Rachel Carpo, a blogging mother of five (a fact which registered obvious surprise among everyone present, as she neither looks old enough nor, um, like she's had five children), spoke briefly.

Matt Lewis, who spoke in a Friday session I attended, gave several suggestions:

1. Adopt a "win mentality." The Left is now worried about us. They want to mock us and demoralize us; don't let them!
   
2. Get the tools. Go to conferences, read, get and learn the tools (cameras, iphones, etc.)
   
3. Get networked
   
4. Stay principled. Don't let others co-opt you...in either party
   
5. Get the facts. Don't be sloppy. Someone has to keep the MSM honest!
   
6. Stay aggressive.

John Peterson, a former Congressman from northwest PA, followed. His visual aids consisted of two posters with graphs regarding energy sources and consumption. He spoke of the cancelling of energy leases by the Dept. of Energy, a development unnoticed by the MSM. Huge new energy taxes are being proposed, some with minimal press coverage. His quote to note: "If we don't drill, OPEC will."

Ed Morrissey of hotair.com was next. He pointed out that "Americans for Prosperity" would have been considered a redundancy until recent years in this this country, as America was virtually designed for prosperity. The Declaration of Independence "declared" our God-given, unalienable rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the ability to change our government if it became destructive of our ends. It lifted the individual above the state. The first mention of property rights in the Constitution (Article I, Section 8) dealt with patents and such: No one has the right to confiscate the "work" of others! Healthcare is not a right; if anything, it's the doctor who has the right to charge a fee for his work.

Ronald Kessler, author of All The President's Men (#3 on the current bestseller list), mentioned that although the quality of media overall has diminished, the marketplace is working; media such as the Washington Post, with its recent improvements, are seeing their declines mitigated. He also spoke at some length about newsmax.com, which emphasizes stories not typically seen in the MSM.

Steven Moore, another WSJ writer, spoke of the "Three Pillars of Evil in Washington:" (1) The hoax of global warming and its attendant cap-and-trade; (2) The fiscal policy and debt (which he referred to as "financial child abuse," an apt phrase); and (3) The healthcare issue. Most in Congress have never run a business or dealt with payroll before, so they might not be aware that it's the small businesses which are paying most of the taxes in our country. His Quote to Note: "The next eight weeks may be the most critical in our country in the past fifty years."

Finally, the best known speaker of the day came to the podium: Michelle Malkin. She stated that the Left is attempting to redefine such things as political dissent, etc., in an effort to discredit whatever disagrees with its point of view. She, like the rest of us, seems to find it amusing that democrat officeholders are hiding from their constitutents of late (she likened it to "sanctuary"). Some think that the Beltway GOP is behind the Tea Party protests; she pointed out that they could only wish that they were!