Fullerton Tea Party gets 15,000 protestors
posted at 12:15 pm on March 8, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
KFI’s John and Ken decided to put a little local star power behind the “tea party” tax protest movement in Southern California, and it succeeded beyond all expectations. As many as 15,000 protesters descended onto sleepy Fullerton to noisily demand an end to tax hikes in California and the nation:
They’re revolting. Families with children, bikers, seniors, pirates – by the thousands they descended on a Fullerton bar Saturday to join talk show hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou of KFI in protesting tax increases recently approved in Sacramento.
Police estimated that some 8,000 people came to the Slidebar Café in downtown Fullerton to listen to a three-hour live broadcast of The John & Ken Show.
Some wore buttons. One man brought a bloody effigy head of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and waved it from the end of a pike, while the crowd joined their hosts in a chant of “Repeal, recall, revolt.”
Others directed their outrage at less personal synechdoche: “Total Recall” laser discs, action hero lunchboxes and other memorabilia from the governor’s Hollywood career, which they piled up and smashed with a sledgehammer.
Later estimates pushed the crowd to almost double that estimate, although crowd estimation is a highly inexact science. What was clear was that thousands of people took time on Saturday to join the protest, and in an area not terribly amenable to that kind of turnout. I used to live near there, and the area has narrow streets and terrible parking. In the last decade or so, Fullerton has revitalized that area as a shopping district, but it’s still more adaptable for coffee shops than political protests.
Nor is it easily served by transportation from around Southern California. KFI reaches a very wide geographic area in LA, throughout the entire basin, and the only freeway passing close by is the 91 Riverside freeway. The tea party had to create quite a bottleneck.
Fullerton itself is about as controversial as apple pie, not a hotbed of political subversion by any means. It’s the anti-Berkeley.Hot Air reader Vayapaso lives near that area, and tried to get close to the protest, to no avail. The crowds were massive even though by that point they had begun to disperse. It’s an impressive result in any case, but especially for an event planned in this sleepy burb.
Blowback
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FYI: I made a Chuckie Schumer poster out of that Marie Antoinette “let them eat pork” graphic from MM’s site using http://www.BlockPosters.com (free site).
Find any graphic you like on the Internet and go wild!
I’m thinking about making one out of the Obama-Urkel pic.
Good times.
ex-Democrat on March 9, 2009 at 12:42 AM
Our whole family was there, it was great! People were so friendly and excited. We were all encouraging each other and high fiving. We have alot of work to do people, lets not lose momentum. “Yes we can” haha. NO to socialismn, YES to Freedom. This is war!
MooreMom on March 9, 2009 at 12:42 AM
This is war…..non-shooting so far.
Let’s roll America! Right over the commie freaks!
ex-Democrat on March 9, 2009 at 12:43 AM
Now are you guys getting the picture? How pathetic the so-called conservative movement is. What a paper-tiger it is. What a joke it is. Rush Limbo and Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, and all these other zero’s with tens of millions of listeners who have never built a mass movement. never built a movement on the ground! All they do is talk and talk and get richer and richer, AND tell you how wonderful they are. I don’t know much about this duo named John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou of Los Angeles’ conservative KFI AM-640 radio, but they have my respect! They understand that we’re in alot of trouble. They understand that when we talk about our children, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren, we’re not going have a country we can hand over to our children! This country is gonna be a third world banana republic if it isn’t destroyed first by the time our children are our age. That’s where we’re headed. Things have to change. And at least these two, John and Ken, are doing something.. rallying their conservative audiences to get them on the streets in protest. This “tea party” tax protest movement is AWESOME! Americans are hungry for answers! They urgently want new leadership. They urgently want new hope. They urgently want people who are courageously in a politically incorrect way take us in a completely new direction! It’s time to say goodbye to Rush Limbo and his little circle of radio talk show hosts! And say hello to John and Ken who are getting the job done!!
apacalyps on March 9, 2009 at 2:37 AM
Is it hyperbolic to acknowledge that this (attack on the wealth producers) is war and that in war all is fair?
Quetzal on March 9, 2009 at 3:02 AM
I developed a lot of respect for John and Ken when I lived in LA, and kudos to them. But remember, when Rush decides to take action, he’s able to mobilize far larger numbers. At any moment he can melt the Capitol switchboard with calls on any subject, and don’t forget rallies like “Dan’s Bake Sale”, “Operation Chaos”, and the ingenious way he handed Harry Reid’s ass to him. I think Rush is very cognizant of the power he wields to mobilize millions and exercises judicious restraint, laying in wait to choose his battles wisely.
I’m just chomping at the bit now for the Las Vegas tea party. Everyone should contact their area talk shows to get them to emulate what John and Ken did in EVERY CITY across the US. I’ll be contacting Alan Stock at KXNT here in Vegas tomorrow, and as a media booker and event organizer in my previous career, I’ll be contacting the city desks for every news organization on the planet and closing them on covering the Vegas Tea Party when it gets scheduled. I’m fairly certain this was not done in LA – you have to create a press release about the event, send it out via fax and email to all the news services’ city desks, then follow up with phone calls starting 48 hrs before the event to get them to show up and cover it. Just takes a little effort. I think John and Ken probably underestimated the Fullerton event, and were taken by surprise – hence no media coverage beyond KFI.
Get BUSY, people – ACTION, not words. We must take the country back from the leftists who want the US to FAIL.
Fishoutofwater on March 9, 2009 at 3:17 AM
This post will probably be deleated but here it is…. Until Americans finally decide to defend their Constitution, you are WASTING YOUR TIME.
Obama and the Democrats are going to do what they damned well please, they don’t CARE what we think.
Mark my words, FREE AND OPEN ELECTIONS ARE THROUGH! The GOP won’t be able to stop Obama and the Democrats after Obama has seized the Census and BILLIONS have been funneled to ACORN.
People had better wake up and realize, YOU are the ONLY ones that can stop this and carrying signs to protest is too little and too late.
Obama promised a “Civilian National Security Force”; that’s already in place, why do you think people are QUITTING DHS? Officers are resigning their commisions in the military.
Now Eric Holder is LYING to the public saying firearms are crossing SOUTH into Mexico. NO ONE in their right mind is paying $10,000 PLUS for an automatic weapon on the black market in the U.S. and selling that weapon in Mexico for $500…IT AIN’T HAPPENING FOLKS!
DARK DAYS ARE AHEAD.
nelsonknows on March 9, 2009 at 5:39 AM
This is quite impressive! I wonder if the MSM will report on this. hmmm..
becki51758 on March 9, 2009 at 8:50 AM
I don’t want any leaders at all. Getting rid of the current bad ones would be a start.
Peri Winkle on March 9, 2009 at 8:52 AM
The Fullerton Tax Revolt was specifically focused on a narrow agenda. To make those who promised not to raise taxes and then broke that promise pay by recalling the offender. But it’s even more focused than that. John and Ken have singled out a select few REPUBLICANS to do that to. Specifically Republicans because the Dem’s were honest in their intent to raise taxes. And one of the Republicans being targets is a freshman Assemblyman that voted ‘No’ on the taxes. See, there were backroom deals, which have been admitted to, going on where the CA Republicans chose three of their own to pass the $40 billion so the rest could say that they held up their ‘No new taxes’ pledge. Add two of the other culprits and the Govenator, who RAN on a no new tax pledge and you have 15,000 people show up. And with the California State Constitution providing a method for recall that has been used recently… It was a very focused protest.
oddjob1138 on March 9, 2009 at 8:58 AM
Pardonme but here is a message all Americans should see. Not because it looks back to point fingers but because it does show where the problem started. We have left in place and continue to give credence to those who should be laughed out of Washington and the MSM prop up these people. This is why so many are frustrated because the truth does not matter any longer and tea parties will be more prevalent until it changes or is made to change.
Also that the liberal AMERICAN media did not want this video on You Tube, so they had Time Warner threaten a law suit (proprietary rights) if it was not taken off.
This link is of the same video but is routed through Canada . Everyone in America needs to see this!
Go here quickly because the power in Washington will not let it stay for long!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM&NR=1
Pardonme on March 9, 2009 at 9:09 AM
Better read some history…Rush has melted switch boards, he is very cautious about over using his position.
And I am no great fan of his, listen to him maybe once a month, but he did mobilize people in the last election.
Some of his events have been record breaking…Sean pulls in thousands at his events.
John and Ken are media whores just like most in the industry, they live by selling ads and being controversial.
I love their local events, and they are local broadcasters. And not so much conservatives, as guys who poke the eye of the status quo…they went after Cardinal Mahoney pretty strong.
Hopefully, on a local level, this is duplicated throughout America.
We need this as a grass roots effort…because quite frankly, it is destroying the “grass-roots” of our society.
right2bright on March 9, 2009 at 9:41 AM
Someone posted not a mention in the LAT…but then they hate John and Ken.
right2bright on March 9, 2009 at 9:44 AM
Cali once again rejects the notion that it’s 100% liberal. Those folks are fighting the good fight, on a lot of different fronts. Go Californians!
You know, if we could turn the tide there, it would sweep the nation.
hawksruleva on March 9, 2009 at 11:04 AM
Hardly a word of this in the LSM, however 15 ACORN members (thats right 15) protested in front of Phila. Eagles owner Jeffrie Lurie’s home, claiming he owed the city tax $$$ gets front page story on sone Eastern newspapers
Bevan on March 9, 2009 at 11:28 AM
apacalyps on March 9, 2009 at 2:37 AM
You know John and Ken didn’t endorse Huckabee either, right? That seemed to be the basis for your hatred of Rush, Hannity, and Ingraham before.
thecountofincognito on March 9, 2009 at 11:54 AM
Our political whores from Sacramento spent a lavish weekend in the wine country, ‘hosted’ by 3 unions, at our expense. The unions are government ones and they were peddling for restrictions on cuts for them.
9 Republican congressmen participated as well.
They party on, at our expense, while we pay. Follow John and Ken: Revolt, Repeal, Recall, all of them, from the left, to the right.
Entelechy on March 9, 2009 at 1:16 PM
Correction – s/b “they party on, at our expense, while we work”.
Entelechy on March 9, 2009 at 1:17 PM
I really liked parts of your message Fishoutofwater, particularily the snippet below,
However, I would like to comment on this below:
Yeah, but he doesn’t and that is my whole point! This clown has been broadcasting for how long… 20 years … and never made anything of it – NEVER MADE A MASS MOVEMENT. Where is the long list of rallies to his credit? Where are the hundreds of thousands of conservative Americans on the streets? If you have 23 million listeners per week who love you and adore. Who listen to you. Add to that the millions Sean Hannity gets, 15 to 17 million listen to him, and Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, and the other talk radio hosts… where are the mass protests these people have organized? All of them they have built up audiences with tens of millions of listeners and Fox and all the others.. where are these mass movements!! You know where they are? THERE ARE NONE!! ZERO!! All they did with all the money and all the support and all the huge following that they got. You know what they did with it? THEY ENRICHED THEMSELVES! It’s not enough that they get paid millions and millions of dollars every year. Their salary from doing the radio shows are millions of dollars a year and Sean Hannity gets millions from Fox for doing his TV show. They make millions just from their salary! And then these hogs have to sell books and trinkets, and this and that, and I’ll give you a special pin and a special that, if you send me more GELT! I mean, this is, they are so disgusting. When are you going to understand. When are you going to realize. We need a movement of sincere people. These conservative talk show hosts are frauds who are all part of the same establishment. They MUST GO if there is to be a real change and a real conservative movement in America!
“So Saint Peter begins the tour. Larry King sees the various places (in heaven) and it’s beyond anything we can imagine in terms of beauty. Finally, he gets to the biggest room of all, with this giant throne. And over the throne is a flashing beautiful angelic neon sign that says “Rush Limbaugh.” And Larry King looks at Saint Peter and says: “I thought you said he wasn’t here.” “He said, he’s not, he’s not. This is God’s room. He just thinks he’s Rush Limbaugh.” — Rush Limbaugh describing himself at 2009 CPAC Speech
apacalyps on March 9, 2009 at 2:37 PM
I don’t know what it is about you, but you just seem rude a lot of the time. Your tone is so unfriendly.
When you say, “Rush has melted switch boards” that is not the point I am making and it is a red herring. Regular television programs that your children watch have been known to “melt the switchboards” when there’s something objectionable shown. Conservative talk radio has what.. 50 to 70 million listeners (probably more)? All and all, tens of millions of Americans listening to these so-called conservative talk radio hosts on a regular basis. In 20 years, where are the mass movements? Massive protests? Million man march? Hundreds of thousands? Where? And I’m not talking about a book signing or autograph session. In 20 years there should be a long list of memorable marches.
apacalyps on March 9, 2009 at 3:14 PM
That is why I mentioned that I did not know much about John and Ken, but I respected them for putting together this 15,000 person tax protest. I mean, I just think it is awesome! These two fella’s aren’t just talking they are using their status and putting together mass protests. And if I may clarify, I don’t hate Rush, Hannity, and Ingraham. In fact, I don’t hate anybody (1 John 3:15). But, I watched what they did to Mike Huckabee. How they tore down a decent man with lies because they wanted Romney to be the candidate. The sickening viciousness with which they savaged Huckabee was a turning point among people like me, and don’t fool yourself, I am not the only person who was shocked and angered by it. There are a lot of Americans who noticed the same thing. Really, it is not so much about Huckabee anymore, but about these GOP elites and their abuse of power and the people’s trust. Conservatives could have won this last election if we put up the right candidate, but they betrayed us for their own selfish needs for power and control. They like to point the finger at the left, but THEY are LARGELY to blame for the mess we find NOW ourselves in with Obama, and I truly believe that.
apacalyps on March 9, 2009 at 3:50 PM
You wanted new hope! Well you voted what you thought was new hope into office with all the warnings and history of the guy who you thought was qualified. Suffer, and eat pork.
mixplix on March 9, 2009 at 4:26 PM
This was due to CA taxes more than national issues, but it’s OK to think otherwise.
AnninCA on March 9, 2009 at 5:31 PM
So that’s what all the traffic was about! I drove by to pick up cat litter on Saturday and the 91 was jammed. Dang! I wish I’d known…
JackOfClubs on March 9, 2009 at 6:00 PM
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