Well folks, your trusty truth squad returns for analysis of Day 2 of the AFN6W!  the Buddha, joined by LOTUS (more from LOTUS later), JOTUS, LLOTUS aka The Llama, and Cool Breeze – your eyes and ears on the ground – make the rounds and bring you the news from today’s most unnewsworthy event. 

The empty press riser notwithstanding,  most of the media attending (using the word “media” loosely) appear to be independent non-network left-wing entities that, oddly, none of your truth squad recognize. 

The peculiar lack of media – correction: recognizable media — and the event’s organizers’ contentedness with that fact — reflect something odd we’ve noticed;  it appears that most of the attendees here would prefer to live in a world occupied soley by like-minded left-wingnuts!  Especially odd given all the articulated desire for and pride taken in the Left’s “diversity.”  

Whether it’s yesterday’s applause line from an audience member during one session’s Q&A that conservatives ought to be “punished” for their views or another speaker’s prediction that the GOP will theme its upcoming political campaigns around charges of Liberal elitism “selling fear and divisiveness,” the desire here appears to be one of denial.

It ain’t just a river in Egypt anymore. [LOTUS: Zing!]

What’s ignored here at AFN6W!? (besides the obvious: Iraq! — wasn’t that how you got energized in the first place? Isn’t that why you guys wouldn’t get behind Hillary?)  Attendees appear to not think that decency exists outside of this tiny, unwell-attended event.  If one can’t accept government-as-God as a way of life – in the words of one lunch speaker that ”we must be ministers” in the “greening of our economic recovery” – then one doesn’t deserve to participate in the democratic process. 

Every vote counts! As long as you vote the way Rev. Obama tells you to vote.

Overheard: “Mmmm: the Kool-aid’s delicious!”

It’s as if everyone here has agreed that it’s impossible to imagine that a conservative may have arrived at at his or her viewpoint through thoughtful reasoning, an examination of history, and common sense.  The prevalent view is that harboring conservative political values — and living by them – represents some character defect. 

We wonder if some savvy and literate folks here are beginning to recognize that conservative observers are legitimately attending your O-propaganda sessions.  We’d give you an A+ in your collective ability to regurgitate the DNC’s talking points of the day.  Well, we didn’t try to scheme our way in on a media badge like so many folks eyeing us (and how a number of those on the Left do at CPAC).  Still, there’s this odd sense that you know we are here. 

Since everyone here seems to think they know what conservatives are and are all about,  what you should do AFN6W! attendees is use this as an opportunity to to actually get to know a conservative.  We are here. We live among you. We attend your events.  We watch, we laugh.  It’s that easy.  It is not a grand conspiracy to prevent minorites from voting as many have alleged here.  It is a belief in the ideal of America and our founders’ belief in the paramount rights of the individual and that government — when given power — will take advantage of it at the expense of the rights of the citizenry. 

AFN6W! organizers might ask the same question internally about our attendance the question Adm. James Bond Stockdale asked in 1992: Who are we and why are we here? 

We are your neighbors that silently tend to our lawns, we are the deliverypeople who drop off your FedEx package and ask for your signature. We are the mechanics who fix your Honda hybrids. We are the bartenders who act like we’re your friend and serve you a free shooter when you are so obviously bombing with that girl who is waaay out of your league.

Why are we here?  First, to compare your event with ours.  Bottom line: Ours is better. Better attended, better planned, better staffed, better covered by media, and better at including diverse points of view.   

Second, to remind ourselves that you don’t have horns and tails, and to also remind YOU that we don’t either.  You might say that we don’t believe in a Red America or Blue America, but in one United States of America.  Heard that somewhere before?  

Y’all act as if decency and reasonable discourse is a concept that you took a patent out on when Big Bad Barry smoked the White Lady in Iowa and told her that He didn’t know if he was campaigning against the lady or the gentleman in that marriage of convenience.

Well, decency and discourse have always been staples where we come from.  We like Nat Hentoff, and we’re not afraid to give him a forum to speak his mind.  And will continue to live like that, because it’s the right way for an an American to live, despite your desire to live like the victims of heavy-handed ways of King Friday VIII of the Kingdom of Make-Believe where everyone has a claim at marganilization resulting in a freebie suckle from the nipple of Uncle Sam’s voluminous rack.  

We are here to talk to you and for you to talk to us – politely and reasonably, and our behavior while we are here conveys that.  And believe it or not, to find common ground.  Not because your leader inspired us to do so, but because we have always done so and don’t posess a common desire to ignore your existance and your right to think and act for yourselves; in fact,  we would encourage you to do so. 

When one speaker today noted how difficult it is for college students to  organize on college campuses because of bullshit 50 sq. ft. free-speech-zone regulations, we cheer.  Google Ruth Malhotra and Orit Sklar.  They are our heroes, and they should be yours.  If you can’t find it in your hearts to cheer for these girls, then you have failed our test of tolerance and diversity.  [LOTUS: CPAC 2009 honored up-and-coming leaders Ruth and Orit at CPAC 2009.  By contrast, tonight AFN6W! will be honoring a union boss and ACORN leader at their Gala.]

The New-Age guru who lives in the White House — whom you all seem to worship — spoke during the campaign as if he desired to find that common ground that includes all Americans. 

Your worship of the Man-in-Chief however,  fails to keep him honest on that claim.  You have failed to pressure him to end the war in Iraq, which is why you voted for him and not Hillary, and you have allowed the unions to serve as your spokespeople and let highfallutin’ union bosses dictate the intensity and timing of the pressure that the grassroots can exert on the current administration. 

We don’t pay no union dues.   And even if you don’t allow the unions to regularly dock your paycheck AFN6W! attendees, you are paying them elsewhere in your refusal to stand up to their corrupt money-grubbing leadership.   

And so, TheLOTUSBlog and her truth squad members issue a challenge to EVERY attendee, speaker, and staffer here: 

You know who we are.   Talk to us.  We don’t bite. We may disagree, and we may chuckle at your inability to laugh at the peculiarities that are the odd definitions of prospering inside 495, but we don’t hate as a way of life and we don’t want to lock you up in re-educatiuon camps (as efficient that as might be — it’s sooo Hillary).  [LOTUS: Re-education camps may he the only Chinese institution attendees don’t wish to import.  More on that later.]

The point is we got involed in politics not because of one man’s beliefs, but because of our own beliefs. 

[LOTUS: At the “Green Luncheon” we sat with a few progressives, including one intern at AFN6W!, that seemed to be aware of who we were.  Unfortunately, they were much more interested in typing (or Facebooking) on their Macs.  We won’t take it personally though because we weren’t that interested in the speakers at the podium either.]

We want to talk.  We want to talk about the things we agree on, like opposition to portions of the USA PATRIOT Act and the CAPPS II program,  and we want to talk about the things we disagree on, like how the General Motors bailout is really a debate over employment and nationalizing jobs that crank out overpriced second-rate vehicles that run on the fossil fuels you say we need to wean ourselves off of and how the bailout ruins GM’s chances at achieving viability as a American corporation that’s on par with Toyota and Honda.  [LOTUS: In case they forgot, it’s Toyota that makes their car of choice — the Prius.]

Hell folks, you know we can even just chit-chat about how the mainstream media never seems to get it right.   

So the question and the challenge exists:  are Obama’s campaign promises to include all Americans in His America an empty promise?  Or was it a bullshit throw-away feel-good line that served the momentary task of accruing the power that the rest of you so desparately crave to taste.

Look for us on Wednesday, June 3.  Here’s where we’ll be:

9:30 a.m. — Exhibit Hall

10:20 a.m. — New Media — The Politics of the Changing Media Scheme

11:40 a.m. — Closing Brunch

And how come all the ladies around here have a problem saying “thank you” when I open the door for them?   

Additional observation:  I shook Je$$e Jackson’s hand earlier today.  When the handshake ended, I was pleasantly suprised NOT to find the blood of Dr. King on my hands.

-BR

Whatever show is interviewing Ed Schultz probably has higher rating than Ed Schultz’s show.

Buddha Riggs reflects on Day One: 

The Future is Now.  The Present is, well, Yesterday, apparently.

The liberals at AFN6W! are so energized that they envision a 40-year term of progressive dominance as a result of last year’s electoral victories. 

That is, the liberals who were sufficiently energized to show up to the 2009 conference.   Attendance is down dramatically at this year’s event:  roughly 700 activists this year, compared to 3,000 at last year’s event. 

Admittedly tough to get a decent head count because the organizers turned off the lights in the main ballroom to facilitate attendance number-fudging (like that phony 3,000 number from last year) and put a bunch of trees around the meager seating area.  Surrounding the seating area, is empty space; in fact, enough empty space to have the entire Oberlin College track team run laps around the audience unnoticed. 

 Congratulations, environmentalists!  By the end of the conference, you may have more trees than people.

And all this talk about transparancy?  Step one: turn on the gaddamn lights. 

We interviewed the trees and they said that now that Obama is President they will recommence the processing of your carbon emissions.  If you look closely at each tree, like a delicate snowflake, is different, individual, and unique. The trees ought to be given a medal or something for refusing to march in lockstep orthodoxy.

Speaking of going green, how many trees died to run that monster jumbotron in the media room (restricted access) that no one is watching?   

Formerly named the Take Back America Conference, organizers have declared Mission Accomplished, changed the name to AFN6W!, and are left with figuring out how to take advantage of the good times that sent their main man Barry to his NW DC digs.

To that end, there is a lot of ass-kissing of young people.  Young people, according to liberal Sara Robinson, a womyn who admits that liberals’ key to success is ”keeping the cons bottled up,” are “diverse, of mixed-race, self-organizers, and at heart, progressive.”

So, if you are a young person, who is not of mixed-race and you’re an individualist, take note: you don’t exist here. 

And it’s reflected in the attendance.  For all the young-people-are-the-future sycophancy, there is a noticible lack of young people in the crowd.  And the ones that do appear are in ties, which means that they’re at work. 

The young people who are here don’t want to be here: they are for the most part professional liberals who have forgone their right to think freely and independently for the opportunity to get paid and aquire the heath insurance that they puport every American deserves and send the message to their parents that they are productive and prosperous members of society and cultivate the fantasy that one day their little Johnnie, ahem, Little Muqtada will be a member of the Washington establishment with the real power to do real things, like get them a tour of the Capitol Rotunda, or even better: a White House Christmas, ahem, Holiday Tree Ornament in the mail.

FYI, generally Buddha does not talk to young people who wear ties (unless it’s a wedding, or a gay wedding, or a funeral, or a gay funeral, or at Xmas midnight mass with the rest of the drunks) because it means that on some level you aspire to be The Man’s bitch. 

I thought dissent was patriotic. Wtf?

The trendy thing to accessorize your work clothes with is apparently obeisance.

Up next, the evening schoomze. 

The American people have their marching orders:

WWRSMD?

What Would Robert Stacy McCain Do?

So what did we learn about liberals?  Get this doozy: According to one attendee, “the [conservative] movement ended civil rights by assassination, like Dr. King!”

My dear, you put the ass in assassination. 

-30-

A couple random thoughts from LOTUS:

- There are no mics in the main ballroom.  No questions even in the safety of darkness.

-One Twitterer criticized me for reporting that less than 600 people were in the main ballroom, which a posted sign states seats 3,500.  He said the crowd was “raucous.”  Ha!  This crowd had minimal polite applause.  No energy.  In fact, during one panel, a speaker mentioned Ann Coulter and there was no reaction to what she thought was probably a red meat line.  No boos.  No hissing.  Nothing. 

- It’s hard to muster any anger at the former or current government guys (Podesta, some advisor to Biden).  They say nothing.  At least half a dozen times both Buddha and I began writing a sentence they started, but the ending never came.

- They LOVE using the word “narrative.”  It’s not about ideas, it’s about the “narrative.”  In other words, the sappy story that gets the people in the cage.  Panelist Sara Robinson of the Campaign for America’s Future told the “Kicking [Conservatives] While Their Down” panel, “Conservatives are terrified of [universal of health care] because of how much good government can do.  The dominant narrative will be ours.”

Buddha Riggs Reporting for Duty!

As part of its continuing effort to bring you the thoughtful and up-to-the-minute political buzz you crave, TheLotusBlog is pleased to launch its coverage of the premier radical-liberal-progressive annual Washington D.C. confab: The America’s Future NOW! Conference (AFNOW!) — formerly known as The Take Back America Conference. 

The name of the event was changed after the radical liberal-progressive establishment’s unexpected Taking Back  of America.

Props, radical-liberal establishment. 

TheLOTUSBlog’s LOTUS and guestblogger Buddha Riggs did a quick site walk-thru and the buzz is, well, non-existant.  The bar: empty.  The ballroom: dark.  The Exhibit Hall: empty tables, well-defended.  It’s a shame to see so many security night watchmen guarding the empty space and tables around them; they had better be getting overtime.  At least one of them brought a book by Mario Puzo. 

On tap for tomorrow: Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks and we assume will lead us in prayer before lunch.   Wondering if any of the good and allegedly Reverend’s church parishoners will also be in attendance. 

Rainbow/P.U.S.H it: Rainbow/P.U.S.H. it good.

Rainbow/P.U.S.H. it: Rainbow/P.U.S.H. it REAL good!

SWAG Count: 2 buttons from U.S. Steelworkers (”Fight Back America” rectangle and “Keep It Made in America” round); The Little Blue Book of Big Trade Problems from Alliance for American Manufacturers.

-BR

I’m going undercover this week!  I checked into the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C. today and it’s a total ghost town compared to the hustle during CPAC.  This week the Omni will be the site of the lefty America’s Future NOW! conference, which is sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future.  Unlike past conferences, the 2009 conference doesn’t have any huge speakers.  In 2006 and 2007 they had Obama, this year they have David Bonier and Howard Dean. 

The conference begins at 10 a.m. on Monday, June 1.  Some of the panel titles are pretty funny:

The Economy: OMG!

Kick Them When They’re Down? How the Right Plans to Come Back and What Can Be Done About It [Note: the question mark is a recent addition to the title.  I wonder if this was some sort of internal debate.]

A New and Enduring Progressive Majority?

Tackling the Big Money Obstacle to a Progressive Agenda

Big Money and Stray Dogs: Taking On the Folks Who Stand in the Way

Rethinking Afghanistan

Despite boasting up to 3,000 people at past conferences, inside sources tell me that this year’s organizers are only expecting between 550-700 attendees.  Progressive grassroots activists on the march!

Check TheLOTUSBlog.com and on Twitter at @CPACnews for updates throughout the conference.  LOTUS, JOTUS and Buddha Riggs want to know — are the grassroots greener on the other side?

 UPDATE: Buddha Riggs spots Vice President of U.S. Steelworkers in the hotel bar.

Actor and director Robert Davi recently wrote in The Washington Times about his family, Memorial Day, and the importance of teaching children about about our military’s heroes.  While many kids know everything about “going green,” few know about America’s military and why we celebrate holidays like Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day.

This Memorial Day, I had the honor of being part of the program at this cemetery. joining Robert Forster, Jon Voight, David Horowitz, Bill Sachs and Maj. Gen. JamesW. Comstock. The general had asked all to remember the first time he or she understood or felt patriotic. As I sat waiting my turn to speak, I reflected on mine. My father was a Navy gunner on a merchant marine ship during World War II. His ship was torpedoed in the Pacific, and he was in the water for three days. He lost some of his close friends and was awarded the Purple Heart.

My earliest recollections of my dad were that on every Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Independence Day until the day he died at age 57, he wore his Navy uniform and raised the flag in our front yard. I remember his solemn pride on those days. He also upset my mother a bit because he still fit in his uniform and had not gained any weight over the years. And, well, she had.

Click here to read more about Davi’s plan to go red, white and blue.

Via The Jawa Report:

(New Delhi, India) A seer told an Indian father, who has seven daughters, that he would have a son if he quit bathing. Therefore, Kailash “Kalau” Singh quit bathing. That was in 1974. Yes, 63-year-old Kalau has not bathed for 35 years.

Instead of bathing and brushing his teeth, Kalau performs a “fire bath” every evening.

               He stands on one leg beside a bonfire, smokes marijuana and says prayers to Lord Shiva ….

               “It’s just like using water to take a bath,” Kalau was reported as saying. “A fire bath helps kill germs and infection in the body.”

LOTUS didn’t realize that guestblogger Buddha Riggs wanted a son so badly.

The following are excerpts from a news article on KFC’s coupon debacle.

Kentucky Fried Chicken is offering a free, two-piece grilled chicken meal with two sides and a biscuit as part of a promotion to get more people to eat healthier foods…

Shannon Edwards said she walked in the rain to a KFC on St. Paul Street but was turned away.

“I’m a big girl. I like to eat. So, I’m kind of disappointed I have to go to McDonald’s now,” she said.

If you haven’t read anything by Jen Lancaster, then we aren’t friends.  However, you could use the excuse that you wanted to read her books in chronological order.  While her other books take place during adulthood, her newest book, Pretty in Plaid is childhood stories from ’80s.  So, you are forgiven if you buy it and immediately start reading it.  I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy, which I have been saving for my vacation in July.  I don’t know if it will go untouched until then.

For perhaps the first time ever, the New  York Times is totally accurate.  Here’s an excerpt from their review of Pretty in Plaid:

In Pretty in Plaid, Jen Lancaster reveals how she developed the hubris that perpetually gets her into trouble. Using fashion icons of her youth to tell her hilarious and insightful stories, readers will meet the girl she used to be.

Think Jen Lancaster was always “like David Sedaris with pearls and a super-cute handbag?” (Jennifer Coburn) Think again. She was a badge-hungry Junior Girl Scout with a knack for extortion, an aspiring sorority girl who didn’t know her Coach from her Louis Vuitton, and a budding executive who found herself bewildered by her first encounter with a fax machine. In this humorous and touching memoir, Jen Lancaster looks back on her life—and wardrobe—before bitter was the new black and shows us a young woman not so very different than the rest of us.

The author who showed us what it was like to wait in line at the unemployment office with a Prada bag, how living in the city can actually suck, and that losing weight can be fun with a trainer named Barbie and enough Ambien is ready to take you on a hilarious and heartwarming trip down memory lane in her shoes (and very pretty ones at that).

Don’t miss her book signing at a city near you!

(Didn’t that sorta sound like the end of a Reading Rainbow book review?  Da da da dunt!)

I’ll never forget the first time I saw him. We met on the Internet in 1999 and I fell for him instantly. He had the most beautiful brown eyes. Then he was just known as number 81 by the Washington D.C. Humane Society. He was a beagle and chocolate lab mix. The adoption process took a bit of time. I had only met him once, but I fought for him. He was in a short-term foster home that didn’t seem to want to give him up despite having me go through the process. Four days before Christmas I showed up unannounced and took my Buster home.

Buster was more than just a pet. He was my companion and best friend. I had him for almost nine years before he passed away last September. He suffered from a heart murmur for many years and as he got older his heart problems worsened. Any time he needed an EKG, x-ray or new medication, my wallet, heart and mind were open to the possibility that it could extend our time together. My finances took a heavy toll, but he lived a comfortable six months longer than the veterinarian predicted.

I am so thankful that I was able to take care of him until the end. It might have been too much of a financial burden for another owner. Given that there are over 80 million homes that have a dog or cat, there are millions of pets that will be in the same situation as my Buster. I recently learned that there is a proposal that can ease the financial costs of our companions.

Click here to read the rest of my Townhall column.

Click here to read a response from my libertarian friend, Trevor Bothwell at the Washington Examiner.