A post by Pat
First tea parties and now the Iowans For Tax Relief with the shout heard around the country. News of the protesting citizens getting thrown out of the State Legislature for opposing a tax increase is spreading all over the country. Tammy talked about it on the show today. TV station KCCI ran a later report. Ed Failor, Jr., the head of Iowans For Tax Relief says clearing the chamber helped far more than it hurt. Donations are starting to pour in.
It’s all over the country.
The Iowa Democrats sent an email to reporters claiming the Republican Party was behind the incident. Hah! I wish Republicans would show this kind of spunk.
When my country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir.
— Thomas Paine, Common Sense
UPDATE from Tammy:
The Governor of Iowa, Chet Culver, has now chimed in. He’s disturbed, not at the fact that citizens were removed from a public hearing, but that the protesters were, uh, protesting. He sounds like a major part of the problem as he insists that “people” have to be “respectful and civil” during a hearing. How about this: when the state legislature is respectful and civil toward the citizenry by not suggesting that get a tax shiv shoved in their back, the people will be respectful and civil in return.
Damm right!
Hopefully this is the first of many events of this sort. The reaction of the two politicians is so typical. For so long they have been able to do as they wanted. Now they have over stepped their bounds. As more and more of the citizenry are effected the protests will become louder, with the loudest occuring in the elections of 2010.
Considering what those jackasses are up to, I’d say the protesters showed REMARKABLE restraint. There was a time that the aristocracy would have been tarred and feathered.