Conservatives: Don't Give Up Marriage Fight!

Steve Schmidt, who was a top archictect of John McCain's campaign, and who served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Counselor to the Vice President in the Bush administration, has come out in favor of gay marriage. Schmidt is expected to call on the GOP to embrace the gay marraige agenda at the Log Cabin Republicans' convention today. Schmidt, according to the New York Times, "has a sister who is a lesbian, plans to say that there is nothing about gay marriage that is un-American or that threatens the rights of others and that in fact it is in line with conservative principles." Check the additional links at Memeorandum.

I don't know how the party's going to reconcile the "postmodern conservative" push by many top GOP officials and strategists, and as much as I love gay Republicans as fellow Americans, I see this ideological shift only strengthening the forces of sectarian radicalism on the left, and I'll continue to resist the gay marriage agenda.

Rod Dreher had a great interview with Maggie Gallagher earlier in the week, and she really captures what's happening on secular progressive gay rights front:

Rod Dreher: Maggie, you and I are on the same side of the gay marriage issue, but I am pessimistic about our chances for success. You, however, are optimistic. What am I missing?

Maggie Gallagher: Vaclav Havel mostly. "Truth and love wlll prevail over lies and hate." On that basis Havel took on the Soviet empire. Where is that invincible empire now?

Same-sex marriage is founded on a lie about human nature: 'there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions and you are a bigot if you disagree'.

Political movements can--sometimes at great human cost and with great output of energy--sustain a lie but eventually political regimes founded on lies collapse in on themselves.

I don't think of myself as optimistic: just realistic. What does losing marriage mean? First the rejection of the idea that children need a mom and dad as a cultural norm--or probably even as a respectable opinion. That's become very clear for people who have the eyes to see it. (See e.g. footnote 26 of the Iowa decision).

Second: the redefinition of traditional religious faiths as the moral and legal equivalent of racists. The proposition on the table right now is that our faith itself is a form of bigotry.

Despair is gay marriage advocates' prime message point. All warfare, including culture war, is ultimately psychological warfare. You win a war when you convince the other side to give up.

So now you want to decide we've lost on an issue where, in the March 12 CBS News poll two-thirds of Americans agree with us. I mean, does this make sense?

Public opinion hasn't changed much at all. What's changed is the punishment the gay marriage movement is inflicting on dissenters, which is narrowing the circle of people willing to speak. This is a very powerful movement, no question. Nobody understands that better than I do.

But in the end--and this is not necessarily "optimistic" -I think civilizations that can't hang onto an idea as basic as to make a marriage you need a husband and a wife aren't going to make it in the long haul.

So I'm not worried about the progressive myth that 200 years from now gay marriage will be the new world norm. I'm somewhat more worried about the kind of cultures around the world that might survive. It's not clear to me they'll have the virtues of American civilization for gay people or anyone else.

Really, this marriage idea has been around for a long time. I think it has legs.

Finally there's a third reason I'm not in despair. I've learned from five years in this fight--especially the last two years--that there are many things I can do that make a difference. I was told--by good people who agree with me, really smart people too--that California was impossible; you can't raise the money, nobody cares about marriage, if you get it on the ballot, we'll lose anyway because there's a generational shift. And none of that turned out to be true. Here's the good news: as civilization collapses the opportunities for intelligent and committed people to make a profound difference actually increase.

People are flocking to the National Organization for Marriage (www.nationformarriage.com), not because we try to scare them about how bad things are going to be--but because we offer them a chance to come together with other people of all races, creeds and colors to stand up for a core and timeless good.

Here's what I know that maybe you can't see: There are enormous untapped energies out their waiting for someone to organize them effectively.

The entire interview is avaible at the link.

California is "Fertile Ground" for Anti-Tax Demagoguery!

Pat in Shreveport offers her "Final Reflections on the Nation's Tea Parties." But I'll tell you what: I'm just getting going, LOL!

Seriously, I'm looking at this from the political science perspective, and that's why I'm interested in the theme of Jim Geraghty's post this morning, "Where Do the Tea Parties Go From Here?" Geraghty focuses on the local level, and updates with a letter from reader Teresa in Virginia, who notes:

Our Board of Supervisors have been drunk on spending the last few years. They raised all taxes including an enormous increase on declining home values two years ago. Last night they met to vote on the budget. They have a shortfall of over two million due to exorbitant spending sprees in the last year. In this small community over two hundred citizens showed up to protest any tax increases. It worked. The real estate taxes will not go up this year, although personal property taxes will rise. Unfortunately most of the board members are Republicans. For two hundred people to show up at a board meeting here is unprecedented. Citizen outrage matters.

This is what's going to bring about a more state-centered federal system, and California's going to be a leading laboratory on this question over the next month. We're going to have a huge debate over Proposition 1A, which is a ballot proposal to raise $12.5 billion for the state, which is supposed to be "a temporary two-year extension of an already-agreed-to two-year tax hike." George Skelton, at the Los Angeles Times, notes that some Assembly Republicans are pushing the measure, and then writes off popular anti-tax sentiment as hysteria: "Voter anger at the economy and disgust with dysfunctional Sacramento provide fertile ground for anti-tax demagoguery."

Yeah. Right. "Demagoguery." This measure's got the support of less that 4 in 10 Californians. According to the Public Policy Insitute:

About four in 10 support the measure (39% yes, 46% no, 15% undecided) to change the budget process by increasing the state “rainy day” fund. Less than half say the measure would be very (7%) or somewhat (38%) effective in helping California avoid future state budget deficits.

The California budgetary process has been out of control for years, under both parties. Taxing more to "shrink" the government sounds almost like science fiction, but that's what being proposed.

For more information, see California Tax Revolt 2009.

Image Credit: Gay Patriot, "Reader Reports from Pasadena Tea Party."

Collectivists Against Tea Parties

I've been ignoring the left's despicable treatment of the patriots who turned out by the hundreds of thousands on Wednesday for the Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party rallies (see Maggie's Farm's roundup).

Mona Charen lays out the media's total irrelevance, in "CNN Versus the Tea Parties." But I had to share with readers this letter I found at yesterday's Seattle Times:

I am appalled by these manufactured tea-party protests ... That there are Americans who are so self-centered that they have no sense of responsibility to America is repulsive.

We live in a country that asks very little of us in the way of sacrifice. There is no draft for national military service to protect this country. There is no requirement that we offer a certain amount of volunteering to make this country a better place.

All that is asked of our citizens is that we provide a small amount of the money we earn to share the cost of basic necessities that would be exorbitantly expensive for each of us alone.

I cannot afford a private firefighting force, but by paying my taxes, I can share in the cost of a fire department that protects my family and me.

I cannot afford a single private acre of recreational land, but by paying my taxes, I can share in the cost of a national-park system that includes such glories as Mount Rainier, Crater Lake and Yellowstone.

I cannot afford private tutors for my children, but by paying my taxes, I can share in the cost of a public-education system that makes a promise to all, not just a few.

Perhaps these elite tea-bag protesters can afford all these things out of their dividend earnings and their offshore bank accounts. But for us ordinary working Americans, we'll do things the old-fashioned way - through hard work and shared sacrifice.

-- Andrew Hummel-Schluger, Briar

This comment leads the "Letters to the Editor." It's pretty revealing of how this "shared responsibility" mentality gets full play in our collectivist media, to say nothing of the dumb mindset among folks on the left, who call patriots "irresponsible" and who refuse to "sacrifice." Dave Endler, a Vietnam veteran who participated at a Yorba Linda rally, might take issue with that. I'd say Andrew Hummel-Schluger needs to get out more often.

See also, Pamela Gellar, "Corrupt Media 'Teabags' the Tea Parties," and Glenn Reynolds' roundup of yesterday's events at Instapundit, via Memeorandum.

Photo: That's me at the Orange County Tax Day Tea Party. It was just after 11:00am. Folks were just getting organized, and participants were beginning to arrive. By about noon you could barely walk around the plaza, it was so packed with demonstrators. The Bay City Rollers performed the Beatles' Revolution and other songs between speakers.

In case you missed it, be sure to read my essay at Pajamas Media, "Suburban Warriors Rally at Orange County Tea Party."

**********

UPDATE: Moe Lane e-mails with the link to Welcome to FundRace 2008, with a search for "Andrew Hummel-Schluger."

Adds Moe, "Not to go all class-conscious, here - but since when has being the Associate Director for Academic Data Management for the University of Washington been a job associated with 'ordinary working Americans?'"

Here's Hummel-Schluger's page at the Registrar's Office, and he's on Facebook.

Southern Tea Parties

This is Robert Stacy McCain speaking to the crowd of demonstrators at Wednesday's Tuscaloosa Tax Day Tea Party on the quad of the University of Alabama campus (video here).

Also, here's Jeff Emanuel's esssay at Pajamas Media, "What the Tea Parties Represent" (Emanuel spoke to a crowd of 400 in Macon, Georgia) :

On Wednesday, over 200,000 ordinary Americans gathered at nearly 1,000 locations around the country. Fed up with high taxes, increasing debt, and expanding government encroachment into their private lives, they gathered to express their displeasure with the Obama administration’s policies and to rally around conservative ideas to push for a new way forward for America ....

The reaction from liberal media and pundits to this widespread demonstration of and for traditional American values was predictable, to say the least. With that most ingrained and dependable of leftist traits — projection — on full display, liberals from California to Capitol Hill, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D), declared these hundreds of grassroots gatherings to be “astroturfed” – events funded by “corporate front groups” – and (according to one senior Democratic aide) attended by “neo-Nazis,” “secessionists,” and “racists.”

How far we’ve come from 2008, when “community organizers” were being compared to Jesus (and government executives to Pontius Pilate) and dissent and protest were being hailed as the highest possible forms of patriotism!

Read the whole thing at the link.

See also, Gateway Pundit, "Gutter Journalism: Angry Mainstream Media Reporters Use Nasty Sexual Slang to Describe Tea Party Protesters (Video)," via Memeorandum.

Caterpiller Torture! The Horrors!

The secular progressives are screeching in deranged disappointment tonight over the release of new Bush "torture memos" released by the Justice Department.

Yes, it turns out that in all of their angst, the leftists are crestfallen now that Candido Conde-Pumpido, Spain's top prosecutor, "has rejected opening an investigation into whether six Bush administration officials sanctioned torture against terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, saying Thursday a U.S. courtroom would be the proper forum."

Spain's attorney general obviously knows more about international politics than the idiots of the radical left.

I must admit, though, having "insects placed in a confinement box" with a remorseless terrorist jihadi killer is absolutely inhumane. God, that's worse the waterboarding - the horrors!

Republicans and the Tea Parties

This gentleman was hanging out early at the Orange County Tea Party, just kicking it along the back wall of the plaza. When I asked if I could take his picture he snapped to attention with the respect of general inductee:

Can the GOP reach out to a guy like this? That's a limited government manifesto he's sporting there!

Karl Rove offers his take, "Republicans and the Tea Parties":

Yesterday was Tax Day, and it was marked by large numbers of Americans turning out for an estimated 2,000 tea parties across the country. This movement is significant ....

The open question is whether Republicans will be boosted by the nascent tea-party movement. House Republicans smartly offered a proposed spending plan this year that would freeze nondefense discretionary spending, suspend earmarks for five years, and reform entitlements. But cutting spending won't be enough. Taxes matter -- and will matter more in the coming years.

The 2009 Tax Foundation survey found that Americans believe that taxes should, on average, take just 15.6% of a person's wages. And 88% of Americans in the same poll believe that there should be a cap on all federal, state, and local taxes of 29% or less -- there is still a constituency out there that will favor tax cutting politicians.

But to tap into that constituency Republicans will have to link lower taxes to money in voters' pockets, and economic growth and jobs. They must explain why the GOP approach will lead to greater prosperity. Such arguments are not self-executing. They require leaders to make them, time and again, as Reagan once did.

Some liberals believe that the recession has made tax-and-spend issues passé. But political movements are often a reaction against aggressive overreach by those in power. Mr. Obama's response to the financial crisis -- a government power grab and budget explosion -- has put spending and taxes back on the front burner. The tea parties are an early manifestation of that. More is sure to follow.

Sounds good.

See also, The Sundries Shack, "The Picture Every American Should See."

Tea Parties: Among Most Extraordinary Grass-Roots Uprisings in History

Investor's Business Daily argues that Wednesday's Tea Parties "were part of one of the most extraordinary grass-roots uprisings in our history":

Less than three months after a landmark election, throngs of demonstrators everywhere gathered to object to the revolution that our new president is steamrolling into law. It was a landmark protest in the history of the republic.

But how can the voices of tens if not hundreds of thousands of angry taxpayers be turned into concrete political action?

Investor's Business Daily attended one of these historic events, the Fishkill Tea Party in upstate New York, just east of the Hudson River. The original Fishkill Tea Party took place Aug. 26, 1776, when 100 women forced a storekeeper named Abram Brinckerhoff to sell them tea at the lawful price of 6 shillings per pound. This year's Fishkill Tea Party nearly filled Dutchess Stadium, the county's minor-league ballpark.

In a region of liberal New York state where Democrats have been consolidating their power during the last two elections, thousands traveled long distances to support pretty much the classic Reagan political agenda — and not just on taxes and spending.

Banners and placards sported slogans that included "Don't Spread My Wealth. Spread My Work Ethic," "Who'll Bail Me Out?" "Atlas Will Shrug," "Tea Today. No Kool-Aid," and "Acorn Didn't Have To Bus Us Here," referring to the left-wing activist group that specializes in voter registration drives benefiting liberal Democrats.

The crowds responded with thunderous applause to the various local activists' rallying cries, ranging from "How about those Navy Seals!" referring to the recent rescue of Americans from Somali pirates, to attacks on Hollywood for its role in moving America away from traditional Judeo-Christian values.

The audience roared when resentment was expressed toward illegal aliens who eat away the social welfare resources funded by taxpayers. When unemployed information technology manager Troy Johnson took the podium, he elicited an ovation with the quip:

"Just to prove how radical I am, I believe we should all be speaking English!"

The throng cheered calls for term limits to curb the power of elitist career politicians; applauded taunts that the establishment media would proceed to underestimate and misreport the size of the turnout; shouted in approval for blocking the president's planned federal intrusion into health care; and rose from its seats for a speaker who called Washington's march toward socialism "a slap in the face to those who have served in the military."

It was quite clear, however, that the tea partiers feel betrayed by Republicans, not just the Democrats now in power in both the executive and legislative branches in Washington.

There's more at the link.

I noted this morning that the GOP has just as much to fear from the Tea Parties as do the Democrats. See my my essay at Pajamas Media, "Suburban Warriors Rally at Orange County Tea Party."

See also, "Cable Anchors, Guests Use Tea Parties as Platform for Frat House Humor," via Memeorandum.

Rightwing Extremists!

Here's a couple of "right-wing extremists" for you, Melissa Clouthier and Kathleen McKinley at Houston's Tea Party yesterday:

See their posts, "Tea Bag Envy and the Left’s Lack of Imagination" (Mellissa), and Dear Rightwing Extremists (Kathleen).

See also, Instapundit for lots of Tea Party information, and Michelle Malkin!

Atlas is Shrugging: A Tea Party Roundup

Well, I'm travelling today to Fresno to spend the weekend with family, so here's more Tea Party blogging to tide things over until this evening.

This is one of my favorite signs from the "Orange County Tax Day Tea Party":

The Los Angeles Times finally did a big story on the protests. But notice how the paper continues the media's leftist framing of the events by spinning the rallies as a right-wing fringe movement, starting with the title of the report: "Republicans Stage Tea Party' Protests Against Obama."

So, let's check out some of the bloggers covering the story. Doug Ross covers the CNN/Susan Roesgen controversy, in "Tea Parties, Code Pink and the sickness of the MSM":

Nearly 200,000 Americans showed up to protest high taxes in hundreds of cities around the country today.The New York Times and The Boston Globe ignored "Tea Parties" altogether. ABC and CBS reporters were nowhere to be found. NBC, on the other hand, simply made obscene references - using a tea-related colloquialism - to express its corporate disgust with America's founding principles.

Doug has the transcribed Susan Roesgen's totally unprofessional "interview" with a Tea Party dad at the Chicago rally (see also, "CNN Correspondent Claims Tea Parties 'Anti-Government,' 'Anti-CNN'").

Truly unreal...

More from around the nation:

* Infidels Are Cool, "Pics from the Santa Ana Tea Party."

* Michelle Malkin, "Massive: Tax Day Tea Party USA; Updated."

* Midnight Blue Says, "April 15th - Tea Party Day."

* Moe Lane, "Back from the DC Tax Day Tea Party."

* Nice Deb, "Kansas City Tax Day Tea Party."

* Paco Enterprises, "Tea Party, Lafayette Park, Washington, D.C."

* Pat's Daily Rants, "Anti Tax Tea Day Wrap Up/I'm a Right Wing Terrorist?"

* Point of a Gun, "From The Party."

* Pundit & Pundette, "DC Tea Party pic's *updated and expanded*."

* Robert Stacy McCain, "'Bama Tea: How Big Is Huge?"

* Samantha Speaks, "The Tea Party."

* SWAC Girl, "Silent Majority No More! Staunton's tea party in Gypsy Hill Park."

I wish I could post more!

But I'll be back online later tonight.

Orange County Tax Day Tea Party

Well, I'm back from the Orange County Tax Day Tea Party, held at Plaza of the Flags, at the Santa Ana Civic Center.

The Orange County Register has a report, "Activists Blast Government at Anti-Tax Protests."

Here's a few photos:

This is the best crowd shot I could get. The Register piece says "hundreds" of protester attended the event, but I'm betting the number was closer to a couple of thousand:

This is Andrew Breitbart and his father-in-law, Hollywood actor Orson Bean. Breitbart headlined the list of speakers. He railed against the liberal press (the "Democratic Media Industrial Complex"), and suggested that most of tonight's network news coverage would focus on Janet Napolitano's DHS report that puts nearly half of the American electorate on "a waiting list for far right-wing domestic terrorism":

Jim Gilchrist, the Minuteman founder, was cruising around the rally:

And here's yours truly, Americaneocon. My youngest son colored the sign last night, and my oldest son took the picture:

I'll post more photos later, as well as more details on the event.

April 15th: Time for Some Tax Day Tea Partying!

Not suprisingly, USC's Marc Cooper, at the Los Angeles Times, says of today's Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party rallies: "I can recall only a few outbreaks of such collective insanity as these tea parties in recent years." The article is here (plus the links at Memeorandum). Cooper wraps up thing with this: "The Tea Party movement, more than anything else, is a rather garish display of a Republican right that seems to have lost not only the national elections but also any semblance of political bearings."

The leftist smears are getting old, and they've become more strident as today's big rallies approached.

In any case, Patrick Ruffini has published a great (non-crazy) analysis of the movement, "Tea Party '09: The Rise of the Right's New Distributed Online Activism":

By the standards of the Obama campaign and MoveOn.org, the Tea Parties happening all across the country are not very organized. Contra Talking Points Memo, no single group "owns" or is instigating tomorrow's events. The closest thing one could call to a centralized Tea Party homepage is Eric Odom's TaxDayTeaParty.com. Freedom Works has popularized a Google Map which has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times that's become the unofficial directory of the event. Newt Gingrich is driving attendance through his American Solutions (a/k/a Drill Now) list, as are a myriad of other groups.

Contrast this to a MoveOn or MyBO (now OFA) mobilization during the election. A single group would send out a call for a single day of action to its massive e-mail list (in MoveOn's case, this would go to 5 million people; in Obama's, to 13 million people). They would direct people to an online event planning tool, which would either have the hallmarks of MoveOn's internal toolset or the Blue State Digital "PartyBuilder" toolset. Host and attendee information would be hosted on a centralized database. Reminder e-mails would be sent at timed intervals through the same technology. It would be a relatively clean, seamless, and centralized process.

Nothing of the sort has happened with the tea parties, at least from a technology and logistics perspective. Organizers have had to self-report their events to various national groups. One group claims credit for putting one set of events; another group for a different set. It's a much messier process that belies the stereotype of the right as a group of mindless automatons.

This is why it's amusing to watch the left try to debate Jon on the charge of "astroturf." MoveOn virtually invented massively replicable online grassroots organizing -- which many would equate with astroturf, in that activity is actually being directed by a few people at the top, and thousands of people on the ground are (willingly) following orders.

If there are talking points, sample agendas, syncronized start and end times, or standard branding and collateral for the tea parties, I haven't seen them. When Tom Matzzie and Eli Pariser did it old school and decided to send an e-mail to drive people to, say, an Iraq War vigil, they instantly created a level of organization we haven't yet seen in the tea party movement.

And that's okay.

The lack of coordination is a sign of a still-young movement that's just learning to organize online in earnest. And arguably, the advantage brought by a massive e-mail list is much impressive now than when MoveOn pioneered the practice in 2002 and 2003, its heyday.

Read the whole thing, at the link.

The Washington Post also has a take on this, "Tea Parties a Test of Conservative Online Organizing."

But for the best evidence of the collective clarity of what's happening, stayed tuned with Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds.

I'll have more this afternoon!

Can Sarah Palin Save Her Career?

I'm not asking the question. I saw it at Hot Air the other day, "Fox News question of the day: Can Palin save her political career?" Allahpundit's got a readers' poll at the link, and 7 out of 10 say she's fine. Not representative, of course, but it's good to know rightroots folks still love her, because she's getting a closer look from the punditocracy. Here comes Paul Bedard, for example, with this juicy passage (via Memeorandum):

Worse than Dan Quayle before her, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's bright star has fast faded in the eyes of Washington Republican officials and analysts, calling into question her efforts to become a national party figure ready to run for the White House. "She's just not ready for prime time," said a party strategist who has worked for former President Bush. "I mean, she's starting to look like she's having trouble being governor of Alaska." At issue is her weak debut, hampered by the mishandling of her by Sen. John McCain's campaign, and subsequent family issues such as the most recent tiff with Levi Johnston, the father of her first grandchild and ex-fiancé of her daughter Bristol.

It's a little early to write off Governor Palin. Her first week in the national spotlight was enough to wilt even seasoned political candidates. And when Palin has troubles, the conservative grassroots rallies to her side. She'll be out there in force for the 2012 GOP primaries, without a doubt. We've got a long way to go, and she'll be going up against folks like Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, and perhaps Newt Gingrich. They've all been under the spotlight, and some of the controversies surrounding these three are more damaging than anything Palin's likely to face going forward. We'll be seeing moves by Bobby Jindal and Tim Pawlenty, as well - who knows who else? We're in the pre- pre-primary phase of Republican nomination politics, and anything can happen (just ask Howard Dean).

The key to watch is Palin's gubernatorial reelection bid in 2010 (the Juneau Empire notes that Palin has yet to announce her intentions on reelection). Her policies and scandals will be aired statewide, and then nationally on top of that. If she returns to the Alaska statehouse she'll have the wind at her back for her llikely 2012 presidential run, and she can continue to build long-term experience for her presidential resume. She's young and likely to be a force in Republican presidential politics for the next decade, at least.

Keep abreast of Palin's political life at Conservatives for Sarah Palin.

Leftist Denial on Tea Party Movement

Digby admits that today's Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party rallies have her worrying. Not because of imminent social unrest and the possibility of violent loss of life. No, she's frightened that today's grassroots outpouring will provide the framework for everday Americans to "simply fall back on the conservative propaganda of the past two decades to explain their problems."

Of course, Digby's a ringleader of the nihilist fever swamps, so her screed's not unusual. But you might expect more from Chris Cillizza, who notes:

Are these tea parties the first signs of life from the Republican base? Or a trumped-up attempt by Washington insiders to suggest there is significant opposition to Obama's spending plans?

How the events play out will be a telling barometer. If these tea parties go off without a hitch and are well-attended (and, as importantly, well covered by the media) then Republicans have something on which to build. If the coverage shows a serious of sparsely attended events or covers controversial statements made by attendees, the tea parties might backfire.

But check out Matt Taibbi's feudal exposition on the movement, "The Peasant Mentality Lives on In America":

It took a good long while for news of the Teabag movement to penetrate the periphery of my consciousness — I kept hearing things about it and dismissing them, sure that the whole business was some kind of joke. Like a Daily Show invention, say. It pains me to say this as an American, but we are the only people on earth dumb enough to use a nationwide campaign of “teabag parties” as a form of mass protest, in the middle of a real economic crisis.

Having attended attended an organizing meeting last night with the Orange County National Tax Day Tea Party, I can assure people that "teabaggers" are not peasants. The meeting was held at a 12th floor law firm at Irvine's Wells Fargo Tower. I joined community activists and local busisnesspeople organizing against the "high-tax and deficit spending policies of President Obama and the Democratic Congress."

A huge theme I'm hearing over and over again is that the demonstrations today are not partisan. There's certainly a chance for the GOP to capitalize on conservative/libertarian grassroots activism, but at this point, faux Republicans are as big a target as the Democrats. But as Jay Newton-Small indicates in her essay, "The Floundering GOP Looks for a Turnaround," today's events may be the opening the Republican Party needs to regain its balance:

"The party has a ways to go," laments Phyllis Schlafly, a veteran conservative activist and founder of the conservative Eagle Forum. Schlafly says she takes hope from the grass-roots "tea parties" being organized against massive government spending across the country. One event in Chicago last week even boasted of turning away GOP chairman Steele, with organizers declaring they'd prefer not to have any elected officials at center stage.

Still, at Pasadena's Tea Party last Saturday, activists turned against political candidates trying to hitch their wagon's to the growing anti-tax outrage. The issue's particularly immediate here, as California has a special election scheduled for May 19 to approve Proposition 1A, a measure seeking to raise billions in new revenues for the state (for more on this, see "Don't Believe the Lies - Vote No on 1A-1E!").

I think political leaders of both parties should be scared, but on balance, it's easy to see why the leftists are absolutely freaking out over today's events. The more the Tea Parties grow, the more this country returns to its roots in federalism and limited government - which is antithetical to the program of statist-collectivism that's at the heart of radical left-wing ideology.

Tax Day Becomes Protest Day

Glenn Reynolds, a.k.a., Instapundit, has been a tremendous resource for information on the Tea Party phenomenon shaking the political system. His readers fill his inbox with the latest information on anti-tax protests from around the country, and I've posted on a few of the events here.

Well, it turns out that the Professor's published an essay on this at the Wall Street Journal, "Tax Day Becomes Protest Day." Here's the introduction:

Today American taxpayers in more than 300 locations in all 50 states will hold rallies - dubbed "tea parties" - to protest higher taxes and out-of-control government spending. There is no political party behind these rallies, no grand right-wing conspiracy, not even a 501(c) group like MoveOn.org.

So who's behind the Tax Day tea parties? Ordinary folks who are using the power of the Internet to organize. For a number of years, techno-geeks have been organizing "flash crowds" -- groups of people, coordinated by text or cellphone, who converge on a particular location and then do something silly, like the pillow fights that popped up in 50 cities earlier this month. This is part of a general phenomenon dubbed "Smart Mobs" by Howard Rheingold, author of a book by the same title, in which modern communications and social-networking technologies allow quick coordination among large numbers of people who don't know each other.

In the old days, organizing large groups of people required, well, an organization: a political party, a labor union, a church or some other sort of structure. Now people can coordinate themselves.

We saw a bit of this in the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, with things like Howard Dean's use of Meetup, and Barack Obama's use of Facebook. But this was still social-networking in support of an existing organization or campaign. The tea-party protest movement is organizing itself, on its own behalf. Some existing organizations, like Newt Gingrich's American Solutions and FreedomWorks, have gotten involved. But they're involved as followers and facilitators, not leaders. The leaders are appearing on their own, and reaching out to others through blogs, Facebook, chat boards and alternative media.

Read the entire essay at the link, and also at Memeorandum.

I got home earlier this evening from an organizing meeting of the leaders of the Orange County National Tax Day Tea Party. It's been a long time since I attended a function of local political activists (outside of my college related activities), and I can attest to Reynolds' insights: He's right on when he says that ordinary folks "are using the power of the Internet to organize."

I'll be writing a report on tomorrow's Orange County Tea Party for Pajamas Media. Actually, while the biggest event is scheduled for Santa Ana, there's a number of other scheduled protests around the county. Folks are excited about tomorrow, but there's already a tremendous buzz about additional protests scheduled for July 4th and beyond.

I do think there's a canny coincidence to the release of the Obama adminisration's DHS "right-wing extremism" report. Leftists are getting a gas out of all of this, but a close look at the document reveals how ridiculously politicized it is. I expect a backlash to the administration's public relations on both the report and the protests, particularly after the national media covers tomorrow's demonstrations, and with the poliltical talk shows chewing on the implications on through Sunday at least.

Tune in tomorrow here at the blog, folks. I should have a lot of good stuff coming down the pipeline. In the meantime, check out Jeff Emanuel, "Revolution Rekindled: Tea Party Movement Blossoms," and Bill Whittle, "Why You Should Attend a Tea Party."

Angry Taxpayers Rally at Nationwide Tea Parties - UPDATED!

Well, tomorrow's the big day. Americans around the country will gather at civic centers nationwide to protest "the high-tax and deficit spending policies of President Obama and the Democratic Congress," as the Washington Examiner puts it, in "Angry Taxpayers to Rally at Tea Party Protests":

The movement started with a “Porkulus” protest organized by Keli Carender, a blogger-mom in Seattle getting her first taste of political activism, three days before the now-famous Feb. 19 television news rant by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Carender was concerned about Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package. Blogger Michelle Malkin got wind of Carender’s activity and touted it, which led to similar protests in Colorado, Arizona, and Kansas. A national movement caught fire, organized by a bunch of mostly unconnected people who found each other via social networking on the Internet. These facts about the origins of the movement render especially goofy recent accusations from pro-Obama groups on the left that the Tea Party Protests are somehow part of an evil right-wing conspiracy funded either by CNBC or Fox News.

Part of the reason for the mean-spiritedness in some of the attacks from the pro-Obama groups is likely the failure of efforts to turn out large crowds in support of the chief executive’s $787 billion economic stimulus package and $3.6 trillion 2010 federal budget, with its $1 trillion deficit and comparable floods of red ink for a decade thereafter. The recent “New Way Forward” gathering here in D.C., for example, was heralded by organizers as the first of a wave of counter-Tea Party Protests, but barely a dozen people turned out. Similarly, much-publicized efforts to use the 13-million email addresses compiled by the Obama campaign to generate pressure on Congress barely caused a ripple, much less a wave of support for the Obama budget.

The piece links to Tax Day Tea Party and National Tea Party Day.

See "The New Tea Party and Revolution" for another tremendous resource.

Nice Deb has bumped up her post, "Who’s Going to A Tax Day Tea Party?", and she links to Luke America's resource, "101 Tea Party Sign Slogans."

See also:

* Adam Graham, "Why I’m Attending a Tea Party."

* Angry White Dude, "Liberals Fear Conservative Tea Parties."

* Astute Bloggers, "Pawlenty Slams Obama Taxes."

* Atlas Shrugs, "White House Distances Itself from ... Lovers of Freedom."

* Cheat Seeking Missiles, "Toast Krugman At Your Tea Party."

* Dan Riehl, "The New Battleground: Tea Parties And The Tenth Amendment."

* David Weigel, "Tea Party Activists: Tax Day Events Will Attract ‘Silent Majority’."

* Flopping Aces, "Homeland Security Report targets Flopping Aces."

* Glenn Reynolds, "MARK LEVIN’S LIBERTY AND TYRANNY is still #1 on Amazon."

* Liberty Papers, "The White House responds to DHS report."

* Liberty Pundit, "Gallup Poll: People OK With Level Of Taxation."

* Little Miss Attila, "The Jon Henke Smackdown of Tea-Trutherism."

* Lonely Conservative, "Liberals are Mocking the Tea Parties."

* Lynn Mitchell, "Tea parties going global."

* Michelle Malkin, "Where will you be for Tax Day Tea Party?"

* PoliGazette, "Are the Tea Parties A Delayed Reaction?"

* Protein Wisdom, "Tax Day Tea Parties."

* Repurblican, "Beware of Tea Party free-riders and saboteurs, Right and Left."

* Right Wing News, "I am Participating in my First Protest Tomorrow."

* Robert Stacy McCain, "Alabama, here I come!"

* Snooper Report, "You Throw It Out And Replace It."

* Stop the ACLU, "Gallup Poll Apparently Says Us Teabaggers Are Out Of Touch (?)."

* The Strata-Sphere, "The Threat Of Far Right Extremism - Updated!"

* Sundries Shack, "Ignore the JournoList Meme of the Week and Go to a Tea Party!"

* Wake Up America, "Watch For 'Men in Black' At A tea Party Near You Tomorrow."

* William Jacobson, "The Constitution Is A Subversive Manifesto Per DHS."

Please e-mail to be added to this roundup. Patriots, to the streets!

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UPDATE: More Tea Party and related posting:

* The Anchoress, "DHS documents picking a fight? UPDATED."

* Andrea Shea King, "Tea Party Anthem Singer ... “This whole thing is Rush Limbaugh’s fault”."

* Critical Thinker, "Edmund Burke and a Progressive went to a Tea Party."

* Founding Bloggers, "Is DHS Writing Any Reports About ... Leftwing Extremists In Chicago?"

* Gateway Pundit, "St. Louis Tea Party Organizers Fight Back!..."

* Gayle's Place, "I'm a Rightwing Extremist, are You?"

* John Romano, "Tea Parties, Homeland Security and Silencing the Opposition."

* Maggie's Notebook, "AMERICAN LEGION: An Open Letter to Homeland Security ..."

* Mark Goluskin, "Of Tea Parties ..."

* Michelle Malkin, "Tracking the Tea Party crashers."

* The Next Right, "The Tea Party protests."

* Political Pistachio, "The Shadow Gallery."

* Power Line, "Watch Out For Those Crazy Right Wingers!"

* Pundit & Pundette, "David Shuster outdoes himself."

* Red State, "Obama ... Veterans, Pro-Lifers, Gun Enthusiasts ... are “Right Wing Extremists”."

* The Rhetorican, "Attack of the Anti-Tea Party Attack Poodles."

* Roger L. Simon, "Tea Party Derangement Syndrome - it’s here!

* Tygrrrr Express, "Events, Announcements, and Link Love."

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UPDATE II: From Dave at Point of a Gun: "I Am Going For The Pulled Pork Sandwiches And The Protests."

Spain to Indict Bush Administration Officials

Why on earth anyone would anyone want to put U.S. governmental decisions under the review of foreign governments and courts is beyond me, but Scott Horton, a classic left-wing transnationalist extremist, is pumping up the decision of Spanish prosecutors to seek criminal indictments against former Bush administration officials. Topping the list, of course, is former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, but it's John Yoo, a former Assistant Attorney General in the Bush Justice Department, who is often an even greater target of today's left-wing antiwar extremists.

Last week the Los Angeles Times published an exchange on John Yoo between John Eastman, the dean at Chapman University School of Law, and Lawrence Rosenthal, who is a professor at the law school. Professor Eastman's analysis was one of the best defenses I've read of Yoo tenure, and frankly, one of the only defenses of the torture memos I can recall reading in a mainstream newspaper other than the Wall Street Journal.

Here's a snippet from Eastman's analysis:

In my view, the legal positions Yoo advanced in the post-9/11 memos are supported -- some well supported; others at least arguable -- by constitutional text, historical understanding and legal precedent. In fact, many of those positions were shared by Clinton administration officials now serving in the Obama administration.

For example, one memo argued that the Geneva Convention does not apply to unlawful combatants, such as members of Al Qaeda, who target civilian populations and otherwise violate the rules of war. That position was shared at the time by Eric H. Holder Jr., now the U.S. attorney general. In 2002, in a CNN interview, Holder stated: "It seems to me that given the way in which they have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war."

Another controversial legal position advanced in the memos was that provisions of the Bill of Rights did not apply beyond the shores of the United States, particularly to wartime conduct. For authority, the memo cited the case of Harbury vs. Deutch, in which a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held in 2000 that the 5th Amendment does not apply abroad to claims of torture by CIA-paid agents against foreign nationals.

At issue were allegations of torture that occurred over an 18-month period -- half of it during the first year of the Clinton administration and that, according to the complaint, included this: "They chained and bound him naked to a bed, beat and threatened him, and encased him in a fullbody cast to prevent escape."

The appeals court accepted the arguments made by Wilma Lewis, a U.S. attorney during the Clinton administration, that the 5th Amendment does not apply to claims of torture involving "an alien rebel commander leading an attempt violently to overthrow a foreign government," even when the torture was alleged to have been committed by paid agents of, and at the request or at least full knowledge of, the CIA. The opinion was written by Judge David S. Tatel, a Clinton appointee, and joined by Judge Harry T. Edwards, a Carter appointee, and Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, a Reagan appointee.

And also:

After 9/11, the lawyers at the Justice Department faced unprecedented legal questions. They had been given the task of identifying the executive powers that could legally be brought to bear to prevent future attacks. That they were aggressive in their legal interpretations should come as no surprise, given the circumstances.

In the end, the president's options were more thoroughly vetted by lawyers than at any wartime era in our nation's history. There were no wholesale detentions based on race, such as occurred under President Roosevelt in World War II. No systematic suppression of antiwar speech, such as under President Wilson in World War I.

Leftists never mention the Roosevelt administration's counter example. The regular meme on the left is that the Bush administration's "shredding" of the Consitution was unprecedented in American history. Such claims are fradulent, and the pushback against the Bush administration is just one element in the larger program of the secular collectivists to grab power in the name of the international proletariat (see, for example, The Daily Dish, Matthew Yglesias, Crooks and Liars, At-Largely, and AfterDowningStreet.org).

Andrew Sullivan is No Conservative

Andrew Sullivan continues to claim he is conservative time and again (and of course, he is not), and then he has readers who send him e-mails declaiming anything to do with what are basic conservative views, like this one:

I celebrated Easter yesterday with my ultra conservative family. I love my family but they have gone so far to the right over the past 8 years that it is difficult to have any sort of discussion with them. I think they are typical of conservatives born in the baby boom. They are scarred by the culture wars and the hatred they have for the left is so strong that it becomes disturbing.

Another important point is that 9/11 pushed them away from any level of pragmatism. My family is originally from Manhattan, so 9/11 was taken as a very personal attack. My father worked on the 76th floor of the WTC for years, he lost a lot of friends that day...

So with this in mind I compiled a few themes from the days discussions that you might find interesting (or horrifying). None of this is ground breaking but it is interesting to see these generalizations about the current conservative movement be personified in ones family.

1. Total insulation from MSM.

Everyone refuses to read the New York Times or Washington Post. Sunday morning while getting ready for Church I put on "Meet the Press" and my father looked on with disgust and changed the channel to Fox News. At dinner I brought up an article in The Economist that was critical of Barack Obama and my uncle said that it was a socialist rag.

2. Distrust of centrists When discussing the future of the Republican party I suggested that we needed to create a bigger tent and avoid social issues that alienated us from younger voters. My GRANDMOTHER responded that we don't need the back benchers like Christopher Buckley dictating our principles. I think that line was straight from the Mark Levin show.

3. Neoconservative aspirations The most interesting part of the day, was that so much of the discussion focused on the Somali Pirate issue. It was the story of the day, but I didn't think their was that much to talk about. Surely, not as interesting as talking about Iran, Obama's budget, the economy etc. However we spent most of the day discussing Obama's lackluster response to the issue and the weakness he displayed in not acting quicker. My father was incensed that the media kept referring to this as a crime rather then an act of terrorism. His suggestion was to engage in a land war in Somalia...

It convinced me of one thing that if a new conservatism is going to flourish, it is going to have to be led by a younger generation. People born between 1947 and 1960 have way too much baggage.

I'll be travelling with my wife and sons to Fresno on Thursday to spend the weekend at my father-in-law's. Fox News will be on all morning, then most likely some History Channel in the afternoon. We'll have big dinners with the extended family on the weekends. The views expressed by Sullivan's reader will be bread and butter around the dinner table. I'll be very comfortable hanging out and rejoicing in the community of people who love America without having to think about it first.

Conservatism is alive and well in this country, and it makes me happy to see an example of regular folks (not "extreme") living their lives not much differently from how my family members live.

Memo to Andrew: I know conservatives. My family is conservative. You, sir, are no conservative.

Obama's DHS Warns of Right-Wing Extremist Threat

I wasn't taking it too seriously when I first saw it, but as Michelle Malkin indicates, the report from the Department of Homeland Security is the real thing: "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."

As Michelle notes, the timing's perfect:

The “report” was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real.

I spent the day chasing down DHS spokespeople, who have been tied up preparing for a very important homeland security event later today: The First Lady is coming to visit their Washington office. Priorities, you know.

Well, the press office got back to me and verified that the document is indeed for real.
They were very defensive — preemptively so — in asserting that it was not a politicized document and that DHS had done reports on “leftwing extremism” in the past. I have covered DHS for many years and am quite familiar with past assessments they and the FBI have done on animal rights terrorists and environmental terrorists. But those past reports have always been very specific in identifying the exact groups, causes, and targets of domestic terrorism, i.e., the ALF, ELF, and Stop Huntingdon wackos who have engaged in physical harassment, arson, vandalism, and worse against pharmaceutical companies, farms, labs, and university researchers.

By contrast, the piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives. And the intent is clear. As the two spokespeople I talked with on the phone today made clear: They both pinpointed the recent “economic downturn” and the “general state of the economy” for stoking “rightwing extremism.” One of the spokespeople said he was told that the report has been in the works for a year. My b.s. detector went off the chart, and yours will, too, if you read through the entire report — which asserts with no evidence that an unquantified “resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalizations activity” is due to home foreclosures, job losses, and…the historical presidential election.

In Obama land, there are no coincidences. It is no coincidence that this report echoes Tea Party-bashing left-wing blogs (check this one out comparing the Tea Party movement to the Weather Underground!) and demonizes the very Americans who will be protesting in the thousands on Wednesday for the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party.

Michelle cites a number of passages from the report, but this one caught my attention when I read it this afternoon:

Historically, domestic rightwing extremists have feared, predicted, and anticipated a cataclysmic economic collapse in the United States. Prominent antigovernment conspiracy theorists have incorporated aspects of an impending economic collapse to intensify fear and paranoia among like-minded individuals and to attract recruits during times of economic uncertainty. Conspiracy theories involving declarations of martial law, impending civil strife or racial conflict, suspension of the U.S. Constitution, and the creation of citizen detention camps often incorporate aspects of a failed economy. Antigovernment conspiracy theories and “end times” prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition, and weapons. These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement.

I was in graduate school, in the 1990s, when we had the big worries over right-wing militias following the Oklahoma City Bombing. The threats were obviously real. I read a number of articles on this, as well as James Coates', Armed and Dangerous: The Rise of the Survivalist Right.

This administration must be supremely spooked to have DHS cook up something like this cockamamie report. I know militias, and I know right wing extremist ideologies. And I can tell you, the Tea Party movement is no fringe groundswell. In fact, I have a feeling this report could cause major political damage to the White House, so expect to see some damage control in the next few days, particularly as we see Wednesday's massive citizens' anti-tax demonstrations sweep the nation. Leftists will continue to paint everyday Americans as fascist extremists. If the administration does so as well it will only be courting even greater grassroots mobilization.

Tea Parties Spark Conservative Insurgency Online

Via Glenn Reynolds, check out this Fox News report, "Move Over, MoveOn: Tea Parties Spark Conservative Insurgency Online":

Conservatives may be catching up with their liberal counterparts in building a Web-driven, grassroots campaign to push their agenda.

The online insurgency-in-the-making revolves around the so-called tea parties, the anti-tax protests popping up around the country that they expect to culminate Wednesday -- tax day -- with hundreds of rallies nationwide.

The movement, which expanded over the last two months via the Web, is now relying heavily on independent media Web sites to track and cover the campaign.

The digital evolution of conservative activists comes too late to help John McCain, whose new media arm was left in the dust by President Obama's campaign. But organizers are holding out hope that this movement has juice.

"It's thoroughly viral," said Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit.com blogger who hosts an online news show for the Web site Pajamas TV.

Pajamas TV is on the frontlines of new media coverage for the tea parties. The Web site already has covered some protests and is pledging to recruit an army of citizen journalists, working without pay, to cover the hundreds of protests on April 15.

Roger L. Simon, co-founder of the blog network Pajamas Media, which includes Pajamas TV, said the site went after tea party coverage because the mainstream media didn't.

He said Pajamas TV has more than 200 people registered to report on Wednesday's tea parties. He said they'll send in text reports, as well as videos and photos, to drive what he expects to be about 12 straight hours of online coverage.

"They'll be across the country essentially," he said, calling the operation a "big experiment."

"What will the quality of these reports be? Variable of course," Simon said. "But that's the nature of the beast."

The Web site currently features extensive footage of Tea Party protests, including interviews with activists and roundtable discussions.

From here, Simon wants to use the network of volunteer reporters for future assignments. Reynolds, who is also a law professor at the University of Tennessee, said he'll cover the protest in Knoxville and then return to co-anchor an online broadcast from his home.

There's more at the link.

See also:

* Common Sense Political Thought, "Mob Populism."

* Moe Lane, "I’d just like to note for the record ..."

* Nice Deb, "The Confused Critics of the Tax Day Tea Parties."

* Robert Stacy McCain, "Sully and the Tea Party Truthers."

* Paco Enterprises, "Protest is not a Leftwing Monopoly."

* Valley of the Shadow, "The Story of Icarus and the Democrats."