They're still mad.
So one year after hundreds of thousands of frustrated Americans turned out for tax day tea parties — waving signs and showing their displeasure with federal spending and the direction the government was headed — they are ready to make their voices heard again.
This time, though, the issues they've opposed for more than a year have already passed, mainly the health care overhaul legislation.
"We want to make our elected officials see just how many American citizens are unhappy with the direction that they are taking our country -- and that direction is toward bigger, more overreaching government that provides us less individual freedoms," said Konni Burton, a member of the Northeast Tarrant Tea Party. "It seems incredibly appropriate to make our voices heard on the day that our federal income taxes are due."Local activists will gather at the Lone Star Tea Party from 7-9 p.m. today at the QuikTrip Park in Grand Prairie for an event sponsored by more than two dozen area Tea Party groups. Amid high frustration and anger with the federal government, this nationwide Tea Party movement -- which has drawn support from national leaders such as former House Majority Leader Dick Armey from Denton -- seems to have taken on a life of its own.
Some members who call themselves Tea Party Patriots want federal leaders to make a new deal with Americans, replacing the 1994 Contract With America with the 2010 Contract From America.
Critics of the Tea Party movement are striking up their own effort to try to "crash the tea party" by pretending they are part of the effort and then making homophobic, racist or unintelligent comments.
And in Oklahoma, some Tea Party members and conservative lawmakers have teamed up to discuss creating a volunteer militia to defend the state's liberties and protect against excessive federal intrusion on state sovereignty.
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