Tea Party, Tax Day, Boston TEA PARTY Protests

The Huffington Post:

HuffPost has comprehensive coverage of the Tax Day Tea Party protests. Click here for the latest photos and video.

Anti-tax activists are assembling around the country today for Tax Day Tea Parties. HuffPost is following these protests with the help of citizen journalists. Check back here throughout the day for new video.

Media Matters has put together a mash-up of the Tea Party media coverage today:

A protest in Concord, New Hampshire, where one protester held a sign depicting "Obamanism" as a gun robbery, and another saying "B.O. Stinks And So Does His Big Government Agenda."

Nebraskans sign a petition to send to the state legislature:

In Louisville, Kentucky protesters sing the national anthem, which segues into an anti-bailout country song.

Matt Patrick of WHLO radio speaks at a tea party in Canton, Ohio:

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Several events happened on Feb. 27, less than two weeks after CNBC's Rick Santelli howled about irresponsible government spending and called for a Chicago tea party in an impromptu rant. And several people brought video cameras to those events. Herewith, a roundup of some of the best vids, which hopefully provide clues for what to expect on tax day:

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GIANT TEABAGS: A big crowd came out in Dallas, with some protesters dressed up in medieval stocks costumes (attached signs said the protesters were "shackled to the stimulus"). The whole tea party meme presents countless opportunities for fun costumes. These particular getups have the added bonus of a remarkable resemblance to giant teabags:

CONSPIRACY THEORIES: A video by bloggerinterrupted showcases a string of protesters from a Feb. 27 event in Cleveland who don't believe President Obama was born in the United States. Any good protest will have its fringe weirdos, but the birth certificate deniers may be emerging as an undercurrent in the tea party movement -- D.C. tea party organizers booked Obama-birth-certificate-skeptic Alan Keyes to speak at the tax day event outside the Treasury Department.

MICHELLE MALKIN: This video, from a tea party event in Washington, D.C., does a great job transitioning from the Santelli rant to a small protest outside the White House, and with some sweet background music. The crowd might be weak, but it's peppered with conservative celebrities like Michelle Malkin, who is prepared to defend earnest tea partiers from saboteurs:

ANGER: This video from a tea party in Chicago (which Santelli did not attend) shows Dan Proft, a political commentator for a local TV station, stirring up an enthusiastic crowd. He starts to lose them (around 2:45) after insisting that the Republican party ought to get with the program and start speaking up for small business. An angry guy off camera starts cussing up a storm. It gets even worse when Proft talks about reviving the Republican party in Chicago, and the angry guy really flips his wig and a few others start booing. "I don't represent the Republican party," Proft pleads at the end.

MOTORIZED PIGS: Protesters in Fort Worth take the prize for protest flair by riding around on motorized pigs next to a highway. The cowboy hats, boots, and the PORK DC sign make an awesome visual.

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Comments

[iczlite]

It's time to start a counter-movement to this pseudo-grassroots teabag stupidity:
Send Congress republicans and Faux News commentators packets of Kool-Aid!
How soon everybody forgot the GOP is the "Kool-Aid Drinkers' Party"....

[jamiejamiejamie]

This is the counter revolution rising against the socialist- liberal or communist revolution trying to walk all over the liberties that are granted to the US citizens through the constitution. Let's stop beating around the bush; lets stop with lies and deception and just lay all on the table. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Machiavelli, Alinsky would be praising this work of deception, it mimics their examples for all "progressives" to follow; lets just call it what it is..... What this administration is doing is furthering an agenda as it perpetuates a growing divide among us Americans. As American citizens of the United States we must understand that it is our constitution that stands between us "citizens of US" and tyranny of the elite. It is time to rise up and speak boldly; no longer democrat versus republican; this is a fight between freedom against oppression. Deception creeps in as world views are threatened. Our Constitution is the building block of this nation; remove our foundation and not only will this nation fall, and we all loose. I implore all who desire truth, all who desire not to be part of a manipulated mass "a group acting out of hysteria", research. Forget the pundits opinions, read the legislative bills coming out of our government, hold it up to our constitution to see if these laws build on this foundation or if they attempt to tear down our foundation.

[NationalTreasure]

Some of the comments from these people about socialism and communist are outrageous. They are a clear indication of why the republicans don't want to fund education.

Only the uneducated, the ignorant and those clearly lacking in the ability to rationalize and form opinions based upon facts would make the type of absurd statements as these republican lemmngs.

They just don't get it -- from the fact that the very public gathering places where they have been holding their events are created from communist and socialist ideology; the public roads that they travel on the poice protection at the events; the broadcastng of their events on the air-way that belongs to the public ... and on and on and on.

Without the great uneducated masses, the bigots and racists, the republican party would cease to have a constituency.

[YankinCanada]

Thank you. Well put.

[jamiejamiejamie]

Actually this is an inaccurate description of Republicans on education. We actually want our kids as well as your kids to get an education that surpasses what is acceptable in the public school. We believe strongly that education empowers the people and we want the US citizen to be empowered to think critically and independently. Therefor, although we do not see funding of education as an evil, we do see misappropriation of the funds as a crime. When our children come out of high school and can not read well enough to decipher what the importance of the words, kids that can not read a book and as independent questions, unable to decipher whether an author is communicating truth or unable to recognize the biases written into books to manipulate the opinion of the reader... this is an injustice to those kids... they are then prepared for no other opportunities in employment than to implicitly follow and obey... this to us is an injustice! We believe all need to be challenged, in reading, in math, history and science.... but sadly we spend such an incredible amount to educate our children and a high percentage of them are simply being prepared for menial work to be preformed by the uneducated. Private schools have superior education programs; for $200.00 monthly my child is so far advanced of her peers in public school. The system is broken, if money could fixit we would be behind it; unfortunately this system needs an overhaul.