PJTV: I talk with RedState’s Erick Erickson.

PARTY TIME! Bill Whittle on the Tea Parties.

MARK TAPSCOTT: Sarah Palin is miles ahead of every other politician in America.

Palin also demonstrated an understanding that the Tea Party movement must be independent of both major political parties, which share the blame for the country’s current morass, in order to be credible. She encouraged her Nashville audience “against allowing this movement to be defined by any one leader or any one politician. The tea party movement is not a top-down operation. It’s a ground-up call to action … it’s bigger than any king or queen of the tea party, and it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter.”

UPDATE: A.C. Kleinheider is less impressed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts from Jennifer Rubin.

MORE: Dan Riehl comments.

STILL MORE: Moe Lane: Speech Was A Rorschach test.

And here’s a roundup from Jack Lail.

HERE’S THE LINK FOR PJTV COVERAGE OF THE TEA PARTY CONVENTION. Breitbart’s speech will be streaming live about 10 am Eastern.

And here’s an interview with Andrew Breitbart. Plus, I talk to Dana Loesch.

MARK TAPSCOTT: Third party is the wrong party for Tea Partiers.

There is no mystery about what most Tea Partiers seek — a limited, transparent government that listens to them and resists ideologues with millennial blueprints to remake America in their own image, minimal taxation and regulation, strong national defense, and an unapologetic commitment to American exceptionalism abroad.

Tea Partiers should seek out or field candidates in both major parties who support those aims and do everything possible to elect them, then hold their feet to the fire of accountability. Just imagine a bipartisan Tea Party Caucus with sufficient numbers in Congress to drive the national agenda.

That could be a conquering army like none before in American politics.

I agree. Don’t emulate the traditional parties — disintermediate them.

LABOR UNIONS LOOK TO take down tea parties. (Via NewsAlert).

UPDATE: Reader Paul Jackson emails: “Would it be appropriate here to say….’If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine’??” That has certainly been the pattern, hasn’t it?

THE TRUTH BEHIND THE TEA PARTIES.

FROM HOPE AND CHANGE TO THIS, IN THE ECONOMIST: Stop! The size and power of the state is growing, and discontent is on the rise.

America’s most vibrant political force at the moment is the anti-tax tea-party movement. Even in leftish Massachusetts people are worried that Mr Obama’s spending splurge, notably his still-unpassed health-care bill, will send the deficit soaring. In Britain, where elections are usually spending competitions, the contest this year will be fought about where to cut. Even in regions as historically statist as Scandinavia and southern Europe debates are beginning to emerge about the size and effectiveness of government. . . .

The Economist will return to these areas in coming months. All raise different issues; and different countries may need to deal with them in different ways. But one large general point links them: a great battle about the state is brewing. And, as in another influential revolution, the first shot may have been heard in Massachusetts.

Read the whole thing. And I love the illustration . . . .

UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch writes: “I think deep down inside the rest of us are beginning to understand how that little fella in the illustration that’s about to get eaten feels. Heretofore it’s been the journalist’s job to level the playing field for him. Now he has to do it himself. That’s why there are tea parties.”

ANDREW IAN DODGE: What Now For The Tea Parties? I think the very first comment pretty much answers the question. Key bit: “It is likely that Brown is going to be a problem in the future for conservative libertarian ideals, but for the purpose of stopping a train wreck in progress, he is doing what we need now.”

SAY, DO YOU THINK BARACK OBAMA IS STILL “unaware” of the Tea Party protests? (Thanks to reader Jason Mart for the reminder. Mart writes: “Last April 15th, after taking the day off to protest, I remembered how angry I was to hear that our president was ‘unaware of the tea parties…’ I guess maybe he is aware now.” Heh.)

NEW YORK POST: TEA TIME:

Besides Sen.-elect Scott Brown, the big winner from Tuesday’s stunning upset victory in Massachusetts is the so-called Tea Party movement — grassroots activism sparked by out-of-control federal spending. Tea Parties popped up around the country last spring, bringing together ordinary folks appalled by the fiscal profligacy on display in Washington. At first, the mainstream media largely ignored the Tea Party gatherings. Then came the laughter and the smarmy epithet, “teabaggers.”

Next, liberals attacked Tea Party-goers as extremists or racists or neo-Nazis. While all this went on, the Tea Party folks kept on organizing.

So far it’s worked out pretty well. . . .

MARY KATHARINE HAM: Press suddenly changing tune on Tea Party Movement. “As of last night, the media have finally started to change their tune on the Tea Party movement. I was shocked to hear Chris Matthews concede that Democrats had not learned to talk to those critical of the administration, to assuage their worries. Perhaps that was partly because their picture of those critics was painted by…Chris Matthews, who called 60-something veterans ‘terrorists,’ and compared peaceful protesters to aspiring Timothy McVeighs. Maybe that had something to do with the lack of engagement.”

SCHADENFREUDE: Media Matters In Desperate Denial Over Brown Win.

Plus: Axelrod Sounding Awfully Kind About Scott Brown. “A clever Brown campaign + a bad campaign by Coakley + local issues = the White House spin in the event of a Coakley loss. Considering how stingy the White House generally is with praise for any foe (including citizens at Tea Parties), the pro-Brown element of this spin seems telling.”

And: Frank Luntz’s focus group explains things.

TUNKU VARADARAJAN on tea parties and the political class.

VERONIQUE DE RUGY: The Bipartisan Threat: “I have always said that the word bipartisan has a very scary meaning in Washington, D.C. Here is more evidence: Faced with a massive amount of federal debt and future spending that is about to explode, Sens. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.) and Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) decided that instead of cutting spending and forcing the bloated government to slim down, they would introduce legislation creating a bipartisan task force that would try to cut down the deficit.”

To me, bipartisanship means tarring and feathering politicans from both major parties. . .

CODE TEA: Tea Parties Go Home! All Politics Is Local!

ROGER KIMBALL:

The bad news is that Senator Ben Nelson is not up for reelection until 2012.

The good news is that today, December 19, 2009, is the day we got clarity on the Obama-Pelosi-Reid effort to steal medical care and call it “reform.”

I hope that Ben enjoys his final two years in the Senate.

OK, that’s not quite right. Since it was Ben Nelson of Nebraska that finally got Harry Reid his desperately needed 60th vote for socialized medicine, I hope 1) that the next two year are unpleasant for Sen. Nelson and 2) that he loses in 2012 by a landslide.

I’m still not being entirely candid. Nelson is a pathetic pawn in this game. He’s history and I hope he has plans for a new day job. He’ll need ‘em.

The really bad news is that the American people are just about to find that their medical care got a whole lot worse and a whole lot more expensive and cumbersome. . . . I suspect that the “tea parties” of the last several months will look like modest dress rehearsals once people get a handle on what the Obama-Pelosi-Reid triumvirate are attempting to do to us.

I hope they’re properly angry.

OBAMAGEDDON! NBC-WSJ POLL: TEA PARTY MORE POPULAR THAN DEMOCRATS OR REPUBLICANS.

Just how angry is the public with the country’s two leading political parties? Angry enough that the conservative, libertarian-leaning Tea Party movement is more popular than either the Democratic or the Republican parties, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

The Republican Party maintains its net-negative favorable/unfavorable rating in the poll, with 28 percent viewing it positively and 43 percent seeing it in a negative light.

For the first time in more than two years, the Democratic Party also now holds a net-negative fav/unfav, at 35-45 percent.

By comparison, the NBC/WSJ poll shows the Tea Party movement with a net-positive 41-23 percent score.

Well, Tea Partiers haven’t screwed anyone over, you know.

A TEA PARTY down under? “In a way — it’s like watching the Tea Party movement swallow the GOP from the inside, and the polls are going up rather than down as a result. If this is a collapse, then parties should collapse more often.”

TEA PARTY outpolling GOP? (Via Panzramic.) “The more conventional route in the United States is for a potential third-party force to overtake one of the existing parties.”

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DROP THE BALL: “While DHS was busy putting tea parties and anyone who dares fly the official military Gadsen flag on the domestic terrorist watch list, a real terrorist was spouting off online, glorifying suicide bombings and our mission in Iraq. I mean, I’m sure if I drink enough I might be able to understand the perception that a bunch of middle-class people peacefully dissenting with certain Washington policies are way more dangerous than a dude who talked about terrorist stuff on social sites and had gotten authorities’ attention six months ago.”

Yeah, Napolitano, et al. seem to have had their priorities misplaced. Here’s more on what they missed. And don’t forget what NPR reported.

UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch emails: “Ah, but those middle class protesters are a threat to politicians’ power. Terrorists are just a threat to their constituents’ lives. See the difference?” Such a cynic.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Washington Post: Officials may not have heeded warning signs. “Law enforcement officials also faced questions about whether they had missed possible warning signs. Six months ago, investigators came across Internet postings, allegedly by Hasan, that indicated sympathy for suicide bombers and empathized with the plight of Muslim civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a federal official briefed on the situation. The official, and another source, said investigators never confirmed whether Hasan was the author of the postings and did not pursue the matter.” Too busy worrying about Glenn Beck viewers, military veterans, and Tea Party organizers, I guess.

MORE: Obama targets “teabag people” as extremists.

DANIEL HENNINGER: The Permanent Tea Party. “What was learned Tuesday is that the American voter is absolutely, totally, unremittingly disgusted with both political parties. More than anything, the American voter is desperate for political leadership.”

POLITICO: Tea Parties Descend On Capitol Hill.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON NORTH AND SOUTH IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY: “As long as social issues dominate the Republican Party, they will continue losing their north–I had a lot of relatives who at least considered voting for Obama. Ironically, I wonder if the tea parties won’t help bring the two wings of the Republican party together: guns and lower government spending are the two things all members can agree on.” Sounds almost . . . libertarian!

SALENA ZITO: Mood Sours Toward Both Parties. “A sour mood exists among people, with close-to-10-percent unemployment, decreasing health-care benefits and rising taxes – and a view that the well-heeled get bailed-out but John and Joan Q. Citizen do not. . . . Has the anti-establishment ‘tea party’ movement had an impact on these races? Absolutely.”

LOUIS MENAND ON WHITE HOUSE STRATEGY: “It’s hard to kill the press, but it is not hard to chill it.”

UPDATE: On the other hand, there’s this:

What do tea parties, Glenn Beck, Fox News, and the US Chamber of Commerce have in common? All are demonized opponents of the Obama administration, and more popular then ever.

“If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

This seems to be the case, not only for Jedi Knights, but also opponents of the Obama administration (or at least those on their enemies list.)

Heh.

ST. LOUIS TEA PARTY to throw document parties.

UPDATE: Reader J.R. Ott writes: “What is so absolutely fascinating to me as a teacher is that adults are learning how to keep government in check even as the public school system stifles any civics education.”

INSTAVISION: I talk with Dana Loesch and Bill Whittle about NY-23, the Tea Party, and Third Parties. How big’s the GOP’s problem? Big enough that Tea Party stalwart and talk radio star Dana Loesch had to open by making clear that “I don’t hate the GOP and I don’t want to dump everyone in there.”

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Tea Party “Insurgency” Marches Into Key States.

Begun as a loosely affiliated groundswell of Constitution-waving protesters in tri-cornered hats, the Tea Party movement is now starting to rock the political establishment in key arenas.

The growing numbers of Americans coming out to the Tax Day Tea Party, the Fourth of July Tea Parties, and then the 9/12 Tea Party march on Washington are going back to their home districts and keeping up — even intensifying — the fight for smaller government and more transparency on spending and taxation.

In places like New York, Florida, California, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, local, state, congressional, and gubernatorial seats are suddenly being tugged to-and-fro by the new and unruly political force.

The upshot?

The street energy is welcome for an otherwise moribund Republican party looking for new moorings amid a tumultuous electorate.

The downside is that early examples shows that, in the short run, Tea Party-sponsored candidates could make it more difficult for Republicans as they — Ross Perot-like — split races as they target both “tax and spend” Democrats and those they like to call RINOs, or “Republicans-in-name-only.”

For the Republicans, the obvious solution is to run candidates who are less RINO-ish. For the Tea Party folks, the obvious solution is to push hard for their guys in primaries, then vote for whoever wins even if they have to hold their noses a bit sometimes. That’s politics. Though even RINO-ish candidates will be less so if they have to worry about primary challenges. (Via NewsAlert).

UPDATE: Michael Greenspan emails: “You’re exactly right, though if either the Republicans or the Tea Partiers learn their lesson before the 2010 elections I’ll be amazed.” Hey, I just blog this stuff. Whether people listen is up to them.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the NY-23 race, reader Michael Kennedy writes:

Glenn, the Republicans are upset at the tea partiers in NY 23 for backing Hoffman but that will be a nice test. The election is only for one year so little is lost if the Democrat wins a split race. But, if Hoffman wins, they will have to start to take the movement seriously instead of trying to co-opt them. First, I think the tea parties are libertarian, not “right wing.” That’s what I’ve seen in Mission Viejo, where we have turned out 500+ on each occasion.

This will be a very important race, more so than Virginia or New Jersey which are old line pols running on both sides.

I do wish Hoffman’s donation software was better. I tried to give him money and couldn’t.

Stay tuned.

GREAT TEA PARTIES, KID: Don’t get cocky. “Do the failures of the current administration represent a fantastic opportunity for the Republican party come 2010? Absolutely. Is it a done deal? Not until the votes are counted just over a year from now. And a year in the political arena is an eternity.”

Related: Harris Poll Puts Obama Approval at 45%. But remember, Obama won’t be on the ballot in 2010.

UPDATE: Bill Quick: “Here’s the nut of it: The GOP establishment sees their problem as being that they are out of power. People like me see the problem as being that they are out of power because they have turned their backs on the principles those who once voted for them believe in.”

TOWN HALL PROTEST CRITIC BUSTED:

Two officers of the Portsmouth, New Hampshire Police Department removed Carol Shea-Porter and Susan Mayer from a February 2005 town hall event hosted by then-President George W. Bush at the request of the owner of the property, a spokesman for the Police Department tells NowHampshire.com.

The revelation contradicts statements made by Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter as recently as this week that she was not removed from the event. . . . Shea-Porter has been criticized in recent weeks by state Republicans and national conservative media for her incendiary rhetoric and behavior aimed at constituents who oppose health reform measures in Congress. She has referred to participants in so-called taxpayer tea parties as “tea baggers” and refused to apologize when made aware of the sexual connotation of that phrase.

Her hypocrisy in criticizing the town hall protesters is just that much more notable now.

REMEMBER HOW WE HEARD ABOUT THE DANGERS OF THE ENTIRELY NONVIOLENT TEA PARTY PROTESTS? But will we hear the same clucking-of-tongues about the G20 riots?

The marchers included small groups of self-described anarchists, some wearing dark clothes and bandanas and carrying black flags. Others wore helmets and safety goggles.

One banner read, “No borders, no thanks,” another, “No hope in capitalism.” A few minutes into the march, protesters unfurled a large banner reading “NO BAILOUT NO CAPITALISM” with an encircled “A,” a recognized sign of anarchists.

The marchers did not have a permit and, after a few blocks, police declared it an unlawful assembly. They played an announcement over a loudspeaker telling people to leave or face arrest and then police in riot gear moved in to break it up.

Protesters split into smaller groups. Some rolled large metal trash bins toward police, and a man in a black hooded sweat shirt threw rocks at a police car, breaking the front windshield. Protesters broke windows in a few businesses, including a bank branch and a Boston Market restaurant.

Nothing like this at the Tea Parties.

More here: “The peaceful protesters started throwing rocks at police and police cars, and dragging trash containers into the middle of the street to block traffic. No surprise, the police fired canisters of pepper spray, white smoke and some rubber bullets into the crowds. . . . The folks that organized Thursday’s unauthorized march, the G-20 Resistance Group, is encouraging members to spend the morning, before the march, to take unspecified actions against local offices of corporations deemed evil.”

No arrests like these at the Tea Parties, either. Until we see scenes like this, I don’t want to hear yammering about the violence inherent in the Tea Party movement.

SMART GIRL POLITICS: The Insta-Wife talks with Michelle Malkin about women, tea parties, the Culture of Corruption, and who’s fighting it. “Go to any Tea Party and you see an increasing number of young women in the movement.” Plus, the power of Twitter.

INSTAVISION: I talk to Sen. Bob Corker about the Tea Parties, the ACORN scandals, the healthcare bill, and the debt limit vote, where he predicts fireworks. Plus: Will he run in 2012?

TEA PARTY UPDATE: Okay, I was busy this weekend in Quincy and didn’t have time to cover all the tea parties going on outside of Washington, DC and, of course, Quincy. But there were a lot. Here’s a picture from El Cajon, California, sent by reader Josh Swanson:

Reader Thom Stratton writes from Boise, Idaho: “I decided at the last minute today to take my kids to the Tea Party rally here in Boise. We were a little late, but joined the crowd marching down Capital Blvd. toward the park across from the capital bldg. I’m not good with guesses, but I’d estimate at least 1-2,000 people there. My kids, aged 4, 6, and 8 thought the “parade” was great fun, but got bored quickly when the speeches started. Still, it got my 8-year-old daughter interested in what’s going on, so I was able to explain some things to her. I’ve never been to any type of political rally or demonstration before. I’m going to make sure it’s not my last. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera so I could send you some pics. I’d planned to, but getting three young kids ready and into the car is a trick in itself. Still, between myself and the camera, I’d say it was better that I got myself there.”

And luckily, reader Jim Verdolini was there and sent this pic:

And here’s a blog report from Lakeland, Florida. I’m sure there are more — please send me links to anything that deserves attention.

Meanwhile, here’s some video from L.A.

HMM: Pelosi, Dems Bracing For Huge Turnout At Glenn Beck/Tea Party Gathering. Actually, I think they’re floating huge numbers — two million? are you kidding? — so that they can paint it as a disappointment if we see “only” hundreds of thousands.

But no, that can’t be it: “The House leadership memo predicting huge turnout could have been written in hopes that it would leak and inflate expectations for turnout, anticipating that it will fall far short. But Dems on the Hill insist they’re genuinely worried about what tomorrow will bring.” Well, if they insist that they’re genuinely worried . . .

UPDATE: Moe Lane shares my suspicions:

I am certain of three things:

1. The Democrats are trying to manage expectations about today’s DC demonstration by coming up with a number of ‘expected’ protesters that is far above actual expectations;
2. The media will play along;
3. It won’t actually work.

He’ll be there.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Matthias Shapiro writes:

As a numbers guy, I’d like to ask: What numbers you think would constitute success or failure for the Tea Parties?

I think the “2 million” number is hilarious. Do the Dems really think that the Tea Party will be 3 times bigger than the biggest Iraq war protest in the country (Feb 13, 2003) ? A protest whose organizers hired hundred buses across the nation to ship protesters in?

I think that meeting the 200,000 mark would actually mean far bigger things for the Tea Parties than for the Iraq wars. It would mean either 1) a higher percentage of those who disagree showed up (since urban areas tend to lean heavily Democratic and liberal), which means the topic reaches far closer to the middle or 2) more people came in from out of town.

Given that, I think 200,000 is a huge number for a protest. And, if you’re counting protests across the country, I think it the Tea Parties will reach that number and more.

Iagree. Two million would be about double the turnout of Obama’s inauguration. I don’t believe the Dems really expect that.

DAN RIEHL: “Why are there Tea Parties and large numbers of Americans feeling disconnected from media and politics? It’s because a large portion of America feels ignored by the culture. Trust me on this, the last time that happened it led to the Reagan Revolution when the usually quiet rubes decided that they wanted to be heard.”

And related thoughts from Ann Althouse, with an assist from Camille Paglia.

JIM LINDGREN: “The biggest problem with the media’s understanding of the Tea Party movement is that some on the left assume (1) that the Tea Parties are Astroturfed at least as much as some of the left’s own demonstrations and (2) that the educated right hates Obama at least as much as the educated left hates Bush and Cheney. So far, I haven’t seen much evidence of either.”

POST-PARTISAN, POST RACIAL? Voight: Is Obama creating a civil war in America? We’re a long way from that, but he’s certainly been the most divisive President since Nixon.

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson:

Worse still, his base is now arguing for him to get more partisan, get meaner, get angrier, and get more fired up — also at precisely the time that polls suggest he is falling for already doing just that — and losing his once bipartisan, no-more-red/no-more-blue-state supposed transcendence.

In truth, as partisans tell Obama to get nasty, his rhetoric the last 90 days has already been exclusively polarizing. The administration and its supporters have ridiculed tea-parties, town-hallers, Republican skepticism about deficits, etc. — evoking everything from Brooks Brothers to the Nazis, from being un-Christian to now getting “wee-weed up.”

Even Nixon never did that. Of course, he had Agnew, who was a more reliable hatchetman than Joe Biden.

THE PIRATE PARTY: A European version of the Tea Parties? Well, sort of.

HERE’S A NEWS REPORT on that Columbus Tea Party protest. “Cheering messages of limited government, lower taxes and states’ rights, thousands rallied yesterday at the Statehouse, hoping to continue a movement that began in the spring with nationwide tea parties. The enthusiastic crowd took aim at government bailouts, rising national debt, ’socialized’ health care and even Columbus’ proposed income-tax increase.”

TEA PARTIES IN OHIO on Saturday.

UPDATE: Justin Binik-Thomas writes:

I do have one update if I may:

The conservative groups in Ohio have banded together for a Statewide tea party on Saturday (list under “additional information”).
Theme: State Sovereignty
Location: Ohio Statehouse, Columbus OH

Additional Information

1. Judge Andrew Napolitano is the keynote speaker
2. Conservative groups from Akron, Ashland, Ashtabula, Athens, Canton, Chillicothe, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Defiance, Findlay, Lancaster, Mansfield, Marietta, Marion, Marysville, Millersburg, Mount Vernon, Newark, Springfield, Ottawa, and Zanesville and associated metro areas have confirmed.

If anybody attends, please send pics, etc.

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND:

Planet-killing climate-changers brag.

Chris Dodd snubs lobbyists, but not their cash.

ACORN holds pro-Obamacare rally, Tea Party breaks out. Similar event here. Also, how to ruin a professional agitation group’s day.

Energy-wasting bureaucrats at the Department of Energy.

Robert Byrd is down on cap-and-trade. But can he withstand the giant-puppet assault?

News reports on the Richmond and Asheville tea parties.

Latest polling not looking good for Obama. Plus the CBO rains on the Obamacare parade again.

And, finally, this. Preacher: InstaPundit needs more sex. I respond with this post.

IT’S NOT JUST TEA PARTIES! I was at Market Square for brunch today, and we saw a protest against TVA coal-fired power plants by United Mountain Defense and the local chapter of Earth First! A nice lady handed me a pamphlet and said “We’re against coal-fired power plants.” “So am I,” I replied. “They should all be replaced by nice, clean nukes!” This produced dumbfoundment. But, hey, burning coal is lousy. (And coal — and oil, and natural gas — should be saved for chemical feedstocks anyway). Nuclear plants are much better. And while they have issues, too, if we’re in a greenhouse crisis we should be prepared to depart from business as usual, right?

Anyway, in a shocking default I had forgotten my camera, but luckily I had my cellphone. So the pics aren’t Lumix-quality, but they’re acceptable.

I think there were about 40-50 people there, though it was hard to tell how many were protesters and how many were interested onlookers.

Although giant puppets are, of course, de rigeur at such events, it wasn’t obvious to me what they had to do with coal mining. The Insta-Wife thought that this one was supposed to be Barack Obama, but I’m not so sure. It kind of looks like Martin Luther King, but I don’t think he ever took a position on global warming or acid rain. Note the extremely white sandaled feet, which I thought a nice touch.

Anyway, more breaking-news coverage from InstaPundit, where there’s usually at least one backup camera somewhere. . . .

And if this interests you, here’s the website for United Mountain Defense. The request for protesters to wear “suits and ties” seems to have gone unheeded, though.

UPDATE: More giant puppets. Look like Sojourner Truth and Gandhi, maybe. Connection to coal-fired power plants still unclear. Clearly, however, the Tea Party crowd still faces a serious Giant Puppet Gap.

MORE TEA PARTY PROTESTS IN ARIZONA THIS WEEKEND. These things are happening all over, under the media radar.

MOE LANE: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) Sounds Rattled.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl says GOP operatives don’t undestand the Tea Party phenomenon. No kidding. From the comments: “Tea Parties don’t want to become Republican apparatus, but if Republicans think they’re over, it’s because they thought we were astroturfed Republicans in the first place.”

DONALD DOUGLAS: Obamacare and the Tea Party Effect.

NOW IT NEEDS DEFENDING? Biden defends fed stimulus. But this man can draw a crowd! “About 200 people gathered behind the former American Can company building to hear Biden speak.”

Only some of them were the ones he was defending it from:

Biden indirectly addressed Boehner and a group of protesters gathered outside of the factory. . . . The organizers of the Cincinnati Tea Party, a group opposed to using federal funds for local projects, issued a statement against stimulus spending.

More coverage here:

The Cincinnati Tea Party used the Vice President’s visit to reiterate the group’s opposition to using federal funds for local projects. Mike Wilson, the President of the Cincinnati Tea Party, joined others in a gathering this afternoon to voice their concerns. Wilson said, “We were told that the stimulus was necessary to prevent unemployment from reaching a peak of 9.1% in the second quarter of 2010. We were told that the stimulus would create a lower peak of 8 % in the third quarter of 2009. Last week’s official number of 9.5% showed that the Tea Parties organizers were right and the Obama-Biden administration was wrong.”

And also here. Nice job of piggybacking on the Biden story by the Cincinnati Tea Party folks.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Sizing Up The Tea Parties. Maybe it’s better if this stuff happens below the national-media radar. . . .

REPORT: Chicago’s Progressive Tea Party:

Below is our full video report from Chicago’s 4th of July “Re-Tea” Party Protest. It was organized by a ballot access group called Free and Equal.

The strange thing about this Tea Party is that many of the speakers were progressives from the Green Party and Nader campaign! It was all very odd. They are against the two party system, but support national healthcare. They are against Cap and Trade, but believe in man-made global warming. They claim to be “all partisan,” but boycotted the tax day tea parties because of Republican involvement.

What they did have in common with the average Tea Party protester was a sense of disenfranchisement and anger toward a dysfunctional two party system, but is that enough to bridge the socialist divide? Watch and find out.

I think there’s a lot of that sense of disenfranchisement regarding a dysfunctional two party system out there.

RICK MORAN: Tea Parties build on April success. He used to be quite unimpressed with the tea parties, so I guess that’s something.

READER PAUL LEE thinks that Sarah Palin will try to start a new Tea Party in August.

Pure speculation on my part but this was the very first thought I had when I heard she was resigning. Here’s why I think my theory is valid.

1. Sarah Palin is a fighter and wants payback for her VP run in that she wants to run an unfettered campaign free from internal sabotage.

2. Her speaking points are very much aligned with the stuff coming out of tea parties of late

3. The tea party movement to date has been entirely grassroots but lacking a coordinated national leadership. In fact, to date, it has purposely avoided that to maintain its character and idealism.

4. Palin knows running again as a GOP candidate would be a political dead-end. Her only real choice is to offer her services to raise tons of money for a new party – the TEA Party!

5. In terms of symbolism, the TEA Party would resonate most strongly with middle America – something the Greens and Libertarians never had.

6. She’s resigning now because the road to 2012 first needs to make a stop at the 2010 midterm elections. The only way a new party would have a chance in 2012 is to take a lot of seats in 2010.

7. The tea party movement needs to field its own candidates in 2010 because the last decade has shown neither Republicans nor Democrats can be trusted with power. The only candidates people will be able to truly trust will be those who run on a new platform free from the political influence peddling of the current parties.

8. The only way a new TEA Party can field candidates who will win is if they have a strong national leadership and access to a lot of fund raising power. In other words, Sarah Palin.

9. To win significant seats in 2010 means you have to start organizing now. Hence her unusual timing of her resignation.

10. Palin at the head of a new national party will suck all the oxygen out of the room. This single act will guarantee she will have as much air time as our Spender-in-Chief. Furthermore it will no doubt scare a lot of Republicans (since the leadership is all chickenshit today anyway) into actually taking on the Democrats.

11. And, cranking it up all the way to 11, Sarah Palin declaring the formation of the national TEA Party would be the single most disruptive, and dare I say most revolutionary act in the history of modern American politics. It will totally change the whole ballgame because everyone in a single stroke will be playing by HER rules.

“Higher calling,” indeed.

Hmm. My thoughts: (1) How’d that Ross Perot thing work out? (2) It would be hard — not impossible, but hard — to get enough candidates on the ballot to make a difference, given that state ballot laws are quite deliberately designed to prevent third parties from getting a toehold. (3) Palin’s got a lot of popularity, but she’d draw almost entirely from Republican voters. (4) On the other hand, it would serve the GOP establishment right . . . .

UPDATE: Lee responds:

Also, here are my responses to the questions you raised.

1. Ross Perot, despite having come out of left field, still won 19% of the popular vote. I think Palin could avoid the Perot effect by first establishing a political base for a new party via the 2010 midterm elections. How much stronger would she be as a candidate for a third major political party that manged to win, say, 20% of the contested seats in 2010? Going into 2012, she would have a much bigger advantage than Perot ever had.

2. Yes, I agree getting enough candidates on the ballot would be EXTREMELY difficult. But my counter-argument to this is, what other real alternative is there? My fear is that the tea party movement will fizzle by next year. People can only be angry for so long, and after venting at their elected Republican and Democratic officials for so long, how can the justified anger be channeled into real action? Tea partiers can “throw the bums out” but in order to do that, they have to have strong opposition candidates to actually vote for.

I’m pretty sure incumbents running in 2010 will make just enough pleasing noises to attract just enough votes of tea partiers to retain their seats – only to return to business as usual. I sensed a lot of “I’m glad I’m here to voice my opinions, but I don’t know what else to do” type of attitude in reading some of the tea party articles you posted this morning. What the TEA Party needs now is to be able to say, “Here are our slate of candidates in 2010 – let’s do everything we can to get them elected.”

3. I somewhat agree that Palin’s draw is almost entirely from Republican voters. Which is why heading up the formation of a new national party is the best move for her politically. She gets to ditch the Republican label and the constant internal sabotage. Palin doesn’t need the GOP, and the GOP is too ambivalent to give her the kind of support she needs to run a national race.

In any case, I’m not totally convinced myself Palin would be the BEST candidate for Presidency in 2012. That would be something to decide a few years hence. But the reason I like my theory so much is that Palin is probably the only figure in American politics today who can make a national TEA Party happen. Jim Geraghty noticed this about Palin’s resignation statement:

“She quoted Douglas MacArthur in her resignation announcement, referring to ‘not retreating, but advancing in another direction.’ But the words most associated with Douglas MacArthur in American minds are “I shall return.”

Geraghty is looking at the wrong MacArthur analogy. “I shall return” was MacArthur being forced to leave the Philippines under fire, under circumstances he couldn’t control.

But if my speculation proves to be true, then Palin’s reference to MacArthur is actually a reference to the Inchon landing in the Korean War. Remember that the U.N. forces had been overrun and pushed back to the Pusan Perimeter on a tiny corner of the Korean Peninsula. The war was virtually lost. MacArthur, by landing in Inchon, managed to turn the entire war around in a single action, and within a short period of time, North Korean forces had been pushed back all the way to the northern border with China. It happened precisely because no one expected MacArthur to make such a daring and difficult move from an unlikely direction at an unlikely time. Viewed in this way, doesn’t her sudden resignation make sense?

If Palin does emerge as the head of a new national TEA Party, it will be her version of Inchon.

Is Sarah Palin’s grasp of military history that sophisticated? Oh, well. As long as there’s no trouble at the Yalu. Meanwhile, John Richardson writes:

I think the third party talk is ill advised. I think Palin just needs to try and stick her finger in the eye of the Republican establishment. She can do that by supporting/encouraging challengers to incumbents, where appropriate, in the Republican primaries. Supporting Marco Rubio against the RNSC’s boy Crist would be a good place to start.

You’re right, history shows the folly of third party runs at the national level. The only way I see for the Tea Party to become a third party is to focus on getting people to run in local elections, and establishing themselves at that level.

I think pushing primary challengers — to both Democrats and Republicans — is a more promising approach. But what do I know?

And Ashley Cruseturner thinks she could become “a Republican Al Gore, beloved and admired on her side of the aisle and reviled and ridiculed by her irate opponents. Remember, Vice President Gore has reportedly earned $100 Million during the years following his defeat in 2000. Like Gore, Palin will always have star power and the ability to draw a crowd. We can expect her to use her influence on the party faithful when needed, and we can also expect her, like Gore, to continually dangle the prospect of running for president before the press and her faithful boosters (but my hunch is, ultimately, she will never pull the trigger again on a all-out run for the big prize). All she needs now are a ‘few inconvenient truths.’”

The budget provides plenty of those. But she’d be wise to avoid Al Gore’s weight gain. Meanwhile, a reader sends this post suggesting that a third-party run isn’t as hard as it used to be. Maybe, but I am not yet convinced.

And reader Meryl Jefferson says forget all the third-party drama:

Look, Palin is relatively inexperienced, compared to say, John McCain or Ted Stevens, but she’s not a nutter.

No matter what Maureen Dowd writes.

You don’t go all Ross Perot on the Republican Party and start your own fringe party by trying to coopt the TEA Party movement into a new Party.
Palin isn’t stupid. She knows that the two major parties are the only game in town. She understands that the correct path is to conduct an insurgency within the Republican Party, as Goldwater did.

If she were a loon, she’d be going to Idaho and into the mountains. But she’s not. She’s going to Simi Valley on August 8th to address the 50th Anniversary of the Simi Valley Women’s Republican Club. Seats are $150.00 a ticket for non-members. This is her roll-out speech. I bet the tickets are being snapped up so fast that not even Arnold can get one.

This is not the action of one who wants to go Ross Perot. It is the action of one who’s gone Galt on her own party and has decided to play the game her way.

The way Nixon played it in 1965, and Reagan played it in 1977.

Well, stay tuned. She’s certainly got a plan in mind.

MORE: Rush Limbaugh weighs in. Boy, she’s certainly taken over the weekend.

STILL MORE: Reader Chris Lynch writes: “Why couldn’t a new Tea Party be successful? The Republican Party was once a third party and their single issue was compelling enough to topple the existing party in power (the Whigs had just elected 3 of the previous 4 Presidents when the Republican Party formed in 1854). Within 6 years this new party had succeeded in electing Abraham Lincoln as President. Why couldn’t the Tea Party become just as successful in half the time?”

HOUSTON TEA PARTY: The organizers say 7-10,000 showed up, and send this picture of Steve Crowder (also seen on PJTV) addressing the crowd.

UPDATE: A more negative take on Houston, here. Plus, in Chicago, a tale of two tea parties.

Also, I’ve apparently underestimated the diversity of the movement.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Kevin Menard writes:

I suspect a lot of the problem with Chicago’s multiple parties and the Houston report is because it really is a grass root effort and not astro-turfed. T he Dallas party is both unfortunately placed (Southfork Ranch is on one end of the Metroplex) and too much of a day long event for someone with kids and pre-existing commitments. My 4th was committed long before these were scheduled. Most of the folks I know locally likewise. From living in Houston, I am not sure Discovery Green is any better a location. The original parties were in the evening in areas where people were – not conflicting with a host of other traditions.

Good point. And the Houston Tea Party organizers write:

Eh, the guy doing the negative report seemed to come and try to find the nuts in the crowd :/ can’t really control who shows up, and we didn’t discriminate much on tables. The truthers were removed though.

Numbers came from the police estimates they gave us. Definitely many times more that 2000. We do admit our sign-in efforts failed to even get a third of attendees, the area was just too open.

That’s breaks with grassroots organizing.

JIM GERAGHTY: “This Fourth of July, a lot of grassroots activists will be holding their second round of tea parties – 612 at last count. If you attend one this weekend, go, enjoy yourself, get fired up, take reassurance and confidence that you’re not alone. But, if I may make a recommendation, try to walk away with something of a plan. . . . Hopefully, Tea Partiers this weekend will come away with plans to attend city council meetings, Congress member’s meet-and-greets, their town-hall meetings with constituents. Don’t be rude, but be firm.” Good advice.

MORE REPORTING ON THE NEW YORK CITY TEA PARTY, and be sure to read this critique, too. To succeed, the Tea Party movement needs to remain true to the grassroots, and move beyond rallies to concrete — and locally-focused — political and electoral action. Some, of course, are already doing that.

UPDATE: Reader Sam Hamman writes: “Is there a website that shows where all the tea parties will be held? Specifically AZ and CA.” Try TeaPartyPatriots.org. Use the “Find An Event” button at the upper right. Also, check these news stories.

AN OVERSEAS TEA PARTY QUESTION, from reader James Spiller: “Do you know of any tea parties for Americans abroad? I’m in London, where there must be an awful lot of people who’d be interested in attending one. Heck, I’m guessing a fair number of students here from red states are just dying to get to a space not drenched in Obama love. I can’t find one, though.”

Anybody know anything? Perhaps there are some recruits to be had from among readers of The Financial Times or Der Spiegel. Or, heck, holders of U.S. Treasury bonds . . . .

JIM GERAGHTY ON NEXT WEEKEND’S TEA PARTIES: “When they held the first Tea Parties earlier this year, I noted the inherent challenges of organizing working people who hate higher taxes on a weekday (and the day taxes are due). The next round of nationwide events will be on July 4 — bringing its own challenges of time conflicts with parades and barbecues, but at least almost everyone has the day off.”

There’s a list of planned events at Tea Party Patriots. And if you’ll be attending one, please sign up as a citizen reporter for PJTV.

Quite a few of ‘em seem to be in the works.

TEA PARTIES: What comes next?

IN MICHIGAN, TEA PARTIERS LIKE THE FAIR TAX: “The Tea Party movement in Michigan moved from the streets to the conference room Saturday, with activists meeting to discuss the movement’s future. . . . The so-called Fair Tax beat out alternative proposals to require two-thirds majorities in the Legislature to raise taxes; the enactment of spending limits on state and local government, and a plan to hold the benefits of government employees to the average level in the private sector. Asked if that means the Tea Party movement is becoming a Fair Tax movement, convention organizer Wendy Day said: ‘No. It tells me that a lot of Fair Taxers came to the convention.’ Day said the primary purpose of the convention and the Tea Parties — a series of well-attended rallies held across the country April 15 — is to channel citizen outrage over the expansion of government and soaring spending into activism.”

TEA PARTY UPDATE: “On April 15th, over 3,000 people showed up on the lawn of the Rhode Island statehouse to participate in the local Tax Day Tea Party. As a follow up to that protest, local organizers are planning another event today, June 10th.”

Other tea party plans in Montana, and Georgia:

For a growing group of Peachtree City residents, a lot has happened since the April 15 tea party held at City Hall.

Event organizer Cindy Fallon and others last month formed the non-profit Peachtree City Tea Party Patriots that last week had a mailing list that included nearly 1,300 names. The group will hold their next event July 4 at the Fredrick Brown Amphitheater.

Also South Carolina. “Nearly two months ago, more than 200 people rallied outside of the Greenwood County Court House in protest of massive government spending and excessive taxation. It was April 15, 2009, Tax Day in the United States, and at noon protesters hoisted homemade signs that decried big government during a T.E.A. -Taxed Enough Already – Party. Greenwood held only one of more than 750 estimated parties on April 15. . . . Greenwood citizens will once again gather for one of the rallies, but this time at the Greenwood County Fair Grounds. The T.E.A Party / Freedom Rally, is scheduled for June 27 and is slated to begin at 5:00PM.”

And Texas. As I’ve noted before, this stuff is popping up all over, below the national media radar.

ANOTHER TEA PARTY PROTEST, in Winston-Salem.

Several hundred people turned out Saturday for a Tea Party at Winston-Square Park. It was a follow-up to an April 15 gathering that was part of a nationwide protest against taxes. According to media reports, more than 1,000 people turned out for that rally, but organizers said the turnout was more than 2,000. . . . Some protestors stood on Marshall Street holding up signs with slogans such as “Free Markets Not Free Loaders” and “Revolution is Brewing” while waving at passing motorists. . . . “Conservatives typically don’t do protests, but we’re learning,” said Fred Benson, an electrical contractor from Clemmons who was one of the organizers of the rally. He said that members of the North Carolina Tea Party group at ncteaparty.com wanted to have another rally and decided to focus on the health care debate this time. Benson said that more tea parties are planned, with the next one possibly on July 4.

These keep popping up, below the national-media radar. Plus, grassroots protests vs. interest-group press conferences.

A “TEA PARTY” PROTEST IN NEVADA: Hundreds protest taxes in front of State Legislature:

Drivers passing by honked in support of signs reading, “Government is the Problem,” “I’m Mad as Hell Harry” and “Let’s Put the Taxanation Devils on a Starvation Diet.”

Shyrl Bailey of Washoe Valley said legislators need to start paying attention to the people who pay their salaries. Most politicians would rather spend taxes on new programs than consider the consequences of spending, she said.

“I just feel like I have to do something,” she said. “We wouldn’t run a house like our country’s being run. We’re borrowing, borrowing, borrowing instead of living in our means like I would do in my household and it’s wrong. It’s wrong for younger generations.”

Olavo Kluft of Reno said he is angry about new state taxes and bailouts for auto makers.

“It’s like every time I turn on the news, something new is going on,” he said. “It’s socialism creeping in — not creeping in, it’s almost a complete takeover.”

Another account here: Gov. Gibbons joins tax opponents at rally.

Several hundred anti-tax foes, including Gibbons, staged a late afternoon rally on the Capitol Mall, many of them lining Carson Street with signs bearing anti-tax and anti-Harry Reid slogans. Organized by the group Anger Is Brewing, the event was billed as a “Tax Freedom Day Tea Party.”

Gibbons and conservative Assemblymen Chad Christiansen, R-Las Vegas; John Hambrick, R-Las Vegas; Don Gustavson, R-Sparks and Ty Cobb, R-Reno, urged attendees to turn their attention to the Legislature, especially in the next election.

As I say, these things are happening all over, mostly below the national-media radar.

UPDATE: Reader Rand Keller writes:

It is remarkable that the tea parties are still going on (even on Friday afternoons in Carson City)

But what I really can’t figure out is this: Is someone (other than you) tracking these? Do we know how many parties/people are still going? Instapundit seems to be the only news source on these. I’ve looked at various sites on the web, I’ve looked at twitter, I’ve looked at FreedomWorks, PJM…I can’t find anything. For example, FreedomWorks – Nevada has news last posted in 2006!!!

I know, I know Army of Davids and all that, but still….Obama has his well organized Meetups on Healthcare in June (I bet with fewer people), are these tea parties strictly local eruptions? Locally created, locally reported?

Yeah, pretty much. Which has its pluses as well as its minuses.

MORE STATE-LEVEL TEA PARTY ACTIVISM IN NEW YORK: “The people who organized ‘tea parties’ across the state are now planning a rally in front of the state capitol in Albany as they speak out against elected leaders. Rus Thompson is now looking for people to join him on a bus trip to Albany for the rally. It is scheduled for Tuesday, June 16th from noon until 3 p.m.” There’s a website, too.

TEA PARTY PROTESTS: Being emulated in Spain.

TEA PARTY POLITICS: A battle from the right is brewing for Bennett: Tax protesters target him for backing $350B bailout for banks.

In his third term in the Senate, Bob Bennett finds himself in unfamiliar and unfriendly waters, roiled by public frustration with Washington and with at least two sharks circling, believing the Republican senator might be vulnerable.

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is expected to announce his Senate bid today and Tim Bridgewater abandoned his bid for state party chairman last week, saying he heard all over the state that delegates wanted a more conservative choice for senator.

Bennett was a prime target of tax protesters at “Tea Party” rallies last month, who booed the junior senator for supporting a bank bailout last year; conservative state legislators are breaking with Bennett and lining up with his challengers; and Shurtleff’s internal polling shows Bennett might have cause for concern.

Read the whole thing. Related item here.

WELL, I AGREE WITH THE PRESIDENT: Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ‘Unsustainable’.

President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

Gee, you don’t say. I wonder how things could have come to such a pass? Good thing Obama’s on the job paring our debt. Oh, wait:

And as the article goes on to note, things are moving in the wrong direction even compared to these estimates:

Earlier this week, the Obama administration revised its own budget estimates and raised the projected deficit for this year to a record $1.84 trillion, up 5 percent from the February estimate. The revision for the 2010 fiscal year estimated the deficit at $1.26 trillion, up 7.4 percent from the February figure. The White House Office of Management and Budget also projected next year’s budget will end up at $3.59 trillion, compared with the $3.55 trillion it estimated previously.

So how about quit throwing trillions down a rathole? Just a thought. Also, maybe sending checks to dead people is a bad start.

This week, thousands of people are getting stimulus checks in the mail. The problem is that a lot of them are dead. . . . Antoniette Santopadre of Valley Stream was expecting a $250 stimulus check. But when her son finally opened it, they saw that the check was made out to her father, Romolo Romonini, who died in Italy 34 years ago. He’d been a U.S. citizen when he left for Italy in 1933, but only returned to the United States for a seven-month visit in 1969.

The Santopadres are not alone.

There’s not much evidence of prudent fiscal management out there at the moment, despite Obama’s talk.

UPDATE: Indeed:

Will someone please remind the president that the time to deal with deficits and reckless spending is before the horses leave the barn–which they do when Obama plants his John Henry on an outrageous liberal spending bill.

Will someone also please alert the president to the fact that one million American patriots gathered at “Tea Parties” on April 15 to express their grave concerns about the financial Armageddon that will result unless run away spending and budget deficits are addressed?

Remind the president that, although members of his administration dismissed Tea Party participants as “right wing extremists” engaged in unhealthy disagreement with government, the fact is that the Tea Parties fostered healthy debate among citizens who really care about the well being of future generations of Americans.

More Tea Parties will follow and perhaps the president should pay attention?

Perhaps he should.

RATINGS DISASTER: Anderson Cooper loses out to Keith Olbermann reruns.

UPDATE: Reader James Wink writes: “Of course Anderson Cooper is losing: he was known as a hard hitting reporter willing to go to any warzone in a dignified manner. His reporting in 2006 on Hizballah set high standards. Watching him make fun of the tea parties (or tea baggers as he called them) turned him into another journalistic hack.”

THE NEXT BIG ROUND WON’T BE UNTIL JULY 4TH, but Tea Parties are still popping up everywhere. And, in L.A. John & Ken have another one scheduled for May 16.

A SPLIT IN THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT? Complete with a Judean People’s Front reference.

Tucson Tea Party organizer Robert Mayer emails:

My advice to local organizers: Become self-sufficient. Capture names, email address, phone numbers, and zip codes. Raise money and merchandise (t-shirts, bumper sticks, etc) the events yourself. Do not let outside organizations like FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, and the Republican Party try to co-opt what you’re doing.

What we’re doing can only work with strong local organizations. Focusing too much on the drama upstairs at the national level will get us off track. Keep your head down and go for the goal. You do not need their direction to take this to the next level.

I think that’s good advice. This kind of split is inevitable in movement politics. My advice is to follow Mark Levin’s principle, and quit worrying about what “they” should be doing, or what “we” should be doing, and start thinking about what you can do. It’s a grassroots movement, and the Web means that good ideas will spread on their own.

STAGES OF DENIAL: In Reason, Matt Kibbe writes, Take pity on the left as it grapples with the tea party revolt. “Judging from the left’s hysterical reaction, something really big must have happened. But the only way to really understand the left’s misinformed and paranoid attacks is to realize that the protests represent tangible proof that basic libertarian values continue to resonate with the American electorate. That, apparently, is a difficult thing for some to accept.”

Plus this:

What were the tea parties about? Reading the signs and talking to people (unlike CNN’s incredibly hostile Susan Roesgen, I actually let folks answer my questions in their own words), the “agenda” was crystal clear. Tea party activists were worried and angry about government bailouts for the irresponsible, about spending that “stimulated” record growth in government and not much else, and about government borrowing that will place unconscionable burdens on future generations of Americans. My favorite sign of the day: “Give Me Liberty, Not Debt.”

Some tried to diminish the tea parties as misguided tax protests. In reality, the protestors demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of economics that went well beyond objections to higher tax rates. You can’t spend money you don’t have, the tea party attendees understood, and government spending above current revenues must be paid for with higher taxes, more borrowing (to be paid for with higher taxes in the future), or artificial government expansion of money and credit, which can only debase the currency and make everyone poorer through inflation.

Indeed.

CREDIT MARKETS GO JOHN GALT?

People are reeling from having their 401ks wiped out in the current market slide. And now those who had for years bought what they thought were “safe” blue-chip corporate bonds are discovering they were only safe until they were told by the government to go fly a kite because government wants to pay off the unions instead. That is deeply unfair to small bondholders, and it’s dreadful economic policy. As a friend of mine put it to me, “Who in their right mind will buy corporate bonds now? And if nobody’s buying bonds, how exactly are our debt markets going to get humming again? What a mess.”

Indeed. This could be the continuation of the Tea Party phenomenon, manifesting itself in a different way.

If you set out to wreck the non-governmental parts of the economy, you could hardly do a better job. And, frankly, the governmental parts aren’t being handled much better. I mean, how much safer are U.S. Treasury bonds in the face of this attitude, and towering piles of debt?

UPDATE: TigerHawk emails:

Yes, the situation with the auto workers is a mess and the small bondholders are getting whacked, but it is far from clear that the example of the GM situation will hurt credit markets. First, the credit markets have actually been improving in recent weeks (while the automakers have been understood as zombies), with more money flowing in to mutual funds that invest in bonds, yields on corporate bonds (among other instruments) slowly declining (meaning bond prices are going up), and, finally, a few original issuance “high-yield” bond deals actually getting done. So I am not sure the auto deal is in fact causing the credit markets to go “John Galt,” for which we should all be grateful. Second, in general the Paulson/Geithner era has been extremely solicitous of bondholders and other creditors. The equity has gotten crushed, the executives have been taken to the woodshed, but the government has been all about protecting the creditors, even to the point of serious moral hazard (thinking primarily of the AIG counterparties, who are the main and possibly only beneficiaries of the AIG “bailout”).

Well, I hope that’s right.

I GUESS OBAMA KNOWS ABOUT THE TEA PARTIES NOW: “He’s not really all that gracious when it comes to dealing with people that don’t already love him, is he? Kind of smirky, with a faint flavor of exasperation.” Say what you will about George W. Bush, he had a skin whose thickness wasn’t measured in Planck lengths.

PJTV: I talk with Mark Levin about his new book, Liberty and Tyranny, about the Tea Parties, and about what people should be doing in politics today.

NO WONDER OBAMA WAS ATTACKING THE TEA PARTIES: Hundreds of Tea Party Protesters Greet Obama in St. Louis. It would be amusing if this happened everywhere he went. Hope and change! And a new kind of politics. . . .

UPDATE: Video. “We’d like to thank the national media for talking to those 6 Obama supporters.”

GETTING DEFENSIVE? Obama targets “tea parties.”

SALENA ZITO: Dismissing Tea Parties is Perilous:

Everybody complains about taxes and government spending, but nobody does anything about them.

Perhaps that’s because whenever they do something, they’re often labeled as racists, right-wing extremists or worse.

That’s what happened when various news organizations covered the April 15 “tea parties” across the country; the media clearly did not know what to make of such a robust turnout for the loosely organized events, and wound up dismissing or belittling them.

The tea party movement may or may not go forward — but anytime the media or politicians dismiss a grassroots effort, they do so at great peril.

People attending those tea parties were consumers and voters, with a decent number of registered Democrats and independents sprinkled in.

State Rep. Josh Shapiro, a Philly-area Democrat set to run for Republican Arlen Specter’s U.S. Senate seat, was not keen on the rhetoric at some of the events, but he is wise enough not to ignore the real concerns of angry Americans.

Elected officials “should be trying to figure out where that anger is coming from and address it, rather than trying to find ways to dismiss it,” Shapiro says.

Read the whole thing.

PROPS FOR THE TEA PARTIES from Katrina van den Heuvel? “If even Nation editors are conceding the basic authenticity and potential power of the tea parties, and using them to remind progressives of their responsibility to organize effectively, isn’t the case closed on whether the movement matters?”

FRANK CAGLE ON THE TEA PARTIES:

Ask the environmental movement or any other issues-oriented interest group the last time they were able to organize a national protest with this kind of turnout.

The energy is real and significant and it ought not be ignored. There is very real anger across America and if political polling is to be believed it is not directed at President Obama. It is an anger directed at Washington in general, both political parties, and the prospect of a bankrupt federal government. The pictures I saw at the protests across the country had as many anti-Bush signs as anti-Obama signs.

The question for our political system is where this anger finds expression in the future and whether it re-invigorates the Republican Party or splinters it to pieces.

Yes, if the GOP blows it they could go the way of the Whigs.

UPDATE: Reader Darryl Boyd writes: “I just got my weekly fund raising letter ‘From the Office of Michael Steele’. Two pages and not a single mention of April 15th or the Tea Parties. Doesn’t look like the Republicans are going to change into the Tea Party any time soon. I haven’t contributed a dime in the last year. I wonder if he wonders why.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: A (mild) defense of Michael Steele, from Moe Lane. “This may have something to do with the fact that the Tea Party movement itself has no interest in bringing in the RNC . . . Speaking as someone who is simultaneously a supporter of both the Tea Party movement and the GOP: the door swings both ways on this. If it is made clear that someone is not being invited to participate, it seems a bit unfair to object when they take you at your word.” I posted (or at least thought had posted) an update with a reader email making the same point, but it seems to have vanished somehow.

TEA PARTY UPDATE: Sen. Ronnie Chance and Rep. Matt Ramsey: Tea Party Reflections.

What we found most striking about the tea party we attended, and those that we observed taking place elsewhere, is how it departed from the normal partisan atmosphere one comes to expect at political rallies. Those in attendance were for the most part not political activists, and most did not come to support one party or oppose another, though certainly there was an emphasis on limited government that once was, and must become again, the rallying cry of the Republican Party.

We say once because during the presidency of George W. Bush, Republicans in Washington abandoned their economic principles. Spending rose and the earmark culture flourished. As has often been said, Republicans went to Washington to drain the swamp, but instead joined the alligators.

Thus, the furious reaction by many on the left to the tea parties. . . . The fact that the tea parties represent a grassroots movement only perplexes the cynics further, because Obama’s election to the presidency has been marketed as the apotheosis of grassroots populism. It is as if the true believers of ever-expanding government have actually convinced themselves that only hedge fund managers on Wall Street could possibly oppose the government takeover of the private sector. Of course, they’ve also convinced themselves that a federal government unable to balance its budget — or even to finish its budget on time — year after year is somehow going to introduce sound accounting to the private sector.

Indeed.

PJTV: Michael Patrick Leahy and I talk about tea parties and what comes next.

L.A. TIMES: Crimes suspected in 20 bailout cases — for starters. “In the first major disclosure of corruption in the $750-billion financial bailout program, federal investigators said Monday they have opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax violations, insider trading and other crimes. The cases represent only the first wave of investigations, and the total fraud could ultimately reach into the tens of billions of dollars, according to Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the bailout program. The disclosures reinforce fears that the hastily designed and rapidly changing bailout program run by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve is going to carry a heavy price of fraud against taxpayers — even as questions grow about its ability to stabilize the nation’s financial system.”

UPDATE: Reader Ralph Smith writes:

You might want to mention that the tea parties are about more than protesting higher taxes and big government. I suspect that a lot of folks feel the same disgust and frustration as I with the widespread corruption of public officials — Murtha, Rangel, Dodd, Moran, Mollohan, Feinstein, et al. And revulsion at such practices as pay-to-sue (Rendell and Hood), tax cheats (Geithner and Daschle), pay-to-play with state pension funds, Congressional earmarks and quid pro quo campaign “contributions”, the list is seemingly endless. And we feel powerless to do anything about it, other than take to the streets.

Indeed.

HEH: “Featured below, from the Dallas tea party, yet another example of the ferocious white-power structure that consumed the protests. Little-known fact, per James Carville: She was the only attendee, among hundreds of thousands, who was less than 72 years old.”

HMM: NH Dem Boss: Tax Protesters “Have Lost Their Minds”. Well, then, judging by this Rasmussen poll there must be a lot of crazy people out there — including a majority of “mainstream Democrats.”

GALLUP: Big Gov’t. Still Viewed as Greater Threat Than Big Business.

Plus, from Rasmussen: “Most Americans trust the judgment of the public more than political leaders, view the federal government as a special interest group and believe that big business and big government work together against the interests of investors and consumers.”

And, also from Rasmussen, 52% Worry Government Will Do Too Much to Fix Economy. “On many issues, there is a bigger gap between the Political Class and Mainstream Americans than between Mainstream Republicans and Mainstream Democrats.”

RASMUSSEN: 51% View Tea Parties Favorably, Political Class Strongly Disagrees. No surprise there . . . .

Plus this: “One-in-four adults (25%) say they personally know someone who attended a tea party protest. That figure includes just one percent (1%) of those in the Political Class.”

And this has got to scare some people: “A majority (54%) of Mainstream Democrats had a favorable opinion of the tea parties.”

STEVE CHAPMAN: The Truth About The Tea Parties. “The scale of the federal response to the crises has come as a frightening surprise to many Americans, who suspect the cure will be worse, and less transitory, than the disease. . . . So why did people rally across the country when they should have been planning how to spend their tax refunds? Because their true dismay is about the mushrooming of federal outlays, which the demonstrators regard as a future tax increase in the making. Which, of course, it is.”

UPDATE: A.C. Kleinheider says it’s 1994 all over again. Which is a mixed bag . . . . Beware of the “professional conservatives.”

NEW YORK TIMES: Obama’s Revenue Plans Hit Resistance in Congress. “The administration’s central revenue proposal — limiting the value of affluent Americans’ itemized deductions, including the one for charitable giving — fell flat in Congress, leaving the White House, at least for now, without $318 billion that it wants to set aside to help cover uninsured Americans. . . . The unwillingness to embrace some of the major White House tax and revenue proposals has frustrated administration officials. They note that lawmakers, many of them supporters of the president’s ambitious agenda, clamor to hold down the deficit while balking at the proposals to finance his program.”

UPDATE: Readers wonder if this is a sign of Tea Party impact on Congress. Possibly.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here: “aybe the fact that 435 congressmen and one third of the Senate must face the public in less than two years has the legislators’ enthusiasm for another round of spending (and the required tax hikes) running thin. So you can understand the White House’s peevish reaction to the ‘unhealthy’ tea parties. Yes, they may be contagious. And worse, the sentiment in favor of fiscal sobriety so clearly expressed by those in attendance may spell an early demise to the Obama agenda.”

MORE TEA PARTY PICS: Reader Kenny Hill writes: “Montrose had two Tea Parties, one at lunch and one in the evening. Here’s a few shots from evening party. Thanks for all you do!” It’s Montrose, Colorado. And there wasn’t an “angry old man” in the bunch.

And here are some more pictures and a report from Cave Creek, Arizona.

And reader Jason Ruser writes:

Well, waddaya know? There was a tea party not 5 miles from my up in Oceanside, at Oceanside’s City Hall.

Met lots of friendly folks, many of which had home made signs of note.

They were a pretty non-threatening lot, unless you are threatened by little old ladies with American flag hats and doggies they dote on. Even had complete families out.

I only met one goofball who was handing out infowars CDs. “They are very professionally made, Sir…” Uh-huh.

A couple of motorcycle cops (riding BMW cycles) I polled said the crowd looked to be “Two thousand-ish.”

Here are some links to photos for your enjoyment.

UPDATE: Reader Robert Williams sends this picture from Raleigh, NC.

SOME TEA PARTY PHOTOS from Fresno. “Fresno had over 7.500 attend the most polite protest I have ever witnessed.” Plus, “Black People Against Obama,” and “Mixed People Against Obama.” Hey, that’s not part of the narrative!

UPDATE: Reader Larry Price sends this picture of the “angry old white men” standing in front of him at the Atlanta Tea Party.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Another one of those angry white guys, in Virginia Beach.

MORE: Lefty reader Nicholas Klemen writes: ‘You found photos of 6 black people at tea parties! Thats proof that there isn’t any racism going on at the protests. Take that Dems! Keep up the good work.” Well, there wasn’t any sign of racism at the Tea Party I attended, nor have I seen any reports from anywhere else. All I’ve seen are bogus claims of racism from apparatchik lefties who are — as Bob McManus predicted a month ago — hitting this note for lack of anything else to say, and because it’s their tired response to anything threatening.

That’s not the moral high ground you’re standing on, Nicholas. It’s just a big ol’ pile of crap.

Are the Tea Parties as heavily white as a Code Pink protest or a Howard Dean meetup? Maybe, I dunno. (And didn’t Dean call for white guys with Confederate flags to join the Democrats?) But the “Tea Partiers are racist” argument is typical sloppy sloganeering and deserves even less respect than I’m giving it here.

FINALLY: Some thoughts from Justin Katz. And be sure to check out these photos, too.

TEA PARTY NATION is a social-networking site for the Tea Party crowd. It’s set up by Judson Phillips, who organized the Tennessee Tea Parties movement.

MARK STEYN on the Tea Party movement. “Doing the job the Boston Globe won’t do, Glenn Reynolds, the Internet’s Instapundit, has been posting many photographs of tea parties. For a movement of mean, angry old white men, there seem to be a lot of hot-looking young chicks among them. Perhaps they’re just kinky gerontophiliacs. Or perhaps they understand that their generation will be the principal victim of this grotesque government profligacy.”

As I get older, the notion of kinky gerontophiliacs becomes steadily less troubling. . . .

UPDATE: Nice to be appreciated.

JERRY POURNELLE:

It was obvious to me at the time DHS and Patriot Act (and TSA!) were bad moves. Aside from the fact that amalgamating many inefficient bureaucracies into one multiplies not divides the inefficiencies – efficient government is not an overriding concern of mine – centralizing power to meet a crisis leaves the centralized power available for abuse long after the crisis is forgotten. The chances that a future Democrat administration would disband DHS and repeal Patriot Act were patently zero even at the time. Expand, politicize, and abuse now are the order of the day, and I am not surprised in the least.

Both major parties seem now irredeemably statist. Many Republicans are starting to say the right things once more, but I doubt 51% will trust the party again soon enough to help. Nor should we, on the record. I attended the public signing of the Contract With America, and I watched as it was abandoned by Republican “realists” who seemed to think that absolute power in *their* hands was kinda neat.

What becomes of the Tea Parties looks crucial to me. “Federalist” might be a good name for the result – small-f federalism would be far better than what we have, and regardless of the details of the history the name has an intrinsic respectability that would make the new alliance somewhat harder to demonize in the bitter political warfare it would instantly face.

A third party? I see that as possible, but I’m not sure whether it would be a good thing or not.

TEA PARTIES ARE STILL GOING ON: There was one in Battle Creek, Michigan today. Photos and report at the link.

A TEA PARTY PROTEST IN McMinnville, Tennessee. I hadn’t even heard of this until somebody emailed. I think there were a lot of these in small towns around the country. As Byron York noted, that these are happening in places where protests never happen is the big news.

ANDREW IAN DODGE: GOP Fails to Hijack Maine Tea Parties.

TAX DAY TEA PARTY ATTENDANCE estimated at 551,000. And reports are still coming in.

TEA PARTIES ON C-SPAN: The release says: “C-SPAN will feature viewer-submitted videos of tax day events from across the country, tonight at 8:00 PM ET on C-SPAN 3. It will rebroadcast at 11:00 PM ET. The C-SPAN 3 audience will be able to watch these events from April 15th through the eyes of fellow viewers who recorded them in their hometowns. . . . You can watch the program live on c.span.org at http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN3_rm.aspx, and after the program airs, the complete show will be available at http://www.c-span.org/TaxDay.”

BOB KRUMM: What the Tea Parties and Susan Boyle have in common. And why Oprah Winfrey is like the Republican Party.

ANGER AT TAX DOUBLE STANDARDS:

We’ve been wondering all morning why this year, of all years, Americans from coast to coast are choosing to mobilize in these Tax Day “tea parties” marches, described by Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds in an opinion piece in Wedneday’s Journal as “rallies . . . to protest higher taxes and out-of-control government spending.”

Part of it, as Reynolds outlines, has to do with technology and its ability to bring big groups of people together fairly quickly. And part of it likely has to do with the state of the economy and a broader objections by swaths of the populace to President Obama’s policies. But might part of it also reflect an anger on the part of the people over the willingness of some of the nation’s leaders to play fast and loose with (or at least show carelessness in regard to) the tax laws?

Somebody should ask Rep. Jane Schakowsky. Plus this:

IRS compliance employees have reported that taxpayers occasionally are citing the Geithner case when asked to pay their tax bills. “It’s making the compliance conversation harder,” she said.

Just explain that taxes are for the little people — and they’re the little people. That should do it.

TEA PARTY SIGNS OF THE TIMES, from Sissy Willis. Here’s one. I also like “Barney Lied, Our Equity Died.”

UPDATE: Wizbang:

Naturally liberals are branding the turnout of half a million Tea Party supporters on Wednesday as a “failure.” But so far, the nascent Tea Party movement has either matched or exceeded the turnouts reported for the first liberal “meet-ups” that were the precursors to the Netroots phenomenon of 2004 – 2008.

Of course those meetings garnered massive nationwide press coverage by a news media desperate to report anything that might damage the Bush Administration. The April 16 New York Times, by contrast, failed to publish a single word about the Tea Parties.

It’s all about the narrative.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “Obama’s rhetoric convinces me that tea parties have legs.”