The Brainerd area annual Tea Party rally had been scheduled for April 16, to be near the tax deadline, but a late snowstorm caused postponement until Monday.
So that's when more than 50 folks turned out at a Brainerd park to hear speeches with a wide range of complaints about the federal government and the country's direction.
It was a diverse crowd, in many ways, says the Brainerd Dispatch:
Adam Weiss, a Brainerd High School senior, said the U.S. Constitution is disregarded and despised by our leaders. He spoke out against what he termed asinine government regulations which are part of a “nanny state” and said the U.S. couldn’t stand four more years of an autocratic president.
Mike Belisle, a truck driver, spoke out against IRS intrusion and taxation.
A National Rifle Association member urged people to join that organization and said that without that organization “I don’t believe we would have our guns today.”
Chris Kellett of Brainerd, the Republican-endorsed candidate for House District 10A, said she’s had enough of government telling people it knows better than the people. She also criticized how the nation’s constitutional system of restraints has been ignored.
And Guy Green, who'd run for mayor in Brainerd two years ago, doesn't think either party is doing its job, the paper said:
[Green] said critics of the tea party movement would be ridiculed as reactionaries. He said the Democratic Party has long been famous as a criminal enterprise and faulted the Republican Party for cowardice and for compromising with corruption.
“If we give them (Republicans) a second chance, we can not, will not tolerate another failure,” Green said.