CPAC Day 1

The mood was upbeat despite the darkness that has taken over DC and the country at large. The panelists and speakers were great today and I enjoyed a quick run through of the exhibit hall which I hope to have more time to peruse later (although I did manage to pick up every free non-food items that wasn't nailed down). Here are some quick pics I took in the exhibition hall:

Joe the Plumber was there! He has a book - yay capitalism! He exposed Obama's socialism, but the American people either didn't care or didn't believe it. Now we all suffer, sigh...

This guy was walking around to advertise the movie U.N. Me. I got to see the movie at a special screening at the CVC last week. It's shaping up to be a great piece. The Right's answer to Michael Moore's "documentaries." It also shows how unconscionably corrupt and deadly (literally) the U.N. has been. I spoke to the director and star who said the final version should be released over the summer.

A lot of activism going on at CPAC! Here, FreedomWorks has a big petition for attendees to sign saying, "NO MORE BAILOUTS!" Friday is the tea party protest.

I also got a pic with Rep. Michele Bachmann but it came out really blurry so I'm not posting it. She rocks!

Tomorrow I will try to take more fun pictures to give an idea of the look and feel of #CPAC09. Also, follow my twitter stream: @AlexaShrugged

You can watch the proceedings online at UStream sponsored by Townhall.

Next entries:

CPAC Day 2

CPAC Day 3

Live Blogging from CPAC

Starting Thursday, I will be live blogging from the Conservative Political Action Conference!
Be sure to check back for frequent updates on the goings on at the conference!

UPDATE: The panels I am interested in going to on Thursday:

1:50
New Challenges in the Culture War
Regency Ballroom
Rep. Chris Smith (NJ)*
Dr. Janice Crouse, The Beverly LaHaye Institute
Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel and Liberty University School of Law
Moderator: Marjorie Dannenfelser, Susan B. Anthony List
My passion is social issues

2:00
Sarah Palin Unplugged on the Media Video Interview
Diplomat Ballroom
Sponsored by "Media Malpractice" Movie
Speaker: John Ziegler and special guest
Open to all CPAC attendees/Tickets enclosed in CPAC registration bags
EMCEE: Martha Zoller, WDUN
John Zielger is AWESOME at taking down liberals in the media when he's on their shows. Check out How Obama Got Elected to see his interviews and more info on the movie.

2:30
Al Franken and ACORN: How Liberals are Destroying the American Election System
Ambassador Ballroom
Hans von Spakovsky, The Heritage Foundation
Heather Heidelbaugh, Republican National Lawyers Association
Mark Braden, former RNC chief counsel
Moderator: Cleta Mitchell, American Conservative Union Foundation
This is a HUGE issue that needs to be addressed and corrected

3:45

Targets of the Fairness Doctrine
Regency Ballroom
Joe Scarborough
Roger Hedgecock
Tucker Carlson
Introductions: Seton Motley, Media Research Center
Big fan of all three panelists, will be interested to see what they have to say

5:00
Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award
Empire Ballroom
Sponsored by Accuracy in Media
Speaker: M. Stanton Evans
Refreshments Served
Open to All CPAC attendees
I love M. Stanton Evans' book The Theme is Freedom had a big impact in my development as a conservative, especially my interest in the Founding Fathers and the strict construction of the Bill of Rights and Constitution. Plus: REFRESHMENTS SERVED!

8:30
Youth for Western Civilization Inaugural Reception
Palladian Ballroom
Sponsored by Morgan Knull and The American Cause
Speakers: Rep.Tom Tancredo, Bay Buchanan, Pat Buchanan (invited)
Host Bar
Open to all CPAC attendees
Tancredo! The Buchanans! Open Bar!

We'll see what I actually end up going to ...

Obama Irony: So Far, Worse Than Bush

Great piece By Victor Davis Hanson:
The Audacity of Irony

Some choice excerpts:

But unlike the Bush administration, which took 15 months to prepare the country for a real war in Iraq, the Obama administration gave the public only a few hours to read the final draft of the legislation before it was made into law. Where the polarizing partisan George Bush managed to obtain the vote of majorities in both parties to remove Saddam Hussein, the healing bipartisan Barack Obama lacked the support of even a single Republican in the House and won over a mere three Republicans in the Senate.

Liberals who once screamed that congressional opponents of the Iraq war were being unfairly tagged as unpatriotic by the Bush administration now yelled louder that the opponents of the Obama debt program were, in fact, unpatriotic.

Bush was pilloried for supposedly hyping al-Qaeda in order to create a security state. Obama trumped that by proclaiming that the present recession is a catastrophe, a disaster, a Great Depression. He ceased his scare-mongering only when he had exhausted the vocabulary of doom. “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” bragged Rahm Emanuel, reminding us that the envisioned Obama socialism could take root only if a climate of fear was created.

...Obama can end his irony only when he accepts that he and his supporters were never saints, and his predecessor not a notable sinner, and then accepts that history will judge him on what he does rather than what he says he might do.

I also enjoy how Obama keeps saying that he inherited the economic crisis, deficit, and debt while proceeding to make the crisis worse, double the deficit, and skyrocket the debt.
.

The Valentine's Day Calf

Awwwwww - how cute!!!

Nineteen-day-old ox 'Heart,' born with a heart-shaped marking on his forehead, relaxes at Yamakun farm in Fujisawa, near Tokyo, Japan, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009. Kazunori Yamazaki, 51-year-old farm owner, said, 'Good timing for Valentine's Day.

Limit Congressional Pay!

Pres. Obama recently announced he wants limits on executive pay, well, how about Congressional pay? Here's what I WISH he had said according to the article U.S. sets executive pay limits for bailout companies:

"What gets people upset, and rightfully so, is [Congressmen] being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers," he said. ...

"For [members of Congress] to award themselves these kinds of compensation packages in the midst of this economic crisis is not only bad taste -- it's bad strategy -- and I will not tolerate it as president," he said.

Members of the House get an automatic pay raise every year through the passage of the Treasury bill UNLESS a majority votes to block the raise. As you can imagine, a direct vote on the pay raise rarely happens or passes.

There are few groups less deserving of pay raises than members of Congress. As I wish Obama had said, they are rewarding themselves for failure, in the midst of an economic crisis, with taxpayer money. Members got a pay raise of $4,700 at the beginning of the year, but it's not too late for them to vote to stop the pay increase for next year.

Obama set to lower our standing in the world

So, how's Obama doing in his quest to "improve our standing in the world?"

Well, let's take a look at 2 headlines today from the Financial Times:

EU issues warning over Buy America plan

The European Union has warned of possible trade litigation against the US if Washington presses ahead with a Buy American provision in its forthcoming economic stimulus bill.

EU officials have expressed concern that the requirement for companies to use US steel and manufacturing products in projects funded by the bill could encourage a wave of protectionist measures from other countries.

The European Commission says it will examine any legislation to determine whether it violates a World Trade Organisation treaty signed by the US, EU and Japan. Signatories of the Government Procurement Agreement must open government contracts to foreign companies.

Is Obama set to start a trade uproar with global implications?

India warns Obama over Kashmir

India has warned US President Barack Obama that he risks “barking up the wrong tree” if he seeks to broker a settlement between Pakistan and India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

MK Narayanan, India’s national security advisor, said that the new US administration was in danger of dredging up out of date Clinton administration-era strategies in a bid to bring about improved ties between the two nuclear armed neighbours.

...“It’s possible that at this time there are elements, perhaps in the administration who are harking back to the pre-2000 era.”

Some countries DON'T want to go back to the pre-2000 era?! This must be shocking news to liberals!

Two things Bush never got credit for (among MANY) - our leadership in free trade and improved relations with India - that Obama is trying to reverse.

That's certainly change, but hope it ain't.

Related Posts:

Obama to abandon Israel?

Meet the new Great Satan, same as the old Great Satan

The Slippery Slope in Action

The slippery slope is not just theoretical.

As the men quoted in these articles say, as long as euthanasia and the killing of disabled babies is encouraged in policy and law, the devaluation of human life will continue and allow for problems like this to occur. Not only is this an indictment on the culture of death, but also on socialized medicine.


UK Medical Staff Declare Disabled Man Not Worth Saving From Heart Attack

In an incident that pro-life advocates say is the slippery slope that results from legalizing assisted suicide or euthanasia, two medical staffers in England have been arrested for reportedly deciding that the life of a disabled man was not worth saving after he had a heart attack. ...

When the unnamed medics arrived at Baker's home, they found him collapsed on the floor and the phone line was still open and recording their conversations. Baker died after the incident.

A police source told the London Times that the medics were heard discussing how they didn't want to revive Baker saying “words to the effect that he was not worth saving."

They were also heard discussing what to say to authorities and decided to give a story saying Baker had died prior to their arrival at his home.

..."The next time you are tempted to scoff at folk with disabilities who worry that they many people think their lives are not worth living, remember this story," he said. ...

"Friends and colleagues who have disabilities report similar stories of disdain occurring here when seeking medical care, for example, of people on ventilators being pressured to sign DNRs by hospital personnel even though they were not undergoing usually life-threatening procedures," he explains.

"Human exceptionalism demands that each of us be deemed to be of equal objective moral worth. It is an ideal we have never achieved, admittedly. But unless bigotry against people with disabilities is especially shocking when it impacts care in the medical context," Smith added.

British Hospital Allows Down Syndrome Patient to Starve to Death Over 26 Days

In a scandal that is causing a massive outcry, a British hospital has allowed a Down syndrome patient to starve to death over a 26 day period. Martin Ryan, who could not swallow after a stroke, was allowed to lie in a bed and starve to death without receiving any medical care.

...The query found that doctors thought staff nurses were feeding him with a feeding tube in his nose, but by the time anyone realized that had not happened for weeks, Ryan was took weak for a surgery to insert a gastronomy tube in his stomach.

...A report by the Mencap charity following the incident found the British governmental health service has also failed other people with mental difficulties, citing a young woman denied cancer treatment and a young man who died during treatment for a broken leg.

Anthony Ozimic, the political secretary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, a British pro-life group, told LifeNews.com the British government must be held accountable for what is becoming routine discrimination against the mentally disabled.

"Mencap has identified institutional discrimination within Britain's healthcare services against people with learning disabilities," he said. "Yet lethal institutional discrimination against the disabled and vulnerable is enshrined in law and policy, particularly in the pro-euthanasia Mental Capacity Act which Mencap supported."

"Disabled adults will continue to die because of discriminatory attitudes whilst the Mental Capacity Act and the killing of disabled unborn children, which manifest those attitudes, remain law," Ozimic added.

Related post:

What the culture of abortion on demand has wrought

How Dare You Question The Obama?

Obama lays down the law to the White House Press Corp. - don't worry, these troublemakers will learn their lesson soon - the last gasp of the dying media.

Obama flashes irritation in press room

President Obama made a surprise visit to the White House press corps Thursday night, but got agitated when he was faced with a substantive question.
[The first substantive question he's ever received, perhaps. How dare you question The Obama?!]

Asked how he could reconcile a strict ban on lobbyists in his administration with a Deputy Defense Secretary nominee who lobbied for Raytheon, Obama interrupted with a knowing smile on his face.

"Ahh, see," he said, "I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get grilled every time I come down here."
[Translation: You want access, you better continue to do puff pieces with softball questions]

Pressed further by the Politico reporter about his Pentagon nominee, William J. Lynn III, Obama turned more serious, putting his hand on the reporter's shoulder and staring him in the eye.

"Alright, come on" he said, with obvious irritation in his voice. "We will be having a press conference at which time you can feel free to [ask] questions. Right now, I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself to you guys - that's all I was trying to do."
[You may only question at the time and place of his choosing, and even then, only pre-approved questioners and questions.]

More: News organizations concerned about access issues at the Obama White House

What we don't know about Obama

As Rush Limbaugh said yesterday:
"The Drive-By Media never vetted Obama. Now, they're asking what America doesn't know about him. We don't know anything, 'cause journalists chose to "make history" rather than inform us."

Marking 36 Horrific Years, With More to Come

Today marks the 36th anniversary of the horrific and unconscionable Roe v. Wade, legacy: 50 million human beings torn apart or burned in the womb prematurely. I am a lucky survivor.

Anne Conlon had a piece on National Review Online yesterday that touched me, especially this passage:

Life in the Time of Obama
For too many more, it may be far too short.

Some of the most powerful testimony about the personal anguish abortion can cause has come from people who support abortion rights. One especially memorable account appears in the late Magda Denes’s In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death in an Abortion Hospital. Denes, a clinical psychoanalyst (and one of the originators of Gestalt therapy), arranged to spend time observing procedures at the same hospital where she had had an abortion several years before. Her book came out in 1976.

In one chapter, after recording the discomfort she had felt while watching an abortion, Denes describes visiting the room where the remains of aborted fetuses are stored. At first, she recalls the unexpected pleasure of putting on surgical gloves and discovering that her “hands feel completely protected without any noticeable loss of agility.” But pleasure quickly fades as she proceeds to inspect a “garbage-can-filled graveyard,” using forceps to lift dead little human beings out of “paper buckets—the type in which one buys fried chicken from take-out stores.”

Here she is at journey’s end: “Finally, I lift a very large fetus whose position is such that, rather than its stiff face, I first see its swollen testicles and abnormally large stiff penis. I look at the label. Mother’s name: Catherine Atkins; doctor’s name: Saul Marcus; sex of item: male; time of gestation: twenty-four weeks. I remember Catherine. She is seventeen, a very pretty blond girl. Not very bright. This is Master Atkins—to be burned tomorrow—who died like a hero to save his mother’s life. Might he have become someday the only one to truly love her? The only one to mourn her death? ‘Nurse, nurse,’ I shout, taking off my fancy gloves. ‘Cover them up.’ ”

Hearing about the abortion procedure and its aftermath is always heartbreaking. But with that sadness must come a resolve and purpose to speak out or the consequences are dire:

Magda Denes had the intellectual decency to call abortion “murder—of a very special and necessary sort.” We don’t hear talk of murder these days; even most pro-lifers eschew that hard word. Now the word “killing” also is being excised from the abortion lexicon, as proponents, including Barack Obama, propagandize the public with arguments that we cannot know for sure when life begins. Covering up the babies isn’t enough. Language has to be covered up, too. And common sense. But the price of this covering up is delusion. And as we have begun to see,

a nation that can delude itself about killing, about murder, can delude itself about anything—the threat of terrorism, the stability of financial markets, the suitability of its new president.

SGP Twitter Ball Tonight!

If you are a smart conservative (redundant, I know) girl, you will enjoy Smart Girl Politics. And they're having a special event tonight:

For my mental sanity, I've been avoiding the tv, radio, and internet this weekend - and where better than Vegas?! And - BONUS - I'm on a 6 hour flight during the actual inauguration on Tues! Unfortunately, that means I'm also missing the SGP Twitter Ball, but it's a great idea! Sign up for SGP by clicking on the above image and enjoy!