9-12 Tea Party West: Wilshire Federal Building

Saturday, September 12th, was a special day for democratic participation in America. The nation witnessed a phenomenal display of grassroots action in defense of liberty. London's Daily Mail reports that upwards of 2 million people marched on Capitol Hill. I was unable to travel to Washington, like so many others. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to attend a great rally at the U.S. Federal Building in Los Angeles. I'd say roughly 2,000 people attended, although another estimate places turnout at 3,500.

Here's a shot of the crowd when I arrived about 2:30pm - with hundreds of people already on hand. Below, we see the Wilshire Federal Building sign, to the West side of the property, near the Eastbound offramp at Interstate 405:

Here's my first shot of demonstrators, an enthusiastic couple:

Here's the crowd shot at about the same time:

Here's a video of the event, from Richard McEnroe:

What a cool sign - can you imagine our first president saying, WTF?

I walked back over to the sidewalk at Wilshire to get some photos of demonstrators. This guy's sign sports a damning condemnation of the president:

Vendors were selling loads of t-shirts (you can see the tables set up at about 3:35 minutes at the video). I actually first noticed the "Real Hope" shirts on these two brothers. They let me take their picture:

The caption on the back of the shirt is from the Matthew 12:21, "In His Name the Nations Will Put Their Hope." This young lady, hanging out with her mom, models the shirt:

This mom below was really sweet, and eager for me to get shots of her "tea party toddlers":

I told this guy straight out that he had the best sign of the day. I've said the same thing many times at the blog, and boy does that drive the lefties batty:

The crowd was filling out pretty good by now:

Back out on Wilshire, I said hello to this fellow below. Regular readers might remember him (and his sign) from the Adam Schiff town hall:

I didn't know this gentleman, but I liked his sign:

Joe Wilson's influence reaches to the West Coast:

Back over to the podium, I thought Bill Whittle - the great host of Pajamas Media - gave the best speech of the day (or at least of the speeches that I really listened to):

An old friend of mine, Michael, from 30 years ago, gave an impassioned address. I didn't recognize him until he started speaking. We spoke afterwords for a few minutes. Love the shirt:

As I was saying my goodbyes, I noticed this pretty woman with the great Photoshopped mini-poster, "Comrade Obama Leading Us to the Glorious Future!:

Well, maybe not so glorious after all:

More photos at my good friend Mark Goluskin's," Scenes From The Los Angeles 9/12 Rally."