Tea Party in Milwaukee

I attended my first Tea Party yesterday, an experience I would highly recommend. Held in Milwaukee at Veterans Park along the lakeshore, on a beautiful, sunny Saturday. Considering winter is on it's way, this could very well have been the last one this year. Yet, 10 - 15,000 people attended.

Since I arrived early, I was right up front. Still, I would have liked to have been closer to the stage. I didn't have a good camera and will bring a better one next time. I definitely intend on attending more of these. Nothing like a round of excellent speakers and thousands of polite, but angry patriots, to get your blood pumping.

The Tea Party was held as a belated celebration of Constitution Day. So it began with a reading of the constitution.

The speakers included local politicians, radio personalities, the Milwaukee County Sheriff, two people you know, Joe the Plumber and Michelle Malkin.In addition, someone you should know. Willie Soon, of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a proponent of the idea that solar activity—not man-made emissions—explains varying temperatures on earth. Dr. Soon had his own Al Gore moment last March at the WSJ ECO:nomics conference in California, when he told the former vice president that he “strongly disagreed” with Mr. Gore’s stance on global warming. “So you disagree with 3,000 scientists? Okay,” Mr. Gore replied.

Another speaker, Rachel Campos-Duffy, blogger and author of "Stay Home, Stay Happy". Her advice to congress and Washington? Relearn the lessons of your childhood. Such as; stand up straight, look me in the eyes and don't lie.

The theme of Michelle Malkin's speech was "calling out" the corrupted in Washington. I had hoped to meet her after she spoke. Unfortunately, she disappeared right after her speech. As I discovered from a blog this morning, one member of her security explained, she had to rush to catch her plane. On the way to the airport, she stopped at a local Walgreens in a part of the city notorius for it's radical 60's anti-war lefties. Luckily for them, they didn't recognize her. ;)

Thanks goes to Patrick Dorwin for the video of her complete speech. It is 14 minutes long:



Watch Milwaukee TEA Party in News View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Yes, there was "an incident" that took place. Joe the Plumber stepped in to help break it up. One man was arrested. It was all the way over on the other side, so I did not witness it. I will allow a couple of witnesses explain what they saw:

A commenter at Crawford's Take:

HE ATTEMPTED TO RUSH THE STAGE AS vICKI mCkENNA WAS SPEAKING BUT WAS STOPPED BY OTHER MEN, A wOMAN TOOK HIS PICTURE, HE THEN STRUCK HER, AND WAS FOLLOWED TIL’ LAW ENFORCEMENT WHICH WAS AT THE BACK OF 10,000 FOLKS, COULD BE SUMMOND, HE WAS SCREAMING IN THE FACES AND SWATTING AT MULTIPE PEOPLE.When one of the individuals who witnessed the striking reported is to the LEOs, they attempted to detain him , and he tried to flee! It is my understanding that his charge(es) will be reviewed by the City Attorney Monday morning!

A second commenter adds this:
This crazy loon( the so called beaten by the cops guy) started near the front of the stage. He was an antagonizing asshole. I saw him slap a drink out of a 17 y/o girls hand. He broke anothers camera by slamming it to the ground and also pushed and bullied many others cameras.
He kept yammering on about I HAVE FREE SPEECH, while the same argument was pointed back at him. THIS GUY WAS A BULLY and most likely did this for this purpose, for Dems to hate on an otherwise festive time.

Joe the Plumber joined in and he WAS BREAKING UP THE SQUABBLE! He had a booth set up and when he saw what was happening he got between the squabbling. So don’t slur him. He said to me, “we don’t need this.” I agree. But he didn’t even know what happened but I did.
The Sheirff’s told the guy to leave. He called the cops Pigs and Fuckers and then started to go back. The cops tackled him and his face got fucked up from the ground because of his delusional flailing.

I was there I SAW IT!

There is a video of the incident here. And here, additional video/different angle with a little more from Joe here. Thanks MR! :)

Below are some pics of the Tea Party that I and others took (click to enlarge):

Michelle Malkin


Joe the Plumber


Some of the crowd [Maciver Institute]



Signs [The Dave Casper Experience][Maciver Institute]




The counterprotesters, LOL [No Sanction]


Glenn Reynolds also has a couple of great pics up.

And finally, a sign I heard about today that I cannot find a picture of, said,

LIBERALS OF THE WORLD, IGNITE!