None of the “protestors” admitted to having ever gathered for such a purpose before, and as such many weren’t sure what to do.  I saw several people taking notes—what a very “conservative” thing to do.  The procession walked by a hotel on the beach patronized by traveling businessmen—the procession received a hearty applause as it passed from several men in business suits who came out for that single purpose. 

Here is the report from Provo, Utah.  

Awesome!  I attended the tea party last night in Provo -- it was my first real involvement in a peaceful protest against oppressive government and taxation without representation.  I also sent some letters to Congressmen pleading with them to pay attention to what is going on and urging them to pass an amendment to hold Congress appropriations to a balanced and limited budget with clauses restraining the abusive use of "emergencies" to thwart such restrictions.  Even an individual or family in a crisis should have enough sense to not rack up the credit card!

I ended up holding a sign that said "F.A. Hayek was correct, THE ROAD TO SERFDOM is paved with good intentions (taxes)". I put the Russian hammer and sickle in the first "O", the swastika inside the first "D", the Chinese communist yellow star on a red background inside the second "O" and the Obama campaign logo inside the last "O".  I'll try to get a picture of it soon to send you.  Many fellow protestors complimented my sign so that fulfilled my own need to feel heard (my little bit of vanity if you will) -- some signs were elaborate while most were put together in haste (e.g. marking pen on cardboard).  I made mine over lunch.

Did you see the video of a CNN reporter interviewing a man holding his infant and trying to discuss how Obama purporting to be like Abraham Lincoln was shameful since Lincoln would never have condoned Socialism.  She basically curtailed the interview and implied that the rally was full of right wing nut jobs that only such radical media stations like Fox news would give voice to.  It was very revealing of how liberal the media has become.  This man was obviously agitated, but very composed and collected and obviously a family man, yet the media was trying to paint him in the same light as a flag burning neo-nazi .  Rather quite shameful.

Report from Bremerton:

Our quickly organized (NOTHING had been available before last Saturday) TEA Party on the Bremerton Boardwalk this evening amazed us.  We thought if 20 people showed up we'd be ahead of the game.  There were over 200 (we guesstimated).  They were exuberant, well behaved, knowledgeable, focused, articulate, and utterly spontaneous.  Only one blemish.  A 50+ probable Haight-Asbury 60's alumni, possibly a street person, who introduced himself as a professional harmonica player (and he had a belt harness with 4 or 5 harmonicas to prove it!) gained access to the microphone (since we didn't have any speakers planned to address the crowd, we allowed volunteers from the crowd to speak briefly on the subject at hand) and he began to harangue the folks for disrespecting the President, being traitors and rabble rousers and generally being WRONG about everything from choice of breakfast cereal to footwear.  People quietly permitted him to express his opinion for probably more than 30 seconds when it became clear that he was interested in disruption rather than persuasion and was seeking press attention.  Then the crowd simply began chanting " USA , USA , USA " until he was asked to permit the next in line to speak.  The next in line quipped, "I wonder how much the harmonica player paid in taxes this year", and the little old grandmother with bad knees sitting at the sign-in table with the petitions and handouts piped up, "probably less than $250,000".  We both nodded in acceptance of the applause, and the moment moved along.  For a quickly put together event, it turned out quite well.  A little bonus was the fact that the Governor's office was hosting a conference of the mayors from around the state in the conference rooms at the convention center overlooking the boardwalk at that time.  Keep in mind that the tallest building in Bremerton can only be five stories high, so they were NOT up there too high to hear us, and they must have been curious about who we were and what we were there for.  But they were not the focus of our attention, so most backs were towards them.  Anyway, I am glad that I made it out and enjoyed meeting so many nice folk.  Including the man who introduced himself as a "reformed extreme Liberal". 

At one point one of the impromptu speakers at the Bremerton TEA Party said it was the first time she'd EVER done anything like this and asked how many of the rest of us were also first timers.  It was overwhelmingly the majority, perhaps unanimous.  NO paid demonstrators in the group.  No professional activists.  Otherwise, they seemed to be a pretty diverse group.  All parties, differing views of other issues, but mostly obviously law abiding polite people.  And when that WWII vet offered to lead the singing of the National Anthem and that crowd SANG together WITH THEIR HANDS ON THEIR HEARTS, it was so moving.  More than just my eyes were being wiped by the end.  And every chin was raised.  It is a military town, after all.  And at least three of the speakers were active duty, set for redeployment to Iraq .  They each thanked the crowd for their support of our troops and for coming out to this event.  They really didn't seem like threats to Homeland Security to me.