
Err... not really.
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Chris
November 5, 2009 12:57 PM in reply to cyntax
Sorry. I was being sarcastic. I should have made that more obvious.
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cyntax
November 5, 2009 1:19 PM in reply to Chris
My bad--thanks for the clarification.
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geofu54
November 5, 2009 12:27 PM in reply to Matt Jones
Yeah, and they will also add it's freedom-loving-patriotic-true-american.
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glogrrl
November 5, 2009 12:49 PM in reply to Matt Jones
And "protesters" were bused in by The Dick Armey wholly-owned rabal rousers, FreedomWorks. Non-partisan it ain't, and I never cease to be amazed at the number of fools the wingnuts get to protest against their own best interests! I presume everybody in the crowd who has VA benefits or Medicare are willing to give up those "socialist" bennies, as a matter of principle, of course!
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howie
November 5, 2009 1:49 PM in reply to Matt Jones
My local teabag leader gets to write a weekly column in the paper. She always states that they "leave their partisan politics at the door!"
She's also the president of a Republican club.
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John Hamilton Farr
November 5, 2009 12:26 PM
Ah yes, this is attracting attention. Real bodies DO count.
Unfortunately, our side got smug and lazy over the last 10 years. We figured that blogs were all we needed. Huge netroots folly! "Heh, those wingnuts don't know how to use the Internet, the fools!"
I've been pointing this out for years, but no one paid attention, and why should they? I only wrote it on a blog...
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Stroszek
November 5, 2009 12:28 PM in reply to John Hamilton Farr
I recall much, much larger protests against the invasion of Iraq.
Obviously, it didn't work.
The fact of the matter is that whether you're talking 120 people or 120,000,000, congress critters are pretty much inoculated to protesters and don't care.
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Powkat
November 5, 2009 3:52 PM in reply to Stroszek
Exactly - the 'librul media' didn't cover those protests, or the rally for gay rights a few weeks ago, all of which were bigger than these. Don't want to give credibility to those dirty hippie leftist protests - they aren't really Murican.
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Nicnack74
November 5, 2009 12:27 PM
I don't see them getting in building regardless of what Michelle Bachmann says. You generally need a purpose for your visit and peaceful assembly isn't it.
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roxanne
November 5, 2009 12:31 PM
Disabled Veteran. Hmmm? I wonder how he got that way? Disabled I mean? Sent over by a warmongering president who is a member of his own party. These people are real idiots. Bush and Cheney in particular epitomized evil with a huge does of incompetents and yet these ignorant, inbreds never felt compelled to form these angry, teabagging, phony ass protest. Then you've got many in these crowds who openly display their racisim and ignorance. As an Afican American female, I have a message for those folks in particular. Kiss My Ass! The historic elections last year brough out record numbers of people of every race and we banded together to kick your asses and now, they think our side is not entitled to govern? Elections have consequences. The winner gets to lead. Now, if someone could just tell that to the Democrats!
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Dave Bowman
November 5, 2009 12:40 PM
3,000 people? That must make the ratio of organizers to protesters about 1:1.
Lost faith in the guvmint? Think its evil? Where where you during the Bush era, woman? I suppose, like the other wingnuts, you thought everything was hunky dory during those salad days.
Having a sit-in? Typical reactionary right, trying to ape the left, but ending up like a horribly clumsy parody.
Fuck these douchebags. They only think they're having a real protest because FAUX Newz didn't cover the millions of US protesters against the War in Iraq back in 2002. I was in a sea of 800,000 people marching in NYC, and *that* was a real protest.
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budzilla
November 5, 2009 12:41 PM
I got more responses than that with my last Craig's Listing.
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falafelboy
November 5, 2009 1:09 PM
Steve Lonegan is speaking right now. Astroturf douche. Is this guy for real? He sounds like a cross between Pee Wee Herman and Daffy Duck.
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Democracy Boy
November 5, 2009 1:14 PM
All you gotta do, apparently, is throw around the words "liberty" and "freedom", and then suggest -- however indefensibly and inexplicably -- that "freedom" and "liberty" are somehow threatened by some bill, and you're off to the races.
Why aren't these people proposing that Medicare be eliminated? Isn't that a (big) government health-care program?
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Democracy Boy
November 5, 2009 1:17 PM
Ha. This is just great. Some dude from FreedomWorks said, "This will be remembered as THE DAY YOU KILLED HEALTH CARE!" And everyone cheered like crazy. Might as well have said, "This will be remembered as THE DAY YOU TRIED TO ENSURE THAT YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO AFFORD HEALTH CARE AT ALL IN A FEW SHORT YEARS, IDIOTS!"
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Democracy Boy
November 5, 2009 1:23 PM
Sorry to keep posting, but this rally is just hilarious. They keep pointing out some protesters' sign that says "You Can't Fix Stupid." Exactly.
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Overreach THIS!
November 5, 2009 1:35 PM
I still believe that if these cretins can really prove that they are the STOOOOPIDEST in the land, then that will send a strong message and **shake up Washington!**
What will Pelosi do *THEN* if she's so sly?
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lapdogs
November 5, 2009 1:36 PM
"Seriously Organized"?
That can only mean that we'll be seeing Rachel Maddow digging deep and finding that it was Dick Armey who really organized it and Bachmann had nothing to do with it - except acting her typical stupid self.
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gdunn45
November 5, 2009 1:44 PM
Thank you TPM for this excellent coverage! You can't make up this kind of comedy.
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Beagle
November 5, 2009 1:52 PM
(Actual Number of attendees + Expected number of attendees)^2 =
Total number of attendees that'll be reported by POX news tonight
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artwrite
November 5, 2009 2:30 PM
They believe in freedom. Freedom to be ignorant, intolerant, duped pigeons. Freedom to be pitied. Freedom to be laughed at.
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Michael A
November 5, 2009 2:34 PM
Ok, lets put this in context. 250,000 protested the invade a country for the hell of it and murder hundreds of thousands of innocents and the king and his enablers still went ahead.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/166/31007.html
5,000 to 8,000 racist wingnuts "protest" getting psychiatric care to deal with their mental problems and expect something? Give me a break.
I really wish the right wing media would ignore this, like they ignored the peace protests before the iraq war. Ah, but that is wishful thinking.
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David L Wetzell
November 5, 2009 3:35 PM
I think it's awesome that these folks are doing this...
And I hope that we get strategic election reform that will make a good deal of them active local t(hird)party members, inasmuch as the center will have moved on by then....
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