Did You Know...

I told you how impressed I was on July 4 with the energy, organization, and commitment of the Dallas Tea Party movement.

They are fired up and showing how grass-roots activists are making a powerful and sustained impact in their neighborhoods.

Check this out from the Dallas Observer: How a Local Rally For Obama’s Health Care Proposal Turned Into a Rally Against It

Local MoveOn.org members had penciled in on today’s schedule a protest in front of Senator John Cornyn’s Spring Valley Road office, during which they had hoped to pressure the senator to support President Barack Obama’s public health care legislation. But when Paula Anderson, a MoveOn.org member and spokeswoman, showed up at 11:30 a.m., she found another contingent had beat her to the proverbial punch: A large number of Dallas Tea Party members were already set up, voicing their opposition to the proposal.

Anderson was stunned: “We really did not expect them to show up.” She estimated the crowd at about 130. “From our perspective we took names of everyone there, and we had about 30 people,” she told Unfair Park. “And I would assume they maybe had 100.” As it turned out, according to Jessica Sandlin, Cornyn’s Texas press secretary, Tea Party-hearties also showed up to health-care legislation rallies in Austin and in San Antonio; after the jump, you’ll find a statement from the senator concerning the day’s events.

Meanwhile, the person who organized the opposition in Dallas, one Q Coleman, a Tea Party member, estimated the crowd swelled to at least 200. “The vast majority of people here didn’t want this,” Coleman said. “We beat them 10 to 1. … We all agree that health care needs reform. We’re just opposed to the government taking it over.”

Michael Openshaw has scenes from the counterinsurgency.