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Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

By adamg on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 1:42pm

And who doesn't? Sarah Palin proved she was coached on Boston by cheering on all our pro sports teams today, as a few thousand Tea Partiers, bemused onlookers and a bunch of liberal radical commie socialists mingled on the Common today:

It was all peaceful, almost festival-like, what with the booths selling T-shirts and flags and hot dogs. Well, yeah, and people calling for impeachment and taking back the country from the socialist heathens who were, um, elected by the people. I overheard a number of discussions between Tea Partiers and hippies and while neither convinced the other to change sides, they were very civil.

About the only people who actually got to see Caribou Barbie were the hated, loathsome media whom the Tea Partiers gave a giant platform in front of the speaker's platform. The rest of us could only hear Palin and, before her, some country singer and Michael "Let's take Boston back from the hippies!" Graham exhorting the crowd.

Sign of things to come?

One of my tax-and-spend Massachusetts peeps:

The people with the fake signs didn't fool anyone. For one thing, they were younger and more hipsterish than your basic Tea Partier. For another, their signs were generally too ludicrous:

Although I'm not sure about this kid:

Speaking of kids, hey, kids, shouldn't you be in school?

Palin pooch:

The closest to a confrontation that I noticed was when the Tea Party volunteer in red on the right (you could tell by the back-stage pass around her neck) tried to get the Gay Loggers for Jesus to leave the area immediately in front of the press flatbed. They refused, said they had a right to be there. "If there's any trouble, you're going to get kicked out," she warned them,

There was a signboard on which you could, well, sign your name:

Draw up the articles of impeachment now!

She didn't seem like a Nazi, nor somebody with the proper equipment to do any tea bagging:

Can you imagine Tea Partiers actually moving to San Francisco to vote against Pelosi? No, neither can I:

Janet Wu warily eyes the crowd to make sure they don't do more than verbally express their loathing of her lamestream media:

Government just sucks, dude:

Why didn't they hold the rally on the waterfront?

Flags for sale, we gotcher flags for sale right here:

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Comments

By adamg on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 2:00pm.

Rhea Becker was there, too, files a report.

By anon on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 2:01pm.

Whether you agree with anything they say, you have to admit that those Tea-baggers are some pretty ugly people. It is a proven fact that liberals are way cuter.

That kid with the hammer and sickle sign was weird. Was he being ironic? I think so, but he didn't quite pull it off. Good on him for making the effort to go out to the Common , regardless.

Whit

By adamg on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 2:08pm.

Brian McFadden took a bunch. Lyetteann was there.

By lyetteann on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 2:22pm.

You're fast! I just put those up. They were actually offering passersby tea, which I thought was quite nice.

By adamg on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 2:26pm.

And thanks to Ian, I tried a watercress sandwich for the first time in my life. It was OK, but I think I preferred the egg salad.

By SwirlyGrrl on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 1:37pm.

McPheemaleDog and RedAssGroup are tossing their tootles about "they served SANDWICHES" and asking people to challenge their permit and such.

Which involves intrusive goverment behavior, of course, but it's all okay if OUR TRIBE does it!

By Burzmali on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 2:26pm.

You need to talk to your photographers. Clearly they have the gamma on their cameras set too high, because I have it on good authority that the tea-party is a diverse an organization not.

By anon on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 2:36pm.

from the Boston Herald website:
"Just keep on driving, limousine liberals
By Howie Carr
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - Updated 16h ago
Boston Herald Columnist
Hey moonbats, do us all a favor this morning and go celebrate diversity somewhere else other than on Boston Common."
link: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.b...

So, I guess anyone other than white right-wingers need not apply to the tea party? Sorry, but this has nothing to do with the original Boston Tea Party. I grew up in a working class blue collar family and we are HORRIFIED by Palin and her bigoted and ignorant opinions. Disgusting.

By cursedtofirst on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 2:38pm.

Bush / Cheney administration subverts Constitution, 2001-2007, opposition to same = siding with terrorists.
Obama administration passes health INSURANCE reform, opposition to same = highest form of Patriotism.

Glenn Beck calls Obama a racist and loses advertisers = the PC Police exercising thought control.
Signs calling the first black President a Nazi and showing him with a Hitler moustache all over the country last summer = six months later, teabagger lady expresses her feelings of oppression because she presumes someone ELSE is going to call her a racist Nazi.

Just typical of the teabagger thought process, it seems.

By Kaz on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 2:53pm.

I just thumbed through all of the pictures here and at the Globe. I didn't find one non-white anywhere. The average age appeared to be about 65 too.

By adamg on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 3:45pm.

Teabagger

Paul Keleher took this and more photos

Copyright Paul Keleher

By deselby on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 4:40pm.

I took a stroll around the Common. I missed Palin. I figured she'd be there around noon, but she'd come and gone by the time I got there.

The tea partiers did seem kind of frumpy and overweight. A lot of people from the poorer suburbs, based on their t-shirts. Their signs often were apologetic in a way - like "See, I'm not racist, etc."

The counter-protesters were kind of weak. I suppose it's kind of hard to protest a movement that's not for anything, but against a lot of things. You have to be against them being against big government, or whatever.

By SwirlyGrrl on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 5:02pm.

At least she was escorted into a totally quiet area via limo on a closed Tremont street by a trio of staties on motorbikes. There was no crowd, but window was open and she was waving. I waved back, with my bike helmet, wearing my Kick Gas shirt - it has a polar bear with a bike booting a gas pump. Totally unexpected - I had just surfaced from Park Street and I knew something was up when there was no traffic.

By Nonymouse on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 5:12pm.

I must have been about 10 minutes early, then. When I got to Park street at 9:20 or so, I only saw a few crazy people yelling at me (well, at Democrats) to go throw myself on the third rail. Classy.

I had a conference call 10-11am and when I went out directly after, they were already dispersing. I was kind of disappointed - I hoping for a show.

By SwirlyGrrl on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 5:37pm.

I was wearing a provacative shirt and got no such reception. Maybe they think cyclists are insane?

By Ron Newman on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 5:34pm.

I don't see it here anymore.

By adamg on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 8:54pm.

Wasn't deleted, was messed up by somebody who really needs to check his HTML better.

By Lori Magno on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 4:10pm.

Beautiful weather, and as texted by a good friend on the common today "like Woodstock for crazy people".

My post and pix will go up on my blog later, but the best comment from a tea-bagger was made behind me as I was walking back to work; "They have to organize these things better, it was way to easy for the demon-crats to infiltrate." I managed to stifle my laughter. Infiltrate? They were outnumbered 8 to 1 by students and the generally bemused public.

Alas, the tea baggers didn't get much of a fight (except for the two jerks that picked on a college student near me and my husband - but hubby stepped in and told them to cut the crap.) Most of us just came to take pictures for our blogs and laugh.

TONS of leftover flags (MADE IN CHINA) available on the common.

BTW - those people totally littered and there were NO recycling collection cans!

By Kaz on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 4:51pm.

There's some sort of government worker who will be around to collect their trash for them!

*rimshot/cymbal*

By anon on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 6:56pm.

Hey you loonie liberals, don't tell me I can't litter. That's anti-American! Recycling is for socialists, I mean communists. Yeah, like Canada and their communist health care. Palin for President!

By anon on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 9:36pm.

Did they clean up after themselves? Someone who had been over there told us that all the protesters cleaned up after themselves and I hoped that was true.

It is quite ironic that the flags are being bought are made in China when that is one of the main reasons we have this financial meltdown in the first place...borrowing money and buying all kinds of crap from China.

By SwirlyGrrl on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 5:26pm.

the "recycle this bag" - I think it looks a lot more like Palin than Pelosi. Seriously. Projection perhaps?

By Tinker Ready on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 5:49pm.

Angst over health reform came to Boston with the Tea Party Express today. But, clearly, it was not the key issue on the commons. And more than a few came in support.

By WhoDat? on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 5:52pm.

I liked the part where the emcee taunts Boston by saying conservative women are "smarter than you and hotter than you." Nobody's ever claimed the former about Palin and the GOP is the only party that seems to care about the latter. If we're on the brink of a peace deal between India and Pakistan and my choices of mediators are Madeline Albright or a "hot" woman, I'm going with Albright 100 times out of 100.

By Brian Riccio on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 12:06am.

the whole Tea Party movement seems to be predicated on putting the republicans (or "conservatives" as Sean Hannity calls them)back into office, as they believe they are the party of fiscal responsibility. Have they forgotten it was the Republicans who spent us into this mess with massive tax cuts and two wars? This and the staggering lack of minorities in this movement really convinces me that it's more about the color of the CIC.

By Anonymous on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 9:21pm.

Dvdoff, you make a good point but Sarah Palin explained all that in her speech on the Boston Common. In fact she addressed it directly. She said Republicans learned their lesson over the last year and 1/2. She's a credible, knowledgeable and trustworthy source of facts and she has impeccable judgment so while I'm in no position to verify her claim, I am inclined to believe her ;-)

By Brian Riccio on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 10:28pm.

because you can't really believe that moronic woman has a clue about anything, other than exploiting her 15 minutes into 12 million dollars. As far as Republicans go, I'm afraid you're way off base. In fact on election night, I'm sure the bathroom scene from "Trading Places" was reenacted all over this country. You know the one I'm talking about, don't you? The scene where Eddie Murphy is smoking a joint in the bathroom and he overhears Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy talking about who would be running their company.

By twheaton on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 8:18am.

in the thirteenth photo down is absolutely right...
...only she forgot 'IGNORANT'.

I wonder which trailer park they bussed her in from.

By SwirlyGrrl on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 1:05pm.

Those of us who grew up stationary-domicile challenged might just become offended by your privilege-laden stereotypical statements ... and come whup yer ass! Hey cousin Tanya, get my .22 woodya?

I was raised in trailer parks - four different ones. Most people living in trailer parks aren't stupid - some lack formal education because of learning disabilities or family issues or both, but not stupid. Many are simply working long hours and living cheaply so they can buy a house in a few years. A lot of places in the US don't have them fancy brick public housing projects for low-income and young families to live in, after all. But we got our own set of stereotypes about those people.

By merlinmurph on Fri, 04/16/2010 - 6:36pm.

On UHub, you're only allowed to make generalizations about conservatives, rich people (by Obama's measures, which isn't even rich), Republicans - anybody that liberals love to hate. ;-)

By Sock_Puppet on Fri, 04/16/2010 - 7:44pm.

Don't forget the conspiracy theorists and the paranoids. We're allowed to make fun of you them too. But if we make fun of poor people or liberals, the jack-booted thugs come and take us to FEMA concentration camps.

By Sock_Puppet on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 9:32am.

At least ten of them were homeschooled.

Early yesterday morning, Valerie and Rob Shirk corralled their 10 home-schooled children into their van for the 2 1/2-hour drive from their home in Connecticut to Boston, arriving just in time to hear Sarah Palin denounce government-run health care at the tea party movement rally on Boston Common.

They thought it would be a learning opportunity for their children, who range in age from 9 months to 15 years old and who held up signs criticizing the government for defying the “will of the people.’’

“The problem in this country is that too many people are looking for handouts,’’ said Valerie Shirk, 43, of Prospect, Conn. “I agree with the signs that say, ‘Share my father’s work ethic — not his paycheck.’ We have to do something about the whole welfare mentality in this country.’’

So one would assume they're not taking any government handouts, right? Right? Aww, you haven't been paying attention.

The couple, who rely on Medicaid for their health care, were also upset about the nation’s new health reforms.

When asked why her family used state-subsidized health care when she criticized people who take handouts, Valerie Shirk said she did not want to stop having children, and that her husband’s income was not enough to cover the family with private insurance.

“I know there’s a dichotomy because of what we get from the state,’’ she said. “But I just look at each of my children as a blessing.’’

That's right. Other people's children = welfare freeloaders. Mrs. Shirk's government-supported children = blessing.

Apparently there's not enough hypocrisy taught in the public schools. Good on them for supplying this learning opportunity themselves.

By Mike in TX on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 11:27am.

The Shirks??? LMAO

This reads like something you'd find in National Lampoon magazine years ago. Would be really funny if it wasn't true.

By SwirlyGrrl on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 1:32pm.

The sound of a head explosion. These people are more potent than blipverts.

By Finn on Fri, 04/16/2010 - 5:30pm.

If true, simply incredible. Conservatives truly lack an irony gene.

By anon on Sat, 04/17/2010 - 2:18pm.

Max Headroom says, "Catch the wave, Coooooooooooke!"

By Anon on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 9:49am.

I've been to lots of parades 'round these parts, full of actual Massachusetts people, and regularly see those sellers with pushcarts alongside the parade route. Some have stuffed animals, others cartoon balloons...

and some sell flags, too.

But I've never seen one selling Don't Tread on Me flags.

Where did those flag sellers come from? Were they brought along the route (from Nevada) by the organizers of the event? Or will we now see these flag sellers at the St. Paddy's parade in Southie?