For a second year in a row, Tax Day has become Tea Party Day both across the country and here in Southern California.
The ring-wing political group emerged exactly one-year ago. Depending on your point of view the movement is filled with a bunch of extremists, or the only real patriots left in these United States. Movement members say "TEA" stands for "taxed enough already."
There will be "tea party" events in Long Beach, Santa Ana and Menifee on Thursday. The full list, including more SoCal rallies, is available online.
"People feel their government isn't listening to them," said Ted Wegener, a Menifee real estate appraiser who is organizing two demonstrations. "I believe there's more outrage now than there was a year ago."
"It's great. People are getting involved to try to take back their country," said Wegener. "We're not going away. We're only going to get stronger."
On a national level, Tea party protesters opened their tour nearly three weeks ago with a Nevada rally that drew at least 9,000. The crowd heard from Sarah Palin, one of the few politicians embraced by the conservative, anti-tax movement. Palin, a former Republican vice-presidential candidate and ex-governor of Alaska, also starred at a tea party gathering of 5,000 on Wednesday in Boston.
The movement is taking credit for the election of Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts and the impending retirement of Michigan congressman Bart Stupak.
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Now organizer say they are taking aim at eight senate Democrats as well as Majority Leader Harry Reid.
