Irony raining down *updated*

Let's see. April 13th was this year's tax freedom day; essentially, for the average working American, all of your wages up to that day went for taxes. April 15th, of course, is the initial filing deadline for personal taxes, and the day every year on which you want to avoid the post office if all you need are a couple of stamps.

April 15th this year is also the first National Tea Party day. With protests arranged all over the country (except, of course, Milwaukee, where we absolutely love to pay taxes), one can only hope our elected representatives will get the point that we find the ever-increasing tax burden...taxing.

The mainstream media is creating a vortex, with all the high-speed spinning they are doing on this story. ABCNews is insistent that the protests are meant as an attack on the Celebrity-in-Chief, rather than as a protest against poor government of any sort. The headline at MSNBC is less obviously partisan, but the article goes to great lengths to "prove" that the tea parties are a conservative conspiracy, finishing with promises from the Great One to simplify* the tax code. I'm frankly afraid to look at many more news sites, for fear of being swept into the maelstrom.

While the GOP would like to think this movement is in support of their party (and they have taken some part in publicizing and organizing), it really isn't. If our elected representatives are not going to accurately reflect the concerns of their constituents, their constituents are going to take matters into their own hands. It's not out of the realm of possibility for a third major party to rise out of these protests.

Update - pics of the protest in Madison (scroll down) - roughly 5K people. I saw the local news last night, and you can bet the local ABC affiliate spent 50% of the air time on the protests talking with the three costumed fools who were counter-protesting.

But at least they covered it.


*Give me a break. He is giving a panel eight months to study the tax code and come back with recommendations for simplification. Unless the panel is composed solely of current tax code experts, it has no hope of understanding the impact of significantly changing the code. Yes, it really sucks as it is, but much like health care, trying to fix it on the fly can only make it much, much, much worse.