Amy and the little Balkmans join me at the TEA party.

One of the benefits of being unemployed is that I get to participate in the TEA parties.  I was asked by my friend and OU CR President Tessa Breder to emcee the OU TEA Party on Monday.  Even though it was apparently too early for anyone from the OU newspaper to get out of bed and cover the event, there were over 100 students and concerend citizens at the party.  Congresswoman Mary Fallin was the headliner and she did a terrific job, as did my friends Jason Reese (next Labor Commisioner) and Former Rep. Kevin Calvey.  Brandon Dutcher from OCPA and Stuart Jolly from AFP also did a good job getting the crowd fired up.

On Wednesday I put on my Thomas Paine costume again and travelled up to the State Capitol with Amy and the little ones for the OKC TEA party. I’ve been to a lot of rallies at the State Capitol over the years, and this one was by far the biggest and most inspiring one I’ve ever seen.

I tip my three-cornered hat to the organizers for doing a great job organizing the event. The speakers were great – they kept the hour-long rally up beat, fun and left all 5000 of us inspired and motivated.

The TEA parties sent a clear message to our nation’s leaders that we cannot afford this massive government spending and lack of accountability. No wonder that the traditional media moved so quickly to dismiss the TEA parties.

Locally, on KFOR – another lousy NBC affiliate, Mr. Ogle made ridiculous comments on his “Rant” about the TEA party being some
creature of talk radio or some anti-Obama/GOP deal. That’s nothing but a lame attempt to pump up KFOR’s sagging ratings. Crappy media reporting on the lcoal stations is yet another reason why tonight was one of the rare times I even watch those channels.

And on OETA – our TAX payer funded tv station – their coverage was on par with 4,5 and 9 – only worse. Of the hundreds of signs thta were held yesterday, OETA’s report showed the signs that said, “Congress is full of idiots”, a sign with a cartoon-like picture of President Obama with big ears, and a sign that said, “Teacher’s unions do more harm than drug dealers”. Now there are some idiots in Congress, I didn’t vote for Obama and I am not a fan of teacher’s unions, but the TEA party was not about ANY of those things!

The thousands of people I saw and spent time with were all cordial, respectful, passionate and patriotic. But OETA did their very best to paint us as rude, disrespectful, negativists . . . and our tax dollars paid for it!

I kind of hope that the liberals and their shills in the media will write us off, becuase this movement will not go away and the tax and spenders are going to lose in 2010.