Here is an excerpt:

Emboldened by a belief that their political fortunes are on the rise, conservative activists descended Thursday on the capital city they love to hate, seeking to stoke what they consider a grass-roots uprising against President Obama and Democrats in Congress.

Read the entire article, Click Here!

Bayh won’t seek re-election, fed up with Congress!

WASHINGTON | Sen. Evan Bayh, a centrist Democrat from Indiana, is ready to announce he won’t seek a third term in Congress, giving Republicans a chance to pick up a Senate seat.

Read the entire article from the Associated Press – Click Here!

Fox News Video – Evan Bayh to Retire View Video

As we NWIPs recover from our recent loss, this blog will be somewhat less active than it was this past year. We’re still getting everything sorted out, but there is much work to do – and the Northwest Indiana Patriots will continue to do our part.

In the coming weeks, this website will refocus on the upcoming elections on the national, state and local levels. Stay tuned!

Bonnie Jean Kuzminski was a loving, faithful wife and devoted mother. For the past year, she served as the volunteer secretary for the Northwest Indiana Patriots. Bonnie passed away December 23, 2009, at the age of 60. She is survived by her husband, Gary, son and daughter, Steven and Kimberley, and grandchildren, Christian and Nicholas.

Bonnie was the motor driving the NWIPs. She authored every post on this blog, and wrote or co-wrote every email blast and newsletter ever sent out by the NWIPs. She helped organize, set up and run our events. She opened her home for an NWIP yard sale. Bonnie did all this – while receiving zero compensation – because she believed in the principles of limited government and fiscal and individual responsibility. She did all she could to help preserve liberty for her fellow citizens.

Bonnie recently related the story of how she came to be associated with the NWIPs. Like many of us, she was frustrated with the political direction of our nation. Also like many of us, she felt alone in her frustration, seeing no outlet or opportunity to have an effect. Then the Tea Party movement began, and news came of a Tax Day Tea Party in Valparaiso. Bonnie and Gary went, excited at the possibilities, but unsure of what would come of it. Would anyone show up? Would it just be 5 people gathered to say goodbye to our founding principles?

Bonnie found herself surrounded by hundreds of like-minded Patriots. People who felt just as she did. People who shared her frustrations and hungered to make a difference. And she was confronted with something new and exciting – opportunity. Bonnie seized that opportunity and never let go. She found a second home in the Patriots, and she was very proud to stand with all of you. She was so dedicated that she continued to post and email right up until the very week of her passing. Her example is an inspiration.

As we mourn Bonnie’s death, we must celebrate her successes. The NWIPs and the Tea Party movement have grown beyond what she initially thought possible. Locally, Bonnie was on the streets every day in the runup to the November referendum on the RTA, raising awareness and getting people to register and vote. The people of Porter County responded with a resounding 4-to-1 rejection of the RTA.

Nationally, the Tea Party movement halted the rush to pass a federal takeover of healthcare, though there is still much to do on that front. Another economy killer, Cap & Trade, has stalled. She marched in Washington, D.C. on 9/12. The political landscape of our nation has changed greatly this past year, and Bonnie was very much a part of that.

Bonnie’s greatest successes, though, were with her family. She was utterly devoted and always faithful to her husband, Gary. She provided the example for her daughter to raise a beautiful family of her own. She sustained her son, Steven, through an accident that left him with paralysis, giving him the strength, knowledge and support he would often need but never lack, thanks to her.

We love you, Bonnie. You will be sorely missed. We will honor you by continuing your fight.

Bonnie Kuzminski
July 14, 1949 – December 23, 2009

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn’t quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

“What are you doing?” I asked without fear,
“Come in this moment, it’s freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!”
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts.

To the window that danced with a warm fire’s light
Then he sighed and he said “Its really all right,
I’m out here by choice. I’m here every night.”
“It’s my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I’m proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at ‘  Pearl on a day in December,”
Then he sighed, “That’s a Christmas ‘Gram always remembers.”
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ‘  Nam ‘,
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I’ve not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he’s sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue… an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall.”

“So go back inside,” he said, “harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I’ll be all right.”
“But isn’t there something I can do, at the least,
“Give you money,” I asked, “or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you’ve done,
For being away from your wife and your son.”

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
“Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we’re gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.”

Yesterday I received a letter from a Dr. Paul Soloman, who signed himself the National Medical Director of United Healthcare, the insurance company that oversees the AARP Medicare Supplement Insurance plan. And though I am a member of the AARP plan, the letter from Dr. Soloman came completely from out of the blue.

The letter’s opening worried me. It said that taking care of my health, and especially managing all the day-to-day details, was hard…but they, United Healthcare, are here to help. Naturally, I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Because your health plan has access to your claims information, we’re able to see the ‘big picture’ of your health.” Well, I guess I felt pretty lucky to have someone watching the “big picture” of my health, although I was a little worried at the idea that there was an uninvited, unaccountable, doubtfully qualified “we” somewhere in the bureaucratic health universe who is privy to my most personal data. But heck, I thought, they seem to be working so hard on my case. The letter went on: “Several opportunities have been identified that may be worth talking to your physician about, at your next appointment.”

Gee, that’s good, I thought. Maybe Dr. P is really pretty busy these days and doesn’t have the time to check out these “opportunities.” I read on:…

More at the link.

Democrats on Tuesday begin their new push for an immigration bill, hamstrung by the image of legalizing millions of illegal immigrant workers at a time when the unemployment rate stands at 10 percent — more than twice what it was the last time Congress tried to act.

“It certainly will confuse the debate a lot more, but at the end of the day what we have to understand is fixing this system will be good for American workers,” said Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, which is one of the major advocates for legalizing illegal immigrant workers…

More at the link.

H/T  Michelle Malkin