Tea Party Protests Seeing Green

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Something's Brewing

Those anti-tax Tea Parties that are sprouting up from coast-to-coast have created their own stimulus. Retailers have sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in Tea Party-inspired merchandise.

Marc Cowlin -- an official at the online retailer CafePress.com -- says, "We didn't see it coming and then all of a sudden we seemed to have quite a few Tea Party-themed items... it's something to watch." Jason Kang of Zazzle.com adds, "This is probably one of the bigger things — not counting the election — that we've seen."

Tea Party organizers are seeing a similar response at their own Web sites. Eric Odom of taxdayteaparty.com says his group has sold $48,000 in merchandise: "We haven't had to go out and ask for money."

Mounting a Challenge

Former Congressman Pat Toomey has quit his job as head of the fiscally conservative Club for Growth political organization, signaling a possible challenge to Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter in the 2010 Republican primary.

And it didn't take long before the opening salvos were fired. Specter sent Toomey a letter saying, "Your official bio has been altered to delete any reference to the many years you spent selling risky derivatives for the Wall Street firm Morgan Grenfell Finance... why did you seek to omit this basic fact?"

Toomey's bio has been removed from the Club for Growth Web site because he is no longer president. His campaign manager Mark Harris does not deny that it was altered and compared the incumbent to a desperate challenger: "This is the type of thing a challenger does when he's 20 points down and no one has heard of him."

Dirty Truth

Thirteen years after Washington state's environmental agency found a nearby creek severely polluted, the contamination has been traced back to the agency's own office.

A sewage pipe at the building was mistakenly connected to a storm drain. That sent sewage pouring into Burnt Bridge Creek and eventually Vancouver Lake for years. The state's ecology director Jay Manning called the discovery "embarrassing and upsetting."

Officials say the problem will be fixed this week. But Washington State’s Municipal Public Works Director Brian Carlson added, "The irony is not lost on us."

Go Figure

We told you Thursday that Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in Washington has not immortalized a single Republican first lady, but does feature wax figures of Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Jackie Kennedy.

Officials said there was little demand for any of the wives of Republican presidents. Now The Washington Times reports after public pressure the museum is trying to make amends. It launched an online poll Friday asking visitors to vote for which GOP first lady they would most like to see on display.

According to Janine DiGioacchino, the general manager of Madame Tussaud’s New York and Washington Museums, "the people have spoken and they want to see a wax figure of a Republican first lady."

— FOX News Channel's Zachary Kenworthy contributed to this report.