So I got my taxes done on time. Two whole hours early, if truth be told. Yes, I am one of those "wait until the last minute" type of guys, I admit. Which is why Thursday's column is being posted now, too (although I hasten to point out that it is still Thursday, in my time zone at least).

But, aside from the procrastinatory habits of yours truly, I did notice something while doing my taxes that bears commenting upon. Actually, I did not notice it, but rather someone else pointed it out to me -- and therein lies the problem.

My wife and I got an eight hundred dollar tax break this year. In fact, almost everybody got this break -- four hundred bucks per person. Apparently, it was passed as part of the stimulus package last year. I do remember, at the time, hearing something about how Obama's stimulus changed people's take-home pay by readjusting the federal withholding figures, but I had no idea it would turn into eight hundred bucks back on my tax form.

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Protesters are in the streets. They're waving signs, and chanting loudly. Some appear in outlandish dress, and even more have outlandish slogans written on their signs and banners. But, when you look a little closer, the group is not one, but rather a collection of many groups. These subgroups within the general coalition may agree on a few certain ideals, but they may also disagree on many others, as they may disagree on tactics to right their perceived wrongs. There is a big discussion amongst the groups as to whether working within the existing political two-party establishment is the best way forward (since one party does exist which seems to at least partially share their aims), or whether working outside the whole establishment is better (since supporting that party has led to disappointments in the recent past -- and indeed, could be said to have created much of the situation being protested in the first place). At the fringes of the group there are those whose talk can only be described as "militant," who are advocating violence to achieve their aims.

What I just wrote could describe tomorrow's "first anniversary" Tea Party rallies. Or it could describe a late-1960s anti-war rally. About the only thing these two historical eras have in common is the age of the driving force behind the protests. In other words, don't look now, but the Baby Boomers are back in the streets.

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[Apologies for posting a repeat of an old column here, but I am busy doing my taxes, so didn't have the time to write today. This column originally ran here exactly one year ago today, and was written right before the first "tax day tea parties" took place. It's hard to believe, looking back, that this entire movement is only one year old, but they began on tax day, 2009. Since Thursday will likely see large anniversary rallies and marches by the Tea Party folks, I thought it was a good time to take a look back at the advice I gave to them last year, and the history of the Boston Tea Party as well. So, if you'll forgive me for the repeat column, while I scurry around at the last minute to get my taxes done, I promise we'll resume new columns starting tomorrow.]

Tea doesn't get much respect in America. This historical snubbing will continue Wednesday, with protests across America meant to evoke the Boston Tea Party, a seminal event in the foundation of our county. How effective these protests will be is going to be open to interpretation, however.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid already had a lot of things on his plate to get done in the Senate this year, even before last week's news broke. Now he's facing two more big issues in the midst of an election year (and in the midst of a fight for his own political life in Nevada) -- a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, and an upcoming confirmation battle over a Supreme Court nomination. Given that Harry Reid's Senate is not exactly known for moving with blinding speed (to be fair, few Senates are), one has to wonder whether Harry Reid can deliver on some of these big issues before the midterm elections or not.

The three major issues which Reid presently faces are the "New START" treaty, the Supreme Court nomination battle, and Wall Street reform. There are other issues just as large (and just as confrontational) which conventional Washington wisdom has already decided Reid isn't even going to tackle in an election year (comprehensive immigration reform and a new energy policy, to name two of the biggest), although it must be said that politics is always fluid, so this conventional wisdom may prove wrong by November. Add to this the regular issues which the Senate must deal with (such as the budget), as well as pressing political problems like jobs legislation, and it's pretty easy to see that Reid faces an overwhelming list of things to do this year.

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The Cold War has officially jumped the shark.

Yesterday, President Obama signed a strategic arms reduction treaty (the "New START") with the president of Russia. This is the first nuclear warhead treaty with Russia in 20 years. It will reduce both countries' stockpiles of nuclear warheads by one-third. And, as far as the network news in America was concerned, it was a very ho-hum story.

To me, this marks a low point in television "journalism" -- and, these days, that's hard to do, since they're all in a rush to bottom-feeding anyway. Last night, the lead story on every network should have been the treaty signing. It wasn't. Leading the news was the story of a monumentally stupid diplomat sneaking a smoke in an airplane bathroom, which was played for all the terrorism fear the networks could manage. Following this was the continuing story of the mine disaster in West Virginia, where nothing much happened (which didn't stop the networks from in-depth reporting on the nothing which had happened). Following this -- you simply cannot make this stuff up -- was Tiger Woods' return to professional golf.

As an afterthought, the two nations with over 90 percent of the nuclear weapons on the planet agreed to get rid of a substantial number of them, which would bring the nuclear arms race back to levels the world has not seen since the 1960s. Obviously, for news program directors, not that big a deal (I do have to give credit to PBS' News Hour for not only running it as the lead story, but for taking 20 minutes out of the hour to discuss it -- but then PBS is always better at this sort of thing).

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I've written here before in defense of Sarah Palin, and since the two just recently shared a campaign rally stage, I thought it'd be timely to write at least a partial defense of Michele Bachmann today. Because a recent comment by the Minnesota Representative has gotten a lot of ridicule from the left side of the blogosphere, but nobody bothers to point out that she's actually right in what she says about the U.S. Census Bureau and Japanese internment during World War II. This is intellectually dishonest, I feel, which is why I have to make the attempt to defend her words.

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This site will go "dark" on Thursday, April 8, 2010, for a few hours. This is due to maintanence issues beyond our control, as our local ISP upgrades the server which hosts this site. The target hour for the site to be down is noon, Pacific Time. They hope to have the server (and hence the site) back up and running within two or three hours, so if you're seeing this message past noon Pacific Thursday, then the site is likely already back up. We regret the inconvenience to our readers, and we apologize in advance for the short notice.

-- Chris Weigant

Americans, in general, like to believe in the concept of "American Exceptionalism." This doctrine can be summed up as: "We're the best damn country on the planet, wouldn't the rest of you lesser countries agree?" But to me, what is telling is that whenever nascent democratic forms of government develop in other places in the world (born through the ravages of war, popular revolt, simple modernization, or any of a number of other reasons) and the people affected have the opportunity to select what form their new democracies shall take; they almost without exception (pun intended) choose some form of the British parliamentary system, rather than American-style representative democracy.

The reasons most fledgling democratic governments choose parliamentary systems rather than our presidential/congressional system are likely as varied as the countries in which they develop. But I'm guessing there are two differences in the British system that are more attractive to new countries than what the American system has to offer. Both of these, in a tangential way, have recently been in the news.

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Democrats, from Barack Obama to the houses of Congress, have done a remarkable job of championing transparency in the legislative process of late, even though most people have barely noticed this trend (due, no doubt, to the media's lack of interest in the broad subject). Whether it will eventually help Democrats or hurt them politically is still an open question (as is the question of whether Democrats can ever manage to brag about anything positive they've managed to get done... which is always an open question when talking about Democrats). But I maintain that if the public gets used to such transparency, it'll be good for everyone, and good for American politics, in the end. Whether a few Democrats have to suffer to achieve this goal or not.

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With the health reform battle in Congress over (at least for now), Democrats are teeing up the next big legislative fight -- reforming the way the American financial sector does its business. This may be the last big non-budget piece of legislation Congress manages to pass this year, before the fall election season really consumes everyone's attention in Washington. Some "jobs" legislation may pass, but Democrats are wary of the "second stimulus" label, so these bills likely won't be that big in scope. Other minor agenda items may pass as well, but as for the remaining large-bore issues on the Democratic agenda, reforming the financial system looks like the only one positioned with a good shot of actually making it through Congress. Some progress may be made on other fronts (immigration reform, education reform, energy policy, etc.), but most Congress-watchers are betting that none of these will succeed in becoming law before the midterm elections. On other contentious issues (such as "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" repeal, and tackling the deficit), the White House has already punted the ball down the field by "studying" things for a while longer (with reports conveniently not due until after the election). Which leaves us with financial sector reform. Which the White House, of late, has been calling "Wall Street reform."

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