The Indianapolis Tea Party

is calling all Hoosiers to rally & tell Congress to…

KILL the BILL!

Featured Speaker:

US Congressman MIKE PENCE

Join us at the Indiana Statehouse as we make a

LAST Stand Against

Government-Run Health Care!

Monday, March 15

4:30 PM

Indiana Statehouse–South Steps

200 W Washington Street

Indianapolis

Please bring signs, patriotic flags, & loud voices.

Looks like one annoyed little twerp will end up costing Uno’s Chicago Grill thousands of dollars in business:

From an email from the Liberty Straight Up Group in Lake County:

Hello Patriots,

Today, after 8 months of holding our Happy Hours at Uno’s Chicago Grill, we received an e-mail from the manager stating that, due to one complaint sent to the Uno’s corporate office from a customer unhappy that a semi private event was being held in a public dining establishment, Uno’s will no longer allow our Liberty Straight Up Happy Hour to take place in their bar. The new owners will no longer allow freedom and liberty minded individuals to gather in their bar.

I could possibly understand if this group came Uno’s once a month and ransacked and looted the place they might be kicked out. But to kick a group of people out, who were bringing in large numbers of people to patronize a restaurant and bring business for their beliefs in limited government and capitalism seems counterproductive to the capitalistic business model and a bit excessive.

That said, Liberty Straight Up did not go gently into that good night before moving to their new location.  On of the leaders of the group did fire off one last parting shot at Uno’s:

(Read more after the leap)

Well…what do we have here:

But she said this not to long ago:

And this:

Now all of a sudden she wants to be friends?

About 100 people showed up at the Indiana Memorial Union on Saturday night to protest as Baron Hill held a fundraiser featuring White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The Bloomington “Tea Party Patriots” organized the protest, which drew people not only from Bloomington, but elsewhere in the “Bloody Ninth.” People had put together a number of creative signs, including one with Baron Hill’s face sandwiched between Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi that had Obama kissing Hill on the cheek.

I was the one wearing the Barack Obama mask with the “Pinocchio” nose. It was quite a popular getup, and I must have had 20 people take my picture. I can’t say I’m creative enough to come up with that myself. A friend had the idea and made the mask for me before I arrived.

(Read more after the leap)

There is much chatter among the Right, especially in the wake of GOP “establishment” blessing of RINO candidates like Dede Scozzafava, of creating another political party to “replace” the GOP. I hate to break this to everyone but the chances of another party taking the place of either the Democrat or Republican parties is slim to none in this day and age. It only serves to split an existing party and allows the opposing party to gain power. When the Green Party made inroads in certain areas of the country, the Democrats suffered. Where the Libertarian Party is on the ballot, though they claim to take from both the GOP and Dems, they tend to draw more away from the GOP. The United States never was, and likely never will be, and multiparty “Westminster” type of political system where multiple parties all have seats at the table and coalitions are formed such as the system in Canada and the UK.

The idea of the Tea Party Movements creating an alternate political party is not new, however many of the tea party groups are not getting involved in the creation of “third parties” and instead working to forge a conservative direction for the GOP.

However, this has not stopped some from using the name of the tea party movement to create some chaos of their own. I received this email from Tea Party Patriots: [More Below The Fold]

This came in through the comment line and I thought I would pass it along.

Call to action Protest:

Offices of Senators Bayh and Lugar
10 W Market St
Indianapolis, IN

Tuesday, December 15, 2009
4:30 p.m.

Protest is to support Patriots protesting In DC that day

Hoosier Access

We apologize for the poor quality video – we’re having to resort to using cellular laptop cards and Sprint doesn’t have the best signal here in Warsaw.

This Saturday a coalition of 12 tea party groups from around Indiana are holding the first of what could be many rallies across the state.  The rally, entitled “Countdown to Judgment Day – Making a Difference in 2010″ will take place at Lakeview Middle School in Warsaw, Indiana from 12:00pm – 3:00pm and feature guests of national and local prominence  including:

• Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann
• Reverend C.L. Bryant
• Thomas Tabback
• Emery McClendon
• Local talk show host Peter Heck

They are also having a candidate forum featuring the three current GOP challengers to Senator Evan Bayh:

• Marlin Stutzman
• Don Bates Jr.
• Richard Behney

And in addition to broadcasting Saturday’s Tea Party and in a Hoosier Access first, yours truly will be moderating the candidate forum.

For more information click on the link to the pdf. flyer below.

Flyer – Countdown to Judgement Day

Also, check out their website at Michiana912.org.

In the past couple of days, I’ve started to hear a new rumor among the Indy insiders and among a few in the 9th District.

The rumor goes like this: Mike Sodrel isn’t going to run for Congress. People wanting him to run for Congress just got him to do an event at someone’s house before he spoke at a Tea Party in Corydon. Since no announcement happened at either event, he’s obviously not running.

Let’s consider those things for a moment.

First of all, the organizers of the Corydon Tea Party made clear when they invited Mike Sodrel (and everyone else) that there would be no campaign speeches (and certainly no campaign announcements) at the Tea Party. They also strongly indicated (both to me and to Congressman Sodrel) that they did not want a partisan event and they preferred that the event itself not get overshadowed by any sort of campaign announcement that day.

Mike Sodrel honored their request. In fact, at the end of the Tea Party, the organizer allowed candidates for elected office to come up in front of the crowd (but not speak). A lot of people pushed Mike to go up and join them. I was standing nearby, and Sodrel told them, “No, I promised them that I wouldn’t do anything like that today.” He didn’t say, “I’m not running.”

He said that he wasn’t going to announce that day, probably out of respect to the Tea Party organizers and to honor of the promise he made to them. It would have been very easy for Mike Sodrel to have walked up and joined the candidates at that moment. Certainly, many in the crowd (by their earlier reaction to his speech there) would have cheered him doing so.

But Mike Sodrel also would have gone back on his word to those that organized the event, and his sudden announcement would have potentially overshadowed the event itself. The stories would have been “Sodrel announces Congressional campaign at Tea Party” not “500+ gather at Tea Party to protest Obama agenda.”

Read more after the leap.

I blogged late last week about an email that was sent out by Dee Dee Benkie, Indiana’s national committeewoman on the Republican National Committee, and Larry Shickles, the former 9th District chairman, for a lunch for Congressman Mike Sodrel.

First of all, to put an end to the many inquiring emails I have received since I made that post, Mike Sodrel made no announcements this weekend at any of the three events he attended.

And, yes, Sodrel attended three events this weekend. At least, he attended three events where I personally saw him. He may have been at others, too. He attended a social event on Friday put on by the Floyd County GOP. He attended the aforementioned lunch on Saturday in Harrison County. And he attended, and spoke, at the Tea Party in Corydon later Saturday afternoon.

Read all about those events after the leap.

H/T to Tabitha Hale for this Video she posted yesterday on her blog

This is dedicated to the Government and your BIG Spending, shoving programs down our throats Legislation! Maybe the message was not clear enough when the Taxpayers took over DC last Saturday…well this is a follow up!