Chicago Tax Day Tea Party

What a difference six weeks makes. I was pleased when 400 patriots showed up to protest high taxes and Barack Obama's expansion of government--in the president's hometown on February 27.

But today at noon over 2,000 freedom lovers showed up in Chicago's Loop to do the same thing--only more loudly.

American and "Don't Tread on Me" flags, signs--both handmade and professionally printed, people wearing patriotic garb, as well as boisterous "USA" chants all added to the festival atmosphere at the Kluczynski Federal Building Plaza.

The Heartland Institute's Brian Costin served as the event's master of ceremonies, and after the singing of the National Anthem (Do they do that at ACORN rallies?), syndicated radio host Mancow Muller grabbed the microphone for a wild verbal ride.

Mancow thanked "the almighty God for the making of this day." He liked the signs, singling out ones featuring Ayn Rand as well as a couple of others: "How dare you steal my future," and "Don't spread my wealth, spread my work ethic."

Muller's deep baritone scolded the members of America's most notorious community organizers: "Hi ACORN...you are a morally bankrupt organization and you're going straight to hell." A few ACORN-bots were there to protest the rally.

And then he mocked the president's message: "This is the greatest country in history of the world, now join me as I change it."

Mancow's speech then took a surprising turn. Noting that he had never seen a crowd filled with so many people like himself, Mancow asked the crowd to turn to people next to them, and introduce yourself. Which everyone did. Maybe not everyone. I couldn't see what the ACORN protesters were doing.

John Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute also spoke, and he channeled the crowd, "The politicians are failing." He then led a "We must lead" chant. It's the people, not the politicians, who must lead, Tillman declared. He has a web site, Wemustlead.com, and he encouraged the crowd to e-mail him at john@wemustlead.com. And then....he gave out his cell phone number. Which I'm not going to post. But I have it.

Kristina Rasmussen, who is also with the Illinois Policy Insitute, reminded the crowd, almost all of whom were from Illinois, that Governor Patrick Quinn wants to raise state income taxes...I just paid mine a few hours ago...by a whopping 50 percent. Rasmussen's work has appeared in the National Review Online, the Washingon Post, CNN and Investor's Business Daily.

Other speakers included Fox News Contributor Jonathan Hoenig of Capitalistpig.com, Americans For Prosperity's Joe Calomino, and Eric Odom of the DontGo Movement--He's a co-founder of the Tax Day Tea Party organization.

There is a post office on the south end of the plaza. It was filled with people--mailing their income taxes. How is that for irony?

Chicago's Tax Day Tea Party was a success. Several people I spoke with confided to me that not only had they never attended a protest before, they had never even considered going to one. Until today. It was a friendly crowd, and as far as I know there were no fights--there were a couple of verbal altercations I witnessed when the few liberals in the crowd spoke up. Oh, the Ron Paul people rubbed a few people the wrong way. As for the police, it was probably one of the easiest large protest assignments they've ever had.

The Chicago event was just one party. During his turn at the mike, Odom, who of course is a very reliable source on Tea Parties, announced there were 763 of them today.

UPDATE April 16: A reader corrected me on the location of that post office, it's on the west end of the plaza.

Technorati tags: chicago Illinois april 15 tea party taxes mancow ron paul Obama Barack Obama patriotismamerica ACORN Patrick Quinn