How is this any different from almost everything else wingnuts claim and assert? They've been making it up a long time: it was an actual, articulated policy of the Bushies that "we make our own reality," and they really don't have anything but baseless bigotry to back their opposition to Obama. Of course, the MSM could call them on it, but it is owned by moguls who value advertisers and profit over actual reporting and fact.

There were 55million teabaggers on 9/12; I know, I counted them myself, on my 'puter screen. Take *that*, Obama and your miserable 1.8mil.

As a commenter said (on TPM, maybe?), when the numbers claimed were half mil... "50K teabaggers and 450K liberals watching them".

Wow, that is funny.

WOLVERINES!

"An epic, monumental fail."

But, funny as all hell, nonetheless. Sorry, Charles.

The danger inherent in listening to a fool is that the fool is just that - a fool! Welcome to Glenn Beck's world where intellectual honesty is unatainable, emotional hysteria is the mantra to action and despicable rhetoric is never measured to edify but rather to foment!

Beck is an enemy to small d democracy, an obstructionist to needed social, political and economic change and an interloper in families across America who don't have enough sense to turn the tv machine off when bullshit spews upon them in the comfort of their own homes!

When revisiting this moment of our nation's history a few years from now, all who have affiliated themselves with the FOOL known as BECK will also find themselves laughingstocks rightly held up to ridicule for being such dupes in the first place! -Kevo

This Tea Bagger propaganda coming from the likes of Glen Beck is worthy of Stalin:

"This years grain harvest was the largest in history! Proud Soviets are taking muffin baths in order to deal with the excess baked goods!"

I watch Glen Beck when Chris Matthews goes to commercial break. Because re-runs of Jon Stewart are not on. . .

I love how the Righties are talking about all the "disillusioned" Dems having "buyers' remorse" who were, supposedly, in the Saturday march.

I'm going out on a limb here and say that I bet there were NO people in that march who voted for Obama last year. NONE.

Obviously at least 1.7 of the 1.8 million at the Inauguration were teabaggers doing advance work. So it is clearly unfair to attribute that crowd to Obama (except insofar as they were protesting him in advance).

I don't understand the arguement here. If these people cared about facts, reality, or even the truth there never would have been an event. So expecting any meaningful data from that crowd is stupid, and reporting their non-sense even stupider.

Plus what if there were 10 million people, what does that prove anyways, there are 10 million idiots in the US who can walk and paint signs, yes I will concede that point, anything else ??

How about reporting how many people were there who don't have insurance or even jobs. That would be news, they hyped up attendance is not news.

Name one other country the world that this insane clown, in fact he would be locked up in a mental institution in any country, could make 50 million a year ? Try naming just one. That should provide a giant clue to how fucked up your stupid country is, a country that worships the god called capitalism, a country in which 30 percent of your population is obese, another 40 percent overweight, a country that consumes 25 percent of the worlds resources yet only has 5 percent of the population, a country that has 25 percent of the world's prison population yet only 5 percent of the world's population, a country where creatures like Beck, or Brian Williams and all the other 'elite journalists' can make millions a year and yet your teachers of your children make about $30,000 a year, a country that honors and worships stupidity, actually being fucking dumb, and mocks those that are actually intelligent and able to think, a country in which only 39 percent of the population excepts NATURAL EVOLUTION versus the Earth being 6,000 years old, a COUNTRY THAT ALLOWS PIGS TO GET RICH, CEO'S, over people health needs..like vultures circling a dying person, a country in which 30 percent of the population can't even find your own country on a world map, a country in which more people watch things like American Idol that vote for the President of your country, and now this:

Good God, what is this country coming to?

It seems the film Creation, a major-production biopic about Charles Darwin starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, won't be seen in the United States because no distributor with the guts to stand up to the religious right in this country can be found:

The film was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has its British premiere on Sunday. It has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia.

However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying".

Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published.

"That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said.

"The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.

"It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It's quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules.

"Charles Darwin is, I suppose, the hero of the film. But we tried to make the film in a very even-handed way. Darwin wasn't saying 'kill all religion', he never said such a thing, but he is a totem for people."

No wonder conservatives believe liberals lack the courage of their convictions. We prove them right every other day.

Your farcical country is a DISGRACE to this planet. It is like a malignent cancer cell in the body that finally kills the body. Your capitalism is EVIL.

It's TeeVee people!!! Why do we even pay attention to this guy. He is just a ratings clown and he has admitted that himself.

Like the Health Insurance companies (where nothing is subservient to Shareholder Value) - on Fox, nothing is subservient to Ratings.

Didn't Robert Urich play Dan Bana on the 70's TV show, "Vegas"? ;)

The idea that a film about Darwin can't get a distributor because no one has the "guts to stand up to the religious right" as opposed to the movie being painfully boring is what's really stupid. It was a nice rant up until then, though.

Beck is not even right, he is low.

A letter writer to the Santa Barbara News Press says:

"In Washington, D.C., the Capitol Park Police estimated 2.1 million people converged on the city. It was a record-breaking crowd. Americans are angry over an out-of-control government, an over-reaching president, a radical left-leaning Congress, an out-of-this-world national debt and a weakening national security."

Don't even know where to start

Does anyone know is there is some other connection between Glenn Beck and Dave Beck (the Teamster's president) besides the state of Washington?

Maybe the mormon's genealogy site could help but I don't want to go there.

While the farce of the teabagger count is funny, the wingnut loss of that battle is unimportant compared to winning the war on objectivity.

"Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low"

I was THERE, libs, and I think there were at least 350 billion people.

Marx (Groucho, not Karl) explains Beck thus: "Ladies and gentlemen, he may look like a complete maniac, he may sound like a complete maniac, but believe me, he is a complete maniac."

And, yes, I did steal this from Slavoj Zizek (who hasn't applied the quote to Beck, but I'm sure would.)

And you are surprised, why?

Lying is the ReThuglican's MO.

It was hard to estimate the crowd in part because the Black Family Reunion was occurring on the Mall at the same time.

There was some controversy about the crowd size of the Million Man March which was resolved when Nasa was able to count the crowd in a satellite photo.

Of course the Teabuggers will never believe it.

Blue @ 4:21 - since you come from the sane part of the world, could you please explain to me why your politicians wear those stupid wigs and why the taxpayers fund that silly old lady in that huge palace? Just curious.

What fails to get mentioned is the tens of millions who protested on 9/12 by staying home and mocking the event on their TVs.

It was all the people who voted McCain/Palin showing up in DC still upset that they lost the election screaming "we want our country back" refusing to accept that the rest of us are getting our country back from them...it's a democracy and these tea baggers lost.

9/12 showed us the worst of America and continued the great conservative/republican hypocrisy...yes it was hypocrisy to say 9/12 was a day to show Americans united without red or blue. You could count on one hand the number of democrats who showed up for 9/12's tea bagging hypocrisy...they all knew better.

This is not how America acted the day after 9/11...this 9/12 was a disgusting display of the worst of Americans...the Beck sluts. Thank God they are still a minority opposed by millions.

9/12 signs all translated to

"BRING BACK BUSH/CHENEY"

That seems to be what they all want. It's the 20%ers in the flesh. Yet not one picture of their hero. Cowards

My guess is that some enterprising liberal planted this obvious wingnut bait on some freeper site, and then just let nature take its course.

Does anyone know is there is some other connection between Glenn Beck and Dave Beck (the Teamster's president) besides the state of Washington?

Just hope there's no connection to Jeff Beck.

LMAO at howie...

Actually, many of the tea partiers would bring back Jefferson Davis before bringing back George W. Bush.

I was there on Saturday. I am not a member of any of the organizing groups; just felt compelled to attend and express my feelings about what's going wrong these days in Washington. The crowd was huge. I joined the parade with my wife just after 10 AM. It was not supposed to begin until 11 AM, but the police told organizers that they had to because the starting place (Freedom Park) could not hold any more people. It was becoming a safety concern. People continued to stream in and down Pennsylvania Ave until well after 2 PM. The entire NW and SW lawns of the Capitol were packed very early. People then spilled onto areas around the Grant Memorial and reflecting pond. The crowd then extended well down toward the Wash Monument (on the Mall) as well as back along Pennsylvania Ave. I have been to plenty of large events (sports stadiums & outdoor concerts). There had to be many hundreds of thousands there at a minimum, and very possibly well over a million. It was a fantastic event; everyone was polite and ruly. Never saw one confrontation. All of the people we met were average citizens (from young to old); most had never protested anything in their lives before. But all very concerned about the direction of this country based on our new President and the inept Congress.

@Disputo

My guess is that some enterprising liberal planted this obvious wingnut bait on some freeper site, and then just let nature take its course.

This. "Dan Bana"? Or "Ban Dana"?

to blue; So you think our capitalism is "evil". It was because of our capitalism that we could save your asses from the Nazi war machine. It is because of our capitalism that America does more humanitarian service around the world than any other nation. Are we perfect? NO. But if need be we will save your ass again. And we are the ONLY hope you would have.

Doc

I am a Christian. I think that it takes more faith to believe in natural selection than God. I challenge all of you to read the Chuck Colson book "How now shall we live". Any takers?

Doc

"This morning, Glenn Beck said a 'university' put the number at 1.7 million, but he couldn't remember which one."

Uh-huh, sure, Glenn.

Just out of curiosty, did this "university" have the world "clown" in its title?

2Manchu, @ 22:10

My bet is that the "university" in question had, in its title, either "Liberty" or "Regents". Clown schools teach how to count.

To Doc @ 10:09, being a Christian and believing in natural selection are not mutually exclusive. It is the official position of that little click known as the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, I can't fathom how anyone finds believing in natural selection all that difficult to accept. Scientists encounter it every year when targeting a vaccine for the flu. And no, I won't read Colson. He lacks authority on the topic of natural selection. His specialty, as I very clearly remember, is plumbing.

shoredave

You're adorable. Why not just say that there were bazillions and gazillions and get it over with? Keep telling yourself it was millions if it makes you feel better but that doesn't make it true. (Just like most of the Obama = Hitler/Stalin/Socialst/Nazi teabagging nuttery.)

Seriously, anyone actually in a large crowd really has no clear sense of its size, if you're in it you don't know where it begins or ends. It's only from an aerial view can one even begin to estimate. So far no one can produce a picture of the event that shows that it was anywhere near a hundred thousand, let alone millions.

All of this might be shiny and new to you, but it's not to DC. Large crowds/marches/rallies on the mall? Nothing new and they prove very little. It also doesn't help when so many on your side are holding up such absurdly racist and offensive signs-- makes you easier to dismiss as a group. So you all hate Obama, you hate government, you're afraid of change-- what do you actually want? You're all unified by your blind rage over a laundry list of objections, but at the end of the day it achieves nothing more than make the particiapants feel like they're doing "something." (Same goes for any rally/march in DC anymore, the days of these being shocking or influential are long gone.)

By all means, keep it up, please feel free to waste your time and make collective asses of yourselves.

Just out of curiosty, did this "university" have the world "clown" in its title?
-----------------------

Hamburger.

Come on. Cut the wing nutters some slack. I grew up in a small town. If you've never been to a big city or a major concert or athletic event, how the hell are you supposed to know what a 100,000 people look like, let alone a million. In summary, they saw more people than they had ever seen before in their lives and they were damned impressed. And it doesn't matter all that much that there weren't many people of color present, they would only count for 3/5 of a person anyway. (irony alert!)

To claim that it takes less effort to believe in God than it does to believe in natural selection is akin to claiming it tales less effort to read Angels and Demons than it does to read a textbook about particle physics.

Doc: I think that it takes more faith to believe in natural selection than God.

Doc, you're confused. It takes faith to believe in a God who is not visible. It takes reason to understand that Natural Selection is what is happening all around you — why you can or cannot curl your tongue, grow hair, etc.

To the doofus who posted the short lived comment suggesting that we take it up with the University of Indiana over Glenn Beck's use of wildly fake numbers on the Tea Bagger march: we can't, since the University of Indiana didn't make any such estimates. Google it for yourself, genius.

Meanwhile, the DC fire department which has decades of experience counting these events puts the numbers at around 60,000.

I was impressed by the turnout. I saw hundreds of people at the rallies, all standing shoulder-to-shoulder to protest obscene governmental spending. Of the thousands of people I saw at the 9/12 protests I'd say the overwhelming majority were well-informed and had a cohesive message. Sure, there were a couple of kooks, but when you have tens of thousands of people turning up that's bound to happen. The demographics were a little disheartening. Despite there being hundreds of thousands of people at the protests, almost all of them were old, white and obese. Could Real American Conservatism� be a dying cause? Well, that might be a little too dramatic- after all, the million or so people at this protest should say everything. Conservatism is strong as ever, and if the next rally can manage to attract even half of the tens of millions of Americans that attended this rally, then that would still be phenomenal. It must be a real poke in the eye for all the liberals out there. Who ever would have guessed that a conservative protest could attract a hundred million people?

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I can at least say I'm proud to have taken part in 9/12 - a day when all 300 million Americans turned out en masse to decry our Communist Fascist Socialist Marxist Libralist Bolshevist government.

God Bless America.

I stumbled across this site while searching crowd estimates for the 9/12 event. It seems most of you are much more interested in clever verbage than facts. So attendance estimates range from 40,000 to 2,000,000. Somewhere in between lies the truth. I have been to events with venues of 80,000, the 9/12 march was considerably north of that. Apparently the only aerial observation was that of Obama's helicoptor which circled overhead as he got out of Dodge. My wife and I traveled over 2,000 miles to take part and were awe inspired by the throngs of people there. I says throngs because so many areas and streets were filled with people that it was impossible to take it all in from one vantage point.
Many people will see only what they want to believe, but to deny that this was one of the largest demonstrations to take place in DC is to delude yourself.
Well here are a few facts of interest:
over 4,500 chartered buses were used; participants came from all 50 states;
no arrests related to event were made;
the grounds were left remarkably free of litter;
no vandalism took place ...
We came(many of us over a thousand miles and for the first time to our nation's capital)to be heard, and we were. Whether Congress, the press and others of you will admit it, a movement is started that won't be stopped, and unlike the croud count at the march on DC, the ellection results of 2010 will speak for themselves.

"So attendance estimates range from 40,000 to 2,000,000. Somewhere in between lies the truth."

All ideas or opinions are not equally valid, nor can you simply assume that they are equally invalid. In this case, one end of that range you offered is far, far closer to being accurate (although I've never even seen anyone say 40k, lol). Guess which one?

"but to deny that this was one of the largest demonstrations to take place in DC is to delude yourself."

Seriously, no. Aerial shots put the crowd in the tens of thousands. DC was barely even affected. You are the delusional one.

The 1.7 million number came from Obama's inauguration--you've ignored that and the scores of photo and video evidence all over with which you can compare the sizes of each event.

More people showed up to protest the war in '02 than for the tea-party event. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1027-07.htm

"Organizers with International ANSWER, a coalition of antiwar groups that coordinated the demonstration, had hoped for a turnout rivaling that of its pro-Palestinian rally in April that officials estimated at about 75,000."

You can't even beat a pro-Palestinian demonstration. Here, in the United States.

I was there on 9-12. Here's video I took that provides some insight into the attendance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcQ8kmxrujs

Also, I was there on Inauguration Day. Here are photos my wife took from the same spot on the mall:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emjem1963/3937478887/

Also, a brief analysis I did of Metro Rail ridership, which supports a number of 40K - 50K.
http://open.salon.com/blog/the_notorious_dad/2009/09/15/the_real_numbers_about_the_dc_9-12_rally

i'm not a genius but I was there and the only thing I've ever seen to rival the crowd was the annual fly in at Oshkosh which pales in comparison (in my humble opinion. The point that is indisputable however is the fact that Unlike the 09 Pres. innaugaration or any of your left protests was the fact there was Zero Litter left on the grounds in the aftermath, no arrests, no burnt cars or Maletovs. If need be we will come back in greater numbers. JF Patriot

JF, if you seriously think there were burned cars or Molotov cocktails at the inauguration, you are definitely not a genius. Where do you get your "indisputable" info, newsmax or something? Also, I didn't see any more or less trash at either event, despite the selective pictures that have been distributed. Besides, 1.5 million people are going to leave 30 times more trash than 50,000 people. The Mall was clean on 9-12 because there weren't that many people there!!

Check out my pix of Inauguration Day to see the real spirit of the day.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emjem1963

I have done my own study base on a devised stationary methodology and calculation which you can find here:

http://deathbymedia.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/912-washington-dc-tea-party-rally-crowd-estimation/

It's backed by visual evidence (pictures and clips) all available in the same entry, plus determining the boundaries of the rally and calculation of the final tally derived from the density of the crowd at each given block. My calculus puts the figures around 130k up to 160k.

Indiana university did a well documented, well thought out analysis of the d.c. taxpayer march, and it's attendance numbers, here is the link:http://www.scribd.com/doc/19743935/The-Real-Number-of-Protesters-Zac-Moilanen

Does anyone find it odd that the apparently liberal commenting "exlibra" here, refers to the Tea Party members as Tea Baggers? I've noted a number of others using the same term over the last few months to include Carville who has used the term repeatedly, and a number of other liberals including Joy Behar using the term. Does that mean it's still OK to use other slurs or just Gay slurs like Tea Bagger? What about ethnic slurs? Racial? Or is it just OK to use slurs if you a liberal?