It’s not taxes. It’s the passage of a new bill that would allow people on both sides of the political divide to be detained without trial.

Sixty-four percent of Americans consider big government the biggest threat to the country, according to Gallup, but who knows what they mean by big government? Do 64 percent of Americans oppose the biggest big government threat in our history — the virtually omniscient, omnipotent national-security state?

I doubt it, and neither the president nor many members of Congress seem fearful of public opposition to post-9/11, big-government authoritarianism. Instead, they cringe at the prospect of seeming soft on terrorism and rush to enact the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA,) including provisions that would arguably allow the indefinite detention without trial of American citizens, seized on American soil. I won’t repeat here the many urgent critiques of this bill emanating from the left and right. But I do want to stress that opposition to the NDAA spans some of the usual left/right divisions. Opposing the indefinite detention of American citizens, Tea Party Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) sounds like a speaker at an ACLU convention.  Read more at www.theatlantic.com

While taking a hard look at the data, it explains the polarization of American politics of today: state, local governments and school districts are increasing property taxes even while the housing market crashes, and this is killing the middle class. In many parts of the country homebuyers will pay almost as much in property taxes as in mortgage interest. This is in spite of the fact that most have lost a lot of home value from about three years ago, but taxes have not gone down. No wonder the residential real estate market can’t rebound, and why the American middle class feels that it is fighting for its existence. Households that considered themselves comfortably middle class, and looked forward to a comfortable and secure retirement, find themselves on the edge of calamity.

The crisis has called into being a political movement of the exasperated middle class, namely the Tea Party. Is it any wonder the Tea Party’s aversion to government spending is as pure an expression of rational self-interest as we have seen in American history. The fact that a movement led by amateurs continues to wield so much power proves that it has good reason to be there. They have called attention to the fact that public sector unions have bamboozled elected officials into raising the pay scale of public sector union people to the point that they are better paid than the average private sector jobs and work less hours with better benefits.

This is the prime reason why the major news outlets are demonizing the Tea Party in every way they can and comparing them as the same as OWS participants which is a total misrepresentation. The American people by and large are not buying into these fabrications. The Tea Party will live on. Read more at fremonttribune.com

Friday (Sept. 9) the Tea Party Patriots, the nation’s largest tea party organization, criticized the president for promoting an agenda of government spending and economic policies which have not and will not lead to job creation.

“The president seems to believe that small businesses hire new workers based on a promise of tax breaks or the hope that new customers will materialize to buy their goods. He’s clearly never run a business,” said Mark Meckler, National Coordinator of Tea Party Patriots, following the Thursday, Sept. 8 address to a joint session of Congress. “Businesses hire after there is an increased demand for their products and services, not before. Once again the President has demonstrated his disconnect from the realities of the business world.

“He’s promised that spending billions of dollars of our money (which he promises will cost ‘nothing’) will put ‘millions’ of construction workers and others to work. The American people understand that ‘stimulus’ doesn’t work and is just a huge waste of their money. His desperate attempt to appear to lead on the economy fell on deaf American ears tonight. He urged quick action on his government spending plan, but has ignored the cries of the American people since taking office, instead passing job-killing stimulus bills, of which this is just another tired version. Read more at www.mesquitelocalnews.com

The American tea party has a different reason for existence in that it does not wish to overthrow the government but to redress the corruption that has engulfed the governmental system. On the other hand, they do share the lack of a specific stated goal and are subject to the error of thinking (as the other uprisings do) that “any enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

To be seen as “conservative” voices is a badge of honor among civilian patriots who treasure their freedoms of their heritage of the American political experiment and wish to respect and preserve it. Perhaps they will become a true “party” and enter the formal political ring, not as Libertarians but as Constitutional Patriots, and work out the needed constitutional amendments to control the economic misappropriation of public funds and injurious philosophical legislation and “optional” judicial legislation. The difficulty will be in finding honest constitutional candidates who are willing to dispense with special perks for elected or appointed governmental personnel and accept term limits to end the practice of professional representation that feeds the corruption of unbridled power brokers. Read more at www.hutchnews.com

The Tea Party was borne of this urgency. It’s the same sense of urgency that propelled the Sons of Liberty during the Revolution. It’s the same sense of urgency that propelled the Abolitionists before the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement during the 20th Century. The Tea Party Movement is part of this noble American tradition. This movement isn’t simply a political awakening; it’s an American awakening. And it’s coming from ordinary Americans, not the politicos in the Beltway. No, it’s you who grow our food; you run our small businesses; you teach our children; you fight our wars. We are always proud of America. We love our country in good times and in bad, and we never apologize for America.

That is why the far left’s irresponsible and radical policies awakened a sleeping America so that we finally understood what it was that we were about to lose. We were about to lose the blessings of liberty and prosperity. So, the working men and women of this country, you got up off your couch, you came down from the deer stand, you came out of the duck blind, you got off the John Deere, and we took to the streets, and we took to the town halls, and we ended up at the ballot box. And as much as the media wants you to forget this, Tea Party Americans won an electoral victory of historic proportions in November. We the people, we rose up and we rejected the left’s big government agenda. We don’t want it. We can’t afford it. And we are unwilling to pay for it. Read more at netnewsledger.com

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law this week a bill that prevents homeowners associations from banning the black-on-yellow Gadsden flags — the Tea Party-favored banners displaying the coiled rattlesnake and “Don’t Tread on Me” message.

Under the new law, the flag has the same protected status as the American flag, the flags of any military branch, the state flag, the POW-MIA flag and the flag of any Arizona Indian nation. But homeowners associations can still prohibit residents from flying more than two flags at once and restrict a flag pole to the height of the resident’s roof.

The flag is named after American statesman Christopher Gadsden who designed it in 1775. It was originally used by the U.S. Marine Corps during the American Revolution and was meant to represent the 13 original colonies and their battle for independence from the British monarchy. Since then, it has been reintroduced by numerous groups as a symbol of American patriotism. The Tea Party movement is the latest group to adopt the flag for its message against big government. Read more at www.foxnews.com

Some key Tea Party organisers and congressmen griped about not winning all the cuts they wanted, but they are hard too please. At their behest, the Republicans demanded $61 billion in cuts and only had to settle for a third less.

He would never have made such a boast before the Tea Party’s anti-spending campaign swept a wave of Republicans into Congress in November’s midterm elections.

Within a few weeks, Congress will debate raising the limit on the amount of money the government can borrow. The Tea Party-backed Republicans have already pledged they won’t tolerate any increase. Read more at www.telegraph.co.uk

The Democrats and the liberal mainstream media sold the American people on Obama, “the man.”  Despite Obama’s zero experience at running anything, they said a leader with his spirit and heart was “what we have been waiting for”.

President Obama said the Tea Party is racist. The liberal media, NAACP and Democrats have been relentlessly promoting this same baseless allegation. When final confirmation comes down from the highest office in the land, the Oval Office, that the Tea Party is racist; the allegation becomes “official” in the minds of millions. President Obama is slandering millions of decent hard working Americans who simply disagree with his progressive/socialist agenda.

Think of the repercussions. Obama’s indictment of the Tea Party will birth tremendous racial discord across America in schools, churches, and civic life.  Obama’s proclamation will cause Americans to double down on their already extreme caution when criticizing our black president.  Sadly, I suspect such intimidation is a part of Obama’s plan; anything to empower his mission to “fundamentally transform America.” Read more at www.americanthinker.com

VAN SUSTEREN: The Tea Party sort of evolved. It never had a leader.

BACHMANN: No, I’m not. I’m not the leaders because the great thing about the Tea Party is that it’s truly the American people, and it cuts across party lines. And it’s people who aren’t political at all. It’s people who look to Washington and say, I don’t like what these guys and gals are doing. They’re spending way too much money. They aren’t getting rid of the government takeover of health care. And what’s this with us still owning private industries? They’re wanting us to change and get away from that. And so they really are keeping us honest.

VAN SUSTEREN: … looking over their shoulder?

BACHMANN: Oh, yes. Absolutely, they do. I just came from voting on the floor, and we were just having a conversation about what people back home, who, generally speaking, the people are paying attention right now, consider themselves Tea Party. And they’re telling me that they’re talking with Tea Party people back home. And we have the Tea Party caucus here.

So part of our Tea Party Caucus is, again, we’re the listening ear of the American people, we’re not necessarily their mouthpiece. So we’re inviting them in. We’re inviting people from all across the country. And we’re trying to put the technology together right now, Greta, so that people from all across the country can have a national town hall with us on a regular basis. So I’m trying to get that implemented, and then we want to let people know how they can access whatever the address is or the phone number. And we’ll do that and we’ll have national town halls on a regular basis because how great in real time if people could talk to their members of Congress about legislation that comes up, say, this week. Read more at www.foxnews.com