Today is the day hundreds of thousands of Americans have been waiting for — the Tax Day Tea Parties. Although it's very hard to forecast just how many will participate, the mere fact that around 2,000 Tax Day Tea Party events have been planned for today means that it would only take an average of 200 at each gathering to yield 400,000 participants. Of course, many of these tea parties will have many thousands at the least. Fox News will have live TV broadcasts from four cities (San Antonio, Sacramento, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C.) during the day featuring Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and other Fox News personalities.

Nonetheless, most media outlets are trying to ignore the tea parties, or worse still, belittle them. However, Howard Kurtz on FOX News' cable news rival CNN has admitted that CNN "may have dropped the ball by all but ignoring" the Tax Day Tea Parties. 

Here's the video of this admission along with some of CNN's coverage of FOXNews' coverage of the tea parties:

The question of the day is: why are so many Americans so eager to participate in the Tax Day Tea Parties? While the organizers stress the nonpartisan intent of the tea parties and mention such issues as pork, excessive spending, and high taxes, it's a good bet that most of the participants will be attending as a protest over the general direction that President Obama and Congress have been leading us in since last November. Yes, there are worries about taxes and spending, however, Congress and the new administration are taking our nation into uncharted territories of peacetime deficit spending, far supassing George W. Bush's record-breaking deficit of a half-trillion or so dollars in his last year as president. The first-year deficit for the new Obama administration will be more like two trillion dollars, about four times the Bush deficit.

Many Americans already understand the connection between deficit spending, the creation of new money out of thin air by the Federal Reserve to paper over the deficit, and the resulting decrease in the buying power of the dollar, which we experience as higher prices and refer to as inflation. We are in the early stages of a massive increase in the money supply of dollars, which means we are about to experience a rapid decline in the buying power of our income from work, our retirement income, our investments (already devastated by the economic meltdown of late 2008), and our insurance coverage.

This cartoon, "Inflation — The Hidden Tax," provides an excellent graphic illustration of the situation we find ourselves in today. This cartoon makes explicit what most people know intuitively, which is that we cannot make ourselves prosperous merely through massive increases in federal spending by Congress and the resulting creation of money out of thin air by the Federal Reserve.

Many tea party attendees today will already understand this truth. Many, many more Americans will come to understand this truth over the coming months and years. That's why "inflation is the reason for attending Tax Day Tea Parties today."

Meanwhile, the Tax Day Tea Parties represent a new grassroots phenomenon that is sweeping the nation. One of the leading sponsoring organizations, the American Family Association (AFA), has announced on its website that AFA TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party Day rallies are now scheduled in 2,018 cities. Meanwhile, the originators of the Tax Day Tea Party concept at taxdayteaparty.com list hundreds of Tea Parties scheduled for April 15.

The political pundits are taking notice. For example, Peter Roff, former senior editor for United Press International, stated on April 3:

The “Tea Parties” augur the beginnings of a new political movement, it is now clear, that may eventually exceed the power of MoveOn.org and others of the new liberal pressure groups in their ability to influence the votes of politicians in Washington as well as state capitals in every region of the country.

One reason for the rapid development of the Tea Party movement is the fiercely partisan nature of the Obama presidency. On April 2 the Pew Research Center published the results of their presidential job approval poll. They conclude: “For all of his hopes about bipartisanship, Barack Obama has the most polarized early job approval ratings of any president in the past four decades.”

The Pew poll found a 61-point partisan gap in opinions about President Obama’s job performance — 88 percent job approval among Democrats and 27 percent job approval among Republicans. Consequently, even though many brave statements are issued by event organizers and supporters as to the nonpartisan nature of the Tea Parties, you can be sure that most of the attendees will be Republicans and Independents.

As many of you know, this whole Tea Party movement traces back to a rant on CNBC by Rick Santelli on February 19. Here’s the video:



Santelli’s rant led to the first nationwide “Tea Party” event on February 27 in which an estimated 30,000 Americans participated in protests in over 40 cities. Now, less than two months later, on April 15 there will likely be hundreds of thousands of Americans participating in protests in around 2,000 cities.

The main organizing group behind the Tax Day Tea Party movement has been a grassroots coalition of Top Conservatives on Twitter (TCOT), Smart Girl Politics, and the DontGo Movement. As mentioned above, another main player in this movement is the American Family Association. The very new Glenn Beck 9-12 Project has also been promoting the Tax Day Tea Parties on its website. Since the Beck organization already has over 400,000 members, this should help swell the numbers participating today. Fox News will be featuring the Tax Day Tea Parties in a very high-profile way by positioning four of its key personalities, including Beck and Sean Hannity, at four major Tea Party celebrations around the nation and broadcasting their shows live from the events.

Newt Gingrich is the most prominent big-name politician who is heavily involved in the Tax Day Tea Party movement. He is featured in a video on AFA’s website promoting the event and even speaking on behalf of AFA in doing so. Gingrich is also very visible on the taxdayteaparty.com website. If you click on the “Resources” tab at the top of the homepage, you’re taken to a “Tool Kit” consisting of three PDFs from AmericanSolutions.com. If you’re curious and check out AmericanSolutions.com, you will find that Gingrich is the  General Chairman of the organization. Clicking on the “Social Networking” tab of taxdayteaparty.com leads to a video featuring Gingrich in which he says his organization American Solutions is partnering with the Tax Day Tea Party movement. Here's that video:

A related news item from politico.com provides some context for Gingrich’s involvement in the Tax Day Tea Party movement. According to Politico, on April 1 Gingrich gave a speech at the College of the Ozarks in Missouri during which he stated:

If the Republicans can’t break out of being the right wing party of big government, then I think you would see a third party movement in 2012.... During the period I was speaker, the U.S. government — for four years — total growth was 2.9 percent a year. Under Bush, it was 6.1 percent.... This year, I think it will be 36 percent in one year. It is just literally irrational.

Based on his heavy involvement in the Tea Party movement and his statement above at the College of the Ozarks, it is hard to resist the conclusion that Gingrich is skillfully positioning himself as the leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party and possibly as the leader of a conservative third party for the 2012 elections.

Veteran readers of The New American magazine know about Gingrich’s key role in placing the United States under the jurisdiction of the World Trade Organization and NAFTA among other internationalist positions he has taken. However, the vast majority of Americans who attend the Tax Day Tea Parties will be entirely innocent of such knowledge.

Nonetheless, the Tax Day Tea Parties today promise to provide a very welcome venue for hundreds of thousands of Americans to register their opposition to the trillion dollar bailouts, corporate takeovers, stimulus packages, inflationary deficit spending, etc. Hopefully these Tea Party protests will continue to grow until a mighty grassroots movement coalesces with sufficient clout to ensure either that the present Congress begins adhering to the Constitution or that the political climate is changed enough to bring about the eventual election of a majority of constitutionalists to both houses of Congress.

Having a majority of constitutionalists in both the House and Senate would mean an end to inflationary deficit spending in particular and lower taxes through less government in general. This result would justify the invocation of our time-honored Boston Tea Party and would be an appropriate homage to our Founding Fathers.

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Thomas Paine said:

Let's all sing, When Johny comes marching home! When Johnny comes marching home again Hurrah! Hurrah! We'll give him a hearty welcome then Hurrah! Hurrah! The men will cheer and the boys will shout The ladies they will all turn out And we'll all feel gay When Johnny comes marching home.

April 15, 2009

Tony said:

No Left/Right Just keep in mind, this is not about left or right, Democrat or Republican. Obama may personally be a very good man, but he has no choice but do the bidding of the banker elite - the same banker elite that has interfered with the fate and sovereignty of the United States since the rise of the House of Morgan in the early 1900's. Read Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket" and keep in heart he doesn't mention any political party, as its the industrialists and bankers running the show with politicians as merely proxies between them and the people. Please don't get sucked into polarization efforts. The last great defense this criminal government has is to get us to draw lines that don't exist and fight each other while they loot whatever is left and make their get-away.

April 15, 2009

Jon Roland said:

Focus on illegitimacy of income tax on wages Protesting spending and high taxation will be seen by many as mere special pleading. We need to focus on the fact that the income tax on wages is unconstitutional. It's not about the money. It's about legitimacy, and the importance of strict compliance with the Constitution. Visit http://www.constitution.org/cs_taxes.htm to find out why what the IRS does is unlawful.

April 15, 2009 | url

Pat Henry said:

Newt is a CFR worm With neo-conservative and Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member Newt Gingerich attempting to run ahead and claim leadership in the Tea Parties, it is important that lovers of civil liberty are aware of this attempt to subvert what is really our movement toward a genuine alternative party. I do not say "third party," because, as Patrick Buchanan has well said, the current two party charade really consists of "two wings of the same bird of prey." I believe Newt is raising a false standard in an attempt to move our gains toward his own candidacy attempts - either to win and forward the NWO, or to help insure loss of the federal Executive in 2012 by again splintering the growing electoral base that is aware that our liberties are engendered by Constitutional law (setting boundaries to the government) and libertarian economic policies (again restricting government regulation). While Obama-ites are a threat to the left, the RNC remains a threat to the right; this is the point. And now Newt rears his head as their threat to the liberty movement. We must remember that when the freshmen Congressmen shut down government, it was his smooth-tongued treacherous rhetoric that convinced them to unwisely compromise with his toothless, show-off "Contract With America." Their game is always "wait just a little longer," seducing those who would act on principle regardless the cost. As one way to remind ourselves--and others--of the takeover of the Republican Party by the previously Democrat Machiavellian (might makes right), Trotskyite (permanent revolution leads to the inevitable historical change to an elitist State) self-named (deliberately mis-named) "Neoconservatives," we can do little better that to read (and now listen to, at the linked page) Ron Paul's House speech on the topic, now posted permanently here: http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=630

April 15, 2009

Charles Byrd said:

The Modesto Tea Party I went to the Tea Party Event in my area (Modesto, CA.) It was a very energizing event. I really think this is going to be the start of something big. Let's hope Newt Gingrich doesn't mess it up by coopting it. I don't know about the others there, but my memory is too long to forget that Gingrich was part of the problem, not the solution.

April 16, 2009

MarkGlen said:

A Ron Paul T-shirt I attended the Tea Party in Lubbock, Texas. It was a massive event. I have been involved in Lubbock politics for the past 27 years but I recognized only two faces at the rally. It had the appearance of a third party in the making. One can't help but remember the last major third party gave us Bill and Hillary, the Hun, Clinton. Everything the speakers said was right on, but don't judge a political movement too quickly. If the Tea Party does nothing else hopefully it will sway a DemocRat-RepublicRat Congress our way. P.S. There was a Ron Paul T-shirt present at the Tea Party.

April 16, 2009 | url