CPAC is so much more than a yearly conference. It’s an entire movement of passionate patriots defending freedom all year long all over the world. Our movement is made up of conservative thinkers, elected officials, grassroots activists, and regular Americans just living their lives. Our efforts combined spread the message of conservative values, which is that we flourish when freedom reigns, the rule of law is respected, and God is at the center of our lives. As an organization, we work to defend life, liberty, and property for all Americans through advocacy. We also empower our grassroots activists to do so in their everyday lives in their churches, families, and friend groups. The CPAC annual conferences are just the launch pad to take the conservative message everywhere. They are meant to invigorate patriots to go out into the world, outside of conservative circles and share the truth and beauty of freedom with everyone they meet, and with CPAC international conferences, the movement is now global, rallying grassroots conservatives in all four corners of the world. The CPAC movement is a movement of strong and determined patriots who love their country and are out in the world every single day working to defend liberty from the evil forces of the Left. Join the CPAC movement and learn more at CPAC.org.

As Americans become more-interested in the choices they face during this election cycle, one thing remains clear: economics is on the mind of everyone - America's small business owners, and the working families they depend on. The anemic economic growth, accompanied as it has been by a massive run up in costs, is front and center for voters each and every day--and while many understand the role that federal regulatory costs can play in this, few understand the actual numbers. And the comparison between this administration and the previous one couldn't be more stark. Scenario 1: Modest Growth in Regulatory Costs From 2017 to 2021, under the Trump Presidency, the cost of regulations to the American economy increased modestly from $2.25 trillion to $2.28 trillion, representing an annual growth rate of approximately 0.33%. This was an unprecedented near-stability in direct federal regulatory costs over the four year term of a president, unseen since the rise of the modern regulatory state (during the Obama presidency, the regulatory state grew by 9.53% annually, which caused the cost of regulations to double from $1.2 trillion in January of 2009 to $2.25 trillion in January of 2017 - 9.53% is 28 times higher than .33%!). In contrast, consider if Hillary Clinton had been elected President in 2016 - assuming for a moment that she had merely stuck to Barack Obama's regulatory tempo (increasing regulatory costs by 9.53% each year), federal regulations would have cost $3.24 trillion by January of 2021, $4.35 trillion by this point (assuming she had been re-elected in 2020 and the tempo of regulatory growth remained unchanged), and would be at $7.35 trillion by 2030. On the other hand, had the modest growth rate under President Trump been allowed to continue, projections indicate that regulatory costs would have only reached approximately $2.31 trillion by 2025 and $2.35 trillion by 2030. At first glance, this growth might seem relatively manageable. However, considering the broader economic impact, the scenario becomes more alarming. Using Dawson and Seater’s $19 multiplier for indirect opportunity costs, the economic implications of this growth are significant: By 2025: With direct costs at $2.31 trillion, the indirect opportunity cost would be: 2.31×19=43.89 trillion dollars By 2030: With direct costs at $2.35 trillion, the indirect opportunity cost would be: 2.35×19=44.65 trillion dollars These figures underscore the far-reaching impact of even modest increases in regulatory costs. The opportunity costs reflect potential economic activities foregone due to the regulatory burden, including innovation, business expansion, and job creation. Scenario 2: Rapid Acceleration of Regulatory Costs Under Joe Biden In a more dramatic scenario, regulatory costs increased from $2.28 trillion in January 2021 to $3.58 trillion by April 2024, translating to an annual growth rate of 14.06%! If this rapid growth rate continues, the projections indicate: By 2025: Regulatory costs will be approximately $3.95 trillion. By 2030: Regulatory costs would soar to approximately $7.52 trillion (slightly higher than they would have been under an Obama/Clinton regulatory tempo). Applying the $19 multiplier to these projections reveals a staggering economic impact: By 2025: With direct costs at $3.95 trillion, the indirect opportunity cost would be: 3.95×19=75.05 trillion dollars By 2030: With direct costs at $7.52 trillion, the indirect opportunity cost would be: 7.52×19=142.88 trillion dollars These projections highlight the exponential increase in economic burden associated with rapid regulatory cost growth. The difference between the two scenarios is not merely in the trillions of dollars in direct costs but extends to hundreds of trillions in lost economic opportunities. Conclusion The contrast between the two approaches to regulation couldn't be more stark. Under one, recognizing the important role that regulatory costs play in suppressing economic growth, the economic stability of a modest, conservative approach to regulations saves the American economy $5.17 trillion in direct regulatory costs ($7.52 trillion minus $2.35 trillion) - and in terms of lost opportunity cost, the difference couldn't be more stark - a savings of almost $100 trillion in lost opportunity costs! Preventing $100 trillion from being taken out of the American economy is the difference between life and death for the future of the United States. One path makes America an economic powerhouse, the other a vast wasteland where Americans will wonder "what could have been."

Late last week, a strange story broke out of Denali National Park in which contractors repairing a highway claimed that the Superintendent of Denali, Brooke Merrell, had contacted their offices demanding that construction crews discontinue flying the American flag at these sites. The National Parks Service has denied these claims, hiding behind a defense of "these sites aren't even under our jurisdiction" claim (as though a federal official wouldn't go beyond their administrative purview in the name of some woke ideological goal). It would be one thing if this were an isolated incident--but it's not as though NPS is a stranger to such decisionmaking--and this week, the CPAC Foundation's Center for Regulatory Freedom sent a letter to the Director of the National Parks Service (as well as the Secretary of the Interior and members of Congress) demanding answers, not just about this incident, but more generally asking the question, "just what is going on at the National Parks Service"? The letter (which can be seen below) ties this incident together with what NPS tried to do with William Penn's statue earlier this year, as well as efforts by a regional bureaucrat with the Department of Veterans Affairs to get rid of an iconic "end of World War II" photograph. As the Biden Administration continues to hit the gas pedal on remaking American society in some kind of woke image, the Center for Regulatory Freedom will continue to be aggressively pushing back on their efforts. Here is the letter:

Host of WarRoom Steve Bannon spoke on the political persecution of President Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s usurpation of power. “Trump won! Trump won! Trump won!” Bannon asserted in his remarks. He called Biden “an illegitimate regime head. He’s a usurper in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” The Left even openly recognizes that themselves with The New York Times and other Democrat outlets and leaders not giving him the same respect they would if he had legitimately won. Yet, stealing the election was not enough for them. The Left is now weaponizing the justice system to lock up President Trump and Bannon himself, but Bannon turned the tables on them in his speech, calling for Biden and his corrupt cronies to be the ones locked up. “Lock ‘em up! All of them! Garland, Ray, Biden, all of them, Mayorkas! What they did to this country is unforgivable, and we will not forget it and we will never forgive it until justice is done,” Bannon declared. He added, “Biden you and your crime family are nothing but trash. Ok? And on the 20th of January of 2025, we’re going to take out the trash.” Watch his full remarks on Rumble @CPAC.

Elaine Beck goes solo this episode to talk directly about the We Are Not Enemies program. God spoke to Beck calling her to start We Are Not Enemies. “God said, when he talked to me, was that the really true wickedness of the world is not forgiving others,” explained Beck. We Are Not Enemies is all about forgiveness. It is a year-long program that unites America in prayer. Americans are praying specifically for the healing of our land and the reunion of Americans in God. It is based on the Sermon Mount where Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I say to you, love your enemy lest those that curse you do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” “When you do, it’s like this huge weight is lifted off you,” said Beck. “When you pray for them to be forgiven, God can open their mind. You can’t but He can. He can help them take the veil from the front of their face.” Join Beck and fellow Americans in living this out through We Are Not Enemies at WeAreNotEnemies.com. For more visit CPAC.org, or find Elaine Beck on social media @ElaineEBeck.

This episode examines the three explosive national security crises the United States and world are embroiled in today, any one of which could escalate into igniting a World War III. Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Hamas and Taiwan/China. Disturbingly, there’s a lot of sabre rattling with far too many politicians in both Europe and the United States engaged in reckless rhetoric. To provide cogent analysis and a healthy dose of sobering realism at a time when we face dire risks, Bill is joined by national Security experts and returning guests Stephen Bryen and Brandon Weichert. Dr. Stephen Bryen, a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy, has over 50 years national security experience including many stints in the Pentagon where he became one of the world’s leading experts on the arms trade. Brandon J. Weichert, author of The Shadow War: Iran's Quest for Supremacy is publisher of the Weichert Report and author of the soon to be published A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine. Some excerpts: “The neoconservative, neoliberal cabal running Washington believe fully that they have to fight everywhere all the time to preserve America's unipolar standing and our hegemony in the world. But this quest for hegemony has led to the absolute destruction of America's post-Cold War primacy,” warns Weichert. “And if we are not careful, in the next six months, we will not only lose that primacy., but we may become like the declining Ottoman Empire or Austro-Hungarian Empire on our way out. We’ve overcommitted and overextended, and we’re paying the price.” “NATO is flirting with war and extinction,” worries Bryen. “France is now "officially" sending troops to Ukraine and NATO countries are demanding strikes deep inside Russia.  Meanwhile the US has secretly made a "policy shift" that somewhat falls short of what Zelensky wanted, but opens the door to deep strikes by the US on Russian territory.” “It’s very hard to see how NATO could defend Poland or the Czech Republic or Estonia. These are not easy countries to defend, and NATO doesn't have today the core countries of NATO, the French, the Germans, the British, it doesn't have the wherewithal to do it. It doesn't have the army or armed forces. It doesn't have the air defenses. It doesn't have the air forces, it doesn't have the tanks. It doesn't have anything sizable enough, and the ability to actually logistically move it to the battlefield.” “So the notion of NATO fighting a war, which is what French President Macron and all these clowns are essentially taunting the Russians with, is a very dangerous thing because it means that Europe could be enveloped in a war can't win.” “Russians have developed a pretty sizable air defense capability,” explains Bryen. “They have very good artillery capability. They have increasingly shown their capability with drones and drone warfare, none of which we’re prepared for, and our best tank, the Abrams, which our only tank, we’ve put all our eggs in this one tank. The Abrams is a disaster.” “The think tank community and the Biden Administration have a plan to contain Russia by rolling it back to its medieval borders, so that it's never again a threat to Europe and the West,” marvels Wiechert. “This is utterly fantastical thinking, this is childish thinking. Russia is not going to let it happen without a fight.” “Well, their plan not going to happen,” agrees Bryen. “The underlying error, and I think it was a huge error, was that we should confront a nuclear power, a significant nuclear power with the dismemberment. We were going to break up the Soviet Union, now Russia. We're going to dismember it, and we're going to sponsor the opposition in Russia, and somehow create this great transformation. But we're messing around with a nuclear power.” “We’ve essentially forced the Russians into the arms of the Chinese through our policies, which was complete stupidity,” says Bryen. The neocons are very explicit the US must be the unchallenged superpower. In every place in the world, in every region, we must dominate. This is the thinking that got us into the Middle East. This is the exact thinking that led us down the wrong path in Iraq and then the Arab spring. “They believed the notion that there was going to be only one superpower and it was going to be the United States,”reminds Bryen. “And since we were to be the only superpower we had to take on these responsibilities. Well, we weren't the only one superpower, and today, we’re just one of three, and increasingly the weaker of the three.”

Violent pro-Hamas protests by woke college students were taking American campuses by storm. Katie Gorka and Mike Gonzalez discuss next generation Marxism on this episode of America Uncanceled with Matt Schlapp. “We’ve got a very serious problem on our hands,” commented Gorka. “What we are seeing today has been in the works for a hundred years.” The indoctrination of America with Marxist ideology has been a long and deliberate process by the Left though it seems quite sudden. This process is all just coming to light and the forefront of American culture. Gorka and Gonzalez liken it to the Bolshevik Revolution which sowed the seeds of Marxism in Russia. It's on the cusp of having the same disastrous results in America, upending our society and erasing our legacy institutions. “That’s what people need to understand here that what the radical Left and actually now that’s more and more synonymous with the Democrats, what they want here is not to make things better. They want to tear down. They want to utterly destroy what we have built in America over the last four hundred years, and they want to replace with their Marxist utopia,” said Gorka. “Marx and Engels never made a distinction between [Communism and Marxism]. They used them interchangeably in the Manifesto and other writings. Communism was the end goal,” explained Gonzalez. Gorka and Gonzalez elaborate on the presence of Marxism in America and its influence on American youth in their book, “NextGen Marxism: What It Is and How to Combat It.” For more, follow @CPAC on social media. You can also follow Matt Schlapp @MSchlapp or Mercedes Schlapp @MercedesSchlapp to keep up with current events.

CPAC joined a cohort of American conservative leaders that flocked to El Salvador to attend the inauguration of President Nayib Bukele for his second term. Donald Trump Jr, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Representative Matt Gaetz, Senator Mike Lee, reporter Sara Carter, and more conservative figures attended the inauguration and festivities. “It is quite brave of Nayib Bukele to welcome prominent conservatives and Donald Trump Jr to El Salvador. Joe Biden and his team push an aggressive work agenda in these Catholic countries and blackmail them to acquiesce. Help is on the way!”, said CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp. The conservative cohort was a stark contrast to the President Joe Biden’s delegation that was headed by Director of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. Mercedes Schlapp commented, “Donald Trump Jr and Kimberly Guilfoyle graciously represented America and the Trump family at the Nayib Bukele presidential inauguration. The Salvadorans loved meeting him and Kimberly who work tirelessly everyday and yet took the time to travel to El Salvador to support Bukele’s efforts on strengthening El Salvador. Instead the Biden Admin sends the very unpopular Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.” The inauguration is evidence of the growth of the conservative movement worldwide. Conservatives are joining in solidarity with one another from country to country to stand up against the globalism and communism of the Left. See more from the Bukele inauguration on social media @CPAC, @mschlapp, @mercedesschlapp.

Top corporations in America, including Amazon, Target, Black Rock, Starbucks, and Coca Cola, supported BLM and donated more than $99 billion to Black Lives Matter Inc. and related causes. In doing so, they not only encouraged the violence of BLM riots but also propped up an antisemitic movement as Black Lives Matter-affiliated groups triumphantly shared their support of the terrorist actions against Israel. Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors stated, “If we don’t step up boldly and courageously to end the imperialist project called Israel, we’re doomed." CPAC denounces the antisemitism that is virulent in corporate America and invites you to stand with us against this blatant bigotry funded by the deep pockets of large corporations. Sign our petition that demands corporate leaders disavow their support of BLM and immediately end their donations to this bigoted organization today at CPAC.org.

China is taking advantage of the open southern border. They are sending across trained soldiers pretending to be migrants to infiltrate the United States from within. CPAC board member and author of “The Coming Collapse of China” Gordon Chang discusses this and all the threats from China on It’s Not About Us with Elaine Beck. Not only are they sending spies across our unsecured border, they are also working in a secret biological weapons facility in California to breed genetically-engineered disease-spreading rodents and cripple America with another pandemic. “China is building, in the United States, the infrastructure to attack us,” said Chang. “We’ve got to be concerned that you got the soldiers coming across our border, they’re going to pick up the mice and spread disease around the U.S.” The unsecured border leaves the possibility open for China to even bring over the parts of a nuclear weapon and attack the United States before the November 2024 election. Chang suggests Americans prepare and bring change to America first by praying and turning back to God. “We always need to pray. We always need to talk to God,” commented Chang. “What we have right now, is we have the forces of hell have let loose, and we have to drive them back to hell, and we do that by fighting but we also do that by praying, by speaking to God, and becoming a moral nation, and become a nation of faith. We have lost all of that.” For more visit CPAC.org, or find Elaine Beck on social media @ElaineEBeck.

Founder of Truth Tells Jeffrey Berk exposes those Democrat officials who are leading the antisemitic movement in their party and discusses its impact on the younger generations on this episode of America Uncanceled with Mercedes Schlapp. Representative Ilhan Omar and ‘The Squad’, backed by Chuck Shumer, Steve Cohen, and other Democrat leaders, have led the rise of antisemitism in the Democrat Party. After decades of Leftists in academia, younger generations are increasingly in agreement with their bigotry and are adopting antisemitism as demonstrated in the recent violent pro-Hamas protests on college campuses. So how can we reverse the damage and teach up and coming generations the horrors of antisemitism and its connection to communism and socialism? Berk suggests that the elimination of DEI from education institutions is a start. “I think what you’re seeing as an optimistic trend is corporations and universities are pulling DEI funding back into policing and safety and stuff like that, and I hope that trend continues in the classroom, that these resources of transgender strippers and all this zaniness in middle school and high school is substituted with more attention to civics and history because this is really what is going to lead these children to have healthier relationships with people of other religions and other ethnicities and other perspectives,” Berk said. Berk through Truth Tells is working to combat antisemitism with a scorecard that rates every sitting Jewish member of Congress for their efforts, or lack thereof, to fight antisemitism. For more, follow @CPAC on social media. You can also follow Matt Schlapp @MSchlapp or Mercedes Schlapp @MercedesSchlapp to keep up with current events.

Matt and Mercedes Schlapp react to news of the day on the inaugural episode The Schlapp Down. The Schlapps comment on President Biden’s reaction to reporters’ questions about Trump’s conviction, Maxine Waters calling Trump supporters “domestic terrorists”, an LGBTQ activist declaring the movement’s intention to brainwash children, FBI agents marching in a pride parade, and recent college graduates’ ridiculous, woke degrees. “Looks evil,” Matt Schlapp reacted to the clip of Biden’s smile at a question about Trump’s guilty verdict. “I actually think he knows exactly what they’re doing to Trump, and he’s greenlighting all of it. He’s glad what they’re doing.” Watch the Schlapps’ full reaction to current events on social media @CPAC.