Sam Adams Alliance

-By Warner Tod Huston

One of the winning videos here tonight is from the CATO Institute. It’s titled “The ABC’s of Virginia Alcohol Law.”

Visit Sam Adam’s Alliance

-By Warner Tod Huston

Milwaukee talk show host Vicki McKenna was next to give awards to those involved in wiki efforts. Winners were Seth Cooper for Ballotpedia, Fred Baldwin for Judgepedia, and John Wynne for the Sunshine Review.

Wikis are, of course, a similar sort of effort like Wikipedia. But these gather policy information, judges, and ballot initiatives. This is a new sort of internet effort that helps citizens learn about their local issues.

The room is quite full, I’d estimate that at least 300 some guests in attendance.

Visit Sam Adam’s Alliance

-By Warner Tod HustonOur first award went to Melissa Coulthier as Microblogger of the year. Presented by Sam Adams COO John Tsarpalas.

John Fund presenting the Voter Watchdog Award to Ruth Bendl.

In his remarks, John says he is encouraged about the conservative message today. After all, during the Carter and Clinton years we felt we were in the wilderness but we soon found success again at the polls.

Fund recalls that Reagan was sure that Carter would lead from the far left even as he ran as a moderate. Fund says that Reagan was right, Carter made a hash of things and that left the door open for Reagan to sweep into office.

As Clinton was coming to office, Fund says that Reagan repeated his observation, and “sure enough we had the biggest tax increase in history.” And Clinton’s leftism led to the 1994 Republican revolution. “Stick to conservatism and you will win again,” said Reagan then.

Fund told us that we have the power to reverse Obama’s current power.

Ruth Bendl accepted the award for Voter Watchdog. A world traveler, Bendl is a tireless activist against vote fraud. Ruth says they discovered that 80,000 illegal immigrants came to the state of Oregon to get IDs because of the lax ID laws in that state.

Ruth said that her state officers aren’t too fond of her because she has found that quite a few energetic corpses are still voting there. Ruth is an acticist for proper ID requirements to be included on the voter roles. Ruth also is adamant that lax voter roles is a homeland security issue. The easy by which illegals get IDs is criminal.

Visit Sam Adam’s Alliance

-By Warner Tod Huston

Tonight, April 18, I am sitting on blogger’s row for the 2nd Annual Sammies sponsored by the Sam Adam’s Alliance.

Held north of Chicago in Northbrook, Illinois at the beautiful Renaissance Chicago North Shore Hotel, the 2nd Annual Sammies looks to be a fun event. Speakers include Michelle Malkin, Joe the Plumber, “the capitalist pig” Jonathan Hoenig, Mary Katherine Ham, The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund, Stephen Moore, and others all hosted by Radio host Guy Benson.

The festivities kick off at 7PM Central time.

Our host for the evening is local talk show host Guy Benson. Benson has a weekend show on WIND in Chicago and also appears weekly on the Hugh Hewitt show during the “young guns” segment with Mary Catherine Ham.

… and now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to get a cocktail before it’s too late!