Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal joined about 900 Californians Saturday at the Unite IE Conference in Riverside’s Fox Theater with a strong, unapologetic and presidential speech that focused on “the importance of repealing all of Obamacare,” repealing “all of Common Core,” and winning “the war against radical Islamic terror.”
Jindal began by criticizing those Congressional Republicans who campaigned on repealing Obamacare, but now call full repeal “too hard,” violating their promises to voters, according to Jindal. “They’ve decided we’re not going to get rid of all of the Obamacare tax increases, instead we’re just going to raise taxes a little bit less than he did. They’ve said, we’re not just going to get rid of his entitlement program; we’re going to have to create a new entitlement program. They’ve said, just like the President does, we’re going to count success, by the number of people that have a cards, never mind whether they really have access to doctors or affordable healthcare, never mind if we’re actually reducing costs for the American people.”
He added, “I don’t ever remember these candidates saying, ‘well vote for us, give us the majority and we’ll just repeal the easy parts of Obamacare, not the hard parts.’”
“We don’t need to be a cheaper, weaker version of the Democratic Party,” Jindal proclaimed, continuing, “and we certainly don’t need Obamacare-lite.”
He transitioned to his second call to repeal all of Common Core, saying, “Right now I’m suing Arne Duncan to get rid of every word of Common Core.”
“Under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution,” Jindal said as point one of two arguing against Common Core, “we have never allowed the federal government to make curriculum, to make standards, to make testing decisions that should be best made a the local level by parents, teachers and local officials.”
The Governor offered his solution to “allow the dollars to follow the child instead of making the child follow the dollars.” He went on to say, “The best way to fix education in America is to trust moms and dads and to give them real choice about how, when and where their children are educated.”
“We face a fundamental threat from radical Islamic terrorism,” Jindal said, transitioning to his third, “most serious of all” issue.
“I hate to say this, but we have a President right now who is not qualified to be our Commander-in-Chief.”
He continued, “It gives me no joy to say that. This is not a partisan statement. This is not an ideological statement. This is a recognition of the facts. We’ve got a President who can’t seem to utter the words radical Islamic terrorism. How can he defeat the enemy if he’s not even willing to recognize the enemy that we face.”
Reviewing radical Islamic terrorists’ mass slaughters and terrorism over the past few months, Jindal called out “horrific, barbaric behavior.” He then criticized the Obama administration, Attorney General Eric Holder and the State Department official’s responses to these acts.
“For some reason our President, doesn’t seem to want or doesn’t seem to be capable of recognizing that what we’re at war with is a set of evil beliefs. These individuals, they want to kill us, they want to enslave us, they want to treat women as second-class citizens. We’re not going to fight this with a jobs program. We need to understand what’s at stake here,” said Jindal.
Jindal recalled his father’s words to him and his brother when they were young: “Every night boys, you need to get on your knees and give thanks to God almighty that you are blessed to be born in the greatest country in the history of the world, these United States.” Jindal’s parents came to America over 40 years ago.
He criticized Obama’s apprent weakness and declared, “We cannot let Iran become a nuclear power.” Jindal continued, “I fear he wants a bad deal better than no deal at all.”
“Where does that leave us?” Jindal asked the audience. “We must win in 2016….We must win this election. We can win this election. We will win this election and get our country back on the right path.”
In post-speech questions, Jindal answered “No” to the question of whether the party needs to go in a more moderate direction.
Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana
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