Critics of President Barack Obama's stimulus plan gathered beneath the Arch Friday to cheer speeches over a bullhorn and toss tea into the Mississippi River.

A few conservative activists organized and promoted the rally, with help from talk-radio hosts. Pleased with the turnout in 35-degree bluster, leaders said they had stolen a page from liberal tradition by taking to the streets with homemade signs.

"If I had known this many people would show up, I'd have charged admission," said Bill Hennessy of Ballwin, the lead organizer. "We'll do this every chance we get until Congress repeals the pork — or we retire them from public life."

Hennessy estimated that more than 1,000 people showed up. There was no official count, but the crowd spilled across roughly one-fourth of the grand staircase from the Arch to Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard. Former state Sen. John Loudon, R-Chesterfield, said, "We conservatives are usually pretty pathetic at making crowds. But this one's good."
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Unemployment in California shot up to its highest level in nearly 26 years in January, leaving more than 1 in 10 workers without a job.

Figures released Friday show that 79,300 jobs were lost in the state last month, bringing the total number of unemployed to 1,863,000, or 10.1% of the workforce. That's the highest since the rate touched 10.4% in 1983.

Thousands of opponents of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's illegal-immigration policies held their "March to Stop the Hate" in downtown Phoenix on Saturday..

As of 1:30 p.m., the speeches were still being made at the march's destination, the federal building. According to initial reports, the march was peaceful, with no major incidents as of early Saturday afternoon.

Crowd estimates from organizers and law enforcement were not immediately available, but at least one estimate put it at about 3,000.

A combative President Barack Obama warned on Saturday he was bracing for a fight against powerful lobbyists and special interests who sought to pick apart the $3.55 trillion budget he wants to advance his agenda of reform.

Obama's spending blueprint, with its massive $1.17 trillion deficit and tax hikes on the wealthy, seeks to squeeze billions of dollars in savings out of current spending through competitive bidding among health insurers and ending subsidies and tax breaks for banks, agribusiness and oil companies.

"These steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business," the president said in his weekly radio address.

"I know they're gearing up for a fight as we speak," he said. "My message to them is this: So am I."

Because my background is in economics and not religion or media, the media malpractice that gets me worked up the most usually involves numbers. No matter which newsroom I’ve worked in, the presence of numbers or numerical analysis seems to make journalists lose any brainpower. You should see what it’s like when reporters try to analyze polling data or governmental budgets. It’s just not pretty.

A reader sent along a story about a new nationwide study about porn usage. The story appears in the New Scientist. I have to be honest, if this story is any indication, that name must be satirical. There is literally nothing scientific about the report, headlined “Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers.”

There is literally not one scintilla of evidence to back up the claim, written by reporter Ewen Callaway. I’m not saying conservatives aren’t the biggest consumers of porn. I’m just saying that there is nothing in the story to substantiate that they are. Maybe new science

And reader Mike Wilson says don’t give Rick Santelli too much credit: “Just wanted to remind you that the Rick Santelli ‘rant’ was not the genesis of this movement – in fact, at least four events (Seattle, Denver, Mesa, Overland Park) occurred before the coining of the term ‘tea party’. So credit where credit is due – to the grassroots organizers far from the madding media crowd.”

Despite terrible weather in many cases, citizens braved the wind, cold, and rain to exercise their Constitutional right to protest the current direction of the country under Barack Obama and the Democrats.
In St. Louis, over 1500 attended the Tea Party at the famous arch.

In Chicago, between 800 and 1000 braved the bad weather to gather to protest the massive spending of taxpayers' money by the federal government.

Atlanta was the site of another well-attended Tea Party.

Many smaller towns and cities participated in the semi-simultaneous events around the country, such as Shelby, Alabama, Asheville, North Carolina, and Greenville, South Carolina.

Following up on my post about yesterday's Tea Party in D.C., Glenn Reynolds (who I had the pleasure of finally meeting yesterday, along with his lovely wife) has had some great coverage that you should check out from Tea Parties around the country. Also, I received this email from a reader:

I went to a "tea party" yesterday evening in Greenville, South Carolina, with my two teenaged children. It was sponsored by the Upstate Young Republicans and promoted on the local talk radio station. The event was very well attended and very enthusiastic. I'm no good at crowd estimating, but there had to be more than a thousand people.