A mild defense of Michael Steele’s non-involvement in the Tea Party movement.

Glenn Reynolds published a note from a reader indicating that the RNC is not referencing the Tea Party movement in its latest fundraising materials. This may have something to do with the fact that the Tea Party movement itself has no interest in bringing in the RNC:

With regards to stage time, we respectfully must inform Chairman Steel that RNC officials are welcome to participate in the rally itself, but we prefer to limit stage time to those who are not elected officials, both in Government as well as political parties. This is an opportunity for Americans to speak, and elected officials to listen, not the other way around.

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. While I perfectly understand the desire of the Tea Party people to keep the GOP from taking over, unless the movement plans to actually start a third national party it’s going to have to come to at least an alliance with one of the two existing ones. And starting a third party right now will – at best – merely ensure that the Democrats will retain power for at least the next three election cycles. That works out to at least nine years of more-of-the-same.

We may not have nine more years. I’m of the opinion that three years would be two too many.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Woonsocket Tea Party group stops supplemental tax increase.

It was originally expected to pass, no problem. But then a bunch of people showed up and… well. 6-1 for became 4-3 against.

WOONSOCKET — Faced with a heavy outpouring of opposition from property owners, the City Council last night narrowly defeated a supplemental tax bill to wipe out a School Department deficit of $3.7 million.

[snip]

The measure would have given the city authority to hike all classes of taxes — residential, business and business equipment — about 10 percent. The average homeowner would have paid roughly an extra $231 this fiscal year.

Though the hike would have been about the same on small businesses percentage-wise, they would have paid significantly more since they are already taxed at a higher rate.

(H/T: Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, and check out this Jim Geraghty piece). Continue reading Woonsocket Tea Party group stops supplemental tax increase.

Wednesday’s media Tea Party coverage, in its purest form.

I have to agree with Brother Pejman and Sister Academic Elephant: Bluftooni nailed this one cold.

But that’s OK: you can’t actually make grown-up stop doing something simply by making crude sexual jokes about them. You can thoroughly tick them off, so let me just thank the media for that as we move on to the next step of turning 600K into a few million. The discussion on that has already started

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Early night for me tonight (pledge drive post).

I have a get-together to attend tomorrow, video camera and other assorted electronic gear in hand… but not, alas, a laptop; mine’s still broken, which is why I have a pledge drive to replace it going on.  Alas, I’m still not seeing any of that sweet, sweet right-wing shill money yet…

The donate button’s to your right.

Moe Lane

PS: You should go to one of these events tomorrow.  No matter what your political affiliation is.  There.  End of me telling you what to do.

A roundup of today’s Tea Parties.

“Of what use is a baby?”

Glenn Reynolds has two very large links (here and here [the latter being the main page; the link’s goofed up for some reason]). See also Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, the Repurblican, Gateway Pundit, GayPatriot, Riehl World View, Ace of Spades, and a whole bunch of others for details. The biggest one was in St Louis, with about a thousand on hand; I’m going to guess that they probably broke ten thousand nationwide. Not bad for a movement two weeks old, and made up of a bunch of people who all work for a living.

At least, it’s not bad today. Clearly, now that we’re starting to understand the operating principles, the next wave of these are going to have to kick it up a notch…
Continue reading A roundup of today’s Tea Parties.

Planning a tax protest in Atlanta.

This site should be interesting, both for people who live in Atlanta and people who want to see how you go about organizing some protests against this debt bill that we’ve been saddled with.

Here are some tips on organizing a demonstration.

Michelle Malkin is collecting her own links to demonstrations: of most immediate interest is the one in Chicago. Also, see this article on the topic, which includes handy quotes from a liberal activist who sneers at people like YOUR MOTHER for being upset about Obama indulgently signing the Democrats’ pork wish list.

Via Glenn Reynolds, who should have linked to his book.

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