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2010 TEA Party photos (and bonus video)
As promised, here are some of my favorite photos from last weekend’s TEA Party rally, held on the steps of the North Dakota state capitol building. It was a well attended event despite the cold and wind.
Boy, it would have been nice to have brought my own chair. Of course, since I was running around with a camera, it wasn’t very practical to be dragging furniture with me. It would have been comfy to huddle under a blanket though, if I didn’t have so many photos to pursue.
My favorite TEA Party sign of the entire day. Brevity is the soul of wit.
This gentleman came in a close second. Way to have fun with it!
Not only did this guy sport a TEA Party shirt and funny sign, but that’s also a Canon EOS camera around his neck. Good taste!
Viva la Reagan revolucion! President Reagan was MY President. I was in sixth grade when he was shot. I didn’t reach voting age during his terms of office so I never got the chance to vote for him, but I would have in a heartbeat if I’d been able to do so.
If you’re ever looking for a guy to explain currencies, commodities, and world markets…this is your guy: Eugene Graner of Heartland Investor Services. He can make the complex understandable. If you want a good nuts-n-bolts explanation of how disastrous our government’s fiscal policies are, he can present it to you in a way that’s easy for a non-economist to follow…and with a strong dose of common sense.
One of my favorite “political guys” is Gary Emineth, the final speaker of the day. He’s the one who opened up the North Dakota Republican Party to citizen activists like myself and was steadfast in making people realize that Republicans and grass roots conservatives like me who are leary of simple party affiliation are fighting for the same causes. Things like the GOP Chairman’s Luncheon and the Take Back Washington Rally are ideas that came from Gary. He had a fantastic speech too, but more on that in a little bit.
Indeed. This is a shirt from a 2009 rally, actually, but I just like the design better than the ones they had this year. It’s a good question to ask: what WOULD our founding fathers do?
Rick Berg, our next United States Congressman, was present. He had a table where people could meet him, ask him questions, and sign up to volunteer. Guess what? Rick’s political opponent in the upcoming race was conspicuously absent. Which one of them is in touch with North Dakotans? Hint: he’s pictured above.
Mr. Berg didn’t take to the microphone. He didn’t use this as a campaign stop or rally. He didn’t attempt to make this event about him or his campaign. In fact, his name didn’t even appear on the flier. He simply came to the event with some of his campaign helpers and a little table, and he talked to people and was available to listen. I got to meet him and let him know I’m doing my part with those silly little YouTube videos and stuff.
Music by Gordon Court. He has played at other events as well and has some catchy politically themed songs as well as Christian and contemporary music.
Here’s a succinct sample of Gary Emineth’s speech toward the end of the event. I often forget that my new Canon 7D can record video, but this time I remembered. I thought you might like one of the more inspirational bits of his speech, and I wish I’d remembered about the video feature when Gene Graner was speaking! You need to hear these two guys every chance you get.
Keep up the enthusiasm, my fellow North Dakotans! Let’s set things right in November!
To help prove they’re out of touch with North Dakotans, Dem-NPL adopts new Hopey-Changey™ logo
I had to leave for 7pm church, but I hung around long enough to see if a crowd was going to develop. It didn’t. I did get an earful of Heidi Heitkamp trying to rally the few by decrying “the failed policies of the Bush Administration.” She used that tired keyphrase so often that I was about to yell “DRINK!” on the next one. Then again, the logo proves that NEW IDEAS are not something that rattles around in the vacuous head of a North Dakota Democrat.
You can put all the logos on the Democrat (not Democratic) Party that you want, it’s still going to remain the home for displaced leftists, communists, marxists, and anti-American wackbags. Pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-government, anti-defense, rabid-environmentalist, anti-religion…all those things define sects of the Democrat Party…an organization and ideology so out of step with North Dakota and America in general, all they have left to do is try to rebrand themselves. Now that Americans, including North Dakotans like me are paying attention, we’re not going to fall for it. Ever.
Good luck on the facelift, Democrats…see you in two weeks.
Take some time to participate in the 2010 TEA Party – Saturday at the capitol!
See ya there, Saturday at 1pm! Come early, and bring your friends.
Instead of meeting constituents, Pomeroy meets with a few dozen hapless Democrats, admits who he represents
I found out, as did other people who attended similar “meetings” across North Dakota this week, that it was not any sort of public meeting, “town hall”, or other such event. This was a Democrat political rally, period. It’s not depicted as such on his website, but that’s exactly what it is. Apparently Conrad and Dorgan are going to show up and endorse him over and over again at these things. Yeah…that should really drum up support.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the nearly empty room. Also empty was Ms. Heitkamp’s rallying cry, which consisted of so many uses of the phrase “failed policies of the Bush Administration” that I was ready to yell “DRINK!” at the sound of the next one! By this time we were ten or fifteen minutes into the event, and it was obviously a flop. None of our notorious Congressional delegation had showed up yet, I had church at 7, and it was obvious there wasn’t going to be any Q&A for me to ask Mr. Pomeroy my question. I decided to give up on my chance to get a free t-shirt for spotting Earl Pomeroy and left to go to church.
By the way, if you read the text of Congressman Pomeroy’s “events” website, you’ll see that he loves meeting with “the folks that I represent.” You can now see who those “folks” are: Democrat Party first, period…just like in Washington. This same Party was apparently unable to even wrangle more than a few dozen people into getting all Hopey-Changey for Pomeroy on the night of his big endorsement by Conrad and Dorgan.
If it wasn’t so good for North Dakota, it’d almost be sad. Who knows? Maybe Earl was able to bring in a few hundred loyal union fans fifteen minutes late, after my camera and I had split the scene. Not likely.
Don’t worry, I’m sure the Congressman will get some cushy insurance job once he’s bounced out of office…after all, those evil insurance companies are his biggest donors.
Local fire departments put on an amazing event, if only I could tell you what it was
I checked the local newspaper and TV websites, which are really good at telling you about things that have already happened, and didn’t find any information about the goings-on. I also looked on the City of Mandan’s website with the same luck. It was apparently a great kids’ fun night, with all sorts of demonstrations
I’m going to have to figure out just what exactly this event was, and how I can find out about the next one in advance, because I know two handsome little towheaded boys who will be begging their Daddy to take them! You can bet I will.
Lone fisherman
After a great dinner we went wandering around a little bit and took a dam walk. As the temperatures were dropping and the wind increasing, I noticed this guy out fishing near the boat landing. With many of the trees already leafless, it’s things like this that grab my eye. It looks like we’re not the only ones trying to avail ourselves of every warm weather opportunity before the cold sets in for the season.
Visit early, visit often – Papa’s Pumpkin Patch
I can’t remember if these wooden toys were here last year, but we sure were happy to see them this year. If you look closely you can see my two-year-old peeking up from inside the “hopper” of this wooden combine. It’s accessible from the “intake” in the front. There are tractors, trains, and all kinds of fun.
Autumn moves pretty quickly in North Dakota, so you’d better head out to the Patch before the opportunity passes you by! I know how it goes; everybody is really busy these days. We didn’t get out to the Patch as soon as we would have liked, and it’s taken me even longer to post about it! We’re not done visiting it for the year, though…my little toddlers would love to go back a few more times.
More information on their hours, location, events, and even their pumpkin launcher is available at www.papaspumpkinpatch.com. Tell ’em I sent ya!
Angry Earl Pomeroy claims “dozens of meetings” …but with whom? Not the public
Since my last YouTube video (which has had roughly twice the views of the Pomeroy campaign ad it parodies) was so fun, I thought I’d do another one to have some fun with a very serious matter: Earl Pomeroy’s unwillingness to meet with the public. This comes after he’s had closed-door meetings around the state, including one at Aetna here in Bismarck, with maybe one or two approved questions being asked.
My summary of the debate as a whole:
– Earl was ANGRY. Wow.
– Rick Berg essentially said, “Washington is spending too much money, money it doesn’t have. I want to help fix that.”
– Pomeroy essentially said, “Look at all the millions I bring back to North Dakota! And Rick Berg wants to drill in the Badlands.”
– Pomeroy continues to try to accuse Berg of “voting to privatize Social Security”, something that I believe Pomeroy once supported, even though Berg (as a state legislator) could not vote on. He did vote on a non-binding state resolution to urge President Bush to address the concerns that Social Security is in trouble.
UPDATE: RJ over at Regular Guy Rant has done a commendable job of documenting Earl Pomeroy’s support for privatizing Social Security. Check it out! I can’t believe the hapless Earl Pomeroy would even want to mention Social Security with a record like this one…
– Rick Berg got Pomeroy to admit that Social Security is in the red. This after Pomeroy spent the entire debate insisting that it was just fine, that there were no problems with it, and even that it’s OVERfunded.
– Pomeroy clearly lost this one, and I think it’ll be interesting to see what he does for the next one. In the mean time, enjoy the video. I had fun making it.
Yeah, they work nights
