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April 15, 2009 in City
Tea Parties to host tax protesters
Demonstrations planned throughout the region
From the Spokane Convention Center to Coeur d’Alene’s Independence Point to Colfax’s Codger Pole, tax protesters around the Northwest will gather today at Tea Parties.
There are no plans to serve orange pekoe and crumpets, though. “Tea” in this case stands for “taxed enough already,” according to some protesters.
It’s a movement fueled in part by talk radio and talking-head cable television. Last February, CNBC’s Rick Santelli called for a “Chicago Tea Party” protest of the economic stimulus bill being considered by Congress, and drew a crowd to the shores of Lake Michigan.
But long before Santelli, others have used imagery from the Boston Tea Party in Colonial America when objecting to taxes. The current movement gets some of its energy from the Ron Paul wing of the Republican Party, Libertarians and conservatives angry with growing federal deficits. At various times, they’ve called for like-minded individuals to mail tea bags to the White House to protest the stimulus package.
Wednesday’s protests, which coincide with the deadline for most individuals to file their federal tax forms, are being scheduled around the country, and a major demonstration is planned for Olympia.
Although organizers like to make reference to that Boston protest of 1773, it’s unlikely that there will be much dumping of tea into bodies of water today.
“That’s definitely not the plan,” said Gary Edgington, the organizer of the Spokane event, scheduled from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. near the Spokane Convention Center breezeway. He’s hoping there won’t be hundreds or thousands of tea bags tossed in the nearby Spokane River that would draw objections from state and local environmental regulators.
There will be speech-making. U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., Evergreen Freedom Foundation president Bob Williams and others will be speaking at the Spokane event. Initiative sponsor Tim Eyman, who will be speaking at Olympia and Seattle events, urged his supporters to attend protests to gather signatures for his latest ballot measure on property taxes, I-1033.
Organizers describe it as a grass-roots movement, although some media watchdog organizations have noted the protests are getting strong support from Fox News and several conservative organizations, Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Works and dontGO.
Romney/Paul split weighing on county GOP 
Gato on April 15 at 7:12 a.m.
The Washington Post ran a story this morning about tax protesters. A reader submitted this comment, which pretty much sums up everything:
The IRS is merely the collection and “control” agency for the patently unconstitutional, and now being shored-up through Welfare Fascism and Working People-killing inflation, Federal Reserve System…a front for Rome’s false-elite fiat money fractional “banksters” of the treasonous Fifth Column which controls Big Oil, funded Hitler, killed Lincoln for ordering Grant to let the Protestant South up easy, and Kennedy and King to send us to die for the pope in Vietnam…and now, through the Supreme Court’s five Roman Catholics’ cheating a homosexual draft-dodger into the White House…whose father killed Kennedy and whose grandfather was, in fact, Hitler’s banker for Vatican-banker Rockefeller and Rome’s “Black Aristocracy,” so threatened by the Jeffersonian Whig “Light from the West which ignited a volcano under the thrones [king and pope] of Europe”…to commit 9/11 (Viz. “The New Pearl Harbor,” Griffin, PhD).
liarsinnews on April 15 at 7:59 a.m.
Why do the political pimps show up at tea parties? ANSWER: To point their finger at all the others and puke out stuff like it is not them but the others. For the most part I`ve always been opposed to term limits but it appears its the only way to rid ourselves of these bums that were responsible for the finanicial crisis in the first place.
OlBlue on April 15 at 9:21 a.m.
These so called protesters, and the Fox News networks talking heads, wearing their anti-Obama T shirts and hollering about tax, tax, tax, Democrats realize I hope that the taxes they are protesting are good ol’ George Bush’s and his Republican majorities. They can protest against the new President and Congresses tax policies next tax day when his are in effect.
RK on April 15 at 9:15 p.m.
OlBlue, the protests were aimed at the 3.5 trillion dollar budget that has been proposed by Obama and company which will raise taxes on you, me and our children and grandchildren for generations to come. It is to stop the idea of socialized medicine which has been proven not to work. It is to protest the pork in all of the “stimulus” the government is shoving down our throats. Lastly to stop these congress members who are in bed with big business (literally in Franks case) and are using our money to pay their bonuses for driving thriving businesses into the ground. You can’t blame Bush anymore, you need to open your eyes to the here and now. This so called president has spent and proposed more spending in the less than 100 days he has been in office than Bush did in his entire 8 years. The new axis of evil for the USA is Reid, Pelosi and Obama.