CPAC Just Decided to Not Let Any US Journalists Inside
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Matt Schlapp, the organizer of the hugely influential Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), does not know what “independent media” means.
“I don’t know what these terms mean—what do you mean by independent?” Schlapp said in an interview outside the CPAC conference, which kicked off in the Hungarian capital on Thursday.
Schlapp was speaking outside the conference center on the banks of the Danube, because the Hungarian organizers CPAC has partnered with to host the event had refused entry to all journalists from U.S. media outlets, despite months of effort to obtain press credentials for the event.
Besides VICE News, journalists from Rolling Stone, Vox Media, and the New Yorker were turned away from the conference on Thursday, despite repeated assurances from the American Conservative Union that access would be provided. Journalists from other non-Hungarian media outlets, including the Guardian and Associated Press, tweeted that they had also been denied accreditation, despite months of requests.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/93bxm8/cpac-hungary-us-journalists-blocked
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Can we please make these people just STAY in Hungary, since they love Orban so much?
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absolute yet, except as they befall unfortunates who cross the government, but no doubt much envied by our own aspiring authoritarians.
"Lock her up!" and "Hang Pence!" after all.
as the liberal democracy we've always been, albeit shaky and battered as we recover. After all, we've weathered all storms to this point and people have calmed down and continued to enlarge the rights and wellbeing of our citizens.
Apparently one pattern seen in other embattled democracies, though, is that they continue to hold elections for some period while neither protectors of liberal government of, by and for the people nor authoritarians are able to secure enough power long enough to stabilize one way or another. So we could be in for some years of this. Or not.
Hungary's current illiberal autocracy had to backtrack on the "rule by decree" power legislators gave Orban, for instance, but recently a national election, still held, probably legitimately chose to keep power in the far right's hands; it's not all settled there by a long shot.
Meanwhile, people carry on their lives. Potatoes always still have to be planted while kings and popes come and go, after all.
strong churchgoers, believers in authority and order (their old culture, old laws they understand), so no shootings in the night.
These are really scary times everywhere. I'm certainly with you in knowing that those behind what's happening on the right have always intended to eliminate programs like Social Security and Medicare, now the ACA. If they can.
As for what they have planned -- and worse are capable of and may not be able to control -- we're seeing big, big clues that they have no limits on what they might do. The Republican pandemic was deliberately allowed and encouraged to spread for political purposes, and it seems likely now for economic. There is no doubt that they fostered it to further their purposes, though. Sowing chaos in a nation of 300 million to take power.
That said, change always creates more change, and reaction. Crazy as so many people are behaving, the vast majority want what they've always had and don't want where their craziness is taking them. Including turning living rooms and garages into living space for newly destitute relatives who'd have to be taken in.
The culture Americans inherited, our ways of life, and our expectations of what is due us are huge factors. We all still have the vote. And there are 330 million of us. It's realistic to be far from hopeless.
When these racists say it's about nation, not race. What they really mean is that it's about race, not nation. That's why they go to other white nations to talk about RW conservativism.
America First! 
Like are they trying to suck up to third world dictators like Orban? Is that where the conservative movement is heading? If so that's some seriously scary shit!
Should be considered a national security risk. They clearly do not have America's interests at heart and are sucking up to a mad man. 
