UPDATED — Eleven buses and counting from Bel Air to the 9/12 Tea Party in D.C.

I set the DVR just before Obama’s Hail Mary healthcare reform speech to Congress was going to start and took a short drive to Tony Passaro’s house. I had to give him my check for $30 to reserve a seat on the bus caravan Tony is organizing to attend the 9/12 Tea Party in Washington, D.C.

I am on bus FREAKING 11! The buses seat 54 each and there were 10 seats remaining when I left at 8:30 pm after a nice chat. That means Tony has organized transportation for 584 people from the Maryland county that is the birthplace of John Wilkes Booth — our contribution to the nation’s heritage — to attend the 9/12 Tea Party and protest against Obamacare. I will not be surprised if Tony is able to fill up the eleventh bus AND one or two more.

The place to find buses from grassroots organizations coming to the 9/12 Tea Party is here.

Update, 9/11/09: Now it’s 12 buses from Harford County and the Cecil Whig reports five busloads of people will be heading to the event from Cecil County, Maryland, which is the next county east. Hot Air reports Democrats are trying to raise expectations to two million attendees to position themselves to disparage the turnout if it is less. I don’t know if any of the organizations participating realized that it is smart to commission an independent count and not rely on the one the Park Service will do. There’s always a headcount war.

I just checked — a count of two million would require attendance by 41,666.666 persons from each of the lower 48 states. I think the two million estimate is off by at least one order of magnitude. I’ll be happy if we have 20,000 and very impressed if we have 100,000 to 200,000 at the Tea Party in D.C.

Rain is predicted — I bought a red, white and blue golf umbrella and international orange poncho this afternoon. If it looks like it might be nippy, my down coat is too small, so I’ll be wearing Margaret’s magenta down jacket and a beige baseball cap. I won’t carry a sign because I’ll need both hands to take photos and video and write notes. (My brother and his son will spend the day with Dad.)

Today’s encouraging news is that Obama’s advice to get in people’s faces and call them out when they lie is worthwhile because after immigration attorney and Republican Congressman Joe Wilson followed it and called out, “You lie!” during Obama’s health care speech on Wednesday (9/9), Democrats now see the merit of amending Obamacare so that you must prove your citizenship to participate — although it should still be voted down in its entirety because it doesn’t include any of the measures that would really reform health care and health insurance. Michelle Malkin has a brief history and Legal Insurrection explains the proposals in Obamacare regarding illegal aliens here, here and here.

Another encouraging news story today is that Obama has thrown ACORN under the bus and cut its ties with the Census Bureau, thus severing its participation in conducting the census, thanks to stories on two succeeding days from Andrew Breitbart’s new Web site BigGovernment. It reminds me of Japan’s capitulation in World War II after Hiroshima and Nagasaki — they didn’t know how many more bombs we had and Truman promised that if they temporised about surrender, we would “rain down upon them destruction the likes of which the world has never seen.” Obama is in a superb position to know how dirty ACORN is, but he does NOT know how many more of those undercover videos Andrew Breitbart has. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!