Chicago Tea Party Rides Again

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Apr 14, 2009 5:20PM

Remember CNBC's Rick Santelli's now-legendary rant against President Obama's stimulus package? It called for a Chicago Tea Party in July. Never ones to sit on their haunches, however, those agreeing with Santelli got an early jump on a protest, demonstrating back in February and have already scheduled another protest for tomorrow's more appropriate tax deadline. While there will be many protests held throughout the state, the Chicago protest will happen tomorrow at high noon at the Kluczynski Federal Building Plaza - conveniently right next to the post office where you can mail your taxes!

Speakers at tomorrow's rally will include:

• Erich “Mancow” Mueller - Mancow & Cassidy, WLS
• Eric Odom - DontGo Movement, TaxDayTeaParty.com co-founder
• Jonathan Hoenig - Capitalistpig.com, Fox News Contributor
• John Tillman - Illinois Policy Institute
• Joe Calomino - Americans For Prosperity

But there are already rumblings of counter-protests by controversial group ACORN, who faced accusations of voter fraud in the 2008 Presidential election. John O'Hara, who's involved in tomorrow's Chicago Tea Party, told FOX News, "If ACORN wants to send some of their paid, pretend activists to show up, that's fine. They don't have a message that resonates with the American people or resonates with this broad coalition that's upset with the spending that's going on in Washington." Meanwhile, well-intentioned supporters of the Tea Party movement have also taken to sending lawmakers teabags as signs of protest, but they're running into trouble when the teabags are mistaken for suspicious substances.