Tea Party Protests Rally Against Taxes

Many Spent Independence Day Speaking Out Against Federal Spending

(CBS)  There have been fireworks for a different sort this Independence Day. Thousands of protestors held rallies in cities across the country, protesting big government, and big government spending, reports CBS News correspondent Terrell Brown.

"Letting Congress and the federal government know that we're displeased - we are very, very displeased with what they are doing to us and what they are doing to our future children," said Joe Stephanelli, from Morristown, Ohio.

Similar so-called tea parties sprang up around the country last April to blast the economic stimulus package, which was a movement championed by high-profile conservatives.

While many of the signs at the protests blame President Barack Obama for government overspending, the people CBS News talked to were just as upset with Republicans.

"I've been a Republican all my life, but I don't think I am anymore," said one woman at the rallies.

Political analysts say these rallies give conservative Republicans the unified front they desperately need.

"The movement certainly has given fiscal conservatives something to hold onto," said Poltico's Andy Barr. "You talk to a number of Republican strategists in Washington and they are all looking for ways to kind of grab that energy and put it into campaigns. So far they haven't done it."

It's energy Republicans seem to need now more than ever.

"The last few weeks they have taken a bruising from John Ensign, the senator from Nevada, Mark Sanford going down, and of course Sarah Palin resigning her spot yesterday," Barr said.

The organizers of the movement hope to take it nationally this fall.

[purpleenergy]

Linda Goodman?s, ?Tesla Purple Positive Energy Plates?
Natural Pain Management System to PROVIDE RELIEF WITHIN 20 MINUTES:
For Humans,Animals & Plants.
These are UNIVERSAL FREE ENERGY PRODUCTS [Pran] & are the only Natural Tools to provide protection from ELECTRO MAGNETIC RADIATION which results in all kinds of COMPUTER RELATED INJURIES.
MIGRAINE:SPONDALITIES; Fibromyalgia,BACK PAIN;TOOTHACHE,SPINAL INJURIES;SPRAINS
CHRONIC PAINS LIKE ARTHRITIS,RHEUMATISM, etc improvement is noticed from day one.
THE PAIN LEVEL DECREASES GRADUALLY.

SIMPLY PLACE THE PLATE ON THE AFFECTED PART FOR MAXIMUM 20 MINUTES. The pain disappears.!!!!!
FOR INSOMNIA/Epilepsy_ PLACE THE PLATE BENEATH THE PILLOW DURING NIGHT
FREE SHIPPING !!!!!!!!! Any where in the world. !!!!!!!
Without Investing A lot of Your Precious Time & money to CURE
An Incredible FREE Gift for You! & your loved ones & PETS
PROTECTS YOU FROM CANCER CAUSING Electro-Magnetic-Radiation, to which we are exposed in the shape of Computers, Cell, T.V, Owens, etc, etc-
DETAILS & Photo Album : purpleenergyproducts.com
!!!! http://s642.photobucket.com/albums/uu148/teslaindia_photos/
CONTROLS :::: PAIN, STRESS ,FATIGUE,DEPRESSION,INSOMNIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Without Investing A lot of Your Precious Time & money to CURE
MIGRAINE :BACK PAIN :SPONDALITIES :NECK PAIN :TOOTH-ACHE :STOMACH-ACHE :SPRAINS :
BREAST PAIN : Menstrual pains ,etc, etc Find relief within 20 minutes. MUCH FASTER THAN
TODAY?S DEADLY PAIN KILLERS.
It?s a perfect Pain reliever & u wouldn?t have to rush to HOSPITAL for a sudden Spondalities attack or a SUDDEN TOOTHACHE, Migraine or whatever, if u have a purple plate with u.

[sean58z]

The tyrant in this tax scheme is Ed Rendell. He still refuses to sign a budget for Pennsylvania unless the State House agrees to a substantial increase of personal income tax. On July 17, Commonwealth employees will no longer get paychecks for state fiscal year 2009 (starting July 1), until the budget receives Rendell's signature. Barack Obama should withhold federal money from Harrisburg to force Rendell's hand.

[stn_sage]

by enriquieGonzales July 4, 2009 6:11 PM PDT

And Obama...is spending what on the unbeatable afghan war. Obama Huessain is killing our soldiers. Get them out of Afghan and send in the CIA. Obungler do the right thing for once.
----------------------------

Obama is currently spending monies on those wars to end Bush's MESS!

IF he withdrew tomorrow, YOU'D be the FIRST ONE to COMPLAIN and scream,
cut'n run'!

The point is: no matter what he does, the fringe group YOU represents just wants to complain! And complain, and complain!

That being the case, you don't want---and shouldn't get---a place 'at the table' with the adults to deal with the problems!

You and the party you align yourself with---are irrelevant!

[Swift2]

The difference for the goofs who support this "Tea Party" business is that they approved of the fraud that made their houses "more valuable," despite the fact they were being sent to the poor house, and they approved of a war of choice based on lies. Now, I'm sorry if there are independents lured into this dead-ender movement. They should take a look around, and do some reading of various histories -- not just the wacko texts of the right wing -- and think for themselves. Like real independents, not the poor deluded fools of the FOX audience.

I think they do have a point in mistrusting MSNBC. One of the bad lessons the left learned from the GOP was to use the mass media for ridicule and propaganda. But what do you expect of a medium that has gone to a non-stop diet of MJ, a crazy recluse drug addict has-been, since he apparently OD'd on anesthetic.

[rednomo]

Only the rich in the gated community are getting richer and the working class is getting poorer. Mass E-mails to congress, as we noted yesterday, short of mass protests (like the ceaseless, impassioned kind that ended the Vietnam War) are a con. The fix is in.

As the Chinese crushed dissent in Tiananmen Square with brute force, corporations like EXXON/Mobil -- who just had the largest quarterly profit in the history of the world -- crush an economic fair playing field with hundreds of billions of dollars. Their are news conferences with e-mail petitions and then they are thrown in a garbage can or deleted from Congressional e-mail, if they ever make it through the spam filter. Progressive organizations and publications use them to create mailing and solicitation lists, not with a realistic expectation of matching the economic juggernaut of the oligarchy that is comparable to the military might exhibited at Tiananmen Square -- or by the tyrannical regimes in Iran, Honduras, and Burma among others today.

And the corporate media and the corporate ads that even fill progressive cites are the "mind framing" context in which positions are calibrated to favor the casino of corporate America, so that the fundamental injustices being done to America are disguised.

If the Dittoheads and FOX News watchers ever got accurate information on how they are being fleeced and robbed, there would be another revolution in American that would restore our original democracy of the people, by the people and for the people.

What is most unnerving, as I wrote yesterday, is that the enormous potential of American ingenuity and entrepeneurialism is being stifled by the gated community that wants to limit the nation's riches -- built currently on massive debt -- to residents who live in the garden of super wealth. Our unique American ability to progress without boundaries is being shut down by the brute force of unseemly sums of dollars.

Oh, we can complain that Harry Reid is spineless, that Barack Obama is too cautious and exhibits more timidity than audacity -- and we do -- but the problem is systemic. Weakness among the Democrats triumphs because too many of them are bought off. And Barack Obama probably quickly discovered that he wasn't top dog: Wall Street and the corporate oligarchy are. And so he made his piece with them.

Instead of change we can believe in, we are getting more of the same. In fact yesterday, President Obama chastised progressives -- yes progressives -- for criticizing the "centrist" Dems who are holding up a government healthcare payer option. That's not change; that's more of the same.

And the corporate media protects the gated village of wealth at every turn. And while thousands of progresssives have generously and passionately supported BuzzFlash over the years -- beginning when we were about the only feisty voice for democracy on the web in 2000 -- others just want to talk the talk, but rather spend money on "brand" products than support the new economy and new journalism on BuzzFlash. They'll pay for a corporate newspaper, cable TV and a large plasma screen HDTV, but won't buy progressive products to support progressive journalism.

Not until we feel the passsion that the members of the Green Revolution feel when they take to the streets in masses will we assume the power to restore our economic and political democracy.

Not until progressives with the financial wherewithal decide to put their country above their bank accounts and support corporate-free progressive media will we begin to counter the mainstream media, whose corporate coverage benefits its own owners.

Because unless we have and own the megaphone, the criticisms of the corporate media bounce right off their back.

We must get the truth through unfiltered. There is no reason we have left for letting the working class be played as pawns to allow the gated community to fix the game and play with loaded dice by creating scapegoats.

No reason at all.

By Mark Karlin

[ubrew12]

That is a helligood post.

[jbirdk]

If I remember correctly, the Boston Tea Party was concerning taxation without representation. So my suggestion is that for every tea party scheduled there should be twice as many activists to march in and stage a demand for equal rights - make it a gay pride day for instance, or a planned parenthood day and a demand for women's healthcare clinics in each state, etc. -- because without that, this event not only doesn't make any sense, it's just blatantly moronic. (And besides THAT would be something worth watching -- heh heh.)

[incog-nito]

Unless new jobs in both the private and public sectors are created, the economy will not recover. The stimulus bill will help create some jobs TEMPORARILY, until the money runs out. There is no indication jobs are coming back to the private sector anytime soon. There is EVERY indication that jobs continue to be moved overseas, and that any new jobs in the U.S. pay much less than they did before.

Conclusion: There will be no recovery. On the contrary, the economy will continue its inexorable downward slide for the foreseeable future.

[ffoulkes-2009]

...unless something is done with the laws here that invite industry back rather than pushing it aside.

[joe_x-2009]

The TEA Party "movement" may have a little more credibility if they had held their first event during the GWB Administration's 1st 6 years, when the Republican Congress was spending money like drunken sailors on shoreleave. Most, if not all, of the problems the AFA (umbrella organization of TEA)mentions either were started or greatly exacerbated by the George W. Bush administration. The TEA parties when seen this way are a not-so-well disguised attempt to arouse public passions against Obama--for problems that he inherited from Bush. The 4th of July is a time to celebrate our freedom and our way of life, not really a time to disingenuously protest the leadership of our Commander in Chief.

[mercywarren]

To rednomo: If YOU had a clue, you would know that one of the Patriots mantra's IS that it is NOT just about Republicans and Democrats. And the very things that you mention in your post ARE the things we are trying to fight.

[mercywarren]

Only one thing to say to the loons from the left: You are now outnumbered, we will not be shut up anymore by your rants and name calling. There is not one of you that have a plausible argument about what we stand for. You just keep up your frothing at the mouth, and while you are all in your rabid demise we will conquer and we will take back our country and we will revert it to what it was intended to be by the Founding Fathers. Your period of trying to shut us up and shut us down is over. And you can just bet this comes from ALL sides of ALL parties - it is just you rabid loons that are being excluded, and trust me there are a whole lot more of us than you - you have just made it look like there are more with your rabid attacks. Perhaps it would be best if you all just moved to Venezuela now, you would be much happier under Hugo - and please take all your loony cohorts, Sean Penn, Janeane Garofalo, Tim Robbins, etc. with you. We certainly don't need them either.

[ubrew12]

And now, a short break from our regularly scheduled programming of rightwingers wailing about the return of COMMUNISM in America. A simple statistic:

Since 1980, the share of the nations income going to her richest 1% tripled, while the share going to her poorest 90% fell by 20% (or one-fifth). This means that in order for the wealthiest 1% of Americans to triple their income in the last 30 years, the ordinary working American gets paid, on average, $10000 less a year today than he would have been paid in 1980 proportions.

And now, back to the dangers of COMMUNISM, SOCIALISM, AND ALL THOSE OTHER -ISMS rightwing America works overtime to save us from!!

[South-of-Heaven]

Caribou Madonna missed the Parties?
Shame on her, where was she?
Too Busy Quitting her day job?

[fleabag75]

(I like being a socialist. Give it a try,,,,,,,, you'll see what the big boys have been enjoying at your cost)

[hakori]

These tea baggers are shallow, narrow minded, hypocrites! What can we learn from these types: NOTHING! Taxes are lower now than EVER! What exactly are they protesting?! These are the fox news tea drinking bigots who scream about spending when it has to be done in order to keep the economy from totally sinking, but these very same folks were quiet as church mice when their lord and master Bush was spending us into bankruptcy! HYPOCRITES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ffoulkes-2009]

They are protesting proposed spending that will redouble our national debt before Obama is gone. They are protesting their grandchildren being stuck with debts our congress and executive branch were afraid of cutting.

[johndevinejr]

by tautomer July 5, 2009 5:56 AM PDT
You mean the way Obama is doing? Obama keeps paying his cronies at Halliburton and supports indefinite imprisonment at Gitmo. Obama kills innocent civilians in Afghanistan even though they did nothing to us. Obama keeps prisoners incarcerated without charges. Obama;s just carryin on that old Bush tradition!


The illegalites of the Bush Administration and the republican party are so massive it will take YEARS to repair. Fortunately we have begun that repair.

It is also fortunate that republicans continue to espouse the policies that brought us to the situation that we are now in.
The influence of conservatism and republicanism in this country has caused severe damage to education, science and freedom.

We have them stopped now. Let's keep it that way.

[wdrussell1]

Look at all those white republicans who have been in a coma for the last 30 years.

[grumpas]

They are never happy are they? They created this mess with their 'no new tax' nonsense now they don't like it. Someone tries to dig us out of the hole they have buried us in and they are up in arms? You figure it out folks!

[johndevinejr]

by tautomer July 5, 2009 6:05 AM PDT
Didn't I see where Obama killed a bunch of Muslims yesterday?


That happens in War. Fortunately Obama is going after the source of the problem instead of the OIL that Bush as after

[ubrew12]

Disagree. Obama is after oil. They ALL are. Our military isn't deployed for us, but for the people that pay our (enormous, debt-induced) bills. Those Americans who die for those who pay our bills, we thank you. You are the only foreign exchange this debt-ridden nation has left.

We have a kick-**s military. We have nothing else to give the global community. We pay our debts, with the blood of our young.

[johndevinejr]

by DemWatcher3 July 4, 2009 5:44 PM PDT
America has closed it's eyes to the Liberties and Freedoms our Founding Fathers worked so hard to win for us.

The Messiah Obama has taken control of the weak-willed left and forges a path of servitude and debt. Liberals never studied history, so they cannot foresee what awaits this once proud nation.

2010 will see the beginning of the end of the Democrat party, and 2012 will usher out the era of Obama when Sarah Palin sends the idiot back to Illinois.


Look at the nonsense spewed by these people. This comment is from a supporter of George Bush.

Bush instituted his "Faith Based Initiative" using tax dollars to support only Christian charities, in a deliberate program to use them as part of his political machine and furthering the Far Right attempts to turn this country into a Theocracy. In direct violation of the 1ST AMMENDMENT


George Bush instituted massive illegal wiretapping of Americans in VIOLATION OF THE 4TH AMMENDMENT. Every single rationale by Bush was rejected by the Supreme Court.

He denied habeus corpus to Americans imprisoned under his edicts in VIOLATION OF THE 4TH AMMENDMENT

He claimed the right to snatch anyone, including Americans off the street without warrant or criminal charges and imprison them indefinitely in VIOLATION OF THE 5TH AMMENDMENT

American citizens were imprisoned without charges or warrant in violation of the 6TH AMMENDMENT.


He approved torture of prisoners in VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE GENEVA CONVENTION AND THE 8TH AMMENDMENT


This is the republican version of "FREEDOM"

This is what they want.

Any wonder that we villify them every chance we get.

While claiming to be strong they give up their rights, and throw the Constitution in the trash at the first sign of danger. Like Bush who said "the Constitution is just a piece of paper"

Have you ever noticed that these supposed defenders of freedom invariably take the side of the government against the citizen whenever there is a conflict between them?

If we allow these weak willed cowards to influence the direction of our country we will end up with the type of "FREEDOM" that we had under the Bush Regime.

When conservatives are in charge what you get is IRAN.

And we certainly don't need that.

[tautomer]

It's funny how people always tend to associate economic performance with the party of the President. If you take a look at economic performance versus whether or not Democrats controlled one or the other houses of Congress a far clearer trend is revealed.

Since all spending flows through Congress this is a much better way to look at things. 92-94 are Democrat periods in Congress, 95-2000 are Republican Yrs, 2001 is a Dem year as they held the House, 2002-2006 are Republican years, 2007-08 are Dem years. When you look at deficits, growth, stock market performance segregated according to Congressional control you find it;s very bad to have a Democrat Congress.

[woeisme1]

Whats funny is how you stupid neo-nuts try to rework facts to make a point. The Republicans have caused this mess this country is in. Your ideology is as old and outdated as the fascists that run your party. I will re-post John's comment for you since you sidestepped it and went on a rant against Obama (typical neo-pub pathetic ploy)

I notice that republicans have NO IDEAS. They are the party of NO. Practicing party first, country second politics.
A good example is Tim Pawlenty of Minn witholding stimulus money in hopes of making it appear to be ineffective.
A repub, who will allow the people of his state to go jobless when the funds are there to employ them. And doing it to bolster his failed repub position.

That is and example of the republican patriot. Do anything, damage anyone just to try and cause failure for political gain.

[chonder2]

Yea, I would be fustrated too.Hum, where were the tea baggers during the Bush admin?
Why don't I see this on the tea bagger signs: ?
Procecute wall street bankers!
What happened to financial regulation?
Why ARE we in Iraq? Look at the COST!
PS-- You guys don't be too fustrated with delbert-Gonzales he's just doing his job as another Repub/Corporate message board PLANT.