As many of our readers know, CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) is one of the premier, if not the premier, annual conservative gathering.  Slated to begin on February 18, 2010, it will draw leading conservative intellectuals and activists from around the country.  Among the group’s many sponsors with be our friends at GOProud.

Announced that his organization will be “a cosponsor of the single most important conservative gathering in the country”  Jimmy La Salvia, the group’s Executive Director pointed out that the “gathering of the nation’s most influential conservatives gives us an incredible opportunity to deliver our message.”  When the various conservatives assembled for this shindig see gay Americans speaking out against Obama’s statist policies while calling for smaller government and more personal freedom, some may reconsider how they view gay people.

At the same time, by allowing this gay group to cosponsor their marquee event, the American Conservative Union (the leading sponsor of CPAC) shows that it welcomes gay people.  Left-wing misconceptions notwithstanding, most mainstream American conservative organizations don’t discriminate against gay people.  And while there remain many in the conservative movement who continue to harbor unwarranted prejudices against gay people, their attitude is not–and never has been–central to American conservatism.

As gay individuals becoming increasingly visible on the right, we can help correct those prejudices still present in pockets of our movement.  Indeed, some groups, as one of our readers points out, who continue to promote such prejudices are also cosponsoring the conference.  Let us hope the presence of GOProud alongside them at the conference helps wean them of their prejudice.

By cosponsoring CPAC, GOProud is doing something other gay organizations refuse to do:   establish a gay presence an environment where prejudice persists.  If we really want to change attitudes toward gays, we need to work in environments where attitudes need to be changed.

If Obama’s Pay czar were limiting his meddling to only the salaries of executives at companies bailed out with taxpayer dollars, his role could prove to be a largely beneficial one.  But, as Michelle reports, the “power-grabby pay czar wants his limits to be adopted industry-wide.”

You see, with such excessive regulation the cost of accepting federal funds, many financial companies ave an added incentive to raise private funds to stay afloat.

Bank of America did just that, using it available cash and raising $18.8 billion in capital to repay the TARP money, “it received during the height of the credit crisis last year and after its purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co. earlier this year“.  As a result, it’s having an easier time finding a new CEO:

Bank of America Corp. has been having a tough time finding a new CEO willing to accept the restrictions that came as a condition of bailout funds. But recruitment is sure to be easier now that the bank plans to pay back its $45 billion in aid in just a few days to free itself from government oversight and pay restraints.

Banks, David Zaring observes, “will go to great lengths to avoid limitations on compensation, a trend that reached its amazing culmination when Bank of America, far from being awash in liquidty, paid back Treasury its $45 billion extremely quickly”  (H/t for Zaring comment: Instapundit).

Provided Mr. Feinberg limits his endeavors to those private enterprises receiving federal funds, his regulation could serve a world of good.   Too bad we didn’t have a fellow like him overseeing Fannie and Freddie.  Wonder who it was who helped blocked reforms that would have placed additional oversight over those Government-sponsored enterprises?

At least one conservative blogger is making much of CBS’s Charles Cooper’s promotion of a debate between former Vice President Al Gore and former Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin on global warming.

Personally, I think Sarah should do it.  Her increasingly improving ability to withstand ridicule will stand in stark contrast to the self-righteous Democrat.  And while Cooper (as fits the bias of his network) explores the charismatic Republican’s apparent reluctance to debate the pompous Democrat, he all but assumes that the man, who has heretofore refused to debate his pet issue, will, all of a sudden, shift course should Mrs. Palin prove willing.  Perhaps Katie Couric’s sidekick thinks Gore will readily accede to the clamor for such a debate just ’cause he’s so smart and she’s so dumb.

But, he forgets what a “quick study” this accomplished reformer truly is.

The real question, however,  should not be whether or not Palin will debate Gore, but why Gore won’t respond to Lord Monckton’s repeated invitations to debate.

Please note that the British peer issued this challenge before the publication of the Climategate e-mails.

Monckton and Gore have much in common, both born to prominent fathers and educated at prestigious universities.  While living on opposite side of “the pond,” they find themselves on opposite sides of the global warming debate.  Neither is a trained scientist.  Both have a background in journalism. It seems a perfect pairing, one that a thinking man’s thinking man should eagerly embrace.

Wonder why the mainstream media isn’t making much of Lord Monckton’s challenge, choosing instead to focus on Sarah Palin’s hesitation.

Writing earlier today about the censoring of an anti-Olympic mural in Vancouver, site of the 2010 Winter Olympics, Glenn Reynolds quipped, “The little people shall not be allowed to get in the way.”

Sounds like he just articulated David Frum’s problem with the GOP base, you know those Republicans whose concern for increasing government spending and exploding deficits, has forced Washington Republicans to obstruct the work of the current majority party in our nation’s capital.  Recall how he inveighed last Wednesday against those citizens in in the hinterlands:  ”But it’s the rank-and-file who are the problem here!”

Those little people who refuse to be silent do get in the way of the statist visions of representatives of the statist wings of America’s political parties.

Remember back in the 2008 presidential campaign when then-candidate Barack Obama promised a “net spending cut,” matching each increase in funding with a corresponding reduction?  Remember when he promised to rein in earmarks?

Well, the Democratic Congress has now given him a chance to show that he is a man of his word.   In the first presidential debate on Sept. 26, 2008, “we need earmark reform . And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.”  And now the Democratic Congress is set to pass a budget-busting spending bill, stuffed with earmarks, more than 5,000 earmarks to be precise “totaling $3.9 billion“.

Will he, as promised, go line by line through this budget and eliminate those 5,000 earmarks?

And the bill with each of them is headed for his desk.  Just this morning, Senate Democrats defeated a GOP filibuster of a budget bill not just with a surfeit of earmarks, but also with a steep increase in spending:

The Democratic-controlled Senate on Saturday cleared away a Republican filibuster of a huge end-of-year spending bill that rewards most federal agencies with generous budget boosts.

The $1.1 trillion measure combines much of the year’s unfinished budget work – only a $626 billion Pentagon spending measure would remain – into a 1,000-plus-page spending bill that would give the Education Department, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and others increases far exceeding inflation.

Emphasis added.  Far exceeding inflation?   ar exceeding inflation?  At a time, when the president has been reiterating his campaign promise to control deficits.  Well, here’s your chance, Mr. President, veto the bill and ask that Congress return with a cleaner bill, adjusting the increases to inflation and eliminating all earmarks.

Just saw this on the Corner and it got me thinking.  Commenting on the CNN poll showing 61% of Americans opposing the Reid health care bill in the Senate (a bill which most Democrats “admit they don’t know much about“) Lamar Alexander, Tennessee’s senior Senator said

Friday, December 11 may turn out to be a seminal day for the health-care debate. . . .  The majority leader has been trying to create a sense of inevitability, but this debate is beginning to feel a lot like the 2007 immigration debate. The sense of inevitability is rapidly diminishing. Every new survey shows public support fading . . .

Health care is not the only issue at work here. . . .  Health care has become a proxy for public restlessness and anger about bailouts, spending, and debt. All of these issues are tied up.

A proxy for public restlessness about big government programs. . .  Hmmm. . . .  Has public opinion finally jelled?  Is it that now that the American people are used to having Obama as President, they don’t automatically assume his proposals represent the kind of change they were looking for in last fall’s election?

Leads me to wonder. . .  Had the Democrats delayed the “stimulus,” maybe Americans would have seen it for the big government boondoggle it was?  No wonder Pelosi, Reid & Co been rushing all their legislation.  But, now the American people have caught up with their game and are no longer playing along.

It may not be a very merry Christmas for some Democrats if this bill continues to totter.