All photos (except the crappy ones without her watermark -- I took those) by Anne C. Savage, my talented and beautiful wife. Visit her website HERE. No, seriously, you should. She's amazing.

There's not much to say about the teabaggers themselves. Since it was Ann Arbor and they have been repeatedly (and mostly justifiably) accused of being racist, they found a nice older African American woman to emcee. We knew she was African American because (a) her skin was brown and (b) she mentioned that she was raised by African American parents about ten times during the rally.

About 600 people showed up, about 400 were counter-protesters (the Good Guys.) The counter-protest was organized by the Univ. of Mich. College Dems, a dynamite group of very hard-working young Democrats. They had their counter-rally begin an hour early at 6:00. The teabaggers got wind of this so they tried moving theirs to 5:00 and then 4:30 based on their Facebook page - a counter-counter-rally if you will.

The speakers began at 7:00 and they were...well...boring. No, seriously. I guess Michigan doesn't really have any good teabag speakers or I'm just used to it now but these people are really ho hum these days. Because they are actually all pretty much getting tax cuts, they've been reduced to decrying the criminality of ALL taxes now. One guy suggested that taxes should only be used for wars (or getting ready for wars, of course.) Other than that, it's THEFT!

So, we amused ourselves with looking at all the signs and comparing & contrasting the smiling happy faces of the Democrats with the angry, scowling faces of the teabaggers. And, just to warn you, this is a college town and everyone had their spell checkers turned on: no comical misspellings were to be found.

This girl ♥ puppies. You can never go wrong if you ♥ puppies:



These students recognized the irony of holding a rally to protest taxes and "socialism" on a publicly-funded campus:



Hey, wait. There's that waffles guy again:



A return of Led Zepplin: demanded!



Here's me educating some teabaggers. My sign said "Washington IS listening to us! Support the Obama TAX CUTS!"



I think of this one as "The Battle of the Bellies". Angry-looking fat white guys at a teabagger rally. What are the odds...?

[NOTE: I am retracting this comment and have issued a public apology to the three men HERE. Please read it.]



Waffle Dude, you're everywhere! (By the way, the guy holding the "Inflation is a tax" sign is the guy I wrote about yesterday that called OFA volunteers "equivalent to Brown Shirts". Creep.)



This guy ran out of money when he bought the can of spray paint. Couldn't afford the posterboard. Totally didn't matter. (I didn't realize Colbert was running in the midterms, though... ;)



Here's the sign my buds from the most-awesome Obama Caucus of Ann Arbor brought along. Hard-core phone banking and canvassing liberals, that group.



Oh. Look. More angry white people...



A grateful college student is a wonderful thing to behold:



Cheer up, grandpa. You got a tax cut.



A worthy protest:



Ahhh...there's the love:



These ladies were the craziest of all the teabaggers. Hilariously, they showed up about an hour into the program, wandered around with their offensive signs for about 15 minutes then left again. Musta got themselves all worn out with all that protestin'...



Wait, is that Waffle Guy again? Hell, yeah, that's Waffle Guy again!



Remember that protester your government warned you about? [???] This is that guy:



Toward the end, a bunch of us went behind the speakers and started dancing to the music they played. That's my good buddy, Tom, with the "I Have a SIGN" sign. And, wait a second. Is that Waffle Guy again?



When the Lee Patriotwood (or whatever his name is) song came on, we all swayed and sang along... "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm FREEEEEEEE..."



Oh, Jebus, lady! You're harshin' my buzz! Besides, ACORN??? Dude, that is so January 2010...



(It should be noted that State Senate Republican Leader Mike Bishop showed up at the end to make a speech. I wasn't aware he was aligning himself with the teabaggers.)

So, all in all, pretty boring. Mostly funny because the liberal students (and even non-students) chose to use the event to have some fun and not take themselves too seriously. One group held a Mad Hatter Tea Party right smack in the middle of everything and carried around a huge sign saying, "Where's my bloody crumpet?"

There were pretty much no altercations. I saw no Hitler mustaches. No flagrantly racist signs (although there were some questionable comments by one speaker.) Their speakers were boring and spouted the same platitudes you hear every time. They talk about getting organized but they hate Republicans almost as much as Democrats to listen to them. Because of this they have no political apparatus to connect with so they have almost no chance of any solid electoral success, at least not in this area. Frankly they just really come across as a bunch of pouty, spoiled brats who still can not accept the fact that they lost the election in 2008. Well, boo hoo, folks. You did.

And we didn't. And we're making progress. And you just have to deal.

If you likey, would you mind giving me a Digg? Thanks!

I'm just sayin'...

UPDATE 2: Hate mail starting to roll in. Just got this one from "Alex Tijerna":

Subj: Only 400 people (Good Guys) So there was only 400 people. That is nothing. For as liberal as Anabor is you would expect more.

Guess the 15% unemployment in Michigan either is staying at home or people are waking up that all "This Hope and Change"are nothing but a punch of words.

I typed that exactly how I received it, bold font, misspellings and laughable grammar included.

More in the comments section on my blog.

UPDATE 3: More photos from the rally from my friend, Pam, can be seen HERE (including the "Bloody Crumpets" sign and the Mad Hatter Tea Party guys.

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