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7 Rock-Solid Prescriptions For The GOP’s Future… From Donald Trump’s CPAC Speech
As soon as it was announced that Donald Trump would be delivering one of the longer speeches this year’s CPAC, the world knew that something special was coming.
Trump did not disappoint, opening day two of the conference with a wide-ranging and utterly serious vision for the future of the Republican Party. If the GOP simply follows these specific ideas below without any question or hesitation, they are sure to find themselves back on top in no time.
1. “Build a great economy.”
“We don’t have a great economy right now. China has, other people have, other countries have… we don’t make things anymore… We have to make America strong again and make America great again.”
2. Immigration reform is a “suicide mission.”
“Now this is a hard one, because when it comes to immigration you know that the 11 million illegals, even if they’re given the right to vote…the fact is, 11 million people will be voting Democratic. You have to be very, very careful because you could say that, to a certain extent, the odds aren’t looking so great for the Republicans, that you’re on a suicide mission, that you’re just not going to get those votes.”
3. When I offer to build “the most beautiful ballroom there is in the country,” take me up on it.
“A couple of years ago I saw a major, major state dinner. And it was in a tent on the White House lawn… I called up the White House, someone I know very well, very high position, and I said, look, ‘I will offer, free of charge, to build the most beautiful ballroom there is in the country, anywhere.’ …They said, ‘thank you very much, wow, what an offer.’ We never heard from them. That’s the problem with the country.
4. Stop calling yourselves the “stupid party.”
“What a horrible statement to make. Because that’s the statement that’s going to come back and haunt you when the Democrats start using it.”
5. Don’t take Karl Rove’s money.
”When you watch someone who spends $400 million on campaigns with perhaps the worst ads I’ve ever seen — they did ads on Obama I thought were being paid for by the Obama campaign… When you spend $400 million and it’s a failure and you don’t have one victory, you know something is seriously, seriously wrong.”
6. Spend more time talking about how rich you are.
“I’ve made over $8 billion. I’ve employed tens of thousands of people. And yet I’m continually criticized by total light weights all over the place. It’s unbelievable. If Mitt Romney made one mistake, it’s that he didn’t talk enough about his success. Because honestly, people really want success. They want a leader who’s successful.”
7. Never go to war without “paying yourselves back” in oil.
“When I heard that we were first going to Iraq, some very smart people told me we’re actually going for the oil, and I said, ‘Alright, I get that, there’s nothing else, I get it. We didn’t take the oil. And then when I said, we spent $1.5 trillion, we should take that — you know, they have the second-largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia, so $1.5 trillion is nothing… we should take it and pay ourselves back… What the hell are we thinking?”
Watch video below:
CPAC 2013 NRA CEO LaPierre: ‘Liberal Media Can Keep Hating On Me’ And Calling Me ‘Crazy,’ ‘But I’m Still Standing’
The CEO of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, took to the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday where he tore into Democrats who have made an issue of his organization’s opposition to new gun laws in the wake of the Newtown massacre. He slammed the “liberal media” for calling him and those who believe in the Second Amendment “crazy,” and insisted that neither he nor the NRA would back down from their opposition to new gun laws.
“I didn’t come here to be popular,” LaPierre said. “I came here to stand for what I believe is true.”
“The political elites, they may not like it. The liberal media can keep hating on me, but I’m still standing, unapologetic and unflinching in defense of our individual freedom,” he said to thunderous applause.
“They can call me crazy or anything else they want,” LaPierre continued. “But NRA’s nearly 5 million members, and Americans 100 million gun owners, will not back down, not ever. I promise you that.”
LaPierre said that the Second Amendment which protects individual gun ownership rights, is not a provision which should be subject to interpretation. “Our Founding Fathers knew that whiteout the Second Amendment and that freedom, all of our freedoms could be in jeopardy,” LaPierre said.
“If you aren’t free to protect yourself when government puts its thumb on that freedom, then you aren’t free at all,” he continued. “But they insult, they denigrate, they call us crazy for holding fast to that belief.”
“In their distorted view of the world, they’re smarter than we are,” LaPierre added. “They’re special. They’re more worthy than we are. They know better than we do.”
Watch the clip via MSNBC:
Dianne Feinstein, Ted Cruz trade barbs over gun ban – VIDEO
The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a hugely controversial ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips, but the measure faces nearly certain defeat on the Senate floor.
The proposal, authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), bans 157 different models of assault weapons, as well as magazines containing more than 10 bullets.
The vote was 10 to 8, with all Democrats supporting it and all Republicans opposed.
The Senate now faces a floor fight in coming weeks over Democrats’ push to dramatically alter U.S. gun laws for the first time in two decades. While the Feinstein assault weapons ban is unlikely to overcome GOP opposition and get a vote — as well as concerns from red state Democrats up for reelection in 2014 — Democrats and the White House will continue their drive to enact universal background checks on all gun sales.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, acknowledged that the assault weapons ban will have a hard time overcoming opposition.
“It’s pretty clear the other side is locked in opposition [to assault weapons ban.] — [I] don’t see us getting 60 votes,” Whitehouse said, referring to the necessary bar to pass the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other top Democrats, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, will now try to craft one package out of the Feinstein proposal and other gun-related bills. The Judiciary Committee has previously approved a gun-trafficking bill that expands federal sanctions for “straw purchasers” of guns, as well as a universal background checks proposal. The panel also approved an additional $40 million for school safety programs.
Reid told POLITICO he spoke with Feinstein and said “he tried to understand” why she included a limitation of high-capacity magazines in her proposal, saying he believed they should be “two separate things.” But Reid would not say if he believed the Feinstein bill should move as part of the base guns bill on the floor, saying he needed to talk in more detail with Leahy.
At CPAC, Ryan talks budget but skips future of GOP
Paul Ryan — the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee — declined to weigh in on the direction of his party during a speech Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference and focused his remarks instead on the budget he authored this week
The Wisconsin congressman, who chairs the House Budget Committee, focused his remarks at CPAC almost exclusively on the budget he produced on Tuesday, the third he has written as chairman of the panel.
Ryan’s budgets helped build his notoriety among conservatives, and propelled him to the spot as Mitt Romney’s running mate last fall. But amid Republican soul-searching about the party’s path forward, Ryan stuck to remarks about his budget — a series of proposals that are already generally popular among conservatives.
“This has been a really big week. We got white smoke from the Vatican, and we got a budget from the Senate,” he joked. “But when you read it, you find the Vatican’s not the only place blowing smoke this week.”
Ryan’s just one of several speakers thought to be possible contenders for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Among others, Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., both spoke yesterday.
Those two senators concentrated their remarks mostly on the direction of the GOP, and why — or why not — the party is in need of reinvention.
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