I figured it would be a good idea to collect a list of the numbers from each of the Tea Parties, nationwide. Or, at least as many as we can get.

Update: Totals also displayed here:
366,535 people counted at 194 Tax Day Tea Parties, thus far.

Update: If you know where to get collections of entire States (not national numbers, States), like Jonah Shumate provided here then please do so. We seem to still be missing some states entirely and others are obviously under-represented here.

Missing States:
Connecticut
Delaware
Hawaii
Nebraska
North Dakota
New Mexico
South Carolina
South Dakota
West Virginia

Under-represented states:
Wyoming
Utah
Pennsylvania
Nevada
Montana
Mississippi
Missouri
Kentucky
Kansas
Indiana
Iowa
Georgia
Alabama

Here’s the list I have collected so far:

16,000 San Antonion, TX
15,000 Atlanta GA
12,500 New York, NY
6,500 10,000 Saint Louis, MO
10,000 Dayton, OH
10,000 Nashville, TN
10,000 Pittsburgh, PA
5,000 Denver, CO
2,000 5,000 Indianapolis, IN
5,000 Lansing, MI
8,000 Madison, WI
4,500 Cleveland, OH
4,000 5,000 Olympia, WA
4,000 Des Moines, IA
4,000 Albany, NY
3,000 Washington, D.C.
3,000 Charlottesville, VA
3,000 Jacksonville, FL
2,500 Grand Rapids, MI
2,000 3,500 Columbus, OH
2,000 Canton, OH
2,000 Huntsville, AL
2,400 Montgomery, AL
2,000 Prescott, AZ
2,000 Fort Collins, CO
500 2,000 Oregon City, OR
1,700 Tampa, FL
1,500 Appleton, WI
1,500 Redding, CA
1,500 Morristown, NJ
1,300 1,500Raleigh, NC
1,200 Anchorage, AK (with confusion over site. Numbers for other site will be posted when I get them)
1,000 Gulfport, MS
1,000 in San Francisco, CA
1,000 Santa Ana, CA
850 Traverse City, MI
800 1,000 Lisle IL
700 Kalamazoo, MI
500 Oregon City, OR
500 Bowling Green, KY
450 Montpelier, VT
450 Saint Cloud, MN
450 Utah County, UT
250 Harrisonburg, VA
250 Greenville, TN
200 or so in Altoona, PA (in the rain, in a small town)
150 Port Orchard, WA
150 Albany, OR
100 Batesville, AR
100 Merrifield, VA
okay, I’m going to forget trying to put them in order of number…

450 Melbourne, FL
60 Palm Bay, FL
350 Viera (Brevard County Seat), FL
200 Cocoa, FL
700 Duluth, MN
1,000 Kingsport, TN
2,000 8,000 Saint Paul, MN
250 Fairmont, MN
200 Mankato, MN
450 Mille Lacs County, MN
200 Owatonna, MN
5,500 Orlando, FL
1,500 Springfield, MA
150 Enterprise, OR

Update at 1130 The Day After
800 Wasilla, AK
400 Abingdon, VA
200 Bristol TN/VA (crossed the state line)
500 900 Pleasanton, CA
2,500 Lake Havasu, AZ
100 Austin, MN
300 Rochester, MN
5,000 Phoenix, AZ
1,500 Tuscon, AZ
1,000 Gilbert, AZ
1,350 El Segundo, CA
5,000 Dallas, TX
4,500 Fort Worth, TX
200 Fairbanks, AK
150 Watkinsville, GA
200 Athens, GA
1,000 Wasau, WI
1,000 Fond Du Lac, WI
150 Wisconsin Rapids, WI
600 Concord, NH
4,000 Manchester, NH
150 Dover, NH
150 Rochester, NH
200 Portsmouth, NH
500 3,000 Peoria, IL
500 Bloomington, IL
1,600 Rancho Cucamonga, CA
4,000 Cincinnati, OH
500 Saint Augustine, FL
2,000 Baton Rouge, LA
2,000 Providence, RI
1,750 2,000 Charlotte, NC
1,000 Port Huron, MI
1,000 Winston-Salem, NC
1,000 Greensboro, NC
400 Wilmington, NC
400 Asheville, NC
200 Jacksonville, NC
200 Greenville, NC
400 Fayetteville, NC
10,000 Overland Park, KS
500 Saint Augustine, FL
200 Flemington, NJ
350 Montrose, CO
1,000 Trussville, AL
350 Culpeper, VA
400 Ventura, CA
500 Crystal Lake, IL
100 Hammond, LA
350 Massapequa, NY
1,200 Toledo, OH
350 Bel Air, MD
100 Dannville, CA
3,000 Naples, FL
200 Ogden, UT
250 Picayune, MS
2,500 Colorado Springs, CO
350 Pocatello, ID
1,000 Mobile, AL
1,000 Sarasota, FL
500 Cheyenne, WY
4,500 Boise, ID
7,000 Oklahoma City, OK
2,500 Sacramento, CA
400 Iowa City, IA
250 White Plains, NY
75 Elko, NV
5,500 Las Vegas, NV
1,000 Frederick, MD
4,500 Harrisburg, PA
300 Helena, MT
700 Hudsonville, MI
2,500 Greater Phoenix, AZ
4,000 Fort Myers, FL
400 Lacrosse, WI
300 Corvallis, OR
200 Mooresville, NC
1,000 Lake Charles, LA
3,200 Tulsa (La Fortune Park), OK
1,400 Tyler, TX
300 Jacksonville, TX
1,500 Longview, TX
2,000 Nacogdoches/Lufkin, TX
4,000 Franklin, TN
1,100 Little Rock, AR
300 Conway, AR
200 White Hall, AR
250 Lincolnton, NC
500 Twin Falls, ID (Noon)
800 Twin Falls, ID (5PM)
500 Newton, NC
750 Joplin, MO
300 Corvalis, OR
1,000 Wichita, KS
1,000 Plymouth, MI
2,000 Troy, MI
400 Livonia, MI
2,300 Spokane, WA
2,000 Knoxville, TN
2,000 Chattanooga, TN
2,500 Murfreesboro, TN
2,500 Hendersonville, TN
150 Greeneville, TX
1,500 Savannah, GA
500 Portland, ME
5,000 Richmond, VA
200 Rutland, VT
200 Belleville, MI
2,000 Missoula, MT
4,000 Chicago, IL
300 Joliet, IL
500 Naperville, IL
8.500 Houston, TX
300 Sheridan, WY
100 Geneva, IL
100 Wheaton, IL
50 Pittsburg, CA
1,000 San Jose, CA
2,500 Jackson, MS
1,000 Virginia Beach, VA
300 Eau Claire, WI
1,000 Jonesboro, AR
1,000 Baxter, AR
500 Fort Smith, AR
100 Pine Bluff, AR
500 Rogers, AR
300 Russellville, AR
350 Hot Spring, AR
1,000 Fayetteville, AR
500 Texarkana, TX
1,000 Denton, TX

Total And still updating: 366,535
194 Tea Parties

As you get the numbers for your local Tea Party or as you get revisions to any of the numbers above, please post them here.

Earlier, Crippy wrote about Texas reaffirming its rights under the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

A few moments after reading this, I learned that Texas is not alone.

Delegate Christopher Peace (R-97) of the Virginia State House has sponsored a bill that will put Virginia beside Texas in telling the Feds to kiss off. H.R. 61 reads virtually identically to Texas’s HCR 50.

And They are not the only ones. Nor even the first.

Oklahoma state Sen. Randy Brogdon, a Republican and the first to introduce this type of legislation last year, originally pursued it because he thought then-President Bush and Congress exceeded their authority with the Real ID Act, which required states to include certain information on driver’s licenses.

He called the stimulus package “immoral and unconscionable” and said it was “the final straw that broke the financial back of America.”

This is not new to Obama, but rather, it is new to the “Stimulus Spending” of the last 6 months. There are now 20 states (according to CNN in the article quoted above, all of them Red States) that have begun passing these bills through their legislatures or who’s governors have already signed them.

Our National level GOP may be mostly clueless or even uncaring about the issue of the size and intrusiveness of the government, but the State level GOP has figured it out and needs now only a lever long enough to be used from where they stand.

“I’m sick and tired of Congress overreaching and underachieving,” Brogdon said. He added, “If we have an opportunity to salvage freedom and protect sovereignty, it has to be done at the state level.”

Yeah, we have all heard it.  The horror story where a friend or family member had a serious medical issue and was turned down for care, not by the doctor, but by his insurance, or, worse, Medicare or Medicaid.  Or they received treatment but found out afterward that it wasn’t covered.

A quick Google search gives us Thousands of links for “healthcare horror stories.”  One I particularly liked was talked about on a site called Pacific Views (http://www.pacificviews.org/weblog/archives/001761.html).  Treatment was received for cancer after Medicare said they’d pay for half of it.  After the death of the patient, the family was informed Medicare would pay nothing.

Now, I don’t really need to make a list of these stories.  We all know at least a couple.

What I’m irritated about is a commercial I just saw for “Postivac.”  Medicare will pay for (there’s no other term for it) Penis Pumps with no questions asked, it seems.  Why?

Why is my tax dollar going to pay for Penis Pumps?  I’d much rather pay for a “Bridge to Nowhere” but instead I’m stuck paying for God only knows how many penis pumps.

There has yet again been talk about what Gov Palin did with the oil companies being a so-called “Windfall Profits Tax.”

It’s not.

However, while the explanations given thus far for why not are accurate, they may not be clear to someone who doesn’t know what, exactly, is going on.

Let me try to explain.

Let’s assume that you own a piece of land. On that land is valuable timber that a logging company comes to you about harvesting. You agree to let them cut down those trees. You charge them for every tree. You still own the land and every tree that is not cut down and you get paid for every tree harvested.

That’s what’s happening in Alaska with oil. Gov Palin didn’t like how much was being charged for the oil that was being harvested. She increased the price.

Still don’t get it? OK. Let’s say you own a house. You own the piece of land it’s on. You own everything Under your home (coal, oil, natural gas, gold, whatever). You are approached with an offer to buy those resources from you. You agree to sell them. The company that bought them now has to go Get them. And all without disturbing your house or the surface of your land.

The vast majority of the land in Alaska is either owned by the State of Alaska or the Federal Government. No private entities have purchased that land since it was originally purchased by the Federal Government from the Russians.

So…
Original owners: Russian Empire
Purchasers: USA Federal Government under President McKinley at the urging of Secretary of State Seward.
Price: $7,200,000
Date: 1867

Land purchased over the years by private companies and persons over the next 90 years.

Alaska becomes the 49th state in 1959
Large tracts of land that have Not already been purchased by private entities are Given to the new State by the Federal Government which retains the rest.

Alaska andthe Federal Government continue to sell land to various private entities.

1968, oil is discovered in Prudhoe Bay.

Alaska sells the oil to various oil companies (again, private entities). Those oil companies need land on which to build their rigs and roads. Alaska Rents (leases) them that land.

2007, Governor Palin raises the price the State of Alaska is demanding for their oil.

None of this includes taxes on the oil companies by the state of Alaska; any and all of those are a separate issue altogether. These companies are merely purchasing a raw material and renting the land on which their extraction and transportation facilities operate.

Hope that helps.

I’ve been thinking about the polls that have Obama winning by anything between 1 and 13% tomorrow. Frankly, as many of you know, I don’t believe them. So I started to look at a few things. Namely, I looked at the %s in the polls by which Obama leads and I looked at the historic turnout rates for them. I then turned to the groups that have the lowest historic turnout.
Frankly, even if they increase their turnouts by the same amount they did between 2000 and 2004, I don’t see how he can win.

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McCain-Palin by 5-10 points.

Anyone else?

Bah. So much for that. Back to listening to people who know better…

I’m confused. There are a few things I don’t get about this election and I hope that someone can explain them to me.

1) John McCain has a former lobbyist working on his campaign. This we know. We also know that this gentleman has done some work for Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac. Obama likes to point this out when confronted with certain persons who work on his own campaign. Persons like Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines. Former CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Can someone please explain to me how a contract employee compares to the guys who ran the companies into the ground?

2) Let’s forget about how 40% of the US doesn’t pay taxes. I’m not particularly worried about that right now or about the “tax cut for 95% of the population.” What I AM worried about is that Obama wants to end the Bush tax cuts. Those tax cuts included an increase in the standard deduction for those “Married and Filing Jointly” to exactly double that of “Single” filers so that those of us who are married and don’t have enough itemized deductions to do better aren’t penalized for being married.
Is this tax cut I’m supposed to be getting as a lower-middle-class member going to be before or after my taxes go up with the end of the Bush tax cuts and will it be a net decrease for me?

More below the fold…

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I know this isn’t a particularly popular topic right now, what with the election drawing to a close, but it is still pertinent…

We have all heard the infamous statement, “I support the troops but not the war.”
At some point, many, if not most of us have responded with, “You can’t support the troops if you don’t support their mission.”
And someone you are speaking with responds, “Are you telling me that I don’t support my own [enter relation here]?” from someone whose brother or son or father or sister or daughter or other family member is at war.
Well, you want to tell them that that’s exactly what you’re telling them but you can’t find the words. Or else you’re just so embarrassed that you fell into such a rhetorical trap, and so you do not reply.

Well, here are the words. Because that is Exactly what is going on. Those who do not support the mission do not and Can Not support the troops attempting to carry it out.

We constantly hear from one side of the political aisle that “The war is lost!” “The war cannot be won!” “This is the wrong war!”
The people who support those politicians tell us that we need to bring the troops home and get them out of the civil war that is (was?) breaking out in Iraq. That these soldiers need to leave the war and come home.

And our only reply is, “But that’s surrender.”

Well, I have to wonder how these people would speak to those who enlisted despite their families’ position would react if their sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers (etc) had gone into football or wrestling or boxing or the UFC. I’m sure they would try to talk them out of it. Try to keep them from playing or fighting.

But once the whistle blows or the bell rings, would they not start to cheer for their friends and family who are in the ring or on the field?
What mother tells her son to throw the game?
What friend or brother tells another to take a dive?
What son roots for his father to just tap out?

None of them. Not if they want the continued respect of that friend or family member. Because it is not support. It is selfishness.

All that matters to these people is that their friends and family are there with them. Not that they do what they believe in or live as adults and make their own decisions. The mothers want their sons and daughters forever suckling at their breasts. The father want them forever doing their chores and playing catch. Friends forever want them to hang out and always with the same people. And children are being raised to believe that nothing in the world is more important than themselves so how Dare their parents leave to fight a war?

No. If you do not support the mission, then you can not support the troops.
You don’t have to believe that it is the right mission, but you Do need to believe in victory.

Just got linked to this by my friends over at www.LordsoftheBattlefield.com
Figured ya’ll would appreciate it as much as I did and I hope it spreads…

I just want to take this first line by saying that I do not think I am smarter than all the financial geniuses out there and that I am not asking for any credit should my question make real difference. I just have this tendency to ask questions from out of left field that, on the face of them, make no sense. Well, think about this one (and if my understanding of the issue is fundamentally flawed, please let me know):

“Can the Mortgage Backed Securities, which have no known value thanks to Mark to Market accounting, be broken down into their individual mortgage pieces which Do have a known value?”

A couple of weeks ago, I had to make an emergency trip to Tennessee. My wife’s sister, Lien, was in the ICU due to a life-threatening fever and they didn’t know what was causing it. I went for several reasons. First, and foremost, she’s family. She’s my little sister. But my in-laws called me specifically because Linh was (and still is) in Cali for the Army, and getting her away would have meant bad thing. Very bad things as anyone who has ever tried to get emergency leave due to a Red Cross notice can attest. Also, Linhs other sister, brother and their mother combined couldn’t even pool the money to take what turned out to be a week away from work. And finally, they called me because I screwed up 4 years ago and married my way into the position of head of both family and clan (they’re a rather traditional Vietnamese family). It was my responsibility, regardless of any other factors.

At the time, I thought Lien was at college in Georgia (she was), which meant her hospital was in Georgia (it wasn’t). So I called my aunt and uncle in Atlanta and said I’d be headed down and why. I also asked if they could visit Lien and let her know I was on my way, so of course they asked where the hospital was. Well, I had the adress. I had even been the one to write it down when my sister-in-law gave it to me over the phone, but I didn’t have a clue what it was. Chattanooga, TN.

“Oh, why don’t you stay with your dad’s sister in Chattanooga?”
“I have an aunt in TN?”
“Yes. Here’s her number.” And lo and behold, I had a place to stay literally 5 minutes from the hospital and 30 minutes from the college Lien was attending on Lookout Mountain in Georgia. So I went. I dropped everything (which wasn’t much, actually) and took off as fast as I could inform my unit that I would be missing drill that weekend.

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I haven’t heard of this anywhere except last night from a radio show caller who apparently has more time on his hands than I do and just cruises the internet for this sort of thing. It’s one of those really late night shows that you have to question how crazy the host is just as much as you do the callers. Kind of like Coast to Coast. But then, I’m not usually considered the most sane person n the world, and i had enough time on my hands to waste to actually be listening to a show I don’t even know the name of so…

I looked up the caller’s claims. What do you know? He was right.

There’s been a lawsuit filed against Obama and his campaign. A lawsuit that right now, apparently has no standing, but if Obama is officially nominated on Thursday, could be the absolute end of Obama’s political career. Or it could just be more popcorn for us in the VRWC…

In any case, a Philip J. Berg, Esq, former chair of the Montgomery County, PA Democratic State Committee and Clinton supporter has filed a lawsuit claiming Obama is neither eligible for the office President, nor even a US Citizen. He has provided us with his own website detailing all of his claims and his own history as a lawyer, failed Democratic Party politician and Clinton supporter (Link: http://www.obamacrimes.com/).

His case has 3 points:

1, that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery.

2, that even if Obama was born a citizen, he lost his citizenship due to the laws at the time of his mother’s marriage and divorce from Lolo Soetoro, a citizen of Indonesia

and 3, that he has divided loyalties due to the Kenyan and Indonesian citizenships he has apparently not given up.

Now, I have no idea how accurate this Democrat’s claims are, and I would like to join last night’s radio show host in urging Barack Hussein Obama, apparent Democrat Party nominee for President to release all documentation to prove this wrong. Assuming the claims are wrong, of course. Either way, I’m really curious now.

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I just watched the re-airing of Hannity and Colmes, and once again, Sean Hannity fumbled the whole Ayers issue. Not Hannity, nor Limbaugh, nor Savage, nor Beck, nor any other Conservative “talker” I have heard or read has been able to explain clearly why Ayers is a problem for Obama. None of them. They all know he’s a problem. They all know it’s because he’s a terrorist, but they can’t explain why Ayers being a terrorist is a bad thing. We are just supposed to accept “Ayers is a terrorist!” as being the end all, be all of the issue.

Tonight, it allowed a contributor for Townhall to write off Ayers as unimportant to the voters during his appearance on Hannity and Colmes. I don’t have the transcripts, seeing as my google-fu is not so strong, so I will paraphrase what this guy said (I didn’t catch his name, can I get an update with it?) “People don’t care about Ayers. They care about economics, their jobs, their health, their security. Homeland Security.”

Neither Hannity nor the chick he had on were able to explain how this applies to Ayers. They were both left fumbling with “But he’s a terrorist!”

So, since the folks we usually rely on for this sort of thing are at a loss, I would like to try a crack at it. Here goes:

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This diary is actually a request for advice. I have a question that seems pretty important to me and the answer(s) given should be helpful for anyone else intending to run for office for the first time.

You see, I like to complain. It’s fun. You don’t have to come up with any solutions or work to fix anything. Unfortunately, in my eyes, complaining walks a fine line alongside whining. Whining is unacceptable and a whiner does not deserve to be given the time of day till he shuts his mouth. A whiner, in my opinion, is a complainer who does nothing about the issues he spends his time complaining about. And I realized a couple years ago that I had become one such unworthy loser.

Well, I would like to be able to keep complaining. But I do not like whiners (who’d'a thunk it?), they rank right up there with incompetents, for me. As you can imagine, I would like to continue liking myself, which means in order to keep complaining I need to become part of the solution to my complaints. Lost yet?
In short, I like myself, I like to complain, I’d like to continue to like myself by creating answers and solutions to my complaints. So I am running for office.

I have identified my target. I know the issues and believe my positions on them will be agreed with by the voters. I even know how I intend to frame my challenge and campaign. I also know that I need to get a petition together and get a certain number of signatories to that petition between certain dates in order to get on the ballot.

This just leaves me with 1 minor question:
“What do I do between now and then?”