Every summer an event takes place in Denver that lights up the eyes of conservatives in the region: the Western Conservative Summit.  It’s coming up again on the weekend of July 12–13.

Conservatives who come to the summit are not just from the Mountain Time Zone. They arrive from all over the USA. The summit is one of the top conservative gatherings in the USA each year and it attracts interesting people and covers timely themes.

The theme of this year’s summit is “Defending Religious Liberty and America’s First Amendment: Two inspiring days that will lift your spirits and restore your faith in America.”

If you have no plans on the second weekend of July, maybe you’d like to come help swell the ranks in Denver for a few days. Unfortunately, conservatives are a smaller and smaller contingent in Colorado, which is looking more like California every day and in more ways than one. Also, at a time when social media platforms seem to be censoring conservatives, it’s a good idea to gather and hear ideas in person and in real time.

A speaker who is new to the summit this year is Rep. Dan Crenshaw. Recently, he lambasted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her words concerning conditions at the southern border of the USA and about border patrol agents.  Crenshaw said that no one is corroborating Sandy O’s reports and that she is getting bolder with her lies.

Moderate American Muslim Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser will speak for the first time as well. He has coined a term that he may explain: alt-Jihad.

Abby Johnson, whose story inspired the film Unplanned, is confirmed to speak too. She worked at Planned Parenthood until she was forced by her duties to actually watch an abortion. Now she fights for unborn babies.

Also speaking for the first time is Donald Trump, Jr., son of President Trump. He has been in the eye of the storm with his dad for three years at least.

Author of Contempt: A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation, Ken Starr, will be speaking.  Close to the Independence Day holiday, he opined on that he expects “fireworks” from Republicans when Mueller testifies to Congress.

Returning to the summit is HUD Secretary Ben Carson. He testified to Congress in May 2019 and got the mainstream media all spun up with his downhome style. Was he just jerking their chains?

Journalist Michelle Malkin returns and will no doubt have a lot to say about what’s going on in the USA. as she usually does. Recently, she tweeted regarding Andy Ngo being assaulted. "Portland calls itself a 'sanctuary city,' but it’s nothing of the sort for a law-abiding journalist."  

 Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA is on the job for the 2020 presidential campaign when it comes to young people. He will be speaking again at the summit.

Organizers of the summit recognize great conservatives at the annual Armstrong Dinner every year. The 2018 recipient was George P. Schulz, American politician, economist, statesman, and businessman.

This year Centennial Institute Director Jeff will award the 2019 William L. Armstrong Award to Robert P. George on Saturday evening.

George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.  Professor George has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.  He has also served on the President’s Council on Bioethics, as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Science and Technology.  He is a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. George will also speak for the first time at the summit.

Sometimes protestors show up at the venue, the Colorado Convention Center, but police are on top of it in Denver. Hopefully, that will still be the case even though Colorado’s new Democratic governor is farther to the Left than was our former Democratic governor.

One of the few media people covering the summit this year as in the past -- mainstream media seem to show up only when presidential candidates appear -- I’ll be tweeting on what I hear from speakers. 

It would be nice to see you at the Western Conservative Summit, but if you can’t make it, you can follow me on Twitter at @CSBoddie. Hopefully, the Twitter staff won’t shut me down.

C.S. Boddie writes for Meadowlark Press in Littleton, Colorado.